first issue is the approval of minutes and i understand steve you have some comments but the minutes yeah to minor things under the the eno performed sailor review in the second paragraph i would delete the last four words i think when we were talking about that it wasn't meant to be limited to when discussing rate changes four words i think were i don't think the discussion was meant to be limited to when discussing rachel you want to put a period of a residence after residence who else could i would do less as an objection let's just do that and get another one  yeah at the very most the very end last full paragraph we're talking about the pilot my recollection was that jim williams was talking about reducing the pilot payments customers should reflect the cost of belmont light serving the customers and all the customers included in that area third the december two thousand and fourteen tariff a new solar house accomplishes the objective for solar ho next going again the transparency any incentives offered to encourage the adoption of solar should be subject of separate policy and not included in the belmont lights the energy star application program a program provides a good example of that the next point is any incentive program should be temporary in nature and that is that an annual energy star rebate for solar panel installations a pays out of for ten years perhaps interviewed on a regular basis so the bas principle obviously is unlike net metering subsidies would be phased out over time and measured it's not a gift that keeps on giving forever and finally although subsidies buried in the in the very tariffs that are meant to compensate utility for infrastructure costs are not part of our recommendation should any final tariff include across subsidy or an unfunded liability for belmont like that liability needs to be kept by limiting both the number of eligible customers and the size of the solar system allowable under the they've been appointed to be very independent i think it's a good group and i'd rather let them make up their own minds as to well i i can't speak for everyone of course but happy receive input from all sources so i don't think i could be guess i'd just say steve make sure that you look at all the information yeah that's my intention so we want to adopt you think suppose you want to just let this pass the email on and them we had a series of school joint meeting scheduled so we could talk about things as we've done for years and years and sammy wiped those out one separate meetings didn't end there so the question is whether there's a r well i spent some time talking to well brownsburg or about this since he was on the air he's history and history like board one and lie was created and his opinion at the time was that he could not devote enough time and attention to the subject as it was then presented to him to be able to fully understand all of the ramifications of the decisions made by the light department he just felt it was impossible to keep up with all that and he needed invites and that's why he suggested that there be a i am lab created in the first place now i can't speak for the current water saw that they feel that they can understand all of these issues  well i think that is accurate that's exactly where it was created and that's i think the way of the selectmen up to the present time you dimwit at least two of the three now did they pay any attention and no interest in meeting them that's been that's clear well actually i think  from my perspective from what i've seen over the past five years was the and i took over as general manager there was a government structure review committee that was looking at the town and trying to consolidate some of the you know responsibilities and one of the recommendations was to have a separate like commission that's appointed for  department now that was presented to the selectmen on december i want to say twenty seventh two thousand and twelve and th and at that time said they didn't want to pursue it and put the war through because we had already had legal counsel draft up the legislation that we just need to be presented to town meeting so that was going to brown's brokers idea and his two colleagues at the time was great but the government's you know very actually what will happen to believe that he didn't want to let things get out of the hands of the selectmen the stuff he told me so he probably would have opposed this idea of a commission because but he did want the advice you know he didn't want the elected what he actually said because i was bob and i were there at the time he literally said let's do this for a year and that's evaluated with the notion that if this works out this will become the board well th going to the other third was the two wanted to do ultimately become independent and one that i just said at the end of the day from my perspective what i saw was and really that's that's all i have is an opinion you know i sorry the government structure review committee give recommendations to the slackman to town meeting and i don't know correct me if i'm wrong but i don't think any of the recommendations were in opted i think i think everything was fought you know so on when the government structure will realize that they do need some advice from people more expert in the industry because i just don't think they have enough time to deal with fairly complicated subject along with everything else they're dealing with so i think maybe current and recent events of brought them into play more but i think ultimately it will get over this and that they'll realize the need to rely on a board more often  i do sympathize with jim's point that he's mentioned before where you have to separate boards that don't necessarily meet at the same time they are your you're reporting to in a sense and i think it does make sense for the advisory board to try to schedule their meetings around the board of selectmen like board meetings as much as possible to for the record a way that andy rojas and i had worked out a whole schedule actually jim was the one that initiated that and sammy through all those out and so that was that was in fact where we were going that was the end and obviously there were multiple issues to discuss not just solar pricing but he hasn't been interested in discussing any of them is  the recent appointment of the third board calls into question the value of the advisory board i'm told the new board is temporary and better but remember th belmont i'm very concerned about an elected light bill where our recent experience suggests it would seed the board positions maybe all of them each