EWEB Board of Commissioners — April 4, 2023

0:03 at 5 45 and we are going to call the e-web regular session to order April 4th first of all the facility is safety awareness briefing meeting Logistics here we go thank you for attending this evening's board meeting web management and subject matter experts are here with us in the room and virtually during tonight's presentation remote presenters will appear on the screen please make sure to speak loudly and clearly so everyone can hear you gifts are invited to sign up at the table at the back of the room that they wish to provide public testimony visitor access is limited to the board meeting room and the restrooms restrooms are located on the first floor through the exit to the right-hand door over here um in the form of the room recent emergencies such as a fire alarm exit through the glass door at the back of the room unless it is not safe to do so the alternate emergency exit is located at the rear of the building just beyond

0:49 the restrooms through the store during an evacuation follow staff's instructions and stay together for safety the next meeting will be recorded the reporting can start in the meeting is called to order it is currently recorded it will continue until adjournment the meeting room will be muted during the break aside from that period virtual participants on the screen and public audience will be able to hear a conversation in the room until the meeting is first up we have an agenda check anything uh signal there we will move on to items from board members and the general manager if anybody

1:34 okay two items real quickly yesterday on that I attended the presentation by staff on all the customer products we have and everything and it was very very informative very good time spent and I need to apologize to the staff because I left and didn't acknowledge how good it was I was in kind of a little pretty and uh and so good job thank you very much and I really appreciated what you did and it was very very informative second thing today I met with Dave Willis with sub he met for an hour just talking about Watershed issues and things like that I gave them a copy of our report he was incredibly impressed with it he's gonna look at all the points of it and he learned a ton I just you know just self the high points about some of the things in there so um

2:24 into something more thank you foreign okay and then I just wanted to make sure everybody knew the ethics filing period it ends on the 15th I'm just a note there and then um many of us attended a meeting at the

3:09 state capitol earlier in March which was also a great then um advocate for issues for a weapon appreciated staff putting that together and then going up there thanks also to Steph for the meeting yesterday on the customer products in our efficiency programs Frank I have anything this evening okay great we'll move on to public input so I have two people signed up first I have Sandra bishop and second I have Mark Rabinowitz I will read the Preamble here on public input and then we'll pop it up to the table right here

3:54 when your game is called please come forward and quickly state your name and optionally your address reward each speaker will be offered three minutes to present their testimony please keep track of time by watching the timer at the front of the room or by listening for an audio notification with three minutes has unlocked each commissioner will have an opportunity to speak if they choose although by posting from female engage in a back and forth dialogue please note that failure of a commissioner to speak shall not be construed as supportive or opposition to any speaker's testimony the question is presented by a speaker and the board does not provide an answer any web staff member will contact us because the question can be addressed okay with that I will call Sandra Bishop talk

4:40 through the voting or table I guess I don't need a timer since like the first one right here good evening my name is Sandra Bishop my husband and I live at the end of Hilliard Street off of 40th at the easternmost edge of the eweb water reservoir construction project at 40th and Patterson and last week a media article came out stating that eweb was fencing off more of the site to create a hundred foot safety barrier

5:29 that was needed around the reservoirs for the next phase of the construction wrapping the concrete structures with wires under high tension alarmingly since uh 100 feet away from the easternmost Reservoir is the middle of our kitchen I was a bit concerned and so then we shortly after we received a word that there would be some kind of hard barrier that would be put up between our house and then and the construction site for that next phase so fast forward a few days and what appeared last Friday or there so before were some cargo containers that were placed about 15 feet away from our house between us and the and the reservoir the

6:15 problem was that they were not stacked or placed in a way that would make you feel comfortable they were very precariously perched where they were so did the Commissioners receive the email that I sent to the staff and asked me for the commission so you saw the photographs of the pictures and the way they were stack okay great that'll save me a whole bunch of time so basically I'm here today to to go on record once more as to notify you or or try to get you to not do this again anywhere else on any other project as a government body this utility you've created a very dangerous situation with

7:00 the exciting those gargantuan concrete reservoirs so close to existing houses with 10.74 Acres there's no reason there couldn't have been a better siding so I'm also here today as a realist to say you know it's happening and it's been in it for two years I really want to thank the contractors and the eweb project manager who have responded very quickly and very solidly to these concerns and that's that's the main thing to say it's very concerning that it takes a news media person showing up or an ordinary citizen to come up with some

7:47 of these these issues this should have been anticipated before but we really appreciate how the contractors are handling have had any problems there at all so so thank you very much wear a jacket with noisy thank you very much on February 13th eweb's lobbyist Jason huser testified to the State House officially in favor of new nuclear reactors in Oregon House Bill 2215 would overturn the 1980 ballot measure which

8:34 prohibited new reactors until a national nuclear dump was built eweb's testimony ignored the purpose of the bill which would overturn a democratic citizen initiative and instead parroted nuclear industry propaganda about reactors supposedly being carbon free and safe Oregon had a small Iranian mine and mill near Lakeview that is now a de facto permanent nuclear dump there is no way to make this safe except through the passage of time lots of it is worth noting that in Oregon in the U.S Peak electricity has happened it was 2018 in terms of gigawatt hours

9:19 electric Generations since 2007 has been propped up in large part by natural gas and since conventional natural gas peaked a half century ago dropping two-thirds this means that the largest energy source in the U.S or electric power is practicates this is true for the whole country and for wet and I assume everyone here knows what wdcc is I would have thought that the mess had Hanford the country's most polluted place and the financial disaster of the woods reactors would have deterred Northwest utilities from considering more nuclear waste generation a half century ago eweb wanted to build a reactor on the coast and the tsunami Zone before the seduction Zone was known

10:05 but after the dangers of radioactivity and meltdowns were well understood eweb finally conceded after years it was a dumb idea I realized fossil energy depletion and its implications have quietly scared a lot of government planners but new news won't sustain the unsustainable we need hyper conservation efficiency maximum insulation why is it legal to line up billboards and we need radical honesty about our predicament as we approach the end of the fossil fuel era due to depletion all complex systems need to consider malfunction accidental or deliberate reactors have the potential to render

10:51 entire regions uninhabitable putting eweb's recent stacking of poorly secured containers at the water tanks on wooden boards which is just unbelievable reminded me of the 1975 accident and tva's brownsberry reactor in Alabama where technicians were looking for a draft using candles and set the control cables on fire and the fake the Flames raged for hours and there was almost development in Alabama because someone used a candle on a billion dollar reactor so please think about the future

11:43 public hearing and we will move on to commissioner comments okay well thank you very much for your testimony this evening um I do think I got an email forwarded you have the photos in um that were in the original email that Sandra Bishop sent I'd love to see them the forwarding of this so I just like to say that we don't engage in it but I no longer exists that that no longer exists so you're going to see something in the past and now there are containers stacked like they are connected got it thank you um all right and um mark thank you for your testimony and otherwise we will

12:28 move on to the next session this Sandra I can just assure you that within seven minutes of the receipt of those pictures the general manager had it and he had responded with safety concerns and and addressed it within seven minutes and so the system worked nobody's perfect we didn't do that our contractor did that and and uh and to me system works and thank you for acknowledging that the system worked so thank you very much I appreciate that and whether or not I'm not an engineer I don't know if that was safe or not I see that all the time but and and it doesn't concern me um but it concerned you and we addressed your concerns so thank you

13:13 for coming acknowledging that uh that we did but was right next up we will move on to board action items in general business first up we have approval of the consent calendar would anybody uh item four of consent calendar today anyone else

14:00 any discussion on the motion okay all those in favor uh say aye okay passage unanimously all right uh yeah the reason I pulled that one is uh I sent a I sent a question that uh Friday or whatever uh this has to do with Pacific excavation and concrete removal and replacement and I just wanted to bring it to the attention um that anytime that there's an opportunity for us to uh look at using a lower carbon intense Concrete in our person in our first you know buying process if we could think about putting that into the rfps as a plus Mark and that's saying

14:46 that we have to do it if it meets facts and the only news I'm saying this is because nobody starts doing this and acquiring it none of the local contractors are going to start looking into lower lower carbon intense concrete and so eweb as a user a fairly significant user of concrete if we can get on board if the City of Eugene could get on board if the university could get on board that may help to bring this product into our market so I'm not I don't have any problem with this contract it just was a opportunity to to say looking forward in our RFP processes if we can say that we favor using low carbon concrete as opposed to

15:31 the conventional concrete that would be maybe a plus chat equipment when looking at our rfps that's all I wanted to bring it up maybe offer a friendly comment to that or whatever could could we know the cost differential between the low carbon and the traditional concrete because I know that LTD made some recent decisions in the city did like in the farmer's market and ltd's MX Lanes they put in basically a landing strip with you know nine inches of concrete and all the rebar and and uh and but the low carbon concrete is so expensive that it it's prohibitive and so I just I would like to know the cost differential if we're going to sell us about it we say low carbon you know be it low carbon and regular carbon I'd

16:17 like to know that coffee differential so we could know what we're paying for I mean how much more it's costing us yeah I I would absolutely be that would be that would be part of the coins indefinitely um certainly I think there's an opportunity that we want to explore here there's a few things that we would like to use as as part of our approach one of them is I have asked our our procurement group to take a look at an estimate of how much concrete we use on an annual basis so we can get a feel for the impact the second thing is we have to look at this from an engineering perspective the the the carbon low carbon concrete does have some differences in its

17:03 performance from Standard Concrete some of that some of that is actually uh very favorable and others such as cure time can be affected as well so there's we do want to understand those differences engineer that to your point commissioner into the procurement process and then we can understand what our relationship could be with some Partners I don't think this is something we want to go alone but understand that the partnership opportunity and then the I'll call it a green premium if you if the if you want to use that that turn to see what the difference is and how how that affects our project so we want to take a uh sort of intentional approach

17:50 to this it is something that we're starting to take a look at so the I think that's consistent with both commissioner's request here yeah and that that's why I brought it up and it was just an opportunity spending 700 000 to buy car to tear up and replace concrete it seemed like a good kind of conversation starter so thank you for that and right now just to follow on there's there's three organizations that we know of that that produce this type of concrete none of them are near Eugene uh sorry there's I think maybe two in Oregon yeah three at three in Oregon um two up by Portland and one just north of Bend and we also have to check on the supply

18:36 of the replacement products um that replace the actual submit portion which is where the carbon intensity comes it comes in so that we're we're agreed we're just saying we want to take a intentional approach to it absolutely to approve item four second okay all those in favor say aye thank you thank you moving on to approval of consent calendar B any other thing it's set calendar B itch thank you okay any discussion okay um say hi hi

19:27 you want to make sure okay all right thank you next up we have the prior year-end audited financial statements and management letter ing documents never that's our goal to bring you a riveting audit report good evening commissioners tonight Robin freytag he's our new general accounting supervisor I think I introduced him last spot and uh Matthew as well was the lead analyst who supported this work

20:14 with that I'm going to turn it over is to Julie that's money are you there Julie I am thank you very much perfect can you hear me sorry can you hear me okay perfect um so I'm here today with uh Sydney Jacoby Sydney is the audit uh senior on the engagement so that is really auditor speak for the one that did the vast majority of the work I get to take credit for the work um for that so I'm pleased to report to you tonight the results the audit of the Eugene Modern Electric Board uh 2022 financial statement audit

21:05 perfect so I want to introduce a few of the engagement team members tonight some nature of the services that we provided we're going to start with having a conversation or having a presentation but then we will open it to any questions that you do have talk about some of our significant audit areas our opinions uh how we came down the pipe and what we finished up on and some required Communications next slide please so these are just a couple of your team members or some of your key team members um during this year's audit one thing I would like to point out you've seen my face before you've probably seen Keith's face before we do have a new concurring reviewer so one of our QC uh requirements is that we change this over um the engagement viewers the making sure that there's new and fresh perspectives on an annual basis so

21:51 Laurel is our new uh she's a senior manager in our group she's been with us for almost a Decor a little over a decade um has been working in the power and utilities space for that long and she has not worked on this engagement before and this was her first year as our concurring reviewer as a part of that role Sydney's been on the roll a couple of years she did move into a more senior leadership position this year and then we had a whole spattering of other staff both new and existing individuals on the engagement next slide please so these are just some of the nature of the services that we provided number one we provided the independent Auditor's report on the individual and combined statements of eweb second we did assist

22:36 with the with the financial statements however it's really important to note the financial statements were drafted by management and they were in its complete form we help with some of the word processing at the very end but ultimately they are drafted by management we also have a report on internal control over financial reporting and compliance in accordance with government auditing standards this is linked to your single audit or your uniform Grant guidance audit that's a required report we also as we've done in years past and are required to do in your future um because you are a municipal Municipal entity within the state of Oregon you are required to have a report on the minimum standards of audits this adds

