SAFE Board Member featured of the Strengthening Offshore Wind Community Engagement webinar by CESA.
By Janiela Quiñones
Last Thursday, December 4th, 2025, a webinar discussing the Strengthening Offshore Wind Community Engagement: Recommendations for State Agencies report, put together by Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA). The panel featured project partners who contributed to the report. Jaime Kelley, SAFE’s Board Member, represented SAFE in the panel—highlighting both SAFE and Salem’s achievements.
The report, which was written by a working group that SAFE was a part of, acts as a guide for state agencies as they think about garnering community participation in offshore wind planning and development. Some project partners present and involved in this project are state agency staff themselves, ranging from California, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, and more.
Among the community groups represented on the panel was UPROSE, a community organization based in Brooklyn, NY’s Sunset Park neighborhood. Since 1966, the group has advocated for sustainability and resiliency through many means including community organizing and education. State staff from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources and the Maine Department of Energy Resources provided government perspective in the discussion.
The webinar highlighted the four recommendations of the report:
- Share Information
- Increase Access
- Build & Sustain Community Capacity
- Develop Standards & Frameworks for Investment in Communities
These recommendations are fleshed out more in the full report. The following steps for this project is to develop strong relationships between state agencies and communities, and then, to build connections and plan for future projects that center the needs and priorities of communities.
Jaime Kelley highlighted the work being done to make Salem a host community—citing how SAFE created a coalition to develop a Community Benefits Agreement. SAFE is still very much hopeful in seeing wind energy developing again, but until then, we will continue doing the ground work to ensure we’re prepared for when we’re able to continue.
Janiela Quiñones is SAFE’s Communications Intern.