Committee Votes 6-0 for New Solar Goal

Other Committee · Meeting of August 10, 2026

Concord's climate committee voted 6-0 to add a solar energy goal to its draft Climate Action and Resilience Plan. Members, including Brad Hubbard-Nelson, Shelly Carlin, Bob Shatner and Katharine Hopkins, approved language requiring the plan to pair solar PV growth with rising electricity demand, after debating whether modeled commercial solar targets, jumping from roughly 500 to 2,000 units, had any real program behind them. The committee separately declined to submit a federal New England Heat Pump Accelerator grant application for a geothermal study at the Concord Housing Authority's Peter Bulkley Terrace, citing a Friday, Aug. 14 deadline and insufficient stakeholder buy-in; the authority's executive director, identified as Ms.

Polito, had already declined to serve as applicant for lack of federal grant experience. "She's got to run the building, and this is kind of an option that might be interesting," Hubbard-Nelson said of the director's view. The committee also unanimously approved a letter supporting funding for the CMS Connector bike path and set its next meeting for Aug. 19 at 7 p.m.

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Source: the Other Committee meeting of August 10, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript.