EWEB Board of Commissioners — May 7, 2024

0:04 call to order the May 7 2024 Eugene Water and Electric Board board meeting I'm going to start with the facility and safety awareness meeting um Logistics briefing so thank you all for being here tonight the EB management and subject matter experts are present in the room and virtually the meeting is being live streamed and recorded please speak loudly and clearly so everyone can hear you public tells testimony is welcome if you're here to testify in person please uh use one of the signup forms that are available at the back of the room actually at the front of the room um visitor access is limited to the board meeting room and the restrooms restrooms are located on the first floor exit through the interior door at the back of the room over here and the

0:50 security officer will direct you to the location in the event of emergency such as a fire or security incident please follow all the instructions given by staff if a evacuation is required please calmly proceed to the nearest safe exit as identified and directed by staff and evacuate away from the building to the far for points of the parking lots to allow clear immediate access for First Responders for those of you who are here tonight to provide public testimony um our our agenda has that beginning at about six o'clock so we'll uh address a few other issues first and then go into public testimony then so starting with agenda check anybody have comments questions adjustments to the

1:36 agenda seeing none moving to the next items from board members and Gerald manageri yes um I have the opportunity to tour the site plan for the new water treatment plant over in Glennwood with staff some of our Consultants some of the uh people that will be yes getting giving input on the impacts that we may have on it so it was uh Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department the I think it was National marine fisheries and those types of things so we toured the where the intake is going to be we went up to the top of the hill where the the treatment pl's

2:22 going to be and then we got a little bit of a cursor from our uh Consultants on the work that they're doing as to what will happen when when we start taking water out of the lamit and the effect that that may have on all kinds of things whether it's uh marine life those types of things one of the things that I found that was very interesting was that at Peak um and Peak withdrawal if we were to take all the water out that we could when the when the river was at its lowest which is usually in October not when we take Peak Peak water out which is usually in the higher times of the years the river we drop up between a quarter and a half of an inch possibly

3:07 at at full thing and so we have we go through and we study what that effect will have on like a sandbar if if there's a sandbar that's got Aquatic Life how far how much more of that sandbar is going to be exposed and what will that have on on on some of the creatures we're doing so it was very interesting the uh the Consultants that we have you know they were out in the middle of they've been out in the middle of the uh the river with liar and taking taking measurements on all of this type of stuff to make sure that we can take the water that we're entitled to to help serve our community going forward without having an an ecological impact on our on our water set and those types

3:53 of things so it's very interesting um way more complicated than you think it's going to be so you can't just put a a pipe in the in the river and start taking it out without going through and making sure that we're not doing it responsibly and it was very enlighting enlightening to go on that tour yeah I know that we have agendas future agendas at the end of the meeting but I wanted to get this out at the beginning of the meeting I know we have the city manager coming here in June to talk to us about what they're proposing to do to increase the eweb bill through some of their charges and I for one I'm going to be having a lot of questions a lot of concerns about stacking uh City functions through storm water fees or a

4:39 fire fee under the ewb bill it's still an ewb bill and I have a real hard time digesting turning somebody's power offs because they're not because we raised raised it and uh and I know they're broke but uh I want to make sure that we get that in future time because I would like to have a really good robot discussion with others about that I know we can't stop them but we can C certainly talk about it are you saying you want a discussion with this board before we talk the city manager no I want to hear what she has to say and then and then go from there because I you know um I just look at things like the school district you know they're not supposed to be paying operating costs of departments but they still pay a storm waterer fee and you take the storm waterer fee and increase at 25 use it

5:25 Department that fair they can do it but is it right and so you probably know where I'm coming down on this unless I me otherwise Frank yeah president McCrae I certainly appreciate commissioner Brown's perspective um the primary purpose for uh city manager Mader visiting in June is to provide an update on where the city's at with their various alternative financing uh including U potentially working with eweb on uh different options options so um this is an initial orientation session so um bringing your questions your your guidance your oversight uh to

6:10 that discussion would be valuable I think both for uh this board as well as the city manager um we uh under city code are directed to collect storm water and wastewater fees um on an annual basis they do vary what those fees are um that's um that's an agreement uh through code that's gone back decades um but uh relative to how those are handled how those are collected I think it would be useful for this board to give that some thought as to how those are administrated so look forward to that initial conversation probably won't be the last conversation sure it won't for yeah

6:55 think we understand others anything else from you um just just one more thing um this is uh drinking water week and so um I know the board got a preliminary look at our consumer confidence report that's a statutorily required report that um eweb puts out on an annual basis this is for 2023 um highlighting uh a number of different things from a regulatory perspective from a water quality perspective including um our adherence to to the um the Leon the updated Leon copper rule which is a Federal Regulation and so um that'll be published shortly but have to uh commend

7:40 the the Water Division and the communications division for putting that together and um I'm I'm assuming that there'll be more questions potentially about that later um but that's all I've got great thanks uh moving moving to Corr respondence um yes uh president mccraig Commissioners there were two items of Correspondence I I'll start with the update on EB's compliance with the Oregon RPS or renewable portfolio standard this sorry eweb is is obligated as a large utility to meet certain um requirements of Our Generation portfolio

8:26 with Renewables um there are some exceptions if if you go through this um you'll you'll notice that the calculation is is pretty complex um and it allows for what called Legacy Hydro uh which the combination of of eweb assets and uh Colombia assets through Bonville there's a large exemption which we don't get credit for but we don't get penalized for and so um in this case um had a slight obligation uh to retire some renewable energy credits as part of meeting that obligation a small amount relative to the bank that we have um Through The Years so that that was one item and then the other one was an update on EB's uh approach to um EV

9:15 charging equipment this is a question that's come up recently uh we take kind of a very direct approach to it eweb does receive um energy credits uh through the state um as an EV aggregator so those are based on the number of EVS in our service territory uh we use those funds to invest directly back into the support of that particular uh type of electrification um it's uh a very direct approach in the sense that both the incentives as well as costs that may be incurred by customers come through that program um now there were some questions about things such as service upgrades um

10:02 there's also grants as well as loans that are funded through that program as opposed to um being completely rate based and socialized across um our entire customer base both the incentives um as well as um for for both the EV equipment itself as well as any upgrades tend to come through that program if if there's some further questions on that we can elaborate I know that um assid general manager price as well as uh SW Juan Sera Munoz um who really administrates and leads that program would be would be available um I know the request came to do more as far as rate base I think that's something that we would want to include in our rate

10:48 making and rate design discussions um which um according to the the updated um agenda board Agenda Report looking to kick that off uh in August with the board and that would be those kinds of topics um would be part of how we're going to uh approach just general rates going forward Mr President certain comments on either of those items want to say thanks to the staff who offered those memos it's really helpful to have that that background information so appreciate the effort um all right the next item on the agenda is public input so I'll give a very Qui quick

11:33 introduction um welcome for those of you who are here in the room and those on um on the phone who are here to provide public inut this session this portion of the agenda is dedicated to providing community members an opportunity to address the board about any eweb topic or issue we respectfully request all speakers adhere to EB's public input instructions and code of contact that are provided during the sign up to speak process and they're here on the screen as well we have 10 people uh signed up to provide testimony so we have six on the phone and four here in person your name is called you'll have three minutes to provide your comments there's a um clock at the front to help you keep track um so with that we're going to

12:18 start with the folks who are on the phone the public input session is now open we'll begin with Nina Bey followed by Melinda Stone Nina hi hello go ahead hi can you hear me okay yeah we can thanks Nina thank you um I'm an investigative writer my name is Nina Bey um and I live in Monterey California I'm an investigative writer researching smart meter since 2009 I was surprised to read articles um that that quoted eweb that were appearing in local media in Oregon and an e web's press release last month the problems with smart meters are well known nationally and internationally

13:04 however instead of relying on facts from consumer organizations Physicians Engineers fire investigators cyber Security Experts and other experts even industry disclosures some eweb Personnel appear to be relying on utility industry marketing and false assurances that have been repeatedly debunked for at least 10 years over billing fire and electrical hazards health and environmental effects including negative imp impacts to bees and trees susceptibility to hacking interference with electronics system costs and privacy Invasion uh sensus Smart Meters have been subject to several recalls including in Portland and Saskatchewan and a complaint by a sens census whistleblower fired for alerting the company to defects that could cause fires was in a number of

13:50 years ago I've covered many of these problems in my reports to California officials in 2012 and on fire and electrical hazards in 2017 and they're on my website smart meter harm.org the hacking risk has been repeatedly warned about a BC Hydro official warned years ago that each meter is a new Potential Threat factor to the grid analog meters have a direct connection to ground but smart meters are not grounded and have inadequate surge protection they also have other vulnerabilities so fire and electrical hazards are a real problem in 2010 the Electric Power Research Institute extolled the stateof art and unsurpassed quality of analog meters Smart Meters only last 5 to seven years industry official Bennett gains told

