City of Portsmouth, New Hampshire Sustainable Practices, 3 May 2022

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From YouTube: 05.03.22 Climate Symposium

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A

Welcome everyone.

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I'd like to welcome everyone to the climate plans and planning virtual symposium.

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This is a collaboration between the city of portsmouth and portsmouth, climate solutions.

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Forza portsmouth climate solutions is a group of concerned citizens in the seacoast region.

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Led by bert cohen, who act to promote activities in support of reducing climate change,.

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We're working in collaboration with the city of portsmouth to enable the symposium today.

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The goals of the symposium are to build a network for mutual support of climbing climate planning.

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Activities to develop an understanding of what is happening regionally regarding climate planning.

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And to realize areas for collaboration, each attendee will be called upon to state who.

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They are and the town organization they represent since there are.

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um More than one of you representing each organization, I will call out um the name of.

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The organization and then uh you can introduce yourselves and then the one that is going to do.

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The talking about climate planning um should follow the introductions of the other people.

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So, um due to time constraints, one representative, that is the only one that's allowed to uh provide.

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The entire climate plan um or what you've done thus far, and so we have approximately five minutes.

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uh Due to the number of people that we have for each speaker.

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This will be followed by a question and answer session with discussion and support from any of.

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The subject matter, experts in our group and then we'll close with uh what the next steps will be.

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As we move forward, as peter said, the meeting is being recorded and a link to this recording will.

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Be posted on the city of portsmouth website sustainability, page our host for this meeting.

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Is steglin mcecker the mayor of portsmouth, so, mr mayor, if you can take it away, please.

B

Sure well, thank you, allison and thank you everyone for joining. uh It's a.

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It's a huge honor to be able to to host uh something like this, but just the beginning.

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Of the work uh when I was elected uh seems now a lifetime ago, as we've found ourselves in budget.

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Season, uh but back in january uh climate was, it was one of the the main pillars uh that we.

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Have discussed uh in the inauguration- and I come to that uh in in becoming a a climate activist.

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From a standpoint of a couple of different perspectives, one from an infrastructure standpoint.

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It's incredibly expensive infrastructure alone. uh Is it keeps me up at night uh in terms of.

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How do we, how do we fund it um all the competing priorities? All of those competing priorities are.

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Are only going to be worse uh with climate change, um and I think that it it took me.

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um Becoming a city, councilor and then mayor to truly understand the the actual cost.

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That we will face as a as a country, but each local community, so action needs to happen and.

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The faster the action can happen, uh the better the second, I think, there's a huge opportunity.

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For municipalities to lead on climate, I'm proud that we are building a climate and action plan.

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And I'd love to hear uh if other communities are further along uh the road with us, we passed that.

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As a part of our capital improvement, dedicating a hundred thousand dollars uh in the first year to.

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Build something where we can address: uh not only how do we reduce our carbon footprint as a city.

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But how do we bring more people along with that, and I think that speaks to the.

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The the final uh point on climate um from a municipal standpoint is that I think there's a.

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Huge huge opportunity to lead uh on this from a municipal standpoint, we only account for.

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One, maybe probably not more than uh one and a half percent of total usage.

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Energy usage when it comes to the city of portsmouth, the vast vast majority.

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Are our residents, but we do have a unique opportunity to educate.

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To inform and to lead when it comes to proactive climate measures, coupled with communication and.

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How do we engage the the population is really a part of the climate action plan that I think.

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I am most excited about so that folks understand the cost, but then the benefit of proactive.

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Climate measures- and it's easy to be a cynic in this there's a lot of things. I think.

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When you get into into government and dealing with competing priorities that it's easy to be.

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Really cynical and I'm always cheered up by my friend bert, who says that he loves my optimism so.

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I I am an optimistic person and I think that the.

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The failure of governments typically uh results from a failure of imagination.

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um A failure of a future that can be different and better uh than the present that we live in.

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And I only have to look out of my office window here in the city of portsmouth.

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And and see the piscataqua that leads out to the gulf of maine. Now the gulf of maine is rising in.

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Terms of temperature faster than any body of water on the planet, but it's also home to potentially.

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An enormous amount of energy from wind production, so there is a lot that uh we can do, starting on.

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The the smallest level in the city, uh reaching out to to more um of our citizens and having them be.

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Engaged in the process uh and then thinking a little bit bigger of what can we do as a region.

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To focus on climate, um how can we band together on some of the wind projects that.

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Will be coming down uh the the pipe so to speak uh in the future, and that gives me a lot of hope that.

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That the the areas most affected uh by climate change um can hold some of the the answers.

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To to mitigating uh its effects, so I'm super glad that everybody came and and.

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And hopefully I didn't take up more time and was allotted to me by allison. But I.

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I did want to thank everyone, and this is a first of many conversations- uh that I look forward to.

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To having among communities because we're you know, portsmouth is not going to solve.

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This new market's not going to solve this term, it's not going to solve this.

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Without us coming together and figuring out how to how to solve this together, so I really do look.

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Forward to to that conversation, and thank you for allowing me to host the first of hopefully many.

A

Thank you, mr mayor um peter, why don't you go ahead and get us started.

C

Okay sure um so I'm going through the questions that allison sent out with the agenda and I'm.

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Going to talk about those in terms of portsmouth and what we've done as a municipal government.

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So how we address climate change, so in the city of portsmouth we became an eco municipality in 2005.

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That uses the natural step systems approach for integrating sustainability into the fabric.

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Of decision making for people that don't know about that, it's it's looking at each.

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Each opportunity or problem by reducing pollution, reducing chemicals, protecting the environment and.

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Treating people equally as as a starting point for decision making as a result of this framework.

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Supports the city's approach to addressing climate change from a systems point of view in.

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Terms of how we've addressed climate change on the ground, the cities applied for and received funding.

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For the coastal resilience initiative, which laid out potential future impacts from climate change,.

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And went into significant detail on the sea level rise impacts as a follow-on to that project. We.

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Did the historic district vulnerability assessment where we looked at our historic district, our city.

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Council approved an extended flood hazard zone in our zoning ordinance to provide additional flood.

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Risk protection for property owners and recently partnered with strawberry bank, a new exhibit.

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There's more items I'll talk about later, but those are sort of the big ones. I want to talk about.

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And then who's been involved in portsmouth we have a blue ribbon committee on sustainable practices.

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They've brought forward and supported many of the city's efforts. The city's planning department has gotten grants and completed the studies mentioned above.

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With assistance from a local advisory committee of stakeholders on this topic, the portsmouth city.

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Council, as I said, did the extended bloodhead floodplain regulations um they as mayor mcgran,.

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Mentioned supported the capital outlay for climate action plan up to a hundred thousand.

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Dollars approved a renewable energy policy which created a energy advisory committee and then.

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They voted to become members of the community power coalition of new hampshire, which is a.

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Significant step in renewable energy that'll help again help with climate change litigation.

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So some of our organizational priorities um as an eco municipality, we, as I said before, we take the.

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Systems approach to sustainability and climate change as a municipal government we're working.

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To inform the public of possible changes as they will present themselves going forward and nobody.

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Knows exactly how these impacts will come to the city, but we're working to understand the.

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Impact so we can inform people in the city and be aware and adapt to the changes that are coming.

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The barriers to success, you know uh one of the significant things that mayor mentioned was.

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Committed competing priorities, um and so due to the fact that climate change is sort of an.

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Emerging problem, there hasn't been a department or specific budget allocations for the work necessary.

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That's a significant barrier, we're working to address the funding for the climate action plan.

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Puts funds directly towards the problem and it's likely that the climate action plan will include.

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Funding needs for the city, which will give it more standing in upcoming budget processes and.

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Grant writing and potentially ideas about a change or expansion of the current municipal structure.

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Among other things, to tackle some of the challenges ahead, it's not easy to pick. What's what.

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The future holds uncertainty is, is a big barrier when it comes to sea level, rise, temperature.

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Changes rainfall events, equity impacts and other things brought on or exacerbated by climate change.

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But we'll continue to be challenged by it and work to address those things for our community.

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In terms of the biggest successes I mentioned, some of them above in terms of the reports.

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Moving forward, we have a city council, that's educated and interested in learning.

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About what we can do to tackle climate change, the mayor and city manager have supported the work.

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Spelled out in drawdown the book by paul hawkin and support the creation of a climate action plan.

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To help guide the city forward thanks bert, while we were able to get grant funds to pay for our.

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Two biggest pass projects: the approval of 100 000 in capital funding is a significant step toward.

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Forward and a commitment to take action and then what we had done would have done differently. I I.

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Think I one of the best answer for this. I think it's a tough question but I'm pleased to say, we've.

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Made a lot of progress with our understanding and public outreach, but always hopeful. We can do more.

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To complete increase our public participation engagement around upcoming climate action plan.

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I know I've been sort of banging that drum with people that public participation is really huge.

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And key on this climate action plan process and then finally the where do we see the climate.

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Action plan in the next one to three years, as I said previously, there's a hundred thousand.

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Dollars program to start this summer, hopefully the plan includes unprecedented levels of public.

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Participation and is able to influence residents, business owners, visitors and others in portsmouth.

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And the region to take meaningful action to reduce the impact of climate change or to.

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Take actions towards adapting to the impact of climate change from there. Hopefully, climate change.

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Adaptation and mitigation become a priority for the city for the city government and the residents.

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In the city and the businesses, and so that we can continue to make positive strides each year,.

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I don't know how I did I didn't time myself, so hopefully that's great peter. Thank you.

A

um Okay, let's, let's go to hampton next.

D

uh Yes, uh good afternoon, everybody I'm jason bachand. I am hampton's town planner. um I also have.

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uh Or on the um meeting today is brianna o'brien, our conservation coordinator.

