EWEB Board of Commissioners — January 5, 2021

0:11 okay so i guess that's my go ahead welcome everybody to the january 5th 2021 e-web meeting um we are going to start off with an agenda check um is there anybody that has anything they would like to add or say about the agenda doesn't look like it okay i'll assume that's no um and we're about to go right into the oath of office for our new commissioners but i want to go ahead and welcome our new commissioners we have a um two new members to our board momentarily tonight so i just want to welcome matt mcrae and john barofsky and again

0:58 congratulate sonia for winning another term but now we'll head over to the oath of office i'm beth forest from the city manager's office and i will be administering the oaths of office i will call each one of you and we'll begin with matt mcrae so matt um if you would raise your right hand and repeat after me i state your name i matt mcrae do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that i will support

1:44 the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and of the state of oregon and of the state of oregon and that i will to the best of my ability and that i will to the best of my ability faithfully perform the duties of eugene water and electric board commissioner faithfully perform the duties of eugene water and electric board commissioner for the city of eugene for the city of eugene during my continuance therein during my continuance therein and this i do affirm under pains and penalties of perjury and this i do affirm under pains and penalties of perjury

2:30 congratulations thank you hello hi john if you would raise your right hand and repeat after me i state your name aye john barofsky do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and of the state of oregon and of the state of oregon and that i will to the best of my ability and that i will to the best of my ability

3:15 faithfully perform the duties of eugene water and electric board commissioner faithfully say that again sorry faithfully perform the duties of eugene water and electric board commissioner faithfully perform the duties of eugene water and electric board commissioner for the city of eugene for the city of eugene during my continuance therein during my continuance therein and this i do swear so help me god and this i do swear so help me god congratulations

4:00 and uh now we will uh ask sonia carlson to please raise your right hand and repeat after me i state your name hi sonia carlson do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and of the state of oregon and of the state of oregon and that i will to the best of my ability and that i will to the best of my ability faithfully perform the duties of eugene water and electric board commissioner faithfully perform the duties of eugene water and electric board commissioner for the city of eugene or the city of eugene

4:45 during my continuance therein during my continuance therein and this i do affirm under pains and penalties of perjury and this i do affirm under pains and penalties of perjury thank you and congratulations to you thank you i feel like there should be clapping there's no clapping in this way doesn't feel any anticlimactic for the new board members but it's a very important step so welcome um great we can move right along

5:30 to agenda item number three since we're now a full board here and that is items from board members and the general manager so um i'm wondering if john brown if you have anything that you would like to say first yeah happy new year to everybody and i'd like to welcome john matt and sonia back welcome it's going to be fun uh just a few things um i read that uh there's a a two-year study to de-energize cougar detroit and one other dam in the willamette basin and i don't know how that's going to affect our resource adequacy and everything else and if frank could maybe get back to me on that because i think that study's been funded and then just also a couple things some of you know

6:15 that we we put in a new substation in holden creek and as a result of that we were going to vacate 16 miles of a pretty significant ride away or do something with it and i was just wondering the status of that and also the status of the acquisition and the new substation that we would we worked on for a couple of years on 52nd high banks near warehouser um just kind of an update on some of that so other than that i didn't do anything for eweb and had a great uh great holiday thank you well welcome happy new year very excited to have a fresh start and a whole new board uh really excited to work with all of you and i also did not

7:00 do graham i other than constituent work here and there i i didn't have a lot of eweb meetings um over the last month so i'll keep it short great so commissioner mcrae is there anything that you would like to say add or ask uh nothing from me thanks great and commissioner barofsky thank you um yeah i would just like to say thank you to the staff uh both matt and myself have been getting uh quite a bit of orientation over the last few months and have been it's been really exciting we got to go up and tour carmen smith and yesterday we toured

7:45 hayden bridge we've been basically doing round robins through all of the different departments staff has been very generous with their time and their knowledge so i just wanted to to mention that and say thank you to staff look forward to learning more as the as my tenure on the board uh continues but the orientation has been very uh very interesting and enlightening so thank you again to staff great well i just want to say welcome again um i know this is a interesting way to start a new board with two new board members and to do it via zoom

8:30 so um something that i'm hoping that we can do this year is have a board retreat we had one a couple years ago we didn't have one last year i know we'd have to do it via zoom but it just might be a nice way to kind of get to know each other a little bit more and i'm wondering if other people are interested in that too because i don't want to push that idea if other people aren't interested but it would just be a way for us as a board to connect so you can yeah show me with thumbs up some sideways thumbnail okay great so um i think ann can help us figure out how to do that and hopefully we can schedule that easier because we're going to be on zoom than if we were trying to figure out something in person um the only e-web related thing that i

9:16 have is that i met with um the president of the of the sub board and the president-elect along with steve matal just to do a little introduction because i know that he steve has been meeting semi-regularly with the president of sub so we just had a chat and talked about continuing those meetings and that is it frank how about you yes good evening commissioners congratulations to commissioner mcrae and commissioner carlson and also commissioner barofsky welcome it's it's nice to have you on board i really was hoping that someone would say state your name after she said i state your name i was

10:02 really just kind of waiting for that that moment but um i just have a few timely updates um i've been trying to keep the board appraised um as we go forward on where we are relative to a few coveted things so first of all at year end our disconnect orders which is something we've been tracking as well as our 30 to 60 day payment aging numbers the both of those have returned to approximately pre-covered levels active disconnect orders are now hovering somewhere between 350 and 500 while the 30 to 60 day aging is somewhere between one and one and a half million dollars it bounces up and and down within those ranges but those

10:49 are roughly uh ranges that we were seeing before uh covid and started hitting us last march secondly uh for the first month in in several eweb fully subscribed our ecc customer care applications on monday at the first of the month of about 580 customers it's been a number of months since we've fully subscribed beginning of the year people get get another shot at it and so fully subscribed effective on monday and so and we as you if you recall we hold back a few of those for some of the people who for disability purposes can't actually

11:34 get get through to us so um that's another item i wanted to update the bore out on and we're we are continuing to see some depression in electricity consumption um it was about 1.8 percent at the retail level um non-weather related weather plays a role in that but when we filter that out about 1.8 lower than we would typically expect um because of uh sort of covet economy um the total year to date last year is is going to be about a little over 3 3.2 or so decline so it's recovered a little bit over the last few months at one point we were seeing between four and five percent so it's recovered uh a little bit finally in december i

12:21 i you know some good news eweb and the other owners of the mgp site did receive the certificate of completion from the deq stating that the parties have satisfactorily completed the site cleanup and remediation requirements of the consent judgment you know thanks to the uh environmental and property teams for really many years of work um negotiating those agreement and getting that work done and so that's a pretty significant milestone that'll help us um with the city of eugene um sale as well so those are my updates uh welcome aboard everybody 2021's got to be a good year i can just feel it maybe because of you know low

13:06 expectations from 2020 but um looking forward to it thank you commissioner schlossberg great thank you frank um okay so um ann are all of our um uh guests for public testimony public input here yes they are okay great so we're gonna move on to item number four which is public inputs um so when your name is called remember to unmute your call you can press star six if you're calling from a landline or simply use the unmute button if calling from your cell phone or computer please state your name and optionally your address reward

13:51 and speak clearly each speaker will be offered three minutes to present their testimony please keep track of time we're going to help you with that too and has a little clock that's going to help us and we'll let you know when your time has elapsed after all testimony is heard each commissioner will have an opportunity to speak if they choose although by policy we do not engage in a back and forth dialogue please note that a failure of a commissioner to speak shall not be construed as support of or opposition to any speaker's testimony if a question is presented by a speaker and the board does not provide an answer an eweb staff member will contact the speaker so that the question can be addressed at a later time

14:37 so the public testimony for this meeting is now open gavel in and we have three people queued up first we have jim new followed by sandra bishop and then stephen anderson and then we have additional testimony um of jenny bennett that will be read by joe harwood so jim you are up first and you have three minutes thank you commissioners my name is jim new i live in ward 7. i'd like to congratulate and welcome commissioners barofsky carlson and mcrae to the board i thank you all for your commitment to public service with the new year upon us we all have aspirations and i hope you'll consider these goals for e-web in 2021. decarbonization equals electrification

15:24 but it also means divestment the best way to get off of fossil fuels is to not patronize corporations that are contributors of carbon major projects there are other banking institutions besides u.s bank that have cleaner portfolios and can meet eweb's needs many municipalities nationwide including eugene have diversified from dirty banking institutions rooftop and community solar and wind energy should be implemented into eweb's energy sourcing to mitigate the expected lack of hydropower due to climate change effects on the lack of snowpack resiliency should be built into the system through local solar and battery storage the e-web net metering policy for surplus domestically generated solar electricity

