BREAKING: ESCO Approved at Town Meeting

Town Meeting overwhelmingly approved a scaled-down $4,049,000 version of last year's ESCO proposal.

The plan was debated for about a half hour, with questions ranging from what the energy savings guarantee is to why the town can't do the projects gradually with CPA funds.

Thea Fournier, who led the opposition against cell towers two years ago, spoke against the ESCO proposal.

"There are many good things, however the proposal seemed promising at a glance... however it would appear that the DDC that are going to be implemented are going to be wireless."

Fournier said the many wireless components in the energy saving updates would emit microwave radiation and cause health problems for children.

Town Manager Andrew Maylor responded that the proposed energy management system would be hard-wired and that the only wireless component would be 672 lighting occupance sensors and all only 33 -- in bathrooms -- would be wireless.

Ted Tripp spoke against the proposal as well, saying last year the voters decided against it.

"Can somebody tell me what's different about this?" Tripp said. "It seems to be coming back like a bad cold."

Last year, voters rejected an ambitious proposal to put $4.3 million toward energy savings projects in various buildings in town as part of an ESCO project to increase energy efficiency. The Finance Committee voted against it, and voters sided with them. It was a tie vote of 96-96, and it needed a two-thirds majority.

This year, a modified ESCO plan -- Article 19 on the warrant -- was put before voters at Town Meeting. It's more than $300,000 less expensive than the previous plan and is set to be paid off in less time, with projected energy savings.

Ameresco is the energy services company that produced the energy audit for the town, calling for a wide variety of energy improvement projects, including school air unit replacements, weatherization, lighting changes, pipe insulation, boiler and furnace replacement and more.

Maylor was confident it would be approved at Town Meeting this year, with some changes and the approval of the Finance Committee. In the fall, the Finance Committee held five meetings to discuss the ESCO projects with Maylor and the School Department.

The discussions -- or negotiations -- led to the ESCO plan being modified. About $300,000 worth of projects were cut from it, which reduced the payback period to 10 years instead of 15.

Maylor said the plan would benefit the town financially because it would take care of a decade of deferred maintenance projects and would pay for itself with energy savings.