EWEB Board of Commissioners — June 1, 2021

0:04 my clock. It is now 5:30. So, I'm going to call to order our e webb um board meeting June 1st, 2021. Welcome everybody. Um we're going to start off with an agenda check. Is there anybody that wants to comment about the agenda? Okay, lots of heads shaking now. Great. Um, so we will move on to agenda item number two, items from board members and general manager. So I'm I'm just going to call on people if that's okay with you. I'm going to start with John Barovski. Anything you would like to uh Nothing from me at this time.

0:51 Great. John Brown. Um, yes. Yes. I'd just like to thank Ann and Holly and whoever else was responsible for the the river trip. I think it was a real good networking uh thing to not only get us together with some of the elected officials, but it's also get us educated on the uh wershed recovery effort. So, thanks to all that did that. I think it was very worthwhile expenditure of time and effort. Thank you. Yeah, I'd only plan to echo what John Brown had said. It was a remarkable trip and I'm really glad that we were able to go up there and see the investments that we've made in the community and see the impact that it's making and and also the work that is yet to to be done. So,

1:37 thank you for everyone that put that together. Matt, yep, likewise the same appreciation for the staff and everybody who put that work together. It was uh quite a trip and super informative for me. Thank you. Um I want to echo that and also say that I really appreciated that we took a trip on land there back I don't remember when it was November maybe Octo December I can't remember and then being able to see like some of the stuff that's happened since then and also getting the the river's eye view I found to be really really impactful. So, I hope that we don't have to wait a whole year to do that again because I think that it's

2:22 really helpful to kind of see um this like in person the stuff that we're doing. So, thank you to everybody who helped make that happen and to the weather for cooperating and not raining on us. All right, Frank. Well, good evening, President Schlober commissioners. Uh welcome to summer. Uh first of all uh given the nice uh warm day today um I have a few things uh some quick updates uh on a number of matters. Um first of all I did want to thank all of you for attending the the float trip. Um also a second meeting last month to talk about strategy u that was uh very helpful for me um as we move forward and there'll be some back and forth on that.

3:07 So, thank you for your for your extra time at an extra meeting and also thanks uh for your uh attendance when we got a tour of the Senica sustainability um cogen uh generating plant. I thought that was also informative. Hope you felt the same. So, uh thanks for attending a number of extracurricular activities um over the last uh month, month and a half or so. So, thank you for that. Um, I would normally talk about this a little bit later when we talk about agenda planning, but I did just want to remind uh members of the public who might be tuning in and commissioners that we do have an upriver board meeting coming up on June 18th. Uh, this is really, it's

3:53 called a meeting. It's really not a typical board meeting per se. It's more of an information share and customer interaction type of gathering uh with members of the community up there. Uh we do plan to tee up a few topics. I guess I would call it kind of a trailer approach or maybe a teaser approach at the beginning. Uh the plan that that we have is to talk a little bit and and these are very brief uh kind of overviews, three minute kind of overviews on what we're doing around wershed protection, uh wildfire mitigation, programs and services specific uh to the customers up there. little bit of update on our costing and pricing approaches um and some updates on the Liber Canal and and Carmen Smith. And uh it's really

4:40 designed just to inspire some conversation, let people know broadly what we're doing, uh so that we can then have more of a Q&A and discussion format. And so that's that's the plan. It's coming up. Um, I know if you've got any any format or topical type of feedback that um, President Schllothberg and Vice President Brown and and Ann and Holly and I are working on the formats and the agendas and stuff. We have a little bit of time to adjust, but that's that's at least the plan at this point. Uh, and so um, should be a good good evening. Again, another second meeting uh, this month. Um, but looking forward to that. And and finally, I had one recognition uh this evening. I I wanted to mention that uh Susan Aki um is

5:27 retiring from Eb um at the very first part of July and so this will be her last board meeting. I'm sure she's smiling with delight uh for that. But um few here's a few pictures of of Susan uh in action um just doing doing various things for the utility. I I have to say that she's really been instrumental with EWB's energy uh group and and all the planning work um not just for e webb but for the region. Uh she's been involved with uh regional energy issues for uh several decades now and was really helpful in representing you all and and e webb on various energy issues over the last three years or so. And so I wanted

6:14 to publicly thank Susan uh wish her well and let her know that uh we will miss her very much uh in the future. Um but um I also wanted to as part of that announce that Megan Kapper is is moving into the position of energy resources manager. Um she'll be working very closely with me and with the board on a number of energy issues including the development of the integrated resource plan. So, um, I think that's it from me. Um, thanks commissioners. Back to you, uh, President Schllasburg. Great. Thank you. And congratulations to Susan. That's exciting. And to Megan, too. Um, just want to clarify something,

6:59 Frank. You, the date of the Up River meeting, I believe it's June 15th. Is that correct? It is. Let's see here. Hold on a second. I'm just that's probably a good clarification to make, I would suspect. Uh let me just double check. It's June 15th. Yes, you're correct. Okay, my bad on that one. Thank you. I guess I'd be alone up there if I showed up on the 18th. Yeah, you'd have a lot of texts on June 15th. Where are you? Um okay, so next we are uh agenda item number three, our public input part of the meeting. So, um, we have four guests who are lined up to speak tonight. When

7:45 your name is called, remember to unmute your call. Press star six if you're calling from a landline or simply use the unmute button if calling from your cell phone. Please state your name and optionally your address or ward and speak clearly into the telephone. Each speaker will be offered three minutes to present their testimony. try to keep track of your time, but I will do my best to interrupt a little bit to let you know when your three minutes 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 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

8:30 answer, an e-web staff member will contact the speaker so that the question can be addressed at a later time. So the public testimony period for this meeting is now open. And we have Tana Shepard up first, followed by Kathy Betchin. Sorry if I butchered your last name, Kathy, but Tana, go ahead. Hi. Thanks, Mindy. Um, hey people. It's me, Eco, also known as Hannah Shepard, Eugene 4J, teacher on special assignment as the e webb education partnership grant coordinator and educator, fourth year in the position, multiple addresses, award seven and eight. Thank you e webb and the board for your continued support in funding our dynamic

9:16 and meaningful educational partnership. This year has been full of unknowns, adapting to a new way of doing things and collaborating to pivot in any direction at any time in order to best meet our students and staff where they are. So this year I served in my role differently. I learned much by simply listening to and supporting teachers than adapting to what they were asking for. Seesaw lessons, web resources, materials, talking through a unit. Direct student connections have been few and far between. an eco chick zoom visit here or there, but the teachers have reached out and utilized many of our offerings. Maybe not in the usual measure measurable exact data way, but in a having a ready to go to choices

10:01 available to offer their students way. And this spring, um, when I have seen teachers in person, um, teachers that I know really well, especially elementary, they all say something along the lines like, "Oh my gosh, Tana, if it weren't for fill in the blank, the resources you put together, we wouldn't have done any science this year at all. Thank you so much." So, getting to those offerings, um, our very popular salmon education program went totally virtual. Um, came back multiple times throughout the year based on teacher needs. And so that was kind of cool. Um I've continued to support elementary and middle school science um with lessons, website resources, and especially this spring middle school teachers for hands-on science with solar oven building, um

10:47 wind energy unit made it out as well as um EV and solar car building even though the challenge isn't happening. Um and then really the biggest thing this year probably besides salmon that is is the 4J climate justice team that we were able to form um before COVID that has continued on and it has high school students and staff at this point and it's still in its initial stages but um I was able to um you know support a few students to speak with the department of education in Oregon as well as um speak nationally. in um requests for climate um change education across K12 and all subject areas, which was very cool. And then

11:32 that team went ahead and built an Earth Day and Earth week unit for K12 students and that encompassed a website and lots of different resources that are available and we're going to continue to build from there. um to continue to reach out to teachers. Um I started with a newsletter that was called Steam Blast and it ended up morphing into Eco Experience which was more encompassing and then overall just a a deep connection to community partners and the city and county to pull off a couple of different um projects that are, you know, kind of seeding now. But we were able to do a materials distribution to about 5,200 households around waste prevention management and with um the

12:18 latest information there and especially for us water conservation. And so overall it's kind of a wonky year. I know, I know I'm probably out of time, but just wanted to thank you and um just even though it's been crazy and it and a lot of what we've been doing has been behind the scenes, it's been very welcome and it gave us some time to sort of um formulate what teachers will really be needing from us over the next few years. So, um again, it's a great honor to represent Eb and 4J and the city that I love. And thanks for listening. Have a good night. Thank you, Tannon. All right, next up we have Kathy Besson followed by Pamela Fallon. Hi, I'm Kathy Beckan and I am Bethl

13:04 School District's grant administrator. So, first and foremost, I really want to um on behalf of Bethl administration, teachers, and students just to say thank you. Um, even during this crazy year of mostly distance learning, we have been able to provide students with materials for hands-on learning at home, uh, virtual field trips, emergency preparedness plans, and more thanks to our grant money from you. Um, so let me just run through as many projects as I can touch on that I'll have time for to give you just a brief update of what has happened. Um, several science kits were used this year. We made up kits for students to pick up at their materials distribution and then they completed them at home with their teachers help.

13:49 Our salmon uh just like Tana said for 4J was very successful that unit. Unfortunately, we didn't get out into the field to do all of our water quality studies, but um teachers raised salmon eggs at home and had a live cam on their tanks so students could keep a watchful eye on the development of the eggs. Students were also provided with an amazing virtual salmon watch trip where they were able to learn about water quality, macro invertebrates, the riparian zone, and more about the life cycle of the salmon, all the things that they would have done if they could have been in person. Um, sixth grade students were also given um, e-web bags filled with everything they needed to make a water filter at home. And they were able to try several

14:34 different arrangements of sand, gravel, um, charcoal, cotton balls, etc. to make their water as clean as possible through trial and error. Um, as you know, our annual wind turbine challenge did not happen in April as it typically does, but um, several of the seventh grade students were able to uh, pick up a kit and they learned about renewable versus non-renewable energy sources. Um, this was not the the same task that they do in school, but they were given an inquiry task to build something that they could make move with a fan or a haird dryer. and then they shared what they constructed via Zoom with their classmates and discussed all their um findings. Um we did have some eighth graders that built electric cars

15:20 in some cases upon returning to school, but given the materials constraint and working in partners um being non-existent, they did not build solar cars. Uh hopefully we'll be back on board with the challenge next year. Um, each month I also shared the emergency preparedness emails from EW Webb with high school teachers who were then encouraged to share with their students. I don't yet have any feedback on how that uh went specifically, but I know that teachers I was getting a lot of feedback from them on how happy they were about the reminders and so um that was kind of kind of fun this year. Something different that I haven't done in the past. Uh the high school electron vehicle project equipment has been purchased relating to car building.

