EWEB Board of Commissioners — February 15, 2022

0:03 2 15 our work session the eugene water and electric board [Music] okay first step order of business agenda check if you have anything changed okay moving right along we have discussion the e-web city of eugene joint initiatives agenda so this is the information that we will be gathering john and i will be taking to the city of eugene so we wanted to get a have a conversation on the types of topics and order a business that the board would like to bring them and thank you that you think the presenters is just just just a quick kick off um just for those who were not aware when the board met in january they

0:48 appointed liaisons for a number of positions this one in particular the board wanted to provide guidance to the president and the vice president who are the liaisons to leadership within the city uh the backgrounder uh included some potential ideas on just sort of content and format is to is for the president and vice president to gather whatever guidance they can from the rest of the board as they represent the board to meetings with city leadership and um we thought that we would bring back this as a resolution um to the for the board's approval in

1:33 march um it doesn't necessarily have to be a resolution by policy a resolution does more formally capture the direction that the president and vice president had received although alternatively it could be a background memo that the board just takes approval action on and that we would just write it in that it would be for 2022 and would expire when we have a new president vice president for next year we could do it either way resolutions a little better way of of having the guidance live on uh since resolutions are a little easier to refer to so that that can be decided later we'll just plan on proposing it as a resolution but with that uh the purpose tonight being for

2:18 the president and vice president to gather information and guidance from the rest of the board i'll turn it back over to you vice president carlson to moderate the discussion okay fantastic and i see so in the memo we have quarterly results we have the 40th water storage project and the kind of decarbonization of new and existing buildings as three of those potential topics so we can talk about those or any others that you have uh interest in anybody want to jump in the queue sure okay matt please uh i don't this is more a question than a proposal do we want some sort of uh interaction on the

3:04 headquarters building or is that so just our in our court now the city of eugene policy our interests are something that we're seeking so uh vice president carlson if you don't mind let's go ahead and answer that we do have a liaison from the city who's on our project team so when questions come up relative to how it fits in the master plan or certain code related issues we do have a member as part of the team for the most part the ball is in our court i do keep city manager madari appraised various things going on as well so it could be an informational item the examples that were given were just simply just examples

3:50 um an update on where we stand with headquarters could be one of those you know i just said significant projects i think significant project updates would include things like east 40th the headquarters or other things with public interest so i would almost include it in that commissioner yeah that makes sense and we might add to that uh just a wildfire mitigation plan that we're putting together it seems like there's likely to be a fair amount of overlap between our actions on that front and city infrastructure that you know we want to make sure that they're aware and that's all i have on this update okay great thank you question do we also see john brown jumping in the queue and then

4:36 john garofsky did you want to be on thank you okay so yeah if i may thank you um uh we talked earlier about asking the city to seriously consider using the uh increased revenue they're going to get from our rate increases to excel through achieving some of their uh their goals do we want to i kind of would like to continue to put that pressure not pressure but somehow continue to reinforce that we think that would be a real good use of some of those funds um in a in an example would be uh on you know charging stations on public

5:21 facilities and things such as that but also um just just put that in there i i personally would like to do that and i would also like to encourage having them um uh i know in code they're talking about building materials but other things like representative wilty uh marty just had a thing before the legislature about mandating multi-family projects at least put in the infrastructure for charging stations so when they put in apartments they've got the conduits in to run you know so you have charging stations the things such as that just simple solutions it's not funding but just mandate or at least try and get that in in the queue so uh

6:08 those are building new multi-family projects at least we have them because i know a lot of the new projects i've seen there the demand exceeds the supply for charging stations and apartments um so i those were two things uh silt and and um and you know code changes and then the last one would be continuing to push to uh and that's going to come up in our dei conversation but uh weatherization of the rental pool the non-owner-occupied uh mark uh inventory of properties we have in this community because i think it will check a ton of boxes if we can get that pushed forward so those are my three little topics i would like to make at least

6:55 have up for consideration and i apologize for wandering i just um not loopy but uh tired thank you thank you so much all right john brosky and then commissioner thank you um yeah i mean i'm not going with john brown said i sent out an email this afternoon just kind of counterizing my thoughts on that i think that building a relationship between eweb and the city of eugene when it comes to if efficiencies weatherization and those types of things if there's a way that we can work with them it will check some boxes maybe on their climate recovery

7:40 uh to-do list as well as helping with affordability of our housing stock on the rental side whatever method there is to get there i know that we're in that prime position as as the utility to maybe uh help shepherd through the program and and that may take some of the administrative costs off of the city and put it into eweb's pocket but i think that that's something that i would might be in favor of us doing if it's a weatherization or or something like that and then as far as as this being a resolution or just a direction for me i would rather it not be a resolution

8:26 because when i hear resolution that that kind of sticks and it makes it static and i would like this to be a more free-flowing back and forth type of a collaboration rather than these are what we're working on this here and boom and things come up uh and that's where innovation and and thoughts and so that's where i would like to see the liaison type of go more of a back and forth thing and not just like here's what we're working on here's 40 of the donald oh and they come back and say oh we've got something else we'd like to talk about it's not in our resolution so i don't i'll have to go back to the board and check with it i i feel confident in the leadership of our board to be able to convey eweb's