16:09 should be evaluated for parity and price sold equal to price generated monthly net metering should be changed to an annual and commercial per meter limit to grid should be raised from 25 kilowatts to 200 kilowatts communication between the city and e-web should be increased to create a local solar plan that would bring all lane county utilities and local solar companies who have regular work sessions on how to increase and incentivize energy produced from local solar considering lane county is implementing a climate action plan the lane county board of commissioners and the county climate advisory committee should be part of these discussions the e-web electrification impact analysis report should be presented at the work session and a directed plan of action should be

16:54 discussed and formulated lastly eweb watershed is subject to impaired quality and quantity due to short timber rotation harvests on private timber monoculture plantations clear cuts dry soils and their ability to hold moisture for fifteen to twenty years before a canopy can provide shade this reduces ev tapo transportation increasing early snowmelt increases flooding leading to water turbidity requiring more water filtration costing utilities and the consumers as the provider of drinking water for wayne county residents e-web stewardship and the oregon climate action plan discussion is imperative on smart forest management practices that improve carbon sequestration and protects our water shed sourcing

17:41 thank you for ewebs continued commitment to a healthy environment and for listening i look forward to another productive year from this board and eweb staff thank you thank you jim um next up we have sandra bishop hello good evening this is sandra kent i'm my honor yep you're on okay great thanks good evening and thank you for allowing me to address the board this evening i'm here to speak with you about the water tank project on the hill above 40th and patterson street in eugene my home is in ward 8 adjacent to the

18:26 site my name for the record is sandra bishop i'm here to ask that the board being a newly constituted board with two new members that the board put their full attention on the specifics and details of the location of the first tank on this very important project there is no question that we need the water storage that's not the issue here the issue issue here is the location of the first tank so please look carefully at this situation specifically i hope that the board especially new board members coming on will look and get look at the situation and get more factual information and studies from the staff on what if

19:13 any difference it would make to the project if the first tank was located slightly to the west of the preliminary site so right now there's a tank site one and a tank site too so what i'm asking is that you need to make sure that you have all of the background and all of the comparison between those two sites and i think once you have that you'll see the efficacy and the wisdom of locating the first tank which needs to be built right away locating that in what's being called site two because i know the other tank's coming along maybe in 10 years so this is a large property it's 10.74

20:01 acres and so there's room to maneuver on it so we're not asking we're not trying to set up an either or situation and i want to push back a little bit on staff i just saw a letter recently where staff is talking about recommendations from the oregon department of wildlife fish and wildlife you know using odfw to rationalize the sighting of the first tank that's crazy they have no jurisdiction over eweb you guys do a good job but you really need to look at this do the math do the calculations how much carbon is being sequestered in the grove of trees that are slated to be clear-cut for site one

20:46 we're looking at that and then you're looking at site two with a lot fewer trees would need to be removed from that to build the first tank so really look at this you're talking you know you've got people testifying about decarbonization don't just pretend like this is not a major carbon issue because it is so thank you and i'm sure you look at it congratulations to matt and to commissioner boroski thank you thank you sandra um next up we have stephen anderson i'm here great go ahead can you hear me yeah can hear you just fine great well i want

21:33 to congratulate the new board members and uh and returning members as well and i am with friends of patterson hill the same project that sandra bush just talked about i am in the same region eight i would especially like to invite the commissioners on a walkabout so they can see what we are talking about because i don't think that's really happened i think they've been shown the site present board members but i don't think they realize what we're going to lose if we cite tank one on the present site that the engineers have picked and it looks to me like the engineers were told to cite two tanks and they

22:19 went one and two just looking at elevations i don't believe they did a walkabout at all and um tank site 2 is the obvious place for the first tank because you're in a hurry and it is going to be easier to build there's no impediment at all to building on that site first the impediment to tank site one as it presently stands is you're going to cut 260 trees 160 of which are on tank site 1. some of them are older than eugene it's some fabulous habitat we do not want to lose that one day earlier than we need to engineers solve these problems all the

23:05 time and in my neighborhood no one nobody wants to lose that old growth now so we're asking our voices to be heard kova has made it impossible for the public to actually know what's happening and i i i guess what i want to know is how many comments are you getting about people wanting to move the tank sightings and um what's next are we going to go to court are we going to do civil disobedience i can't really get any clear answers so that's what i'm after i would love to uh

23:50 to show that the new board members especially what we what we're about to lose we have affiliated woodpeckers it depends on big timber and uh we've got it here this site is uh well this is called uh an eweb legacy site and i think the legacy needs to be that we build the tank in the saddle and save the old growth as long as we can thank you for your time thank you um so last step we have public input reading by joe harwood on behalf of jenny bennett thank you uh jenny bennett uh

24:36 lives in john brown's ward which is ward five hi my name is jenny bennett i'm a senior vice president at summit bank i'd like to thank the eweb board of commissioners for keeping some of eweb's deposit dollars locally at summit this was an initiative that was undertaken by your board three years ago summit is a local business bank headquartered in eugene all of our banking decisions are made here our 75 eugene-based colleagues work downtown almost all of our team resides in eugene and our eweb customers the dollars that are deposited into summit bank are invested right back into the eugene community the money on deposit from eweb

25:21 has allowed us the opportunity to lend approximately 75 percent of your dollars back into small to medium-sized loans for business owners in eugene for example this year your deposits allowed us to make over 350 eugene-based paycheck protection program loans totaling nearly 100 million dollars which allowed local employers to retain thousands of workers as our bank continues to grow these deposit dollars also enable us to hire additional colleagues who either currently reside here or who are moving to eugene and our future eweb customers the impact on our community is significant on behalf of all my colleagues at summit thank you for going

26:06 local and investing in our bank we are incredibly thankful we appreciate all the work us commissioners do for our community great thank you um so we have no other speakers so the public testimony for this meeting is now closed and at this time commissioners are given the opportunity to comment if they so choose so i can't see everybody's pictures but i guess you can go ahead any of the commissioners if you would like to

26:52 respond uh sonia's here i don't know i can't see everybody either yeah go ahead sonia okay uh well i wanted to thank the uh thank everybody for the testimony this evening um i i think there were some comments made last time about um about banking um jim i really appreciate you bringing that up and i know a number of years ago we did direct uh frank and the team to make more of the investments local and i think that they went forward and did what they could but my understanding is there's others there's certain rules and requirements on where our funds have to be that limit what kinds of institutions so i think we've tried to max out what we can and frank correct me if i'm wrong i mean if there's more that we can do

27:37 there i you know i i would be personally supportive of trying to put more towards our local banks and support our local community more um but i do understand that that there are certain fiduciary responsibilities and requirements based on um us being a utility that sometimes we can't get out of and also sometimes the banks themselves can only also uh take a certain amount from us um that's that piece on the uh the water issue i mean i personally had the opportunity with a number of the other commissioners that were here at the time a number of months ago to go up and walk through the site and talk with staff and really drill them on whether or not we could actually site the water plant or the the

28:22 water storage tank on the other location and again and again and again we've come back to it will lose more trees if we cite it in the location that is being suggested so i mean i i really fully do trust staff i think they are doing everything in their power i mean if they could make a magical situation that made everybody happy wouldn't that be wonderful sometimes that's not um the case and that's really unfortunate you you either put it in this location and it's right next to your homes and i and i know that that's very frustrating and it's going to be a big impact i personally also have a a site that's going to be put in and it's going to have an impact that's part of development in the area now what we want to do eweb as a public utility is make sure that the impacts that we're making on

29:07 the community are as thoughtful as possible and because we're a public utility we do look out for the environment we look out for the rate payers we're trying to make the best decisions possible and i do have faith that the staff are doing that especially after the walk-through that i went through and if uh matt and john if they have not had that opportunity um i would love to go back up there and do that with them again um to see the site and ask more questions but at this point unless frank has any other information i mean my understanding is that it will cost more of those old growth trees that we don't want to cut down if we have to take up the other site first and that's not what we want to do that's not what i want to do so i'm just i'm putting that out there i if there's other information that you need to

29:52 that you need that's not being uh put out there please let us know what that information specifically is but um my understanding is there's a very good website out there and there's been lots of opportunities uh for zoom meetings and public input in that regard that it's not uh that they've been trying to do what we can during this time to really make that a clear process and so i do appreciate your um your understanding during the covid time we're not trying to hide anything at all and i i mean when we even we talked about this before covid hit um our main concerns as a as a commission was to make sure that the community had the input and felt like they were brought along and brought into the fold on what we were doing there this is a public process so you know