16:05 Electric motors were purchased for a vertical wind turbine building project that they um did this year in which they attempted to build the turbine that created the most energy. And lastly, we spent some money on um water uh water bottle fill stations. due to COVID, we can't use water fountains and so we were having to buy a lot of plastic water bottles which was just really not um great. So we have will be installing some fill stations at some of the schools with graphics highlighting where our water comes from the treatment process etc. And this will also complement our reusable water bottle program that we currently have in place. Um so that's about it. Uh, thank you

16:51 very much for your time and we really appreciate what you do for our school. Thank you, Kathy. All right, next up we have Pamela Fallon followed by Stephen Anderson. Uh, hello. My name is Pamela Fallon. I'm the coordinator of McKenzie School District in Blue River. And I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about how um how our school is going. And recently the kids just came in at the end of April and it's been DSL and there's still some on that. Um the newest program that the kids are really excited about is a sixth grade future energy program and they are 80 they want to aid in the rescue and learn from the world climate change and global warming.

17:37 And here's some of their little ideas. And it's nano gold nanowire batteries Artemis project which is helium through that three that replaces nuclear power plants and a safer fusion reactor not radioactive and produces d and no dangerous waste. New wind turbines called ice wind that last a very long time. Hydro electric cars that do not let out greenhouse gases but still the efficiency of a gasoline power vehicle. Floating solar farms creating huge amount of electricity without using land or real estate. Ocean wave energy converting kinetic energy into electricity. uh reduce rice methane emissions by

18:22 bringing the rice up in in uh raising it above the water and use cell phone technology. These are just some of the answers to global warming that the sixth grade want to do and are so involved in it. If the students get finished with their project soon, they'll go to the school board and do a presentation. But if they're not, then they're going to have a a little recording of their presentations and if you do want to hear it and I could send it to you as well. The second grade is working with propagating fern plants for our riparian zone. The first grade has worked on weather this year and discovered how different it climate is for and notice that how the climate is changing by looking at their data from years before. We are starting on a new garden next

19:07 year and possibly by the end of the summer. There are many aspects of holding the school envir holding the school back from its environment. This year the fire error is still being addressed and outside workers and trimmers and chippers are always there always there. We couldn't get any stream study in this year because they are still down there and there no paths anymore down there and no plant riparian zone or anything. And so that's something that we are camping on next year. The community will help us and everybody will help us get everything planted and back up again. Um, we'd also like to join the solar challenge when this co down and Governor Brown accepts those terms. Unfor unfortunately, we have been not we didn't get to salmon watch. I wish we could have done a virtual one because it was so injured

19:54 where we usually go. Um, the third grade is working on land and water and they're weathering and erosion building dams and we really wanted to go on a dam tour of Leeberg maybe next year I suppose. and the middle school are making pollinating garden that goes with our new garden going in. I should have it work really well and they're working with the US Forest Service on that. We hope the whole school and some community will help repair the ray pairing zone. It's not the COVID challenge which is most of our staff have been vaccinated for. It's a hard nine months with many efforts recover devastation. students will speak out about their lost homes and pets and items still. It's not an easy task for us at the school, but they are strong

20:40 and work hard and our community is is back and we trying to get back to everything that we had before. We have lots of teachers that have lost their homes and trying to build it again. So, it's been uh quite a project, but I want to thank you for letting me on and letting you know what's going on. Thank you very much, Pamela. Last up, we have Stephen Anderson. Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Yep, we can hear you. Uh, well, I'm in the immediate impact area of the 40th and Patterson water storage project. You've heard from me before. I would like to begin with a

21:25 quote from an e webb commissioner last September. quote, "We are under mandate from the state to have College Hill removed very quickly. It's a very timecritical project." So now, suddenly, years of careful planning have been thrown out, apparently, despite the immediate residents of this site at 40th and Patterson who simply asked you to change the tank sequence and save some precious habitat for a decade or more. Please commissioners don't abdicate your responsibilities to us. Look at the total water system of Eugene. Why have you changed the plan that spent decades in creating? It appears the general manager arbitrarily decided to suddenly

22:11 change direction and stick South Eugene with extra years of construction and all the inconvenience that will cause with absolutely no input from the citizens concerning the dangerous traffic impacts and disruption to our neighborhoods. Ask yourselves why are you overbuilding in South Eugene all the while there is a actual danger for residents at College Hill and Hawkins sites in the event of an earthquake. We are spending all this extra public money now when College Hill should have already been replaced. Building just the one tank will take much less time and mean less chance of a long overdue earthquake impacting those other neighborhoods. Please reconsider this

22:57 staff decision to build two tanks on this site. It's obvious we have lost our battle to save our marvelous trees and habitat that belong to us all. But do keep in mind the only reason you're able to do this with little public push back is the pandemic. South Eugene citizens are going to be outraged when they discover what you're doing. Please build one tank as per the original plan because once the public becomes aware of your arbitrary change of plan, hang on to your hats. That's it. Thank you. Um the public testimony period for this meeting is now closed and at this time commissioners are given the opportunity

23:42 to comment if they choose. So um you can raise your hand if you have a comment. John Baroski, thank you. Uh, and thank you guys for testifying. Uh, as a as a new commissioner, being able to hear what, uh, the e webb grants do in our school system is is very, uh, enlightening and and I'm really happy to hear the impact that it has on the youth of of our region. And so, uh, thank you for giving us that update. Uh, I look forward to learning more about it in the future, but thank you again for all you do.

24:29 Great. Is there any other commissioner? I'm not seeing any one raise their hands. Um, Brown has his hand up for people present. Great. John Brown, thank you. I I would like to echo John Barsky's comments, too. And um I think I asked for that wondering where the you know how we were spending the money because I thought I saw it was still in the budget and I think that's a very worthwhile program. I know I was on the board when uh these programs were on the on uh the cutting block and uh and we had some pretty long and hard discussions about them, but I think they're very worthwhile and I really like it when people come and tell us what they're doing, you know, and they don't wait to come to us when they're asking for something or something else. they come and and and it's I it really helps me get to a decision a lot easier

25:14 when they say this is what we're doing, this is how we're doing it and be able to see salmon and watch and solar challenge and all those things. And so thanks to the three of you for uh for enlightening us on what you're doing and thank you for all you do. Thank you, Frank. Uh yes, President Schllber, I I know I mentioned this in my general manager report, but I'll mention it again. Uh since we had public testimony with regards to the grants, um annually an annual report grant is filed by each school district, we typically get that in August. And so you will u receive that. That'll be part of our Q3 report to the board. We'll just add all three of those as the uh appendices to that

26:00 report. So that'll provide more detail on the from on an annual basis. Great. I just want to say kudos to the school districts for figuring out how to pivot to virtual learning with this stuff. I know that it hasn't been easy and I'm sure the teachers have appreciated it and um I'm super proud that we've helped fund these programs. So, if there isn't anybody else, I don't see any other hands raised, then we will move on to um board action item agenda item number four, approval of consent calendar A.

26:45 I move to approve consent calendar A. Second. All right. All those in favor raise your hand and say I. I. I. I All right, that passed unanimously. We'll move right along to approval of consent calendar B. Move to approve. I think that John Brown is trying to second, but you're muted. I'm trying to pull I'm trying to pull an item. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. I want to pull uh resolution 2111 number five. All right.

27:33 hang on. One thing about doing these meetings virtually is having to go back and forth between screens. Um, So just if somebody can remind me, do we vote on the remainder or do we discuss that one first? So normally we would vote on the remainder, but that consent calendar B only had one item in it of which um Got it. Commissioner Brown is batting 100% this evening. So um we can entertain any questions. I don't know if Deborah Hart is on the line. She had some conflicts this this evening, but I do know that Adam Rue is also available. Um I I am here.

28:20 Just a clarifying question. I had asked a premeating question about if this additional $7 million when it was said it could be used for habitat uh you know restoration and things and then you said in response um it can be used because of the timing to backfill you know to kind of cover it. But I don't not sure I got the answer I was looking for. I was looking for it. So, is this in addition to the money that we've already approved or is this money just going to be used to backfill it and we're going to have an additional $7 million in the reserve? This uh this is only about timing. So, we're not going to spend an additional amount. Uh the Is that clarifying? Well, yeah. Just so I I just I'm just

29:05 trying to keep track of what pots of money we're putting into the McKenzie. And I wanted to see if this is an additional 7 million bucks that's going up the river. Great. I mean, why isn't it 14? But you know me. Uh I just I'm kind of keeping track of how much money we're going to do. And I'd love it if it were going up the river, but it sounds like it's just going up the river and then coming right back down once we get the revenue from the meter fee. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay, that's what I needed. So, I'll move to adopt consent calendar B if there's no other questions. Second. All right. All those in favor raise your hand and say I. I. I. I. All right. That passes unanimously.

29:51 All right. We are now on general business items. Agenda item number seven, information services technology investment planning. Travis is gonna lead us. Hi. Thanks, President Schlushberg. Good evening, commissioners. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here to talk about technology. Um, just for the record, my name is Travis Canab, and I'm the chief information officer. Uh, go ahead and move to the next slide, Holly. So, as you can see, we're going to talk about goal 4C today. And I've got it here. I won't reread it to you, but I thought what might be important um to do is to just do a little bit of a level set about how um information services is structured here at Eb and and where the

30:37 work we're doing is and and how we kind of operate. So we have two sides of our division uh an is operations side and a is business solutions side. Uh the operations side is responsible for all of our servers, storage, networking. This team's environment that we get to do our uh board meetings on. Um that side of the division really supports that uh technology as well as our phone systems um end user experience. So client uh desktops, laptops, etc. And so as we're talking about 10-year spending and budgets, I thought it would be appropriate to um put that uh the operational side has about $2 million in receipts, and that covers all of the maintenance and support on our servers,

31:24 um storage, networking devices, our Office 365, so email, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Teams, um all adds into that. And then we're on about a $1.2 2 million um capital type one capital run rate for replacement and maintenance of those systems. So we try to replace um technology moves a little bit quicker than um the utility and we try to replace our systems more on about a 5year cycle. And so that 1.2 million is what we've kind of moved into um is kind of a sweet spot that we can maintain our systems but we're not biting off more than we can chew every every year. And then we spend um about $200,000 a year on desktop. So that's again the laptop replacements, um

32:10 miscellaneous software, um that type of thing to support the utility. And on the business solution side, so this is where we um the IT division or is division supports things like banner CIS. So that's our customer information system. Um infor smart stream. And no, that's not a typo. It's just a mouthful um to say it's just the name of the company. And so that's um tools that we provide financial the Deborah and her financial team to manage our budgets. Um Oracle work and asset management. Pretty self-explanatory there. That's where we track um assets and work orders. Um and the list goes on and on and and I've got several here. There's um probably in the hundreds if we counted all all of those