9:12 priorities but also be available to listen and interact with with the other bodies so that's where i'm landing on those thank you commissioner all right thank you i have a um a couple things one just a little background that we have been talking about this idea of collaborating on weatherization and energy efficiency for over three years with the city so um it's not a new idea to them we've talked about doing a pilot program i think the mayor had suggested maybe we start off like in the train song neighborhood somewhere where there's the most economically disadvantaged residents of our community

9:57 so i don't know if the sticking point is the funding piece of that so i fully support um talking with them about using some of that extra silt money for some of these projects because i i feel like we've talked about and around so many great ideas for three and a half years or whatever it's been but haven't really gained any traction so maybe this influx of money will change some of that um that's my first thing and then the second thing is this is maybe a minor thing it's i don't know how important it is on our list but i also think that the city can be a really good partner in um our pledge to prepare or disaster

10:43 preparedness campaign i know that eweb has um a lot more reach in terms of we send out people get mailers from us or bills or whatever but i think that there's a lot of different avenues to that we can partner with the city to make sure that more people are prepared in times of emergency i'm thinking like um i don't know specifically but anyway that that was just an idea that i had i'm going to take a second and jump in the queue last year so i what i'm i'm hearing a lot of interest and also agreeing with the you know having the increased revenue will go towards you know rentals and uh using salts

11:28 towards decarbonization and you said i mean we were some of the first people that went to the city and brought that message to them three years ago now so um i it seems like that has some really solid consensus from the group and maybe it would be good to flush out kind of what our specific task asks are maybe there's some potential there to say you know have a bigger discussion about how we how we really make that tangible and actionable for them so that it's like we are presenting you with you know this can you do this so it's a really clear ass because i think we've kind of broadly brought the concept up and and i've been involved in the you know the conversation over the last couple years

12:13 so i'm looking for for feedback there but um you know if you said that there was a pilot was there a commitment to you know would he would be doing the pilot did they need to take that back to their board get approval to do the pilot like how would that work maybe it's because we have to have we have to be very specific about having a game plan and saying we're willing to ux are you willing to do a or what you know whatever z um so that that's one thought i had there and then it seems like on a few of these we don't necessarily have asks maybe we do it's kind of bringing up the conversation and just letting them know that this is the work that we're doing um so like on headquarters i think that's a good one to give them

12:58 updates on um i don't know does the liaison that we have do they have are they connected directly with city council or are they uh kind of city of eugene staff so the city leadership which is at these meetings is the mayor the president of the city council and the vice president right but at the but at our um headquarters meeting the staff person that's staffing that are they part of the city yeah they're a staff position okay so maybe not as much connection so it seems like it would be a good opportunity to just give maybe an update there and if we can if you have asked that you think that we should put out there um let's think about those fire mitigation it would be nice to

13:43 maybe flush that out if it's an ask for an update then um same on kind of pledge to prepare ask in an update ask courses update and then um i also would like to get john borowski weighed in on whether or not resolution um or not and i'd like to hear from the other commissioners on what their thoughts are resolution or not i'm i'm not holding to it necessarily i'm okay either way so long as we aren't like stuck with it but i'd be curious to hear from others i could make one quick quick comment on that vice president carlson um a resolution can be written to be flexible either way we we actually do that with our legislative agenda where there's just things that can come up and

14:28 be explored but it's like i said there is no policy requirement to do it it can be if if the commissioners wanted to be more casual intentionally then a memo with direction can be an acceptable tool to do that um you know we we typically do that and attach it to the resolution with the legislative agenda as well so that it's really a mechanism that could go whatever the board would like it however the board would like it to go

15:29 okay all right oh mandy actually jump in the queue there i just have a i have a suggestion um i think it's really great that we are talking about this as a board and we haven't done that before and the past three years have really been like building this relationship and getting this set up but now formalizing it more i think we'll make it so that we can like actually do more stuff um so my suggestion or my request would be that at your next meeting with them that you share what it is that we're doing and how we are formalizing it on our end to kind of show that we are taking some like more of a leadership role there um

16:14 and i do think that just based on my observations and past experience that if there are some things that we want that we really want to get done tangible things like the weatherization kind of thing we might have to take the lead and put more put out a more informed plan to them because i just feel like so many of these things we've been talking around in circles so we're really good at like doing things i got a plan great okay let me turn around um thank you i agree with you mindy 100 because we only get to meet with them four times a year and the chances of one of those meetings getting cancelled is high so maybe it's three times a year

16:59 and if you want to see tangible results we're going to have they'll process and i don't mean this is disparaging but it's just a reality check they will process this to forever i mean i think if we go in and say you know they already have a mental um an entity set up that measures complaints regarding uh whether it's and that's not weatherization it's like locks it's like uh you know there's four criteria that you can and we could just say look at a fifth one about you know if you if you have um do we do an energy audit and if you do that and we will you know we will participate but i think you're absolutely right that we need to go in with uh more than just a concept and more

