Dear Corinth friends (apologies to those from other, equally wonderful towns),
Please come to the Corinth Town Hall TONIGHT at 7 p.m. to learn about the PACE proposal.
At Town Meeting, in March, citizens will have a chance to designate Corinth as a Property Assessed Clean Energy district. PACE may represent a great opportunity for the residents of Corinth to access simple, low-cost financing for energy efficiency and renewable energy home improvements, but its pros and cons are subtle, and the amount of time we can devote to its presentation at Town Meeting will necessarily be limited. That is why it is important for Corinth voters to attend the informational meeting on Tuesday, so any questions can be raised and fully addressed. Even if relatively few Corinth homeowners use the program (if it is adopted) we all should be well informed of its characteristics.
Briefly, PACE is a new type of funding program that allows homeowners to borrow money at favorable terms to hire contractors to improve the energy performance of their homes. The type of work that can be funded is established through an energy audit, which will establish what kind of improvements would be most beneficial (financially and in terms of comfort and convenience) to the homeowner. Loan repayments under PACE will be rolled into the homeowner’s twice-yearly tax payments and will be calculated to be less than the cost for the energy that they replace. That is: if you are going to save $500 per year in energy costs, your loan payment will be less than $500 per year– but with the advantage that you will still get the energy savings when the loan is paid off.
So: please join us tonight! We will have experts on hand to answer questions.
Anne Margolis
Corinth Conservation Commission, on behalf of the Corinth Energy Committee
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