14:35 Congress in 2015 versus the long life of analog meters and all the other costs that go with the system and the refunds and credits to customers when the Billing System doesn't work or anomalous High bills occur with regularity also what about the exposure under real world world conditions or FCC violations reported by experts during California hearings Ada and Fair Housing Act protects disabled persons including eweb customers disabled by electromagnetic sensitivity which is recognized by the federal access board and well as other EMF sensitive medical conditions reasonable accommodation of analog meters in proximity to a home or workplace for all who need it is simple and easy to accomplish as a public agency you are not allowed to discriminate against disabled persons in

15:22 California a judge ruled that a municipal utility had to provide an analog meter at no charge for disabled customers doubt fees or sear charges and not allowed under Ada by failing to provide reasonable accommodation of an analog meter eweb would be probably violating state law as well as well as to provide service um evidence-based sites are investigating and I have more information I can provide thank you so much thanks for calling in Melinda Stone followed by Kathy ging Melinda are you there yes can you hear me we can hear you Melinda go ahead yes can you hear me yeah we can hear you go ahead okay I've lived in Eugene since

16:07 the fall of 2018 having a fully functional analog meter on our house getting utility services from eweb the only available utility service for my home making eweb a monopoly which violates the Sherman Antitrust Act eweb and E web's attorneys have been mailing threatening letters to me telling me that I have no choice but to accept a digital meter for utility services or they will cut off my service I've been an excellent customer of eweb to the point that I carry a credit balance of $100 on my account every month I cannot have a digital meter on our house because I was made ill by a digital meter when living in the Bay

16:53 Area in 2013 when pg& installed a bank of electric digital meters in our apartment building without notifying anyone of their action for 3 days I suffered from severe headaches brain fog and was confined to bed not aware of the cause until I left our apartment and saw door hangers on the door knobs alerting people of PG's new digital meters I never fully recovered from the health ailments while living in our apartment and was reliant on over-the-counter sleep aids and pain relievers until we moved to Oregon I know there are many people who can live with high amounts of electromagnetic frequencies and radiation but I can't I experience pain

17:38 from radiating meters digital meters within 20 to 30 ft and our analog meter is up against the back wall of our house on the outside of a bedroom and bathroom wall the analog meter does not radiate dirty electricity and I do not suffer ill effects from our analog electric meter as a consumer I have a right to not be harmed by products and services that I choose not to to wish to have the Americans with Disabilities Act protects me and prevents governments and businesses from harming people like me eweb must respect all state and federal laws or risk being sued eweb can be prevented from accessing any federal

18:23 grants or funds if they are found to be violating anti-discrimination laws like the Ada I've sent eweb a notice to cease and assist their demand to force a digital meter on our house eweb has chosen to continue the threats of harm by threatening to cut off Water and Electric and electric service to my house stop it immediately I am not harming eweb or any other eweb customer by leaving the analog meter alone I am responsible utility customer this is my verbal notice to eweb to cease and desist in your attempt to extort me or threaten to cut off essential Life Services eweb must obey all laws thank

19:10 you thanks Melinda next is Kathy ging followed by a by Alan gazano Kathy can you hear me yeah we can hear you Kathy go ahead hello I'm Kathy ging um It's Curious to get a note from a house insurance company about getting a free ping tiing from my house to alert about fires of all Home Fires the most disruptive are electrical according to the National Fire Protection Association an electrical fire breaks out every 10 minutes perhaps the word is leaking out how fires configure uh via Wireless

19:58 smart meters which eweb is now attempting to mandate on all homes did the board vote to shut off electricity for people with stewards what about people on medical devices that require electricity SM leader harm.org has an excellent report on smart meter fires another the discovery and science of smart meter fires from 2021 was sent to eweb city council and Lane County Board of Commissioners why when you are involved in so many losses not even having enough coverage only $50 million for the 500 million requested for the holiday Farm fire alone why would you invite more

20:45 lawsuits by mandating Wireless smart meters on homes of those who want to protect Health privacy homes and the grid itself C Kurt told me there are so many lawsuits against web one has to go to the courthouse in order to research the numbers to find the um the the numbers from the files themselves they can't even give you over the phone responding to ewe's increasingly ominous threats to turn off utility services for those forced to choose between health and electricity some senior citizens are now going off the grid um thanks eweb for not stewarding the people you are in charge of taking care of

21:32 am I is my time up minute left Kathy okay well I want to say that um uh women's bodies don't lie women are more vulnerable to this uh technology folks I've been working on this for 13 years over 8,000 hours of research and women unfortunately because of the bone structure Etc are more vulnerable and that's why you are hearing a lot from women and thank you for your public service please pleas please pay attention to what you're doing bye thank you Kathy next is Alan gorano followed by Sabrina seagull

22:17 okay can you hear me now yeah we can hear you great okay great hang on let me do my timer here okay I have been an EIP customer since 1999 with no breaks um one of the things that I'm finding here is an incredible insensitivity to the customers especially ones like me who've been with this company for a very long time um you know there's so much debunking going on about you know what we believe and see from our studies about Smart Meters being safe versus what we see and believe about our Smart Meters not being safe you know basically anything can be proven with studies it depends on who's funding the study who

23:02 wants what result from the study you can't always trust studies now there's something beyond that something Beyond science and that's people's experience you know you've got long time ago miners discovered that if they brought a canary in a cage in a mine the canary would pass out long before long before people would pass out and was it proven scientific no they just trusted it we have a lot of canaries in our community people who are more sensitive to maybe the board members are who are pushing this on us who are threatening us who are making ultimatums um and with those ultimatums people have responded by using terms

23:47 like gapo tactics and to that the board and eweb has responded oh that's so insensitive to say that and it's dangerous well you know your forcing us you are forcing forcing forcing allow us who don't want to have more electronic smog in our life to want to minimize the amount of spec electronic smog to have that right to have that choice we deserve that choice we deserve our health this is a city that Prides itself on being pro-choice diversity sensitivity this city and you inweb especially need to practice those qualities in regard to people choosing less electros smog over more I have been

24:35 in places where there is no cell phone service there's nothing and as soon as you cross that rdge all of a sudden Everything feels peaceful and relaxed I've gone into caves have the same experience all of a sudden I can sense the difference it is calm it is relaxed we are being inundated with so much we've had things claim to be safe in my life fluoroscope stand in front of an x-ray machine DDT and Kids Hair For Life camide causing birth defects 245t sprayed in the forest causing birth defects all the medicines that have been pulled off the market were all claimed to be safe and they weren't so maybe you can go with us on this one and realize

25:22 maybe these smart meters are not safe thank you alen thank you is Sabrina seagull followed by Steven junus Sabrina um hello hey we can hear you Sabrina go ahead um do you hear me yeah we can hear you H oh thank you um yeah I'm another person who received a you know um about to be have your utilities turned off um letter and um or email now um and uh I want to say you know uh we're fighting for our lives here basically um I'm going to read you um my

26:10 doctor's letter for my request for disability accommodation to eweb uh to keep my analog meter um as my accommodation and uh as my ability to breathe and function in any activity are severely impacted by EMF and RF and here is my doctor's letter and she's a well-known expert in this area she's spoken before Congress on this issue uh Sharon Goldberg and she addresses to Frank Lawson and um to whom it concerns Bard um I am a board certified Internal Medicine physician licensed in New

26:57 Mexico and Florida Sabrina seagull previously consulted with me as a subject matter expert in the field of electromagnetic field EMF Associated illness I was course director instructor of record for the international EMF medical conference in 2021 and currently teach and peer review in areas of medicine applicable to Sabrina's case Sabrina has been previous diagnosed with medical chemical sorry multiple chemical sensitivity and overexposure to non-ionizing radiation cqui I cd1 w90 lots of numbers commonly

27:45 referred to as electromagnetic hypers sensitivity EHS and referred to in the older medical literature as microwave syndrome for purposes of this letter overexposure to microwave radiation microwave syndrome and electromagnetic hypers sensitivity are interchangeable it is my opinion that Sabrina requires accommodation from your utility company as she consistently gets cardiac symptoms triggered by smart meter exposures to clarify digital meters also known as smart meters Ami AMR and other by other terms emit both radio

28:30 frequency radiation RF EMF and electromagnetic radiation in lower frequency ranges even when installed in a non-transmitting mode with the RF transmitter turned off the meters emit powerful EMR including dirty electricity that commonly produces symptoms in Sabrina as well as others because Sabrina has significant cardiovascular symptoms related to RF and EMF emissions from digital meter exposures in other situations and ginal type chest pressure I am very concerned about the health effects that may result from placing a digital utility meter on of any kind water electric or gas transmitting or

29:17 non-transmitting on her home my biggest concern is for arhythmia blah blah blah blah blah um the needed accommodation for Sabrina is that she be Exempted from placement of any smart meter any smart meter of any type water gas electric meter on her home uhhuh thanks yeah thank you next is Steven jonus and then we'll go to the folks in in the room Stephen my name is Stephen Jonas I do not live in Eugene but I'm an attorney representing many eweb customers including Sabrina who do not want smart metters placed on their homes you may

30:03 may have heard my name I spent the last three years filing lawsuits to stop tyrannical Behavior by government I have a couple points I want to bring to your attention your website talks about safety it says that smart meters are safe because you are following STC guidelines but in 2021 the DC court of appeals one level below the US Supreme Court ruled that the sec's safety guidelines were arbitrary and capricious arbitrary and capricious the court of appeals ordered the seccc to go back to the drawing board as a result the fcc's guidelines

