Green energy has Council, mayor seeing red
Flap allegedly over construction of ‘solar canopies’ in city
WOONSOCKET — An announcement issued by Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt Monday that she intends to solicit cost estimates for the construction of “solar canopies” above municipal parking lots set the stage, hours later, for an edgy showdown between members of the City Council and the mayor’s administration about the beleaguered state of the council’s own initiatives on green energy projects.
Council Vice President Jon Brien and Councilman John F. Ward accused the mayor of co-opting their own plans for solar installations at several locations that date back to 2017. The chairman of the council’s green energy subcommittee and a presumptive candidate for mayor in the next election cycle, Brien was particularly peeved that the mayor’s initiative surfaced while the administration had yet to comply with a council directive, issued months ago, to begin negotiations with Green Development LLC on the construction and operation of solar farms and other facilities, including a parking lot canopy on Aylesworth Avenue.
“That was a way to get ahead of... what we’re trying to accomplish, because if there was a true feeling of cooperation between the council and the administration, for the good of the city, they’d already be parking under a solar canopy, or at least one would be in the works, over on Aylesworth Avenue,” Brien said. “It’s very frustrating to me and others that would like to see us moving forward and we’re not moving forward in a way that we ought to be moving forward.”
Baldelli-Hunt wasn’t at the meeting, but Public Works Director Steve D’Agostino responded to Brien with a pointed reprimand.
Reminding Brien that he had been present with members of the administration to discuss the status of Green Development’s work with the city a few days earlier, D’Agostino told Brien, “I told you then at the meeting and I’ll tell you now, we’re not rushing into a project just because you want to.”
“It’s going to be done right and it’s going to be done properly and it’s going to be to our standards to protect the city,” D’Agostino continued. “This is not the Statehouse or the outhouse or whatever. We’re not campaigning now.”
The Statehouse remark was an apparent allusion to Brien’s past service as a state lawmaker.
Before the confrontation between Brien and D’Agostino took place, Councilman Ward said he thought the mayor got the idea for solar canopies from him. He announced that he wanted to discuss solar canopies, as well as electric vehicles for the municipal fleet, on the agenda of the meeting, which was published more than three days before the press release was issued.
“It seems to have inspired the mayor to put out a press release,” he said. “It’s a brilliant idea and I thank her for that.”
While the mayor wasn’t present during the meeting, she said in a phone interview later that Brien was “unequivocally incorrect” about the status of the Ayleworth Avenue solar canopy.
“There’s no way it could have been built by now because the canopy cannot be built on a parking lot that needs to be reconstructed,” she said. “It needs to be reconstructed prior to the installation of the solar canopy.
“Mr. Brien should spend more of his time getting educated on projects like this instead of grabbing moments in the spotlight to be critical of the individuals who are actually doing the work,” she added.
As for the insinuation that she’s taking credit for plans that originated with the council, Baldelli-Hunt said city officials have been tossing around the idea of building solar canopies as just one component of a menu of sustainable energy infrastructure projects for years. She said it was the late Planning Director N. David Bouley who first brought it up “four or five years ago.”
The mayor says the city intends to issue an RFQ, or request for quotes, for the development of a solar canopy above every parking lot it owns, though that doesn’t necessarily mean all the sites would be feasible for construction. The initiative is not intended to supplant or compete with the installations the council wants Green Development LLC to build – it’s just a potential additional component.
“We can do more than one thing at one time,” the mayor said.
The solar canopies would be elevated, roof-like structures with solar panels erected on top of them to convert energy from the sun into “clean, low-cost renewable energy,” the mayor’s press released explained. The canopies would further benefit motorists by keeping cars cooler in the summertime, reducing the use of air conditioners and increasing fuel mileage.
“The city owns a lot of parking lot pavement and if it can convert some of that pavement into something that can generate clean, renewable energy which will reduce our energy costs and will make our parking lots look better aesthetically, that will be a big win for city residents and the environment,” she said.
Meanwhile, Green Development’s plans remain under review by environmental lawyer Christian Capizzo of the Providence firm Partridge Snow and Hahn, who was hired several months ago to research the feasibility of Green Development’s plans.
Last June, the council voted to instruct the administration to firm up a deal with the North Kingstown-based company to build solar farms at sites on Aylesworth Avenue, Bourdon Boulevard, Jillson Avenue and Manville Road. The company was one of seven that responded to a request for proposals (RFP) to develop green energy facilities, which the administration also carried out on instructions from the council, months earlier. Since the initial RFP, the council took another vote instructing the mayor to solicit bids for another solar farm at River’s Edge Recreational Complex, a proposal also under review by Capizzo.
Green Development promises to deliver more than $20 million in savings on municipal power consumption over 25 years in the form of reduced costs associated with generating the power, as well as income from leasing the sites where it would build solar panels.