10/08/2020 EC Minutes
TOWN OF BETHLEHEM
2155 Main Street
Bethlehem, NH 03574
BEC meeting minutes 10.8.20
Attending: Dan Crosby, Mark Koprowski, Bruce Caplain, David Van Houten
Minutes from 8.27.20 unanimously approved
Profile School Board voted to approve the revised contract for the school PV project.
Town solar project making its way through the grant evaluation process, which may still take some time.
BES is having a big ventilation system upgrade, hopefully completed by now? It was agreed that BEC would reach out to the BES Board when we have news of the solar grant proposal.
Community info strategy work is still in progress. The plan is for Mary Lou to collect any documents we want added to the town website and submit them to the right person at the town office. David needs to write up summaries of the various town buildings, including schools, hoping Dan might help with Profile. Maybe set by January?
Solar tax exemption needs to be updated because the system value limit of $25,000 is too low and allowance must be made for taxation of utility-scale and for-profit systems. Concord’s excellent example was reviewed, and the goal at present is to submit a revised version of this to the select board to approve as a warrant article for 2021 town meeting.
Municipal energy procurement policy was discussed as a way to guide decision-makers when investing is energy supply or infrastructure. Environmental impact and life-cycle costing belong on the list along with value and reliability.
Town hall boilers are not functioning correctly and we assume that they should be repairable since they are only about 9 years old. There was some discussion about taking a serious look at town-wide facilities maintenance strategies.
Mark noted that there is now some grant funding available to support 75% of the cost of technical assistance for energy projects. It was agreed that a comprehensive energy audit, complete with mechanical systems assessment, would be appropriate for the town hall, BES, and Profile. BEC will reach out to SAU 35 and school boards to see which school should come first.