32:56 up. And so those we have a about a $1.5 million annual license and maintenance fee on all of that software. Um and then we've got $20 million earmarked in our 10-year capital plan for replacement of our enterprise systems. And to put that into perspective, that's about 5 to 7% of that type 2 budget um for the overall utility. Let's go ahead and advance Holly. So I I'm going to start by reading this definition. And Gartner um is a company. They're a research company and they're kind of the gold standard for benchmarking and and providing um information around technology. Um they define a legacy application as an information

33:42 system that may be based on outdated technologies but is critical to day-to-day operations. And so if you remember back from the first slide, these applications are similar to the ones that were listed there. there. And if we start with SmartStream, that budgeting software, we can see that it's about 30 years old. But we can also see that it's tracking, you know, $240 million in ON& and M budget and almost $300 million in revenue budget every year. So, I think we can agree that that's critical to our day-to-day operations and we could probably slap the legacy tag um on that application. Moving on to CIS is about 20 years old. Um, again, that's our customer information system tracking all of our customers. Um, generating around $30 million a a month in receipts and

34:30 generated $1.3 million uh or $1.3 million bills, excuse me, um, in 2020. So, again, day-to-day operations critical, 20 years old. Um, we're going to slap legacy on that uh, application as well. And as we move on to WHAM, we're tracking a billion dollars in assets. Um, in our asset and management tool, we've got um about a thousand work orders in there. Uh, 1,600 open purchase orders. Again, critical to the business. And at a decade old, I can assure you in a technology world, that's um outdated and so legacy. Again, as we move to GIS and and I kind of breezed over that, that's our um geographic information system. Ultro is our workforce

35:15 management system. So for HR where we do um uh do our paytime or time tickets and workforce management and recruiting, excuse me. And then AMI of course is uh to support the AMI infrastructure. And so those applications are modern um definitely critical to day-to-day business, but by definition, we wouldn't put the legacy tag on there. And so I want to talk a little bit about two um what it means to have all these separate systems and and how important they are to us and and how we have to manage them and the effort it takes to manage them. And so as an example those thousand work orders that are in Wham, if we want people to be able to charge time to that in Ultro, then we'd have to build an

36:02 integration. And so that's just a way to connect the two systems together. So then people will see that work order in Ultypro and be able to charge their time to that appropriately. But then you also have to babysit that, right? And you know with Wham, if somebody creates a work order, it ends up in Ultypro and people charge time to it and then all of a sudden we realize, oh, we, you know, we messed up or something happens and we want to delete that work order at a wham. You have to do all that cleanup and that requires experts and all of the different technologies and experts from the business to be able to support that. And then when you add on the legacy piece to that, that just adds um exponential complexity. And I've been trying to figure out a good example for this and I can't without um I don't have

36:48 a great one. And so I'm going to try this as an analogy, and you guys can tell me if I'm way off base, but I remember growing up I'd go to my grandmother's house, and she had these two-pronged outlets in her wall, but then she'd buy a three-pronged appliance and so she had to have these adapters. So then the new technology could talk to the old wiring in the house and but then you lose the capabilities that that third prong provides. And we're in a similar situation here. We have to make Ultro that's modern talk to this old system wham and it makes things incredibly difficult. So getting data in using data between the systems but then also when we want to pull that data out to provide information so the utility can do the

37:33 good the good work that it's doing we have to write and maintain well over 400 custom reports again that take experts from all these different areas and these reports can take anywhere from two hours to three weeks to develop just depending on the complexity of them and then again you're still maintaining all of those um those relationships between the systems and and and it's difficult to find one expert that can help across the whole board. So, as you might guess where I'm talking and and we're talking about um where we think we need to invest money, it's in these legacy systems, the SmartStream, CIS, and WHAM is is these critical business applications. And you know, I want to be clear, there's it's

38:18 tough to even think about an ROI on these systems. It's just tools that you need to run the utility. They're they're just tools that we have to have. Um we just rely on technology so much these days that we just have to have these tools. And so um now we need to find the right way to modernize these tools to be the most efficient as possible. You know, and and I can't leave this slide without this bottom bullet point. I don't know if you've been seeing the news. There's been some cyber hacks or cyber attacks out there. And without modern security tools and security controls, it it just makes that the the risk that much greater. So let's go ahead and move to the next slide because I want to talk a little bit about a recommendation of where we want to go.

39:03 And I'll just draw your attention to this green box here on the right hand side. Um an enterprise resource planning again going back to Gartner that enterprise resource planning is a defined as the ability to deliver an integrated suite of business applications. And so this is kind of a is a proposed solution or a recommended solution to this problem. So it does two things for us. And I know this is a little bit of an eye chart and I'm sorry. Um but there's two things this does is this allows us to modernize our systems. But an ERP is essentially a consolidated package of tools and applications. It's all integrated with a single backend. So it's got a single database. So now I don't have to write these custom adapters and I don't have that risk of

39:48 having modern tools that turn to legacy and trying to maintain that modern connectivity and and dealing with old systems and new systems. We're able to um maintain a a kind of a a level playing field across all of those systems. And you can see I've highlighted in blue where I feel like we need to spend our time right away is with work and asset management, um, customer care and financials. And that's those three systems that we've deemed as legacy on previous slides. And so, but then when you have those systems all integrated, it gives me the ability to um, lean into consultants when it's necessary to help us make that connection between our work orders and our financial system. I don't I no longer have to try to integrate outside

40:33 of a packaged deal anymore. Obviously, we're going to gain security, enterprise security, enterprise management. If you look on the left side of this, and I know it's probably tough to read, but that says analytics and reporting. It it's going to allow us to empower our our customers, my customers who are the the e webb employees to pull this data out that they need to provide them with information to make good decisions. You think about time of use and billing options. Now we can provide these great reports and and tools that they can self um do some self-help, right? and we don't have to come back to IT experts for um every time they want to pull new data or or make a change to that system.

41:20 So getting there is difficult. You know, why aren't we there already? I mean, it it's it's difficult to get there. And Holly, if we move to the next slide, we can kind of talk about why it's difficult because if you look at the top right here, we're going to have to fix this problem why we're moving. We still need to run a utility. We need to still provide reliable power, clean water, and continue having that revenue and and doing billing and all of those things while we're trying to replace these core systems. And so, but why are we doing this is is important, too. And and and technology is what I grew up doing, and that's been my whole career. But really, I'm here representing the utilities needs. They've come to it and said, "We need these things. We need to be able to do these things." And so really the answer to that is getting these systems modernized, getting them consolidated,

42:07 and having that single back end. You know, some of these things are maybe silly, but it's going to be a painful adventure. You know, we're going to have to be disciplined. We're going to have to realize that we have to give employees headroom to do this good work, to migrate to these systems and not ask them to do their 40hour week job and then also be a part of a project team to move this forward. We have to have this mindset that uh that this package deal is the right tool for e webb as opposed to going out and doing best of breed customer system or best of breed asset management system because you still have the integration points that you have to deal with when you go and do that. And then of course we want to continually improve our processes. And you can imagine having 30-year-old software and

42:54 20-year-old software that we've adapted business processes to fit the age of the systems and we do things differently in the utility because we're hamstrung by these systems and we have to look at the take this as an opportunity to improve those processes and really use those modern tools when we get there. So we can go ahead and jump to the next slide Holly. So we have a vision we have we want to modernize our business utility applications in alignment with strategic objectives and business continuity. And so you know again it is recommending or is recommending an ERP solution but it's not a silver bullet. You know you can give me the best socket wrench in the world and it's still got not going to hammer in a nail as well as a hammer

43:39 does. Right? We have to use this tool appropriately. We have to have good data to to to go in before you're going to get good data out. And so we have to look at what what we do as we modernize these systems and how we go about it. And so I have some guiding principles here. Utility specific the tool that we select and and how we modernize these tools has to be specific to a utility and the needs of a utility. But not just the application but any partners that we pull in because we're going to need support from external consultants. And those consultants need to have experience in a utility world as well. They need to understand our business process. They need to understand what we're doing so they can support us in this effort is is to the best of their ability. I've got commercial offtheshelf. We don't want a customdeveloped application. We want

44:25 something that we can purchase and implement. We don't we can't think of ourselves as so unique that we need something customdeveloped for us. But we also have to be aware that we also have an electric and a water utility and we need something that works for both of those utilities. And so we have, you know, which is going to be challenging. The next bullet is enterprise class. And that's obviously that, you know, that's a technology word. Um, sometimes I get carried away, but we have a billion dollars of assets. We're generating a million bills out of CIS. We're an enterprise class. We're not a good candidate for a niche player. And so we have to select the right tool for the right job. And then supportable. We have to be able to find staff, you know, we

45:12 have to train our staff to support this, both IT staff as well as the utility staff, but we also have to have the ability to lean into consultants when it's appropriate um and have a good consulting base. If we look at CIS, it's a banner tool. It's called Banner CIS. It it's a it's a technology that it's almost impossible to find external consultants to help with that. It's kind of a dying technology. And then you think about finding somebody that can do that and then also integrate with these other applications. You can understand it's difficult. And so when we're looking at these new tools to modernize our systems, it has to be supportable and again the right enterprise planning solutions. So the package has to be correct. It has to be the right fit for e webb, not necessarily the each system

45:59 being the best of breed. You know, my second to last bullet here is is a lofty goal, but I'm excited about it. um 90% meet 90% of the business and utility core requirements. And so the reason that that's a lofty goal is because we've got 30 years and 20 years and of customization of our existing applications. And so we really want to find a tool that we can not have to customize that we can just configure to meet our needs. And if we can do that at 90 plus% we're going to be very much better or very much better words are hard sometimes. um we're going to be far better off in the future of being able to continue to support this application and use this tool appropriately. And then we want to enable the utility to adopt a more extensive mobile workforce.