30:48 are n they mean nothing they offer no Assurance of safety yet you are telling the public that smart meters are safe because they are within the FCC guidelines as if those guidelines were valid when you know that those guidelines have been ruled to be arbitrary and C capricious you are perpetrating a fraud on the public second you are violating disability law you must accommodate those who are sensitive to electromagnetic radiation your profer accommodation is to turn off the radio transmission that does not address the problem because the meters cause harm even when

31:34 the radio transmission is turned off you are failing to address the necessary accommodation for the harm harm caused by your meters with the radio transmission turned off to follow the law the burden is on you to show that allowing customers to keep their analog meters would impose an undue burden on your business you cannot possibly make that showing because you are the ones making the chain you are ripping out perfectly good analog meters and replacing them with dangerous meters it would be like if the City of Eugene ripped out all the wheelchair ramps on the city sidewalks then told the disabled there would be an undue burden

32:20 to put them back you cannot assert undo burden to to not make a change to a home owners meter you need to Hal the installation of the smart grit and Eugene immediately and permanently thank you thank you Stephen and we'll go to the folks here in the room so next is Dennis Corner followed bya Mech good evening I was going to come uh to talk about this photo which I have emailed to you weeks ago and uh I

33:07 wrote U so just to describe this this is me talking to a meter technician on my front porch and there are two security guards not visible to me uh along alongside my house um this photo was taken by a neighbor who just happened to be going out to his car at that time and the photo created a great deal of uh anxiety for me uh I've mentioned this several times uh in emails and yesterday I sent an email to Mr Lawson uh asking three questions of you know why were there two security guards why

33:53 was why did they come to my home and um I was pleased to receive a Court's reply uh this afternoon just a couple hours ago and uh I understand Mr Lawson's position and uh and his care for his employees um I however I want to emphasize that this fact of what happened to me uh C created uh a severe anxiety that I have been living with for the last month um in addition to the uh series of letters

34:41 that has been described uh as threats from eweb about disconnection of service uh if we don't allow uh smart meters to be installed and those letters um also create significant anxiety I'm sure none of you uh would want to be in a position where you don't know if your electricity is going to be turned off tomorrow or not uh that alone that that threat is um very distressful um in in addition to that in um as you I think know uh K interviewed me a couple of times

35:28 uh recently and um in in their stories about me the uh there were you know two or three clips of my comments and all the rest of it was about EIP and people seeing that get the impression and have have a specific impression about me that I have uh issued violent threats that is not so really three minutes it has been but go ahead and finish your thought uh I'm sorry the um people I understand it's not in your

36:13 control entirely but you do have some responsibility for the fact that in your public statements you have lumped all of us who are not uh in agreement with the smart meters for the reasons that the prior speakers on the phone have mentioned and many more you have a lot of evidence uh of harm and at the very uh and when all of your public statements are about the um the the threats and there's no acknowledgment that there is a lot of data from serious professionals uh that raise questions and

37:01 concerns and we are asking we at least two things you know the ideal would be to not install any of the meters and the second thing would be to give a small number of people under your your own comments to give a small number of people and everyone the the choice to have a true opt out when you say Opa it's misleading because it's still a smart beer thanks thank you thank you money next is Wanda Mech followed by Cindy

37:47 Allen good afternoon my name is Wanda Mech I'm 72 and I have lived in Eugene since 2018 I'm a good e eweb customer and I pay my bill on time every month I also a unique individual with health issues that cause me to wish to avoid as much radiation as possible this is very difficult in the radiation intensive World in which we live one would hope that within their own home they might be able to have the ability to protect their health to live safely and to have a sanctuary that the outside world may not provide ewb wishes to put smart meters on every home in Eugene but this initiative does not take into account the needs of individual customers it is stated that smart meters are safe and especially in optout mode they quote

38:32 preserve access to Utility Services while limiting electromagnetic exposure end quote this quote is from a letter I recently received from eweb the letter does not state that there is no electromatic electromagnetic exposure and it does not guarantee that once a smart meter is installed it will never be switched into communicating mode without the customer's knowledge and consent around 20 2011 I was diagnosed with a tumor in my ear canal called acoustic neuroma my first symptom was tinitus in my right ear growth of these tumors can result in the necessity for invasive life-threatening surgery because they are close to the brain they are also near the facial nerve and surgery can result in facial paralysis I

39:19 have already lost Hearing in my right ear more and more research is showing that cell phone radiation cause can cause these tumors especially if located in the ear most often used for cell phone calls which mine is they are slow growing so it has taken years for research to come to this conclusion it is my goal to avoid surgery so I try to limit my exposure to radiation now I find myself in a struggle with eweb because you want to attach your radiation producing device into my home onto my home and addition to the tumor I also have sleep apnea that is treated with a cpat machine for which I need electricity I am being threatened with having my electricity cut off because I want to keep my analog meter the cat machine has

40:04 not resolved all of my sleep issues since moving to Eugene in 2018 I find I sleep through the night only two to three times a week I have been unable to find a cause for this after working with several doctors and trying a number of treatments my neighbor that I shared duplex with accepted a smart meter when I opted out several years ago I have a neighbor behind my apartment who also accepted a smart meter my sleep has deteriorated since moving to this apartment sleep disruptions is one of the primary symptoms that people with electromagnetic and radio frequency sensitivities report tinitus is another symptom I already have tinitus and hearing loss in my tumor ear I cannot afford to experience tinitus in my good

40:49 ear or to risk T the tumor growing other symptoms that sensitive people report are anxiety and muscular skeletal issues both of which I'm experiencing since I'm obviously an individual who is high risk for further exposure to radiation much of which I cannot avoid I should be able to avoid this exposure in my own home by keeping my analog meter which is working properly accepting any meter that exposes me to any radiation at all is not advisable the American Academy of Environmental medicine recognizes that patients are being adversely impacted by EMF and RF fields and are becoming more electromagnetically sensitive because Smart Meters produce radio frequency

41:34 emissions they recommend that patients with conditions like mine should be accommodated to protect their health and that no smart meters should be placed on these patients homes that smart meters should be removed within a reasonable distance of patients homes and that no collection meters should be placed near patients homes depending on their symptoms thank you for your attention Korn in 2013 a six-person medical Advisory Board did an 18th study on R

42:22 radiation a 2-hour presentation 140 Pages was given to the board YouTube Dr Paul Dart eweb smart meter health hazards in 2013 the board voted for opin to the to the smart meter you called if wared one in 2018 the opin changed to an opt out as a person with extreme EMF sensitivity and a medical implant I sent a detailed letter from my doctor little from eweb about Smart Meters from 2018 to 202 before when notice started going out that opt out now meant a type of smart meter and if refused utilities would be terminated Springfield never

43:07 gets smart meters and epod offers customer choice about analog meters as to most utilities Utilities in California Arizona Texas and Maine are even replacing existing Smart Meters with analog meters if that is the preference there are videos that are wish to be shown shown to the board on your screen by appointment please they're about 11 minutes each the first was recently posted in RFK Jr's children's defense site its electrical engineer Bill Bathgate testifying at the Michigan legislature how smart meters even an opt out cause transient dirty electricity throughout the wiring and how this extra frequency increases the bill the second video was filmed by opt

43:53 out Austin it's of a doctor measuring RF radiation and dirty electricity in various areas of a home after the smart meter is replaced with an analog there is indication about increased sing being done at night and increases to the bill with a smart meter the analog meter is made of glass and metal at last 60 plus years and it can be refurbished it doesn't have RF health issues safety and power surge issues does it cause transient dirty electricity is it part of a centralized grid with issues of cyber security does it collect data with fourth amendment issues the plastic smart meter lasts 5 to 7 years and has these issue issues poent potentially

44:39 causing serious consequences were nonone existed before families for safe meters with a history of 13 years sponsored top experts in smart meter concerns J drill Soul producer take back your power daff attch over Katie singer Dr Martin Paul Dr Paul heru recording of the E Eugene events were sent to the eweb board and are part of your record we spoke countless times here at the public meetings the research about transient dirty electricity its effects and increases to the bill have long been part of your record Kiplinger article 2024 there are plenty of households actively choosing to remain on analog meters just like people in here in

45:24 Eugene and I also had men in two men in a eug in Eugene e web truck and a large security truck show up at my home my neighbors all saw it too we've always treated everyone with respect and we'd like to be treated with respect too thank you this is Joshua corn uh call me stubborn um I I think it's my right I know it's my right when it comes to health to be stubborn about issues like this and um I I won't accept the uh

46:11 intimidation and extortionary practices that eweb is executing in the smart meter campaign um I I am preparing to go off the grid and I would appreciate uh some some discussion some real discussion with uh Personnel on how I can uh continue to have an account with the water and sewage Department uh but I will not accept a smart meter on my home it's not healthy and I I just I I'm drawing that line and uh and I

