Neylan Explores Greening Town Buildings

A discussion is under way about having Westfield enter an inter-municipal co-op for the purpose of purchasing solar panels for town-owned buildings.

Councilwoman Joann Neylan, who chairs the council's public works committee, has taken preliminary steps regarding Westfield entering a solar panel co-op proposed by Garwood Councilman Anthony Sytko. The program currently involves several area municipalities, all in the preliminary stages of discussion.

Neylan has attended preliminary meetings regarding the project with Town Administrator Jim Gildea and has done some research on the benefits to Westfield. Exact figures on how much Westfield could save from installing solar panels on town-owned buildings has not been determined. The study, which started last year, comes as environmental policy has moved to the forefront of town discussion, with the council adopting a recommendation, earlier this week, from Mayor Andy Skibitsky to enroll in the Sustainable Jersey program.

"The timing is a good fit." Neylan said of the environmental co-op study.

The Memorial Library will be installing several solar panels on the roof in October to provide a percentage of the building's electricity through the sun.

Sytko said the program first came about from studies in his community several years ago about installing solar panels. As part of his work on the issue he wanted to explore a co-op with other towns to reduce the costs in purchasing the solar panels. Currently Westfield and Garwood are involved in the discussions along with Cranford, Summit, Kenilworth, Plainfield, Berkeley Heights and New Providence.

"The benefit is going to be saving the member municipalities the per unit costs," he said.

The proposal is currently under discussion in the involved communities and the group is working on defining a structure from the proposed organization. Sytko said the group has been studying the recently formed South Hunterden Renewable Energy Co-op, a similar organization in Hunterden County, as an example for what to do in Union County.

"We'll be watching what they do and copying what they did in Union County," Sytko said.

The proposed co-op will likely be governed by a board of directors of the involved communities, with each town designating a representative to the board. A Garwood representative would likely be the initial head of such a board, according to Sytko, because of his community's lead in organizing the co-op discussion. A time-line has not been determined for the formation of such a co-op.

Neylan said the idea of moving toward green buildings will benefit the town and complements the other parts of the town's environmental agenda.

"If we can harness natural energy through the use of solar panels, it's the way to go," Neylan said. "I do believe that there are a lot of things this town does that is green-friendly."