BRATTLEBORO — Brattleboro Selectboard member Tim Wessel's letter about a petition to end the municipal use of heating oil made some fair points about the current Selectboard's use of funds to replace the oil boiler in the Transportation Center and the development of a solar array on the Windham Solid Waste Management District landfill site. I absolutely appreciate those first steps towards a better, cleaner Brattleboro.
As the person who started the petition, I want to share why I chose to participate in the democratic process by creating a petition, and why I believe that current and future residents will be well-served by a decision to end the use of heating oil in municipal buildings.
I have been attending both Selectboard and Brattleboro Energy Committee meetings regularly since July 2016, and the experience has been profoundly educational for me. Watching how town government works and considering the role that non-elected townspeople, like myself, can play in civic life inspired me to apply for my citizenship this January so that I can more fully participate in our democracy.
Climate change is an issue that I care deeply about and devote a great deal of time to as a volunteer with 350 Vermont. My work with 350 Vermont connects me with others in the town, the surrounding area, and the state for whom a bold response to climate change is absolutely essential.
The hours that I have spent at Selectboard and Energy Committee meetings, along with the hours spent organizing in the community around climate change, are my ways of being an engaged citizen.
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Mr. Wessel was frustrated at not receiving credit for the current Selectboard's actions in reducing carbon emissions by replacing an oil boiler with a wood-pellet boiler in the Transportation Center. He also referenced the funding, and partial funding, of a number of energy-saving measures suggested by the January 2016 municipal energy audit.
I am pleased that there has been progress, but until many other measures recommended by the audit are implemented, the town will continue to emit large amounts of greenhouse gases.
The municipal center, library, recreation center, public works garage, and water treatment plant will continue to be heated by oil for the foreseeable future. Our town's newest structures - the police station on Black Mountain Road, the reconstructed Central Fire Station, and the new West Brattleboro Fire Station - will be heated using propane.
The 775 metric tons of carbon dioxide that will be emitted by the town's purchase of 77,700 gallons of heating oil for the coming fiscal year will not change significantly until we choose to heat our town buildings with a lower, or zero, carbon fuel.
I know that government works at a slow and deliberate pace; however, I feel that it is my duty as a citizen to fight for urgent, bold action in the face of the problem of climate change.
I hope readers will see that the petition was intended to gather support for an action, and that both as citizens and as a town we cannot be complacent about the actions we are taking now, because a great deal more will be required in the next few years.
By gathering support in the form of petition signatures, we're able to take the temperature of the town, so to speak, and demonstrate our priorities for our leaders.
For a great many people who live, work and play in Brattleboro, taking responsible action to lower our greenhouse gas emissions is a priority. Personally, I would like to see a plan for the town to bring its emissions to zero and start a fund for building local climate change resilience measures.
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Public Works Director Steve Barrett commented in the Reformer earlier this summer about the effect that intense rainstorms have had on our network of roads and how he, and his team, have observed this erosion worsening over the years.
Board members, including Mr. Wessel, have discussed at meetings the costs associated with fixing up our infrastructure after these weather events and are all too aware of the effect that they have on an already-stretched budget.
It's easy to look at the bottom line annually, but putting off investments until later isn't a cheaper option; climate change is affecting us now. The sooner we invest in getting off fossil fuels, the sooner we can invest in resilience.
I hope that Selectboard members, town staff, volunteer committee members, Representative Town Meeting members, and folks from the general public will continue to show up for our town in diverse ways, and that by doing so, we will build the kind of home we can all be proud of.