EWEB Board of Commissioners — August 15, 2023

0:03 thing to order session facility safety and awareness briefing thank you for having this evening's board meeting U.S management experts okay I'll go through it good management subjects in the room and virtually during tonight's presentations [Music] visitor access is limited to the board meeting room restrooms restaurants are located on the first floor through the exit door in case of an emergency such as a fire alarm exit to the monitor at the back of the room unless it is not safe the alternate emergency exit is located at the rear of the building just beyond the restrooms

0:48 during an evacuation follow staff's instructions and Staples and safety tonight's meeting will be recorded the recording will start when the meeting is called the order and will continue until adjournment the meeting room will be muted during the break the break and that virtual participants on the screen and in the public audience will be able to hear conversations in the room until the meeting is okay first up we have agenda check very much to add or delete so I'm assuming with mine but it's on there so I'd like to delete item two programs okay well let's uh let's keep going uh president Carlson Commissioners good

1:33 evening um the purpose of the workshop for this evening is for the board to have an opportunity a proposed diversity equity and inclusion policy before I get into just a little bit of a background I would like to acknowledge Rob Price and his work on this as well as Kelly Hale our diversity team that's contributed as well as the executive team that has contributed to the policy that has been put forth in your packet a little bit of background [Music]

2:24 a little bit of background in history this has been a journey that we started actually at the end of 2021 and it originally came about as when we were talking about some pricing and some other decisions as an equity issue it expanded in the early part of 2022 based on feedback from Commissioners that there was a broader scope and scale for the policy and through that time there have been a number of opportunities to set some base expectations understanding the issues a little bit more definitions a road map was developed for the policy development itself early in the early part of 2023 along with some orientation and just and

3:09 discussion between Commissioners and some outside Consultants where we are today is uh really to use some proposed language around a policy to facilitate a discussion uh between board members primarily as to whether the policy in the language covered meets the expectation that you will have around a guidance document that would be captured in one of our S D policies SD stands for strategic Direction with the really the focus on most of those policies is to look at why we're doing a policy why the board wants to set that direction and then what you are

3:54 directing the general manager and the organization to do along those lines I won't read this the specific language but in the early part of the policy that was proposed we do try to capture the why of this around diversity and the opportunity that that creates to develop more Creative Solutions in pursuit of our organizational mission being consistent with our vision and values we talk about the opportunity that the Equitable creates for both our employees the board and the public relative to

4:39 products and services and culture and work environment and the same with the opportunity that inclusion presents around being being collaborative helping motivate and develop attachment and buy-in from employees Commissioners and the public on the work that we do the second part which is really gets into the okay we have these reasons to have the principles of diversity and equity and inclusion and operate under those principles there are some specific ways that could be directed to the organization and Commissioners including areas such as

5:25 our products and services the workforce and the culture that we want to create and that includes a number of subcategories around decision making and the environment recruiting and hiring compensation Etc and then also to try to capture the fact that the organization needs Community engagement it needs to facilitate that through transparent Communications and not just with the public as in customers but we Define a community in the policy to be those of which we interact with in the execution of our mission so when you think about that definition it doesn't just mean customers it also means suppliers it means Commissioners it

6:12 means employees and a number of different people who we might have to it means Regional partners for example and so engagement in this sense takes on a little bit broader meaning meaning of which we added to the definitions and policy and we also wanted to make sure that this wasn't just a directive to the organization staff through the general manager but that the Commissioners were also here to really Foster some of the why and the what of which this policy was intended and so that was really captured in the uh the directives that were that

6:58 were put forth in policy so really after going through the Journey located at the Y's and the what's and putting forth in front of general of the board the policy the policy again is to Foster discussion between Commissioners and we're hoping that that this does that and so with that we would there's there's a series of questions that we can propose to the board it's actually on the next slide if you need some prompting questions um that would facilitate discussion um but I guess the the first opportunity president Carlson would be to just

7:45 um are there areas that doesn't hang with the board are there gaps in the policy does this capture the intent that the board was looking for as you've gone through the Journey over the last really almost a year and a half I'll just round to two year and a half so with that President Carlson I'll I'll pass it back to you and I'll leave these up if you want to reference those liberations thank you well I will give us a second to read these reports and then I'll ask the room if we would like to go through these questions or if we'd like to kind of take each chunk of the

8:32 kind of talk about the different sections in each piece

9:19 everybody got a chance to read them okay um any preference going through questions or kind of going through the policy more of a big picture thinker but if people want to jump into this specific policies I guess I'd like to start with this one okay okay all right then we'll start off with questions um does the beginning language capture why Dei is important to the web and if there's any other obviously General discussion