46:45 And what I mean by that is not just telecommuting, not just COVID times, but we want assessors when they're out assessing storm damage to have technology at their fingertips where they can see have access to maps and have access to where a pole is and where, you know, where it is on a map and how to get to it. And um we want them to be able to have access to customer information. Um god forbid there's a you know a a dangerous dog in a in a in a yard. We don't want them to just march into that during a storm and get bit. We want them to have that information at their fingertips when they're out there in the field. And so we need this tool to to enable that mobile workforce. And so then from a timeline perspective, here we are today um getting to share this great

47:30 information with you all. and and again it's just um exciting time for me. And then we need to go directly into an assessment and planning phase where we see have some external help tell us where we're at. How you know are we in bad shape or you know with 30 years and 20-year-old systems? Are we in great shape? Are we in decent shape? Um and then we need to plan and kind of decide where do we start? Do we start with our financial system? Do we start with our customer information system? Do we do them both? do we try to do all three at the same time? Um, but really again and back to project management, that's we need to develop a good scope, schedule, and budget to move forward with and then we want to come back later this year and get board approval. Again, we've got this 20 million that's earmarked in our initial conversations. We think that

48:16 that's a sufficient amount. Um, but we want to do more than just earmark it. We want to make sure that we have the board's approval to move forward to continue modernizing this system. But then we want to kick that project off in 2022. And so we're doing a lot of, you know, there's a lot of work to happen between now and then um to make that happen. And so if we go to the next slide, really we're just at a summary and and then I want to, you know, give you all opportunity to ask any questions that I can hopefully answer for you. But really summary is we've got some legacy systems that we have got to modernize. There's just no two two ways about it. we from a security standpoint, from an enterprise management standpoint, um from an agility and and ability to provide good information to the utility, we just have

49:02 to do something with those systems. And again, our recommendation or my recommendation from an IIS perspective is that we look at a an enterprise resource planning tool that allows us to be more agile and allows better self-service from my customers again, the the utility. And so that's about all I had for you today. Um I'm sure I missed several things, but I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. And Sonia, I see your hands up. Indie, is that all right if I jump in? I don't know if you have anybody else in the queue. Okay. All right. Well, thanks. Great presentation. Really appreciate the Oh, I'm getting an echo. Hold on a second. plug in some

49:56 of the I can still hear myself. Didn't help at all. Um, is there anybody that's not on mute? Sometimes that if they have their phone not miked, it will echo back whoever's talking. Okay, it's gone. Great. Thank you, whoever fixed that. All right. So, uh, thank you very much for the presentation. I really appreciate the timeline and the outline of which systems and and why. Um, I have a few specific questions about uh the previous system that we went through. I think that that was related to these is systems. Um, is that true or is that not true? The Cisco work that we

50:41 did that kind of failed. Is this a redo of that work or is it completely different? So I I'm not sure I'm Are you Do you mean we've started to Yeah, I I can jump in a little bit, Travis, if if you want. So So Sonia, the um the CIS system that we embarked on a few years ago is um this this would be ultimately a replacement of that. um we deferred a little bit and broke off some chunks to do some commercial offtheshelf billing as a piece of that. We felt like we could um take some components of a customer system and do it in the meantime, but this would be inclusive of that. So the the ancient CIS system that

51:27 he's referring to written in the last millennia um is actually the one that you're referring to. So yes. Okay. And how does that connect to the customer billing system that is getting revamped? Is this a part of that or is it completely separate? How does that play into this mix? Because that's launching here in any day now, right? Yeah. So the the CIS system is definitely the backend for that and all of the customer data and all the billing. Um the new portal relies heavily on CIS for that. And just like everything else, we've had to write um a custom adapter. Again, that two-prong to threeprong adapter had to be written for that. And so how this

52:14 would play into it is you know we would once we modernize CIS into you know whether it's an ERP or what however we modernize it um then we would just have to make the the adjustments to the customer portal to talk to the new CIS system and and it uses modern technologies just like any replacement to CIS would. Okay. Yeah. Um, Commissioner Carlson, the example that he's pointing to is is actually a really good example of a legacy system. Um, we we had some some billing and payment systems. The autopay, for example, was so old. Um, that's part of the reason that customers are now having to re-enter and resign up for autopay

53:00 was we had several different versions of that all ancient whereas now they're are going to be on modern platforms and if we replace the CIS with a modern platform in the background you won't have that that u custom integration problem that you did um with the legacy system. Okay. Okay. So I I think I kind of get that although it's hard to you know know specifically unless you're in some of those systems. I guess my my last question then is how will we ensure that the new product that is uh chosen will be successful whereas the last one was not. So, and and I know Travis, if you weren't involved in that piece, that may be a little bit difficult for you to I don't know, maybe Frank can jump in, but

53:47 any insights there? Travis, try and answer this first and then I'll jump in because I take a crack at it. So, so Sonia, I or Commissioner Carlson, I um started with Eb about 5 years ago and had been focused on the operational side and our operational side today based on the team that we've assembled there is pretty rock solid. Now, I'm not saying it's perfect, but we've gone from several outages to almost no outages based on the infrastructure. And so, I guess what I'm trying to say is I understand technology and I've got a a pretty good track record there and hope and know that I'll carry that forward to the next iteration, right, which is this other side of the IT business. And I've built a uh started assembling a team and then building a team to support that effort.

54:34 And I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the with the outcome there that we do. And I know that I have got, you know, I've got support from my ET colleagues and again going back to change management, we'll make sure we have good support from the utility before we try to start um this effort. And um we're going to knock it out of the park. I mean, IT systems are not easy under any circumstances. And with something as complex as the utility, I'm sure that that's going to be challenging no matter what. Uh so it sounds like you're saying that the the team will be different and that will be the change that we need to make this successful versus the last go around. Commissioner, I would also add that it's

55:20 the ERP approach where you're actually creating a a an organizationalwide capability has is historically different from what EW has done. We have typically taken selective best of breeds. Some of that is because departments didn't trust other departments. They wanted to have their own thing. Um so they wanted the best of the best is what they wanted. Um, and then they would get that and then it would force all of this integration to have happen which is which is also even what happened before to the point where there's so much custom integration that we become a software house and and really we're a utility. So I I think we didn't have the appetite for it. We probably didn't have

56:06 the teamwork in place like we do today. Um, and I didn't think we really had the capability to take on an ERP type of system. It's ultimately the best approach and the executive team kind of had to raise their hand and say, "Yep, that we're in this together." Uh, which means I might not get the best of something, but it's if it's the best for everybody, then that's what we're going to go with. So, I think a number of factors play into that. Okay. So everybody wins a little, everybody, you know, compromises a little bit, but ultimately the end goal is that all of the systems talk to one another and connect in a way that doesn't require more and more and more integrations and custom reports and everything to make the systems function, right? And a technology path forward because, you know, we can do this today

56:51 and then someone's going to come along and curse us in 10 years because we've done something that, oh, it's it's kind of what we're living with now, which was, oh, it wasn't upgradable. it wasn't supportable. So, it has to be all those things and I think the ERP approach is is the best way to get there. Great. Thank you. Thanks. Um, and thanks for the analogies and and uh cuz reading through the the AIS, it was like, "Oh gosh, I got about halfway through and then realized, oh, I'm lost on this paragraph. Better start over again to try and figure out where

57:36 I'm at." So that's why I'm glad that there's people like you that can can do this. Um, yeah, I think I see, you know, you got the two-prong plug going to the three-prongong plug. And I think we're, you know, you're at an e a sixprong Ethernet cable now, and we're probably going to a Bluetooth technology with this new one. And in in five years, it's going to be something else. And I think that that's just something you have to live with with technology. Um, you need to learn, adapt, and and keep keep growing with it. um you know the people that are selling these things you know you mentioned that the you know as far as the security and stuff like that after so long they just stop supporting

58:21 it and that's how they make their money is by you know you stop doing the support and have to sell a new one that's why I have office 365 instead of you know Windows 7 right that's that's the market plan so I'm I'm on board with this I think that it will be evolving And we'll probably have this another board will have this conversation in 5 to seven years and another board will have this conversation in 10 to 15 years and another board will have this conversation in 30 to 50 years. It's just an ongoing thing with technology. So um unfortunately that's the way it is and I think the this approach is the best fit today. you know, tomorrow

59:07 there's going to be a better fit and the day after that somebody's going to come to the door the door with a better fit to that. So, uh, go with your best plan forward and I'm I'm in support. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Commissioner Barovski. I was just going to add if I could, you know, one of to to Commissioner Carlson's question as well, you know, what's different today? One of the biggest differences I've noticed in the last few years is a cultural one and that's that we e webb used to for many years and probably decades thought oh we're unique we are special um we cannot take some off-the-shelf program we need our own program um and yet when you do that you create all these custom issues and I think we've recognized that there

59:54 are people out there that do this for you know 95% % of the other utilities in the world. And why should we be different? Uh we at some point need to change our processes uh if that's what it takes to get something that we can support going forward. I I think we have the cultural appetite to do that now. I wouldn't have said that 10 years ago. Um I or even 5 years ago. I I think the work we've done around continuous improvement and processes, we have recognized that in order to make things like this work, we have to be willing to grow up and and change uh from a process perspective. John Brown. Oh, thank you. Um thank you Travis. um

1:00:41 having lived through the wham thing and I know that when we implemented that I think it was 10 years ago it wasn't the smoothest process in the world and I noticed you said 5 to 8 years to integrate this to get this up and running and with technology and changing quicker now apparently 10 years was the life of wham at that time and that's why we're having to address it now. How are we going to deal with the implementation of this? If it takes five to eight years to do it uh to integrate all these new systems and the technology is changing more rapidly than a 10ear life, how are we going to make sure that we don't uh have something that's half through its economic life by the time we implement it? Yeah. And part of that um Commissioner Brown is making sure that we select the right tools. So to just to clarify, WHAM

1:01:27 itself is still very relevant and there's new versions of WHAM that have just not we just that that just were never kept up for whatever reason or the other. We've we've stayed on this old model um of WHAM. But when we look at these enterprise ERPs, um, you know, I hate to say a name, but you look at something like SAP, I mean, it's been around for years and years and years, and it continues to be developed and evolving, and that's why we feel like that that's the right approach because if we try to select a one-off over here and a one-off over there, you're right. By the time you get this one off installed, then it's already ready to be updated in order to keep up with the next one. And so that's why one of the main reasons we feel like an integrated solution is the right one is because it

1:02:13 drags all of the pieces along with it. And we also need to look at our approach of where we go with this. And we have to be willing to look at the cloud um where it's appropriate. I think just from a resiliency standpoint and a mobile workforce standpoint and you get in a position where you don't have a choice. you know, we're on 0365 now and Outlook gets updated and Exchange gets updated and we're kind of along for the ride. And so that's part of that new mindset and that cultural shift that we have to be ready to be along for the ride um as we go to a point um when these tools are selected. Commissioner Brown, I would also add that um we we may not you and I may not be around to actually get one of the

1:02:58 biggest benefits of this and I don't mean you know alive. I mean you know we're working at at the point at that point um it's I I think it's going to take five to eight years to do it this time because we have so much customization. I think the next time it's going to take three to five years and eventually you get on this sort of automatic cycle. Um, which is a lot less painful and it's a lot more dynamic and you're a lot more modern all the time. Um, this first one is particularly tough because of the hole that we've dug through the years. Um and so I think some of the benefit here of commercial offtheshelf using the cloud taking an ERP approach is uh for the next generation or two to enjoy as opposed to um um me and and you enjoying at this

1:03:45 point. So um I think yeah 5 to 8 years this time I think probably three to five next time and then then there's elements of it that will just almost be automatic. Um it it'll be part of the probably an O andM cycle at that point. Okay. Okay. Well, thank you. I'm in full support of this moving forward. Thank you. All right. Uh Matt, I don't know if you wanted to say anything. Uh sure. I'll just take a moment. Thank you. Um thanks Travis for the materials and the presentation. It made my head hurt just thinking about all the ways in which things are tied up. I've seen e web projects and initiatives um be

1:04:31 hamstrung by um software limitations in the past. So um I appreciate the initiative here and the dedication to getting it right. This utility couldn't function without all of the the software working well and I appreciate the initiative to make it work as well as we possibly can. Um so yeah, thank you so much. Um grateful you're leaning into this. I think we'll be better for it on the other end. Thanks. Thank you. Great. And just one last word for me is that I think it's pretty exciting and I appreciate this the big picture integrated approach. So I look forward to seeing what you bring back to us in a few months. Great. Thanks everybody for your time.