46:57 I think obviously there's a lot of U backlash against your your program here and uh and it it seems aside from my I my issue and my plans um and to be fair I'm not prepared to go off the grid like tomorrow um so this is rather a rather stressful situation for me as well but you know considering all that that's going on with all these lawsuits against uh and and potential lack of insurance coverage based on the holiday fire damage um it just seems kind of

47:43 ridiculous that eweb is putting itself in this situation where um all this intimidation is going on against us as uh as loyal customers that have been with you for for you know some of us 20 30 years and uh and and for what just just so you can threaten to turn off their power and then if you actually do then what you're just going to get bombarded with lawsuits for it so what's the point I mean is this the is this the coup that allows us to actually regain the power of of to take over this public

48:28 utility like we should and and instead of having you guys bicker back and forth about how you're going to spend all our millions and millions of dollars and just ignore us repeatedly when we come to these meetings is that is that what this is about is that because you know I'm I'm I'm up for it if that's if that's the game you know um and I I don't think I'm alone you know it's like we we've we've got attorneys so thank you Joshua Hannah

49:13 Shepard are you for this week um hi I'm Tama Shepard otherwise known as eoic it's nice to see you people um I'd like to just give a brief thank you for um your support and um funding for the education program in forj and um I'd like like to invite you to the EV challenge is coming back for the first time um public and so that will be actually on Thursday June 6 on a school day so it's more Equitable and mners can actually come so we'll be busing kids over to the Lane Event Center at the auditorium and offering the speed car race as well as the Art and Science concept and so you're all invited and we always hope that you show up and um yeah I've just been out in schools a lot for Earth month and in particular promoting water um drinking water awareness week

50:00 and um we've been we did a CO project where we weren't able to get out in schools as much so we installed um water fill stations in a lot of the buildings with educational signage and we've purchased additional signage because the schools really wanted at all of the um all of the drinking buttons that have the fill stations so that's um turning out really beautifully and it is um when we're out talking about water in the classrooms kid are really understanding more where their water comes from with the um educational signage so thank you for that and um yeah and it's really nice too because it continues the um relationship from the salmon season so we're working a lot with a lot of the same people this fall and so it's um

50:45 really nice and easy to roll into those classrooms because they already know us and um we can just get right down to business so been spending a lot of time bringing the a into stem and doing some art projects with kids kids around water's life this month so so that's kind of where we're at and we're gearing up for next year's salmon season and and all the other good things that we're able to offer generous funding so thank you very much and I'm under time for a change so I'm a very protocol and I'm I'm approaching thanks Dana um and with that we'll um end the public input period for this meeting um and I just want to remind folks that by policy we don't Eng doing a back and forth is a

51:32 form for an extended conversation but at this time Commissioners are given the opportunity to comment if they say choose Commissioners care to make comments yes please go ahead yeah when when we know what's the time start of the um L Event Center the June 6 you get that love to come the yeah for the e challenge okay when staff get word of that if we could get a calendar invite that'd be great that work great thank you um I just want to say thank you all for providing testimony today thank you Tana for your continued work and bringing us

52:17 updates on a regular basis um else else all right moving on to the next my agenda um the next topic for us is consent calendar a adopt consent calendar a motion to adopt consent calendar a from commissioner Brown second second by Carlson all support yeah I passes unanimously all right moving on to um recent calendar

53:04 B you adopt calendar B move for adoption by commissioner Brown is there a second second byson say I I passes unanimously um next item is update to customer fees rates and charges good evening Commissioners uh for the record I am Deborah Hart the CFO and

53:50 assistant general manager with me here this evening is Adam R our rates manager we're here this evening with a spr fe update so historically the fees that we're discing here tonight have been handled dispersed across the utility and have come as an on an as needed basis and so what we're um what we're doing here now is uh is collecting our fee review uh for a spring update to the annually finance will uh take the lead on coordinating that effort but the same folks who are experts in all of these areas who've been bringing you this

54:35 information in Prior years are still the ones doing the work uh some of them are on the phone and in this room from detailed questions this is uh similar to what we've been doing with rates over the years so what I hope is it will be a more transparent process and that if it's rates tariffs that that will come to in the fall and then in the spring we'll bring fees with that I'm going to let ad talk about the feeds themselves thanks Deborah so this is once again kind of a collaborative effort working with different parts of the organization these for consideration there's several different

55:21 buckets or different categories of these that we review the there's Fe associated with assets that we own that um excess capacity are utilized for other by other entities and that's like the pole attachment fees transmission fees we have infrastructure in the ground and and people are either attaching to our infrastructure or utilizing another category of fees is um water service installation fees so new customers pay a fee to connect to our system and a a third category of fees not standard fees that our typical

56:06 customers would pay but they don't pay every month so something like connect disconnect fees late fees those are kind of another category of fees the third category of fees are closely tied to some of the installation and EES process changes that will be valuating in the near future the projects get completed we'll be looking at the new processes and new cost structure so we held up on bringing an update to those feed to we have processes in place forers the so with that we'll go through each of these a bit more

56:55 detail so the joint use pole attachment um fees are fees for communication entities that attach to our distribution system this are ultimately regulated by the FCC that each state can establish its own rules and kind of create its own using the fcc's rule we in orgon are regulated by the Public Utility Commission and we follow those and establishing our rates uh or the fees that were charged to those entities there's a relatively significant increase this year and the basis for that was the rules established by the Pu set a 40 foot pole height is kind of the standard we had been using a

57:42 45 foot pole height so we talked last year and ultimately this year made that adjustment to more closely conform to the or to conform to the um will set forth by the Pu but then resulted in a rating being brought forward this year um there's roughly uh 15 entities and represents $300,000 in revenue for electric utility transmission fees are are another fee that was updated these been reviewed uh or we last updated and reviewed in 2015 there was a policy change in 2018 that was brought to the board so it's been reviewed over time

58:29 but the rates hadn't been updated for a while those were updated this year and as it shown here it's just a three entities so I think that's part of the reason it hasn't been updated it's affecting relatively few customers but going through this process of reviewing all the the fees in place water installation charges are another one that hasn't um been reviewed in some period of time it was last updated in 2013 in 2017 some of the fees that appear on this um were reviewed and had

59:15 been previously charged on um in a time of materials basis 2017 they were um us said average the average cost of installations was used to develop a more standard fee so that streamlined the process and provided some transparency for the developers that were connecting to our system so we had posted fees that they could review and look at ahead of the project before having before the process was they would apply and then it would go back and forth with them before they knew what the view was going to be so that was a standardization that occurred so these p last been updated in 2013 except for the ones that

1:00:08 were uh the dark fiber leasing fee is one that we have reviewed and brought to the board every year every other year we prepare a cost of service analysis so more detailed analysis of the fiber rele this is the intervening year where we just apply CPI to customers increases in CPI in the next Service uh traffic signals as Fe that hasn't been updated since 2016 so this is another relatively low low impact in terms of revenue for the electric utility annual revenue associated with this one is

1:00:53 about $35,000 the city play pays to for electricity or traffic signals and so um with that we're bringing this Consolidated fee the process that Deborah um outlined this month next month will be coming back and incorporating any feedback from the board bring a recommendation for approval um I also just wanted to highlight these fees all appear in the general budget cost of service process at the end of the year as other Revenue that offsets the revenue so keeping these updated

1:01:40 frequently as off the pool to the extent that that their material to the overall Financial outl for both utilities is an offset thanks um start with Carlson Brown and then over fber there was a few items in there where it talks about enforcement curious about our general enforcement for non-compliance and we actually going after and using this as a mechanism because it seems like we have a lot of um compliance with some of these that

1:02:27 are attachment our FS just one clarification commissioner non-compliance in the sense of this definition is defined by the Pu we don't have any non-compliant customers it has to do with how they apply to the Pu to become a a compliant entity not that they're not following through with what it's like you're not in this class so you meet some different category to be attaching to the Poll for some right it has to do with how they are classified by the PC not and we don't have any non-compliant that I'm aware of oh okay right okay so that rate is kind of a non rate for us really okay um and then on

1:03:13 the school districts if you go the one that has school district on oh the dark five that one um yeah what is this per is it like per foot oh per strand mile So within the cable there's this a strand so they're leasing on strand mile we are on a strand mile bases roughly how many strand miles is this like is this dollars is this thousands of dollars what's the scale of the full impact because this show me what that is for like for each individual customer so the total revenue is is at just under a million dollars I don't have a breakdown for each of the 30 how much impct yeah it's just hard to say like okay this is

1:03:59 18 cents that a lot I don't I don't know what that kind of acquaints to roughly that's why I'm just trying to get a sense of what the difference would be I understand it's roughly that in in annual re revenue for 31 customers so yeah oh and this increase since it was just a a CPI increase it was 3.2% was the C never applied to that so that's the change Trail the last year okay so the total increase this this is the revenue and so the total increase is like 3% more than what that is yeah yeah so the 960 was like last year's Revenue