30:38 i'm i i don't know where else we can go right now given um our current covet situation but i mean if we need to have more zoom meetings maybe that's something we can do but other than that i don't know that there's much else that we can offer at this time so those are my comments thank you again for being involved in the process um it does it does make you know make us think about uh where we're going and i i hear you but i also have only heard from you two um from from steve and sandra bishop uh for the last five board meetings and i don't think we've heard i i personally haven't heard from anybody else in the neighborhood about it so you know i you're beating the drum but i'm not hearing it from anybody else

31:24 so that's my two cents thank you very much thanks sonia uh john brown is there anything that you would like to to add uh no i think sonia said it all and said it very well thank you sonia for doing that but uh i thank everybody for public testimony and we take it seriously but uh to kind of rearrange what uh mr carlson said uh we we look at the macro on things like this we have the best engineers i think that we can we can have and and designers and things and we're very we're probably the most uh responsible organization i've ever been associated with about the environment and doing the right thing and you know this is urban facility this is urban location this isn't a park

32:09 um and we have to uh you know we have to make some tough decisions the city regime had to put a main fire station right next to the only condominium ever developed downtown and you know it is what it is it's it's an urban facility it has to serve more than just immediate areas so um i know what your frustrations are but i'm gonna listen to all everything all the input and make make the decision thank you thanks um john barofsky is there anything that you'd like to say yes thank you thanks for the people coming out and testifying i always uh enjoy this as somebody who's stood on that side of the microphone i know how how challenging it can be um matt and myself

32:54 did have the chance to go up and tour the property um earlier on uh last year the end of last year um and myself when i was talking to staff uh i kind of brought up the fact that i'm fairly familiar with some land use issues that go on in the city of eugene being the city of eugene planning commissioner prior to my uh tenure here actually i'm still a planning commissioner for a few more months um and i know that there are area plans that are specific to that piece of property uh the south hills plan is is governs the land use on that area now the eweb got a a waiver or basically to not have to comply with all all of the compliance issues of the

33:42 south hills study but i specifically asked staff are you doing everything you can to adhere to the south hill studies even though you're not bound by that study and they said that they are using that plan to the best of their abilities to move that project forward so that made me feel good i do understand the the apprehension of cutting those big trees they're beautiful and they're uh they're a very nice amenity to the to the neighborhood um so with that being said i'm gonna learn more about this as much as time goes on the other thing i would like to say is thanks to jenny bennett and the summit bank people she mentioned

34:27 the fact that those funds were leveraged to help local small businesses get uh paycheck protection program loans i personally can speak to the fact that uh my businesses did receive a paycheck protection program loan through summit bank that helped to keep over 40 people employed during the pandemics so it was nice to see that that could happen and that we're keeping our funds locally as much as possible so thank you great thanks john matt is there anything that you would like to add uh sure thanks i'll be quick um sandra and steven thank you for your comments i look forward to learning more about that project as john mentioned we did have a

35:12 chance to walk the site but i'm looking forward to hearing more and learning more about it um and uh and then that likewise like want to thank jenny bennett for for making comments um about the banking efforts that that e-ebit is making and lastly um jim uh thanks for your comments you hit on a number of topics um that all seem valid and worth uh consideration and if your comments are already written down i wonder if you'd be willing to send them to us electronically that's all i have thank you all right thank you um just one quick or a couple quick things for me um i know that this is the second time that jim newas mentioned about uh local banking

35:58 and i know frank that we were given the information that sonya referenced before but i'm wondering if it'd be possible to get us just a list of where there are opportunities for us to switch some of our banking from some of the large corporate banks and when when those opportunities would arise i know that we have some accounts maybe that have certain time limits on them but just curious like what those opportunities would be yeah commissioner uh schlossberg i can i can answer that a little bit right now if you unless you'd like to finish and then i'll just uh follow up with some final statements if you'd prefer to do that that way just my last little quick thing was about um was about the water storage tanks and

36:43 i i know that it's really tricky and that we're it's a sensitive subject because we're trying to balance homeowners and rate payers just just to echo what both sonya and john have said um ecological sensitivity um but i too felt when we went out there for a site visit and just in our conversations with the staff that they have been really thoughtful about it and i know that they're gonna make we're gonna make some decisions that some people are not gonna be happy about but i do have faith that staff is working really hard to try to balance all of those um all the the tricky aspects of it so that is all i was going to say so frank if you want to go ahead

37:29 yeah i'd like to clarify a couple of things so first of all the local banking and the large-scale banking are two different issues a couple of years ago the board encouraged staff to invest more money locally as we could there is a limit to that because of mitigating financial risk to the utility and so um we have invested what we can in in local banks and summit is is a good example of that separate from that a few years ago we did an rfp for our banking services which is more of the larger scale uh sort of full services

38:14 i believe we're going to go through that process again in i believe it's 2022 and so there'll be another opportunity and part of an rfp is to look at environmental attributes of those facilities or of those institutions we moved away from wells fargo uh for a reason associated with their treatment of veterans which was at the guidance of the board a few years ago so um there will be another opportunity i believe that's in 2022 to take another look at our complete banking services um rfp process so as far as the timing that's what we would look at so um relative to the other subjects that jim brought up

39:00 there will be opportunities to look at at um net metering for example that needs to be part of a larger discussion that i have teed up for 2022 around ra the raid making um and rate design process i'll go through some of that with what happens this year versus next year and why um and then um relative to the east 40 of the site there's there's a few things it's actually really premature to list the number of trees i think at this point other than just rough estimate we are trying to reduce the the impact on the environmental impact of this project we are expecting our final ecological study

39:45 and geotechnical report in the first quarter and we'll do a final design layout probably early in the second quarter you know when we do that we'll have a much more specific number of trees in the meantime i have actually also asked staff to evaluate doing both tanks um part of that is based on more of an immediate need part of that is based on the fact that it's very disruptive to do uh two just a a few years apart and so we may actually end up recommending we're going to look at the pros and cons we're going to analyze that in in a number of detailed ways um as to whether we actually just do both tanks um either sequentially one right after the other sort of semi-simultaneously

40:31 um there are some opportunities to save in bidding processes and procurement deployment and construction but there's also some downside to that too so we're going to evaluate that but it's a little premature to count the number of trees we have received some pieces of feedback most of that is just very general don't clear-cut the property kind of feedback i think that that's not our intent certainly and we're trying to be as environmentally responsible and we're trying to be as transparent as possible we have sent 11 status update emails to neighbors we've had a number of meetings and outreach and we've responded to over 40 inquiries directly and so this is not something

41:17 we're hiding behind and i have a lot of faith in staff to make the engineering decisions we're asking for public input relative to landscape and public amenities but honestly this is an engineering decision when it comes to the tank layout and the construction process so we're trying to keep that perspective as well but i think i i clarified a few things that came up relative to banking and other things so thanks for letting me jump in great thank you okay moving on to board action item five the approval of consent calendar a a move to adopt consent calendar a second right uh sorry you'll just have to

42:04 help me with my robert's rules of order do we have a discussion or do we just go ahead and vote on that and vote on it if nobody nobody pulled anything is there you know it's been moved in segments during discussion if there's not then you vote italian okay thank you um is there any discussion all right you can go ahead and vote all those in favor of approving consent calendar a raise your hand and say aye aye aye all right that is unanimously approved um moving on to item number six approval of consent calendar b move to adoption set calendar b second all right anybody have any

42:51 discussion or things that they want to say about consent calendar b no okay all those in favor of approving consent calendar b raise your hand and say aye great that was unanimously approved we're just cruising through this meeting thank you commissioners um commissioner schlossberg i just like to inject one thing because some people may wonder what what's the purpose of consent calendar a and b consent calendar a is generally items that we have gone through a very standardized process on and so this would be rfps things that um we get

43:36 the right number of bidders everything from a procurement policy perspective has been normal and if if one of those was not approved we would basically have to scrap it and throughout the whole process and start over it's it's kind of it's it's almost an all or nothing kind of approach consent calendar b are things that are things like resolutions there's they're unique items if if we don't get enough bidders on an rfp it might be in consent calendar b which the question would be well how do you know you're being competitive that way so we've we've tried to stage this in such a way that consent calendar a is pretty much standardized kind of process and everything is met and consent calendar b might have a few

44:22 abnormalities to it that's that's why we structured it that way thank you great okay then we can move on to item number eight which is the 2021 election of officers right i moved to approve commissioner schlossberg as president and commissioner john brown as vice president great um so now i guess there's anybody that has anything that they feel differently about or want to have a discussion i i may suggest mindy you may want to