1:05:17 This has been fun. Thank you. All right. We are now on uh agenda item number eight, capital improvement plan assumptions and principles. I think that's Frank and Rod. Yep. Pass that to Rod. Good evening, commissioners. Happy June. Uh well, Travis is having fun presenting. I should have had him just roll onto this one because he provided some great examples of some of the things I'm going to talk about. Um, so last month we presented the the current status of the capital programs and projects. Uh, next month Wall-E and Tyler and Karen are going to come and talk about the proposed 10-year capital

1:06:03 plan, the next version of it. Tonight, I wanted to give an information only kind of presentation to go over some of the assumptions and uh ways that we we build the capital plan. And hopefully this information will will help prepare you in your review process when you when you get that um big budget packet in in July. So next slide please for a little context and and as Travis pointed out admiraably that that we have over a billion dollars in water and electric assets and uh those assets they need a lot of care and feeding. Um, and to accomplish that, there's probably about 50% of our annual budgets

1:06:48 are are geared towards capital if you pull out the power purchase piece of it. So, so there's a significant amount of money that goes into our our budgets that's related to the capital plan. So, it deserves a lot of scrutiny. One of the things I kind of wanted to point out too, there's a really uh tight uh tie between capital and on&m. I really, you know, there's not a lot of time to explain that at this point, but um I do want to point out though that the strategic plan helps tie together, you know, how how big our capital plan is and how our onm spending is in terms of our mission and our long-term financial planning. So, so this is a pretty important piece of work um to to pay attention to. So next slide please.

1:07:37 So when you get your your July board packet um there will there will be a backgrounder uh and then attached to that will be a spreadsheet because because we all engineers love spreadsheets and so do accountants. So you're you're getting ganged up on here. Um but the spreadsheet will uh basically look something like this. And um across the top uh you know left to right will be the the the the 10 years moving up in time. The very top section is the inputs uh the funding sources. The the columns on the left then or the the categories on the left are are the categories that we use to break down the capital plan in fuchsia or whatever

1:08:22 color you want to call that. I've highlighted the 10-year totals. Um, so one of the things I'll be um looking for at the July meeting is some concurrence from the board around the totals. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a bit. Um, next slide, please. Just a few more details. Uh, funding sources include income from rates, bonds, customer contributions, and occasionally grants. One of the the things you might see and notice is the customer contributions appear in both funding and expenditures because our our policies uh for instance require customers to pay for most of their own connections. So you'll see two items there, but there's all kinds of nuances like that within that plan that that you

1:09:07 can look at. The other thing I I wanted to touch on a little bit is the the capital reserves. uh they're set by a board approved policy and basically they're they're based on the yearly depreciation rates for each uh utilities assets. It's about $7 million for water and about 22 million uh for for electric at this point. So across the bottom you'll see the the reserve uh buckets that that are targeted and filled each year. And those reserves are used to help smooth out our spending levels uh and uh for unexpected expenses. And I'm sure Adam and and De can tell you more. But uh next slide please. Holly.

1:09:54 Thank you. So uh we uh we staff maybe Frank uh tend to toss around a couple of ways of categorizing projects. Um, one is the EL1 policy language, type one, type two, type three. And the other one is I I did introduce a little bit um last month, the compulsory uh riskbased uh strategic kind of categories in some ways. There there's some similarities to them. Um, I made a little table here um that that explains uh or cross references cross references them a little bit. Um but what I wanted

1:10:39 to point out is that the type one uh type two type three they're they are board uh board requests but they're very uh much more useful in the in the budgeting and um and reporting kind of worlds and also in helping uh finance do some u funding sourcing. the compulsory, riskbased, and strategic are are helpful from the staff engineering kind of world where it helps us sort out projects and um uh choose projects, prioritize that kind of thing for work. So, next slide, please. Excuse me. Got allergies today. All's bad. Um no, previous. Oh, well, it's fine.

1:11:25 Yeah. Um I just wanted to point out that um we typically start the plan u with compulsory work and that's really work that's based on uh history. Uh we we got a pretty good idea of what compulsory work looks like, how much regulatory work is, uh customer work, some of that kind of stuff. Um then we look at the strategic choices that are made. Uh Carmen Smith for instance was a strategic uh project at one point. And then on top of that, we we then start putting in and piecing together risk-based projects. And uh Wall-Ally says this all the time, we've got way more projects in our riskbased bucket than we we can possibly do. So um so we need to put those in though to smooth out and meet our financial goals. So

1:12:11 next slide, Holly. Thank you. in July, um the uh like I mentioned, we'll we'll ask for for uh concurrence on next year's budget amount. Uh usually we we talk about the five-year total um and then we talk about the 10-year total. and concurrence with these totals just helps shakes uh shape the budget uh for next year for uh very precise budgeting um as in the financial plan and you'll see that come uh November December and

1:12:57 the five-year look um helps with planning uh direction you know what are we doing right now because it takes usually two three years in some cases to build projects sometimes four or five uh and and Again, kind of to to Travis's point, uh some of these are big long-term projects. So, so these looks help us um um set the stage and and move ahead with with those kind of things. One of the things I was going to point out that um you know, at some point you have to spend a minimum amount of of money on capital uh to to keep sustaining the the system financially. Um, typically though we we target a replacement cost versus a depreciation cost. So that's usually about one and a

1:13:42 half to two to three times the amount of the depreciation cost. Um, kind like if you get in a car accident, the car insurance company will give you a check, but you still have to pony up to to get another car of equal value. So um the other side of it is the maximum size and that's limited somewhat by financial constraints, staffing, um all the kind of things that that are typical and not having enough money to do this that or the other things. So next slide please. So what is the right size of the plan um that I was asking you to look at? Um you know how do you review the totals? How are we turning the dials? Uh well, there's a couple ways you can

1:14:27 look at this. Uh one is to compare this year's plan to to previous plans. Um and so Wally and Tyler, we'll we'll do a little bit of that. Um there's also uh the percentages of the compulsory and risk base and and strategic values uh and how they evolve through the 10-year plan. And so for instance, if you look at this one from the 2020 plan or maybe it's 2019, um the the budget for 2020 shows uh about 22% of the strategic uh work being done in this water capital plan and that's mostly AMI. If you go to the 5-year total, um the risk base goes up as the strategic goes down. So AMI is

1:15:12 finished within that fiveyear period. And then if you move to the 10-year period though, the the strategic piece of the the uh second source becomes uh dominant again and pushes some of the the riskbased spending out. So you can make the pie bigger um or you can adjust things within that pie. Next slide, please. So again, a great uh leadin from uh Travis and his uh discussion about asset management. Uh and um asset management is a very important uh tool. Um and when you go to plan individual projects and programs, um we have been targeting some asset

1:15:58 management tools. We also do some long-term planning. Um but we've targeted sorry it's asset management to some programs. So this these two examples, one's our cable failure um study we did and presented I think a couple years ago. Um and the other one's our vehicle our fleet maintenance. Um Gary Lynch has got an extremely u detailed plan on asset how to manage the the fleet. Um, and I think we presented this as well, but that helps guide spending within uh areas of of and it works very well for poles, pipes, and uh vehicles, that kind of thing. Next slide, please. Some of the u major electric drivers um

1:16:45 uh right now is Carmen Smith Reicensing is a is a large large chunk of the electric capital plan. Um, aging infrastructure is probably one of our our biggest uh concerns moving ahead. We've had a lot of uh of the the grid installed in the 50s and 60s and 70s. Those are uh all that equipment's becoming uh at end of life. So what do we do about that? Um the other things we look at is uh reliability trends and and resiliency. So, one of the things that I pulled up the trends for the last year for both the frequency and duration of outages and both of those uh numbers are increasing and that kind of goes along with our our uh assets as well. There's

1:17:33 a u one of the metrics you see in in the financial reporting is called a system and it gives you an idea of of how much your system has depreciated but that number has risen from 57 to 62% on the electric side. uh and our target level 60%. So that indicates we we're not quite spending enough on a financial basis to to keep ahead of things. I mean there's a there's a whole subject in itself, but we'll go to the next slide. In the water, uh we use the the the master plan uh the 10-year master plan that's uh required uh and it has it's full of benchmarks and and all kinds. Uh we also look at reliability um

1:18:18 meeting benchmarks uh that kind of thing. I just illustrated something uh here that uh we're we we realize our our bench we're a little bit of our our uh AWA benchmarks and so um in leaks so we're going to spend propose spending a little bit more money on on pipe replacements for instance. And so we've got lots of data there that that you know age of pipes, what kind of pipes it is and it's more of that asset management kind of thing. Uh likewise we also uh look at projects from uh resilient spine uh and emergency water supply. All these drivers are put together and help us prioritize projects and which which projects go out of the hopper and into the plan. So next slide

1:19:04 please. Uh, and I'll end with basically the uh the idea that um you know the EL1 was set up to help monitor spending in the capital plan and and so um you can look in the quarterly reports um and see our our spending and how it's going per project and per um per per program. And um the other thing in the quarterly report is we we report on the yearly uh total progress. So the budget year 2022 is is nailed down. How are we doing on our spending within that? I think one of the things about the E1 uh that that is nice is it helps you track those

1:19:50 multi-year projects because we have uh just a number of of projects that are big projects that are important but don't fit within a budget year. and don't necessarily make sense within a budget year. So, Harmon's a great example of that. AMI, you know, any number of those those large multi-year budgets. So, with that, I will stop and see if there's any questions or Frank, you want to add anything that I missed? Yeah, thanks for I was I was just going to jump in a little bit. Um, some commissioners have been through this process before. Some of them it's it's a little bit new. So, I wanted to highlight a couple of of things that I think are a little bit different. Um, part of this is is, you know, it's easy