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um I'm gonna go through the uh series of questions for you I'll. If brianna wants to chime in that's.

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Fine, I know we only have five minutes, but let me begin so. um How has the organization addressed.

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Climate change, so I would use the word addressing more than address. I think we do.

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Have much work to do, although we are working on a lot of great initiatives in hampton.

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um Several years ago, when I first started in hampton about seven and a half years ago,.

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We were working on a tight storms, vulnerability assessment with the rocky hand, planning commission.

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And a lot has come of that. um We're working on our comprehensive master plan update right now.

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And that includes a coastal resilience component and general integration of climate issues with.

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That ongoing plan update that's slated to be completed at the end of 22., um we're also in 2017.

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We did a rewrite of our floodplain management ordinance and we have some ongoing activities.

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Right now relate to improve that ordinance. um Also, the hampton beach area commission um is.

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Working on some master plan efforts, uh they held a coastal resilience symposium back in february of.

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2021 that was very well attended, I think about 100 people and they got a lot of great input from that.

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To uh work toward their uh coastal resilience, update of their master plan um and also our.

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Hazard mitigation plan update is beginning now so, and I know that's going to have a climate.

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Component, that's one of the things that was cited in our recent meeting as we start that process.

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Now, who has been involved that would be town department? Heads such as myself.

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Brianna in conservation, our public works director and other related departments, fire department.

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Police department and others have been involved: um town boards and commissions, the planning board and.

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Its master plan steering committee conservation commission, the zoning board of adjustment.

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In the hampton beach area commission, on hampton, we also have a coastal hazard and adaptation team or.

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Otherwise known as chat, which is a partnership with us, the seabrookhampton estuaries alliance.

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We also have resident representatives that serve on that and many of the people that I just noted.

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We also work closely with the des coastal program prep the piscatagor region, estuaries partnership.

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Shea, as I noted and rockham planning commission, among others, our organization's priorities,.

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Really focus on coastal flooding and anticipated sea level rise. I mean those are.

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Being a coastal community, those are where our most serious issues have.

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Have lied so we that that's been the area of focus in my time that we've been.

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What are have been the barriers to success? um Well, I would say limited and already over committed.

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Town staff is one of them. One of the things that we've talked about is a dedicated coastal.

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Resilience coordinator or a similar position, I I really think that's necessary in hampton.

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We don't have the staff power to really uh take on a lot of these issues to the level we'd like.

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Also in terms of fema, we have some nfip national flood insurance programs, compliance issues that.

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Are being addressed but they're delaying us from pursuing next level initiatives.

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Namely applying to the community rating system or crs, which is something that we've.

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Been trying and looking forward to doing for a few years now.

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And you know, there's always the issue that everybody faces with resistance and skepticism.

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By some political interests and so forth, but that seems to be improving over time. I think people are.

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Seeing what's happening at the beach with coastal flooding issues and so forth, and it's really.

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Opening a lot of eyes, so I think that that's that's come a long way in my time. In hampton.

D

um What have been your biggest successes, um the comprehensive rewrite of our.

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Town's floodplain management ordinance, as I noted in 2017, although we do need some updates and we.

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Are working on those um a very successful and ongoing town-wide master plan update we've had.

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Significant input from residents and business owners, many of them are citing the importance of.

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You know coastal flooding and other climate change issues and incorporating those um what we have.

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Done differently, tackling a broad range of climate change issues a bit sooner, rather than focusing.

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Exclusively on the coastal, flooding and sea level rise, I mean those are critical issues in hampton.

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But branching out into other important issues, maybe things like ev charging stations or reducing.

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Areas of asphalt things like that that maybe we could take a closer look at working, as might have.

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Been noted earlier about working things into our cip program, those are important things that we.

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Still need to look more at and where do we see our climate action plan in the next one to three years.

D

Well, we just have a lot of activities ongoing the implementation of the the comprehensive.

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Master plan update once that's adopted. Many recommendations relate to climate change and.

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Coastal flooding that we're seeing so we do, you know, anticipate setting those things in motion.

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um The hbacs amended uh coastal resilience and environment component to their master plan.

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Which they're getting underway with 2023? That should be done. um Our floodplain management.

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Ordinance is going to get a major overhaul. I think in march of 2024 we're working.

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With some grant funding right now in projects to to look at things like the new hampshire coastal.

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Flood risk part 2 guidance and incorporating sea level rise, design, flood elevation requirements.

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And implementation of recommendations of coastal hazards and adaptation, team or chat, that's another.

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Ongoing item some recommendations have come out of that group and we're working to implement those. So.

D

Did the best I could in five minutes there? I hope that that's a good summary for everybody.

D

Yeah very nice jason. Thank you. You're very welcome, uh brianna.

E

um I'm the conservation coordinator, as jason, said I don't have anything really to add to.

E

uh What jason said thanks? Okay, um let's start with the unh uh sustainability institute,.

A

Either dave or jennifer yeah, um so I'm happy to talk a little bit about um what unh.

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uh Has done uh in terms of climate action planning and also how we can be a resource.

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um We um have been at this since um at least 2001, when we did our first greenhouse gas inventory.

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In the formation of an energy task force on campus in 2005, which was really originally.

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Geared toward energy cost savings but quickly took on elements of climate um and.

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Got a lot of energy, no pun intended out of that um kind of broadened. Stewardship set us up to um make.

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A carbon neutrality commitment in 2009 as part of what was then called the american college and.

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University president's climate commitment, which is kind of like the global covenant of mayors,.

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Where we committed to an ultimate goal of carbon neutrality, at least by 2050, but also.

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Committed to annual reporting of our footprint and updating a climate action plan every five years.

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So we did our first one in 2009, which was very broad and comprehensive, and the energy.

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Task force broke into groups and then did a pretty extensive stakeholder engagement process.

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Set a goal that we had no idea how we would meet, and that was a 50 reduction by.

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2020 um and we were able to meet it a year early. um So you didn't ask the question.

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What are you glad you did per se, but I guess this kind of falls under successes. um We were.

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In retrospect, really glad we set a goal, we didn't know how we were going to meet. um We've updated.

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The climate action plan twice since one in 2014 and then we were due to do it again in 2019.

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Which blended to 2020 and then 2021, so we just released that um the second two iterations had.

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Much less broad stakeholder engagement, much more strategically targeted stakeholder engagement.

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And at the same time- and this is maybe I don't know if it's a barrier or something I would do.

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Differently, but in our second round of climate action planning, we focus pretty heavily on.

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Behavior change for the community and, having that be a pretty significant strategy.

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And um but we didn't do anything in terms of implementation mechanisms, specific implementation.

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Mechanisms really kind of thinking through how that would happen. um We just set broad.

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Goals and figured we would figure it out um and we still are working on figuring that out.

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um And- and I would say, that's probably one of our biggest challenges- the the infrastructure.

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Pieces are also, of course, hard capital funding, always hard politics always hard, but the.

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The having it kind of dispersing it out so that there's really community ownership and a really.

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Decentralized institution um continues to be our big big, big challenge and one of the things.

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That we're working on now in this next round of climate action planning is or one of the things.

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We worked on in our last round of climate action. Planning was um getting more granular in terms of.

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Ways to um like mechanisms for holding people accountable for that kind of organizational.

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Behavior change, so what can we put into job descriptions um and and how can we work.

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With student, orgs and different departments and kind of crosswalk, their needs with our goals so.

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A lot more work trying to, I guess I would almost say backward work backwards, rather than sort of.

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Starting with the climate action and push that out, rather looking at all the partners that we're.

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Working with what are they working toward and how do we integrate the climate action pieces into.

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Their their job descriptions their day-to-day mandates, their yearly work plans, et cetera.

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um I'm going to stop there and let deveb you talk about kind of research on the academic.

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Piece and how that relates, and maybe how we can be a resource in some of our partnerships.

G

Great thanks jen can also. Can everyone hear me I see my screen is frozen, but can you hear me okay,.

G

All right, yes right, the zoom at unh is not always to be desired, so glad you can hear me. uh So thanks.

G

Jen, uh so my name is dove. Levine I've got a couple roles. What couple roles at unh one is my day. Job.

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Is I'm a dean at the graduate school here at unh? I work in the student affairs area with masters and.

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Doctoral students, uh then I'm also a fellow at the sustainability institute with jen. I've been.

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um With the si folks for I think about six years now, um so it's been a wonderful just.

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Career and place to grow and also think about the intersections of academia and.

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Climate change and also municipalities, and what we can do to help out from the university side.

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uh And, most importantly, maybe I'm also a porsche president. I've been uh in town since 2003 and we.

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Love it so I certainly got a vested interest in this work going forward in many ways, so.

G

Just to attack on what jen uh noted so um to add on to that, uh you may have heard this, but.

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If you haven't, unh is top ranked nationally uh for university sustainability, action um and a lot of.

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That owes to our faculty in student based research that that specifically focuses on climate change.

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We have an array of grad students uh currently engaged in research projects.

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Focused on municipality-based climate action, including a pgc student, that I supervise myself.

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um I think there's a lot of potential for personnel to partake and gain from that.

G

We all know that municipalities across the nation are, you know, like any uh office, often there's an.

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Office of one, uh we think about that quite a bit with things a lot of ways that the things that we.

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Do and have our students focus on there's a lot more opportunity. I think for applied research.

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That could be really on the ground that could really benefit the students to give them that that.

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Experience uh and also simultaneously really add to the capacity of municipalities like portsmouth.

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To do all kinds of things on their climate front, including potential, for you know grass, gas.

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Inventories, climate action planning and so forth um a leading example of that student research.

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Is our sustainability fellows program? This is, I think, I work very closely with jennon and some.

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Of our colleagues at the sustainability institute, that's a summer based full immersion experience.

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uh Where we have around 30 fellows, uh engage in sustainability projects. Those fellows tend.