of them to single issue candidates light board is to manage closely then there's a need for only one advisory board or maybe none the town of norwood has a much more complicated electorate point than we do gets along just fine without an advisory board or other towns with formally appointed boards as we are headed by kingdom have found their way through political turbulence with dignity if instead the light board is willing to step back and deal with other town issues then i see room for two bodies first an appointed corporate board that represents the fiduciary interests of the town as the owner of the department and second a body that advises that board on energy efficiency renewables and other aspects it would work like a crown corporation  have discussed the past and the rigi in the canadian provinces but our elected government would have to step back a bit like those of the provinces of ontario and quebec otherwise you have three b however the town once deal with governance in any of these i hope everyone would respect the wisdom of our forefathers in enacting chapter one sixty four so i'm not sure that there is a role for three boards i'm persuaded heavily persuaded that the the board that i've just been appointed to will be a temporary board you know very dislikes very very disappointed if that's not the case last week's light board meeting it seemed actually understand by by they are forming a temporary committee it looked like they were sidestepping and lab but they did seem they spent significant time in looking at bringing in new blood in in being in looking at the light board so it wasn't that they didn't ignore the fact that the light board was going to need to why or what but it it seems like you know the interest in making the appointments and comments about bringing in new id new new blood new ideas wasn't something that the  selectmen would be commenting on if they were planning to totally eliminate the board so there must have been something in there maybe you may be right i don't know what their plans are you may be right but there are plans that the issue isn't so much that i don't know based on that meeting it's what's happened since the election because it's clear that the at least two of us like me have zero interest in discussing anything of merits in fact jim williams when he came to our last m live meeting spent ninety percent of the time  about engines and healthcare funds and a little bit about the pilot and that was about it none of which was on our agenda in fact it probably should we should have been talked about because it wasn't and so it was clear and in private meetings he's clear he has no idea  substance and has no interest in discussing it i guess from what i've seen from jim he is he's a financial person and he's interested in the finances of the government i mean all aspects of the government  belmont government and town organizations like the light forward i mean belmont so that would be his area of expertise not having and still getting up to speed on li bob mentioned was interactions with well there's the belmont climate action plan trying to get reduce the carbon emissions by so one thing i would like to see a body of experts do is figure out come out with a plan of how we're going to get to eighty percent reduction without starting somewhere but that's an excellent question and you might ask m the white shoes drove back dr out the staff person who in fact was leading the effort on the staff to do exactly that it's a very good point i agree with you completely but you don't see this like one's behavior any sense of responsibility for that that they did the opposite it was an individual act action which isn't necessarily but they don't want to do anything about climate action if you can in terms of actually the energy for many as well which is the appointed committee  implement the climate action plans and working very closely with the light curve and develop what i think is a very robust plan for conservation for increased use of solar so forth in the town and very detailed report on how  detriment of the town as a whole and i want action plan the energy committee is is is really willing to work on this they like to be engaged they as is emma and they're very sad about the loss of the employee in the town but there's a lot of interest there and we never can get any traction at the like ward you believe discuss these issues it is unfortunate i mean i think we should spend some real time i've read portions of the report prepared by the consultants who work over time to try to move towards sending people the price signals to reduce that to operate much more efficiently that's why we've got with seventy five percent of deployment of smart meters and once we get there with that where we think when we do a reg case we're going to be looking at revising from this cast of characters at least from two of the questions i had but one of them who has been interested two of them have zero interest in the subject i've tried to engage them on it and they don't want to talk about it so unfortunately i wish you were right and i don't disagree at all with what you say should be our objectives and that is the town's climate change plan would go in gauge these guys you can't do it two of them don't want to talk about it or are there the  are their targets for me reducing and energy efficiency is is wonderful but we're not going to eliminate eighty percent of the electricity that's used in dama so in order to become carbon  to last and schools you could do a lot and it's been laid out in great detail in this in this report and the reporters never yet seen the light of day because we've never had a chance to discuss it which i think is a shame i think we really have the author of the report come and discuss these ideas with us because i think he's been very creative about doing a lot but i think we have a begun that as a matter of fact he was scheduled to come tonight but we called it off have all you do is rooftop solar and bingo carbons gone it's a lot more complicated than that you know it's more complicated than that but single issue even phil fair knows it's more complicated than that of it pretends the thinks the only issue is s but the fact of the matter is it's complicated stuff you need to do it you need to be engaged at multiple levels you need to think about this it multiple invisibility task kinds of operation that hasn't happened has been able to happen and that's part of the one subject that meter because that's the only subject to see coming out and it's taking it's just swallowing up all the oxygen and all the time and attention when