1:20:35 if you look back the last few years, we we've had a pretty modest capital program. Um, in some cases, it had been reduced from the years before. Uh, some of that was just our own scrutiny, recognizing that we wanted to divide up between things we had to do and things we chose to do. and until we figured that out more strategically, I I think what you'll see this year is you you'll see a pretty robust plan on both the water and the electric side. And so I I don't want what we do want you to do is to take a look at where that money is going and see if you can tie it to what we're trying to accomplish strategically, where we think the operational vulnerabilities are and um not just look at this as, oh, you know, here's Eb trying to grab a bunch of

1:21:21 money to to do projects. Um we know that there's rate pressures. We we are going to feel those this fall already. And so a couple things to note. One is um um we have typically used the the next year's capital for um the budget. So for 2022, I think Rod mentioned that one of the things we're doing this year also is we're doing a multi-year KOSA so that we can give the board several years worth of views of pricing and rates. Uh which means don't just pay attention to 2022, but also look at 2023, 2024. um look at the next few years as um as how we're spending on these various categories. Um and and so um yeah, a few

1:22:08 things just to to look for. It'll be a it'll be a robust plan. Um we want to make sure you can tie it to the things that we need to accomplish. Um some of those are pretty standard. Um the type one is the routine daytoday. you're you know you're changing out transmission mains, you're changing out poles. Um type two are the very distinctive uh lumps in the oatmeal though. So you should recognize project names in that category, not just a category, but a um a project name and it could be multi-year. So, what we're trying to do today is just give you some tools to be able to when you get this plan uh next month and you you see the impacts on the long-term financial picture um that you

1:22:54 take some time to dive in and look at the various categories and um in in different ways. So, that that's what we were in intending with today's presentation. Thanks, Rod. Robust is a is a code word for much much more money. I don't know what Deb would call it, but I I think John I think a few of the commissioners have heard that before. So they I think they they have the decoder ring out and are looking up robust and say, "Oh, okay. You know, we're asking for more money." Right. I think that was it um on the presentation. Right. Right. Rod, next. Yeah. All right, I see some hands up. I saw

1:23:39 John Brown's hands up and I also saw Matt. Oh, John, go ahead. You bet. Thanks, Rod, for the presentation. I was here when the term robust came about and we had kind of a a long discussion with previous boards about this being a uh the system being way overbuilt, for lack of a better term, and somebody said how, you know, our system was bigger than the city of San Francisco's and things such as that. How are we going to be, you know, as a late board and I I'm not going to I don't know what you're replacing is necessary, but how am I going to be assured that we're not replacing things that may not need replacing? I heard that we had substations we don't need and we have infrastructure that was overbuilt and if our service territory

1:24:25 isn't going to expand, maybe it's going to be densify a little bit. Um, how are we going to be assured that that doesn't happen again? Um, well, I'm not sure about again, but uh that's a great question, right? How much do you spend? And so, one of the things that that we've been working towards is tying reliability to to uh to our system and and then our our system to um to aging and replacement. So, that's part of that asset management I was talking about, but we're also doing some high level planning. So, uh Tyler's got um uh for the electric system, which is what you're talking about being uh uh somewhat overbuilt. Um

1:25:10 he's he's got I mean, they're doing all kinds of things with heat maps. I mean, you can see how old stuff is and and where it's starting to fail. So, there's u there's a number of things that come into play that uh Tyler and and Wally will uh will be talking to you about, but it's a great question. I would um add that to that, Commissioner Brown. I I think it's really important for the board to ask how much of this work is capacity related versus how much of it is related to sort of rightsizing the system, making it more resilient. Um there's there's some tension between two things. One of them is we have a bunch of stuff that was put in between 1950 and 19 in

1:25:56 the 1970s. And so you have this this lump of aging stuff that you know you have to deal with. And by the way, you have to replace it at today's prices, not the prices that you put it in at. So it's going to be in some cases more expensive. Um you can mitigate that sum based on your system design and being able to optimize the system design. And those are the things that that we will try to do and try and capture those those in the plan as how how that that tension works. But if if you see projects that are that are sort of classified as capacity projects, those are the ones that I I think would be questionable uh definitely good questionable by the board. There's other

1:26:41 ones that might be resiliency related. Those we know that were very strategic. We probably have to do those. Um but um I think really trying to to rightsize the system in in the midst of this sort of lump of aging infrastructure, it's going to it's going to be tough. Um but I I think when you get into it, um we're just going to have to especially the type two projects, those are the ones that those tend to be more choice related and strategic. So those are the ones that I would expect to get more scrutiny as to what the purpose of those project is. And that's what we would expect from a from the board. Thank you. I think just Travis did a great job of illustrating how he's he's going through his process and his team and the

1:27:27 maturity level. Um I I would say that we're we're in and I totally agree with Frank. We're we're culturally we're in a much better and a much smarter spot than than we have been in the past. So, I I think you'll see good good um uh positive uh information that will that'll be helpful. Great, Matt. Thanks, Mindy. Um I get my packet sent to me in the mail. Thanks to staff for sending that. I have looked all over in here and I can't find my decoder ring. I don't Frank, maybe you could have one sent to me. I don't know. Uh thanks for the presentation, Rod. Um and the

1:28:12 background materials. Uh this is all precursor for the next discussion we're having about the CIP. I wonder given the complexity and I suspect the length of that uh particular memo we're going to get from you. Is it possible to get that a little more in advance of our meeting? Um, and forgive me because I understand like you may be at a point where you're, you know, the the deadline as it is is hard enough to meet, but um, if alternatively it's prepared and could come out to us, you know, with a few extra days to to get through it, that would be great. Um, not required, but you know, that's doable. Um, and then the other Thank you. The other question I have um is just how this relates to the

1:28:59 integrated resource plan. Um recognizing that's only electricity side is the CIP covers both sides. Um and and it seems like the IRP is really mostly focused on purchases of of power. It's not so much about infrastructure as I understand it, but I'm curious if the if they how they relate together if the IRP informs the capital capital improvement plan and how and and then what the timing looks like for that if if the CI or if the IRP informs the CIP um on what time frame does that happen? Yeah. Um it it certainly should inform the CIP. uh uh Commissioner McCrae. So, there's a number of things that I would

1:29:45 expect to come out of an an IRP, and I'll get to the timing here in just a second. Um, one of them is is related to how you're going to procure in in our case our electricity. Um some of that can be through contracts and some of it can be through the investment or divestment um divestatures um in our own assets. So that's where you would have an impact on on the the capital plan. if we decided that we need to build out more resource for some reason um independent of where it is and we're going to capitalize that then that would have direct input to the to the long-term CIP. Um those um I would

1:30:32 likely classify at this point as probably type three highly strategic projects. They are typically going to be very expensive and they would be a long-term commitment that the board would be making to that particular resource. Um and so um now we don't have a lot of type three capital in except for Carmen Smith and we will also have um some some uh some investment in the canal at Leeberg some of that for public safety like we've talked about before. So beyond generation the timing of the IRP is such right now that we will spend a lot of time in 2021 looking at uh consumption. We'll spend a lot of time

1:31:18 looking at in 2022 of the characteristics of the generating resources that we need and so probably early 2023 will be the actual finished integrated resource plan. Um so and and if you think about that that means you're probably going to start to see impacts to the capital plan sometime you know could be immediately after that depending on the time frame especially with the Bonavville contract in 2028 expiring and a decision on that probably 2025. So I I wish that we were a little bit further ahead on the integrated resource plan. Um but I'm not um

1:32:04 I guess I wish I were a little bit further ahead but but right now the work that we are doing will contribute to it around electrification and other things. So so yeah that'll give you a little feel for the timing but yes the IRP would inform the capital plan. Great. Yeah, thanks for that, Frank. As will, you know, the other thing that I would I would add com uh Commissioner McCrae is is the strategy also informs the capital plan, especially with relationship to resources. You know, one of the things and I I apologize I sent out something on the on the mission of the utility very late today. I didn't expect to get a lot of comments back today, but one example that I use the importance of particular words is right now our mission is the delivery of

1:32:49 electricity and drinking water, which means that generation is subservient to that. We don't talk about being a generator, which means we don't have to be according to our mission. Um, now I don't know if the board is okay with that or not. Does the board really want to maintain a position proactively independent of an IRP related to generation? So, which can be a very expensive proposition um when it comes to capital planning. Um and so the the um strategy will definitely also inform the capital improvement plan. I I think just to add on to that, commissioner, as well that Megan uh Kapper and and Susan Arian aren't up in

1:33:35 their office dreaming up integrated resource plans on their own. And so, uh, there's been a fair amount of discussion, especially around electrification and transmission and, um, and some of those kind of things where, um, you know, we we're we're we're all working together to to make sure that we can accomplish some of those things and hit the goals for electrification. So, we we have a lot of substation capacity. Our system has a lot of capacity. Um, poles and wires, we're we're about right sized. In fact, we're a little short some areas of town, but capacity wise, we're we're good. So, how do we because it's it's to our benefit to use that capacity if it's there. So, yeah, thanks, Rod. And I I realize my question suggested that, but I certainly

1:34:21 didn't mean to imply that uh that those you know, the the CR the capital improvement plan and the and the resource planning were working separately. I I could Yeah, I I can imagine they are well integrated. Appreciate that. Thanks. Um, yeah, I would definitely echo what Matt said about trying to get the the document out early. Uh, especially if are do you think we you're going to ask us to approve it next month as well? Question. So, go ahead, Rod. If you want to answer, I can answer it if you don't. Oh, go ahead. That's fine. Um, so, uh, Commissioner Barovski, it's

1:35:07 I I wouldn't classify it as as approval per se. Um, what what we do with with the feedback that we get next month is um, typically finance will start to run with if if the board says, "Yeah, we're comfortable with this." Um, we will tip kind of ask for, "Are you comfortable with especially the year 2022, we can start to use that as the basis for our our budget work. Are you comfortable with the early years? I'll describe it as the early years now. Um, we can start to do some project planning work and other things. Um, it's more of or if you come back and say we're really uncomfortable with the direction you're going here, then we have to take that back. Um, it's not a sort of this hard

1:35:53 and fast, oh, we're approving the plan right now. It's it's good to go. It's more of a gauging point for us. Um because really what you do is you ultimately at the end of the year sorry at the beginning of well beginning of the next year you approve a capital budget um and for both utilities and an on& and m budget for both utilities that's your ultimate control point um and then the rates that are generated from that. Okay, great. Yeah. So, for me, um, having the first whack at it, if I could get it early, that way if I have questions, I can address those to staff rather than having to to fret those all out in a in a threeminut, you know, board me meeting presentation. So, as as

