The Municipal Light Board appointed the new General Manager after rounds of public interviews held last week, and discussed requirements and benefits of joining the Green Communities Program.
After evaluating over 90 resumes and interviewing three top candidates for the position of General Manager, former Navy submarine officer and North Shore native John Blair “came out on top,” said Board member Adam Smith.
“John ran the most comparable municipal light plant to Marblehead in Ipswich,” Smith said. “This gives me a lot of confidence.”
Blair was unanimously ranked the highest among the three finalists.
Billan Patel, Northeast regional coordinator for the Department of Energy Resources, then presented one of the key requirements for Marblehead to join the Green Communities Program.
Established in 2008, the Green Communities Program (GCP) provides technical assistance and funding to municipalities for energy efficiency and decarbonization.
So far, $54 million have been awarded to over 30 municipalities.
“Green Communities aligns with our community’s Net Zero goals and will provide financial support necessary to help us get there,” Marblehead Sustainability Manager Logan Casey said.
Becoming a Green Community is noted as one of Marblehead’s goals.
One of the required steps to achieving that goal is to adopt the Renewable Energy Trust agreement, a dedicated fund that receives revenue from a surcharge on electricity customers and uses it to provide assistance to renewable energy initiatives.
This would unlock funding from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), which would, in time, benefit rate payers.
The benefits for the municipality of joining the GCP would show in terms of access to two separate grants: an initial designation grant between $150,000 and $170,000, and a competitive grant that can reach $225,000 per round.
Membership would additionally provide access to MassCEC programming opportunities.
Such grants could notably aid in funding projects linked to energy conservation measures and increased energy efficiency – an opportunity for longer term economic gains for the community.
The application deadline to become a Green Community is December 2025, prior to which all requirements would have to be met by Marblehead, and the community, Patel said, “is on its way to achieving them all.”
Current General Manager of the Marblehead Municipal Light Department Joe Kowalik expressed his fear of “pushback” on the part of residents with regards to the tax on rate payers – concerns to which Chair Jean-Jacques Yarmoff responded that these discussions would not lead to conclusive decisions in a day’s time.
“We’ll come back to that,” Yarmoff said, referring to Marblehead’s possible application for the Green Community Program.