in fact there's a whole range of things that can be going including alternate sources of generation for power for dhamma like alternate sources of energy inside the town to avoid the capacity charge that might be made of the have too much capacity use during the summer a whole series of issues like that conservation which after all has really had as roger called keep saying is at the heart of everything in terms of really getting carbon reduction all of those subjects are there but we're not doing anything about right reduction but that's not what we've been talking about we have been able to talk about that i mean if you're right carbon reduction is the thing we should be talking about now but i don't think anybody who disagrees with that but that's not what you've been talking about any of the discussion about that ok if not it's really just two items left which is this is bob's and my last meeting and then bob had some remarks and then i have a few remarks so thank you well i'm pleased to report that ashley and i are leaving belmont light in good shape thanks largely to department and its management of the other members of the advisory board and the light board itself the rate payers give the department high marks the bra the safety and reliability record is excellent the financial position is much improved the substation project is moving toward completion the department has a strong organisation and staff and with recent appointments the advisory boards in good hands we've come a long way from the time when respected citizens of belmont were advocating the sale of the department i see much to be done however first as we've discussed the governance structures top heavy and should be changed but second observation the general manager does not have the full support of the late board and that undermines the stability in morale in this department it hampers the department and stealings with the town it creates an unnecessary risk in the substation project and if they were here i would encourage the white board to take action on our annual review manager that steve  i encourage the manager to take to heart the recommendations we made what about losing my seat on the white board well they're the white advisory board i look at it this way i keep my eyes on the department that was my job and that landed me on the wrong side of a divisive and petty yeshu in small town politics if you take a position you take political risks you know you take them and if things don't turn out the way you thought they would you have no cause for complaint it's been a productive ten years and this board has been a good use of our collective volunteer time much less so lately i'm afraid thanks for your support and it's been rewarding serving with you i w steve gretchen patty mark and a couple of their predecessors devoted a lot of time and effort intelligence and have done a wonderful job and i think collectively we've operated as a coherent  remarkably effective in terms of thinking through issues group and it's really been one of the pleasures to do that although i completely agree with bob that the last few months have been less than pleasurable as we seem to engage in nothing more than single issue politics and i haven't been to jail able to address the bigger issues but after ten years of observation ten years of this and by the way i let me let me just one other point i can't imagine any more incredibly stupid thing to do than take  is a remarkable remarkable asset and it is a phenomenal act of stupidity for him not to have been reappointed i mean i don't know how else to describe that but it is absolutely irresponsible he's been the indispensable guy and i think we owe him a huge amount of gratitude for all the time and effort that he put into this and i'm grateful for the opportunity to work with and also to develop a friendship with bob even in its current  term so i just i think that needs to be common and i think bob is deserving of particular praise for that but i also want to reflect on as bob had been perhaps it's a little greater length and what i think are some fundamental issues what's right and what's wrong at the moment the first place as as bob and ralph also have indicated the governance structure for belmont light is completely totally dysfunctional until recently we had two boards  we have three hopefully ad hoc on the third one one board because all the power and little or no knowledge by their own admission they're generalists they have to be selectman have to be generals like board that's what they do as ralph said when the when the advisory where was created was to bring expertise the electricity business is incredibly complicated the town has a huge amount of investment in it and it needs to be run on a completely professional basis as jim has provided in management but the oversight of the board needs to be professional and for many years as as was discussed when the m web was created ten years ago  the idea was alternately it would become the independent governing board of the white but never happened but as a practical matter that wasn't a terrible problem because we met together regularly we worked out problems we didn't always agree but we always understood what we knew what drove us was the best interest of the town and how to conduct our business in the most in the way that was the best interest of the town and we function reasonably well i'm sure it was frustrating for  to deal with two boards nonetheless the combo it worked reasonably well and the proof is in the put it as bob went through and i don't need to repeat the like department is an incredibly good shape this is attributed to jim palmer's excellent work not just jim's but the entire staffs excellent work in doing this and a very recent customer study showed ninety one percent satisfaction by belmont lights customers that's extraordinary ninety one percent satisfaction in a recent public opinion survey bubbling through where we are on a number of fronts and the department is an excellent shape excellent  shape so at that level i think there's a lot to be proud of but rather than taking pride in these accomplishments and in the progress we've made we've seen a very tiny fraction of customers who've been heavily subsidized by their neighbors because of a flaw in the tariffs hold the town hostage to their demands for continued subsidies from the neighbors there they have propagandize completely spread misinformation and fabricated a lot of ad hominum attacks on members of this board and in one case literally physically attacked a member of them with physically attacked or because they didn't agree with or