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To be either upper level, undergraduates or kind of early career, grad, students.

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So on the younger side, but at the same time becoming increasingly experienced, so we kind.

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Of really see them, as you know, part of the next generation of sustainability professionals that.

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We're helping to train through their experience, uh so those fellows focus all summer long 40 hours a.

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Week, 10 weeks in a row uh on a minute on all kinds of sustainability projects and a lot of those.

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Are specifically focused on municipality-based climate action, we've had fellows over the last.

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15 16 years doing all kinds of work on coastal resilience, greenhouse gas inventories, energy.

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Efficiency, uh climate reaction playing and so forth, uh portsmouth has had a number of fellows.

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um Just one in particular that I'm thinking of now andrea worked with peter actually as.

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A mentor a few years ago, she then went on to work with the city of louisville in kentucky in their.

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Sustainability office went back to academia to work for indiana, indiana university, doing kind.

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Of a somewhat similar program for fellows at iu uh has now gone on to state level. Work uh focused.

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On climate resiliency in north carolina- and uh we talked to andrea frequently- and we can certainly.

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Say with you know, utmost confidence, a lot of that development and leadership on her end uh is in.

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Part due to her time uh enforcement as a fellow and uh with unh as a fellow uh simultaneously.

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um So just to kind of close up, then. So what we're? What john and I are working on with the number of.

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Colleagues at unh is really trying to think about how we continue to develop and have more and.

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More of those uh you know, student and faculty-led projects that could really pair right up with what.

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Communities in our region need like portsmouth and then last but not least, us want to just mention.

G

Too, that uh porsche has been a long-standing, uh very active member in the new england.

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Municipality sustainability network uh peter, has been one of our steering committee members for.

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I can't remember how long for her and also recent co-chair and peter has been an absolute just.

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You know dynamo as a leader in that front and what what that network does is pair up about 30.

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To 35 cities and towns across england uh to work together uh on the municipal front, specifically on.

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Issues of sustainability with a climate focus, so that's all led um that network is led out of unh.

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Where it's essentially the administrative body that helps to coordinate everything and get those.

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Cities together, and so I again think that there's opportunity within that uh through unh and then.

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uh See how things can intersect so we're looking forward to continue to develop the partnerships.

A

Excellent, thank you very much. Today. um Let's go to rockingham regional planning, commission.

A

Jennifer hi I'm jen rowden, I'm the land use program manager here at rockingham planning.

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Commission for those of you that might not know us, we are the regional planning commission that.

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Serves 27 of rockham county's municipalities, including seven coastal communities, our sister.

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Agency stratford planning commission serves some of the other coastal communities in new hampshire.

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um But as far as how our organization has been has addressed climate change, we really focus.

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On land use planning and transportation, so we come at it from sort of a regional perspective.

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On those two topics, so climate change gets worked into a lot of our work that we do in those arenas.

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um But we have been some of the first in the in the state actually to start tackling this.

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We worked on the ties to storms maps what were some of the first regional coastal maps that.

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Addressed sea level rise for our region, so that was some of our start was really working with.

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The coastal program from des and working on that mapping project our priorities are really.

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Helping our municipalities, that are our member organizations to be able to take the latest.

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Science and information out there and apply it to their community planning efforts and their.

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Infrastructure investments and using that best, science, to help them with their land use planning.

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Some of our recent projects have been doing a sea coast, corridor transportation, corridor.

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Assessment that looks at sea level rise and its impacts on our transportation network.

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Developing a resilience land use guide to help local municipalities, adopt land use regulations.

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That address a lot of community goals, but with the lens of sea level rise and climate change,.

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Adaptation, helping with master plans, housing mitigation plans, local regulations.

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And we're starting to do really a four-way into energy efficiency and mitigation efforts. But for.

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The most part, our history, has largely been adaptation efforts and really helping with a.

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Lot of the infrastructure and land use planning um aspects of that with our municipalities and.

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Serving as a resource, but really our probably our biggest success has been getting a lot of.

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Funding to our region and our municipalities to move efforts forward, but our biggest challenge.

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Is doing that in sort of a stop and start spurts and spits approach because of funding and staffing.

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If we had done things differently from the get-go, we probably would have not focused so much on.

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Climate change as a topic, but putting it into a foray into all of the different topics we deal.

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With from transportation planning and land use to housing to municipal services, that.

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Occur and hazard, mitigations and drinking water protection really putting it into all.

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Those arenas which we're really starting to do at this point um because we have enough information.

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Enough base, but as far as our sort of next steps, we are currently also working on developing a.

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Sustainability framework for a regional coordinator program um to really help some of our.

E

Municipalities that maybe can't have the jackson or the peter or the reality that the smaller.

E

Municipalities, that simply don't have enough work to support someone from energy efficiency, climate.

E

Adaptation hazard mitigation, sort of efforts, but can be focused and not repeat and reinvent the.

E

Wheel on that medium, simple side, because there is that funding and that dedication time that we're.

E

We're seeing there's a real need for so we are working on that as our next sort of stepping goal.

E

All right, I think that was under five minutes and probably too much but.

A

No, it was great. Thank you. Jennifer.

A

I'm just trying to take some notes. Okay, um let's move on to um stratum, I see dave. You've joined us.

H

Right good afternoon, everyone thank you very much for the invitation.

H

And the opportunity to participate.

H

In stratham you know one of the smaller towns in the region. We certainly um have had a uh different.

H

Level of uh energy and focus on the some aspects of responding to the climate challenge.

H

There's basically, three areas that we are. Our efforts have been.

H

Would fall under? We have our eye on, in particular, the coastal flooding issues.

H

As it relates to our transportation network and we are participating in.

H

Some projects on some uh um vulnerable areas that were identified in the 2017.

H

Sea rise report that we're very fortunate to have been able to have rockingham planning commission.

H

um Work on uh work for us uh on and that has guided that planning has guided some investments.

H

In culverts and helped educate our approaches to other project planning on the transportation side.

H

We are, we are working on energy efficiency. We have a very energetic and engaged energy commission.

H

Who have been involved in assessing our municipal operations? Our relatively.

H

Manageable municipal facilities that are relatively new, we have done a solar.

H

Project on a police station that has been a great uh experience and learning opportunity.

H

But also on the solar front, we have um recently updated our zoning regulations to be in line with.

H

um Current um well-regarded practices that have hopefully made the process.

H

And the opportunity to add soar um for residential and residential settings, uh more streamlined.

H

As well as more accessible for people who are exploring exploring that, we probably spend.

H

The most time thinking about water and water, quality and water quantity.

H

And that is a major issue for stratum because, unlike most all of our seacoast.

H

Partner towns, we do not have any public water or sewer serving a significant portion of our.

H

Community, that means that we have over 5 000 residents, who are only uh dependent upon.

H

Private drinking water wells and all of the risks that come with that in this day.

H

That include not only contamination, threats and newly emerging containments.

H

But water, quantity and even threats to wellhead protection areas by coastal flooding.

H

So we and to put that number in perspective of the number of people going in private drinking.

H

Water wells, that is one we we have 20. um Excuse me. No, it's 30 30 of the people who rely on.

H

Drinking water wells in the seacoast region of new hampshire, they live in strata and that's.

H

By virtue of that, description are provided about not having public water serving our communities so.

H

We are focused on trying to alleviate and plan for the future. Oddly, we've been.

H

Somewhat aided in that work by a contamination challenge in our town center with pfas that has.

H

Really about and new regulations affecting community water systems and other education.

H

Efforts about drinking water challenges in our community uh have caused people to think about.

H

What is the future, and how can we increase and have a more resilient water supply for the people.

H

Who live here, and that is an ongoing and important process that before has focused on economic.

H

Development opportunities and but has now really molded into uh responding to water quality threats.

H

And with climate change uh quantity uh that we have experienced with recent droughts, so we are.

H

Seeing more and more people pay attention to this issue uh by virtue of these, these very challenges.

H

So thank you again for the opportunity to share that and look forward to hearing more of the.

A

Great david stories you, um let's move now to uh jackson, caspari.

I

Sure, thanks thanks for having me everyone, I'm jax caspari, I'm the resilience coordinator for.

I

The city of dover, new hampshire and you know deve, mentioned the the fellows program earlier. I'm a.

I

Living example of that I was a sustainability institute. Fellow.

I

Back in 2018 of the planning department and had the opportunity to come back and.

I

Work full-time with them, which was awesome so I'll, just walk through uh the series of questions here.

I

So how's our organization address climate change. You know, I think we've done a whole lot and I'll.

I

I'll just be able to scratch the surface, which is a good thing, but I'll highlight some good.

I

Examples so we just put out the dover path to resilience, which is a nice like timeline that that.

I

Folks can reference for some of the activities we've engaged in over the past 10 years or so.

I

But you know those include the production of some reports, like our climate adaptation. Chapter of.

I

Our city's master plan, the baseline greenhouse gas and nitrogen inventory report for municipal school.

I

Operations that I produced, our energy commission regularly puts out annual.

I

Reports so they just released a 2022 report with some really good recommendations in it.

I

And I'm also working on a city-wide resilience plan that we're hoping to release to the public by.

I

The end of this calendar year so be on the lookout for that it's going to explore a lot of topics.

I

In depth and have some some really fine-tuned implementation strategies.

I

And we're trying to expand our public outreach, so I recently created the resilient dover portion of.

I

The city website, which houses you know a number of resources, one being a compiled.

I

Portal for all of our various climate resources, so we worked with a climate resources planning.

I

Team, which was a collaboration with unh extension and new hampshire sea grant, as well as traffic.

I

Regional planning commission to develop two-page fact sheets and short about three-minute videos.

I

To help make these resources more digestible, and then we held a dover climate resources forum.

I

Which many members of our city staff boards and commission members attended.