23:22 about about 12 different compliance requirements that we have to look at and report to the State Board finally or I guess the almost finally the fifth thing that we will also report on or we have reported on is your uh audit report on the federal programs so this is due to your FEMA filings and that report will be going to the federal Clearinghouse and then finally we have what is tonight uh both we've included a letter to those charged with governance that has more words than we wanted to say tonight but that letter along with this presentation is our final report to you as the those charged with governance through the board of directors next slide please perfect so these are just some of our uh important areas this does not Encompass

24:08 everything that we do on an audit audit context but these are some of the areas that we spend the majority or quite a bit of our time in both work orders classification and how work orders handled this is the biggest flow of information and flow of dollars that are coming out of the utility other than power costs I.T and security and access is something that we've elevated through the last several years so it's very important you know we used to really worry about security into buildings now what we're looking at is security I.T security um single audit over FEMA and federal funds that's something very important we needed to ensure that we had consistent application of internal controls and with compliance over federal laws regulations and of the Oregon minimum standards

24:57 next slide please so this is the happy part of the presentation this is where we get to report on what we found during the course the of the audit we did find it on your financial statements once again this year an unmodified opinion on those financial statements there were some significant standards that were implemented during this year we're pleased to report that we had no material modifications to your to your financial reporting we did not find any findings both in the government auditing standards report the Oregon minimum audit standards report or the single audit or uniform Grant guidance report um so that is exactly what your counterparties want to see it's where your constituents want to see it's what the the federal agencies that are doing work with you want to see I'm going to turn it over to Sydney to finish up the presentation

25:43 thanks Julie below the list of our required Communications to you as mentioned before so the first one is our responsibility under auditing standards we are responsible for forming an opinion and expressing an opinion about whether the financial statements have been prepared by management with your oversight and all material respects you can see that specifically in our audit report we also are required to communicate to you our views on significant accounting policies and management judgments and accounting estimates which are the aspects that you have significant practices um and within the financial statement disclosures you also see that in our audit report and in the financial statements um we had no audit adjustments this year

26:29 that we either proposed to management and they passed on or actual adjustments so that's great um we also required to communicate to you any of management consultations with other accountants which there are none um and then any disagreements with management we also required to communicate which we also had none this year which is great and then we had no difficulties in performing the audit as always next slide please awesome um and then finally we want to thank eweb and the entire team there we know a lot of work goes into getting us all of our requests that we need um and in a timely fashion and then turning around the financial statements in a timely fashion too is a lot of work and so we want to thank the team for that um everything as always goes according

27:16 to our audit plan that we set out in the beginning of the audit because the team is always very organized and put together so it allows us to get in get our work done ask our questions efficiently and then issue the financial statements a couple weeks after field work I will also say that one of the things that we always encourage in our audit process and happens at eweb on a on a cons oh you can go to the next slide on a consistent basis is just the year-round conversation so we don't wait when when the new leasing standard I think we've been talking about the standard Debra May what three four years um and it's been out for about 18 so it's an interesting standard to finally get to do um but it's been interesting as you know as things come up during the year we have the constant conversations we want to have that type of relationship with our Oddities because we want to make

28:03 sure that the board has the right information as you go on through the year so having the conversation about new standards about and changes and practices is important to have throughout the continuous year so I want you to know that that does occur uh consistently so we're here to answer any questions uh on either the financial statements on this presentation on the letter to those charged with governance any questions that you might have on the audit process this year and it does say Keith is here I apologize he we had to split up due to board meetings all being at the same time so he um we we got the fun into the straw so we got to to be here with you tonight

28:54 um number one uh Julie and your staff thank you very much um I think this is like the 17th one of these I've got to send through uh and it's not always been this good uh and and that's off to staff and management making sure that uh that we got through this without any problems because there have been some challenges in the past and that leads me to the next question is that I know a while ago we you came up with problems with Wham when we first implemented that new system and we had audit problems and everything else and I don't see that now but I see that Wham is Antiquated and we're getting rid of it so I'm kind of yeah I'm wondering if we've got a system that's not working or not functional anymore um how is it still performing well I would say that you know when you

29:40 look at Financial controls and you look at the financial statements it's not just the system that does everything it's how much interaction do the humans have to have with the system to get the results that you want from an audit process so it's not you know there's a lot of systems out there that will run so much more efficiently and can bring the data to where the humans don't have to do a lot of patching or a lot of work on the back end to get to where we want from a financial result so it's not when you look at these numbers that are spit out um there's a lot of human interaction within them so a new systems are always something that is is trying to be more efficient as far as you know how does data come in what's the construct of the data what's the how is the security of the data and it's an important thing to think about as you're coming through so

30:25 you can have I've seen some of the most actually I will I'll give you an example I'm working on one right now can't tell you who the client is um but I am working on one right now that their system has been established since 1987. it is the most antiquated some of the things that they have to do to even get through the day are just you would blow your mind of what has to happen uh because of the system um and so then the humans have to take the big load onto their shoulders and still do and still get a clean audit opinion so I hope that described it a little bit but the Dual effort oh you did a good job thank you thank you um thank you and thank you staff um

31:10 so what I what I heard was this was a clean outfit audit nothing nothing to jump up and down about um but what would a 200 Page document be if there weren't a few questions that has to be addressed um you know if you if you write a 200-page report nobody reads it that doesn't make a sound um so I was and these are on the financials um on page of 36. yeah we're talking about management discussion with analysis and something jumped up to me um it was the lieberg process and it's it it was uh turned very eloquently it said extraordinary item

31:56 of 19.8 million dollars I'm just wondering is that 19.8 negative 19.8 million is that what we're not getting in generation dollars or is that and and we can get that you can get back to me on please oh Deborah do you want to take the first stop at that and then maybe we can talk about our audit procedures what we did around it find people here we're all talking about who's going to take a stab at that Matthew didn't want to talk about sure so that's the netbook value excuse me of the assets that we are writing off so um once we made the decision to no longer generate those assets are basically useless and anything that was

32:41 specific to the PowerHouse or generation if that includes an income generating for that just just hard assets that was one of the questions go ahead if you have something that actually yeah I was just gonna say so we there's a ton of evaluations from a book perspective that we have to look at when this type of thing happens both from an asset retirement cost standpoint from an impairment standpoint from a Lost Generation and that that Lost Generation or the dollars that's a future operating car operating Revenue so that doesn't actually come into this this number what this truly is is that um evaluation of the impairment I think

33:27 the one thing that's important for the for the board to understand is that when we talk impairment from a financial statement standpoint it's a one-way Street um so we're very careful with impairment as well because once you write it off even if you bring it back up to doing something with the asset you can never bring it back on your books and that's just the way the standards are written and we have to follow the law the standard even if it that maybe doesn't always make practical sense um so this is the assessment that we've been doing uh or working out with management and have had a significant amount of conversations and testing around where we're at from an impairment standpoint at this point in time as of December 31st that would be a depreciated value then right yeah it's it's the net Book value

34:12 so yeah what was left on after depreciation had already been taken against it through the years my time ran up can I ask another question okay I was gonna say that's not you're fine okay next one we're going to uh [Music] investment income I know we all had a uh had a lovely year like in in 2022 on investments and I was this is on page 59 and has to do net increase or decrease in fair market value of our investments uh 2021 we had an increase of 1.5 million this year we had a decrease of 3.7 million dollars I'm just

35:00 wondering if that loss is going to require us to uh backfill some of those Investments that I'm thinking of the purse the purse account that those if those were Investments that were pers related does it look like we're going to need that fill them to make our requirements so so that value is not related to our purse liability and we uh so we will see a purse where you want to understand the impact on YouTube was on her's Investments all right thank you those were just a couple things that stood out thank you

35:48 I I do think that too it's important to note that those numbers that you're writing it to some of it's some of it's realized but there's a lot of it that's unrealized that you're still holding those Investments that have value we just have to as a 11 59 and 59 seconds on December 31st we take a snapshot of what that looks like and have to record that value and obviously that changes every day and hopefully we'll continue to grow thank you okay a quick follow-on question to the purse question there was a section there where it talked about the inferred um payments to that um are we going to see when do we get the

36:33 updated Purge report we need to pay more in or do we not need to pay more timing of that we will what month do we see that Aaron very soon I was gonna say usually it's April I wanted to say it was like September October operation figures uh it's effective uh July 1 uh that our rates change but I believe we get valuation information in the fall uh Julie you probably know this stuff as well in terms of the timing on when Purge info comes out but um yeah yeah the funding requests or the funding

37:19 not request it's not really a request the funding responsibility will be coming out here in the next yeah we think 30 days with the July 1st start that's what that's how much cash they're going to draw away from you um and then the actual Actuarial report that shows all these numbers and resets all these obligations and deferred inflows and outflows comes out generally in September they've been they've been getting a little bit quicker through the years but not it's going to wait till then great thank you for that um otherwise thank you so much for the excellent report and right it was not riveting it was riveting in the fact that I had to look in multiple different places to find the key information no findings

38:07 um not used to that usually there's one page or either at the very beginning or the very end but it seemed like this this report had it kind of scattered throughout which required some more searching which is probably a few tests yeah I also wanted to thank the members of moss Adams and staff but also there's a lot of internal staff that work within the systems that we have and including our work and asset management systems I did have the opportunity to sit down with Sydney and and Keith and talk about not just where we were today but also how we're viewing some of the risks going forward I do think that it's an area that we're

38:52 going to lean into Moss Adams going forward in more of the partnership that we have with them as we get into changing out our customer information system and our financial systems I think these are as Julie mentioned these are areas where there's a touch point between sort of human interaction internal controls and the systems of which we have to be accountable to and so so I think that's an area over the next year to to two years to pay particularly close attention to not just you as governance but certainly staff and Moss Adams it's one of the things that I think we we need to make sure is pretty evident on our Radars and

39:38 so Wham the replacement of Wham will follow after that but there are a lot of financial ties between all these different systems it's why we chose to do the financial system and the customer information system first and do them together and so um really you know look forward to the partnership with moss Adams there but um yeah I really appreciate their work and and the opportunity to to have a an exciting audit which is the best kind of audits you could ever have and and as Julie knows and and some others in their room know it hasn't always been that way in the past and so I'm glad it is a boring one actually so um to add on to Frank's comments and to

40:23 um to also Circle back Moss Adams is a partner of ours year round we do um we do consider them to be a valuable resource uh to Frank's point we are undertaking a a very large I.T project this year and we've already started those conversations we will have QA resources on this project that will be in contact with moss Adams throughout the year to ensure that we have the documentation that they need to properly audit after our cut over and so those are really ongoing and then I wanted to thank the team there's people in the back of this room us up here and people at home

41:09 who all supported this and then just around the utility this is only really possible because people are closing their work orders they're following our internal controls so it was a it was a group effort and I appreciate everyone's work on it okay well uh I can kind of hit this off a little bit we end up needing to move the cooking out a couple of weeks due to the mayor not being available at the time we'd

41:54 originally scheduled um so I think it's now scheduled out for the 12th and we just thought in light of the conversations that we all had around our efficiency programs we wanted to revisit some of the ask there if it really makes sense or if there are other kind of items that we want to bring up with the city we did pass we did um it's a last meeting we had a list of items that we said we wanted to talk about but we just wanted to given that we've moved the time out and we have this other information gonna revisit if if there's anything else we want to bring to the city

42:41 we're both enhancing the availability charges in areas where there could be like an apartment structures the whole Center they go downtown to the dock or they go different places that's Apple time to get sufficient charge although it's not I'm smiling at Mindy because yesterday in our meeting with the customer care folks actually kind of talked a little bit about that so s do you want us to ask them if we can put the leaders in if they want to put

43:27 them in I guess that would be one of my question one of the things that we talked about in our meeting yesterday is that we have the infrastructure and all of that but we don't have the staff to maintain them and that's kind of a problem is that there's so many of these public charging stations that are like they're not working or whatever maybe some partnership with the city where I'm not sure about who pays for what but that they have staff that could make sure that they're working power they would they would be in charge of that that portion of it and that's you know whatever we charged for that

44:12 the electricity they could add on a little bit extra so that it could never see them have money but it could be something little self-funded all right I think commissioner borowsky's question is it is a good one for the city to potentially answer I I think if if we have a goal to facilitate the expansion of EV charging a question to them would be how can you help facilitate this it could be through different different types of codes different ordinance that would facilitate that make it make it an easier maybe easier access to infrastructure kind of lower the

44:57 barriers of of doing that I'm not sure about the city's capability to bring resources to a financial or or otherwise I think but I think the question is a good one to ask them if EB charging is something you would like to facilitate more of and we have some potential to participating that because I think we do how can the city help to so encourage and facilitate that from there and it could be policy related could be ordinance related it could be a number of different things but I think that's a really good question to ask the city if we want to do this and we want to partner what can you bring to the table

45:42 and to add on to that I'd love to see you know some additional places that are scattered more around you know strategic areas where they have they already have parking there if we could add a charging station onto it and maybe we charge the premium I don't know I mean if they're willing to put the space in there's already a parking meter there could we put something next to it for charging so that we could utilize that space we can sell the power and then we expand you know the capabilities within the region and I guess I would just take the same question and broaden it a little bit because I think there's a whole host of ways in which City on public education of Transportation