because one person has to be clear about who did that so the problem so we've got they've demanded that the subsidies even though they were even though the distance solar is already subsidized by tax credits for the federal government and the renewable energy credit programs of the state and the spike the fact that this is really interesting two weeks ago in one must the founder of solar city the founder of sol speech to edison electric in which he said that once we have a tax on carbon or once we regulate carbon and solar doesn't need any subsidy to compete in doing then we have reggie we do regulate carbon and yet we still here continue demands even though the president the head founder of solar city himself said subsidies are needed we still hear that so the debate over whether or not in solar customers should provide cash solar customers in some cases as high as over eight hundred dollars a year as range for four years despite the intensity the governance system of b l delmon light has remained intact in last december modifications was in fact adopt it although some of those modifications including a member of the now the current the current chair of the light board suggesting some cash handouts t folks who he called the pioneers curious he called them the pioneers of solar because two minutes five minutes before he went into the meeting he told me they were bullies and he was tired of being bullied but nonetheless he called them pioneers in public bullies in lobby not content with getting a partial loaf then turn then turned to the traditional and ethically suspect members of all special interests namely pouring cash into political campaigns the buy themselves a seat on the white board they funded a very substantial part of the campaign of a candidate for the board who dogmatically supported the solar lobbies party line in public even though they were in direct conflict with his offer pete opposition to un funded liabilities run a campaign based on the principle that the town should not have unfunded liabilities the first action he cut when she got on the first actually took when she arrived on the board of the white and white board was to attempt to create more unfunded liabilities through net metering which of course means that that will not recover fix caught a substantial part of fixed cost from a certain set of customers so he's also been trying to repeal a provision of the of the two thousand and eleven solar tariff they require solar generators eventually to be compensated at market value rather than artificially high rates paid for by imposing those costs on other customers he quite explicitly advocated that nine solar customers be should explicitly advocate to advocate that explicitly advocated the nine so their customers should pay higher rates than they would otherwise have to pay in order to subsidize solar customers he's done so and i want to and this is important to note because this is the kind of politics we haven't seen in belmont until now he's done so at the behest of his campaign treasurer who is also  largest campaign contributor outside of his own family and in a way that's been anything but transparent and offered a suggested tera a suggested tear written by a man who is from one of the founders of a company that makes a lot of money securitizing solar assets and when this was presented to the selectmen by filth there he did ignored what that in described the man simply as a resident of the town and didn't disclose his self interest in trying to drive up the prices in order to maximize the profits associated with securitizing those assets that made transparently clear that the that and then the last meeting this large one of the back to the largest campaign contributor stood up and said there are no technical issues this is purely political which explains what his six hundred dollars was intended to buy and what he bought for that was a was a subsidy in his case an eight hundred twenty dollars per year the life of a solar panel probably about twenty thousand dollars over the life of those panels for a mere six hundred dollars campaign contribution that's quite a return  uriously a white board member pursuing this contributor's agenda never disclose the identity of the person who provided who wrote the tariff language that he proposed and failed to disclose the fact that the tariff he was pushing was written as i said it was written by somebody was self interested in driving up prices for all belmont's consumers don't want consumers need to be organized to protect themselves because they're being asked to pay money they shouldn't have to pay and think anyway i was going out of its way to try to protect belmont led by belmont lights customers and try to keep those prices reasonable but as we have special interest groups that are seeking subsidies that's a problem decision no policy reason was ever given when asked he couldn't provide one he didn't have one denied it was political but there were no policy considerations absolutely no reason articulated for doing so and this guy and spite that were actually perhaps to disguise that inability to explain it he engaged in what i regard as absolutely unconscionable behavior he attacked a young woman staff member here drove her to tears in a publicly humiliating way for what for in fact implementing a policies he himself had agreed to and signed off on and advocated but when faced with criticism of those policies instead of owning up to that perhaps even reconsidering he chose to blame a staff person who was loyally doing her job and as rough pointed out this staff person was the critical person critical person for our efforts to get carbon reduction in this town at least the white departments after she was the critical person and we lost her and we lost a lot of momentum and it was unfortunate it was entirely because of  bad behavior frankly from one of the white board members who didn't want to own up to the reality and what was he objecting to he was objecting to language that would have limited the town's liability that may have arisen from improper operations of the solingen it's another words making clear that the solar hosts or the solar providers were responsible for their own operations instead of trying to socialize those by passing on those liabilities to the town and making sure they performed in exchange for the payment he proposed so he didn't so basically he was repudiating the idea that people ought to perform for their services and repeating the idea other people out of liability for their own actions  it was an unconscionable act and i think frankly from a personal standpoint led me to