President’s Message
Two BWNA board members departed from the board in December, with at-large member Anna Gillespie needing more time for an expanding family and at-large member Jack Bookwalter temporarily relocating to Palm Springs. With a background in planning, Jack has represented BWNA in numerous land use and planning-related processes that impact the neighborhood. Since joining the board in 2014, Jack has devoted countless hours following these complex processes, attending relevant meetings, and developing comments that have helped to shape various proposals to recognize neighborhood priorities. Likewise, Anna has been an active and valued contributor to BWNA during her time on the board, offering website expertise and serving as photographer at various BWNA events. Thanks to Anna and Jack for their service to the neighborhood. These departures leave the board both with four vacant positions and a gap in our ability to follow land use issues affecting the neighborhood. Please contact me or another board member if representing our neighborhood by serving on the board is something you would be interested in exploring.
Meanwhile, spurred by neighbor Nancy Mogielnicki’s interest in bringing attention to the opportunity to take advantage of federal tax incentives that are phasing out for solar electricity installations, the board decided to focus December’s general membership meeting on “going solar.” We were fortunate to have Jeni Hall, senior project manager and solar specialist from Energy Trust of Oregon, present an overview of how solar energy installations work. Jeni discussed site suitability, costs, available incentives, project economics, and how solar energy production is handled on one’s utility bill. She fielded numerous questions from attendees on an array of concerns, including installation costs, long-term savings, years needed to break even, stored-up electricity for use during power outages, and the big-picture environmental issue of reducing dependence on fossil fuel-generated electricity. While incentives from Energy Trust of Oregon help reduce the cost of solar installations, the federal solar investment tax credit is the greatest incentive available. This tax credit is set at 30 percent of project costs, but will be reduced to 26 percent for projects installed in 2020, and 22 percent in 2021, before ultimately phasing out altogether for residential solar projects. Thus, there is a limited window of opportunity to take advantage of the full value of this incentive in 2019 while it remains available. Neighbors interested in investigating this alternative energy strategy are encouraged to contact Energy Trust of Oregon, or Nancy Mogielnicki (nancymog@gmail.com), who has personal experience installing such a system and would like to gather like-minded solar enthusiasts to help navigate others in the process.
BWNA’s general membership meeting in February will chart a course for BWNA in 2019. Please do consider whether this may be the year you are able to participate on the board and bring your enthusiasm and experience to land use, transportation, livability, community building, and other areas in which BWNA is involved. This is even more important with four open board positions.
Have a fantastic new year!