10:07 I had a quick question just about just about process too we originally met with the Consultants had another session with them now where we're at right now so I just wanted to see what your what your thoughts were that wasn't my impression my impression was that the The Next Step would be to to put some ideas or an idea in front of of Commissioners if there was an area where we felt that some Consul consultation specifically would help controlling Consultants to help with that if needed and they didn't they didn't help with any of the right tools

10:53 or review of policies I would say they were part of the synthesis of it for sure yeah so I like the language of the policy I have no problem with it I guess my question is though like how do you go from adopting a policy that we at the board don't work for new web so we don't necessarily know what the culture is we know the culture of the board but we don't know the other things and so how do you take this and not just make it performative because without a pi

11:38 policy and we're so whatever we're figuring out what our needs actually are you want me to go away I'll start with that and if you want to wait in the future do that as well I think the uh when you look at the SD policies we tend to be looking at something that we want to pursue as an organization as a board over time um they are usually very specific relative to we want to achieve this particular tactic what happens in fact it's mentioned in

12:24 the implementation of this is there's I think it's important when you look at these kinds of policies that there's some sort of frequency of accountability in this case we've talked about once a year we've talked about policies that then can be shown to the board to show that we're implementing action as the chiefing so this is this reminds me a little bit of democracy right you have a little bit of separation of powers the board comes up with the laws and then the chief executive is responsible for implementing those and that's that was how the SD policies were originally developed I can tell you as the chief executive that any type of board with um

13:11 to me and say here is this policy show us how you're implementing it it would be on me to say this these are the actions these are the trends these are the measurements that we have created to ensure that we're abiding by the policy now this one specifically says at least annually the organization will report back to the board as to progress being made in this kind of work there's also an opportunity for certain collaborative efforts with with the board on you know specific annual goals or things that might support the policy so there's a couple of different ways to do that ultimately and that's the last question

13:56 there at the very bottom are there areas of specific projects you feel would be important to monitor some of that gets to the implementation aspect of the policy as well so um I would say that this provides the guidance and then when we get to the specific actions that we take as an organization both as a board and and the general manager those have to align with with the policy and so there could be certain things that the board wants to see just to push a little bit like a little bit deeper on that this is different than a policy that we have about reducing carbon or something like that I think that um I can be kind of tricky because oftentimes the people who are influencing it

14:46 clearly applies to so they might not know the depth of what as well [Music] how do we make sure that you're doing the work necessary in order to like really implement well I think that um part of my evaluation but honestly it should be something related there should be a category performance evaluation relative air quality adherence and that is something I feel accountable for for example when when it talks about the

15:32 workforce it talks about the creation of policies that support this that would be something that we would provide to the board in follow-up and in reports progress we also you know one of the attachments was the information on kind of the spectrum of progress and sort of certain key indicators the measurements can be important but we also measurements for targets are are also a little bit of a there's some things to watch when you when you create that so I ultimately think that which which will come about in the next month or two when we talk about the criteria for the general manager's performance evaluation that adherence to

16:18 policy would be something that would be a part of that we talked to the previous Consultants they had mentioned that set up kpis around it but they can recommend to us some other consultant that can help with the establishment of the apis that help track this I would be supportive of going through that process to make sure that this turns into something that's actionable yeah I think one of the things that I was just going to turn around I'm just gonna we had talked about production the drafting of the policy

17:03 and then phase three which is the policy implementation and that's where the potential consultant could come in and help with the development of certain measurements and progress is that where you're going yeah I can kind of comment maybe tie both of those things together um what you're asking is an interesting question right it applies to really all the policies and what he was saying right this is report card to so to speak but as we think about this particular policy it is different than some others perhaps the subject matter principle is really the same it's really that we're trying to get intentional about doing something different that's why it's so strategic

17:53 so being intentional about that says and I don't want to give the impression that we're not doing stuff right now right right so we are doing a lot of things but we're trying to get more intentional about identifying them and we did with that Matrix in there the maturity Matrix you know is an example one example of a way to sort of measure hey where where we could be at and where we could people are it's just an example that's not thing that we will do but um to your point the intended is to get some professional outside help that's used to doing this kind of also building on what we're doing and saying here's some things that we see

