Acceptance of 2026 Green Communities Grant in the amount of $122,081.

Transcript (~10 min @ 48:48)

▶ 48:35 Yes. Chair Romanul? Yes. All in favor. All in favor? That motion passes and will be referred to our next full council meeting. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Up next, ID number 2026-1618, acceptance of the 2026 Green Communities Grant in the amount of $122,081. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. I'm Lori Massa, the planning director, and Elena Purroy-Casellas. And do you want to take it away first? Sure. Okay. So, the Green Communities funding is funding that we're eligible for each year, provided that we've completed our prior project and that we've submitted all of our reporting on the prior project, and then we become eligible again. The library was our most recent Green Communities grant, and that's all wrapped up

▶ 49:30 now. So this year we applied for two projects. One is more of a community-based project that Lori will talk about, and the other is the second phase of the controls project at the middle school. So right now, you may recall that during the supplemental budget process, you did approve funding to do phase one of the controls upgrade for the middle school. So this is all the HVAC controls, and all the sort of back-end system that allows us to more efficiently control the temperature in the various spaces, the airflow, things like that, that translates into a lot of savings on the energy end of things. So, we did most of that phase one project this summer. It was a $300,000 project. We did get some incentive money from National Grid.

▶ 50:26 And then this application was to do phase two, which is the remainder of the controls. It's another $300,000 project. We applied for essentially about 100,000 from Green Communities. We are planning on getting about 110,000 in National Grid incentives, and then the city contribution will be approximately 90,000 that we plan to put in from, you may recall that we have facilities capital money that we've put in the operating budget now, $500,000 a year. And so we plan to do our $90,000 contribution from that recurring facilities capital funding. And another part of this grant that we applied for, for a much smaller amount, $9,500, is for community engagement related to Mass Save programs and hiring MassEnergize, who is a nonprofit that specializes in getting

▶ 51:25 messaging out there to communities. And so this would be an extension of the city's energy advocate work and the Melrose Energy and Climate Group, to contact residents and property owners more specifically about the advantages of heat pumps and all that goes into the sustainability aspect and kind of cost savings with installing heat pumps. Terrific. Thank you so much. Any councilors with questions? Vice Chair Vandiver. Thanks. Thank you for being here. When this work is done and put in place, do you have an expectation for the lifetime of that work and how long this would cover those facilities for? So the controls work, I believe the control system that we have in the middle school right now is original to the building, so it's approximately 20 years old.

▶ 52:22 So we would hope to get a 20-year lifespan out of the new technology. Obviously, technology changes really fast. And so, it's hard to predict if 10 years from now there'll be a system that makes things so efficient that it's worth the capital cost to replace it all again. But, for right now, I would hope that it would last a couple of decades. Okay, great. Thank you. Up next, Councilor Finocchiaro. Thank you. This is great. I mean, it sounds like we're spending like $90,000 out of pocket, but then reaping the benefits, savings going forward. Yeah. And so, sort of like a no-brainer to me. I think it's great. I'd just like a motion to recommend. Motion recommended by Councilor Finocchiaro. Second.

▶ 53:10 Second by President Freeman. On discussion, up first I have Councilor Kowal. Could you talk a little more how you're going to spend the $9,500? Like what kind of outreach are you doing? Is it flyers? Is it meetings? Is it sort of how are you going to get that information out to people? So, the focus is going to be mostly on mailings and social media- Okay ... as two effective ways of engaging with residents. Do you plan to do any sort of meetings, like at the senior center or anything like that to sort of capture that audience? So our energy advocate has been really successful at kind of tapping into a lot of different populations and works closely with Erica at the senior center to have events.

▶ 53:59 And so for example, today there was an energy bill clinic, and that was hosted here because it's gotten quite large, and it had a really great turnout. So at those kinds of events, there are a lot of seniors that come, and then there's a whole bunch of people with different expertise from National Grid to HomeWorks Energy that does the energy audits that kind of help people to answer questions, but also suggest different energy saving measures and to make their home more comfortable. So- We already do that work, but then with this grant opportunity, having this kind of specialized piece of... I believe it's new. It's a new kind of area that Green Communities has allowed for this kind of community engagement. And so,

▶ 54:55 yeah, we were fortunate to get it to add to that work that's already being done in the community. Great. Thank you. Perfect. Up next, President Freeman. Thank you. First, I love the idea of community outreach. And through the chair to Councilor Kowal, I actually received an email from the energy advocate just a couple of days ago asking to use the chamber for a session that he's doing to educate the landlords on the benefits of energy efficiency and how the city can work with them. So I think this is a great addition to that. My question on the Green Communities grant as it relates to the middle school, I remember you were both before us back in April talking about the Climate Leaders Technical Assistance grant, and that's for heat pump installation at the middle

▶ 55:38 school. Will this project work in concert with that? Is this the next step of that evolution? Yeah. So that project is sort of separate. So the Climate Leaders project, we're looking at heat pumps that will be designed. We don't have construction funding yet, that was just for design funding for heat pumps for the performing arts and central admin spaces. These controls will tie in with that system. They also tie in with the new heat pump chiller that we put on the roof of the middle school last summer. So these are the controls that run every bit of HVAC equipment in the entire school. So all the classroom unit ventilators, all the air handlers on the roof, each one has automatically actuated valves and such that

▶ 56:27 are all controlled through this control system. So if we put in these heat pump systems, they would also be tied into this control system. But it's not solely for new equipment or old equipment, it's for every piece of HVAC equipment in the entire building. That's right. And I assume that this will help with those weekends when a sports team comes into the gym, and they found that the heat was not turned on or left on in the winter. This will enable quicker turnaround for all that and to ensure that the- Yeah. - systems are all operating properly. Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you. Terrific. Up next, I have Councilor Chen. Yeah. Thanks. I'm really glad to see this on the list because the municipal HVAC

▶ 57:06 and building efficiency comes up always at the top of the list of cost savings. So I was wondering if you had just a sense of how much we're spending on electricity and gas and power right now, and how much we could potentially save. I know this is a very short or a good ROI project, but just to give... I think $90,000 is nothing compared to what we're going to save here. Yeah. So unfortunately, I don't have that at my fingertips, but there is a spreadsheet from National Grid when they calculate our incentive payment that has that information, and we can get you that. Terrific. Council Mark. Right. Thank you both for being here, and I'd just like to add a comment that I commend you both for securing this grant.

▶ 57:47 You can't get some money unless you actually apply for it, and I know in order to apply for it, it's a very laborious, tedious process in which you have to make sure that all your I's are dotted and T's are crossed for previous phase and things like that. So, congratulations to you both for doing this, and I certainly appreciate it. Thank you. And I want to acknowledge also that some of our Energy Commission members from the public also put time into helping us with this application. And National Grid, with their support with the... We're part of this community solutions program where we meet with them monthly to talk about efficiency projects, and they've also been instrumental in helping recommend the best ways to maximize the points we get with our applications and

▶ 58:34 actually get the grants. Wonderful. Any other councilors with comments or questions? I believe we have a motion on the floor that's been seconded. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Vice Chair Vanderberg? Yes. Councilor Chen? Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro? Yes. Councilor Kowal? Yes. Councilor Park? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Freeman? Yes. Chair Romanul? Yes. All in favor. All in favor, that will be reported affirmatively to the next full city council meeting. Thank you, Director Broweky, also Director Massa, for coming in. Last but not least on our agenda, order 2026, 16.20, acceptance of donated parcels for conservation purposes. All right. I am Lori Massa, the planning director, and I'm joined by Ingrid Winkler, who is