46:27 you just broadening it that way so that charging is in there but we're not able to figure out what's the best place for another thing for the potential agenda I do know that then this may simply be a thank you depending on the outcome but I know that that we are scheduled we are on the agenda um regarding our request at the city to approve our pursuit of a bond um issuance and that's scheduled for April

47:12 10th April 10th so a couple days ahead of time so we may be in a position to thank them for passing that that through so something else to put on the agenda list I don't know if you've already talked them about this maybe not because you haven't met with them yeah but just on a College Hill Reservoir process will look like just to give them a heads up I know that um the counselors who are on this little committee changes so some people just may have more I did meet with one of the city councilors they had some questions about the damage safety Apparently one of the

47:59 things that's coming up find better concerns about the Cascadia seductions of an earthquake and he gave us break and then they come to town and they've been talking quite a bit about that and I I think there's some confusion about the dams that eweb phones versus dams that are in you know but the larger dams are up forever anyway and what that looks like so that might be some information that we could share I don't know if it has to be during this conversation but I am curious in what context it's coming up in the City Council meetings that that would even be a concern but perhaps there's some information that we could share with them it's maybe especially some of the newer counselors who this is all new information to them

48:46 I do believe and I think we'll follow up as an action item there's there's definitely a summary a piece of summary information we could bring relative to Carmen Smith which is a high Hazard facility leiberg is not for flood control and so it's it's under it it probably is Irrelevant in the conversation but I do believe we have a an overview sheet on on Dam safety as it relates to Carmen Smith most of the inundation maps do not deal with our facilities they deal with with Federal facilities that are specific for flood control but be happy to supply what we can to the city okay yeah we have anything that

49:33 kind of delineates this is our section and this is what would happen with their section what do you guys feel about us uh bringing up the assignment guidebook and seeing how that hotels with with City policies and and the ability for our our two entities to work together because I see that as one where there's we're going down the same the same tracks about a lot of issues so yeah I know I was intrigued by the the last two work sessions that we had on the climate guide book and I know that they're doing a lot of a lot of work on climate that are about hiring people on so that might be an area as well just to touch base with them and let them know that

50:18 we're a resource here for their disposal if they need it I know I'm in the meeting so but but I'm I'm putting this this through you I I think it's it's a good opportunity to um see if the loop is closing with um Council leadership City leadership I know that our staffs are working closely together um Kelly's working with City staff on reporting mechanisms and standards so there's and they're new sustainability director I believe it is um but it'd be nice to know how much of that is sort of coming full circle into into the council purview that we are working together we've got this this

51:04 guidebook it's a resource what you know just just to check and see if that one is closing one thing that I took away from our meeting yesterday was customer service I think one of the asks that we have been floating around is how do we work together with the city on dealing with rentals and after I walked away from this meeting yesterday it didn't feel like we had information enough to have an Ask there it seems like there's lots of other data that we need to collect and have a real sense of you know what the how much Market there really is there what how the how the programs are they're clearly being effective we're hitting our targets we're getting

51:50 um we're getting the savings but on uh how do we partner with City of Eugene to kind of advance that further and what the difference is I don't think that we have the information that we need to that's probably part of why this hasn't really gone anywhere yet we don't have a compelling story for us to tell ourselves before we bring it out and want to you know the city maybe there's some difference of opinion but that's what my takeaway was yesterday I think it would be great for us I mean I don't know if if staff have ideas about what is a program or something that we would love to expand or something really like to see that we talked about EV charging or something like that and kind of come up with a rough draft

52:37 of a proposal that we could give to the city because I think that the format where that we're in right now like they don't have the capacity or their City leadership isn't like super connected with the staff that are doing the work like I just don't know how some policy or some collaboration is going to come up I feel like we we need to think about what would be a great program that we want to do that we can't totally do on our own City it could have some could help us make that happen my only concern is death by a Thousand Cuts we've had this affordability issue for a long time and we've got a lot of

53:22 pressures for Upward rates and each one of these small things when considered as a whole are going to push rates up and we're going to have to pick and choose which ones are important because it is it reliability is it resiliency I mean or your viewer is it climate and so I want to be very cautious that we don't get ourselves in a perception with the city that we're the money bags because you know we're not like them you know they have to live with what they get you know we used to just have a budget and the rage would have would reflect it we don't do that anymore we say let's keep it with inflation or within two to three percent and and Get It reversed but I'm worried about the affordability Factor where we're going to be in three to five years uh and and this because we're

54:08 already you know people are already rent burdened a ton of them I've heard that yesterday about the information I got yesterday was 53 000 homes have already been weatherized and that's 75 percent of our housing stock and the biggest bang for the buck is not the houses it's for the commercial and uh and and things like that and so how this is going to play out I think we really need to think about it because I don't want to get us set up to be money bags and then you know we've got people with a Podium said I can't afford this because you know we we're starting on a trend that we haven't a lot of you haven't experienced and that's breed increases and we've got some pretty big ones coming up and yeah keep in mind I mean we don't have Liebert factored in and our rate increases we don't have a negative

54:54 lawsuit backed into our rate increases and a few other things things that we don't even know about right now so I just want to remind people to be cautious about how we how we approach this at least in the economic aspect I agree with you and I've heard from yesterday's meeting and tell me if I heard it wrong but just that some of the things we get through rex that they see that there's going to be an increase that dollar amount that we get and that um sometimes it's to figure out how to spend that money so I'm thinking of like money money like that where there's like a direct stream that we kind of put back into the into place

55:39 that's fine I just I'm great where it is what I'm concerned about and I'm not saying anything's not worthy it's just that I want to make sure that we we keep that in the back of our mind that the affordability Factor because we provide a service and a commodity that's not necessary I mean you know encourage me to hear about people not doing medication or food because they have to eat their house well and I I have to just you manufacturer program for this to trying to work with the city I would rather if we have a program and it looks like there's a barrier or something that the city can do that we can enhance or build that's great but I don't want to just manufacture something for the sake of trying to work with the city the other thing that I and this goes to the rate

56:25 and to the increased money that I think will be available however that Ira money that's coming down I want to make sure that we're poised to get as much of that as humanly possible for us as a community and if that's through the city if that's through eweb or whatever Community Partners that we are pleased to get it and get the you know the grants in quickly and win them so that we bring as much of that money back in So if there are ways in which we need to partner with the city or other organizations or you know in that regard that that to me would be something that I think would be very beneficial but I know that it's hard to know because they haven't quite released the parameters of what those each of those programs look like so I

57:11 think maybe um you know putting something on the agenda to just put that out there is hey if there are needs um once those parameters get released there are opportunities to work with the city in ways that complement the community there there are certain I think you're referring to the fuel credits where when we receive those those have to be for particular purposes and so in those cases where it doesn't go into the just the general fund we're looking to actually assign those to community value certainly understand the flip side of

57:56 that where we're also looking at affordability and trying to to leverage different kinds of funding sources of which that one the the IRA were poised we have a group that is looking at opportunities there much of those ascended incentives will come as point of use or certain point of sale through sort of like Lowe's or Home Depot where you might buy something and they'll be sort of built into the to the price or through a rebate some of those are going to come through tax credits um of which all of those the utility itself is not participating but where the utility is participating or where the city is participating we will will certainly be putting ourselves in a

58:42 position to use that efficiently and effectively so all that said for a city conversation is that we are poised we see this as an opportunity we want to make sure we're aligned with them and looking for things that can help our community and I do know that that our staff works pretty well together I mean we've come up with Drive EV programs and other things where these are all Partnerships they're not by ourselves and we want to continue to look at that maybe the message to the city is we want to continue to look for those the items that we highlighted tonight we already have the agenda from last month uh season our

59:28 expansion of EV charging there's any way to partner there programs around I heard Brazilian Stadium I can't remember if we have that up because I was item that was put out and College Hill yes in College Hill College Hill yes okay okay so three okay excellent thank you but that I think we will close out this item and we'll move to the next refunding uh funding options for Leebo cleburg hydroelectric project

1:00:15 Deborah a little bit of a break and I will bring her back everything extraordinary event really not quite as unexciting as When I Was Here 15 minutes ago good evening Commissioners tonight uh we're here to talk about Liebert pre-funding and funding options Aaron Bomer who is our acting financial services manager is here with me and he's going to start us off yes thank you so good evening Commissioners again Aaron Balmer

1:01:00 for the record um I feel like I drew the Short Straw getting to talk about this topic this evening as we're kind of getting into it here but here we go nonetheless so um setting the stage here's the situation we need to pay for decommissioning which spans 18 years in amounts to 225 million dollars so the chart shows projected annual spending based on results from the triple bottom line analysis and the Shaded area shows the scope of the upcoming long-term Financial program so we'll be bringing Draft plans to the board in July so the question is how shall we model Libre as it runs through 2033

1:01:45 we're hoping to gather board thoughts this evening that it's important to note I think with this slide I want to emphasize the timing so we still have some Runway today before costs really ran and the intent is to position the utility to make good financial decisions into the 2030s and Beyond so with that as our situation what are our goals what is the framework we are operating under we seek to abide by and employ our rate making principles and compliance with board policy and all this while unfolding are poor values specifically affordability as it relates to Lee Burke we seek to

1:02:30 contain costs and maintain Financial flexibility and resiliency again looking to position the utility to make strong financial decisions into the future and in that endeavor we strive to do right by the community and the customers that we serve looking to our rate making principles at the base of this pyramid graphic equity and specifically intergenerational Equity among customers really left the building in the context of this uh we recognize and acknowledge this is not ideal as customers bearing the cost to decommissioned or not benefiting from the leaders of service finally the agenda topic this evening is

1:03:15 titled pre-funding slash funding options and there are a couple of reasons why we might consider a pre-funding and those include the ability to maintain resiliency influx and financial flexibility also having some pre-funding that would allow us flexibility to enter the debt markets for an issuance if needed and finally rates and fees have no interest expense Associated to them as a borrowing would so looking to some of the funding options we have there are a number of varying pressures and intentions to consider the big three options fees rates and debt are what we are centering

1:04:01 the discussion on for now recent Federal legislation as just mentioned holds the potential for Grant assistance though this is still being monitored and evaluated by staff we do anticipate funding in this Arena to be geared towards a return to pre-construction conditions though okay so the table on the right shows General impacts as all else equal General impacts to board metrics resulting from implementing a fee or a rate or issuing debt and rate columns have been condensed because the metric impacts are the same green is favorable with a particular arrow green is favorable rent is unfavorable and so current pressured metrics for the

1:04:49 electric system include the debt to Netbook value ratio and the rate of return debt to Netbook value would increase from further debt issuance which would further pressure the metric and rate of return would increase implementing either a fee or a rate which would ease pressure on that metric in our last Financial long-term financial plan uh presented last fall the most pressured metric for the electric utility was today's Cash it would increase in benefit from implementing the fee World rate nearby building with service that service coverage while not officially a pressured metric does present special consideration as

1:05:35 significant trouble when debt service coverage could lead to a technical default on bonds or targets keep us safely in line with Bond covenants but pressures to this metric which will be additional debt and we needed that service could result in rate increases to maintain the metric as opposed to a cost-based requirement there's a lot of red in the def column but dead is not empirically bad there are benefits of debt uh with being able to spread costs over a broad period of time which reduces great pressures and it doesn't unduly over collect from customers today there can be a high degree of funding practicality and certainty

1:06:31 so some hypothetical high level and I want to stress high level scenarios to help make this real implementing a five dollar flat fee would generate approximately 5.2 million dollars per year and cover about 45 of the total outflows over the 18-year period implementing a five dollar fee would be the equivalent of roughly a 2.79 increase on the average residential bill assuming we build reserves early on as inflows exceed outflows and as represented by this little green shaded area we can then use those reserves as costs outpace cash inflows from the fee as

1:07:17 represented by the blue area there comes a point in time at which those reserves run out and that is noted by the little star in this scenario we can then issue debt and to secure continued funding for decommissioning that levels in this scenario are about 120 million that would require about a seven percent rate increase to service that debt issuing debt entails paying interest which adds another 110 million for interest expense over the life of that debt quick note on the debt we're modeling 30 years five percent

1:08:02 administering a fee that would be relatively easy and it would also provide the ability to Sunset the community hypothetical scenario number two implementing a one percent rate increase each year over the next four years would ramp up to generate about eight million dollars a year and cover about sixty percent of the total outflows over the 18-year period assuming we build reserves early on as any clothes exceed outflows and again it's represented by the green shaded area and use those reserves as cost outpace in capturing flows as represented by the blue area and again there comes a point in time at which the reserves run out and in this

1:08:49 scenario again we can look to debt as noted by the star to secure continued funding for decommissioning that levels in this hypothetical scenario are 92 million dollars that would be approximately a five percent rate increase needed to service that debt and then again interest expense systems one administrative consideration with a fee of the consumption is that with EES ramping up it may be beneficial to wait for the new building system to English they need to decide to consumption following deep conditioning using a raid