18:38 and then how would that translate into your goal how would the goal is going to be made monitoring through the coordinator so for me an example of to be a little bit tangible so we have the Carmen Smith project it's part of that Carmen Smith host of entities we deal with and one of them is the some tribes right and one of the things to do the Bible relations it's the idea that they are actually sovereign so there could be a particular goal it trickles all the way down and reads them

19:29 history and and then from that can come all the way back he was having some kind of word acknowledgment and or what is UAB how does UFC drives I mean that's kind of up and down some practicalities so I'm very impressed with everything I see I have a question about implementation and Workforce so right now our metrics are measured with other utilities Lane County women management positions people of God involve a lot of different things so you envision that being the standard to start from to

20:14 measure the change or do you envision that that I mean a certain percentage of our Workforce is females for a certain percentage of our Workforce and management is differentiated in in our quarterly reports about how many are male how many female how does this be like Lincoln County and other utilities and things like that do you envision that being the benchmark or what how do you envision setting a benchmark for success or for nication and diversity in the workforce yeah I think you use Rod's word is to develop intentional outcomes you know it

21:00 um we think we're okay where we're starting from that's different than if we think that we're not okay where we're starting from if you look look at certain metrics where we're relatively close to being representative or more representative of Eugene OR Lane County from some of the demographics there's other areas where there's a difference for example between union and non-union and I think we just part of it is to understand the position that you're in and then if there is value in pursuing something that's different from that from the organization that that meets the intent of why this is important so it's not a absolute yes or no this is where we start as much as it is I think it is important

21:46 to understand the landscape that you're starting from in order to be able to continue to to know the impacts of the policy and the in the where you want to improve this is a very broad area and so one of the things that that we have to look at is what areas are important to start from so it's not a it's not a clear commissioner Brown is not unclear oh we're okay that's a benchmark to start from today but we need to understand where we are today and I think that's part of the implementation cycle

22:32 yeah I'm pretty happy with the direction that's gone from our perspective as a board giving the direction um again I think I always call it concern but like how much ending would be in the implementation stages you know you said that we're we make the law you enforce the law who's the judge right I'll do that I'm just kidding but well I mean you know there's some areas where it's like okay like the same if we're doing contractors you know that's something you know like okay let's look at diversity and those types of things but it internal Workforce

23:18 part of this is going to be are we going to change the handbook to more implement this into that so that the workforce feels safer those types of things and that how is that going that's that's the concern that that stuff to me that's going to be one of the heavy lifts is one being able to articulate that to start and then getting it out to the employees and then figuring out how the employees take it and use it using an essay

24:04 a weapon you know there is that possibility it's like they could use it as a weapon or they can use it to Foster growth that's that's what I'm one of the but as far as our part of putting forward the policy and letting you work with it I'm very comfortable the implementation part again I think over the next couple of years is going to be where we where we see kpis and as far as our role I think we got the easy part and the um sorry

24:52 um the the board linkage policy is pretty specific around the role of the chief executive relative to policy enforcement I also think that there's an opportunity because we have we have created the standard practice of reviewing policies annually as a team if there were areas where the policy was driving the wrong Behavior or the wrong outcomes within the organization there's a there's not only the opportunity for the board to look at certain outcomes over time but the chief executive to be able to do that as well be it you know that all as much as all policies can have great

25:37 attention their implementation can sometimes cause cause problems as well the workforce description here is pretty inclusive I did that's that's a part that I didn't need to put out there but it's it's pretty all-inclusive when you start to look at how an organization operates from a cultural perspective it talks about hiring it talks about compensation it talks about the formal development of policies to support that everything from hiring to firing to behavior and so there's a lot of opportunity for the chief executive to be able to take that and develop plans and procedures and policies to to implement that there's also the opportunity to discuss if

26:23 there's unintentional outcomes and um so I'm just we were kind of asked what is why is this important e-web hearing a lot of well it kind of depends on what you do with it so from a commissioner perspective um you look at the language in that first section does It capture I mean what we needed to do then as the implementer and and what what does it change you know if we put this into practice what does it change from yesterday

27:09 a lot of what I think it really changed so first of all yes it does capture from my perspective the intent of the why which is the first part what it really helps with from a from a leadership perspective is it helps with the translation why and in fact I think the board had why do we do all this Dei stuff well there's some very specific organizational reasons that become more easy to implement and translate because this policy exists you look at diversity for example and the definition that was put forth around or the reasoning around diversity is that it creates the opportunity to develop broader and better solutions to to challenges