17:44 than just an idea we just have to say you know we can tell them we'd like you to put your money um some of your your silt money into this but i think we have to go in and say this is what we will do and this is how we will do it we need to do it collaboratively because if we just talk about concepts and ideas and policies we're going to continue spinning this wheel and get nothing done if you want to weatherize a rental pool we we are going i believe to take the lead because their council is going to roll over here pretty soon we're going to have a lot of new faces with a lot of new ideas and we're going to continue to talk about concepts and nothing's going to get done i think we're going to have to we're going to have to lead at least for one

18:29 of these and just take it and just run with it with their blessing and um and and i don't want to get into weatherizing rental units but i want to get into i mean that's our business we're not going to physically do it or or maybe we will frank that's up to you but i i personally would like to have staff and leadership at eweb give us um some tangible things to take to them to say this is this is what we want to do and this is how we propose to do it rather than just what we want i want i'd kind of like to have an action item behind it yeah commissioners thank you we as as an organization do bring quite a bit of resource to to that particular

19:16 issue weatherization we have limited income programs rental programs our discussions and work with the city in the past has been from a staff level um not a lot of resource behind that particular issue to draw from from the city's perspective that may be an issue of funding for example and so um we we would be willing and our staff has already talked about if if there was additional funding coming in from the city what other possibilities there there could be but i think it is one from a city perspective where they operate a little bit differently the council is a policy direct you know they then direct the the city manager

20:01 uh from a policy perspective so we would have to get in on their budgeting cycle and some of the other things to be able to create the resources necessary but that's that's where it's fallen down in the past has been just the amount of resource and capability that was brought to the particular issue commissioner you know about their budgeting so kind of i've flushed this out because like i said i have i am fairly familiar with their budgeting process next year's rate increase would increase their sales and it came to about 300 000 a year so in my my back of the envelope penciling if they were to defray that increase

20:47 that 300 000 for the next two to three years that one next our next increase and the one after that that would be an ongoing funding source of after three years about a million dollars without them taking away from the six percent self that they're already receiving so that's kind of my if you guys can hold off on spending the increase on your general fund needs and dedicated toward this then there would be an ongoing amount of about a million dollars a year that could go into these types of projects so that's kind of what i'm thinking might be a proposal on our part again it would be a budget and which is passed by

21:32 the city council so it may be may need leading more into the elected officials to direct staff to dedicate these funds on that way i think it it behooves us to bring it to staff and and council leadership and say this is what we're leaving towards we would love to see it happen and we may be making a few phone calls to some of our colleagues that sit on your uh elected officials but that that's a way that i could see this okay commissioner brown thank you john i agree with that but i would i would hope we could also float the idea that they can leverage that 300 000 a year it's it's guaranteed it's we could

22:17 they can use that to bond three million dollars in the first year and whether or not we get the bond and they just we just keep withhold the three hundred thousand to certain to serve a debt because we've got a better bond rating and use it for weatherization they turn around and say don't give us 300 grand a year we leverage a three million dollar bond we can weatherize a heck of a lot of units a heck of a lot of units and rather than delay it and and to me i this goes to not only it this helps prevent homelessness because the single largest expense of of occupying an apartment besides rent is utilities and if we and you you look at the disparity between eugene and springfield i mean this to me is a has got so many positives about it and i would very much like to see us uh

23:04 you know be creative instead look just give us back to 300 grand we'll we'll borrow three million and we'll go on a weatherization and uh and do exactly what you talked about trains on i don't care where it is but i do want that equity thing in in um in the the we can figure out where it goes but i i would like to get creative and and use that money to leverage um maybe a bond or something for that i don't know i know that probably the finance people are throwing darts at my picture right now but oh well um not the first time i can i can throw verbal darts now how i was going to take a step back from this is it sounds like the board is

23:49 interested in exploring a number of different methods so that the city can bring more resources to this particular issue the city's budgeting process i mean our finance people meet with their finance people the planned rate increases presently go into the general fund um so there's and and whether those are used to create additional revenue or financing streams that's where our financial people can get together but you know what how i would characterize this particular request from the board is to facilitate a way that the city can bring more resources to this particular issue including financial resources we do have the systems that we can

24:34 manage these kinds of programs but it needs to and efficiently to your point commissioner barofsky but there needs to be a way that the city of an can participant that's that's how i would characterize it if i'm mischaracterizing that then then please throw verbal darts back at me if that's the case okay well i see we have five minutes left in this particular discussion item we've hammered out you know support around this middle one although it seems like perhaps we need staff to weigh in and maybe do some thinking about that and perhaps bring that back to us at the next board meeting so that we have kind of a clear picture of what the

25:19 what our capabilities are and how we could leverage it and what the specific ad i mean i think the specific apps from what i'm hearing is that we would like the city to commit some portion of money the 300 000 um from the silt to this program and this and then we need to tell them this is what we could give them for it is that a correct characterization okay i'm seeing head nods okay so that's so that's good on this one let's um plan on that then for the next march meeting um let's uh try to dive into some of these other topics that i have here headquarters do we have anything else besides kind of an update on anybody's opinion