1:09:35 for example assuming decommissioning efforts end in 2040. the continued rate of Revenue the offset required that service in our final scenario this evening it shows implementing both a five dollar flat fee and leaning into a one percent rate increase so combining the two prior examples the initial five dollar fee and the one percent rate increase would be the equivalent of a 3.79 increase to the average residential build it's about six dollars and seventy nine cents this would Ram to generate about 14 million dollars a year to cover total

1:10:21 outflows over the 18-year period as any other scenarios but at a greater scale we assume building reserves early on as enclosed exceed outputs green shaded area using those reserves as costs outpace the cash inflows from the fee and rate increase the blue area again even here there's a little star and that is the point at which those reserves would run out and borrow to secure continued funding for decommissioning because the amount needed is roughly seven million dollars it could potentially be pulled from other Reserves and while there is a window where additional funds would be needed in 2035 where the star is it could be

1:11:07 replenished or repaid by 2038 as the decommissioning costs declined debt levels in this scenario again for that seven million dollars would be approximately 0.4 rate in I think is needed to service that level of debt and again interest expense uh over the life of the debt approximately six million dollars again with that I'm going to pass it back to Deborah to get the second so preparations are underway for the 2024 budget and draft long-term Financial plans that we'll be bringing back here in July we were looking

1:11:54 forward to the discussion this evening on how to interweed Libra decommissioning costs into those plans that we're going to bring back to you and you want to acknowledge or recognize that no options are a purpose because we're um placing the burden on our current and future rate payers um there as Aaron mentioned before there is no energy intergenerational equity for tonight what we'd like to understand is what principles and values matter most to you and to gauge your appetite for collecting in advance and building reserves based on your feedback this evening we will bring back a

1:12:39 recommendation on the draft long-term financial plan in July we listed a couple of points up here to prompt discussion so with that I will link it back to you president Donaldson well I have a couple of questions about just yet can you go back a couple of slides just on the new one sure that that's fine that's fine too any one of them so when you're saying we're pre-funding this green shape here it seems to suggest that it only offsets the part that's highlighted in blue but if we Implement a rate or a fee that continues forward right past where that

1:13:24 blue Mark is and that's that's still included in this calculation okay I just wanted to make sure because the way that this look like it was carrying forward things that carries on across the bottom there to that initial slide doesn't count that is a base level of funding okay all right so in any of the scenarios that you've brought to us once we Implement that it goes definitely until we stop that and that's the costs that are saved through these different communisms um remind me again how much do we kind of save on a Debt Service perspective on each of these different scenarios so if we are pre-funding it then we're

1:14:10 not borrowing so how much it cost to be saved do you have that by not borrowing yeah each of those yeah um the first scenario of borrowing levels of 120 million unique list expense Associated to that 110 million and then on the next one this is 60 you know this is this is the 85. they'll look very similar

1:14:55 yeah the first one 110 the second one 85. I feel like I've asked this question before talking about this or at least in a different context but um like for what percentage of our customers do you think of five dollars how many of our I I don't have that um I don't have that number where that tips people over to an energy burden is that yeah Frank I saw you raise your hand yeah I can um so energy burden being classified as

1:15:42 um six percent of somebody's income going to to energy that's not energy and water um the statistics I've seen relative to Eugene and Lane County say that about I think it's around 19 20 the population qualifies for these various programs as limited income some of those are based off of a percentage of Oregon's median income or National Poverty Level and so um I would expect our customer base would be somewhat similar in proportion we do have a number of those programs to to help them but just as a rough guidance I would say just somewhere between 50 and 15 and 20 percent

1:16:27 I guess the same question you know some people might be able to absorb an extra five dollars a month if we do that um one percent rate increase with that fee right that would be like eleven dollars six six seventy minutes oh so it's not the five dollars plus the employees the five dollars plus the one percent of that initial uh impact would be 6.79 on the average residential um the high consumption for the consumption based rate I just wonder like looking at our values and um if that would negatively affect people that don't have control over say how

1:17:12 energy efficient their house is or right so they have like an old leaky house and they're renting or that they don't have the means to put into their house I would just worry Equity wise that um um and when we raise rates to pay out debt when the debt is paid off the door rates go down or how does that worker who get used to paying that much and we keep it that way historically there have been new borrowings there have been refinancing um in my memory or research what was the

1:17:58 only time water utility I would say that both utilities treat this slightly differently but if you look at the fact that both utilities are very asset intensive in their business models and the replenishment of those assets are just part of the course of us doing business typically we are in the constant process of borrowing this being in I'll call it extraordinary situation may be treated differently specifically because of the fact that it will have a start then an end to that album I don't think any of you will be on the board

1:18:44 when that comes to pass in 45 years but um I I would say this this is different from history um the the one thing I would I would also add just as a little bit of context is um we can't just look at this borrowing or this pre-financing in uh in isolation we do have over the course of the next 10 years a 600 million dollar Capital plan of which there's a portion of that that is risk-based or turn the dial up the dial down capability now you you bear different risks when you do that so I don't want to say that this is oh we

1:19:29 turned down everything else to do this but it has to be a part of that context but um yeah I would say that routinely we have continued a borrowing cycle so kind of once you get into that you're you're in this you don't roll it back and then one last question um so 225 million dollars I remember when we were looking at all the different scenarios there was like a range of what each one could could cost so um how do we make sure that we have flexibility for the classes a lot more than 225 million dollars for somehow the Stars aligned and we're lucky and it

1:20:15 costs us significantly less I know that won't happen but how do we make sure that we're flexible enough so that whatever plan we have um it works well I liked your latter scenario the best um although I'm probably like too optimistic so one of the ways in which we make sure that we are maintaining flexibility is that you all have given us targets to Monitor and we forecast every year multiple times a year we review the long-term financial plan and continue to watch the landscape for concerns that we might have some level of pre-funding also helps with that flexibility because it does

1:21:00 reduce the pressure of on borrowing and it also could provide some flexibility on when we entered the market because it's not always a great time to enter the market so those are a couple of ways Frank I I was going to say that's a that's that is a perfect question and and the reason that it's important for what we bring back to the board as a recommendation we talk a lot in this room about resiliency Financial resiliency is also important because there could be a number of things that happen here costs could go up or they could go down which is what you point out the schedule could get pushed out or be accelerated there are

1:21:46 some regulatory bodies involved in this process and so when we bring back our recommendation one of the big considerations we're going to be putting into that recommendation is which of these options provide the best financial resiliency for whatever board is dealing with this in the early 2030s because I think what we need to do at this time is to set the organization up to be able to have some resiliency and flexibility in the decision making at that process or sorry at that time for exactly the the question that you raised foreign people have things to say I just want to say of your questions

1:22:32 um I absolutely support yeah I mean we this is a bill we have to pay we know we have to pay it we put it on a credit card we take some money out of our paycheck each each week until we have enough money to to pay it for me I'm with commissioner Brown I understand that the burdens that we place on on our customers when we when we raise rates but for me of the three scenarios that were raised here

1:23:18 the third scenario is the one that I I lean into the most and one of the main reasons is is something that President Carlson alluded to through 90 of 110 million dollars in interest that we pay for borrowing a huge Chunk in 2020 April 2034. um as opposed to seven million dollars in debt in when I think it was 2035 or whatever on the third one seven million dollars would be able to fund that out of reserves and not even have to go into debt so for me that that's where I see us going I understand the the burden that we're placing on some of our

1:24:04 rate payers but what quite costs they have here so on that third level third scenario it's a one percent increase for four years and then it the increase doesn't keep going up after four years you've got five dollars plus four years of one percent and then that levels off the five dollar remain the one percent increases stop so to me again it's biting the bullet early is is the most acceptable way next question that I had and I raised it in a in a pre-meeting question is how does a fee as opposed to a rate increase transposed to silt it's and it's an excellent question and

1:24:51 we do feel like there may be a difference in how the city will treat a fee versus a rate and we would want to engage with the city before we brought any recommendation back so that we weren't perfectly clear on on that any way that we avoid paying silt on it is a six percent discount and then lastly the third thing that I like about the third scenario it goes to Frank's Financial resiliency because not only do we have this to deal with we also have Walterville as an unanswered question so if we can refund this and maybe that leaves us the flexibility

1:25:38 to have debt coverage in case we need to use debt to take care of all of them if we use a bunch of debt on this one then then we're jeopardizing our our ratings and our debt ratio if we have unforeseen things with Walterville and and building up the sinking fund for that so I I lead into fighting the bullet and going with scenario three I just want to reiterate so when we realized since this we spent let's say 150 million bucks and we were going to recover that over 40 years and we're not going to do that now so we have an unamortized debt that we don't have any Revenue to offset so might say 75

1:26:23 million dollars is not factored into this 225 correct so what would really help me because I know how percentages can be deceptive because all of those years you have been there in our long-term financial plan we already have rate increases in there so when you say you were going to raise rates of one percent but we're also going to raise them three and a half percent to Compound Effect is not one percent so is there a way you can show me a graph where the dollar amount is because if we start at one and you look at the affordability like we always do when we we do our long-term plan showing the actual dollar amount this is going to get a household with because right now I'm just about one percent of stopping but it is not one percent

1:27:08 mathematically it's a whole lot more dollar-wise it comes out to quite a bit more because our rates are projected to go up 35 the next 10-year period correct the long-term financial plan and so when we raise them a percentage and we think about that is not being I would like to see what that does to the typical household because uh personally if you could do that for me I mean I can do the math but I got a full plate already but if you could show me because I you know that affordability is going to be important I agree with John B too that the way to do it is with with rates and pre-funded and things like that I don't want to borrow into this but I'm I'm concerned and then my last real quick question is most construction projects

1:27:53 have a 30 contingency and the 225 is that with a 30 or have we gone High and a low or is it 225 the the 225 was uh I mean from the okay so we're budgeting at the 225 but the contingency is 30 variable either way yeah if you could get me just show me you know what when we start this out with our already made in grade projections and then we'd throw this on top of it what that does to a typical household Bill Dollar Wise not in percentage-wise that would give me a better optic of what we're doing but I think it's it's important that we

1:28:39 let our ratepayers see what's what's happening not just tell them what's the percentage so thank you it's it's a very good point and that's why that's part of why starting early as a more dramatic effect yeah it will we will uh it's back it's a compounding function I I know what's gonna it's gonna look like I think Frank I was just going to respond to Professor Brown and and said that that entire aggregation is what we plan to bring back in July with the long-term financial plan because there's this is one of multiple issues it's one of issues that we've already baked in we

1:29:25 need to look at in the context of other Capital so that entire aggregation and where we land is a recommendation will be exactly in the format that that you're looking for there and from a from a contingency perspective I I would say that it's not quite adding 30 when we but we did the scenario analysis we provided a plus and minus range Eden was a combination of that so there there may be it's probably not appropriate just to Simply add a contingency given it was a means of a number of different scenarios um it doesn't get around the the goal that I think several of you talked about which is financial resiliency because the prices

1:30:10 can go up and down but it's probably not appropriate to just take 225 and add 30 so because of how we calculated the 225 thanks sure thanks um is there any way we can put leiburg Genie back in the bottle this is really messy um yeah I mean bad enough it's not fun for anybody but I appreciate people engaging Us in these questions at this point of the of the planning effort um so I have one question about intergeneral additional Equity you bring up both of those when we're comparing the positives and negatives to each and you have intergenerational equity on both for pre-funding or for I

1:30:58 mean with that is there a difference in the intergenerational equity between the two of those and you still can you explain um so it's negative in both cases really depends depends on how much there's a tension between a lot of these things so how much you're going to borrow and how much you're going to pre-fund with borrowing you do add interest but you also extend out the period of time so um so all things being equal and I don't know what the rates are going to be out in the future but we would expect that to create a little bit lower great burden to spread it out over a longer period of time and pre-funding

1:31:44 shortens that time period and that's why there may be a benefit to looking at some sort of a combination to where we can ease some of it by extending it out but we still preserve our financial resiliency and flexibility by collecting uh in the form of a Fiora raid earlier in the process that makes sense and that's my inclination as barovski suggested is to refund the extent we can um but I guess the number one priority from my perspective would be to provide future boards as much flexibility as we possibly can to deal with unexpected costs and second to that would be you know

1:32:29 gradualism to spread things out I'm sure there's attention between the two of those but um but my first would be providing boards to flexibility and I just think we're gonna get her calls or there's potential for curveballs um that grows as things warm and conditions change in ways that we aren't expecting and that just feel like leaving our future boards with as much flexibility as possible that has to be the priority from my perspective um in terms of affecting lower income households but whatever we do here is going to affect lower income households I really appreciated the presentation we had earlier this week programs a couple of things I learned is that our current annual bill pay assistant tops out assistance tops out at like 280 or 250