27:56 and problems that's you know I think really important for a complex organization like we have it also when we get into more and more products and services gives us an opportunity to make sure that those products and services have Equitable access across our community and our customer base so it it really helps with the translation of something that quite honestly can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people and organizationalizes that and from my perspective that's very helpful so so yeah I think it it does provide some difference [Music] and the communities definitions

28:43 let's take that a step further too I think it's a as I mentioned we're kind of already a lot of things we are doing there's an affirmation component to this I think that it's worth confirm that these are the things that are important to us Rob reminded me of something that I know that this board has struggled with for a number of years

29:29 um and when we go through the values and we save yeah we kind of understand that one affordable we can understand what that one is when we get down to the community and culture one is that what does that start to look and feel like having a policy that supports particular elements of that helps with the the integration of that into the into how we operate so this in some ways is a bridge to that between the values and how we operate now we're at the Line This is another lens to like look through what we make decisions you keep adding to that bottom line but I mean that's kind of what it

30:15 happens principle yeah I just said in terms of question number one I think you can trust them why Carlson Okay so the reason that that question came up was um you just asked me what difference it makes and does It capture I guess we would return

31:00 the question if someone asks a whole point to you since you're closest Butte commissioner Borowski why is eweb doing this Dei stuff does this capture give use some ability to translate why it's important to us as an organization not just you personally as well but as an organization this is why it's important to eweb so that would return the question to Commissioners in that way uh for me I think it does help there's no not a way that it humanizes and I think like the issues or the the

31:46 things that have come up for me that people have contacted me about a person access so I think by having a

32:32 for me personally I think that it definitely helps having a policy that we can why they're important if you do I mean for specific outcomes and it says not limited to but in recruiting hiring consultation their access to products you need to be engaged with the community around big issues and what that that way enforces not only for us internally but it's a reminder for how we are to interact with all of our stakeholders and for me that's useful

33:19 it's not just you know going from checking the box I mean this is really meaningful before and so long as we're it's not just okay well we made the document and now we're done I mean this is a living piece that we need to continue to think about and if we think about it like in the framework of having another lens and I think it's a very useful you're nothing with it after we check the box and we've gotten it then

34:07 comfortable with the definitions provided so okay about the first the equity inclusion [Music] only equipped so this is funny because I remember when we went through our training we had the the comic drawing about people in the stools having people access didn't necessarily mean that the three with different heights could actually see over the fence whereas the other one having having an equitable outcome that was Equity but the first one was equality and you give everybody the same thing

34:52 but then when I look at our trading materials and the definitions it literally says making sure everyone has equal access to the same opportunities so if it struck me initially that this seemed more like the quality not Equity but it's probably how we how we implement it was of the definitions that are here I would say that the definition around equity it's not just equal access to the particular policy or practice it's equal access to an outcome

35:38 which is the top of the fence not the stool looking over it and so um I think that's one where we could we could take a look and how to capture the equity or Equitable definition a little bit more it says opportunities to thrive and Thrive tends to be an outcome but I think it's a little bit more hard to find out it is yeah I think part of the context too is our mission right so the United Nations are necessarily

36:24 brittle definitions perhaps like like the training you might receive but they are it's more like curious so kind of okay with that's that at the moment to me personally I think about that's actually one of my collections

37:29 look at different scenarios to see how that plays into it benefits [Music] like welcome to people in different groups have access to that if they're all maybe people who are finished speaking don't have as equal access because we weren't providing I mean you know just as an example but they don't have a zinc block systems navigating that system is more challenging so the outcome is that they have access to it if they truly qualify because they understand and can actually communicate with us so

38:15 so I guess that this meets that test that they have they would have equal access that we're trying to ensure that they have access to it it's not ensuring that that and that may not be something that we can actually is not able to car because they have a barrier what's the outcome the access to it if they have it

39:04 but we honestly would say that could be so um there's bikes you know those kind of things that have a lower right if he hadn't stopped and said that's that exact question when I brought up this particular guy in his Equitable access to an outcome doesn't

39:49 guarantee an outcome and and yet we have to look at this from an outcome perspective so it'll be we can look at some examples internally to see does this definition provide the guidance that we think in some of the other comments you made around language and others those that's part of equity is also part of inclusion how do you include people in within the scope and environment of which they're comfortable so there's crossover there I would say the definitions look good to me I would go

40:57 our specific intent with the definitions was around Community to make sure that oftentimes we when we speak of our community we think about Eugene or maybe up the Mackenzie Valley Community relative to this particular kind of policy does mean these other things I interact with the community at a regional level for example with other utilities you know we deal with vendors and suppliers some of them some are local some are not so and we believe and I think the board believes well and just want to reiterate it and confirm it that when we think about diversity equity and inclusion