the conclusion that i was that i had no more interest in serving and that they had no and that at least two of us lachlan had absolutely no interest in substance the that issue of course has now gone to a special committee to make a recommendation the committee appears to be made up of at least one excellent choice but that and i actually have five people who appear to be very competent knowledgeable one of whom has written a treatise on solar energy so his expertise is beyond question that's good i only hope that the white board listens to what they have to say those guys know what they're talking about will know what they're talking about and that's good although i understood that one of them has already come under ad hominem attacks such as members of the white board of have already had to endure  the belmont residents should not have to pay cross subsidies the result from the toxic effects of money on politics i never thought frankly you would see that in belmont i was mistaken and for it we now see for two members of the light of the white board politics is all that matters when it comes to electricity tariffs and the only people who are lobbying and basically what they're afraid are pressure groups looking to get special favors and are perfectly willing to essentially tax other belmont rapiers for doing what makes that unfortunate and this is been indicated in previous and discussions as previously is that these two light the poor and members type board members have never ever asked more than cursory questions about the real large scale issues one of which mar davis alluded to which is the reduction of carbon that i single question about what our carbon reduction efforts of come from these two should say the third one has asked a number of questions about it never a question of any substance about the substation project when asked the chair was at when i asked the chair the other night a strategy for getting p d f status for our new transmission line which is all of you know is a multi million dollar issue he looked at me like what am i discussion of what are pricing policies in general not talking about net metering i'm talking about pricing in general for electricity no discussion of that no questions about it it's extraordinary this is an utility it needs to be run in the town's interest in a professional competent way by people that know the market and when i say run i don't mean just the management we have that fortunately we have very good management but in addition to that we need regular we need board oversight that's professional that's competent and that's knowledgeable and unfortunately i don't feel confident we're going to get that i would like to be proven wrong but all the evidence up to now indicates that at least two of the selectmen have zero interest in professional guidance or oversight belmont lights been able to serve the town for one hundred years because it's been run on a business like completely non political basis with a sharp focus on consumer community service that shows up by the way in the can in the recent consumer satisfaction survey the current majority of the white board are now attempting to use b l blog among white vehicle for political patronage and favoritism and to reward campaign contributors mazing the they do it without regard to even acknowledgement of any public policy or equity considerations while the pricing of solar energy is a public policy it is fraught with a lot of technical non political issues despite the assertions of some neither neither of the two white board members being discussed have ever shown any interest or articulat policy or economic perspective on the larger issues facing the electricity industry they pursue a course they think is in their political interests which are wards their campaign contributors and that's the extent to which the inquiries go it's unfortunate i've never seen that from any other slackman fluting ralph who spent a huge amount of time learning this in trying to get this b l will not and cannot survive such a regime the co of the competence of the of the management is excellent but as bob pointed out it's not clear that the management which is excellent has the support of the board or that the or the viper or even appreciates just how good the management  light has been there needs to be a board we need reform fundamental reform of the governance of the system there needs to be a war in place that operates on fool comerford commercial basis it's held accountable t company the belmont light has to be held accountable for the quality of service productivity sensible policy energy purchasing achievement of social goals on which the town decides politics especially of the cash and carry is neither tolerable nor sustainable in running in municipal electric system i would love to be if these if these rather depressing observations were proven to be untrue but there's nothing that's occurred in the past three or four months that leads me to think the belmont like its leadership is on a healthy course contrary to where management is at it which is quite a quite productive way thank you and i thank you for yours gary you've been speaking for months  enemies and i do know that when we talk one on one that it is always centered about the what's good for the mob and i think that's happening and we will probably soon have a resolution cry i just wanted to say something and not commenting on current events certainly but i just wanted to echo the ashley and bob that i think the town knows both of you a big thank you for your sacrifice over the last ten years actually and i'm sure that we'll you know get together at some point but you know a lot of the support that you've given me over the past forty four years five years whatever it's been i will hold on for a very long time and i hope that you're right that something does change around here right i have the same fears that you have that the whole operation that you know personally you know works very hard with the support of the board to build is going to crumble so unfortunately we've seen one employee leave an all time low and i agree with you with the evaluation that also leaves you know people a little unnerved that something's going to happen where they're not going to satisfy the general manager and you know either i leave on my own or they get rid of me so but who knows too much uncertainty i guess right now uncertainty is not good but it's been a pleasure we're going to visit reed but we've always discussed things that are very high level i think you're doing a phenomenally good job your evaluation reflects that so you deserve nothing but