The following authored by Fritz Fleischmann, Medfield Environment Action member.

Join Us: Community Choice Aggregation: Informational Forum on July 22

Medfield has a new environmental group: Medfield Environment Action (MEA). Its mission statement declares:

Medfield Environment Action (MEA) is a grassroots organization of residents. We share information about the accelerating environmental destruction and climate emergency to empower local action. We seek to build a movement of informed citizens, dedicated to the preservation of a living environment in Medfield and beyond. Our goal is for those informed citizens to support each other and work together for solutions.

MEA will work to:

• initiate and support measures by our town and state governments that will positively impact our environment;
• help reduce energy consumption and render the consumed energy renewable/sustainable;
• reduce other environmental impacts in our community.

One of MEA’s first initiatives is to host two virtual forums, on July 22 and August 17, which will provide an opportunity to learn about two environmental choices for Medfield that will be voted on at the next Town Meeting: whether to embrace Community Choice Aggregation, and how to set Medfield’s climate goals.

The first virtual forum on Wednesday, July 22, at 7:30 p.m. will take up the question of Community Choice Aggregation (CCA). CCA is a method of buying renewable electricity in bulk for a town’s operations and for its residents. MCAN (the Massachusetts Climate Action Network) describes it as “a program towns and cities can use to switch everyone in the town who is on basic service over to cleaner energy. An energy broker helps the community purchase the amount of energy which best fits their needs. Residents may opt out at any time. The energy is still distributed and billed through the town’s original utility (i.e. Eversource or National Grid).” Voters in a growing number of towns in Massachusetts have either approved such a program (Melrose, Brookline, and Lexington were among the early adopters), or are the in various stages of adopting it.

In anticipation of the vote at the next Town Meeting, the July 22 virtual forum will consider such questions as: how does CCA work? What are the benefits (and are there any downsides)? Will residents save money? Can they opt out of it? Is it right for Medfield?

Interested residents can register for this forum by writing to MEAMedfield@gmail.com; once registered, they will receive an invitation with a link to the forum. Information about the second forum on August 17 will be published in due course.