The Energy Sustainability Commission (ESC) has written an energy conservation guide for Haines Borough employees, but how the guide will be enforced still is up for discussion.
“They’re all behavioral; there’s no money involved,” ESC coordinator Stephanie Scott said of the recommendations at the Nov. 9 meeting of the Haines Borough Assembly. “They’re just reminding people to turn off their computers, to turn off the lights, to keep the thermostats at a reasonable temperature. What it really does is signal, from a policy point of view, from the borough assembly, that these things are important.”
She said the ESC “developed two documents. One is a guide and another is a set of policies, and these two documents can be combined into one, and should you decide to adopt these, it would be reformatted into a little pamphlet.”
The meeting packet included 26 pages of ESC documents on energy conservation.
“I think the community is becoming educated, and borough employees are members of the community, and they have demonstrated their own wisdom, but the commission feels that it’s time for a policy to be adopted, so that borough employees have something to rely on,” Scott said.
“Without a policy, it’s all out of the goodness of your heart, but if there’s a policy, then there can be rewards and it can become more poignant, I think.”
The recommendations followed an energy audit, she said.
“I think the manager (Mark Earnest) made a comment last time that we’re doing all these anyway,” Scott said. “Well, yeah, sometimes you are and sometimes you aren’t, but there’s really nobody minding the shop.”
Earnest referred to the guide and said he agrees “with everything that’s in here,” but calling the recommendations “policy” might be “too strong of a term.”
“There are consequences for not following policy,” Earnest said.
Member Greg Goodman said the recommendations should be included in the borough’s employee handbook and suggested that the assembly back the ESC guide with a resolution to show support from the assembly and administration.
“The people in the borough deserve to know that we’re frugal with their money, that we’re spending it wisely,” Goodman said.
Member Daymond Hoffman asked whether the resolution should have specific benchmarks for energy savings.
“The problem is putting it into a resolution, because that becomes law,” Earnest said. “What’s the consequence if, for example, we have a really cold winter, and our energy consumption increases, because it’s just one of those winters?”
Member Scott Rossman said a resolution would be “somewhere in between” making the recommendations a “guideline” or having them as official borough policy.
“So, basically, what you’re saying is when you institute a policy, you have to become the policy police,” Rossman said to Earnest. “For you to police this whole entire thing and run around, you could make three full-time jobs of running around, making sure everybody is doing everything in this book and, obviously, we can’t do that.”
An ESC resolution is expected at an upcoming meeting of the assembly.
Near the end of the Nov. 9 meeting, Scott again said she would prefer that the ESC guide be adopted as borough policy.
“If it’s not a policy, it doesn’t have any teeth,” she said.
Earnest responded, “Teeth are kind of scary, in a way,” and said energy savings could be addressed through the borough’s comprehensive plan that outlines goals, objectives and strategies for implementation.
“Whether it’s designated as a policy or if it’s guidelines, the important thing is that it gets done,” Earnest said.