1:36:40 early as it can get, that would be great. Um, then I guess the second question that I would have is where would you see the Leeberg Canal? um as you would that be a type two, a type three and since it is dealing with water and generation would it be in both buckets? So yeah, in reverse order generation all all that is uh in the electric utility um and so there there's water's not a thing. it. Um, Liber's a little bit complicated for some respects because it could be O andM uh work as well. If we're removing uh canal or something

1:37:26 like that, uh just repairing it as in kind could be $50 million of O andM. Um so it we we recognize that whether it's in capital or O andM, it's still a big unknown for us. Um and so the in part some of the um the robustness of the plan will include um you know some some uh accordion room, some wiggle room there for us to flex with with um Leeberg for from our best guest at this point. And so you'll hear from us probably in a month or two. We're going to come back and talk to Leeberg um to to the commissioners about Leeberg and

1:38:11 and some of the things that we're finding. Um we we don't quite know enough yet to to give you that full picture though and we may not for a couple years. Who knows? I would say I I would say Commissioner Barovski if there is a large capital component to it um that could be depreciated. Of course, you cannot depreciate an asset that's not there. Um, or you know, there's there's some pretty hard and fast rules around what's expensed versus what's capitalized. If there is a large capital component, it would rise to the level of a type two um simply because of the exposure that it would get. It's not part of some routine um changing of poles or or wires or pipes. So it it would uh but there is a

1:38:56 really high likelihood that we are not adding capacity, we are not adding um infrastructure and the work that is done will not be uh meet the requirements of being capitalized which which means it hits the books in the year of which you you do it as as you know. So, um, it will likely have a very large O andM expense component to it. And are on O andM is that bondable? That is a good question. Typically, I I don't want to answer for finance yet. I can follow up with them. Typically, you you have to invest bonds in things that have some material asset value. And so

1:39:43 typically you would not be able to bond um uh items that are expensed. Now it might be it might be um eligible for some various grant type of funding um but I doubt that it would be bondable. I don't know if Deborah or Adam are still listening, but they could probably correct me if I'm wrong. That's my understanding, but we can confirm. Thanks. All right. Thanks. Thank you. All right. Any commissioners that haven't Oops. Think I'm frozen. I think I froze there for a minute. Uh any commissioners who haven't had a chance?

1:40:28 No. Okay. I guess I just want to say that um when I look at our agenda for the July meeting, it's already pretty packed with some heady stuff. And so I just want to um make sure that we are able to give enough attention to this. I want to say early on in the meeting because I don't know about the rest of you, but as the meetings go on, it gets a little bit harder to be as sharp. But anyway, I guess I'm partially in charge of setting the agenda. So I will make a note to myself that we will do this early on. But also just to note that we do have three really big topics, I think on our Jul July agenda.

1:41:14 So that is it. Okay. So if there isn't anything more for this topic, we are going to take a five minute break and then we'll come back. So, we're going to come back at 7:16. 16.

1:46:00 All right, I see that some people are back. Not everyone, but I need to go turn off my air conditioner. Okay, I am back and we are Oops, hang on. Moving on to agenda item uh number 10, headquarters, buildings and associate associated real property disposition. Frank. Yes. Uh President Schllber. Good evening

1:46:47 again, commissioners. Um this is Frank Lawson for the record. Next slide, please. So, the purpose of the presentation this evening is just to give you um just a brief update on the headquarters building and get some direction and counsel uh from the board on some potential next steps. Uh just a little bit of of background information. I did supply a background memo as part of this topic um with a little bit of the history about the surplus declaration and some of the other activities that are that are taking place. Um was built in 1988, so it's a little over 100,000 square ft. Uh there is parking available uh somewhere kind of in the 225

1:47:34 parking spot range uh on the site. It's made up of multiple parcels. I believe there's nine parcels in in total. Um, EW Webb's board declared it surplus for utility purposes in November of 2018, which according to city code at that time uh started a clock for negotiations with the city. uh that had um various different interpretations of the timeline, but the they the the longest period of time was five years for the city and ew web to uh work their way through that process. Um more recently though, um as part of negotiating um a surplus declaration and sale to the city

1:48:20 for what's called the MGP site, which is south of the steam plant. Uh we did have a provision in that purchase and sale agreement to where the city if they signed that agreement and uh after we fulfill a few other u provisional items, the city will release uh officially release their exclusive right to negotiate um under that city code on the headquarters site. Um we have signed that agreement um and um we're working through some of the um things that we need to do relative to assumption of O andM responsibilities with some of our other counterparties but that looks like it's going to um take place and so u within the next month or so probably the

1:49:07 city's right exclusive right to negotiate on the headquarters building um will be dissolved. So um that leaves the process here for what the board might want to do with the headquarters building or what you would instruct me to do. Um that is uh we have a number of possibilities. I will mention here that our process has historically been to offer this first if the board were to say we want to explore the sale of this property. Um like our other uh properties that we surplus, our first intention would be to contact other public agencies um or agencies or or companies. That

1:49:52 would be for the general public good um as usually our first step um just um just as a process note. Go ahead with the next slide please. So with that um knowing that there is the possibility upcoming shortly that we can uh do with the headquarters building that of what we want to do with it. Um I would like to hear from the board as to which options you might be interested in in exploring that could be uh a limited sale and what I meant by that was only to potentially certain public agencies. for example, um moving to an just an open sale if you want to um divest of the property. If you want to explore further leasing, this is really just um

1:50:39 to give you some indication that there's um the possibility that we'll coming up shortly that we'll be able to do with headquarters what we want to and I'd like to hear from the board what you might be interested in in pursuing with that. President Schllber, I'll turn it back to you and see what questions and comments and direction I can get. Great. Is there anyone who wants to jump in and start off? John Brown, what a surprise. You think Thank you. Uh I Yeah, I obviously this has a a little bit of interest to me. Frank, can you go back to that first slide? I just for purposes of clarification for others that may be

1:51:24 looking uh I think the areas in blue that you highlighted is what you somebody thinks that e webb owns. Is that correct? Yeah, I think that those are the part those continue to be in our ownership. Although some of those on the very north end I'm might be in question. Yeah, the one what I'm concerned about is the east side of Ferry Street Bridge. I think that's the Jeff Wilson and Charles property. the the one that's uh um you know on the east side of the bridge that's above on fourth up. Yeah. Right up there to the left of that. Yeah, that one right there. The the one to the to the far north there on the the east on the east side of the bridge or the west side? Uh west side, I'm sorry.

1:52:09 Yeah, that I don't believe we own that one. We own the two parking lots along the fourth street there. And about how many acres? Um, that's a good question, Commissioner Brown. I don't know that off the top of my head. Well, I'd just like to comment. I know that in 2016, we got a pretty detailed report about all the money we'd put into that building when we shut the steam plant down. We put in new chillers. We re redid all the windows. We uh did a re-roofed. We just did an elevator. We've put a ton of money into that building. So, the bones are really good. Um, I would uh yeah, I'd kind of like to see a cost hold analysis or somebody do something because if the city's putting 14 million into that park right next door and the the developers are going to

1:52:55 proceed with developing the river park, the riverfront park, I think that it may, you know, uh I don't know what our costs to hold it are. You know, I know that it may be better better for us to wait till that gets a little bit more mature before we sell it, but I don't want to u have to spend a lot of money. Moth. I mean, that thing probably cost us a quarter of a million dollars a year to maintain whether we have any anybody in it or not. So, I'd kind of like to see what it costs us to, you know, maintain it and keep it operational because an empty building is not a good building. and uh and kind of see what our our cost, what our break even on holding it is and what we would have to rent it for

1:53:41 and and and things such as that if we held it for a longer period of time rather than just try and give you a recommendation. Uh, I've got my own opinions, but I think it it wouldn't be fair to the process to bring them out right now. I just to kind of wait and see what some of the other numbers are, but I'd kind of like a little more information before I told you. I don't, you know, I don't think I would be leaning to putting a for sale sign on it right now. Although market's really good and I think we're in a bubble, but things are you, we don't even put signs up anymore. It's absolutely off the charts what's going on in the marketplace right now. Yeah. So, Brown, we can we can certainly get a a cost to maintain um that that building. Um we did put quite a bit of money into

1:54:27 the energy systems. Um although I don't believe that we replace the the windows. Those were going to be very expensive for not a lot of return. But we did do the elevators. We did we put in a new furnace uh and a number of things to that to that building. and I I can get the report that showed what we put into it and I can work with staff to figure out how much it is to hold that building um just from an operational perspective. I don't remember. I I know that um when we were originally doing the assessment for the 17 acres um adjacent to it before we sold it to the city, there was some numbers that that we had received relative to how much property escalates

1:55:13 between when a development first begins versus the end of it. Um so maybe whole and you probably would would know that as well. Um, as that area develops, that building's value should increase, I guess, and be comparing that with the cost to hold it. So, we we can get that information. Thank you, Sonia. I saw that your hand was up before. Yeah, I I wanted some more information on how much um the renters would be in there too because I I know we were originally looking at how it how long um how it would appreciate over time when that other development was um you know in process and then it kind of got delayed

1:55:59 and now here we are again. So, I similar vein. Um, although I was more looking at how much the the lease was and how much we get from them and if they're even interested in potentially renting it further. I mean, we're only four months away from that lease running out. So, I'm assuming they have other plans at this point. Yeah, I don't believe that rent that that particular tenant will continue. um they um they continue payments through I believe October, but um it it expires after that. I don't know what the rental market is. Um that that might be another piece of information that we that we can explore um further. Great. Thanks.