1:04:46 F 3.2% will be add you know 13 sets just seems like essentially Beau it's just hard for me to tell kind of like what kind of impact that this is it teacher Worth or is it like 50 bucks um probably come back next month maybe we could Commissioners with a couple of examples um there was some history to how these rates vary um as to which funds we were recovering the school district for example goes way back to what was called the light the Apple program it was basically only trying to capture the ongoing maintenance so that's why you see some of the differences here but it's going to be a pretty small difference but

1:05:31 we'll give you some examples great thanks commission Brown several questions macro and maybe micro um why did we wait 11 years to do this um I think well I so I answered that question for commissioner sburg it was in oversight and we should not do that and part of this effort here is to bring all of our fee updates together and have a department so Finance is now taking the responsibility for collecting the information and pulling together a fee update every year should have done it earlier so you know there's this big push Statewide local and everything for

1:06:17 affordability of Housing and it's called the death by th000 cuts and you're doubling some of these fees fees and all that and this is you know and and city's mandating new R factors and storm water pre-treatment and everything else and we're going in the wrong direction and last time I checked I thought we were you know this isn't a financial thing or is this an equitable thing because we got funded money and I'm wondering how we can maybe rethink this a little bit on affordability because hous costs are going off the charts and we're just exacerbating it I mean some of these fees are doubling and you know they look good on paper but you know I were developers you know off pers system connection with no hard service you know from 6,500 to 10,000 and looking at your

1:07:02 cost to hook up to houses you know just one one water connection doubling um I just hope that we could take another look at this and not be so you know if we would have done this gradually that's great but the timing of this with you know mortgage rates where they are the availability I mean it's just not easy for me to accept so that's just my one comment the the other thing on the multiple use on our on the poll give me an example of who another user would be for the poll yeah thecast uh yeah just communication okay communication everything else there jacking the fees like you wouldn't believe the cost of an assembled Corridor is Monumental and we're already

1:07:47 paying the city 1.4 1.6 million a month to use their byways one we buy and maintain that's that's a bit of need to swallow it why aren't we raising it more because Comcast Quest and all those other people just tell us when to put our hands down and if they're they're not going to use our corridors that we've assembled we maintain we do the tree trimming and that's just a you know proportionality I would think that we would raise them a whole lot more why not well this is a very um specific calculation the for the the rate specifically for the pole attachments just because the Oregon went to avoid being subject to FCC rules for since this is kind of a

1:08:34 Communications realm the the state of Oregon established rules so we're conforming to those rules so there's just real specific language on how you calculate on andm expense administrative expense and depreciation and so this is following that the one thing that was a change from last year um was the realization that instead of um we have been using the Assumption of 45 feet as kind of an average pole length there's language in the the BC rules that points to a 40 foot pole length so instead of calculating how big all your poles are we just defer to the Pu rule which is 40 P that's kind of the standard so that did result in I mean

1:09:19 it's roughly 30 30 to 35% increase in the rates but I fall back to my point during the storm when nobody else is maintaining RightWay some of their lack of maintenance is draw drawing down on facilities and yet we aren't recovering the cost of that uh you know to me it doesn't make sense that they're not they're not trimming the right ways they're supposed to they're not doing it but they're using our poal our facilities um why don't we why don't we get a little tougher with it Frank yeah I'll just weigh in when it comes to the pull attachment rate we have no leeway this this calculation is driven by the state um and it's it it is um pre-ordained that this is how

1:10:04 utilities pu thing yeah um how the calculation is done there's other methods to potentially look at Cost recovery um from from issues like that and I know um there have been some legislative potential legislative remedies to to look at that but that's that would be a separate process this is this is a sort of a pre-ordained approach that The Bu drives M my question was about was why it took so long to these changes which I know you addressed in the um PR meeting questions and so it sounds like that

1:10:49 won't be an issue anymore because once a year either propose an update or acknowledge why an update is not needed yeah um we got a few comments one I'm going to pick back on inside what couple of things that commissioner Brown brought up and and and looking at the AIS that we got it looks like there is a remedy for for vegetation from these people it goes to the said vegetation around Communications lines must not foreseeable damage to the pole and electricity Supply operator facility and the respective permit T has the

1:11:34 obligation in its contact to maintain clearance as shown in the contract below and that's an or Stat stat so if we've got our statutes that says we can do it we should look into how we can do that whether that is telling our tree trimmers to trim down above the telephone wires and charge the charge the communication fees for it but we've got a statute that says we can do it and I think we should look into how we can enforce that statute um just just quick followup commissioner we we will look at the enforcement piece of that that that having a statute a statute statute it's some else a statute is one thing having the mechanism to enforce it we'll we'll have some discussions around that

1:12:20 because I think that's what some of the legislative discussions have been about as well um and then tailing again on the the increase of the hookups for the water lines I hear it again and again in in meetings throughout and commissions that I'm on about how honorous the eweb E are especially on scale we've got when somebody's trying to put a smaller home in with some of these ones that are done with the new legislations on House Bill 2001 where they're putting a small thing on a lot $10,000 on a $200,000

1:13:06 Adu is a lot more than if you're putting in a $500,000 doll house on a quarter of an acre lot so scalability is something that I would hope we could look at in the future as as far as this and again as far as the big jump we used stabilization in the past as a way to gradual lie things I don't know if that's something that we can do in this instance where our community is sitting with its housing uh crisis and adding more fees that make it more difficult for developers and individuals to create housing in our community something that I would like to

1:13:51 see anything that we can do to make that affordable and easier in the short term get some more housing units built I would hope we can look at possibilities of ways of doing that that's a lot of money you know to put in there the EB EB things then there's the city's sdc's and then there's the it's Transportation Parks all these other ones and then we have stc's as well so housing costs are going up and up and like Mr Brown said it's just these little things over and over again so anything we can do as a utility to help

1:14:38 Foster or need to construction would be something that I would look forward thanks um I did just want to acknowledge that sdc's were not a part of this fee update we able to finish that work um utility is working with a consultant portability is a part of that methodology uh so I know that doesn't address all of your concerns but I did want to call that out and also we missed acknowledging there are more fees coming this year those do have a focus on afford Frank I just wanted to confirm that these fees are cost based yeah so one of

1:15:25 the things that I I just want to remind us is that if we have a cost-based fee and we don't charge the cost it's basically supplemented by the rest of our customers so it's socialized across the customer base so and that's part of the discussion August when we talk about rate design opportunities to do that but we it's not like we are creating a fee that's arbitrary this is a cost based fee that that so just just as a reminder yeah I have a question about this um will we be discussing the water the the hookup fee and then the regular rate for water as a part of our rate sign discussion or is it mostly electric

1:16:12 oh it it will initially U president McCrae it will start even more generic to that it will be doe what areas for example and when might the or want to socialize certain costs over other costs and that would be water it would be electric fees could be included in that as well as rates based on consumption so for example there's I I think one of the things we need to think about is are the rates going to be cost based or are they going to be designed to drive consumer Behavior that's that's a very different approach um to pricing we we do have a statutory obligation to cost based at large but it doesn't mean that every

1:16:59 single fee is cost based and under what conditions might might the board to socialize certain cost or have the beneficiary pay for certain cost directly so those those will be part of that discussion do you have any proposals you want to put on table in terms of changes to this because we're not going to hear we'll hear back from you next month right with something too so how we handle that is really up to you all Direction here that we canor incorporate I I do have the non on details on dark fiber and I think be relatively straightforward without even in advance but we could bring it back on consent we could bring it back for more

1:17:45 conversation I mean so so for me I guess the question would be would what would be the process that obviously we've been the we've been socializing this for 10 years right and then to AO automatically jump it for me I would have to look at the rest of my Commissioners but would there be an interest in in doing this as a phased approach socializing it over next couple of years and I'm just throwing that out because I don't know what the the proper mechanism to do that is I'm just concerned about the high

1:18:36 and so the reason that these jums are so big least yeah I I totally understand I I think if you look at our R making principles gradualism was one of those now it doesn't necessarily apply the

1:19:22 fees directly but in this case my um and I understand the the fact that this was um this was on on us that we didn't we didn't do that I might point out that on us is that they somebody benefited uh for 10 years out of that process as well so um I I think we can look at a number of different we can bring some gradualism options in this case where we have a large jump and um make some proposals if if the board is interested in looking I saw three nods for that is it just the water this water connection fee that we that's the one that jumps up the most in my opin I mean the other ones example the the Fiber One know we've do it we've

1:20:09 been pain with that and it's a CPI one and and I think that that those types of rates see CPI plus more because of inflation car cost water infrastructure but those are the ones that I feel comfortable going to my constituents and saying this is why it's going up not because oops we forgot to do it for the last 10 years but hey I think we've done our best to keep range low and costs slow but this is a perfect storm but Co interest rates no supply of land and the affordability relative power is something that's an anomaly we didn't have 10 years ago we have now and so I think it's not as much on us as it is

1:20:55 on and we around say we'll do the best we can to make going to make more land and they're gon have to figure out how they're GNA make that that I think an instrumental task ahead of them but but for us to you a to go from you know 2700 to small that's lot of money so adds the cost so I'm I'm forr so yeah sounds like uh proposals come back with gradual or incremental changes on the water that water connection to specifically um I appreciate Deborah