26:04 okay okay seeing just an update there great uh let's go to the wildfire mitigation topic i mean versus oh frank yeah i was just going to say a number of these the the board backgrounder just gave some examples what i'm hearing from the board is there's a certain degree of information sharing on sort of present day topics that could be headquarters it could be advances with our wildfire mitigation there's just there's a series of topics of the day that would be a combination of information sharing and then potential asks that the city participate in certain parts of that it could be

26:49 spreading the word it could be looking at certain different scenarios or situations sometimes it's asking for support things like the pledge to prepare can we work together on getting the word out to neighborhood associations for example and things like that so there's a number of topics i would put into that sort of inquiry and um information sharing and asking for support category and i there's there's others that we could we could add to that list also i also recognize that our time i mean the hour that we have with them goes by so quick and it seems like a third of it is just introductions and how you're doing and okay this is who's doing well okay and and some of the time they're going to have an agenda for us too so we have to be pretty quick with what we're

27:35 giving them i wonder if some of these topics we could give to like provide them in a memo for the meeting uh maybe the you know the headquarters if there's no ask around wildfire mitigation maybe some things of that nature we give them before we have this meeting so that they have the update if they have questions they can ask but then we really focus on the ones that we want to move them on so we can get so we can actually get change carlson what would be really efficient for us is if the meetings with the council leadership are are around the same time or slightly after we do our quarterly reporting so we could take extractions from the quarterly report and have updates that

28:21 we've already generated so we don't have to redo those and that would be helpful from a staff perspective okay that makes sense to me i'm seeing other head knots here okay so i i do have a question on number three on the motions from on decarbonization um and that's a hot topic that's going around the community obviously we are going to be a player in that discussion and so i think we need to one it would be good for for the sonia and john to have copies of the motion so that they know what is going that the city is working on those there's two separate motions that were put forward one's a short-term one one's a long-term one

29:06 and how that will affect our customers our rate payers and the community as a whole you know and looking at at things that they may not know because we're a utility and we deal with megawatts and heating and cooling and all of these things so there may be information that will help them to form an opinion on the best way to move forward so i think that that's going to be an important thing in the next few i mean i know one of them is supposed to come back by june i think the first one the they're supposed to come back with a recommendation by jill so

29:52 i think that that's going to need some information you guys getting learned learning from the city and then us being able to give them as much information as we can and we'll probably need to have staff then to your point you probably need to have staff update the entire border on what what that means too so that we all have a sense of what those different emotions mean right what i tried to capture in just the idea that was floated was that is a very important impactful issue for us that the city is embarking on there were two resolutions and our first inquiry is how do they expect us to engage in this you know what process are they going to use to engage the key stakeholders including us and others

30:38 and i think that's actually the first step we we don't know and there's no formal way at this point that that we know of that they're going to engage eweb as as a key stakeholder so to me the first inquiry is okay we are willing to participate we do know this is impactful for us how is the is city leadership and the city going to engage eweb and that's what i tried to capture here just in a quick highlight that to me seems like the first step okay that sounds like a great first step we'll put that on there okay um so we have we're at 601 there were two we i don't really really question the wildfire medication or pledge to prepare asks and then there were a couple of other topics listed on here

31:24 including limited treatment did anybody else want to have anything on those besides just an update did you have thoughts on specific asks that you wanted us to give if there were then um raise your hand on that and we'll see about adding some more time i'm not seeing any okay so great so we can we can do uh some updates on those other topics frank the only other topic i i heard come up and and i may have to reach out to commissioner brown on this individually was the the issue of building codes and building standards and there's a number of things going on at the state level in that arena as well regarding what are called reach codes

32:09 of which we have tended to not weigh into that because it's really you know building codes aren't necessarily at large in our area of expertise there's a lot of impacts to building codes from a cost perspective from a community perspective reach codes for those of you that follow that are sort of above and beyond the present legal building standard but in many cases it's a precursor of what might come so they tend to be voluntary but in in some cases and i think what's going through the state is that cities individual cities could make the reach codes mandatory so um and we we haven't as an organization weighed in on that in particular because

32:55 it's a very broad issue it's not just about things like energy efficiency it's about all kinds of other standards as well but i i lumped that in with the rental decarbonization and kind of general decarbonization of the community so i apologize that that was meant to be that's fine i can reach out to commissioner brown if there was something else that was included in that that i missed there was one thing that got toronto um so with house bill 2001 it's talking about putting more housing on smaller lots and one of the if the if the code goes through as as is recommended by the planning commission there will be

33:41 some parking requirements that are reduced if there's on-street parking so we probably think about some way that eventually people are going to want to have a meet uh charging station to the stream and so i don't know how that would work you know in a private neighborhood or something like that multi-family is different you know you can build it in but when people are adding on a duplex triflex or quad and they only have on-street parking at some point there's going to be a need to i haven't given any thought to that one yet all right well i'm bringing it up because it's out there thanks great well i think we're at time unless anybody uh wants has any other topics or wants to add some time on