41:42 there's not a border that stops us from certain behaviors and certain values if someone doesn't happen to live in Eugene so that was a particular reason we wanted to Define community specifically for this policy then does policy cover the areas intended by commissioners we tried to think of everything we could from access to products and services to how people have access to show up and

42:29 participate in board meetings you know all I know that through time you gave us a pretty significant roster of things to think about and so we tried to to capture those as as well as not let you let you totally off the hook which was we put in the Commissioners have some expectation there on each other as well so we tried to think of everything we could in and categorize it the services it seems like it's pretty cool like utilizing some of the programs we have but also I just want to call attention

43:14 to there are some people for whom you can use computer is really difficult and hard especially opal and our system can be confusing and I did hear from One customer who their credit their credit card anyway just like changing stuff in our system is hard too so not just accessing our services not in like things that we promote but just in general engaging if we um we said prop let's see programs or products and services and information and or support or if we and then add in with that clarify that now the service could you could say that

44:01 part of our service is to help people through that customer service for example but if we wanted to expand that a little bit to adding information and support to that the way it is right now it's kind of linked to fair not into discernmentary prices [Music] yeah for a brief minute I thought maybe your suppliers were excluded but they say it's a community I'm just a question on um closed on number four so we talk about access what Mindy was talking about a physical presence I mean a face to the neighborhood but right now somebody wanted it to come out and talk to somebody at eweb where would they go and

44:46 how do they do that they would come here or whatever I mean you can't get in here without security they can yeah okay and we're eventually they'll be able to Service downtown say again they'll eventually be able to do that okay but right now we don't have that interface where I mean I got some people that I work with that are Spanish-speaking and they're afraid to come they don't they can't understand they can't navigate this the system and like saying if I could take them and help them walk through the process but there's no place for me to go so we're gonna we're gonna address that you know it'll be a initially appointment only right now but eventually the headquarters building

45:32 will be on that the city is looking I think right into the year in transition we do have bilingual support though and would be able to meet them here well I could set it up here so okay thank you we have appointments that are okay for various reasons before we leave this one can I push just a little bit more on on the board the option one it's not a push so much but you made a comment I don't think you quite exactly the way you said it which is hey we prove this and now it's your problem kind of thing so that uh item four

46:19 really is you know does this support uh from your perspective the ability to think about how you've engaged in public is it does it raise questions for you that when Kelly and I go out to [Music] loans that been recommended or whatever and we do some RFP kind of things you know are there things that some of this brings up to you and I think you know public input running for office public Outreach approving great design these are some of the things I think we went through in the training thought triggers you know and so again um anything that comes up now of course in the future

47:06 we'll be developing that that RFP um to help support the board from their perspective as well as also employees in our and specifically Community engagement talks about Equitable opportunities that includes governance as part of that equipment so there's in public processes so I think that's what what's kind of going that there's there's a direct interaction with the board the items not just the last bullet but some of the earlier Community engagement including that with the procurement Contracting piece

47:51 somehow I mean it is community engagement but it also feels like it's in a different level it's not like the broader public like it's a very special relationship that's it's more like supply chain and I don't know it somehow it feels different to me I would never if I was just looking at the headers on that I would never look at Community engagement for the supply chain that's part of the reason we develop we Define community that we did was Community includes these these other groups

48:38 anyway you put it there because it's not really here of course but it but it's business but uh it doesn't matter that much to me but I agree Sony is a little I don't think of that as Community engagement but I also hear Frank that you're trying to broadly Define the community that there's many different communities that we engage in it could be a lot of the grants the the structure act and that kind of thing are tying into a lot of different things we could just title it engagement as well

49:25 because to me an engagement and you look down and you talk about transparent Communications and open and accessible there's a Workforce component to that as well not just contractors not just customers the list of different participants there but engaged men being inclusive to our community pretty broad group of people that is business it is related to the Fulfillment of our mission I can see where you're tying it in if if we um added into Community I know I think collaborate the term that is supposed to cover kind of the supply chain aspect maybe there's another word that we could do add to the

50:10 community definition that would call that out a little clearer than I'm fine with tying that together added to the definition so when you go down because I mean collaborate with I wouldn't necessarily think of that as a business like we work with other government agencies but this is a particular relationship with the business that has payment and other things associated with it it just feels like a different position I understand we're collaborating with them extent but it just it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't scream to me the best of her business relationships