1:21:43 you're just acknowledging you know we miss this that's super helpful to me and brings me confidence that have it handle I do wonder if there are any of these feeds for which just applying a CPI annually would Mak sense just to reduce the overall Lo for staff I don't I don't know if that makes it easier it seems like it would to me but be interested in thoughts there it could be a it could be a potential outcome as we look at the totality of the fees um there are a few more that will be incorporated next year so the list does get longer most of those are around customer um so that could be something that back as

1:22:36 a pres m i mean there's there's a number of different options I the has on staff we do some other areas we we do more of a specific analysis of cost every other year every third year and then in between we might apply um some inflationary Factor we we'll have to figure out for staff what what the impact of that might be anything else from us uh so we'll be back in front of you next month and we'll have um at least an option uh that would have gradualism on the water connection on the Water Service installation and more information on the dark fiber just one final comment related to

1:23:25 comment that commissioner Brown made we are not rolling in money I think is what you said I haven't given you my report yet which we'll we'll talk about later so I'm gonna get to that before you that I've had better meetings just started so this is my assigned seat for the next 20 minutes you to the next topic of annual Reserve fund status and transfer use of

1:24:23 get all right um still Deborah har uh we've done a little swap out and Aon Balmer the acting finance manager and Rob the general accounting supervisor are here with me this evening uh to talk about our uh year end reserves some recommended transfers a little update on where we're at today and some uh targets Reserve targets thank you kind of got into our agenda short for this agenda item uh but yeah we're going to talk about Reserve transfers and targets and then uh talk about some other considerations uh that we've got for you this that are noteworthy this evening and then look for uh creating some space where you can give us some

1:25:13 Direction so real quick on the overview here uh overall cash balances uh ads of the end of last year were above Target there were two individual reserves both the Water and Electric Capital Improvement reserves that were below Target and item of note we like to uh say for compliance reasons if you will the the debt service coverage requirements were met for both utilities last year um and again we will talk about continuing developments for 2024 I feel like I'm that movie trailer now uh for what's coming with that I'm going to pass it off to Rob Trey tag our general accounting and fedy supervisor thanks Erin good evening

1:25:58 Commissioners this slide shows the water utilities Reserve balances at the end of 2023 we'll go into a little more detail on the recommended use of cash and recommended Target increases the water utility finished 2023 with notable progress on significant capital projects spending to support Capital efforts exceeded budget projections from earlier in the fall and the primary recommended transfer to the water utility is to reposition reserves to support budgeted funding designations board Financial policy in years where there's a difference between the pur order contribution rate and the amount provided for in the annual budget the excess amount will be set aside in a

1:26:44 boort reserve for reduction of unfunded retirement liabilities in the future costs during 2023 were lower than budgeted by 140,000 000 the rate stabilization fund is intended to enhance the utilities agility during Financial challenges and minimize or smooth rate impacts to customers management has anticipated use of surplus rate stabilization funds to support capital projects with the 2024 adopted budget including a drop 7.3 million to support Capital Investments accordingly management seeks to implement this F strategy and recommends this

1:27:32 transfer Financial policy benchmarks the capital Improvement Reserve Target to annual depreciation expense 2023 depreciation expense was 8.7 million and management recommends increasing the target to 9 million corespond shifting to the electric utility this slide shows the electric utilities Reserve balances at the end of 2023 again we will go into a little more detail on the recommended use of cash and recommended Target increases funding sources is identified in the 2023 electric util utility budget included Bond proceeds that would have required a bond issuance in

1:28:18 2023 due to positive operating performance in 2022 remaining Pro receipts from the prior Bond issuance and a favorable interest rate forecast the electric utility deferred the bond issuance to this year the 2023 budget also assumed use of rate stabilization funds for Capital with further evaluation it was determined the transfer was not necessary for 2023 these factors contributed to the capital Improvement Reserve any of the year below Target the current Bond issuance process will reimburse the capital Improvement Reserve following closing next month and the primary transfer recommendation for the electric utility is intended to reposition

1:29:03 reserves to support Capital investments in the 2024 budget and level set with financial plans from last fall in determining the sufficiency of the power Reserve risks from prices loads resources and credit exposure are considered wholesale power prices have remained relatively high and volatile and have increased the value of generation within the utilities portfolio accordingly this Dynamic has increased the potential loss of value the utility could experience in the event of lower generation increasing the reserve will help guard against potential negative price movement that could occur as the market experiences greater

1:29:55 volatility as mentioned previously for the water utility in years where there is the difference between the pers ordered contribution rate and the amount provided for in the annual budget board Financial policy directs that the excess amount will be set aside in a board reserve for a reduction of unfunded retirement liabilities in the future first cost during 2023 were lower than budget by 109,000 funds above Target in the electric rate St ization fund have been modeled as a funding source for capital projects in the long-term financial plan and will help reduce future borrowing funds may be used for one-time expenses and emerging items to be allocated based on the board's Direction management has anticipated use

1:30:42 of surplus rate stabilization funds to support capital investment plans the 2024 adopted budget included a draw of 9.3 million rate stabilization funds for Capital funding and management seeks to implement this funding strategy by recommending this transfer the working cash Target is based on the amount of cash needed to pay for ongoing operational expenditures and maintain an amount of working capital to support the day's cash ratio sufficient to maintain higher than average credit rating management evaluates the working cash Target annually and is recommending this increase to 45 million to support the greater than 150 D's cash

1:31:34 metric as mentioned in the previous slide for the power Reserve increasing the target to 25 million will help guard against potential negative price movement that could occur as the market experiences greater volatility as noted previously for the water utility per Financial policy the capital Improvement Reserve Target is Benchmark to annual depreciation expense management recommends increasing the target to 26 million to account for a meter replacement reserve and Rising depreciation expense with that I'll turn the presentation back over to Aaron you Rob so yes there have been some prior years where much has gone according to plan if you will and we've brought this

1:32:19 topic forward as a correspondence and consent item this year does bring again some additional noteworthy topics for consideration this evening first one on this slide is the first quarter 2024 financial performance so the recommended transfers based on performance from the end of last year would place our first quarter 2024 working cash about $12 million below Target the working cash positions took a big hit in q1 following restoration efforts in the January I storm coupled with the low budgeted generation and Retail load management recommends that we continue to Monitor and manage costs to budget in

1:33:04 2024 and we are also evaluating timing of actions that can move these metrics back to uh their targets um one item in particular there uh FEMA a public assistance grant funding has been uh freed up if you will with a presidential disaster declaration for the January ice storm and we are actively pursuing that another item of note uh with respect to reserves uh the 2024 adopted budget uh factored in board direction to

1:33:55 transferred on a monthly basis and expenses draw from the reserve as they're incurred this will allow for consistent disciplined uh a consistent disciplined approach to the prefunding and the ongoing ability to assess the pace of decommissioning in relation to the funding so uh with that as the approach on there there's no Reserve transfer needed as part of the 2023 discussion that we're seeking to have this evening um for both both of these items uh we plan to uh further evaluate them as this year plays out and bring it back in similar timing next year so next steps um we are looking for board Direction on the recommended

1:34:41 transfers and Targets in relation to the 2023 performance and uh we would look to bring this back as a resolution next month potentially on consent calendar but with that uh pass it back to you president MC thanks comments Brown well thank you for your presentation and cut to the chase I support your recommendation I do have two questions what's the approximate total amount we s with in reserves that we have um 70 million 80 million get the right number yeah 131 electric on electric 35 and so what what kind of an interest do we get on

1:35:27 that the the investment Court F this point I think is uh somewhere between four and five maybe a little bit closer to four it's pinching up as that money goes into each respective account for that because that's a significant amount of money it's it's going into in terms of the allocation on a month-to-month basis there are restricted funds that are not shown here legal restrictions TI to those the degree to which that is a part of the portfolio there's interest allocated to those otherwise for all the designated funds the interest is going into working cash right and then secondly um Second Source we used to have you know separate fund like we have for

1:36:12 leeberg and I don't see that anymore is that refunding because we raised rates considerably to pre fund that and we stopped it we gave a refund alternate water supply fund I think is the remnant of the Second Source I think it that's the 3.65 that's the money that we still have left over when we raise the rates and so that's that's uh not going to be added into with any of thiser right and that's been uh planned as a funding source for efforts on the Second Source 36 but we're not going to pre fund so the rate impacts I mean because water rates are going to go up absolutely and if I'm was wondering if we have some use reserves and water why we're not allocating to that

1:36:57 fund because we we you know uh if you look at our rate projection for water pretty significant and uh just wondering why why we weren't refunding that like we refunding Le so it's been several years uh since we rolled back the 3% that originally went there we do have more flexibility when we keep funds in either rate stable ization which is one place that you all have tucked away reserves or even in our Capital Improvement Reserve we working cash so we can take out of those to prund just want to make sure we kept that on the radar because I don't like what we see in the future

1:37:44 for race water that thank you very I'm in favor of the all all the transfers that you have my one question and one thing that I would propose and I'm going to put it as a proposal to my f fellow Commissioners is um regards The Raid stabilization funds when we go to the can you go to the Target slide so in our policies we have t targets for each one of these funds um um and we're asking to do the working capital go up asking for the others to