45:08 ask if there are any other nominations from the floor if not you will close them okay are there any other nominations from the floor okay um so we can go ahead and vote this is weird that i'm leading the vote but anyway um all those in favor of approving that slate raise your hand and say aye aye aye great approved you've done such a good job you won the opportunity to do it the rest of the year thank you [Laughter] your pay adjustment yeah right exactly

45:58 okay we'll just keep moving right along um so the next thing we have is agenda item number nine and it's the appointment of board liaison assignments and committees and i know that at our last board meeting everybody kind of went around and just said a little bit about what their assignments are and this is is the time where it's a little bit odd for the new people just because you kind of have no idea what we're talking about or what you're signing up to do so um we can just go over again what those assignments are and um who is go who would like to take on those responsibilities so i'm just going to read from the agenda is that um we have a representative on the lane council of governments

46:43 and sonia has been doing that and um i believe sonia that you're interested in continuing to do that i i am interested in continuing although if somebody else really wants that position um i'm i'm open to stepping down if others are interested i've been serving on it for the last few years and um so either way and so i knew you're on the board of el cognos for the last year or yeah for the last year i've served um on the executive committee as well and so i um i'm not it's not slated as i'm i'll be in again this year though i can i could throw my hat in um to be elected to be on the

47:30 executive committee again and any others you know if you're interested and wanted to be in this position um you could do the same so it it does we meet um the regular board meets quarterly it's and it's usually a couple of hours um it's you know it's the council of government so it's a really great way to meet a lot of the other governmental entities uh in the region uh we also have been typically in normal times like once we get out of the covid situation um the meetings do move around to different locations so that it kind of showcases the different uh jurisdictions a little bit more but right now obviously we're all meeting on zoom

48:20 so just a question for everybody just in terms of process and how to do this do we want to just run through what all the things are first or go through each and say who wants to do it um well as a new commissioner i would say uh either would work for me um one of the questions that i had i going through the agenda i noticed that there were quite a few um positions that had no designated alternates and i'm just wondering if that's something that normally are filled because i think that like for example elcog you know i i i really support sonia

49:06 continuing on in that position but if there would be an opportunity for an alternate that that might be something that i would be interested in and so i was just i was just wondering if if in the past there were alternates for a lot of these ones or if it's just it's not so that's just a question that i had um i can speak to that from a historical perspective yes there were um and it just became a logistics issue um there have always been alternates especially on elcog and uh in in the just a little background that this sub lane electric and city of eugene liaisons are new um those and uh the only other one that's been uh opeb and nwppa are the

49:52 others so there's been there have been backups to that i think there would be a back up to elkhog and uh not to open such a quarterly meeting and um maybe one i don't know about frank and you have a backup to nwppa no it's it's really an individual position it's it's not awarded to the utility and so there there would not be an alternate uh for the nwppa okay so it sounds like sony you're interested in continuing and john browsky that you are potentially interested in being a alternate for that position

50:38 does that sound sound right okay great um okay so the next one we have is the mckenzie watershed council and according to my or our notes here is that eweb staff is on that and that there's no designated commissioner is that something that in the past has had a commissioner be part of yes we i think we went away from a commissioner participation what three years ago frank i think it was a little longer than that uh commissioner brown but um it has bounced back and forth i think for the last at least three years maybe five years it has been uh supported by staff and so is there anyone who is interested in participating in that as well

51:24 or are we good with staff well i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna jump in and say i i don't know how i do this but i always end up on a lot of committees whenever i get involved um but i think that this at this time with what's happened off the mackenzie i think it's it's fairly important that we have a commissioner on that position uh to help with staff um i think there's gonna be a lot of things that are gonna be uh happening in that area so i would be willing to to do it if nobody else wants to jump in i'm curious what the um how often their meetings are and what the commitment is for that i'll look into that president

52:10 schlossberg maybe i'll have staff reach out to commissioner barofsky directly as far as where we see the the role and the information sharing going and and we can report back next month and either that or commissioner barofsky can report back as well great okay we could potentially elect on that one to have um to have commissioner borofsky uh be designated but staff could also participate correct i mean they could come and if they could be the designated alternate um as needed right yeah the the reason that it ended up as a staff position was we were

52:55 participating very actively anyway and so um it just made sense that staff was that if there's a commissioner who would like to be involved in that and represent the board in that liaison role then that's perfectly um acceptable and and beneficial to the board but staff will be very active in the organization um especially given the the present state of condition of the mckenzie as as commissioners are well aware so we will be very active in that group either way great okay um opeb other post employment benefits so that's something that commissioner brown is currently on and does not have a alternates

53:43 and john i'm assuming that you want to continue on with that yeah it's a it's a non-voting position i just i'm i listen and then i try and report back and it kind of get the health of the the post retirement benefits package it's you know it's a 17 million dollar fund and we meet quarterly i think isn't that right and uh it's it's i'd be more glad to stay there it's it's a really uh um uh it's easy and uh if somebody if somebody else wants it that's fine but i'll do it to check the box it doesn't matter to me i've done it in the past and i was just reappointed last year and i'll stay if you'd like anyone else chomping at the bit for that position john brosky

54:36 okay so we'll stick with john brown for that position um so the next one is a northwest public power association and this was the big one that um dick helgeson was um he was that was his position and frank can you just give a little bit more information about that to us yes certainly so this is this is a position that is um an elected position through the nwppa to the individual there are a number of utilities they try to balance their board with various states various mix of general managers and board members have a very good relationship with nwppa

55:23 it isn't something that's a necessity to keep the relationship healthy there is a period of time between now and i'll say roughly may where we could appoint a temporary replacement for commissioner former commissioner helgeson for i think it's probably two or three virtual meetings if you wanted to sit through that not absolutely necessary but if you were interested in in the go forward representation that's something that we would need to submit a name to nwppa by the end of january and then that's voted on um by the the nwppa board members so it's

56:11 it's an individual thing it meets uh two or maybe quarterly two or three times a year um historically and not very exciting places around the remote west unless you just have a lot of time and would really enjoy going to um spokane or boise or see in places like that so um yeah it we have a great relationship um it's not absolutely necessary but that's kind of the lay of the land if a commissioner wanted to just test the waters there's a few meetings that you could participate in but that takes you past the deadline to apply so

56:58 either ones and either one's an option and so just to be clear during covet times these meetings are obviously via zoom but during regular times you actually go to the meetings and there's it it takes it takes a big chunk of your time i remember that was one of the issues of finding a replacement for that yeah usually they're two or three days um and um to i i won't quote commissioner health our former commissioner helga said on the the amount of density in those two or three days i'll refrain from comment and how how big of a deal would it be if we don't have somebody on that it is not a big deal at all um we leverage nwppa significantly for

57:44 their training um we also work with them closely on legislative positions um they pass resolutions around certain uh issues for example that we work with them on um it is it is not a big deal um we we have a a good working relationship i have a good relationship with the executive director um so it is it is not at all an issue um that would reflect poorly on eweb okay okay with all that information is there anybody that is interested in exploring that position i don't think i sold that version right i i just have a question about it uh

58:31 so obviously it's a learning curve here type of a deal if we were to pause on this for a year they they take their they take their applications in january so we could auto i somebody could audit them on some zoom meetings to see if it's something they'd be interested in we could leave the position open for a year but continue to maybe put in a nomination next january when some people know more about what's going on so yeah so um just to be clear commissioner we don't leave the position open it's it's filled by somebody else so this is elected we could at a later time submit a commissioner name um for potential election into a position

59:16 and in the meantime there are a number of meetings that i think we could audit or participate in if if a commissioner wanted to so understand the lay of the land there um but the position will be filled by somebody other than an e-web name there's there's a lot of members and a few board members and so we have representation through other uh utilities john if i could jump in i did it for about five years and uh i quit because it was it was so time consuming you have quarterly meetings and an annual meeting in places like anchorage reno sacramento billings and uh and just the travel you got to get there day before and then the meetings are two or three days long and then you got to travel back and you do the math that

1:00:02 that comes up to almost 20 business days or a month of your time and uh it just got to be too much to do and that's i would caution you if you you know keep that in mind because we go back to real meetings there's there there they ask that you be present at the meetings okay we could arrange job let's just be we could arrange if a commissioner has a future interest that we could arrange for some audits of meetings okay there is there is the potential for somebody to participate in the zoo meetings and just let it run out we could appoint somebody to fill dick helgeson's role for just the next few months while we have zoom and then that expires and then if that person was interested in throwing their