34:27 not seeing any okay perfect we are going to move on to goal 2 the new world cup new board policy diversity equity and inclusion frank so thank you vice president carlson just a quick introduction on this topic as well um as part of some work that management and the board were doing last year we recognized that some of the the issues around equity considerations were not directly included in board policy yet they came up in a number of discussions including our our climate change policy and they just came up again a few minutes ago with regards to rental assistance and energy efficiency we we recognized that

35:13 this is it's one that's really impactful sends a very clear message both internally and externally to the organization a board policy tends to be externally facing but also has impact to those internal to the organization we're looking at it and looking to the board for leadership in this in this arena and just to while all three of them work together there are differences um we actually rather than call this an equity policy we included diversity equity and inclusion in our thought process and what we were proposing as a pretty robust process for the board and management to go

35:58 through as opposed to just drafting up a policy reading it word submitting and saying okay here you go we thought there was there was more meaning to evaluate with this policy we proposed a few questions for the board this evening to get a flavor for what your views and perspectives and desires are for a diversity equity inclusion inclusion board policy these are the questions as as proposed to the board to give us a little bit of flavor uh an idea of what our next steps might be relative to research and other things we we have

36:44 done research involving talking to other organizations some local some more broad looking at for example the state of oregon lane county has an equity lens they they call it so there's a number of organizations that we've looked at for examples but one of the really basic questions is with the board and what your perspectives are and um what your vision is uh for for this and the organization going forward and then we can take that as a starting point as a launch point and start to facilitate and bring some other things back to the board that we interpret as good direction so these were the questions as proposed in a particular order

37:30 really to facilitate an open conversation that we can listen to and get your perspectives on it that was it i'll just leave these up here okay would anybody like to jump in the queue and answer any of these questions or comment on other things that sure okay um first uh thank you for the background i think it's super helpful to get us all up to speed about the conversation i really appreciate the timeline as you just said like wanting to take some time and make sure you get it right that's super important um so thank you for laying out that way uh i think it'd be valuable for us to

38:15 have um some kind of uh background on just the efforts are that are already underway i know we're not starting from zero here um there's been a lot of work going back you know a decade or more you know that you have has made investments and done some thinking about our programs and policies so you know it doesn't have to be comprehensive but i think just so that we're all on the same page we understand collectively that we're not starting from zero i think that would be useful and to acknowledge the staff work that's gone into efforts thus far um from my perspective the single most important thing to me i guess there's two things that are really high in the list one it feels like we can and should hire um some expertise to help us with this

39:00 i don't know if we have staff expertise in this arena who have capacity to work on this right now so that's part of my concern but also you know having a third party who's outside the organization you know they just have a different view than somebody from within organizations so i feel strongly um it'll be beneficial for us to hire expertise to assist and then the other thing that's equally important to me is that we not only focus on our internal practices as kind of um laid out in the memo but that we really look at how we're providing services and so we have an external focus as well on how our practices affect the public you know disproportionately and what we might do to address that

39:46 um lastly i would propose but i don't feel you know i'm not set on this but it might be valuable for us to both do kind of a dei assessment and planning effort that takes you know some period of time but that we also simultaneously start focusing on a handful of very specific policies or practices that we have so that we're not waiting until we have you know the big plan done but that we start kind of chipping away at things where we think maybe there's opportunities for improvement um those are my comments okay mr commissioner okay i see commissioner brown's hand raised you're muted okay

40:31 okay matt i agree 100 with what you just said and i think we we should explore the option of having outside help on this because it's a it's a really timely and great topic to do and first i'll give you um my perception of an example of how someone some entity can do better in the at least in the equity and that's you look where the sound walls are on i-5 i-105 and beltline and look at the value of the homes and the age of the homes that get the sound walls and the ones that don't and it's pretty blatant to me that you know you look on belt line in the river road area and some of the older homes are probably not in the same income bracket as all the homes that are in the willow kinsey area that get the brand

41:16 new 20 foot sound walls and examples like that and now that we're embarking on weatherization of the rental pool i think it's very timely that we we have this in place and we're cognizant and aware of how our actions will affect certain classes and groups of people so um i i don't think we need to modify the process because hopefully we'll have a third party help us with the process and and i i think it's gonna help not only in in small things but in big things i know that um we've had some bad things happen in the past about um you know you i look at the diversity and in some of the positions we have here

42:03 and uh hopefully we can we can change that um and i won't go into the details but uh i'd sorry i'm rambling again so i need to shut up so any sorry i i just hope that um that when we we go through and do this um uh that we do it with with outside help if that's what um we can we can find thank you okay all right commissioner oh uh frank sorry one quick comment just one clarifying question um we we have engaged through time and even recently outside expertise in this area

42:48 i'm just wondering when commissioners say you know we would like to engage in outside help what that means at the board level or does that mean at the management level where it would be sort of this liaison between the vision that's created by the board and how it gets implemented at staff i i kind of took this as a recommendation to staff to avail ourselves to all kinds of resources internal external expertise in the development of this and potentially even one of the things that some of us have been thinking about is do we have a position within eweb that focuses and concentrates on this is either part of the diversity team which

