Renewable Energy, Renewable Larson/Visconti, Renewable Town Council Meeting

3 quick hits for your Tuesday morning.

1. West Hartford rocks at using renewable energy. According to this article in Saturday’s Courant, West Hartford the leading consumer of renewable energy — no small task in a ‘burg the size of ours. Now, I’m not much of a person to celebrate consumption (it really irks me when I’m told I’m a consumer, not a citizen), but if we’re consuming energy that has long range “less negative” effects, so much the better. In the program, communities with the highest rates of participation (and West Hartford has nearly 1000 households enrolled — which is great, and also pretty crappy) are given solar panels, and our solar panels are going on top of Town Hall, Hall High and Conard. The panels at Hall and Conard will also be used in Environmental Science classes — which I’m sure will be the source of ire for some in the town who believe all the students need in the science classroom are a notebook, a dead frog and some pins …

2. I’m tempted to say the race for US Rep between John Larson and Joe Visconti is heating up, except the Bristol Press remains the only place where the race actually seems to be covered (though props to Rick Green for doing what he can). They have an article on the race for the 1st district here, and it of course features the two candidates using words like “reformer” “Main Street” and “finger-pointing.” Meanwhile, last we checked, Stephen Fournier is still running for the same seat, albeit without the cloak of buzzwords (or any media buzz, apparently — though last I heard anything about this fracking election, he had raised as much as Visconti).

3. Town Council meeting tonight. I’d link you to the agenda, but the town website is down as I type this. I’m working Tuesday nights at the moment (yes, that’s consumption getting in the way of citizenship) and can only get to Council/BOE meetings via my TIVo. I’m interested in farming out a Wednesday “Meeting Recap Post” to anyone who’s interested and who thinks they can provide the community with an objective recap/highlights of what occurred. Email to whforums@gmail.com …