I

To help them become more familiar with what was available and out there and help them network.

I

And connect on how they could implement these resources in their day-to-day work. As volunteers.

I

So I think that was really useful, because we we don't want these reports to just you.

I

Know sit on a shelf somewhere, we want them to be implemented, so that was a really big success. We've.

I

Worked on adopting some improvements to our regulations like amendments to our.

I

Site review regulations to promote electric vehicle supply equipment, infrastructure.

I

We created a parking space capped to help with our problem with impervious surface, because.

I

We're trying to address our issues with nitrogen runoff into the great bay some big solar projects.

I

The new high school about 40 percent of the power for that is supplied by a solar array. That's a.

I

Little under one megawatt, we also have solar on our indoor pool and children's museum, which was a.

I

Cool collaboration with revision, energy, where they donated a portion of those panels, we're trying to.

I

Raise public awareness for electric vehicles in general, so in 2021 the energy commission hosted.

I

Our first ev car show, which was a really big success. We had about 30 vehicles present there.

I

And some some great participation we're planning to do that again during 2022 apple harvest day.

I

Which is obviously one of our bigger events and draws about 60 000 people to dover, we're actively.

I

Expanding our municipal fleet to include more electric vehicles, we just ordered two more nissan.

I

Leafs and went through an rfp selection process to get a vendor for increasing municipal charging.

I

um I I led the charge to no pun intended, um created an agreement or helped foster an agreement.

I

With standard power of america, which involves hydro net metering and is providing us some.

I

Reimbursements for our electricity, we're basically using that as an asset for producing a revenue.

I

Stream that we can then have about ten thousand dollars a quarter to devote to either consultants.

I

Or other efficiency-based projects, we completed a very cool pilot project, a collaboration with unh.

I

To do a tree box, storm water filter, which is really neat. It uses like a biomedia to help.

I

Remove nitrogen from our storm water before it enters the rivers and you know obviously we're.

I

Involved pretty actively with srpc I'm part of the resilient subcommittee, and I'm also involved.

I

With the coastal adaptation work group, so we've had some great networking through those portals.

I

um So who else has been involved? Obviously a lot of city staff members, myself kind of.

I

Being the point person like gretchen young is our environmental projects manager over in community.

I

Services she does a lot of sort of thinking about on the ground, work and reducing our storm water.

I

Impacts through culver replacements, you know rain, gardens things of that nature and then you.

I

Know general in general plantings involved, our I.t department gets involved for things like you know,.

I

Data streamlining, for example, which is super important for us to have a better understanding.

I

Of how we can improve our systems and obviously we have we have some dedicated. um You know community.

I

Volunteers, our energy commission is really active. I mentioned them, as is our conservation commission.

I

Our open lands committee and our city councillors and what are our organization's priorities.

I

Some drink priorities for us are to expand municipal, solar and energy recovery options.

I

uh Really targeting our highest consuming facilities so we're looking at loading solar.

I

At our ice arena, an outdoor pool and we're also looking at recovery options at our wastewater.

I

Treatment facility as well, I I'm trying to get the citywide resilience plan completed.

I

We're actively engaging in land protection conservation efforts, so the open lands.

I

Committee has bit over a million dollars to work with currently in our conservation fund.

I

So we're looking to protect more lands in dover through that and I think culvert.

I

Repair replacements are big on community services list and what have been the barriers to success.

I

um So we really haven't had much pushback from our decision-making bodies, which is awesome. We have.

I

Some great buy-in, in terms of you know, climate change mitigation from our city council.

I

I think the biggest barrier you know prior to the creation of my position for to say was- was staff.

I

Time so that's helped. We've also recently hired an outreach coordinator in the planning department.

I

So whereas I haven't been able to engage in as much public outreach, she'll be able to take on.

I

Some of those opportunities which I think is really exciting and gretchen.

I

Young being the environmental projects manager definitely definitely aids in that as well, and.

I

You know jen mentioned this earlier too and others, but obviously coming up with that initial funding.

I

For big capital improvements, projects is always challenging, but putting it into a perspective of.

I

You know payback periods and overall cost savings for taxpayers over 20 30 years is really important.

I

So trying to drive home the message of you know: life cycle returns on investments.

I

Is is something that I've been pushing for, instead of just making that bottom line budget decision.

I

You know when the time comes and what have been some of our our biggest successes.

I

You know, I think the energy commission was advocating for my position for a.

I

Few years, so I think finally, getting that created, they think, is a really big success.

I

The new city council, one of their goals, the goal number six was our city- is resilient.

I

And so they are really, um you know pushing for a lot of a lot of the initiatives that.

I

We're supporting- and we have a, I think- we're going to set incremental targets to try to hit.

I

100 renewable energy by 2035 for our municipal facilities, which is, is pretty exciting. Obviously,.

I

Our big solar projects that I've gone through um have been sort of things that we have highlighted.

I

And what would we have done differently? You know it's kind of hard to say. I'm a recent hire I've.

I

Been on board full-time for about eight months now, but I think what I've realized so far is there's.

I

You know sometimes lessons learned from from things that don't go as well as you would have.

I

Expected or take a lot more time, for example, we put out an rfp for some solar projects before I.

I

Was on board and- and we didn't get the level of responses we were looking for, it was too general.

I

It was too broad there weren't enough technical aspects or expertise involved with that process.

I

So taking things away from that, we realized okay. Maybe we do need to bring a consultant.

I

That has really good knowledge of net metering experience in new hampshire, for example, that can.

I

Assist with developing something that's going to get, people really excited about responding to.

I

Projects and then we'll focus more on individual facilities instead of a broad approach.

I

And where do we see the climate action plan in the next one to three years? Well, like I mentioned.

I

Citywide resiliency plan is sort of something that will come out in the next year or so further.

I

Electrification of our fleet, um I think we'll have some sort of energy recovery in place at our.

I

Treatment facility in that time frame and we're trying to expand uh composting activities as well.

I

And there's been talks of putting in place a stormwater utility in the city of dover to help.

I

Create a funding mechanism to allow for us to take on some of these capital improvements projects in.

I

Terms of stormwater reductions and nitrogen impact reductions that we haven't been able to fund.

I

Previously so that was kind of a lot. I was spewing information, but I hope it was helpful. It was great.

A

Thank you very much. um Let's see now we'll go to steve fournier new market town manager.

J

Hi everybody, um you know a lot of the things have been said by other communities that numerous.

J

Already been doing, um I don't everybody realizes new markets, sort of as opposed to child, for.

J

um Flooding and coastal issues from the early 2000s when we had a number of significant flooding.

J

Events that literally just flooded the downtown uh we began addressing those items then and done.

J

Everything from looking at this year we're doing about a two million dollar project to replace.

J

Stormwater, uh as well as other lines on new road to improve the flow of water in and out, we're.

J

Doing some riverfront, the riverfront advisory committee has been formed to look at our shoreline.

J

Along the lamprey river, which is right through the heart of downtown.

J

So if anything floods there, it actually impacts buildings before it impacts anything else.

J

So they're looking at ways to address that in the downtown area, we've worked with the moody.

J

Point neighborhood recently they've been having issues with uh their water. They were on wells.

J

And salt was getting into their water into their wells, so we extended our water lines.

J

Out to the moody point neighborhood, so they now have uh town water up there as well. We've.

J

Updated our master plans to address climate uh change and resiliency. So really a lot of.

J

Whatever everybody else has been doing so I don't want to reiterate and just keep going on that.

J

What do we see as barriers? I think it's as others said it's sort of like education, we've sort of snuck in the climate in the resiliency.

J

Items and with other projects you, you know any project, you look. You try to add those things in if.

J

You go out to somebody and say: hey, look, we're just doing this! For climate change, it's not going to.

J

Pass: it's not the easiest way to do it. If you have a bigger project and just include that in there.

J

That is a better way to sell it, and I think that's that was key on a number of projects we've done.

J

uh Including we did a a culvert replacement and it was a it was really for two items. It was.

J

Climate uh climate change, as well as to allow fish to get in in and out in an area on bay, road.

J

And if I went to the council and said hey, I need two million dollars to fix that there's no way. I.

J

Was gonna get it for those two reasons, so he said you know emergency management that this is. This is.

J

The only way in and out of there, so I think that's one of the things is really how to sell it without.

J

um To the to the elected of officials, uh other than that, I think you know one to three years.

J

We still keep moving forward, we're going to try to address, because we, you know when we have both.

J

The river and the bay that we have to look at and we're just going to try to address those issues.

A

Okay, great steve, thank you. Todd selig,.

K

Great thanks so much alison, I was wondering. Is it possible for me to share my screen.

A

uh Yeah, I think peter can arrange that yeah if you could enable that that'd be great.

K

So I'm todd selling from the town of durham- and I just want to take off my glasses and be clear that.

K

Steve fournier and I are not twins, although we look a lot alike.

J

It's the stress of the job of running a town.

K

All right, so um I I I'm gonna approach this a little differently to not be repetitive,.

K

Because people have talked about a lot of great projects happening around the seacoast, so.

K

I guess we came at this from a perspective of dealing with hazards and uh associated with.

K

Significant weather events in the early 2000s, so um you know if you think back the mother's.

K

Day, flood of 2006, we lost the ability to get to several neighborhoods in durham, creating real.

K

Problems for us, we'd lose roads, state roads, local roads and that caused us to think about what was.

K

Going on because that experience was different than any of us had remembered in our history.

K

And in fact, from 2006 to 2018, our public works department tracked something like 12 or more.

K

Unusually large significant storm events that were highly destructive.

K

And destructive to the community, so we slowly began to connect that those storms were probably.

K

In one way or another related to climate change and we needed to start to gear up.

K

So that caused us to look at our critical infrastructure through hazard mitigation planning.