43:34 we have so starting point as you mentioned or something else so i just want to make sure i was clear on when commissioners say we'd like to engage external expertise but that means commissioners or does that that mean the process that we're kind of going through now which is management is terrifying okay why don't we let john and matt weigh in since they so weigh in on that piece and then uh commissioner yeah i guess from my perspective there's a couple different pieces we initially started this conversation thinking about an equity policy and i would love outside support to help us as a board think about that but my guess is there is simultaneously you know some internal work at the staff

44:19 level thinking about you know what's our plan kind of investments do we need to make how do we review our practices etc so i imagine both and you know me well i don't i don't know if it's ideal to have the same person doing both it seems like it would be for continuity but um i i would see yeah help at both levels okay commissioner brown i i agree as well and it's something similar frank to when we uh we had outside help when we had uh challenges with board cohesion and process and protocols we brought in outside help to have you know teach the board how to work together and robert's rules of orders and all of those things where we had to kind of get refocused where but but

45:06 um where we have outside helped to um to help us formulate it and then we've done excellent staff um within hr and and i had not been participating in the the group within e-web but i'm sure that they're capable too but with outside help and the resources we have i i agree that we need it at both levels both with staff and with the board okay so they've weighed in on that uh commissioner schlossberg that question or anything else so you can have your attack sure and you can just say mindy because it's a lot easier to say than schlossberg

45:52 um i 100 agree with matt and john i think that it would be really helpful to have some outside help i i'll speak for myself but i only know what i know and so um i've never been charged with developing a equity policy before and also i i only kind of have my own perspective i think it would be really helpful to have an outside person kind of take a look at the organization and give us some feedback about what that person sees or things that we're doing well places that we can improve and i think also it would be with management and with the board i think it would be interesting to to um for the board to kind of hear the feedback that that

46:37 management gets as well um so i feel that it would be kind of vital to crafting something that's really meaningful because i can just like tell you things off the top of my head but in order for it to be something that's really going to make a difference i think that it would be helpful to have somebody who is an expert at this help guide us um yeah i'm kind of on the same page as mindy i haven't developed a dei policy in the past and to be honest with you i don't know

47:23 that i am the best person to do that i mean i look around the room i look around the the you know a lot of people look a lot like me that are crafting this policy and so to get outside input from some of the people that would be affected by a dei policy would help me to craft what i hope is a is a good policy because i like mindy said i can get my perspectives but my perspectives are going to be a lot similar to i think a lot of the other members on this board my lived experience right and so um get when frank asks you know is it for

48:08 the board or is it for staff for me it would be definitely from for the board and and i would like to have some sort of reach out to some of the communities that this would be touching you know it's going to touch everybody but but some of the ones that i may not have their voice in my head is one of the things that i would be looking for and then the other thing anytime i see a policy like this i want measurables right i want to be able to say these are metrics are we hitting them it's not going some of them are going to be squishy so you can't say yes no but where there are areas that they are measurable metrics

48:53 number of of women in this the number of minorities in this job uh number of low-income people that were turning the power off things like that is something that i want to make sure is if we can capture that that would be something that i would like to see so again i'm i'm on the very low end of the learning scale okay well i'll jump in uh i have so i have been a part of our writing um diversity equity inclusion policies and when we did that um on the board for brand we actually did we had a we had a trainer come in and do a full training with the board on what that whole topic meant so we got

49:39 a broader view of the range of topics which i found was very helpful for us specifically and then we also they also did kind of a separate program with staff where they did they did kind of a an internal review of our policies and what you know uh like conversations with staff about what mattered what didn't matter like where we were falling through so they really went through and got input from different levels of the organization and then staff put you know something together it wasn't just like leadership it was you know stat kind of throughout different levels and different departments um and and i felt like that was a very valuable process because it gave them

50:25 it included um you know groups at different levels it got more insight from them and then i think there was also some work that was done i mean we're a much bigger organization some of the others that i've done that with so i absolutely agree having having outside perspective too on our impact in the community level would be valuable um i like the the idea of you know having measurables and to the extent possible i mean i don't know what trainings we provide to staff i know you know we don't we actually as a board haven't had a lot of you know trainings on things we get educated on topics all the time so we're constantly learning but having an actual training at the board level might be something that would be really valuable

51:10 especially around this topic um and then i also uh really value the the idea of having kind of you know a survey or or something some other way that we really engage with it and think about what culture we want to build here and what where the gaps are so overall i think that we we have a lot of open-mindedness that i see come from like the managerial level but i don't know how that how some of that you know interacts with other departments within the organization so okay matt oh okay okay so it sounds like we want some help

51:56 that's what i'm doing so just just a few things and i'll start off with with the comment about managing expectations um this this is something that based on your description is probably more than the schedule that i laid out for you um and and some of that is you know i think it was commissioner mcrae that did point out that this doesn't have to be we're waiting for some ultimate you know wonderful ending this can be a process to where we start to develop things sooner than that we have embarked um on some inquiries around doing an organizational assessment around dei it's kind of a continuation of what we were going to do to evaluate