1:56:53 thank you. Um yeah, for me uh I I see this as a community asset. Um, I would like to see it maintained in uh if if if at all possible by uh a community organization, whether that's, you know, a government agency, uh, university, something like that would be my would be my first choice if it if it was for sale rather than to a private entity. Um, I kind of agree with Commissioner Brown that it probably will go up in value. So, if if there's an opportunity to find a a tenant that could cover our costs for the next 3 to 5 years, that would be something that I

1:57:38 would consider. Um, and I also think that there's should be some sort of a a community engagement in this. Uh I I don't think that it for me I don't feel comfortable five people sitting here although it is our it is our purview and we are elected officials to make these decisions but I also think that the the community input would be something that I would like to see uh to help me make that decision. What what would the community like to see that building become and is there a possibility to realize what the community's uh vision might be for it? um that may or may not be possible, but uh again, I see it as as a community asset that it will

1:58:23 dovetail well with the new park that's going in there. So, at this point, that's kind of where I'm leaning. So, I would just a followup then to th the two commissioners that have already spoken, uh Commissioner Brown and Commissioner Carlson. Um, are your thoughts similar to Commissioner Barovski when it comes to the the community asset or is it I you know hold it till we can get maximum value um independent of of who that is? Um I guess I would I would ask that maybe they weren't ready for my question. Um so um Commissioner Brown um

1:59:11 Commissioner Barovski just indicated that when it comes to if there's a potential opportunity to sell this that he believes it's a community asset and that keeping it in community hands would be um a priority for him. Are are you of the same mind? Um you know I having been through the disposition of the rest of the property and how many that cost us $1.4 $4 million to do a master plan. It cost us $900,000 to write the code. It cost us millions to do mitigation. And um and then we had to go through two different buyers and it it it drug it out five years, John. And um I'm I'm worried that we're going to get into that same process. Everybody's going to come in

1:59:56 and love it. It's a great building. I I it should have been our library. I get that. But I want to make sure that, you know, my charge is to the rateayers. I get the community asset concept, but the rateayers and a lot of rateayers that uh that are up, you know, up the river and in Springfield and areas that don't that wouldn't directly benefit from this. And so I kind of have to keep it in the global thing. I I don't have a problem with, you know, asking for RFQS request for proposals to see what people want to do with it. But um I think if we uh we go to all the other public agencies first because I know there's another public a agency that's had an interest in it that would maybe check that box.

2:00:41 Uh I think I'm worried that if we go into a bigger process we're get going to get bogged down in years and years of committees and planning and everybody want to make it a a great building and everything but nobody's going to have the money and is it going to be our charge to subsidize it? So that those would be my concerns. And so um I'm not afraid to to consider it, but I would want to give it some more thought before I just made that decision. I I'd be curious how much time it takes to go through that process, too. Um if you know, if you start down that path with some of the other community organizations, how how that goes. Um, I'm not opposed to it, but I also think that it's a really good piece of

2:01:27 property and if we can, you know, put it to good use and and the public can interact with it, you know, I I would certainly appreciate that, but I also don't want that to be on EW's dime and the customer's dime either. Yeah, Commissioner Carlson, I think once that we know a few of the the the facts and figures that were asked for earlier, the cost to hold and and the rental potential and some of those things that we can get a pretty good feel for that that that doesn't take a long time to to do that. Reaching out to a limited number of public agencies um is is a finite process. It's it's not one that uh now what what can extend

2:02:14 that though is is that um a lot of agencies have very um probably worthwhile very interesting plans um but not it it's one it's you have to have both the ability and the desire to make it happen. Some of them have the desire and just not the ability. And so um but if they were had a real mechanism either through some kind of financing option or something else then that starts to become a little bit different conversation. It keeps it in public hands at some point in in a under a reasonable time frame. Um so but I don't think reaching out this is not going to drag on for certainly years and years. It might take several months to go through and and really figure out

2:03:01 which agencies are legitimately interested and to what degree when you start getting into some of the figures behind it. Um, but it's it's not something where, you know, we'll be trying to figure this out years from now. Thanks. Um I yeah I think I'm in the same camp as uh Commissioner Brown in terms of uh I uh I'm I don't have a huge preference for you know a community ownership or uh public ownership of this building ultimately. Um and I am wary of

2:03:46 additional process uh in the in the process of of looking to sell it. Uh I do think those uh figures of both, you know, what it could be rented for, the cost to hold, but also, you know, what would the sale price look like today if we put it up for sale? I think that could be useful to understand. Um I think that's all I have here. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Um, and lastly, I um agree that I don't I don't really support having a long drawn out big public process about what we should do

2:04:31 with this. Ideally, it would be something value add to the community in that spot. um we can't really control that, but I guess I support reaching out to a finite number of public agencies, other public groups, and seeing if they're interested in it first because it it would be nice if it was something that benefited the whole community. But I also realize that there's many ways that that could happen and it doesn't necessarily have to be owned by a public entity to make that happen. And that once we sell it, we don't really get to say Yeah. I think the only thing that we we get to say anything about is the time capsule that's built into the the front of the building that uh is supposed to be opened in 2038 or something like that. There's a bunch of e webb stuff in

2:05:16 there somewhere that we we might want to keep. Um but what let me see if I can summarize what I'm I'm hearing. There's um there's some inclination that the value of this will will go up. We need to explore the the value versus versus timing. So, what's it worth today versus what it might be be worth and the cost to hold it for some period of time. Um, the no rush to put a for sale sign on it right away, for example. Um, there does seem to be at least a preference to explore keeping this community asset in in public hands. Um but a I'm sensing a reluctance to add much of a process to that um uh other than to go through and

2:06:05 see what um agencies might have the ability and desire to uh pursue this further. Um and so um uh and then as part of that understanding and probably coming back to the board to talk about some of these values in executive session as to um the details behind what a sales price might look like, what the timing might look look like, who some of the agencies might be that would be interested. Um did I capture that correctly? Yeah, thanks Frank. Yeah, and when I mentioned to public process, I didn't mean, you know, a master plan or anything like that. I

2:06:50 just I just would like to hear from the community somewhat what is out there. And and I think the other thing and that might be important is to to find out is it rentable? you know, what is the market value of it as a as a rental property at this point in time? Because, you know, we've got a tenant that's leaving and if there's somebody that's willing to go in there for a period of time, that's something that I would like to know, too. That would help me make make a decision whether to sit or or get off the pot. I'll um I'll look into that as well. just the rental potential of it. It's um

2:07:35 I I'll I'll just have to explore that further. Commissioner, um I would also add that we still have some infrastructure in there. Um this isn't necessar it's our backup control center, for example. And so, um, there is some timing associated with Ew Webb's, um, I'll say eviction of ourselves, but for no other word, um, um, completely moving our, um, facilities and staff out the the rest of the way. So, there's a little bit of a timing issue there, and we're probably talking a year to 18 months um, for that. So, um, I'll look into those things. I think I got enough to run with for now. Um I'll um look

2:08:20 into into these and um work to schedule at some point here in the next few months an executive session with an update and we can talk through values and and opportunities um at an executive session. Great. That work that works for me. Um, any other input? I just gave you eight minutes back. Um, President Schllober. Well, you gave yourself that. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Um, okay. We are on agenda item 11, correspondence and board agendas. So, back to you, Frank. Yes. Thank you, President Schllober.

2:09:05 There were um there were really three correspondence items. I I added a fourth one at the last minute. Um just not expecting everybody to be able to read that today and go through it. I I mainly wanted to get that in into your hands. um since it had to do with some follow-up items from the strategic plan. And that was um really dissecting some of the issues in the strategic plan a little bit further. Um based on some of the comments and and also the fact that when you take a strategic plan from 37 pages down to two pages, it every sentence does seem to matter a little bit more at that point. And so there's some there's some word smithing in

2:09:50 there, but also a recognition that sometimes things that are not mentioned become things that are important. And so, um, if you get a chance to read that, I'd be, you know, we have check-ins next week. Uh, we can talk individually then and then some type of upcoming followup with the board around some further strategic work. Um um but you're the the the feedback that took place a couple weeks ago at the planning session was very helpful. Things like equity have already been included in the plan and other things. So um I think that was that was quite useful. Um but this is just some further dissecting especially um for those who didn't really live through the first um

2:10:36 generation of it. The other three items really were officially correspondence items. uh an ERP, sorry, an IRP um update um kind of related also to our RPS renewable portfolio standard compliance document. That's something that we have to do every year as well as our IRP update and then the legislative update from from Jason on kind of what's going on in Salem. So, be happy to entertain any questions or get the right people on the call. I don't know if Jason's on the call or not, but if he had any questions going on in in Salem, um he could jump in on that as well.

2:11:24 Uh just on the the first piece of correspondence, one quick question on the mission section. So there's the kind of three additional points down below, the why and who we serve, what we do, and how we do it. Is that intended to be kind of a a a thing that that goes with the mission or is that just kind of an explanation for the mission for this particular document? Yeah, that's just for this document as an explanation. That's that's a way of dissecting it and diagnosing it. Got it. And otherwise, uh I really liked the blue language that was added particularly the transparently and equitably. I appreciate that nod to the comments from previous conversations. So, thank you. And then, uh, my last thing that I wanted to note on kind of

2:12:09 the well, I guess we're not in the this is just course well, no, it is board agendas as well. Um, I will not be able to be at the August 3rd meeting. Not be in range at all. It'll be my first meeting I've ever missed. So, all right. Anyway, so I'll watch the video and and follow up afterwards. Thanks. Thank you. Any other questions on correspondence? I I appreciate uh the the leadin to um the upcoming agenda items. Again, we we do have uh the Up River board meeting. And by the way, thank you for all the extra uh curricular activities over the last

2:12:56 month or so. There's there's been quite a few of them. Um it's it's great. not just not for me because I get a little tired of you myself, but um the rest of staff really does appreciate the opportunity to interact with the board. Um and especially on things like um seeing going on field trips and interacting on subjects. Um thanks for taking the time to to do that. Um and I was just joking I I enjoy all my time with with all of you. Um and so appreciate that very much. But not all boards uh participate in that way. So so thanks for doing that. Um we do have some meaty topics. July is a lot about long-term financial planning, capital planning um to to President Schlloberg's

2:13:42 term at very heady subjects, I I believe is how you refer to that. Um and so that'll be a good meeting. Um, we'll try to keep it as concise and and interactive as possible, but the next the next event really for us is is June 15th um up at the Leeberg Fire Station. So, I' I'd be happy to answer any questions that anybody has about correspondence or agenda items. Well, I'm not seeing people rush to ask a question. I just um have a quick question about the July board meeting. Um and just in reference to Matt and John's request to maybe have some of

2:14:28 that information a little bit earlier. Um just want to point out that that's July 4th weekend that happens before then. I don't know if people are going to be out of town, how that's going to work. I also know that staff works really hard to get us the board packet information on time. So, um I know that that's kind of a time crunch for staff, but if there is at all a way to get that at least some of the information a little bit earlier, that would be helpful. Yeah, we will do our best to do that. I'll have to review that with staff. Um President Schlloberg, I I appreciate the request. I know that there's a lot to that meeting in particular. Um, I don't know the feasibility of that without without consulting with them, but um, I'll I'll note that's the request and

2:15:13 we'll do what we can. Great. Any other questions or comments for Frank? No. All right, then we are on the wrap-up portion. Anyone have anything they'd like to wrap up? No, we're a subdued bunch tonight. Maybe the heat is getting to all of us. Yeah. Um, so then I guess that that brings us to the conclusion of this meeting and um I look forward to seeing everybody on the 15th at our upriver meeting. Thank you everybody. Meetings adjourned. Thank you all.

2:15:59 Thanks.