K

And begin to build long-term improvements into our sort of regular routine maintenance of roads.

K

Of culverts etc so that slowly over time in a sustainable way, we could make improvements.

K

So that we would not lose neighborhoods over the long term, that also caused us to think about what.

K

We could do locally to start to mitigate our impact on climate change and to reduce our.

K

Carbon footprint in the early years, it was hard because we didn't really have a way to measure it.

K

We weren't measuring it. We were just trying to do projects, and so some things we did. We built.

K

A new leed certified town hall, we actually went around to each of our major buildings and although.

K

The town hall was only leed certified building. We did a lot of leed like certified projects.

K

With our different buildings so that they were well insulated, they had good windows.

K

They were a tight seal and that then allowed us to measure what our energy needs were for.

K

Those updated buildings and based upon that, we moved forward with power, purchase agreements.

K

For solar and in doing so, located solar on our ice rink on our library on our police station.

K

And then we did a large 640 kw, solar array at our gravel pit in the town of lee and in doing.

K

So offset all of our electrical needs for our municipal infrastructure, except for a wastewater.

K

Treatment plant and at the wastewater plant we chose to pay a little more for energy and buy.

K

Green wind energy, using rex on the open market, so we're doing what we can at this time to offset our.

K

Electrical municipal costs and impacts um other things that we've tried to do.

K

Along the way is with staffing needs, that's a real problem. We don't have a designated staff person to.

K

Look at climate change or sustainability or lead. um You know, each of our departments are good at.

K

What they do, the police are good at policing fire good at putting out fires. Public works is good at.

K

Building roads but who makes sure it's sustainable and so that's really fallen on this office.

K

And I don't necessarily have the expertise or the time to deal with it, so we've developed.

K

This wonderful partnership with the unh sustainability institute and we've brought on.

K

A number of these sustainability fellows over the last five or six years.

K

And we've actually transitioned our summer program into a year-round program so that we.

K

Have a fellow we're working with 12 months of the year to slowly move forward projects and.

K

Things aren't moving at lightning speed, they're moving at more of a glacial speed, but they're.

K

Moving forward with force and consensus and impact, which has been really helpful and positive.

K

So some of the things we're doing, uh let me just see I'm going to try to share my screen.

K

Here excellent, so first I mentioned this hold on wrong wrong picture hold on hold on.

K

Hold on one second, what happened? I gotta try this again. Sorry about that.

K

I don't know why it won't uh oh well scratch that one of the initiatives we did was to try to.

K

Create awareness um amongst the town, people about climate change and what this means for durham so.

K

We partnered with a professor from northeastern university. He was actually an art professor.

K

And we came up with this program where we created sort of a a scavenger hunt across durham.

K

Where we develop these panels that give a glimpse into our collective future,.

K

Unless we do something about climate change, so here we're envisioning that uh by uh july 20 2040.

K

All of our downtown buildings are powered 100 by renewable energy and we've got 20 or so of these.

K

Panels around the community, and so you can look at areas that we predict are going to be flooded.

K

In 10 years time, areas that we think will be much more sustainable in terms of the growing season.

K

And local agriculture etc, so that sort of sort of innovative and cool the way we've.

K

Gone about trying to address that another picture I want to show you hold on a minute.

K

I'm sorry I've got to find.

K

Somehow I have lost um hold on a minute.

K

I'm just trying to get back to.

K

Here we are the zoom there. We go sorry about that, everybody, um oh it keeps coming back this.

K

Okay, well, scratch that I'm just going to come back to our um our group, so.

K

Something else that we've tried to really focus on is our forests. We have approximately 40.

K

Of the land area in durham, new hampshire is permanently conserved. It's either land. That's.

K

Forested and owned by the town owned by the university of new hampshire.

K

Or is owned by nature privately, but there are conservation easements on these properties and.

K

A lot of them we have public access, so we realized that, with the land durham owned, we were not doing.

K

A very good job managing that land in a productive way to make sure those fields and forests were.

K

Healthy and to make sure they were accessible, so we've really ramped up our efforts in those areas.

K

And one of the things that we were curious about was the positive benefit that forested land.

K

Had in the area of carbon sequestration, and what we found was that there's a huge amount of carbon.

K

Sequestration going on in our forests and the better, we maintain them the more carbon we can.

K

Contain there, and, in addition it's it's, provided an additional rationale for land conservation and.

K

So um you know, as recently as uh the beginning of this year, we are moving forward with the southeast.

K

Land trust to acquire an additional 40 acre parcel with a lot of forested land and part of.

K

The rationale we had was carbon sequestration, so we thought that was really powerful.

K

We've been trying to move forward with ev downtown. We have two chargers in one of our parking lots.

K

And one at our public library and um we're slowly trying to build that out in a more robust way.

K

uh We also are slowly moving forward with the integration of hybrid vehicles and our.

K

Police fleet and other uh fleets that we have within the municipality, I think the big the big.

K

Nugget we're trying to get at is: when can we do like electric public works vehicles or electric.

K

Large fire vehicles and our understanding is those are not yet viable for us, but we're monitoring all.

K

The time so that when they become viable and we're comfortable with them, we can slowly move into that.

K

Area some other things that we've done is a new market has done this as well, but we've worked with.

K

The university of new hampshire and the stratford regional planning commission on a sea level rise.

K

Salt water incursion analysis to see and map out the predicted impacts of sea level rise.

K

On private wells, private septic systems and on critical infrastructure, and that's.

K

That's going to help us to fine-tune our hazard mitigation plan over time.

K

We're doing a lot of work with shoreline stabilization, particularly at wagon hill.

K

Farm but also in other places in the community- and I remember thinking back in the early 2000s.

K

Sort of watching the sea wall in portsmouth wash out and they'd, rebuild it and would wash out again.

K

And they'd rebuild it and at a certain point I thought to myself guys you'd better get used to it.

K

This is the future it's coming and that's what's been playing out and again this realization that.

K

Something I think when people start to realize something is happening here and we need to take.

K

Action to be ready for it. That's when you can really get some momentum moving forward.

K

To help our private businesses and private homeowners to think actively about things like.

K

Efficiency adaptation mitigation, we have an energy checklist, and so uh when somebody comes into the.

K

Building office, they want to do improvement. They have to go through this checklist to.

K

At least we're not going to force them to do anything, but we're going to force them at least.

K

To evaluate what they potentially could do to be have a more efficient and sustainable structure.

K

And something else we've done is: we've looked at anticipated sea level rise in durham in.

K

Our low-lying areas and we've created a zoning overlay district that calls out those locations.

K

And folks, who want to do construction in those areas are forced again we're not going to we're.

K

Not going to make them do it, but we're going to force them to think about where they're going to.

K

Build and the fact that they may want to think seriously about creating additional freeboard.

K

In that area, because if they don't the likelihood is in 20 or 30 years, they're literally going to.

K

Be underwater so again we're not forcing them in live for your diet, new hampshire, but we're.

K

Like confronting them with the facts, so they can at least think uh strategically about that.

K

The last couple of things, I'll mention is: um we've worked with our sustainability fellow to do.

K

A carbide, carbon and nitrogen analysis for our community. What's our contribution and we have.

K

Now done that and having that analysis in hand really lets us map out where our major impacts are.

K

And once we know that we're we're best served to focus our energy so for durham. The two big.

K

Areas are the built infrastructure on one side and transportation on the other. We feel right.

K

Now we've got limited impact on transportation because a lot of that is beyond our control, but.

K

In the built environment, we feel we can do a lot, and so that caused us to think about and.

K

Ultimately, join the community power aggregation coalition of new hampshire and we're trying to.

K

Create a viable path toward making green energy or more green energy. The default for all of.

K

Our electric customers and that alone would dramatically lower durham's carbon footprint.

K

So that gives you some general ideas. We we have uh we're in the draft form of a climate action.

K

Plan that we're now rolling out to our boards and committees and commissions to get their feedback.

K

Again, our sustainability fellow, is the lead on this. That's part of the benefit of that position.

K

But um I'll stop there, but a lot going on. It's really hard work. It takes a lot of time.

K

And focus and energy, but slowly we're making really good progress thanks. Excellent thank.

A

You todd um now, let's go to greenland. I think we have several representatives from greenland.

A

You're on mute, steve.

L

Okay, good afternoon, uh steve smith from greenland, I'm chairman of the greenland board of selectmen.

L

um I will take just a few minutes to run quite a few people have gone through all of the the issues.

L

That greenland faces as well dave moore, our next door, neighbor and stratum. um We um have quite the.

L

Same plans as they do, we run through rockingham planning commission as well through many of our.

L

Our master plan updates our zoning updates. We just recently redid our hazard mitigation plan.

L

To deal with not only climate change, but all of the other hazards that we're looking at.

L

I guess basically, the the hardest thing for the smaller towns is the funding and the priorities.

L

um Where we, you know, put the maintenance and repairs into, um as well as the high risk areas.

L

That you know we don't just know right now what what those high risks are with sea level rise.

L

Everybody's talking about the sea level rise, you know um that's going to affect the groundwater, not.

L

Only you know the wells, the dug wells, but also maybe the aquifer protection areas that we have.

L

We supply water to the city of portsmouth.

L

Through their portsmouth well here in greenland, so that's a consideration.

L

One of the other, the other considerations, and it hasn't been talked about as much.

L

Is the effects of drought? We have several farms in the area, um drought and um continuing.

L

Higher levels of temperature- and you know the the unsustainability of having water.

L

Provided to supplement irrigation is an issue, um you know it's not only. You know the farmers that.

L

Are making hay for their animals, but it's also the the vegetables, the crops um and it goes on and on.

L

um I'll just touch on a couple things of greenland I mean, like I said we updated our master plan and.

L

um Zoning amendments um on a routine basis, um we consider our asm headers hazardous.

