ORDER-2020-32 : Authorization to Accept a Grant in the amount of $219,028.00 from the Department of Energy Resources (DOER) through the Green Communities Division; and Authorize the Mayor to Execute a Contract with the Department of Energy Resources; funds to be deposited into Fund #4030

Transcript (~15 min @ 5:30)

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▶ 5:31 Speaker 1: I won't sing for you tonight. Maybe next time. Our second agenda item is order number 2020-32, authorization to accept a grant in the amount of $219,028 from the Department of Energy Resources through the Green Communities Division and authorize the mayor to execute a contract with the Department of Energy Resources funds to be deposited into fund number 4030. Under suspension of rules, if you all would like to join us to just sort of talk a little bit about this.

▶ 6:12 Speaker 1: Good evening. Nice to see you both.

▶ 6:15 Speaker 6: Hi. Thanks. I'm Martha Grover, the Energy Efficiency Manager for the City of Melrose, and with me is Ann

▶ 6:26 Speaker 6: And we just wanted to share with you a little information that you received in your packets. This is our fifth green communities grant. I think we're well in excess of a million dollars now that we've received from DOER for energy efficiency projects. This year our focus is on buildings, which is why Ann is here to answer any questions related to buildings that you may have. The five projects that we applied for and that DOER is funding in this competitive grant is a boiler upgrade at the Beebe School, weatherization or insulation air sealing work at the Beebe and Ripley schools variable frequency drives for the rooftop units over the middle school gym an RTU replacement for right above us for this chamber and an

▶ 7:28 Speaker 6: LED lighting upgrade at the Roosevelt Elementary School we retrofitted our upgraded the lighting at all of the elementary schools back in 2012 with something called super t8 and now LED are are the new technology it's actually not so new but this is a great opportunity it's it's not a it's not an inexpensive project so we want to start out at one school and see how it goes just why we chose the Roosevelt and the savings for the Roosevelt are significant

▶ 8:09 Speaker 1: because it's used year-round um uh counselor uh sorco thank you madam chair and thank you for

▶ 8:12 Michael P. Zwirko: being here this evening uh for this um acceptance of this grant and also for the work that you do this is really some great money that's going to go for some really good things so i just had two uh quick questions nothing serious here so the line item for the variable frequency drives if i remember correctly like two years ago we had an issue with some of the hvac systems on the lincoln is that the same type of uh component that we're putting on for the middle school i know that it had to do with um uh it's a sensor that registers when to turn on and turn off is that what this is

▶ 8:45 Speaker 7: for so it helps ramp up and slow down and maybe save the life of the motor wear and tear right

▶ 8:48 Michael P. Zwirko: okay all right that's what i thought and then the um i actually may have another question i'm sorry so the next one is just on the um the boiler so could you speak is this an actual just a new boiler

▶ 8:59 Speaker 6: just a new boiler plan all right and we're actually we're going to leave there um every school now uh has two boilers for redundancy so we're going to leave one there in place just as a backup and just put a new condensing boiler and it'll increase the efficiency from 65 to 95 that was my question that's great yeah for that boiler the contingency is not being touched

▶ 9:22 Michael P. Zwirko: what's that the contingency is just going to stay as is there's no upgrades for the contingency

▶ 9:30 Speaker 6: boiler yeah no not necessary okay um and um yeah so there's a lot of energy efficiency energy savings in this project which is why we picked it um and as you remember the when we did the esco project we left the bb and the ripley out of that project because we we leased them and we don't pay the utility bills we couldn't claim the savings but in the you know in the event that we take over the bb and these are just good energy savings projects and they are part of our energy

▶ 10:06 Michael P. Zwirko: baseline so when you if you could just expound a little bit upon the weatherization so is that just you know new caulking for the windows is that windows doors but i find in a lot of these

▶ 10:14 Speaker 6: buildings it's it's attic space so the ripley is has some attic space over the older section so it's doors windows ceiling all kinds of cracks and at the high school we found huge gaps that were that were filled in the ceiling in the ESCO project so again these two schools weren't addressed then and all this work

▶ 10:37 Michael P. Zwirko: will be performed by the DPW no vendors contractors okay thank you very much for that and those are all the questions I had madam chair councillor Bewtra thank

▶ 10:49 Manisha Bewtra: Thank you. Good evening. I wanted to ask if you could remind us what an RTU replacement is again.