52:41 specifically our hiring processes but we've decided to get some some estimates on expanding that to a full dei assessment of the organization i think that'll provide some insight into the board but what i am hearing is you believe this is a tool that is is definitely something that is is publicly facing and represents your perspective as a board as to how you'd like to see the organization operate and how you'd like to direct the general manager to operate the organization including things that do have impact on the public like pricing and programs and sound walls and and other things that the decisions that we make

53:27 that are impacted by that and some of it is i'm suspecting is around process as well to make sure we are considering those things in a triple bottom line kind of kind of way we we have engaged and and i i will say that when we think about diversity in particular we are we don't just think about racial diversity we're thinking about um gender age um you know there's all you know all kinds of management layer income socioeconomic there's all kinds of things including race that are that are part of this and you will see just from a diversity perspective you'll see the numbers in the year-end report

54:12 that that we far exceed the diversity that you would find in lane county and so it changes the focus a little bit diversity is part of that but the equity and inclusion pieces is one of the drivers that help facilitate helps facilitate that and that doesn't mean it's sort of monolithic throughout the utility there's areas that have very few females for example and in some of the trade positions so that that's one where you could say it's you look at the utility as a whole versus a particular department it's different but this does sound like the board is is willing and um has the desire to to go on this journey

54:58 i'll call it a journey as opposed to okay let's craft a policy and then we'll check it off and so it sounds like that you're asking for some help to you your position um vice president carlson so i'll have to take a look at the schedule and the resources and everything else and bring something back to the board that reflects that yeah thank you frank for bringing up that last little item i just did some quick math looking at our schedules and between now and december we have 30 minutes that aren't allocated already and this is a very important meaty topic and i don't want to get started and then not be able to allocate the time and the resources necessary to do a good job

55:44 and so keeping that in mind uh you know how we how we accomplish this and on our perceived timelines uh because we you know i'm not saying we shouldn't take it on we will take it on and we will do a good job it's just that we're going to have to shuffle the chairs on the deck a little bit to make sure that we have enough time because we have a lot of a lot of things on the agenda already and i want to make sure that this gets the time and attention it deserves president brown i um also want to make sure i mentioned that um we are not starting from point zero um the some of the things that were reflected in this conversation were also

56:31 comments that we got from our some of the leaders of our diversity team actually earlier today or maybe it was yesterday assistant general manager price met with some of them um to go over the board memo and and talk about different things and one of the things that they mentioned was that um to recognize where we have come from um both the good and the bad of that and and there's there have been some challenges at ewef through the years and probably continued to be that way as well so we have to acknowledge that i think that's an important recognition it is an important topic um and so i want to make sure that we can leverage some of these resources the diversity team being one of them some of the other

57:17 assessments that we're going to do to try to inform the board as we go along but i wouldn't put this in the category just to manage expectations where kind of like we did with sd15 we had a conversation and then staff brought something back for the board for your consideration i don't think this is going to be that same way where we bring something back and say hey what do you think of this we're going to have to go through some educational processes some some learn and it it may extend to commissioner brown's point it might extend for a while as we work through this if that's okay i think it's the journey that counts uh maybe

58:03 um i actually think that if we get some outside help to lead us through this process that it will be maybe quicker than what the anticipated timeline is i can imagine us getting caught up and not being able to move forward because we don't have maybe the background or all the pieces that we need and i think that this is a very thoughtful board that doesn't want to just put together a policy for the sake of checking that box so while your timeline that you put together frank is um it's like it's a good timeline i think that it's maybe overly optimistic anyway based on what i'm hearing from everybody and the type of um

58:48 information and thoughtfulness that people want to put into this policy so after hearing what frank just said i can envision almost a hybrid approach to this where the board gets some outside help in learning what a good dei policy would look like and on the parallel staff doing the the work of putting it together kind of like we did with the with the climate policy

59:34 putting what they think is is what would fit the organization and then when once we're brought up to speed on what we think is a good plan you bring that to us and we make sure that that melds with what we understand it being so it doesn't have to be us crafting this policy at the board level it's us learning what a good policy can be and us having those discussions with the outside facilitator while staff is working internally to show what has been done where we want to go and and using the tools that they have inside and then we meld the two i can see that being a path forward

1:00:19 i would i support that approach commissioner it does a couple of things it's some of these topics are really difficult to start with if you just go out and say okay where do we start um but if you have something you have a track record you have some things going on um that that we do internally that we can use to facilitate some development and then the board simultaneously can really enhance and garner your perspectives as representatives of the public in this which don't always look and feel like like you do um but you represent more than than yourself

1:01:05 then that can be used as a as a governance check and a governance development process so i i actually think that would be a a a good approach to it i'm going to jump in the queue i would really like to see um kind of the maybe the update a little bit more of the information coming back from staff on what what really is out there the survey so then we do when we kind of do the learning of here are the best practices and here's the best you know this is what what others have done i mean we don't have to reinvent the entire wheel we need to know what the framework is and then how we need how we want to modify it to meet our culture and values here so the