L

Excuse me hazardous mitigation plan um every two years. We just just finished that this last year.

L

We're working with rpc on an ms4 water quality control.

L

We've recently implemented energy reduction through savings of light and power at the.

L

Town hall, with municipal green energy savings, um we implement solar exemptions for town.

L

We have a large project here in town, the uh the lowe's building and target here in town.

L

Are both solar exempt wind turbine zoning? We have a zoning exception for wind turbines and.

L

Just recently implemented a celt easement for conservation of 154 acres of open space, land.

L

To protect water quality, um so that's that's what we're doing in greenland there's a lot.

L

Of other things that are going on, but we're trying to get the word out as best we can. We have website.

L

Notifications, every time a tax bill is sent out, we stuff envelopes with notifications of how you.

L

Can protect the water quality, and um so that's that's pretty much. What I have I just want to be.

L

Real quick, I know we're running short on time, so um anybody has any questions. Let me know thank you.

A

Thank you um kathleen. Do you have anything to add.

H

Introduce myself I'm brand new on the conservation commission in greenland and I'm a natural resource.

A

Steward from unh's program and a project manager, so I'm here for a lot of absorption.

H

Of learning and moving forward- and I appreciate all your comments and I've taken a lot of notes.

A

Thank you. Likewise, okay, exeter hi, everyone, I'm kristen murphy. um I was formerly part-time.

M

Employee for the town of exeter and as of april 1st, my responsibilities were extended to full-time.

M

As um my as a conservation and sustainability planner, so um a lot of what had been done.

M

Prior to me was sort of the catch, as catch can much as many of you described.

M

And I'm really looking forward to having some time dedicate some staff time to dedicate.

M

Coordinating the activities of the different departments and volunteer boards that we have.

M

So um exeter has done quite a bit of land uh land use related activities, so we have a pretty.

M

Progressive conservation program we have, I think, it's 32 of our land base- has been conserved. We.

M

Have proactive land use regulations for wetlands wetland buffers our shoreline um and so really now.

M

We're trying to sort of make the shift to focus more on energy, include actions related to energy.

M

Reduction and sustainability in general, our we had a volunteer board: the sustainability advisory.

M

Committee and they were instrumental in passing through through our town meeting, passing approval.

M

For funding to get my position established, and so they are very active, we're working right now.

M

On a single-use plastics um prohibition on town related properties, so um for use, applications.

M

That we have in town, for you know, events um we would regulate the use of single-use plastics.

M

Our energy committee is also very active. We just recently through the planning board, updated our.

M

Site plan review and subdivision rigs to include a requirement for developments to be electric.

M

Vehicle ready, a certain portion of parking lots for residential and commercial commercial spaces.

M

Are required to be ev ready, so it's not requiring them to install it, but the conduit needs to be in.

M

Place- um let's see we, um we also did a climate resource education program where we informed.

M

And educated, our land use boards and town staff on the different resources that are available.

M

In march, we sought approval at town meeting for the installation of the solar array and.

M

We are currently working through how to manage some additional costs that might be passed on.

M

Through for upgrading the um upgrading, the utility infrastructure and at a higher dollar amount than.

M

We had um previously anticipated so that's sort of in the expiration stage. um We are also discussing.

M

Joining the hydro net metering agreement similar to I can't remember who had mentioned that, but.

M

Which will bring a substantial quarterly check to the town? I think we're something like 16 000.

M

So that's really exciting, it seems um seems like a good move to kind of fund a lot of our initiatives.

M

um Also town meeting uh the town voted to authorize the select board to implement community.

M

Power aggregation, um we did have a sustainability fellow sustainability, fellow from unh.

M

A couple years ago who prepared a greenhouse gas inventory for municipal operations, um our public.

M

Works is I'm going really fast, but I feel like I feel that time crunch pressure. No, you shouldn't.

A

That's okay: um public works has been instrumental. They um they offer. Mr fox composting at our.

M

um Transfer facility, which has been incredible um and has diverted a dramatic amount of um food.

M

Waste from the landfill in 2021 and then they just recently um signed an agreement. I think the.

M

End of last year to an organization called help c, which um supports textile um textile recycling. So.

M

Anyone can schedule a pickup at their home um on a certain day and and so any textiles rather than.

M

um Putting them in the landfill- and they don't have to be- you know- perfectly used clothing. It's.

M

A variety of materials that they accept, um and I think it was last month it was something like 976.

M

Pounds of textiles were collected, so it's actually proven to be very popular, which is exciting.

M

um We um great dam was removed. I think we were also able to capitalize on the.

M

Recognition that climate change is having an impact with the um mother's day and patriots.

M

Day, flooding events, and so we were, I think, that, had a strong influence on the community's um goal.

M

To take some action, uh we are working on a bike, pedestrian master plan um and, let's see who has.

M

Been involved, the people who have been involved are primarily department, heads and staff.

M

The energy committee, the conservation commission, sustainability advisory committee- are really kind.

M

Of the major players in terms of um our resilience, efforts and our um climate action efforts.

M

Our priorities, so I kind of feel like up until this point. It's sort of been popcorning ideas.

M

You know we funding becomes available and so then we'll chase that funding down and.

M

It really hasn't been a concerted, although we have updated our master.

M

Plan, it just really seems like you're, almost constantly chasing money to.

M

To achieve project goals, which I think is a challenge because um it's you know it's, it's not.

M

As strategic, I guess, as I would hope it would be, um but we also haven't had staff to dedicate to it.

M

um So successes um the dam removal project, I really brought the town together. I would say.

M

It was a very controversial project and a lot of the community has now come around and shown.

M

Support for that effort um we have an alewife festival, which is an environmental fair that.

M

We're bringing back this year um in celebration of river restoration and there seems to be a lot of.

M

Popularity around the event, so it's leaning together all of our environmentally oriented.

M

Committees, so we have a tree committee and a pollinator pathways group and conservation.

M

Commission sustainability, all of them are coming together to kind of post an environmental, fair.

M

Let's see so, we do not have a climate action plan and I think that has kind of led to.

M

Sort of the popcorning we do have a very current action agenda in our master plan.

M

That's incorporated a lot of the regional guidance, but coming up with strategic ways and having that.

M

Target for greenhouse gas emissions reductions, I think, is really what we need to sort of drive home.

M

um And the drive home initiatives and in a more organized effort, um so yeah. Where do I see our.

M

Climate action plan in the next one to three years. Hopefully we have one um that's a charge for me.

M

And you know, hopefully by then we're hitting the ground getting some targets achieved.

A

Great thank you kristin now. um I know that I heard things from various people that I'm.

A

More curious about, but I'm hoping that um you folks have some questions you'd like to ask.

A

So if you just want to raise your hand, I will call on you and you know, ask anyone.

A

That you heard from that you have a question about. um Please go ahead.

K

And so uh todd selig and durbs, I just wanted to um offer feedback to um kristen murphy.

K

In terms of where you are now in exeter, I think you're in a really good place. You know you've.

K

Done so much work and we found ourselves in the same position where we've done a lot of work.

K

But we started to ask ourselves: okay, we're this is great, but where are we in the process? How do.

K

We measure this and how do we assess where to go next and that caused us to start to think about.

K

Like would a something like a climate action plan be helpful and ultimately, we felt it.

K

Would and then we started to move down that path and it helped it's helping us now to to.

K

To narrow our focus on what's next, so I just want to compliment you and everybody on the great work.

K

Outlined on this call thanks yeah thanks todd. I mean it really. I it sounds like we're.

M

Just sporadically doing stuff we're really not we've been very progressive. It's just.

M

It feels a little sporadic, I guess without things boxes, to take off but yeah and with.

K

Big items like like some items are small and some were heavy lifts and like for extra like.

K

The the great dam or the dam was a huge topic huge. It took. You know, years to work through and.

K

A lot of um cycles of staff and volunteers, so you know you you're, making good progress.

A

Kristen you had mentioned, um who was it that was doing the textile recycling for exeter.

M

So the organization is called help c h, h-e-l-p-s-y.

M

um And it's at no cost to the municipality. It really has been a great um a great collaboration.

F

Excellent, um I was also wondering um dove or jennifer if you can sort of outline.

A

What a municipality has to do in order to get a fellow to come on board for any particular town.

F

Sure so, and for those of you that have already done it sorry to.

F

You know be redundant, but for those that haven't um we, our cycle is that we put out a request for.

F

Project proposals generally in november and ask um anyone who's interested in hosting a fellow.

F

To outline you know, we want them to have pretty discreet projects, ideally that they can kind of.

F

Point to outcomes and add them to their portfolio at the end of the summer or at the end of the year.

F

In the case of like the durham example, which we've been really excited to be able to to morph,.

F

The model into your model, um so uh we put out a request for projects in november-ish, asked for the.

F

Back in december-ish that time frame might bump up a little bit this year, so a little bit earlier.

F

It is competitive, as dave said this year we expanded to 30 fellows and we're hoping to.

F

Expand again next year, but even so every year we end up turning away some great projects.

F

So it's dependent a little bit on what funding we have and also organizational ability to match.

F

Provide matching funds to help us fund more projects we do also, and, and those of you who are.

F

Our mentors could maybe speak to this more, um but I mean it's not it's not just free help. There's a.

F

Lot of you know, we ask a lot of our mentors too. Hopefully, there's value in that ultimately, but.

F

I mean I guess I just want to acknowledge that a big part of the great experience for the fellows.

F

Is the great mentorship they get from um the folks that they're, working with in the municipalities.

F

uh You can apply for a graduate or undergraduate, we let you know if we've.

F

If we're including your project usually end of december early january, and then we.

F

Kind of move through a work planning process in the spring before the fellows start with.

F

Us at the beginning of june, and it's a june through august kind of cycle.