▶ 10:56 Speaker 7: So rooftop unit? Okay. Actually the unit that's on the roof here. And so the cooling is working. The heat is not working very well.

▶ 11:05 Manisha Bewtra: Oh. And going back to the projects at the Beebe and the Ripley, one, you mentioned that they were previously left out of the ESCO because of leasing. But we'll still be leasing ripley even if we're taking bb back in to possession so can you just speak to that more in terms of decision making around that one specifically and then questions yeah well in

▶ 11:28 Speaker 6: terms of if we were going to bring a contractor and these are the two buildings that we didn't touch in the esco project so i just for very little money that the grant would cover it just made sense to do both bring the contractor in to do both buildings and both those buildings are in our energy baseline that we are accountable for the energy that's used in those buildings so the tenants have done some lighting projects and some other minor energy efficiency but nothing along on the scale of what we did in the esco so this is just you know insulation weatherization is as you know goes a long way in terms of saving especially on natural gas therm savings and it will also help

▶ 12:11 Speaker 7: the boilers to live longer because they're not struggling so hard to keep the building warm

▶ 12:20 Manisha Bewtra: occupant tenant comfort as well yes um so with regards to the bb given um that we're not exactly sure um in what way the schools one um you know if the scene collaborative is is leaving immediately and what how we're going to use that space um i don't believe this has really entered the conversation but i don't know if like again uh starting over with a new building i don't think that's really been discussed um it sounds like it's more like use of the building for all k or one to five but can you just sort of speak to why these the bb was selected and so the bb was

▶ 13:02 Speaker 7: selected because it's water not steam so um all the other schools besides the lincoln are steamed so if we did a conversion all the steam traps would have to come out it would be much more money than what's on here this is a fairly easy um turnover the boilers that are in there are 1967 so they're old so this is going to be a nice sleek on wheels roll in connect it and go energy efficient and then if we do need the other boiler it's extremely cold for a week that

▶ 13:32 Manisha Bewtra: will kick on and they'll work in unison great um so just out of curiosity um you know how do you kind of go about arriving at which projects you want to apply for and how did you come to the conclusion that these were the right projects for this um whatever was available in grant monies

▶ 13:49 Speaker 6: well i we ann and i sit down with denise gaffey the city planner and mark thompson the building systems supervisor who's in our buildings all day every day and um the what we talk about is i mean there's a huge list of projects but what i try to pick are projects that have significant energy savings which is what doer is looking for and what they're most likely to fund so you've got it you have to prove and you have to spell out the energy savings in the projects in advance so So that's obviously a huge thing, because there's obviously a huge list of capital improvements that we need to do, but they don't all involve energy savings. And then it's just figuring out how we put together a package that, for the full amount of money, what we think is doable and the biggest problems.

▶ 14:46 Speaker 7: And some that we don't think our budget could support.

▶ 14:52 Manisha Bewtra: Right. Finally, I'm just curious kind of what's the timeline for the Projects themselves and and the grant program. I don't think I didn't see that in here, but I might have just read it to

▶ 15:04 Speaker 6: Life well, we would most likely do most of these projects next summer if possible over some vacation periods, but Because they're all school. Yeah, the rooftop here right away the day we get there as soon as we sign the contract we'll do that but the school projects will have to space over vacations great

▶ 15:27 Manisha Bewtra: and how long do we have the funds available or is it just as long as we're

▶ 15:34 Speaker 6: using them for the intended yeah yeah yeah great as long as you need there's some communities that are still have their original grants from 2010 okay this is our fifth so yes well thank you for that comes in we seem proactive on

▶ 15:46 Manisha Bewtra: applying for these I know they're gonna help us with our energy baseline and and keep us, I guess, competitive in the eyes of DOER as well. Thank you very much. Those are my questions for now.