51:03 just to make sure because we we Define the community as people with whom we serve collaborate influence or impact and the Fulfillment of our mission so I would think there's government partners are part of that customers are part of that it has a business tie to it but collaborating on behalf of our mission is part of part of the business so I didn't know if that covered what you were trying to do where you had tried to go with that I think part of the reason that I'm wanting to call it out a little bit more is that I have not in the recent but when I first started I used to hear more about you know unfair practice about how

51:49 certain groups got chosen or didn't get chosen I really haven't heard any of that in the last like five years but I remember when I first started I was hearing some of that so it calling it out so we're inspection okay and being very clear that this group is included in this policy you know we're trying to support businesses that have different [Music] backgrounds to them too I mean maybe it's like businesses of color or anything like that I don't know if we have any of that I don't know that it's even allowed in

52:34 something that maybe others don't agree with me and yeah I'm not good at work it's just you know a general thought so yeah for me the the definition of above I can live with it the way it is putting me have a success Community up high or above if it gives the opportunity to use that that term throughout the policy and have it be all inclusively right well super strongly but I I guess I'm leaning towards like

53:19 I wouldn't say that we collaborate with pay or whatever the groups you know the companies that we did on contracts and we we give it to them like we work with them and and maybe like we have to collaborate on them job but that would be the word I would use yeah yeah but it's also I don't I don't feel super strongly about it you can help me with that okay okay I mean I mean generally I like asking questions about it because it helps me understand how you outlined it you all spent you know many hours digging into this and thinking about how we're together and a quick little blip into how and why that's why answering that

54:06 first question is really challenging because I haven't worked with it enough to cure this so it's just helpful to understand what you're thinking why you why you made it in certain ways and how that's beneficial move on to question five Are there specific statements in the policy of personal meaning that resonating Commissioners or uncomfort conflicting pers pective just a couple things that strike me um and first I guess I want to acknowledge that thank you for all the time to refine this innocently we can move on to

54:52 um the whole thing is written in a very positive tone which I really appreciate it's all about what we're going to do and not focus on what we're not going to do and from my perspective a little bit of calling out that we have a specific goal to identify and address bias and discrimination clear I don't think this organization has bias or discrimination intentionally I don't think any of it is because somebody's trying to keep some group out or some group in but it happens because we're humans and we just don't built he except what we do so um from my perspective having something some language in there about specifically trying to identify those

55:38 things and address those things I mean to me that's a big part of the goal it's not only to you know to Foster diversity and equity and conclusion but one of the leaders through identifying by discrimination on the second page there's the language about non-discriminatory prices which I'd be interested um thoughts about that I it occurs to me that I think we do have discriminatory prices on purpose like we have we have different rates for different commercial entities that use different amount of power we're discriminating between different types of users which is

56:23 the thing that's you know non-discriminator or Embraces I'm like oh shoot the power we're going to do that so I just want to be sure that if we're making that into that that we're clear that what we mean by non-discriminate because it may be more about lower income households or underserved populations or things like that that we're really trying to address but I think I think that's a valid thing for us to review okay um our intent with that in fact our rate making policies talk about non-discriminatory prices within customer classes so that one residential customer and another residential customer would not pay a different rate or be charged a

57:10 different amount for that that said though there are some cross subsidies that exist presently within our pricing schemes yes and you know one example I'll just give you one example and so I'm agreeing I think we need to go back and take a look at how that's specifically written because of the relationship between fixed costs and variable costs if you are a consumer what that does is mean that the very first gallon of water that is delivered or the first electron is the most expensive if you on the electric side for example use less than about 12 or 1300 kilowatt

57:55 hours a month you are being subsidized compared to someone who uses more because you're not absorbing the total fixed cost so that has existed I think probably for decades and maybe a century uh but it exists and it's a cross subsidy I know that this board has talked about the difference between cost of service for upriver versus in town for example that's a that's a so we'll take we'll take that piece of advice and take a look at that in more detail and then the last one on under the Board of Commissioners um heading

58:40 a word that I think is something that we're trying to do here is we're trying to provide interactions from between the board and the people that we're serving that is accessible and I don't I don't know if that's the right word but that's just the way I'm living with this is like there's something in here about how we do this needs to be in a way that anybody can access this I don't think that's the case right now but I don't know if it's even possible but it's what we'll be striving for writing writing is that we're eminently accessible to people who want to talk with us and includes how eweb works so there's there's a couple we do have again this is part of a community engagement yeah of Equitable opportunity