1:00:48 hat back in come next january then they could do that yeah they that's an option as well so if someone would want to participate in the next couple of meetings between now and may then this this would be the time the time to identify that person and they're still all day i mean it's it's all day meeting for you know the zoom meeting for it too right other than the walk your dog breaks at noon but you know basically it's all day okay so you've all made this sound like a really attractive appointment is there anybody who would like it but not at this time okay so we'll revisit this next year or at some other time

1:01:33 very good um so next we have springfield springfield utility board john brown you still are a liaison with them is that right yeah i said frank and i have been working on uh the aws site and the swap the property swap and all that we've had numerous meetings and i think that may be coming to a sunset if that's if i'm not correct but we still have the interaction of trying to explore maybe a joint venture on on the willamette facility even though we're not going to do one on the mckenzie facility i'm more glad to stay in that position unless somebody else wants it and don't worry matt and john brofsky we'll have a chance again next year it's

1:02:19 not like these positions are are lifetime appointments so there there will be other things that open up um and speaking of that the next one lane electric cooperative i believe that steve mattall was um he was meeting with them occasionally but i don't know how active that that position has been maybe you know frank yeah that was not a very active liaison role i think there's there could be more opportunities over the next year or two uh with lane electric in particular around things to do up the mckinsey valley you know interconnection of systems potentially even looking at at territory exchanges

1:03:06 and things like that so i think you know again i have a good relationship with the general manager debbie wilson but it would be good to have a board level relationship um either through the presidency or through an appointed liaison i think that that will become more helpful over the next year or two so i'm happy to do that as board president this year but again if there's somebody else that has like a burning desire or really wants to um that's okay too okay so that will be me [Music] um and just point uh real quick we do i think we do have to vote on all of these so we'll have to go through and do

1:03:52 the list okay just want to double check okay okay and the last one is the city of eugene for climate-related matters so that's a new one that just started in the last year or so and um it's been i've been the liaison along with the board president but now that i'll be board president there's room for somebody else to join me as a liaison and we get together quarterly and just talk about things that we have in common related to mostly to the climate action plan but also just it's a good chance to to chat about things that we have going on together

1:04:40 i'd be happy to step into that um alternate or support role great so just to be clear it's it's like there's two of us together so it's not alternate it's yeah you would be a participant sounds good okay okay so i think that is all do i need to go back and read what all of those are or do we just go ahead and vote president i think it's pretty clear through the through the tape or the notes as to what the what the motion would entail just as discussed i think would cover it so you don't have to go back through it all again okay and did i leave anything out i think i got them all

1:05:32 um i've moved that we adopt the 2021 board liaison assignments and committees as previously discussed second all right all those in favor raise your hand and say aye aye aye right okay we have those done great um okay so next we're going to move on to general business items and we have a scheduled five-minute break we are running ahead of schedule and we have less than an hour left on our agenda so i'm wondering do people want to take a five minute break or do you want to just push on through so give me a thumbs up if you want a five minute break

1:06:18 okay so we will take a five minute break it's 6 36 so we will come back at 6

1:10:58 all right it is 6 41 give everybody another oh here we start coming back now great all right i can't see everyone to see if john brown is back yes okay um so commissioner or sorry president schlossberg and just from a navigation perspective if you click on any of the pictures down below it'll bring up all the pictures and you can toggle back and forth so that way you can see if you can keep track of of your fellow commissioners that way got it thank you i feel like i've mastered zoom at this point but not microsoft teams

1:11:47 okay so we are on um agenda item number 11 the 2021 organizational goals and performance measures so frank this is you so president schlossberg commissioners good evening thank you for the audio record this is frank lawson general manager you received a background memo on the proposed organizational goals these goals are presented consistent with policy but also as one of the contributing criteria of the general manager's annual performance evaluation i believe that i'm accountable to you for the organization's performance and i'd like to provide some context on the goals as we've submitted for 2021. go ahead with the next slide please

1:12:37 so the first goal can be paraphrased which is you know run the utilities like you're supposed to with additional emphasis this year on workforce resiliency we've done a really good job of financial resiliency building infrastructure that's resilient and this will involve leadership and management development workforce mobility and enhancing our flexibility and bench strength so we're really trying to run the organization consistent with policy regulations resolutions there are more than 40 active resolutions at this time and our values so similar to previous years we have a number of measures and report the results of this quarterly

1:13:22 using at least 40 different metrics or measurements and this year will include some very specific reports as we go on on base level reservoir projects for example customer self-service and billing improvements also known as the customer experience improvement and also carmen smith and things like that unless they're actually covered under a separate goal so we a number of different measurements that we will report quarterly to the board that basically we are running the utility like you have expected of us and and are directing us to do so the second goal is about substantially completing the commissioning of am the ami project and this is really from a cash register perspective uh and in preparation for future data

1:14:08 analytical based new products and services but we're really this is about scaling up we this last year put in some additional communications infrastructure worked on processes and now it's really time uh to start accelerating the deployment for some some really just very fundamental purposes really the meter to cash kind of perspective there's there's as you know lots of strategic benefits to ami but we need to scale up and we need to do it starting simple and then expanding the third goal provides you with the opportunity to understand develop and provide some longer term direction to the utility

1:14:53 i think this is especially important in the three of you did not participate in the development of the last strategic plan revision and so this will provide some opportunity to look at some of the long-term issues and opportunities facing the utility as we go forward next slide please this fourth goal recognizes that the board and management have a lot of work to do to provide guidance to the utility while this goal presents issues related to strategy many need some tactical direction and some key on some key and timely issues compared to what i would really refer to

1:15:38 in 2020 as a pretty benign work year for the board um there wasn't a lot of long-term strategic tactical um guidance that was and discussions that were taking place this goal places a a much heavier burden on the board in 2021 and in fact for 2022 because i a lot of these i tried to give you some background in the in the memo that would lead that there's there's more coming relative to providing and aligning the utility so for 2021 we'll work with you on drinking water source protection for example lower mckenzie hydro projects

1:16:24 the information system plan which is really focused on business continuity i think like a lot of our other infrastructure we need we have assets in our is and information systems that that need some significant replenishment we'll work on fire mitigation and also looking at a multi-year cost of service analysis which is really a prerequisite to the strategic discussions in 2022 around future rate design and future rate design is probably one of the most important things i think this board can really tackle in the next couple years it's it's that fundamental so when people talk about just something

1:17:09 as simple as we are going to be agnostic to your generation resource if someone wants to put in a solar system that's fine right now we are not agnostic to that decision or do or do we want to provide a cross subsidy for that these are just fundamental decisions that that need to take place in the next couple years around new products and services and um do we what direction does the board want to go with that so very very fundamental a lot of work here in 20 you know after 2021 being i'll say from a board perspective probably a little bit boring to lots of things from a board perspective now in 2021 and 2022. so um a little bit apologies to the new

1:17:56 commissioners uh drinking from a fire hose is probably gonna that the dial is gonna get the valve's gonna be opened up a little bit more than than uh might have been uh sort of our typical run rate um the um next slide please and and finally goal 5 captures work around an issue that of community interest it represents some groundwork needed for e-webs future electricity generation resource decisions uh as you may recall eweb will need to make decisions impacting uh roughly 85 percent of our present electricity resources by 2028 and so um understanding the impacts and the modeling on the consumption side

1:18:42 is is half of that equation both of those changing um and will change dynamically going forward so this is kind of the next step of a continued work that started last year but it's it's fundamental base work um so uh next slide so as a reminder we we don't just state our annual goals we really work toward their achievement and provide regular quarterly feedback to the board and to the public and yes this is personal to me as well i am accountable to you for the organization's performance it's a mix of keeping the lights on and the water flowing and the data flowing and the money flowing uh and also strategically positioning

1:19:29 the utility uh for the future and so the goals represent a combination of of both operations as well as strategic positioning next slide please and so commissioners what we would prefer this evening is to get approval on these organizational goals so we can launch right into their immediate full pursuit either as proposed or as suggested or through comment or edit if that's not possible tonight then we will make modifications and and propose approval at next month's meeting um but um i'll give

1:20:16 give you a little bit of feedback it wasn't i think two or three years ago that um we typically got our annual goals to the board in about april um and so um really feel like the organization's come a long way in the last couple years not only to go into the year saying here's what we'd really like to accomplish aligning that with what you would like to accomplish which is part of the policy but doing it immediately and then tying that and holding me and the rest of the organization accountable so that's that's what we're proposing this evening um an emotion is roughly sketched out there but at this point president schlossberg i would be happy to turn it back to you and the rest of the board

1:21:01 for any final questions or comments um i think that's probably the next slide so thank you for the opportunity to provide some context and be happy to to listen to comments at this point right thank you for that um so we can go ahead and open it up if there's anyone who wants to jump in i can just call on people randomly but if you want to raise your hand i can now that i know how to see all of you i can see you thanks um well it does look like a very ambitious year ahead um i think