1:38:30 go up to what is a reasonable Target for these for me I think that we should also look at the raid stabilization fund as a to increase those we have quite a bit of money in both of them right now we obviously we do have plans for those but if we have set the target so the water Target is a million dollars and the uh the electric Target is $5 million those are the funds that we as a board really have the most fungible those are the ones that we can really affect and say Hey you know let's use some of rate stabilization to gradual eyesee we've done it in the past the other ones we're all putting up higher but we're not looking at the at

1:39:16 rate stabilization funds which has been have been the same since I've been on the board and I don't know when they went up the last time um right now the the water uh rate stabilization fund has almost $8 million in it with a target of 1 million and the uh electric has a rate stabilization Target of 5 million even with a $9 million draw it still has $17 million in that I just think that all these other funds are going up and our ability to use our board policies is is not going up accordingly so I would I would think that it would be appropriate to raise the rate stabilization fund by a million dollars and the and the water

1:40:02 one going to commissioner Brown's maybe to $1.5 million uh uh suggestion that I would have and I would love to hear uh uh from staff if that's an appropriate policy change so annually when we do look at reserves we do evaluate whether or not the reserves are set to meet uh the purpose for which they were established and when we established the rate stabilization um accounts they were designed to approximate roughly a 3% rate increase and a look this year indicated that they're still very close to that number we have modeled as we put money in uh the commitment that we made to the board when we did that was that

1:40:48 we that we were looking to use that to reduce future rate impact so in the rate trajectory that um you looked at in the fall that did assume that we were already using those funds to smooth rate impacts to our customers and that's how we would again show it to you in the in the summer yeah so um commissioner barovsky I think what I'm hearing is and and I think we recognize this as as staff as well the volatility of the world that we're operating in is is increasing there's um an incredible amount of risk associated um with all kinds of markets

1:41:34 with costs associated with what we do which tends to be heavy raw materials based um on on both Water and Electric um and things that can just impact our financial resiliency and we I think we've we've already recognized that that we need to be taking a look in the a look at all of these relative to that operating environment um what I'm hearing you say is we need to include the rate stabilization fund as part of that review um The Challenge isn't going to be moving money around it's going to be creating that pool to begin with um you

1:42:21 know and the only way that's done is if Revenue comes in greater than expenses which generally for us means rates so that's that's the tradeoff and the challenge that we have as an organization especially after the you know issues like happen in the first quarter um is not just saying oh here's the funds and here's how we can move things around it's creating the the actual beans that go in in these ponds so there's there's going to be some tradeoffs there that we're going to have to discuss with the board around the budgeting process and around the long-term financial plan and and and I guess it's just my hope that restabilization fund gives us

1:43:07 the ability to react to some of those those things that get thrown at us and and and not have to have to you know that's a place and it's a Target it's not it's not saying that you can't go below it it's not it it would just say it would flag us if if it goes below $6 million you would get a flag and and you would explain why and and so if I just might add to that the decisions that you all have made around our uh work cash targets our power Reserve targets um do give us some of what you're talking about we didn't Frank's going to talk more about what a hard first quarter we

1:43:52 had and because of those decisions we're able to absorb without immediate reaction back to the back to those Community um so some of that work is already built in and I need to write down my train of thought because I have one more thing I was going to say and it fell out of my head I I think what we're saying is we agree with you um that creating Financial flexibility is important um creating Financial flexibility isn't it it has to be achieved you you you can you can set targets you can have the ability to do that you have to be able to create the the revenue versus the cost to be able to fund it and so that's

1:44:38 and but you're absolutely right I think we we agree that there's volatility going forward probably greater than what we're seeing in the past and having a fund like great stabilization which is very flexible is something that um that would be a useful tool and I did also want to clarify that um Financial policies do tell us what we need to do when we call below Target and they do give us a time frame to which we um we call them Target but they do have to either be there or we have somewhere between six months and three years depending on on how far they've fallen from Target I have a quick question not sure

1:45:23 if I'm reading this right but the rate stabilization fund our Target this is for the electric utility is $5 million and after we use $9.3 million we'll still have $17 million in that rate stabilization fund so we're well above Target and I think what you're asking is should we formally step up that Target even though we're currently maintain well above that Target right I just want to make sure I I just want to make sure that your commissioner is a clear thanks those were the balance is at the end of the year yeah you can then take off 12 million because of the first quarter yeah on the electricite just just so that everybody's clear on that yeah thank you for the clarification I guess my point being that it's clear that we're we're maintaining even more

1:46:09 Headroom through the stabilization fund than our current Target is seeking and that's turning out to be really necessary but I just was trying to make sure I understood that we're asking to formally bump that up even know than that buffer had been a little bit bigger so um rate stabilization funds have a sort of an interesting little when we can put them in when we have good years uh and then uh they have the ability to be withdrawn and used as debt service coverage in other years so they've been a very good place for us to put money that you all have intended to use for future purposes so it's actually very deliberate that we're over Target today but over the course of the next year UC see us coming down closer to Target and

1:46:55 that's really that promise on the electric utility those were actually started with funds that were dedicated from Carmen now I'm going back in my memory but they but those funds were established to avoid borrowing and we are going to we're modeling coming much closer to Target over the course of the next 10 years in order to keep Debt Service as low as possible which then has a rates impact so have kind of a clarifying question on the the types of reserves so ume cor me if I'm wrong but again I just want to make sure that I understand so the operating Reserve um the Self Insurance reserve the power Reserve somewhat the capital Improvement

1:47:40 Reserve we typically have the Target and we keep it at that Target although I see there's a variance here the rate stabilization fund is kind of the catch off good you're to put the rest of it into that fund right you have been doing that okay and then the other ones we don't like we don't distribute it kind of evenly across her and then there's there a reason to um okay and so the operating Reserve um versus the power Reserve give me an example of when we might dip into the operating Reserve versus the power Reserve we dipped into our working cash is where it was coming from so the power Reser service design for very specific

1:48:25 like electricity we prices load the sorts of things that that um are volatile in the power market and that's when we would use that I spiking storm that causes us to purchase which is kind of what we had in January right I mean we had to go out and well we didn't we didn't know that was like last July when we had we actually asked customers to Cur that could have been an incident where we could have dipped into the reserve if we really needed to because we had these high energy prices because the entire region was really hot so everybody was going out on the market to purchase and actually because of some of the things

1:49:10 that Frank's going to talk about from um the ice storm that would be another um time that we might dip in and that's why the recommendation because we look and those factors continue to be very vola that would be on the operating Reserve though right for the ice storm type of a situation versus the power Reserve commissioner could be you know if if you look at the impacts of the ice storm if it was an operational impact yes it would go out of op it could come out of the operating Reserve we did see issues where we lost wholesale opportunities which have been an opportunity on the power Reserve side or we were incredibly high prices across the Northwest because of coldness across the you know supply and

1:49:55 demand across the so it could have could have been a combination of of both and and the reason to have so many different types of and okay you behave you can answer okay yes so a variety of designated funds and I I think what what has happened for the the board over time is that uh this gives transparency into the risks we're trying to mitigate with the funds that so calling it out and having the operating reserve the power Reserve um and giving those a Target is a way to really create a lot of transparency around the amount of

1:50:41 money that we're holding and why we're holding it yeah again why so many why in operating why power ultimately at the end of the day they're all contributing to our cash position that's giving us that Financial stability but I I think the the reason that we have the variety is because we've identify these different risks that we want to mitigate so the risk I'm I'm I'm only dialing into this because there were certain requests to up particular particular funds over others and it feels to me like if there's if there's a real methodology around how we get to that we see that this risk operating Reserve power Reserve like power Reserve is going to go up up up up

1:51:26 up because we are going to see more of these storm events and as we look at the trajectory of it that cost you know trajectory looks like this and that makes sense to me totally get it um however if it's more arbitrary for me it's not as big of a deal but um I'm supportive so I just I appreciate you digging in and helping me understand the specifics of the different accounts I have one other quick question um you talked about um the there was a decision to not issue the bonds because we and I just wanted to understand the process of that because my understanding is we kind of say okay go and issue bonds and then that

1:52:11 typically goes and happens was this a situation where we said go and issue bonds and then things changed we didn't issue bonds and then we don't have to vote on they again or is that different so we had some initial uh initially in the long-term financial plan I think for must have been 2022 uh we were modeling that we would go out an issue for the electric utility there's kind of a go noo decision point before we were bringing materials to you as the board to request to pursue a bond issuance and we were seeing U really strong cash Year from 2022 uh we were seeing that we still had Bond proceeds left from 2020 so we still had remaining funds to to tackle uh

1:52:57 capital projects there um and we were seeing that the interest rate environment at that time was saying rates are going to tick down where all the the Fed was was indicating that rates were going to go um given that we still had Bond proceeds to use there's also a it's called Arbitrage uh because we're an issue of tax exempt debt but there's another compliance layer to that that uh brings some I'll say added administrative efforts and considerations if we're going to hold Bond proceeds for an extended period of time so um yeah variety of factors there L to us thinking we don't need to go for it this year there's there's a time we you need to borrow and and we didn't need to go for it then we

