WATERVILLE -- Finding ways to conserve energy and promote sustainability will be the subject of a three-day community forum to be held in January at the Opera House.

The Community Catalyst for Energy Conservation and Sustainability is being hosted Jan. 17-19 by the city and its Sustainability Committee.

It will include 60 invited participants from the city and area towns who will take the Opera House stage for three days to discuss the issue and develop an action plan. The public may observe the process.

"We very much want to make this a regional thing, so we're inviting people from Oakland, Winslow, Fairfield and surrounding towns," City Manager Michael Roy said.

Invitations to the 60 stage participants will be mailed out this week, starting Wednesday, and will include people from various age and ethnic groups, municipal officials, those considered energy experts and ordinary citizens, according to Roy and Sally Harwood, a member of the Sustainability Committee.

Roy and Harwood said the group hopes to create a guide including strategies and practical ways for municipalities and individuals to conserve energy in everyday life.

"It's for the community at large," Harwood said.

A local donor who wished to remain anonymous is providing funding for forum facilitators Larry Lemmel, Michael Kelly and Jessica Tracy of Running Start Institute, a nonprofit group located in Brunswick.

Running Start operates forums all over the state, including in communities and school districts. It also help develop a strategic homeland security plan for the state.

Lemmel and Kelly also ran a forum at the Opera House in 1996, hosted by the community group REM, that explored what the city and mid-Maine wanted to look like in the future. That forum resulted in a Newsweek magazine story that featured REM executive director Faye Nicholson.

Lemmel said Friday he looks forward to returning to Waterville for the energy forum, which he said is unique.

"It's great to know the city is taking the lead in this, and as far as I know, it's the only city in the United States that's facilitating an energy conservation and sustainability forum in a communitywide way," he said. "I don't know of any other examples of that. It's a wonderful thing, and I hope other communities follow the example."

Lemmel said inviting the public to observe is a plus, and that does not happen in a lot of other cases. "I think there's a great advantage to doing this publicly," he said.

The Sustainability Committee started as a city panel and branched out to include people from other communities. Henry Beck, a city councilor recently elected to the Maine House of Representatives from District 76, is the committee's chairman. Other members, besides Roy and Harwood, include City Planner Ann Beverage; Waterville schools business manager James Reny; Public Works Director Mark Turner; City Assessor Paul Castonguay; W. Elery Keene, a Winslow Planning Board member; Alice Elliott, assistant director of community outreach for Colby College's Goldfarb Center; and Colby student Steve Erario.

The forum will address questions such as:

• What do we want our community to be like in the future?

• What are our local options for improving energy conservation and sustainability?

• Which of these are most important to work on now?

• What are the community's priorities for working on these goals?

• How much progress have we made already in addressing them?

• What specific tasks and projects will help us make progress?

• Who will coordinate and who will participate in this work?

• What kinds of immediate progress do we expect to make?

• How do we organize citizen participation in order to do the work required of us?

Amy Calder -- 861-9247

acalder@centralmaine.com