Green Committee Deserves Credit

In the last Issue of the Sandisfield Times, in "Select Board Chairman's Year-End Report," it was unfortunate that no credit was given to the Green Committee for its work in acquiring the funding for the Town's Solar arrays and heat pump.

The sentence read: "The Town Hall is now heated and cooled by a heat pump system with a backup generator, paid for through grant funding. Not only will the Town Hall enjoy something it's never had - air conditioning during the hot, muggy days of summer - but the Town will save on oil expense in the winter because solar panels installed a year ago will fuel the heat pumps."

The Green Committee began its work in 2018, by creating a Solar Photovoltaic Installation bylaw to become eligible for a Green Communities grant of $128,805. The Green Committee was also awarded an additional META 7 grant of $12,500 for an engineering design of a heat pump and solar array system needed to meet the building's heating and cooling requirements. The savings in electricity with the installation of solar panels was estimated at $231,000 over 25 years. In the Fall of 2022, a Green Communities Competitive Grant of $67,504 was submitted to the MASS DOER for the heat pump. The Heat Pump project was estimated to save in excess of 1,069 gallons of heating oil amounting to an annual savings of $5,386. Over 20 years this would save an additional $107,720 in heating bills. The total amount of grants and savings is $547,529 courtesy of the Green Committee.

The Green Committee included members George Riley, Anina Carr, Jeff Bye and myself. We spent hundreds of hours in more than four years working toward acquiring the grants and finally overseeing the installations. Credit also goes to the Mass DOER Green Communities Regional Coordinator, Mark Rabinsky, and Grant Coordinator Jane Pfister who helped guide the Sandisfield Green Committee through the grant approval process.

Sandisfield has always relied on volunteers to provide community support. It seems to me that to not give even an ounce of credit to the volunteers of the Green Committee, and also to give the impression that the Select Board was responsible for work that was done by others, is a complete disregard of the services provided by the volunteers of the Green Committee.

Larry Dwyer
West Street

Oops - Photo Caption Error

I was reading through the new edition Jan/Feb Sandisfield Times.

I truly wait anxiously for every new edition!

However, there was a mistake captioning the photo COOKIE SWAP.

This was not a Recreation event. This is a yearly event (over 20 yrs now) at the New Boston Inn, sponsored entirely by Barbara Colorio (the Inn owner). She provides delicious food, a fun atmosphere, while decorating every nook and cranny to transform the Inn into a Holiday wonderland. She provides Santa and a magical afternoon, free to all those who attend. All you need to do is bring your cookies to swap and a large container, of course.

Thanks.

Lynn Rubenstein
Recreation Committee