1:21:48 what would be helpful for me is to in the future kind of put some some dates next to some of these you know it's like okay we want to we want to attack i'm looking at the annual goals you know we want to tackle this one in january march you know just just a timeline on this would be helpful for me to help figure out where we're at and then one thing that i didn't see in the annual goals and i i'm i'm not advocating for adding it to it but i think that with what we've seen with the pandemic and the way that the organ all organizations have staffed and and the the changing

1:22:34 to the workforce the work at home and how that is impacting the organization i think is something also that needs to be at least looked at in the coming years how has the workplace changed and and going forward is that something that is going to be implemented throughout the organization going forward i'm talking work at home i'm talking about telecommuting i'm talking about are we going to lose uh valuable employees that can do this work in a market that can pay them more than we might be able to pay them here i just see that that's something that we're going to want to keep our eye on and it's not in the annual goal it really didn't really raise its its

1:23:19 head until the last half of this year so that was just something that i would i would want to not necessarily add to it but just put have our finger on that pulse of the work force and how covid and this new technology is going to affect the organization going forward yeah thank you commissioner barofsky i will add that part of that emphasis statement on the first goal around uh workforce resiliency is geared toward that particular subject so it's it isn't just about telecommuting that's that's a piece of it there's technological pieces to it there are also opportunities in it from

1:24:05 a recruiting yeah there's risks because you might lose employees to a larger market but there's also the opportunities to recruit the other way as well and so that's what we tried to capture when we talked about workforce mobility and resiliency was that we want to take the opportunities that were created in 2020 because really if you if you take a step back and say there were a lot of really great lessons learned for us as an organization in 2020 how do we leverage that going forward um you know work at home workforce mobility flexibility of staff remote work also not not just from an office perspective but from a field

1:24:51 perspective those are all inclusive of that goal so i think that well as somewhat broadly stated you will see a lot of analysis and and measurements associated with that separately i didn't provide it in the in the memo but we do have a milestones for these objectives so some of them are q1 or q3 or q4 and i'd be happy to share that with the board prior to the next meeting so you have a little feel for when we might be looking to have some of these conversations and and where some of these deadlines would fall

1:25:37 thank you um i generally in agreement with everything we have here i do have a question about goal four though frank um because several of those things in there are very expensive or could potentially be very expensive and they're short-term um i mean you know libra walterville i think it's in watershed recovery are are very short-term and they're not the longer term things that all the other things are and are we going to be able to analyze the economic impacts of on on rates on both water and electric because of trying to implement implement those uh things in a shorter term need yeah those that'll be part of the conversation commissioner brown i i think it's um it it's part of the decision process if we we don't want the board to be in a

1:26:22 position where you're making decisions not understanding the full impact of those decisions and which means what's the impact on the long-term financial plan what's the impact on rates um borrowing capacity what's the environmental impacts what's the social and all all those are important there are some of those decisions that are more pressing in in time than others the the ideal scenario would be that you would develop this wonderful very in-depth uh highly visionary strategic plan and then you would go and all your decisions would align with that strategic plan you know unfortunately um other than if you started up a company from scratch

1:27:07 and it still doesn't work that way because you're usually scrambling to get the company off the ground the timing issue is one where we're going to have to make some strategic assumptions when we make some of these or are the timing is is such that we need to make these decisions sooner rather than later but we'll do that with the broadest scope and impact analysis that we can to help the board make those great well i i too want to echo this this is a a lot to take in we have we have our work cut out for us um i'm excited many of the things uh that i would expect

1:27:52 are in here i'm uh after this last year and uh i'm i'm more antsy on the willamette drinking water treatment plan which i see is uh coming in 2022 so you know i'm i guess i'm a little bit disappointed to not see that moved up a little bit i understand that with covet and we want to make that partnership we want to play that out and see if we can do something there with sub and that has probably been put on hold more than um we would like with covet and all the other things that are pulling our attention away at the same time at some point really do you need to think about are they going to come to the table or not

1:28:38 and i i don't know i may want to see some more pressure there but i do appreciate that it's still on here um and given all the other work that we have to do i understand why it's there but i'm going to be a big proponent of let's get that moving in 2022 then and right away commissioner it's a great point the reason that it got pushed to 2022 and and i say pushed it's it's not neces that we're not going to be working on some things uh relative to that it had less to do with sub than it did the fact that there's a lot of turnover in the springfield city council we need to get the land use options understood and clarified one way or the

1:29:24 other plan a plan b plan c let's let's figure that out so that when we come back to the board we have um some of the uncertainty and unknowns at least stabilized that that that stabilization is what we're going to be working on in 2021 so that we can align with the board around the exact go forward plan in 2022 it's it's it had less to do with sub than it did some of the other issues that we need to solidify okay thank you for that clarification i appreciate that um in terms of some of the other items you know i am curious where in your vision uh projects like the the water storage plants are the the water water storage facilities and

1:30:09 um you know dealing with uh the headquarters building where that falls in these groups because i see those as some of the big items that we've started and need to conclude and i i don't see exactly where they feel so if you can yeah because the um many of those are i would say sort of within so the projects for example tend to be within kind of our traditional capital management pieces there's three projects in particular that we will highlight more than others one of them is the reservoir projects one is carmen smith re-licensing and one is the customer

1:30:54 improvement project that's around customer self-service and others all the others are still visible headquarters i wouldn't say is necessarily sort of utility strategic but it is significant enough that it will be part of that land and property discussion those are all contained within this run the utility um goal number one they're there because they they aren't so much they aren't really strategic shifts they are more in in the normal things that you might expect us to be talking about on a regular basis so that's that's where those reside okay um i mean to that extent then the

1:31:39 advanced metering portion i mean we had made that decision to to implement that infrastructure why is that a strategic initiative still yeah that we we actually had that debate internally does that just roll into a project inside of goal one versus pulling it out some of this i'll tell you specifically with that one i pulled that out separately for two reasons one of them was i think it's a fundamental technology that's going to be important to develop consumption flexibility that we're going to need in the future so it's very strategic it's much more we're not doing this for operational improvements this is this

1:32:24 it's a strategic thing by itself and secondly and i don't know that this is just a utility thing we utilities are not very good at managing sort of cross-functional large-scale information-based projects like this and i thought it it deserved its own attention um just just to put a little pressure on us to to do it and to get it done um so one of them was kind of an internal reason and one of them was a very sort of strategic reason okay i appreciate this site yeah we did have the exact debate that you're talking about was why wasn't this included in the others why was this pulled out separately and that's that's the reason okay

1:33:10 all right well otherwise i'm very supportive of this plan and i mean again so many items on here we really have our work cut out for us but appreciate that my apologies in advance um i feel i feel a little bit guilty because honestly 2020 was so odd um and and i just can imagine from a board perspective it was just let us do something significant um well it's it's all going to come at you in the next year or two specif probably more than any other period that i can think of in recent history this board is going to be very busy um really working on some

1:33:55 challenging highly impactful multi-generational kinds of decisions so i yeah i look forward to that i was gonna comment that this will probably be our shortest meeting of the year so new board members you know don't don't get used to this all right matt thanks um yeah a lot of focus on goal number four and i just have a few questions um and i i agree this is quite the uh quite the the list of of actions to work on here i assume the goal is to have these all wrapped up by the end of this calendar year just in general okay and then

1:34:41 and then you may have said what cosa is on on number on e there but if you did i missed it can you remind me yeah it stands for cost of service analysis it's okay thanks yeah okay um and then um in terms of timing there's only one here and that's item d that seems like um there's some time sensitivity to it to the extent that there are um mitigation actions that are just policy decisions it seems like we probably want to have those done by the time the fire season picks up again in this year um and so it it might be useful to indicate that here or just to i mean i'm sure that's on front of mind um for you it's just the only one that to me seems really

1:35:26 time sensitive i know that uh wildfire mitigation is on our agenda in the next coming couple months so i know you're bringing it to us i just want to make sure we're making decisions in time for those things to be rolled out to be effective for the next fire season right that's a great point um there's there's a few key milestones relative to the wildfire mitigation one is kind of early in the year giving the board a feel for kind of what our best practice is sort of what our state of condition is at this point we would like to have a a plan formalized before fire season but also recognizing there's some some work going on in the legislature that could potentially require a filing

1:36:12 with the oregon puc uh maybe by the end of the year so we want to make sure we're we'll probably be ahead of that but to your point we want to have a really solid uh board approved plan in place before fire season uh hits us and so that's that's built into our kind of milestones for that one now we have similar milestones on the other ones and so some of these for example when i look at the information system plan around business continuity that is something we want to get nailed down by the third quarter and part of that is because it will it will significantly impact future budgets um including starting in 2022's budget