1:33:14 dollars per year per household and it feels like maybe we need to think about bumping up that total annual benefit that's available to low-income households as we enter into uh in fiber or more percent increases and the other thing is we have really great programs where we will pay for the full cost of insulating low-income households even if they're occupied by renters and it feels like we should be promoting the heck out of that as a way not to save energy necessarily but to help insulate those lower income households from what feels kind of inevitable and then my last thought is that I think we should make a specific direct task to the city to say to ask them not to charge a silt on top of this because

1:34:00 it's going to be punishing as it is and I think they could hopefully appreciate that um and I think it's a totally reasonable request I don't usually try to wait into silk because I think it's kind of messy and not very groupable but I do feel like this is a place where we can and should ask for them to rethink at least this piece of the silt um a degree on uh all right outside the queue but I just want to comment on myself I I have in the past raised the issue with the city manager and she was she didn't commit but she said she was open to the conversation

1:34:45 that would be a major win for our ratepayers because every time we have to raise it it's an addition on to that and it's not something that the reason we have the silt it's an offset for property taxes that doesn't feel like an inadequate way to deal with that there are limitations to other property taxes that's the agenda yes um in terms of the the timing and the intergenerational aspect to me the inequity is kind of already passed because the people who got the benefit from leiburg and the power generation that they got power before 2018. and we're in a range of nobody from here forward is going to get any benefit out

1:35:32 of Labor so for me we've already passed the the level of you know equity in terms of benefit and who's paying for it so for me I mean limiting that that amount of debt that we're paying um and you know for some of the other reasons providing boards with future flexibility I do like the idea of refunding the extent we can but I do want to make sure that we are cognizant of the affordability aspect and you know it seems like all of the options that we have for free funding shrink it down to about a third of the amount of time is there just throwing wild ideas out there is there a way to

1:36:18 spread the the definition piece out so that the cost itself and the amount that we get burden are spread out further so that limits the rates or is that a whole other like cost fall game that ends up ballooning here we go you're you're speaking to relative schedule I think some of that comes in a combination of the decommissioning action plan and whatever settlement parties were negotiating with um there there's a number of stakeholders involved in that process we're and so until we go through that that process there's a number of Permitting steps and so we actually get into the to the

1:37:04 requirements we won't know how flexible how much flexibility we have to that it's probably anticipated that it will stretch out the probability of stretching out is better than the probability you're condensing it yeah and we have I mean there's we have operating what are what are our main operating costs then I mean lowering and raising the dam right and the the because we're not getting any power generation from it so what other like what other operating costs would we be extending out that would maybe increase the cost versus giving the people upriver for your chance to you know deal with hey you

1:37:49 know this whole landscape is going to be changing I know 10 years is great wrong way there but just throwing it out as a you know an idea for spreading it out anyway and this if we're spreading out that pre-funding cost maybe we hit most of it and we get some more of that gradualism so extending it out um those mean Rising construction costs and we do um there are for our board policies I'm not certainly appropriate policies our investments are all are all very safe and that tends to mean lower Returns on

1:38:34 our investment and so it is very possible that we would see over that time period that construction costs would rise faster than our earnings okay got it thank you okay I mean otherwise I'm I'm definitely in favor of uh you know the complete funding and look forward to June what does that actually look like for the average rate here and Broski um I guess my question is uh we're looking at this at presidential and paid payers what about our commercial I mean is it going to be a five dollars per commercial one and the other thing that I'm I'm seeing there is that that leaves me more to the rate increase

1:39:22 because you're getting more from the commercial operators because they're paying more and a lot of the commercial a lot of the people that in the commercial side of this actually did benefit from the power that was generated by labor because they've been in the community for a long time look at IP you look at a lot of these a lot of these commercial uh people and they did they did benefit from some of that whereas somebody who is turning on their lights at home that just bought home may not so I guess the question that I have is five dollar flat fee that's going to be indexed to a commercial or

1:40:09 and then the other one is that leads me towards going with the one percent rate increase for four years because that generates that generates more than flat fees in my so we haven't so we have an opportunity these were these were numbers to um bring a little context uh not recommendations but something to uh to start a conversation um what what we really need for July is to gauge the amount of pre-funding and then within that conversation there's uh a lot of nuance do we collect it in a

1:40:54 flat fee do we collect it in or in a consumption base do we do a blend and how do we differentiate between our class of customers so this was a very generic number I wouldn't anticipate that a flat fee would hit a commercial customer the same way that it would a residential customer but those are just thoughts not a fully formed plan the um I think Deborah classified this really well in sort of two steps how much do you prefund how much do you do you use your credit card um a step after that is really the right design piece of this which is there there are different ways to index even

1:41:41 fees you know on the water side we've done it by size of meter for example on electric side we could look at at things such as um the demand piece of demand charge there's different between small commercial large commercial so I think that's another thing that we'll take a look at as part of our preparation um and there's different different impacts on Equity related to those as well so I I think I'm gonna have to take this in a couple different steps unquestioned in terms of hearing a lot of the commissioner's lean towards a degree of pre-funding colleges to

1:42:26 jump through the slide deck here without a kind of bent on the green shaded in is theoretically where reserves would peek out so we would be holding a high degree of reserves if we're pre-funded um you know understanding that from an investment standpoint we have to pursue a safety and liquidity over return um much slowly coming out of a historical level interest rate environment for us to

1:43:12 invest in is there any uh feeling or sense on how much reserves is too much so for example again high level scenario the numbers here would have us holding approximately 50 million dollars in reserves this kind of scenario analysis that you know is that a comfort level in terms of people potentially looking to you with and saying hey why are you holding this much money or is what is again long-term financial plan modeling scenario

1:44:01 which is too much Matt from my perspective on it it doesn't seem like 15 million dollars is too much to hold on to it does seem like about this before there's kind of the flip side of debt is that with pre-funding we're not likely to even get as much in interest as were but we're losing money right on those dollars aren't we inflation you know year on year for a couple more I mean we don't know when that ends actually if you can tell us when that is that would be super helpful um even though it comes down right if we're seeing like regular rates for inflation of three percent then we're probably only getting one or two percent return on our losing money effectively with that pre-funding

1:44:48 it was repair money we've collected so I'm not sure I'd tournament lose losing money but our construction costs rise over time and our rate payers are giving us those funds when they had other investment opportunities so um we take money that in theory they maybe would have invested at a better rate or put to a different use and we're investing it at a low interest rate and that is one of the places that we see tension yeah yeah and at the same time I guess for my from my perspective reserves that we can still as long as we're not over you know over stepping

1:45:34 into a place where we're but I mean that suggests to kind of get like year by year approach which I don't know if that's so the thing I love about addressing this now is that we still have time we're talk we're compressing 18 years worth of costs right now into one conversation and our long-term Financial plans are something that we look out look at each year so this picture is going to come into Focus over time um you know it's not a set it and forget it situation if you are pursuing a community

1:46:21 um when will we know what ferk's going to tell us about Walter Mill in the story Walter bill in one contacts commission well in the context of the licenses are tied together and if we decommission this stock they're going to ask us to and then potentially just for uh and to have us do something to want to do that's that scenario is going to happen either way but so there's I just wondering for our financial planning to go through this thinking there's 225 million dollar thing we start raising rates but then somebody decides that it's not 225 it's more like 325. because we have to I mean Walter Bill isn't you know it's got problems too right but I I think that

1:47:06 um from a financial planning perspective and part of the reason that I think you approach this looking at sort of resiliency as one of the drivers is that you do know that scenarios are going to evolve that said Walter Bill and lieberger are in a pretty different risk positions um Walterville does have an existing license there may be some work required there but we have the opportunity to recapture that over the remaining part of the license um with a whole bunch of things coming together in a pinnacle and probably around the early 2030s where um we would know where on that curve we are with Liebert and simultaneously the board at that time will be deciding the

1:47:53 future course of of Walterville and so I I think if this board approaches it in in the manner of giving that future board the opportunity and the flexibility to make a decision and not be boxed into a corner I think is one of the drivers they're there's lots of tensions and I think you've touched on a lot of them between gradualism and affordability the rate of return you know e-webs versus our our customers overall these are all things that are intention and we're going to have to bring back to this board a balanced approach to to how we how we deal with all those issues but I I think

1:48:38 that we'll know more as we go along and have conversations with Bert but I think they're in different risk positions just like Krantz just added to the chat I don't know if everybody saw that that we're going to do a triple bottom line alter Bill starting in 2024. that we expected to generate through the license 16 more years we worked on that policy last year I've been here for 16 more years

1:49:23 I think Frank said 45 actually isn't that we challenged us all to be here in 45 years from now yeah well you're making decisions that you're gonna have to live with from that long so you guys ever think you did I heard was the strong desire to pre-fund uh we'll work on some scenarios for you all and have an opportunity to maybe talk more in July about what those different pre-funding options would look like thank you and and we will bring back to this board a recommendation but it'll get and we will also bring back the basis for that recommendation and so that that you understand if we're recommending this there's

1:50:09 there's a financial strategy behind it um that we feel like we can support and that hopefully you can support well we're at break time and I think we should take it so let's take our 10 minute break and come back at 7 45. thank you

2:00:26 what do you think commissioner president Carlson Commissioners general manager Lawson I'm Karen Kelly chief operations officer and tonight with me is Mike Masters our water operations manager and Susan Fricke our water quality assurance and support resources supervisor it's a long one we're excited to be here to talk with you tonight about the state at the Watershed report and um uh I'm thankful that you guys asked us to come and present on that I think it will be cool to maybe more positive than our Downer uh on the financial I had to get that in for Deborah's sake um but I did want to just take this moment to remind folks that um in the

2:01:11 water utility we do uh follow the um multiple barrier approach to Safe Drinking Water in which our source water protection is the first step of that so we wanted to talk about that today and all the good things that our staff does to follow that and make sure that we're mitigating for any risks from source to tap the whole shebang so we're going to talk about that first step tonight where we Monitor and we monitor four and both proactively and reactively address the highest threats to our drinking water from a source water quality perspective so I'm going to turn this over to Mike and Susan to give you all the details of that and the work that we've been able to accomplish not just eweb but also with their Partners okay last year and some good evening Commissioners

2:01:56 president Carlson uh as Karen said I'm Mike Masters I'm the water operations manager we're here to give you some highlights from the 2022 state of the Watershed report we'll be going over a review of that report provide some relevant information updates and answer a few questions at the end so we have three goals for drinking water source protection number one is to work with Partners to maintain Source water quality to prioritize benefits to water treatment and electric generation in the McKinsey Watershed and three promote public awareness and stewardship some highlights of watershed summary

2:02:44 Source water protection continued post-holiday Farm fire response by working with landowners through the pure water Partners as well as working on Federal and private land for larger restoration projects despite the fire water quality remains excellent in the McKenzie river so I'm going to do some of the highlights from our report today so if you have and USGS have what we call continuous monitoring stations in the McKenzie Watershed we run water quality data songs that measure water quality information so these are our probes that we put in they're little cylinder things we slap them in the water and then they take measurements for us every 15 minutes do things like temperature dissolved oxygen pH and like this figure

2:03:31 is showing us turbidity so the green line is from 2022 this is near Vita we've seen that the turbidity spiked if you can see that um in in January and then we also had a couple little spikes in November and December but definitely much less turbidity than we're seeing in the other years post holiday fire um definitely at this spot David who's in the audience today tells me we're less than two fnu which is one of the units of measurement so the fact that we're seeing something like 90 is a lot when we're generally at two but this is like a storm events that are coming through um one of the other highlights from this year is that we put a song in at Quartz Creek what that's important is we're going to do a stage zero restoration project there and so this will be like our pre-data our Baseline data for that

2:04:18 spot and the data is already being used by universities and other governmental agencies for this it's really exciting to have pre and post data for one of these projects okay so then here we're looking at the harmful algal blooms for this year and what was notable about this year is if you look at the um little X's with the little dots in between them so with the little X's with the dots in between them um what you see with that is we had it above the reporting limit for some of

2:05:05 June and July and where we were seeing that was in Blue River Reservoir and so we had detection but we were not seeing any below Reservoir the entire year so good so and it also did not even get close to the levels that are of concern for drinking water just detections we like to show you all words there good for storm holiday Farm fire monitoring effects we've looked at water quality monitored Baseline and storm samples and so you can see we're showing 2020 2021 and 2022. um you can see that final storm in 2021 was had like the highest of these parameters this figure

2:05:51 is looking at nitrate concentrations we did see some you know higher more decent levels in January and November but it does seem like it's declining over time we ran a really successful spill drill that was well attended Whiteley boat landing on the Willamette are Partners specifically asked this year if we could do one on the Willamette at the McKenzie it was great we had our staff David and Lisa did a fantastic job with this drill we had tons of organizations attend it's always a really great thing we also continued our illegal Camp surveys in collaboration with the labeling and for urban runoff what I wanted to really highlight is our partnership with the urban Waters and Wildlife program we participate in this with a variety of