1:01:50 the one of the the biggest pieces i think that this this conversation isn't this thing is just what are we doing i mean i knew that we had a you know a diversity group i've met with them we've gone to you know various um different dinners together and such but i think my sense is that it's a small group of people that are trying to enact change and i know some of the main people that i used to know that were part of it have moved on so i don't even know the status of where that is or if they've enacted other policies um you know where we're at the hiring side of it if there are other trainings that managers you know typically get from hr and such on how to you know run their group meetings how they lead their their teams um

1:02:35 so those are the kind of things that like just having a survey of like here are some of the best practices that we do that fall into these boxes and so that we could compare those to you know a facilitated discussion about um world here's the leading edge of what it looks like and then now you can pick and choose from that that would be helpful yeah i think we can put together and it goes way beyond the diversity team so i don't want to just say that that's that's the only thing that we've done we've done a number of other things including pay and equity studies and we look at promotions internal and external number of people that interview with us and the profiles that that we engage in there so there's a lot of things that we

1:03:20 we are doing um there's we've had a similar debate uh vice president carlson internally um when you look at a policy and sort of how do you start this do you take a look at a gap analysis to start with which is where are we at and where do we want to go or do you use this as an opportunity to create a little bit more of a standard vision and we kind of we've recognized that there's there's some pros and cons to both of those uh um i do think that we can provide the board with uh an update on here's some of the things that are standard practices for us at this point where we think that some of these assessments will make sure that the board is made aware of those and then it also sounds like

1:04:06 the board wants to go down a parallel path around some educational processes just around policy and and um content and frameworks and things like that so we can certainly start to look at how we would do that i also know that rod is on here and since he had a conversation earlier i don't know if there's anything that you wanted to add to the conversation or updates that you had uh thank you commissioner carlson the uh first thing i'll say is i will take the opportunity to talk about equality and i've asked general manager in the name of equality to put his mask on

1:04:51 so um we are uh maybe i'm doing that in my safety mode sorry um but no i i i do appreciate the um the conversation here and the uh most of everything i've heard is is right on track with what we've talked about in diversity team and um so so we're really excited to hear some of this and i think education uh is a great way to start in bringing everybody up to the same point at least of education models so so the outside help i guess is what i'm jumping on that bandwagon i think it's a great idea to coordinate the board education with with internal staff

1:05:40 appreciate that i might note that i'm i'm on i'm equal with commissioner brown at the moment does that count rod or i was he wasn't seeing me either all right uh well it looks like we had we had some extra time does anybody have any other comments or thoughts otherwise it sounds like you might have i i guess the only other question that i would have is you know we have things that we're doing internally for me it as frank said early on this is going to be

1:06:25 internal and external to our customers and so getting some information on on how one how we're impacting dei on the community and our customers as a whole things that we're doing now and for me that would be an area where going to a gap thing where are we short in our in serving our customers in with the dei lens would be something that i would lean into rather than overarching you know this is the policy because it's easier to implement at least it seems to me implement things at an organizational

1:07:11 level when you're writing a paycheck and saying if you don't do it you know there's consequences and it's a little bit harder to do that when it's a community as a whole thing so that would be one where i would say what areas are we falling down on and how can we keep revenue well i'm not seeing anybody else jump in the queue sounds like you kind of moved away from these questions and said let's get help and we will start the process that way commissioners thank you i i know that the questions were posed to inspire

1:07:57 conversation and get a flavor for where the board is and uh apparently yeah whether they were direct or indirect but um i you know i i do think this is this is a subject that we recognize is going to take intentional effort um even sometimes when you're doing things well i think part of sustaining and growing and improving an organization is you start to become more intentional with things and i think this is one of those categories where becoming more intentional will tend to build the organization more sustainably and potentially more rapidly as well so appreciate the conversation and feedback

1:08:43 all right that was our uh last substantive piece so then we have board wrap-up review do you have anything right for this section it's just kind of general round for us i don't have anything else okay anybody else want to jump in the queue oh mindy is just a quick shout out to all of you um i've been reading about how the 4j school board is going through some trouble and has to have somebody come in and help them and john brown you referred to previous times when the board needed some facilitation on how to work with one another and i just want to say that i really appreciate working with all of you we don't always have the same

1:09:30 opinions or we have different ideas but i find everyone to be really thoughtful and kind and i'm just so happy to be part of this board i read that too and just thought how thankful i am to be a part of this organization this board and not have those same levels and and i i appreciate that we have differing viewpoints because i've changed my view based on others comments and thoughts and feedback and i think it's really helpful with all respectful stuff appreciate that too great discussion tonight i really did like this format andy i'm so sorry that you weren't so scared it was great to see everybody again quick quick question who who is the council president and vice

1:10:16 president since january i know jennifer was last year you know who the the cyret is claire's president and oh matt keating's probably vice president i believe matt keating is vice president okay that's correct okay great all right i think that's it thank you thanks everyone take care thanks everyone i'll wear my mask the rest of the day rod that's going to be an interesting dynamic thank you