Bedford Energy Appointments Hit a Snag

Bedford's pioneering—and fast-moving—countdown for energy conservation hit a temporary hold Tuesday night.

Poised to recommend a project director and advisory board for the town's home-energy retrofit program, leaders of the so-called Bedford pilot project learned it would take at least another week for the town board to tie up some loose ends.

Mark Thielking, the town's director of energy resources, had been prepared to introduce Tom Bregman as the proposed $83,000-a-year director of the retrofit program. But procedural questions, including whether he should be a town employee or contract worker, delayed the board's action until it meets next on Aug. 24.

Retrofit programs like Bedford's, now growing in popularity nationally, help homeowners maintain and preserve their investment by installing energy-efficiency technologies. Bedford has received $1.2 million of a projected $2.7 million in grants from the Department of Energy to help fund its Climate Action Plan, believed to be one of the first in the state.

Bedford is one of 13 municipalities that have banded together to create the Northern Westchester Energy Action Consortium, a coalition that seeks solutions to common problems of energy conservation and other green issues. While the retrofit program's director is specifically a Bedford position today, its occupant is envisioned as growing in time to play a role in the consortium's efforts.  

With the appointment of Bregman, an environmental activist, on hold, the town board also elected Tuesday to delay naming members to an advisory panel that would assist him. Its members are expected to be Thielking, the energy resources chief;  Leo Wiegman, the mayor of Croton-on-Hudson and member of the consortium; Bedford Councilman David Gabrielson, who has been active in the town's program since its start; Mary Beth Kass, chairwoman of the Bedford Energy Advisory Panel; Olivia Farr, a Bedford Village environmentalist and treasurer of Bedford Twenty by 2020.  

"Bedford 2020," as it's called, is the town's volunteer drive to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 2004 levels by the year 2020. The commitment is part of the Bedford Climate Action Plan, or CAP, unanimously approved in February.

In addition to CAP, Bedford's quest for solutions to today's environmental challenges gets a boost from PACE. An imaginative new financing option, the Property Assessed Clean Energy program allows homeowners to borrow the money they need for energy retrofits, then, on a voluntary basis, repay it through an incremental property tax charge. Bedford creates a Local Development Corporation to run the program and issue a bond.

Gabrielson says PACE makes energy efficiency immediately affordable since property owners will see savings on their energy bills even as they repay the borrowed money.

He estimated that as many as 5,000 homes in Bedford could benefit from the retrofit program. The board is expected to appoint Bregman and the others next week in what was originally scheduled to be only a work session.