2:06:36 organizations including Sub City of Springfield mwmc Eugene and our local Watershed councils one of the current projects that they're working on right now is right above the intake at Hayden bridge and it's the child Center and as well as there's a one if you want to stop by and see a project happening there's one at Willamette Christian Center they're redoing the whole parking lot and putting some swales in where the water can go and so um got a little tour there the other day we also did an update on the Pensacola plume because they just released that March 15th so this is different than what's in your report overall what we're seeing is that there's no compounds detected near the Subways and pretty much every spot except for one is decreasing that one even looks like it's decreasing since 2020. we're keeping an eye on it they release it right after we turn in the

2:07:22 report for you all every year so that's why this update's a little different as far as this for Watershed recovery highlights like Mike mentioned you continue to great work with the pure water partner programs we have over 167 landowners signed up with our seven year Watershed stewardship agreements we also continued our property assessments with the pure water Partners to evaluate needs and opportunities for planting and riparian areas invasive species control fire fuels reduction erosion control and naturescaping and also with our other partners for large-scale restoration projects we worked on this year as they completed Deer Creek and um it Creek two different kinds of projects and then we continued design for finrock phase two which will

2:08:07 be happening this summer and for Quartz Creek which should hopefully part of it'll start this fall I think you've all heard a bunch about the septic assistance program but we love to talk about this one three million dollars coming in for septic for low and middle income folks we've had over what is it over 75 applications we have new coming in every day we have a million and a half coming from Biz Oregon and Lake County and a million and a half ish coming from DEQ so we're really excited to get those funds out on the ground finally and then we continue to work on um with our hazelnut Farmers on a moth monitoring program this has been really interesting because um it's actually reduced some of the farmers reduce their spraying from anywhere a third to a half to two-thirds by tracking the moths and how many are

2:08:53 there I think we had one farmer last year who said they ended up not spraying it all because the moth number stayed so low that's great because it's less pesticide going into the river above the intake and then for Source water protection operations just a few that we can highlight is we've got Aquarius database so those songs that I was talking about we have like what it doesn't I think out in the system a bunch of them out right now they take a data point for all the different parameters every 15 minutes that is a lot of data if you run it all year round so we've got this new database Aquarius that lets us manage that data in a really great way and it'll let us put it on real time too so that the agencies universities all of our other partners can be able to access that data to see what's going on so they can look up at Quartz Creek and say hey what does the turbidity look like right

2:09:39 now so that's one of the advantages of that like I said before we already have the Quartz Creek monitoring station is in place and then Brenda worked on this really great harmful algoblin monitoring map and this was something for our community so that they can see what the results of our sampling is you know not quite real time but within a few days the results are updated and that way we can kind of do a risk assessment of what the harmful ago blooms and the McKenzie river are at the time and we wanted to add in a little bit more just to remind folks about the McKinsey Valley landowner incentives we've got the stuff we talked about with the pure water Partners already we they're also doing a McKinsey firewood program for low-income folks or elderly who can't get their own wood um home cycling relocation funding and then undergrounding the electric service

2:10:25 lines and of course there's Energy Efficiency incentives for new construction foreign we also wanted to just highlight how much we enjoy working with our Communications team on getting the word out about all these great projects and about the great source Protection work that we're doing Adam's videos are so popular everybody loves them especially the firewood program when it was a great one it's so great to hear the feedback from the community and from our partners and then another one I just wanted to highlight is that eweb sponsored the ilio native theater when they did the salmon is everything play and that was really well received

2:11:14 well as you know I've this is my passion and everything else 16 years ago I gave Carl Morgenstern a blank check and I'm going to hand that to you the only thing I want you to understand is never run out of money in the septic program that is a No-No in my book so if you need money under me and I'm convinced to others that you get it so it didn't cut me so but uh seriously I had some concerns about some of the statistics in there like in a November event when Hendrix the E coli went up tenfold and is there a way to determine is that human or animal there is a way there is DNA testing that you can do on those the thing you've got to know with bacteria though is there's a reason why you have to get five samples in 30 days to have it like a violation to have an issue because we can get little peaks of bacteria that come through and it's not just one

2:11:59 sample isn't necessarily an emergency a few samples is like hey we should take a look at this and see if we can find out where this is coming from but David's done sampling in the past we've had bacteria hits that were pretty high within the City of Springfield and some of our Urban outflows and they did DNA testing and found it with dog yeah yeah but this could be I heard about the cannibalism thing yeah in Thurston area but I was more concerned about people though when they're self-dependent on High Water Events um and is there a way because I know there's a feedlot up there too that feeds everything right down by the lake by the creek and when it rains we get a big dump of that and I step into the drinking water so I'm wondering if is there any is there any follow-up on that when you get those statistics um do you guys just say Okay assistant

2:12:44 put it in the book or do you follow up on if we start to see a trend where we're turning High quite often or for every storm then I think it would be more in some of the floor investigation on it a lot of times with bacteria what you end up needing to do is bracketing it so you do a site above and below where you think you have an issue to try to kind of hone in on where it is okay um another question of um I noticed that we had some conversation about the child Center and the new developments going in right at where our campaign is and they were permitted and they've done that and they put in additions and everything else and they have their gutters and everything running right into the water there are we concerned about what Springfield mayor is concerned about the

2:13:29 the reports of the river changing right in that particular area and going straight into the well fields and um because it's not prevented or have you guys been involved in that I think Frank knows about it I know uh Wally Mccalla had looked into that and his his opinion was not concerned at the moment same with our um water treatment plant supervisor relay as well about you know how serious might this be and at this point they're not seeing that's not to say and then another one if you look on page 23 of your handout you can those of you that are not familiar with it the IP has that big effluent Bond right above our

2:14:16 intake and it's just a person firm and it was liquefy in two seconds if we had an earthquake what are we going to do are we just going to shut the whole system down millions of gallons of pulpeppoon is dumped in four miles from our intake actually probably so uh something that significant we would shut down um there'd be an opportunity to shut down treatment operations um and let a lot of that pass by and it sounds like an incredible amount to pass by with the flow in the river you'd be surprised how how fast that'll move by us so it's not to not to underplay the the disaster that that would be but we

2:15:02 would literally shut down and let it pass by but we don't that's that's our plan is a contingency is it that thing that berms breached and it goes right in I mean it's going to be a significant amount we can shut it down quick enough yeah I mean absolutely I don't think we have really have a plan in place for that specific event with as you mentioned a lot of the earthquake related stuff is it's kind of hard to uh part two hard to avoid some of that stuff but um definitely that would be the process as soon as we had indication of anything coming down the river that was that significant or even something less significant we would we

2:15:47 would figure out when it's going to come through shut down the intake and we should have plenty of water in the finished water reservoir to keep I can run above from that location to our intake in less than four minutes yeah right thinking about the severity of it's just bringing it up to highlight it and so I'm starting to dominate but you know this is my baby I get to talk you know once and you can shut me up for the rest of the year if you like that's another good thing the finishwater reservoir kind of serves as a buffer for that too so if we did get to it a little late we can shut down and prevent anything like that from getting into the system right and we do as you know we do our spell drills every year to be able to respond to situations like this this one is so close however we wouldn't have time to respond to that so those are ones that are further upstream

2:16:32 and we have cool sorts of systems that track how long it takes those kind of contaminants to get to the intake this one is so quick we just shut it off immediately no and I'm seeing a request for funding for the Willamette because they've got all these oil drains with hundreds of oil cars that go up and down right along that River are we planning on you know we've got the controls on the McKenzie but are we planning I know our last drill is under Willamette but if a brain derailment occurs with all those oil cars uh and it you know it hits a river it's done I mean for both us and some right well Sev actually helped fund the similar system on the Middle Fork and so I think we would want to work with Partners too and do the um the postmark as well so they are

2:17:18 participants in that they helped fund that part so we're checking in that make sure everything's all up to speed that's definitely something we want to have in place and it's something David Donahue who's one of our staff who's awesome about tracking those kind of spills as well last question so we were going to put in a temperature monitor on the slew where where IP dumps our boiler water in right above our intake have we put that in and if so have we been able to measure because I know that there's a lot of people complaining about some of their water coming in over 70 degrees under the river um that we put that the monitor in and if so what's been the results we we had some permitting until we were asked to do we were asked to do

2:18:03 um flooding like you know full risk assessments on putting a pole into that location concrete a concrete we started with a concrete pad and it was like no you have to do like flood migration Zone full assessments and then we're like can we just put in a poll and it was so we've had a lot and a lot of back and forth negotiation on this so yeah I'd like to follow up on that because I know they're dumping a lot of warm water into the room right right there and I you know I just kind of like to well one of the issues with that location as you know is it's very active there's a lot of people that move through there so whatever we do put in there those songs that I was telling you about are like fifteen thousand dollar pieces of equipment we can't just tuck one in on the riverbank and get that because it'll

2:18:48 be vandalized or whatnot so we're trying to make sure we have a nice protected area where we can collect high quality data for you thank you I appreciate it well thank you for everything you do and it's everything you're going to do and uh and and I really appreciate it because our the quality of our drinking water is unsurfast and I keep it up and if ever you need anything you know where to knock on I'm glad you're watching thank you bye I am a little bit bye now thank you very much Cindy I just have a quick question I think remember after the holiday form fire when we were taken up there for see the effects and we were told that it would take like years or like if there was going to be any significant landslides or anything like that

2:19:33 happening I know you showed us the map of the liquidity and we're not quite at three years post holiday Barbed fire but is it behaving the way we expected it to or still in that danger zone that there could be significant slides well what they say is you generally have like three to five years is when the roots and everything start to degrade after you have the burning so you could have that kind of sloughing off and you saw one of the pictures we had a tributary that was still coming out muddy we did a lot of the erosion control measures and a lot of replanting at the beginning and they're saying that's one of the best things you can do now is assisting with the replanting for these kind of revegetation efforts as of this spring when we're going out now we are still doing planting and some inter-planting and we're also seeing a lot of negative revegetation regeneration as well which

2:20:20 is fantastic that means the forest is trying to start to heal itself as well so those are the best kind of efforts that we can do and we're continuing to work with landowners and we're also continuing to try to identify properties that might be strategic to acquire or work with people on doing some of these larger scale restoration projects we've been doing too that's one of our best things we can do to serve as that kind of sediment buffer to hold back some of that sediment as well thank you we also haven't had um huge storms in the winter we haven't had like huge storm events to really challenge it so I think that there's been a lot of really good growing conditions and pretty mellow Winters for plants to grow and not to challenge those kind of debris to our Traditions that we don't want to have

2:21:10 all right all right I'll be quick uh thanks to the report um we have the best water in the world and I'm so grateful for it and grateful for the work that this utility does to protect our water quality and the Watershed and I very awkwardly will take off my diva board hat and say you know during my day job I work for Lane County and get to work with eweb staff and we have a great opportunity where we had State funds to help deal with wastewater treatment and so we were able to take eweb's existing uh no interest Loan program and turn it into a grant program in partnership with DEQ to push a whole bunch of dollars upriver to help people repair and replace Epic Systems and those that program is now operating quickly just a ton of demand for it and so we're just seeing a lot of

2:21:56 repairs and Replacements of Old Testament systems and uh I just want to say thanks to the team for the work that you all do and again just a remarkable asset I think for the utility to have a program that's so proactive and effective thank you uh thank you um one of the questions I had is has to do with the drawdown of cougar and how that affects the turbidity I mean we're bringing it down lower than than historic and it sounds like they're going to keep it that low do we have a monitoring station at cougar or right near cougar for turbidity USGS has one right down below

2:22:42 from there yes and then I guess my question is when we get those when we get those flushes out of cougar how far down I mean how far down does that go before it dissipates I mean where's our next monitoring and are we seeing you know it's two miles worth of Muddy Waters and five miles worth of money water you know I don't know exactly how long it takes to dissipate um you know what are the bigger events that we saw for turbidity flushes in the last few years wasn't from the holiday Farm fire it was actually from Blue River Reservoir when the court didn't realize that they were drawing down so much because they had an equipment malfunction but we were able to see that at one of the monitoring stations right Downriver we were able to identify it treatments saw it and they

2:23:28 were able to do mitigation measures if they needed to so we have a really one of the reasons we have those songs in and spend all this time and money on those and have this new Aquarius system is because we have a very extensive monitoring Network in place that lets us see it as it's coming down river so I don't have exact files for you right now and I can the person who can do that analysis is right there and we also keep an eye on it so like Mike was saying if something's bad enough we can shut down the treatment plan if they need to you know add more to the treatment to do it I'm not the treatment person I'm not going to make up words um they can do that and they're they're ready and able to do that you know but by the time it gets there it's normally just a little bit of extra stuff and I'm not so much concerned about drinking water I'm more concerned about