C

I can speak to a little bit just having had several fellows here in portsmouth. You know they.

C

It's excellent to do your greenhouse gas inventory. It's kind of a discrete project that can fit in.

C

Over a summer- and you can man it yeah, you know you have to work with them, but it's not a huge time.

C

But it is a certainly a commitment to do that, um and commitment of funds you have to match.

C

The amount that they give the fellow um but we use them for that and we also use them on our.

C

Sustainability project or vulnerability assessment we had a fellow going around knocking on doors.

C

Getting information from the residents downtown on their basements flooding and things like that, so.

C

It's been really great for the city and probably will look at doing one again in the fall.

A

You're on mute.

N

That's not the first time that's happening thanks. I'd like to address this uh question to jackson,.

N

um Peter had said one of the uh hurdles to overcome.

N

Is how to get the resources both for financial and staffing in the municipality, to really.

N

Address the urgency to accelerate our movement towards a climate healthy planet, given we have a.

N

Short uh time frame and window to go into and jackson, I'm getting the perception.

N

That you said you have 40 hours a week and that I'm sure you feel like you could.

N

Use a lot more hours, but it sounds to me like you're feeling a little bit of that.

N

Maybe coordination, staffing needs and a lot of the outreach that you mentioned seem to be working so.

N

The question I have for you is: how are you perceived and are you a long-term hire? Are you.

N

Part of the staff- um some people have talked about, oh, do we get a grant and then we lose a person or.

N

Can we really create a structure, that's going to have the type of leverage and strategy potential.

N

Of somebody who coordinates that's a lot to throw at you, but uh any response. No, that's a really good.

I

Question um so I am I'm full-time and I'm funded through the general fund, so it's not grant based.

I

So my funding is guaranteed for the foreseeable future unless there were to be some big budget.

I

Cuts- but that was a big ask of the council and that's why it took a few years for them to come.

I

Around the idea of having somebody in this type of role and it morphed over time, initially the.

I

Energy commission suggested having someone as an energy manager and they spoke with staff and.

I

Sort of figured out that, okay, having someone focus on you, know broader resiliency issues,.

I

Might be a better fit because you know prior to my role, there wasn't really anyone to sort of.

I

Coordinate between the various departments on some of these efforts and a lot of what I do is just.

I

Connecting people with other people and making sure that there's a centralized point of contact.

I

For ideas- and you know moving things forward, um but you know when you're, when you're going to.

I

Talk to someone, that's making a decision about, you know creating a position like this. I think.

I

Highlighting the fact that you know energy alone is such a big fraction of.

I

Costs associated with municipal operations that, if you can bring someone in that's able to help with.

I

Decision making and projects that reduce your energy expenditures, they can easily cover the.

I

Cost of their their salary pretty quickly and I've already kind of seen that to be true with some of.

I

The programs, the one program that I developed, covers over half of my salary and I've. You know.

I

I've been on board eight months now, so you know I. I hope that helps answer your question, but.

I

With climate change being such a such an issue- and you know for us with inland.

I

Flooding potentially affecting some of our municipal facilities that are really important.

I

You know we, we need people to address and prepare for things now. Otherwise you know it's going.

I

To be much much more expensive, later far more expensive, expensive than paying a salary annually.

N

Yeah, I liked what you said: uh jackson about doing the life cycle analysis in the long term.

N

Rather than the short and uh I'm glad to hear that you got a project that is paying for half your.

N

Salary- because that's always good for us to hear that uh there are monies to be saved, and this is.

N

uh I think the the way to get resilience and mitigation is to have solutions that meet both.

N

And help move us towards the big goal that we want so thanks. That was very helpful. Jackson, of course,.

A

Yes, jennifer thanks. I have a kind of a follow-up to that, because I was ruminating on that too, and.

F

Thinking that um we're always trying to present things in terms of total cost of ownership and.

F

Often having a hard time getting uh getting people past the sticker, you know the first class piece.

F

But one of the things we've been talking about in our energy task force is.

F

Are there ways to incorporate the social cost of carbon or other ways to monetize.

F

Future costs associated with climate change in our planning and our budgeting with.

F

Individual departments and I'm wondering if any of the municipalities on this call have.

F

Done any of that or talking about doing any of that um kind of using future costs.

F

Projections as an opportunity to frame climate related projects as necessary, cost-saving measures.

B

From the uh political angle, um I think that that is uh an effective strategy, something.

B

That's sticking out, in my mind, is just the time we went so uh portsmouth was asked or uh decreed.

B

Through the epa that we would have a stormwater stormwater mitigation plan and part of that.

B

Was in the sagamore creek area, the previous council that I was on spent about two years.

B

Talking about this, you know whether or not it was it needed to happen.

B

Head uh investment projects went through the roof, and now the same half of the project gets us.

B

Half of the um uh it costs cost twice as much uh to do now that that covet.

B

Has come and gone so it's not exactly um a you know, a an apples-to-apples comparison.

B

Of this is the the cost now in the future, but I think that at least right now people.

B

Are aware, or at least we're entering into an inflationary period, I don't know how long it lasts.

B

But the idea that future costs are going to be higher, I think, for the first time at least.

B

In the last three years is a definite reality for us just from a financing standpoint of hey.

B

We got to do this because costs are rising and it's going to cost a lot more for us to do this.

B

When we have to do more long term, and so as we go into the budget season, I've been trying.

B

To keep some of those uh uh at least failures uh top of mind when we're looking to ask for.

B

More money up front to be able to invest in some of the infrastructure projects, because.

B

There's a lot of money from the feds that is going around and we're all going to be competing.

B

With each other to try to find uh the right, you know the firm that's going to be doing the work.

A

In jackson sure I was just going to add that.

I

You know climate change implications are tied into our um cip planning like the five year plan.

I

That we produce here in dover and definitely is sort of at the forefront of thinking of some of.

I

Our infrastructure projects- and I know, there's been a lot of talk, for example, if, if we're going.

I

To do a project that involves some some major site work. You know, maybe it's the right time to spend a.

I

Bit of extra money to, for example, put in electric vehicle supply equipment because that's much.

I

Less cost prohibitive, if we're able to get those conduits in place, we're able to dig the trenches.

I

When the site works actually happening instead of having to rehab the site much later on um so yeah.

I

I I think we are trying to incorporate. I think we could do a better job than we do, but it's.

I

It's definitely something that's considered by community services, planning and other departments.

A

Does anyone else have any comments.

K

I I guess um allison, I'm just curious. I appreciate everyone's time today and.

K

It was really interesting hearing the different projects across the seacoast. I'm just wondering.

K

So what are the next steps for this? What were you thinking? Well, we were actually hoping that.

A

You could help with that. I mean like we're. We were thinking that maybe this would be um a.

A

Sort of touch-based meeting I don't know on a suit a regular basis such as maybe.

A

um Twice a year or something like that like come back in the fall and.

A

Find out if anybody else has any questions or or problems. I know that one of our uh the.

A

Things that we've been most curious about is how municipalities are going to reach the community.

A

Because I think a number of you have said that the proportion of energy used by each municipality.

A

Is so much less than what's being used by the residents, so you know if we can think about that.

A

And come up with ways or things that have worked. I know that there were a couple of things that.

A

People mentioned um like the um putting out the uh the two page fact sheets jackson. I think you were.

A

Talking about that, and um just trying to make people aware easily of things that they can do.

A

To affect their energy usage and um that in the long run, will um affect climate change. uh I I.

A

Did like someone was talking about how um they don't talk about climate change, because there's.

A

Some resistance to just even that terminology, but if you can talk about resiliency that that has.

A

Enabled forward movement with um having certain programs happen.

A

But you know this is really we we put it together, hopefully so that you each would.

A

Be able to communicate with one another on the subject, uh you have the um the sheet with all.

A

The contact information from those that um had hoped to be able to attend at any rate today.

A

And so you can reach out to them individually or if there um there is a need, if everybody.

A

Would like to get together again at some point in time. We can certainly arrange that.

C

I can, I can just add, a plug for the new england municipal sustainability network.

C

So dove mentioned it earlier, but there's a there's, a regional network that was really started by epa.

C

Trying to get communities to start talking about sustainability and shared practices and.

C

It's been going on for gosh, I don't know how long it's been since 2006, maybe quite some time um and.

C

What I find is it's, it's more much more of a time equipment that we're talking about here.

C

um But to me one of the most beneficial pieces of that is sort of going around and hearing about.

C

People's projects and what they're doing and then knowing who you can contact if you want to get.

C

A project like that, going in your community what the you know, what the pitfalls were, how it worked.

C

So to me it seems like a positive thing. It would be. It could be a lot shorter than this call.

C

But just a check in you know to go through new projects. Get a you know see what people are.

C

Doing, rather than go and check all the communities websites, it's one sort of a one-stop shopping way.

C

To hear updates, we wouldn't want to participate to me. It makes sense because we're pretty close, close.

C

To each other- and we have the similar challenges in our region, it might be something that that.

C

Could be I I would like to see it going forward, but don't be curious. What other people think.

C

About that, maybe a shorter, shorter version of the same thing and zoom makes it even even quicker.

F

I have a couple follow on like questions or thoughts about that one was. I was wondering.

F

How many folks here already participate in ca? Also, I'm just means like there's a few.

F

Networks here that have a lot of overlap and wondering, if there's a way to kind of.

F

Tag on to something that they do maybe um or um yeah nems being another. I was also.

F

Thinking peter about how we're looking at um having the webinar about federal.

F

Funding opportunities coming down the pike- and um I don't remember who just referenced.

F

Maybe, which you may record um the that the kind of funding opportunities and trying to get ahead.

F

Of them and ready for them, and also realistically knowing that probably there'll, be some competition.

F

But maybe we can find things to collaborate on and that kind of goes back to one of the things that.

F

I think dove referenced earlier too, which is if there are shared. um You know, research, questions.

F

Or sets of technical experts I mean, maybe there are things that we can identify. That would help.

F

Multiple communities that we could think about in terms of those funding, opportunities or.

F

Those research questions that then unh could help either with fellows or just working with.

F

Individual departments to find faculty mentors and students who want to work on those things.

A

Very good, let me just add another thing: jen rowden sent me an email and said she had to leave early.

C

um Said the regional planning commission, at least for our region. I guess it's we're not all in the.

C

Same region of new markets and durham, I think, but the regional planning commission was gonna.

C

Going to be reaching out about a similar sort of effort to strategize and coordinate the regional.

C

Approach, so there are other other opportunities out there like like them. These things can happen.

A

So if any of you would like to direct, um you know your your thoughts about uh how this should move.

A

Forward or what next steps um other than the fact that there are other organizations out there that.

A

Are doing things that are similar this um we really tried to gear just toward local.

A

Municipalities, because there are very similar, a lot of similarities between the.

A

um The problems that each municipality municipality is having, um at any rate you have my.

A

My contact information, you have peter's contact information, so please get back to us. Let us know.

A

What you thought, um how we could improve it and what you would like to see going forward.

K

Allison, I you may have said this at the very beginning and I was a few minutes late joining, but.

K

Are you uh a department of the city of portsmouth or are you a private entity yeah no.

A

I'm part of portsmouth climate solutions, bert cohen, is our leader and um we evolved.

A

Out of um having taken the uh the course about drawdown- and so there are a number of um just.

A

Residents of the region- and we we do have more than portsmouth, but we call ourselves portsmouth.

A

Climate solutions, because that's where we're based and um we are obviously concerned about.

A

The environment and looking for ways that we can contribute to the the town or different towns, our.

A

Energy to try to help um move things forward. So that's who we are. Thank you so much you're welcome.

H

uh And then um todd, I don't know if uh uh it was uh caught at the beginning or if you missed it.

B

But uh peter and I uh were approached by allison and bert as a way uh to sponsor.

B

This from a municipal uh standpoint, uh it's been a focus of this council.

B

uh To uh meet uh climate change more directly, uh you know, I would say, that's the the biggest change.

B

In portsmouth over the last uh four years would be the uh the from.

B

A number of different constituents- and you know uh portsmouth- has a reputation. It doesn't always.

B

Meet that expectation on the municipal level uh when it comes to our politics versus our our.

B

National politics, but uh climate change has come to the forefront, uh much more aggressively. It's.

B

It's much more of a, uh I would say a um a topic of uh you know door-to-door um and that might be.

B

Because of her proximity um to the ocean uh but or that sea wall that other people might have.

B

Noticed uh disintegrating, uh as you pointed out, um but it's definitely much more uh of a uh a a.

B

Talking point, and so it was our hope that, with uh wrapping our arms around allison and bert, and the.

B

Energy that they're bringing you know the people that we're trying to communicate with around this.

B

uh It has to be as grass roots as possible, and so we we want to encourage this type of grassroots.

B

Collaboration with cities, more so than we might have as a municipality in the past and.

B

Create avenues through our connection with other municipalities to you know, bring them in front.

B

Of you and hopefully spark more ideas so that we can have a broader discussion that includes.

B

As many citizens as possible, and not just municipal leaders.

K

That's really helpful all right, I just want to add that jennifer. I really liked what you.

N

Were saying that um not only is it hard to get out of our individual energy and.

N

Building code silos, but how? To get out of the municipality to get monies that are going to.

N

Really be functioning on the regional basis and can enhance everybody, and so.

N

I think we're in a time period. From my perspective, at least the path is uncharted.

N

We are in a time frame in an accelerated urgency that we don't have the structures.

N

Or the uh readily available mechanisms to strategize to do the magnitude of the job that we.

N

Need to do in a short period of time, and I don't know anybody knows it's very encouraging. uh I'm.

N

Taking notes and every wednesday night we will go back to our community portsmouth climate solutions.

N

Say: here's what the municipalities are thinking and our idea from portsmouth climate solutions.

N

Is can we support whatever climate action plan comes into place because once the.

N

Plan gets in place, that's just the beginning, and how do we get traction in the community.

N

And between communities to make it work- uh and I really uh there are lots of organizations doing it.

N

And nobody wants to be redundant in their time, so it's all kind of experimentation along that line.

G

uh This is dobev speaking so sarah had missed this earlier, but uh just remind me where.

G

So what is the status of that climate action plan for portsmouth? Does that have a certain.

G

Time frame that that's going to get into published form, or is that far out or I always.

G

I guess peter could answer, we got the we got the money for at least the start, so.

B

It's been funded um with a hundred thousand dollars through our cip that was approved.

B

About a um month ago now so uh you know in in many ways that's the um you know that.

B

Went relatively smoothly, I would say uh the idea that you know, and it was even you know.

B

We started with a we'll start with 50, and you know it was, it was doubled, um and so it might.

B

Need more, I imagine the cost of actually enacting a plan is going to be more significant than that.

B

But I was surprised at how um you know people were, as supportive of you know, working together.

B

To create a plan around that, so I would leave it to peter to give you the details in terms of.

B

You know what's the the actual nuts and bolts and when we expect that to be done, I hope that we can.

B

uh Steal from our neighbors, if one has already been done um as much as possible um and build.

B

Upon that and then share that back with you, you know we will uh it's a it's a leapfrog business.

B

That, hopefully we can uh we can share uh around, but uh peter is there any more details on the.

B

The time line for that rfp yeah, so the budget will be adopted in starting july 1st, so the it's in the.

C

Capital plan it'll go into the budget process. When it gets approved there, then we can start working.

C

But along the lines of this group, there's a volunteer group in this in the community that.

C

Has been working already on on how to what what the other climate action plans around the country.

C

And the region look like what the key things those plans have, that we want to do how the you know who.

C

Who wrote them? What contractors wrote them? How do they succeed in their public participation? Is our.

C

Current question we're trying to get at and it's a really big one, because it's really important.

C

And you know we're really looking to create actionable items in that. So it's not just.

C

Let's reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, it's let's stop doing x so that we reduce our grass.

C

Greenhouse gas emissions, so we have specific actions that will take.

C

And encourage the community to do, but this public, this public peace, where we have.

C

Residents, helping with rfp is really unusual for a lot of projects, but I think I think it's.

C

Important that we we do that to get the most bang for the buck because, as we keep saying.

C

Everybody has to participate, it can't just be the municipal government.

G

And we did just have a nems uh kind of a you know: brown bag session. That was somewhat focused on.

G

That public participation in cap planning issues so um we're certainly glad I think.

G

We have compiled some resources, so if we can lend any of that back into the portsmouth uh discussion.

G

We're happy to do so from the nem's perspective yeah. That was, that would be great. I was out of.

C

Town on that one yep bert's, holding up a wide climate, local climate planning, has failed and.

C

That's a resource that this group that I've been talking about is using and has some really good.

C

Information about what key things to keep putting your climate action plan to make it work is.

A

If anybody needs, if anyone needs a copy of that, I can, I can forward it to them just.

A

Drop me an email and let me know.

F

You anticipated my question. Thank you.

K

um I just note, I think this concept of regional planning is really an interesting one.

K

And I think there there could be a lot of benefits to that um if our taxing structure.

K

Was different in terms of economic development for the seacoast, but um you know when we did our.

K

Our climate excuse me our greenhouse gas inventory. You know approximately 45 percent of our emissions.

K

Are from transportation and the vast majority of that transportation is not local. It's through.

K

Traffic, so imagine if we banded together and installed a toll booth. You know on route 108.

K

Route 4, the spalding turnpike, maybe at the traffic circle in portsmouth.

K

And electric vehicles could pass right through no problem and gas vehicles are going to pay a.

K

Toll a significant toll and really poor poor fuel efficient gas vehicles pay a larger toll.

K

And then we we distribute that maybe on a per capita basis amongst our seacoast towns.

K

Imagine what we could do and what we could incentivize an actionable item sounds good.

H

Yeah, well, I do think that I mean I'm happy to uh to send the note to the governor on our desire to.

B

Have self-determination when it comes to raising money, um but I I it's. It's always interesting to.

B

Me that we are split across two uh two counties um and you know we're not. You know uh necessarily set.

B

Up for success when it comes to prioritizing the projects that we have to prioritize- and I guess.

B

A part of this is a commitment from portsmouth as the mayor that we are in it to help prioritize the.

B

Region um when it comes to the projects that need to happen on the regional level, because.

B

We only think that this is going to happen. You know the same conversation will happen on housing.

B

But when it comes to the rockingham uh county or stratfor county uh planning.

B

Commissions to be able to to to send letters of support when you know it doesn't necessarily.

B

Benefit uh portsmouth when it comes to climate, but it benefits the region, so it does benefit.

B

Us those are the types of things that I would hope would come out of. More dialogue among.

B

Elected but also uh you know, municipal employees that are that are working on behalf of the towns.

B

That's the only way, I think, we're going to you know to tackle this in a meaningful way um and.

B

Again across two counties is is tricky, um but we are, you know, you know one region when it comes to.

B

The effects of of climate change that will be felt more acutely than the rest of the state. Great.

A

So, if we're all good now, I guess we can go ahead and close.

A

Unless anyone else has any comments or questions.

C

Thanks for keeping it in the time as well, you're welcome peter and thank everyone.

A

For for limiting the uh the amount that they they put together into a nice short summary.

A

um Well, we really appreciate you all participating in this and, um as I said, please email me email.

A

Peter, let us know what your thoughts are if anyone needs that article, as I said.

A

Send me an email I'll, be glad to send it to you, and um I hope you all have a great and productive.

A

Rest of the year, thank you thanks. So much bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you.