59:27 to participate in the governance he said that we also under gp1 I believe it is have some guidelines around accessibility and that although we can take a look and see if there's some stronger language around border Commissioners and access there's there's actually another policy as well I think it's it's I want to say it's gp2 which talks about the the Board of Commissioners job duties one of them is to represent the organization to the community and the other is to represent the community to the organization so that does appear in some other policies but doing that in an

1:00:15 equitable and inclusive manner is where we potentially could strengthen this a little bit yeah I agree I um I think you know even if the languages and other places I think that kind of mirroring and reinforcement of between policies is useful yeah well in in fact it's a little bit obscure the way that this policy is written it does represent it does reference GP to the board job description doing that in a way that supports these these principles maybe it's covered there

1:01:13 I know we're at 6 31 now so one more question left and I have I had a comment on number five but let's go another minutes on in terms of the kind of specific statements nothing you know necessarily specific in it I I really appreciate the framework and all of the components being in there I think it's you you've gotten a lot in a very Consolidated piece which is always really amazing um it takes a lot to make something concise that really does carry everything my only comment and it's very minor is that there's there's maybe some language that

1:01:59 I saw even in the the article that was right below the neurodiversity article that was in the board packet that felt a little bit more inspiring and so I wonder if I can I'll read just a couple of phrases and you know Food For Thought for the next iteration I'm not wordsmithing any of it just if something feels like it resonates that would be great if not number two um you know mindful approach different ways in which people work and communicate break down barriers remove stigmas facilitate open and honest discussion enable appropriate Avenues embrace the talents of everyone in their workplace employees feel open and comfortable positive Community culture these are just some of the phrases that

1:02:44 I you know it just I don't know it felt a little bit more inspiringly but again this does a great job it's you can say we're dry all right I'm very much that way it was great you know by utility professionals and that's fine you're the rest of your business your comment and Matt's first comment our first version zero and this is eight or something like that and Euro was four five six pages long so it contained as many of the components that both of you are and again I I understand that when you when you make something more concise

1:03:29 some of that goes away and there's other which is why having the understanding the conversation about how you came to pick certain phrases is useful but then when you kind of just read it from a community perspective maybe some of the other thing you know those other terms would be it's a little beneficial to make those signals I don't get it that's something that will be translated into it that's what we were killing that was him yeah I mean that's you know like this is the emergency orders right here's here's how I would say if this is the one though that we're having communication or

1:04:15 conversations with the community based around that another quarter page is more of that blank descriptive language might be a valuable trade-off all right last question uh the implementation Focus was on accountability transparency and frequency of attention goals other areas of specific progress you feel are important um we started out on this question everybody yeah so I think everybody asks the questions of like where do we focus and what are the next steps and how are we monitoring which I think are you know the right

1:05:01 logical next questions from my perspective and Rod you said that there's intent to you know bring on somebody to help us with with next steps um I would love when this comes back to see what your next steps are even if it's not a hard and fast plan that we're doing any blessing of but rather just like hey here's where I'm planning to go that would be great to help me see how this is going to translate and I think build a lot of confidence among all of us is like oh now now we get where you're going um I feel very strongly that third party really important to help us get it right because it was just like I can't edit my own writing I don't you know I can't I can't do I can't physically do that you know it's the same thing we're just not

1:05:46 going to be very good at seeing our blind spots because they're blind um so thrilled that we're thinking about a third party and I hope that they will not only review our other policy and practices but but this one as well I would love you know a third party review of this to say how might we tweak this to be more effective and to the point so that you know as we come back around looking at this again maybe we make some tweaks based on feedback from somebody outside of this room so just to be clear so are you interested more of the output of the the Consultants work versus helping craft the scope for work or you understood it both oh yeah I mean I don't feel like it's our spot to go the work yeah I'm just

1:06:33 really interested in seeing what comes from that I mean to be clear I am hoping that we'll have something practices and our policies but but which is the scope of work but that's entirely up to you all right so a little bit of background did mentioned that this is not to reflect things that we haven't been doing in many cases the policies support part of what we're already doing and facilitate some new things as well we did have an outside consultant go through our internal policies in particular our work most of our Workforce policies with the diversity lens so for example that Workforce area and the policies I feel like that's a pretty

1:07:19 comfortable starting point but but we haven't looked at it the broader board policies and some of the other things that in that include now these other bullets with that same lens and so that's part of what we're going to have to scope out and and look at her next steps yeah and just to follow on that uh I think our policies is is a huge piece because that's kind of where a bunch of the structure lands but also our you know our current practices and programs so one of the things that was highlighted for me a year or so ago so he pointed out that we didn't have spring Spanish translation on our website and so you know just somebody who's looking through that kind of with an eye towards how all people are accessing our services