1:36:59 so some of these and as well as long-term financial plans we want to have a really good you know to john brown's point earlier um these can't be made completely in isolation um and so we want to be able to kind of stage these in a way where um we're not sort of mixing the stew all together and and you know over blending it um we still need to see distinguish the vegetable this is a bad allergy i don't even know where i'm going with that but we we have timelines for these and a lot of those are in order to sort through this sequence with the board so that we can set ourselves up going forward but yet they do have milestones with each of them of course

1:37:45 uh and then the last comment i have is um i it's hard for me to imagine how we digest this much in the course of one meeting a month and so i hope we might think about uh you know how we can allocate time effectively for us to uh especially if we're weighing in with policy decisions related to these um items that we we find some time to uh really do some deep dives or you know if there's other ways we do that i don't know but i'm sure you're thinking about how to make sure that we can digest this the fire hose analogy is an apt one yeah i think as you as you turn up the the as you open the valve you need to look at at different nozzles right i

1:38:31 mean there's there's probably the potential to look at just various forms of communications maybe some work sessions that are very topical uh and specific um some of these will come in the natural course of of a meeting some some will not um and and then um really trying to help the board with appropriate background as well um and so yeah i think we're we're looking at this and um saying that there's there is a lot of work here um i'm having some discussions with with the fellow executives around kind of how we in some ways divide and conquer to to really help the board and maybe

1:39:17 probably have me and help the board through this even more um which means i need some help in other areas so um there there is a lot of work here um there may be some things that we get into this and we just go well you know to do this justice we might not be able to to do this but maybe we could do that instead so there's going to be some some working through that but you're absolutely right there's there's a lot of there's a lot to this um and so look forward to that thanks all right i just have a a couple of questions so one is about um resiliency not just workforce resiliency but like disaster preparedness and i know

1:40:02 that that was a hot topic for us and i'm wondering is that now just that we've made enough progress on some of those like big initiatives that that's wrapped up into just the day-to-day performance yeah i wouldn't classify it necessarily president schlossberg is wrapped up i i think that there's there's a sometimes you call out a goal because you want to create a a sort of a c shift could be cultural it could be through objectives when you look at resiliency we've classified that in three ways one is workforce one is financial resiliency and then one is through our our infrastructure we have made a lot of progress in some

1:40:47 of those areas so for example we now have five emergency water sites we wanted to do five in five years we actually didn't do that we did five in three years and and so there's two more that we want to do those are in the normal course of our emergency preparedness business um it is part of what we've said is is important to us it's still part of the strategy and so the strategic direction is part of when you when i said run the utility the way you've told us that is part of what you've told us is important so that's that's why it's not necessarily called out separately um but it is in there um and and i have a feeling that that so

1:41:33 when you have a 24 7 365 kind of product on demand you you have to be able to prepare to continue services independent of the kind of disruption that is about emergency preparedness is about resiliency that will be a a really core feature of the utility in this kind of business model so it doesn't go away it's just absorbed into what you've already told us is important great um and then my other comment is on goal number four i think that it's both exciting that we get to work on all these things and it's been fine if this past year has been kind of boring because the things that we've had to master is

1:42:19 how to do virtual meetings and things like that um but it does make me a little nervous because it is so much and i too like matt i'm very supportive of having like work sessions or ways outside of the regular board meeting to digest some of this information because i'll only speak for myself but since this is not my day-to-day work if we wait a month in between meetings to really get into it sometimes it gets it's not as fresh as it should be and these meetings are really long and so i feel like it really it really requires a lot of our attention and these are very important decisions we're making so i just want to make sure that we give it

1:43:04 um the attention that it needs yeah part of the reason that i didn't want to get too specific with the board on on timelines is that some of these issues honestly you need to take in in bites small bites you and and so it isn't something where we're going to to roll roll up our sleeves and say okay the month of april is devoted to this and we're going to just cram uh everything into april on this one subject so we're hoping to do this in a way that kind of builds on itself and when you understand acosa then you understand rate design when you understand um some some is the infrastructure needs

1:43:50 you'll understand so we're we're going to try to do this in a way but but absolutely i think there's if and and part of my role this year i think with the board is to i want to make sure that we're getting good quality out of this and we're not just doing things to check a box and say oh we got that done and and so we all have to be a little bit of a quality control mechanism for each other but i think if if i'm feeling like we're not giving the subjects enough attention to really get some good substance out of it i have a feeling i won't be the only one who feels that i have you know we'll probably feel it as well but i think we need to be willing to raise the flag and said hey look this is going a

1:44:36 little too fast for me and and that's okay um most of these timelines well i say they're important they're very substantial their generation in their generational in some cases in their impact i also and i hate to quote john brown because it gives him a little bit of an ego but you know sometimes um what is it john better late than wrong i think is what he says um you know so sometimes that's that's appropriate um and i think that's just something we'll have to gauge with each other right john you had your i did i just like to say for some of those might not be aware when when i first started on this board we had two meetings a month

1:45:22 the first one was a work session and then we followed two weeks later with a meeting similar to this where we took action after the items of the work session and we we did that and we did that for years and then for some reasons i think it was just because of the we got pretty well bogged down and buried in it we went to one meeting a month uh and slimmed it down but it's not it's not unprecedented to have work sessions on topics such as this and i can see i i don't disagree as much as meetings are sometimes challenging um i i go back to quote frank that are late than wrong you know if we have to have another meeting uh we'll have another meeting i think it's it's important because these are not i mean these are very very significant things we're taking on now it's not like selling a building or building a

1:46:08 reservoir i mean this these i mean just looking at number four that's that's uh absolutely challenging so uh i'm i'm the majority wants to do that and staff can do it and frank agrees with it i'm not adverse to it yeah i would say one thing that would really help us uh commissioners is if so historically um those meetings were on the first and the third tuesdays in in the evening roughly these time frames if you can block out those you know first and third tuesdays um i mean we won't wait to the last minute on these but it gives us some reasonable ability to plan around these because some of our

1:46:53 biggest challenges relative to scheduling work sessions and such such as has been your schedules so um if if we could agree to you know kind of block out the first and third tuesday we won't wait till last minute like i said and we can work around vacations and summer is always a little bit different but we can that will definitely help us if you could do that so that we can have some opportunities to say well you know this makes sense to do a second meeting in march let's let's plan on a second meeting in march or you know whenever that looks like it's it's going to come about sonia go ahead just real quick i i mean i two second that i'm i'm or third or fourth that um i i think

1:47:40 it is probably going to be needed to have multiple other meetings and i will also note that especially with very very meaty topics doing this through zoom and through uh teams i don't know about you all but i'm on meetings all day long especially tuesdays i mean when we get to the 9th 10th hour of being on another one of these meetings you're starting to cram some of that really dense material into the end the effectiveness is is kind of going down so if we need to break it up a little bit more to make sure that we're really providing that good uh feedback i i'm all for it i think we can definitely shoot for that

1:48:26 because we do want good quality here that might mean that they're meeting it well this is a 6 30 to 7 30 because that's the length of the topic and we feel like that's that's something that we can break off and and and then pursue or six thirty to eight thirty years you know there's we'll try to work within those kinds of parameters great all right so you are looking for a motion it would be great to have a motion i think john barofsky had a i had his hand up the president yeah just real quick um you know if we can get beth forest back here to have me rescind that oath of office i i i could uh maybe want to do that just just in jest

1:49:11 um but another thing to that i would consider after sonia's last comment about a number of zoom meetings and stuff like that is as we move on into the spring and stuff there may be opportunities to do in-person meetings with social distancing you know once they say that you can have 12 people we've got a big board room and we can sit you know 10 or 12 feet apart and i i also feel that those are more productive than sometimes than zoo meetings so with that i will make a motion to approve the plan as submitted do we need the language to be

1:49:56 uh more specific than that nope that's that's acceptable but i think we need a second right all right all those in favor raise your hand and say aye aye all right thank you commissioners you're already behind uh we'll just say it that way it's only the fifth of the year and uh i feel like there's a we've got a lot of work to do well i'm just gonna appreciate that this is a short meeting this month so i'm gonna focus on that don't get used to it right [Laughter] okay so now we are kind of wrapping things up item number 12 correspondence and board

