Concord committee debates rubric to rank actions in five‑year climate plan

Chair (S1) opened a discussion on how to prioritize a long list of proposed actions in the committee’s draft five‑year climate action plan, saying the group needs a clear, articulable priority list for what it should do first.

The committee spent most of the meeting debating the structure of a prioritization framework. Committee member (S5) outlined the consultants’ proposed four criteria—greenhouse‑gas impact, resilience, cost and ease of implementation—and said the consultants used a weighting that assigned 40% to greenhouse‑gas impact and 20% each to the other three criteria. “They had 40% greenhouse gas and 20% each for resilience cost and implementation,” S5 said, summarizing the draft approach.

Several members pushed back on relying solely on a numeric score. Chair (S1) cautioned that an objective score should be an input to decision‑making, not the sole driver, and said the committee must retain the ability to deviate from scores with documented justification. “The score…the objective score is an input into a decision making process. It is not the driver of the decision,” S1 said.

Committee members also debated what “impact” means in the rubric. Some members urged the group to distinguish short‑term impact (1 year), medium‑term (5 years) and long‑term (25 years) effects so that actions essential as enablers in the long run are not deprioritized simply because they show smaller immediate emissions reductions. S3 asked the group to “level set” how time horizon should affect scoring and urged that qualitative co‑benefits (for example equity and community quality‑of‑life gains) be explicitly recognized rather than lost in a strictly quantitative exercise.

The group agreed the consultants should run an initial set of numbers and that the committee would review and refine the results. Members recommended adding an explicit place in the rubric to capture co‑benefits or equity impacts; one member suggested making that a separate column rather than subsuming it under resilience or mitigation scores.

On data and modeling, staff (S2) and committee members said an updated wedge analysis and scenario modeling using municipal utility (CMLP) data would be helpful and that consultants would outline how that work fits into drafting final actions. The committee signaled it expects consultants to deliver draft numeric analyses but wants committee review and ownership of final weights and exceptions.

The committee did not adopt a final rubric at this meeting. Members directed staff and the consultant team to prepare a refined draft that incorporates an explicit co‑benefits column, clarifies the meaning of the implementation criterion (difficulty vs. decider), and shows results across multiple time horizons; the discussion will resume at the next meeting.

The meeting adjourned with the committee scheduling a follow‑up meeting for July 15 at 7 p.m.