1:08:05 Etc I think yeah you know one of the things that um some of our recent policy work has pointed out and Mindy's starting to go down the shrine she's now as the when Trump put bottom line or what whatever it is was um Ron and I specifically I don't know if you know this yet because we've just we were just talking about it um trying to look at how we established the triple bottom line process and how you use a couple different sensitivities that we've recently talked about we talked about the resiliency policy so how does that manifest itself in the triple bottom line how does this manifest itself in the triple bottom line and really kind of formalize that

1:08:51 particular piece of our work for major decisions for major design criteria for some of those things and so we're specifically going to take a look at yeah our TBL processes and how we make sure that we're abiding you know executing the the direction of the board through that particular process because we use that process when we have major decisions and so that's one where we want to make sure that we're incorporating the board Direction the environmental policies could be the whole 80-page roster so I would just be okay so I don't know what

1:09:41 [Music] store but I would hope that we do have a third-party come and they might do like an audit right like somebody's already gone through our paper policies right but like how does that actually Translate what we're doing so maybe they would dip into the like our customer portal or all the different areas that would be helpful to me to see what somebody else I think that all of you who are crafting this have the exact intentions but again like what you can't see um and then the other thing that I don't exactly know how to address but it is the board piece um like the the section On The Board of Commissioners is a little bit circular but that's okay I don't have a problem with the language but I'm just curious

1:10:27 like what are different what are things that we could be doing differently or opportunities that we could take advantage of I think that right now we seem to have people who are very comfortable on the board but we're not always are there things that we're doing that would make people more interested in serving on this board so that we could do the things that I would be interested in in the implementation is if there's conflicts between people putting this policy and other policies so we find out that okay we need to be

1:11:15 more inclusive on on to put in the Spanish language or something on on some of our portals or whatever but yet to do that would be not that in particular but if we were to implement something through this policy that would have an effect on costs that would would you know bump up against our our policies on trying to be affordable or reliable I mean I think looking at the cross anytime you have like to add a new policy there may be conflicts and being able to identify where and how those would be resolved so if if we have to weigh okay we want to be inclusive but it's going to cost us

1:12:00 I've got a I've got a contract okay and one contract is more has a more diverse population of people but it's going to cost me an extra hundred thousand dollars where is that you know where are we where's the balance of that and looking in looking into when the policies that we already have again this is maybe with the consultant and say where is there a possibility for conflict or interaction yeah and what is the what is the tool to balance those what is the lens you know which leads do we look through the left eye or the right eye or try and look through both and come to the force Fair

1:12:49 I don't think that particular comment that you made applies just to this policy all right we we know that there's a natural tension that occurs between the values that we have stated for this organization safe reliable portable environmental Community there are times when you have to wave through the fact that something might push affordability in a negative Direction in support of a different value that the organization has part of what I would like to do at the board in Indies I I guess it's January I'm excited about the president Carlson about the the scheduling in January when we would normally go

1:13:36 through all of our board policies in December we'd like to do that in January this year since we have the same board we won't have more turned over which is why we want to do it in December and we usually have more time in January is to be able to talk about some of those those particular issues and where they manifest themselves and and for example how these policies at the board level get structured and then how is an organization we Implement those just through some of our standard practices so trying to connect some of the dots a little bit because you're right there there are natural tensions between some of these and that's a bit intentional

1:14:21 because we know that the values of the organization are reflected through the values of the board in the community but you have to sometimes make a choice on it I mean we made a choice today we're buying power and higher rate because we de-advertise the line right the safety safety against affordability and that was that was an easy one but I my my point was God already got policies that are intention and now we're adding another one and so just making sure that you look at that and see how they implement or how they interact with the other models that are there when you're going through the Implement yeah we'll do that with this and like I said I think we also just when we look at our policies

1:15:07 at Large I don't think a deeper hole into something that we don't need to okay you just got everything you need yeah just to review next steps president Carlson we did get some feedback there's some areas to look at we appreciate the feedback at some point we would like to bring back another revision of this we could probably do it through the correspondence process or in a regular meeting September October would be probably a likely Target

1:15:52 and then if for some reason there's still a gap between what you're seeing and what you're you're wanting um you have some time allocated also in October but that mayor and so some I would say sometime come back to the board with some revisions based on what we've heard probably October that's a great [Music] all the hard work right