2:24:14 a lot of the work that we're doing on habitat registration up out there you know if if cougar dumps a bunch of silt and and we've done all this work at furniture finra Reeves and all of those spotting beds gets filled with silt Corp we're spending all this money to store the habitat and then the car is dumping in the silt on top of it that's a concern for me and I and I know we we talked to the court at the council and and it is what it is but that's one of my concerns um can I add to that so um just so you know for some of the large-scale restoration work that's occurring South Fork they're gonna they already did some of the faces there there's more faces to come in there they decommissioned Delta Campground this

2:25:00 year and so they'll be starting I think it's in 2025 we're going to have more work there so that would also be a really good project because there's multiple stages for someone like the core if they're going to be dumping sediment into the river to fund because that is a sediment catcher right there um and then lastly it looks like is that what's that picture is that trail bridge that is the profiler in Blue River Reservoir that should be going on again sometime this month okay so I guess my question goes to recreational uh things what are our time frame for opening up Trail bridge Campground and Smith River reservoir for recreational

2:25:53 not another one I just want to be the first one to visit forever after five years of nobody fishiness 50 more years since Lisa more years we still have another generator to rebuild so that's next year not just this year so it's a couple years and the trail Burns Campground is that as well well yeah you can't get to it perowski wants the keys when is your turn more questions for me no thank you um I had the pleasure of sitting on the Mackenzie watch it Council and Susan's also on that so I'm

2:26:40 kind of plugged in as well as commissioner Brown and I'm really happy with the work that we do and and I think that we're well received in the upper McKenzie Valley as far as as partners all along thank you for all your hard work thank you for supporting the work Chris also mentioned it's dependent on Powerhouse improvements that are under construction so we can provide safe access around construction site one more yeah quick question so one the core did the draw down for the cooling tower every guide and person that lives on the rivers war that all the bugs were dead for three years myself included and they contributed it to DDT out of the base of cougar Reservoir because of all the salt coming down are you concerned

2:27:26 about that because they're going to draw down they're going to have all that Silk coming down um and I mean because bugs don't lie and the entomologist all said that they all died for a couple years after you know the court muddied that River for two years it was a disaster are we concerned about that when they dewater it next year we do bass lines we do quarterly monitoring there as well as storage sample monitoring so it's something we will definitely keep an eye on for that so I mean they haven't done it yet and they did it like 10 years ago but if they do it again what are we going to do if we detect it

2:28:12 I know they are that's my point the last time they brought it down to build the cooling tower it uh it killed all the bugs in the river hey Madonna you in the audience would you like to honestly we did provide comment on the environmental impact statement that closed a month and a half ago and we asked that very question because um Carl Morgenstern worked with USGS and they did a bunch of DDT work during that drawdown so they did see some very low level DDT but our question was you know are they going to be doing any Downstream monitoring for DT so we'd kind of like to get clarification on that so we know they're tuned into it we will certainly also be looking at DDT during that that brought outfits if it does

2:28:57 happen thank you thank you I just as long as we're aware of the potential and we can deal with it if it becomes an issue but I appreciate that our source water protection program has amazing staff that are all over all this stuff so they just have to give me a minute to answer it but they probably already are good I'd just like to thank the board and the prior leadership and the current leadership here um as you know I've said before this is unusual to invest in our source in this way for utility and you can see spend year over year we're keeping an eye on this we're responding appropriately we're preventing things all for the health of our customers and I want to thank you for that you brought up some very great points um I want to put in a plug for our Second Source that's one of

2:29:42 the main reasons why we need a second source is to deal with you know our Falls that we have no control over because we do not own this Watershed and we rely on our Partnerships throughout to accomplish this and make sure that water is safe and I just flew in this morning from a family trip in Mexico where I had to buy bottled water brush my teeth and everything else and it just you know refreshes my gratitude for all the support here and for all the work that our staff does to keep the water safe so thank you I Echo that and we went on a trip this last week and in every other state we visited my son declared this water is terrible I could never live here so thank you for all the work all right I'd Echo that tell you just thank you for the support I've worked

2:30:28 multiple utilities coast to coast and never seen in anything close to this level of investment in the source water protection program so thank you for that all right we will in discussion on the student Watershed watershed and move on to General manager's annual performance valuation and Merit discussion of okay stay there Frank yeah well this is always the most awkward agenda item of the year but I would just distracted what the folks don't lie as the quote of the um

2:31:18 well I mean starting to start saying well we've gone through the you know the utilities performance I think we've had some major successes over the last year in terms of you know moving forward with Leesburg headquarters building various contracts ibw you know all of those are major wins in my book and you know we got to have some of the conversation with Frank about some of this feedback and I wanted to bring up that you know as a you know we have our uh in our backgrounder we have information on the competitiveness of the salary range we took some steps a number of years ago because we were constantly falling

2:32:03 behind on keeping up with create keeping it as a competitive salary that that change and contract seems to have done a good job year over year and you know we want to make sure that what we're doing I think we should kind of keep consistent with what utility does overall from a perspective of compensation Merit and and what we choose to do and so I asked Frank what you know what the utility does basically around and in terms of merits in some of the ways that they award Merit it could be in terms of vacation

2:32:49 for a certain number of days something like 20 to 100 days it's usually like one to five percent um we talked about you know we had kind of asked well what is you know would you like Deferred Comp Apparently that is in kind of an administrative challenge or um you know for staff and for Frank's contract we'd actually have to change the contract to do different comps so that might be you know just just more challenged in that regard so in terms of you know consistency and keeping with you know how others throughout the utility um are either kind of a bonus or something in terms of a merit uh with you know a number of vacation days

2:33:34 and I'll turn over to Frank to give some more contacts there yeah just just one slight correction you said um 22 20 to 100 days the second 20 to 100 hours um you know appreciate them but um this is just for some person um yeah just just a message to Commissioners I've always felt like the approach to the general manager should be consistent with how we approach compensation for the rest of the organization there are some differences in scale there's differences in comparators and that's that's understood typically where I am in my compensation versus comparators we would not

2:34:20 typically look at Merit adjustments to direct salary it would typically be in some other form if the board should should decide to do that and that's that's up to the board in some cases as president Carlson mentioned it could be in the form of a vacation award it could be in the form of a cash award but that would be probably the either of those would be consistent with what we do with the rest of the organization based on where I'm positioned um versus the my comparators so that was just something that was important to me and I I did have a conversation with President Carlson and consistency with the rest of the

2:35:05 organization is something that's important to me personally and I think I think it's important to the board and the past way that this has been looked at thank you 200 days so that they're 100 days I'm already stretching it out thank you I didn't realize this um any common ground so I'm continuing to be impressed with the way you believe this organization three of you and you're good for so to speak um if we take your salary and adjust it the same average Barrett that all the other people got about eight thousand

2:35:50 dollars and if we could equate eight thousand dollars into a daily uh vacation thing that's just food for thought for others to think about something I wouldn't leaning into because that would be on par with what other people are doing in America one time and throwing it into time paid vacation just food for thought for others to consider uh just that I guess I agree I feel like um don't always agree with him but uh but you know that's not the case not the issue really that's the leadership you

2:36:35 providedness um is is really good um and I I had looked at the same the same number I think you know looking at the the average Merit and represented staff seemed like a is for us to Target whether it's vacation or I guess doesn't mean beside the inclined option I appreciate your your leadership as well um yeah I guess I'm not exactly clear where

2:37:22 we're Landing but I think that I agree that that organization has been run well and professionally over the over the last year and so in my view that that parents some sort of of uh compensation what that number or how that we arrive at that I'll I'll lean into the Muslim women uh goes forward with it and come forward with that but um you know I think he he's done a good job like like President Carlson uh mentioned we tackled a lot of big things in this last year and we have some more big things going forward coming up so

2:38:11 I think it sends a message to the staff that we value his leadership I think that trickles down to the rest of the state our confidence in him because we can't we can't I can't give Rod a raise I can I know that rods I know that that Raj and all the other people that are in this room that worked for Frank help get him to that high level of performance so it's not I don't I don't look at this as we're giving Frank a raise I I look at it so we're giving the organization raised because he's propped up by all these other people so um it's kind of giving kudos to all of them because that we only employ one

2:38:56 person and a person represents the whole my mind uh yeah just a couple of things uh one I just want to say uh thanks to Lena and Kara for putting this memo together for us for comparison it makes this uh much easier and what makes this harder is that the board members have not had a conversation about what we think is an appropriate uh you know merit award for Frank so this is a super occupant conversation in front of everybody so I just want to call that out we can't have that conversation beforehand so it just makes it awkward uh my understanding from reading this is that um Frank got the cost of living increase that everybody else did and so what brown and I are referencing on the very back the average merit award issue to

2:39:41 non-representative U.S employees is 2.18 I think that's what you're looking at so we were talking about a merit of that magnitude so would you look for a motion to uh generalization so we can direct HR so I believe that the general manager be given a merit award equivalent to 2.18 is annual salary and with the option of taking it either as a lump sum or in a crude vacation based upon his average daily compensation Point clarification is that a one time yeah it doesn't affect it based that one second okay any discussion

2:40:28 okay in interest of ending the awkward conversation let's do a vote just in favor say aye thank you very much [Laughter] I view this very similarly to commissioner barovsky um incredibly blessed to work in this organization and with the people that I do and that includes the board and includes staff um I I think that this is a really classy organization and I think we we think about things in the right way we're very intentional in what we're trying to accomplish and I think your leadership is a part of that

2:41:13 um so thank you for that and and really thanks to and I think I did this in the state of the utility but really appreciate the efforts and the relationships that we have here and that I have a staff so with that there's a lot more work there's a lot more work to come we've got an endless supply of local challenges and opportunities and look forward to working with you on that in the future thanks so what's happening Under Wraps let's move on to correspondence attendance so president Carlson and Commissioners um

2:41:58 I've approached this a little bit differently than you see on the screen I've tried to capture what our correspondence represented this month there were four pieces of Correspondence a little bit about the background there there was really two that relate to both our power trading operations or the conditions in the market as well as a compliance report related to our risk management Committee of which there were six areas of compliance that we were looking at we were in compliance on on all of those those issues we also as part of the correspondence Jason provided some

2:42:45 background on on really active legislation where those bills are in context to that there was public testimony this evening about a position that was taken on a nuclear related bill I will provide Commissioners with the exact testimony this was not testimony that was we were in favor of building nuclear plants this was positioned as we should be able to look at options related to non-carbon Community Resources and that's that's how it was couched and how it was caveat as well so this this was not and Jason

2:43:31 and I reviewed that before it was actually written in testimony I can provide the board with that exact testimony so you can have some context on that Jason provided the other active legislation and then finally there was there was a backgrounder also this is one where we're requesting some feedback from the board on the upcoming Dei board policy work session in April really three primary components to that um document including some a summary on the 101 perspectives that each commissioner provided on the topic some of the approaches and objectives for the April work session in a couple of weeks and then a highlight

2:44:19 of what staff was planning to provide in advance of that meeting for Commissioners and so I think staff was looking for some feedback on that and whether that approach and that content for how we were going to approach that meeting was in line with what Commissioners were expecting so four pieces three informational one feedback and then after this discussion I wanted to have one more discussion around just correspondence in general and so also but I'll save that and commissioner president Carlson if you wanted to if any Commissioners had any comments or feedback in particular on correspondence item four we'd appreciate

2:45:04 it all right and I just pulled up the section on the Dei number four as well so anything on the other items before we jump to number four yeah um I just wanted to say thank you for the the hedging correspondence um it's a very complex scenarios I sat down and went went through it with the with Staff last year got a little bit of knowledge on it which is dangerous um but this information was was interesting and I think that that we're doing a good job on our hedging I think that it's going to become more and more

2:45:50 complex as as the years go on because we're trying to hatch out to one two five years you don't know how much rain we're gonna get as one of our our team drivers of of of power to heads so this was this was really good I I just wanted to send Kudos up to that staff that are doing that and let them know that that somebody is reading the report and and knowing that they're doing a good job I know it's it's way above my pay grade and in an educational level but I'm glad there are people that didn't know what they're doing so thank you

2:46:40 I guess I similarly would say um the Jason I mean we get we get updates on legislative um having the sale in Salem regularly and it's super helpful to understand you know where we're looking and where we're leaning in and um and especially right now there's so much going on in Salem it's like mind-bombing and so to understand where where our priorities are is really helpful and as Jason has said and I agree completely above our weight in Salem and uh and I think that's a piece of it is that yeah we're clearly paying attention and weighing in and Salem in a way that small utilities thanks to Jason all right uh should we move to the fourth item here looks like there are

2:47:29 from the page here it says therefore basically so here's the reviews the two common goals are build a common understanding of the primary goals of Dei policy list and how eweb and our community would benefit from adopting such a policy as a number two layout discuss a road map for 2023 of the steps required to develop a Dei policy and ensure shared understanding commitment to how the Milestones will be met so those were two of the items that the signal award session and then it looked like Devils they had some information on kind of work what they would do to work with a Dei consultant I know that's something that we've all mentioned in the past about working with with a consultant around developing you know Common paths taking