▶ 16:00 Speaker 1: Those are good. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 16:04 Robert A. Boisselle: Vice Chair Boisselle. All right. In 2018, there was a preliminary assessment of the cost of reopening the Beebe School and the building infrastructure improvements. there was a section on ESCO and HVAC upgrades and it's listed here for about three hundred and seventy thousand dollars now with this seventy five thousand dollars lower this infrastructure so these numbers will be changing if the school department makes a decision what to do with the Beebe

▶ 16:36 Speaker 6: school this definitely helps offset whatever potential I mean that that doesn't it that would involve lighting upgrades other right there's seven

▶ 16:48 Robert A. Boisselle: categories within the building infrastructure and the projected cost at that time was just about over a million dollars so we're starting to subtract that number down from that thank you thank you

▶ 17:06 Shawn M. MacMaster: counselor McMaster Thank You madam chair good evening thank you both for being here and thank you for your work on this grant the grant award letter indicates that the total amount is slightly over two hundred and nineteen thousand dollars can you talk a little bit about how we arrived at the budget for each of

▶ 17:26 Speaker 6: the five projects we get quotes from contractors and are these the contractors

▶ 17:33 Speaker 6: who we would be using for for most of the projects there we'll have to put a few a couple of them out to bid by procurement procurement rules based on

▶ 17:47 Speaker 6: the size but under the Green Communities Act projects under a hundred thousand dollars energy projects if you use what's called a pecs you don't have to

▶ 17:59 Shawn M. MacMaster: put it out to bid based on similar projects grants that you've worked on in the past should we expect that the the cost for each one of these or any of these projects might increase based on labor or supplies or whatnot especially considering that it sounds like there's no fixed time period in which the work has to be completed so is that based on your experience is that likely and if so how would we pay for the increased costs if anywhere if anywhere to exist the

▶ 18:32 Speaker 6: only one that could vary is the weatherization and it wouldn't vary by much maybe a few thousand dollars but the rest are pretty much locked in by the contracts or the the quotes from the from the

▶ 18:54 Shawn M. MacMaster: vendors as i recall and does this grant require any type of match at all from the city no but

▶ 19:00 Speaker 6: this is this this is the limit so if there are additional costs yes we would we would have to

▶ 19:07 Shawn M. MacMaster: fund those is there any type of grant management or grant administration that's that's required um i mean if there's no end date i would imagine that doer probably has some um interest in making sure

▶ 19:21 Speaker 6: that money is you know oh sure yeah i i produce quarterly reports and then you know um there you know there is an end date of i think probably may 2020 that you know i've done so many of these you just get an extension to the date that you know you're going to get it done so you can request

▶ 19:37 Shawn M. MacMaster: oh yeah no cost extension okay great thank you and congratulations on obtaining the grant thanks

▶ 19:46 Monica C. Medeiros: thank you madam chair councillor medeiros thank you thank you very much excited about receiving this grant i think it will be you know doing good work to help keep us energy efficient and my question was in regard to the bb you said the tenant has been paying utilities did in order to prepare the estimates for savings and so on did they share the utility bills with

▶ 20:11 Speaker 6: you yes we get those anyway yeah I get I have access to all of them on online thank you yeah

▶ 20:21 Speaker 4: what is the will of the committee motion to recommend second we have a motion to recommend

▶ 20:23 Speaker 1: made by Vice Chair Boisselle and seconded by Councillor Mortimer all in favor aye any opposed right we'll make that recommendation before council City Council thank you so much the final order on our agenda is order number 2020 dash 3 8 a special act authorized the city of Melrose acting through its liquor licensing Commission to convert up to two retail food establishment licenses for the sale of wine and malt beverages to look to the licenses for the sale of all alcoholic beverages for off-premises consumption and we're cylinder suspension rules in