1:50:41 agendas back to you frank yes uh thank you president schlossberg commissioners we had one piece of correspondence i'll just say it was a minor edit to eweb's board policy pertaining to executive sessions we wanted to clarify that in those edits we could have invited guests beyond staff and the board these would be approved by the board president and the general manager it it was pretty nebulous um we did do that i believe in december when we had commissioner alex attend and they technically were not commissioners or staff it's just to clarify that so it's it's a minor edit we would typically unless you have

1:51:27 comments at this meeting you will see that appear on the consent calendar next month for action and so that what that was really a pretty minor edit it looks like john has a comment i yeah i do having been on a board that was somewhat contentious at points and we had uh quite a bit of dissent um giving this latitude to the board president and you know present company excluded uh when it says you know eweb uh invited staff and guests including but not limited to council consultants and commissioner elect so that means a board president can

1:52:12 invite their neighbor if they want taken literally is that not correct that's correct but you would also need the general manager to agree with that as well so there is some check and balance but we we could if you wanted to remove the but not limited to portion um we could restrict it to those categories recognizing that you know there might be another case that comes up that we have to come back to the board for special approval on um if if there's some you know maybe there's a property consultant that we need to invite which then would not really fit into those definitions so um there's some risk with being too broad there if you wanted to tighten it up we could um

1:52:58 but there is a check and balance between the the general manager and the board president yeah i just wanted to know if the language was such that it's either or because it to me it was it was uh not decisive it said at the discretion of the board president and uh but just wanted to make sure that i hate the word smith but if you don't go in there and you get somebody that says okay i'm the board president i can invite anybody i want um there's no real recourse to that there is recourse to the general manager doing that but if it's if it's interpreted by you that it has to be both people to approve who's in that executive session because we talk about some pretty sensitive things then i'm okay with it but i just didn't think

1:53:43 okay i'll make sure that that language gets tightened up john thank you i was going to just suggest a friendly amendment that we say um at the discretion of the board both the board president and the general manager that are something that affects but if you want to do it at a later date that's fine too if you don't need it immediately yeah we we don't need the exact edits today but you should expect to see something slightly tightened up by the time it comes back next month on the consent calendar based on this feedback i mean something to the fact that it's it's specific to that topic as well yes right okay yeah

1:54:30 yeah thank you um that was the only piece of correspondence if you do have other suggestions offline please email me email those to me and we'll make sure we get things tightened up so that by the time you take action next month it's it's all fixed up from an upcoming agenda perspective um february kicks off a a deeper dive so to say into the mckinsey river um with a watershed discussion and also a lower mckinsey generation discussion that's that's really um something that both are very timely um discussions um and so you'll notice those on the agendas and then uh based on the goals that that

1:55:17 were approved this evening you'll start to see stuff fill in more and more by the time we get to to next month's meeting and i will work of course with the directly with the president and vice president on the specifics of each agenda as we as we prepare for those but um take a look at it now and enjoy it because i think it's going to be a little bit more meaty by the time you see this see this next month we also i don't know if you'll notice we we did have an update i believe it was in march or april and that's a placeholder for the tank project the east 40th tank project that will also be included in depth in

1:56:03 our quarterly report and and if there's something in the meantime that we need to report on that project we will do so it really we are expecting some formal reports um and like i said i've asked staff to look into a number of things including doing both tanks we will need both tanks um and so it you know we're evaluating the pros and cons of that um but i think that if you go back to the very beginning we we we are listening we are being transparent um we are just not necessarily providing an answer that someone is looking for and that's um you know that i i don't think that's a reason to say we're not

1:56:48 having a great deal of integrity in the process that we're using so that was all my comments on agendas and and correspondence i'd be happy to answer any questions sonia i just had a quick question about the state of the utility address and historically we've had that in february it looks like this has moved out to march and it also looks like frank would be doing that instead of the board president and i'm just curious if that's the intention or kind of what the thought process was around that yeah it's um i guess i'll talk to um mindy about that it's always i'll be honest it's been really awkward for the board president to do it i would almost rather do that in

1:57:35 march i typically do it in in march when i present the end of the year results and so that's because we we close out the end of the year and i think that's a really good time to take a snapshot and include it in our sort of our year-end encapsulation um the board president it's it's always just been a little bit awkward um the timing and then um really i i almost believe this is me reporting to you here's the state of the utility that seems more natural to me um but i you know if mindy wants to get out you know contract with her daughter to do some writing and and uh you know then that's

1:58:20 okay if she'd rather do that but it it seemed like a duplication of effort to me i i'm open if that's not correct but um no i mean i think i mean i personally made that comment before that it was uh it was a little bit awkward to get voted in as president and then immediately have to turn around and and give the state of the utility when you're kind of just getting your foot getting your feeling about what you're doing as president however um i also know in the past that uh that's been some that's been a way that the board president if they've chosen to do that um could take that information and go to say the city council or or others and and provide that report to them now i

1:59:05 haven't i don't i don't think that's happened since john brown was last president um but maybe that's something that we do want to consider i just don't i just want to make sure that as a board that's a decision that that we make and we see usefulness there so anyway i just wanted to flag it thank you yeah and i think we can do this too and such you know the the one thing that i would i would like to help the board with this year as well is i know you know we're in covid times which has restricted some of the neighborhood association meetings some like that but they're also versions on zoom and use some of that year-end information to provide some materials to the board

1:59:51 so that that you can feel comfortable going out and representing the utility as you know here's the state of the utility and and having that kind of pre-packaged um and then you can select various topics to elaborate on as as you see fit but um i think that's something that that would be helpful to sorry last real quick if you don't mind uh to that point we used to get cards that had kind of facts and figures and updates and obviously we haven't been in person since march february so um we don't get that so i would really appreciate that kind of information and would like to be able to reach out to some of the neighborhood associations and see if they would be interested in getting a you know a quick update

2:00:36 via zoom yeah we we still do those topic cards we we just they're in the mail all right any other comments for frank or questions all right then we will move on to a agenda item number 13 which is board wrap up and this is your chance to say anything that you didn't get a chance to say during the meeting or anything that's on your mind so nothing from sonia john broski

2:01:25 um thank you i i just wanted to uh say thank you and pay homage to the prior commissioners that were tearing taking their seats commissioner hall and matal um you know i've been watching these and auditing these meetings for the last year and i just you know we we weren't there last month to be able to chime in and say thank you to them for one setting a good bedrock for us to to move forward with the utility and also to learn from them so i just wanted to put that out there i doubt they're watching i'm sure that they've got better things to do on a tuesday night now that they're not sworn in but i just wanted to put that on the record uh dick was very helpful in recruiting me to to run for this office

2:02:12 and has has offered to be a sounding board in the future and i had real respect for him as as well as steve and i just wanted to put that out there because we didn't have the chance to do that last month great yes matt yeah well john's more gracious than i am um but i'll i'll tag on the same thing and and say both appreciation for the the former commissioners who just left these spots um uh and also john hit the nail on the head by by commenting on how helpful staff have been in orientation it's been a ton of information but really delivered uh really really nicely in a way that

2:02:57 makes it digestible so the the team at eweb is definitely doing a great job bringing us on board um and last i just to the right um all four of you uh looking forward to uh some tough decisions ahead and looking forward to working with you all john thank you well i'd like to welcome our two new commissioners and welcome back sonia frank always good to see you and all the staff and mindy you did a great job i know it's not easy herding cats and especially not being able to see the physical cue and everything so good for you i know what it at first when you take the gobble it's challenging but you did a great job and looking forward to working with you for

2:03:42 the year coming up so thank you great and then just a last word for me is that um sometimes change can be hard and we have a relatively new board i'm including myself in that i've only been here for two years um and both dick and steve had so much knowledge and a lot to add and so we will miss them but also that i'm excited to work with all of you i think we have a really good strong board and um i know that we will work well together so that is it frank if there's anything last that you want to say no just i i did want to thank staff as well for all all the work um so far

2:04:28 uh with with the new commissioners um it it's it's gonna be even more intense going forward and because some of these issues are really complex issues um that are that are going to tax us all i i feel very confident uh in staff management and this board we're going to wrestle with some things that are not easy sometimes they're not popular but they're incredibly important and and i you know having seen a few e-web boards you know not this last one inclusive but and seeing other utility boards i i feel pretty lucky that we have a board that acts and thinks like it does very respectful we'll have some healthy

2:05:13 debates we'll probably have some minor differences of opinion along the way and and that's okay um i'm looking forward to that um because i've seen some really bad boards as well and i know some of you have have been uh been part of those or seen them from a distance um but i'm looking forward to working with this board we have a lot to do and it's really really important work and it's and we're going to be on the leading edge in some areas and so i look forward to that but thank you and thanks to staff great well on that notes at 7 36 14 minutes early we will adjourn okay thank you everybody all right thank you