2:48:15 my other public agencies list of Consultants why we might you know why it's um actually relevant to eweb's core mission examples of policy content drop guidelines so those are some of the items that are listed on here is I'm assuming that that the the consultant work is that what will take place before the operating so we'll have that information available as context or is that something that would follow up out of the after the April work session probably gonna be a little both okay we engage a consultant this week so um but but there's a pretty short

2:49:01 time frame between now and then some other things okay okay so then how are we going to I mean from my perspective how are we going to facilitate the people work session is there some conversation about is that maybe that's is that not that's not the place where we have the consultant command this is just outlining how we want to get there for the April meeting we um coin rights joke you know we have five Commissioners and we've got Peter Knights opinions on Brokers itself but we do appreciate that

2:49:47 one of the one of the the difference uh our thoughts was how to facilitate that we were not able to get the consultant on board to facilitate that so we could either stick with Robert's Rules kind of format uh similar to what we do here or we could um like Dr Frank a little bit about this about MRI you participate a little bit I mean I'm fine either way I guess I'm kind of unsure well I want to make sure that everybody can freely

2:50:33 participate um and I also know that talking about Dei issues can be a little tricky sometimes because questions come up it's just a really sensitive it can be a sensitive subject and um I'm just wondering how we can make sure that everybody can talk about it or ask questions um and feel okay about it I'm not anticipating that there's going to be any weird questions or anything but it is it is just a sensitive topic or can be and um sometimes it's pretty awkward because we're on TV or just the manner of our the way

2:51:20 that we meet so if if really like the first meeting is going to be building a common understanding of what like what the goals are and the road map maybe it's it's easier to continue to do it in this format but I guess just going forward I want to bring that up so long as we we're developing the the goal but not the nitty-gritty of the how because that's where I've seen other work you have parameters and kind of a shared understanding of of what the you know Rules of Engagement are as you're talking about these sorts of topics and that's not something that

2:52:06 we're going to have for this meeting so you know if we're really just focused on kind of the high level this is kind of what we want to get out of it but then and maybe the process we want to go down with Consultants that we don't get into the nitty-gritty of what does this word mean and how how does that affect this policy and you know not sort of understanding that I would be fine with that for the April meeting um just a couple of thoughts one I appreciate the one-on-one interviews and then this interim report to help us kind of understand where we're aligned and where we're taught it's really helpful for me the next month um I appreciate Minnie's comment and question about especially the recording part like uh

2:52:51 like I don't hope it's not super awkward but it's gonna you know there's probably gonna be some awkward there's no requirement that we record and publicize it has to be over to the public but we could talk to turn off the cameras and not record that segment of the movie and then take minutes instead I know kind of we've kind of stopped a few minutes but we could take minutes but then it's not it's not a recorded version that somebody can take Snippets and make us look silly make me look silly I'll just it's not us it's me actually um anyway that might be one option to do some of the attention for sorry yeah Commissioners I I think I would try to characterize the work session

2:53:38 which can be treated differently there's no action being taken so there's there's notice Forum requirements and things like that but there's there's nothing that that drives the same format that we have here this evening I think I would try to characterize this first meeting in in two sections one of them is that is an educational section to do a little bit of level setting around policy this is this is not to tackle the world's approach to Dei but it's a little bit of and if you look at the materials being delivered a lot of it is things that Commissioners have asked around how do other public agencies do it what's what's the benefit to an organization to

2:54:23 have this kind of policy so there's some some level setting and some information sharing and I'll say the first half of the meeting the second half of the meeting is probably scoping which is this is a subject that that is is very Broad and all-encompassing but from a policy perspective what would the board like see as a as a good scope and road map for particularly the year 2023 and so if you think about that they're um there's probably ways that we can facilitate it um to allow Commissioners to feel comfortable in the context of those those two pieces of content um I think when we look at this road map

2:55:08 further and other types of facilitation there there may be some other requirements that come into it but I I think between staff discussions we can figure out a way to allow Commissioners including president Carlson to fully participate in the context of those two pieces of of agenda item so if that makes sense to commissioners in terms of the the scoping process item two on the work that we're doing with consultant is really critical to me to have for that meeting we're not the experts here having the Consultants that work on this and are moving that forward

2:55:54 what are the options in the scope of work so we can say oh yeah we want we want this one but maybe that one doesn't really fit us but oh this one does too so you know having the menu of options I think is valuable I don't know if we think we'll have that or not but yeah so I just wanted to add to that um I think that that piece is really important as well and that came through in the whole number one interview results with all of you I think that piece will take a little bit of time to develop so there will be information that comes in kind of two segments right we're anticipating some of that information being available in April that will help us inform the first part of where we think the roadmap could go but more of that will come by

2:56:41 the time we are planning for our next work session in June so um everyone did you have anything on my podcast I've always had a concept that we do things for a reason and I want to know who's going to tell us what we're not doing now that we need to be doing what's the basis for that because I want to make sure that this time is well spent and and and so I'm going to want you for me I I'm not saying we don't need Dei but I want to understand who's going to Define where we're deficient why we're deficient and in in in each particular category and how we can get better because we're doing this for a reason and hopefully it's not just because a lot of other people are doing it it's because there's

2:57:27 a perception that we're not doing something that we should be doing and I'd like to know what that is and the basis for that so we can at least my position could be a better informal so that's one thing I would like to get out of that work session because I heard you say the word politics hopefully we're not going to get into policies on our first position then do a lot of things and uh they can create a life of their own but I I kind of want to know you know who's going to say tell us this and who's going to give us this definition and what's the basis for that so I can understand you know better okay yeah I mean for me I'm hoping to learn a lot at this one yes

2:58:13 I'll put it right out there I'm uncomfortable setting a Dei policy as a 60 year old white man right because I don't have I've got great bias I think I think that's one of the things so I need to work I want to learn as much as I can before I start heading and setting policy for an organization and so I'm going to be very apprehensive on pushing things forward just because I'm setting policy or I'm eventually going to be asked to set policies for individuals that I may

2:59:00 not be able to understand where they're coming from so I wanna that's the main thing that I want to learn in these early ones so that I can help guide a good policy without having the institutional bias that is engraved from growing up in this society as a white male that's going to be the hardest part for me is being able to step back and say okay and listening to hopefully that's where the consultants and stuff can can educate us because I don't want to I don't need to come back and somebody say a bunch of white folks set the policy and

2:59:45 inclusive and they don't know how I feel so I I it's it's a very uncomfortable position that will be in and I I can live with that but I just need to put it out there that that's where I'm coming from I don't want to be the one that you know they pull it out pull out a thing out of minutes and said perovsky said this yeah that's because that's where I'm at the early stages of this for me is educational I really appreciate that when I've gone through these um trainings before that that is kind of the first step of

3:00:30 here are the different ways that people look at it and experiences or um kind of exercises that they run you through to help you know that understanding and even as a younger female I going through that process learned a great deal from it and I've gone through a number of them and in each one of them I've learned more and more about it so I hope that we all get to benefit from it and as we go through and do that learning we understand how the policies that we're affecting yes maybe the outcome is that we have a you know Dei policy that says this is the Dai policy but that as we set up other policies and make decisions throughout the organization that we have a better

3:01:16 understanding about oh wait I had this Blinder on okay I'm gonna look at it through this different lens so that you know we get to think about equity in a different way and get to think about you know how these different decisions impact that and that's why I think that's working for incredible and critical for the decision makers in this room and the you know how the staff and managers and how that builds into the work that they do throughout the whole organization so I do hope that we get that out of it and I appreciate that you you know took that that so because it's not easy and it's not going to be comfortable but I'm really thankful that we're a group of open

3:02:01 individuals that are respectful of one another and can go through this process together Frank thank you for your feedback I I think that everybody starts from a different place this um the the analogy that I I might use is is if you look at something like a triple bottom line decision process we it doesn't necessarily dictate the answer it it dictates the approach and the process and I think in many ways when we think about are our strategic plan and our definition of values

3:02:47 it's not what we do but how we do it that is also part of that consideration I I do appreciate the fact that we need to understand the organizational benefit and the standards of which we're striving for those those are important to identify areas of opportunity for the organization to make sure that we are evaluating decisions appropriately and so I think a big part of this is to educate the board on you know what does a appropriate what does a good policy look like and what are the the components of it and how does it fit within an organization like

3:03:32 ewebs and I think a lot of the sort of three materials start to provide some samples and examples of that and so um I think we'll go into this with with that in mind that that we want to find ways to develop how we're going to approach these types of issues and there's going to be a little bit of Education up front a little bit of level setting a little bit of understanding of how this is applied and affects organizations and out of that there's going to come some some gaps that we need to look at and fill and so it's it's going to be a little bit of a process but I think that Commissioners are coming from it coming

3:04:19 toward it from a good place so we've got some feedback here this evening we're going to have to digest that and sort of unpack that a little bit and figure out how we make April 18th productive and informative and we'll puddle up tomorrow morning and figure out what that looks like and and be back all right thank you president Carlson wanted to to make one proposal um I know you and you and I talked about this a little bit um relative to the sequence of Correspondence in the board meetings themselves a lot of correspondents staff

3:05:06 hangs around to the end of the meeting waiting for potential questions and interactions and in many of our meetings we get to this point it's like let's get done and get out of here great there's 15 pieces of Correspondence yep okay when we're we're gone um a proposal for the board's consideration especially in president vice president who said agendas would be to potentially add this on to the very beginning as an item from general manager the the benefit to staff is that there's if there's issues those issues are up front these are generally pretty quick type of items so I wouldn't see that cutting into the timing around public

3:05:51 input but I would just like to get some feedback or you know get your direction on that okay so they were Grandpa here when we first when I first started this board all the consent calendar items were the very last thing and before staff had to sit there with you know babysitters and no meals and everything for four and five hours until 10 11 o'clock at night and then they wouldn't get asked a question it was the most ridiculous thing in the world we changed it and for the better inside I would wholeheartedly support that because it's not fair to I mean these people have lives too and if they they have to have input that's great but let's get it up front and let's not waste a very very valuable asset and that's their time and so I'm all for it

3:06:37 I agree I agree and we're also I don't really have anything at the beginning and we get to public input before it's published published time anyway so it's not like um I don't even think it would make that to that at all let's not waste people yeah hey um anything important to do this um just we we've added a few things um those are typically noted up right in the in the board agendas a couple of examples would include I think we put we

3:07:23 placed the hydrogen discussion in you and I believe um part of that schedule will be pulling in some expertise from the renewable Northwest hydrogen Alliance to to help with that discussion um and so a few things like that are are finding their place um also we've we've put the contents down for the upriver board meeting we'd like to kind of start moving out on some of those some of that content and so Commissioners I think we've had some informal discussions so individually but a lot of that meeting will be to facilitate the interaction with

3:08:10 um with those and we've got some some feedback directly from commissioner schlossberg on that so um anyway that content has been been added and so um any feedback that you have relative to that would be the important uh one one final note I would actually be in Washington DC that first week in May and so I will remote in so um Brad price will be sitting in the of the calm I don't know what they would how they refer to that but moving on um I won't miss the meeting I have not missed a meeting in I don't know how many years uh actually but so I'll still be in attendance I

3:08:57 just will be remote make sure the meeting runs till midnight that night I just have a comment on agendas that I will not be here for the June session I'd be here for the July 5th you can have a board meeting on July 5th because historically we moved it around because some people are coming off of the weekend I don't even know what it is but I know that we've moved meetings before to accommodate that I mean that's just cool for you guys to think about the 20th it's tough for me as well that's graduation night

3:09:45 I had a busy night kind of a busy night in the in the university area busiest of the year so we'll take a look at some scheduling options or June work session and then um I'll leave it up really I guess to you president Carlson and vice president barovsky on July 5th that's still appropriate week we've done both in the past we've gone ahead with the Tuesday after a long weekend and sometimes we we haven't pushed it out sometimes a week sometimes my fifth is a Wednesday it's life

3:10:32 so that's before before that so we have moved it out a week in the past um if Commissioners all agree to that we could facilitate that teeth is bad for me for the Olympics you want to table that and we can reach out okay the challenges of scheduling the sports

3:11:17 time gets pretty complicated other than the first Tuesday of the month okay goodness uh next board wrap up Matt I just have one item just to um reflect on the consent calendar items that we get I just so appreciate how detailed they are and every time I go to have a question and I look in somewhere in that memo is the answer to the question I have about what we're about to purchase or contract for so I know we don't talk about these very much but I really appreciate the effort that goes into them and I'm so excited we're getting a 60-foot digger ditch sorry

3:12:02 Digger Derek it's very exciting and we're getting a discount on it client used that's all thanks pack it now I feel like I'm I don't have as many because all the consent calendar information is right there so I do appreciate it foreign

3:12:57 I guess I'll just I'll just wrap up by saying uh phones don't lie bugs don't lie okay you wait I'm okay oh I think that that's like we've reached delirium face I think we're done all right we need to get turned no I like it I like it