1:53:42 were also able to avoid about $2 A5 Million worth of interest expense by doing that um as of last for last year if you will and so those are kind of the factors if you will that went into deferring I understand um the ideal behind it more getting at the process so did we vote and say yes go issue them and then no okay so there was just not a go forth and then we only asked you all to authorize water bonds last year after that analysis we only asked for authorization to issue water bonds and then uh in this

1:54:28 last year planning we would need them this year and you authorized those earlier this year and then a supplemental resolution tonight so if we went through and said go then and there was some change in thinking something drastic happened you all would come back and let us know it wouldn't be just kind of like all right we're not going to do that now if we don't go in June I will make sure that you hear about it you know why okay we's going in you I was just going to answer it very directly and say yes we we if if you authorize it we go for it this was not a situation where you authorize to do something and we chose for whatever reason not we would come back to the board for redirection at that we do

1:55:13 every year I think this one between 20 22 and 23 when we talked about the long-term financial plan we modeled it with and without that discussion which we usually have in July so and then updated in October but um that was the the process is if you tell us're coming back to you we don't need to De GNA come back when I read that and heard that I was okay we're good I have um just one quick question about the depreciation rate is there something in particular that's driving it depreciation was a bit higher than we were anticipating is there something driving that or is it just a of things it's value of our assets so the more assets or the more

1:56:00 valuable assets we have the higher the depreciation on those assets okay just that the values up also the age of the assets if you have a newer asset base you're depreciating more and and that's one that I think we'll talk about internally um is we go based on annual depreciation but depreciate your depreciated cost is based on an installed cost it's not a replacement cost is there some multiplier there that we should consider in that in that Reserve ultimately a lot of this comes back to what are reading agency's looking for um what is financial resiliency that we think are we're mitigating for real things um as

1:56:46 we go forward that's why we get lots of different artistic descriptions um but that's one that we want to look at as wellion thanks um I support this and the transfers as proposed here and and I think we could probably do it as a consent item I also appreciate this board and previous boards uh and staff commitment to making sure that we have these reserves and buffers to enable us to deal with the curve balls that we're catching right now um I just feel like uh I'm continually impressed by the financial management of this utility it's um it just feels really well considered and um and I appreciate that um you had proposed an incremental

1:57:33 change in the rate stabilization fund I know Frank said it's one thing to set the target it's another thing we have to have the the funds to fill that I'm curious if that creates the amounts that um commissioner barasi just suggested does that create in or unintended consequences that we're not thinking about so if you're asking me about angst I'm already feeling a little bit of angst over uh the increase of the targets that I do believe are necessary and our working cash position after the end of um the first quarter uh any uh need for more rocks so to speak is going to put R pressure um that's not the largest rate pressure

1:58:19 that we may feel somewhere but all all of the increases do add up thoughts about that still going to put it out there as a as a request and see where the rest of the board comes policy maker that's this is the one area I mean I'm used to to having like a budget committee where we have spent hours going over budgets not 15 minutes um but as a policy maker that's a policy position that I I feel strongly on and I'll put it in front of the board and if there's consensus I I'll go with them and if not that's fine just get a get a clarifying I know we're we over time um right now we're we're talking about

1:59:05 some some targets and we do have further discussions coming up around long-term financial plan and budget um commissioner would you be okay if we approached those two items looking at increases in reserve and the reserves and the increase um impact on those first before we put forth changing the the target Reserve yeah I I'm fine with that and it doesn't have to happen this this year I just see that that rate stabilization fund is the One Fund that the the commission has the most direct impact on I'm not going to go in and and say I

1:59:50 want to change the the policy on the the target for the power Reserve you're asking us to do that and I'm taking your your stance on that but I see us looking at rate stabilization just because of the the way that it is titled rate stabilization and our ability to use that fund to do what the title says and that's stabilizing fund whether that means graduating things like we used it for for the water rates when when we were looking at high water rates we talked to you and we said we didn't like that so for me that's why I want to make sure that that fund is is indexed as well as the other funds are that's the reason I'm putting that forward because that's the one fund that I feel

2:00:36 ourselves as policy makers have the most direct impact on that's why I wanted to put it forward and I'm willing to wait I think we we agree with you we' like to have that discussion I guess what I'm proposing is have that discussion in the context of the long-term financial plan in the budget process if that's if that's okay yeah as long as it's part of that presentation as far as changing policies because CH policy changes are different than long-term financial plan I'll pull it off the table okay any other comments questions on this topic you all have what you need from us believe we do we will send this back on consent and we will bring back

2:01:22 conversation on the rate stabilization fund and some modeling about what that might look like with the long-term financial plan and re open the discussion right uh we'll take a 10minute

2:12:29 good evening Commissioners sorry yes we are sir okay um record my name is Rodney price this general manager want to talk a little bit about the capital plan and where it's at right now um good news this is information only will not have to think um I don't think too much but uh first I want to say too thank you uh there was a time where I could probably St this presentation off the top of my head almost that's no longer the case I had probably about 16 pages of information that I was able to still from staff I want to say thank you you know who you are list um but I also want to say thanks to the

2:13:14 board the board pays plays a very important part in our Capital process and in our Capital plans so this presentation is more or less geared towards how I think maybe the board fits in a little bit uh maybe to help illustrate where you are in this process and actually where we're at in the yearly budget cycle of the capital planning so next next month we'll come and talk to you about Capital plan assumptions there's a lot of more details we go into reserves is a piece of that depreciation age assistance all these kind of things and then following uh you know Tyler and his teams uh they come up with the the capital plans and we present those in detail and you can

2:14:00 improve them and go through them so and that all goes in the longterm financial plan um but uh that's roughly 40% of our budget if you take out power sales or power purchase just a couple reminders um because I was going to focus on the the type two and type three tonight those are the the definitions they're uh big projects is type two over a million dollars discrete projects usually some multi-year kind of things I think current substation uh usually rate funded but can be Bond funded to to certain extent type three is your Carmen uh those are the bond funded projects Second Source that kind of thing some of the uh uh pieces where the

2:14:48 board plays in is in the Strategic plan and there um as the Strategic plan is refined and and whittel down um the goals to the goals for the year um those help Drive what goes into the capital plan we have things like the master plans in Water and Electric uh in the the water especially that's a a regulated document that tells the the utility where to go we're updating that this year I believe um Electric's developing a SAR thing to their own um think I need to say too much more there um but the question is you know what

2:15:33 what how do we know we have a successful Capital plan um and I think it depends where you sit in the the audience or in in the system of this Capital planning kind of thing but from a a board perspective uh you know I think the the major oversight is our our budget and our budgets to actual some of those kind of things so setting the budget and are we actually tracking what we said we were going to spend uh when I think about capital I think about budget schedule budget that kind of thing um scope is pretty well staff driven uh and monitored um so you what what happens in the the projects in the

2:16:18 programs but uh there are places where the board can somewhat watch that so the quarterly report came out this this order Frank's going to talk some more about that but embedded in that quarterly report is information like the el1 so I'll go through a couple of those things in in C those examples but schedule uh is Staff driven and monitored I I would argue that probably that's the least monitored and reported on thing um in our process here and so talk a little bit more about that when I want to start with the budget um and are we successfully spending the money that we said we're going to spend

2:17:03 because that's really important to that we keep spending what we say we're going to spend right so what I did is um you know from the cour early report uh you can get in there and you can look and you can see that uh the capital is U about for this year 2024 we're about 21% in in water and 19% in in electric spent that's on a straight line sort of assumption so you would expect at the end of the quarter that that we would have 25% yes thank you um notification good job um told you didn't have to think now you are um but just for fun

2:17:49 um uh just for fun I I threw in the last couple years to see uh show the performance of how much of our Capital we spent um a little more successful on water for various reasons electric less successful but and you I'll get to that because the large type three project there tends to swing that around a lot you'll also see uh the um a little bit further breakdown uh in the eel1 in the quarterly report there so there isn't something on this document uh that says hey uh current substation right but it's it's pretty well buried in this kind of uh language here in I we were just discussing Monday the other day about

2:18:34 maybe making that a little clear so you can pull distinct projects out of this reporting so hopefully we'll get to that um current substations so here's an example of a project that um is a multi-year project and so I was just talking about yearly budgets right most of our big projects spread across two three sometimes five years so it's really hard to capture what's going on with a project in any state here uh this is a good good example of it but um the uh again back in the E1 you'll find that this gives you a good idea of okay they

2:19:20 started in January it's ending in September and um it started with this cost in mind and now we're at that cost me that's a lot of cases to to um in the notes Here it talks about why excuse me um but basically construction and Supply chains so uh one of the the challenges uh for a multi-year project like this there were some delays and some of those things as the project delays um it gets more expensive is by delaying it because of inflation uh so when we finish this though what's next uh we're moving out uh to the west side of town working at Dano Jess um

2:20:12 so this is some of the Our Generation work type two projects um uh one of the things that's happening it's a big expenditure is the the overall of of the gerb generator 4 out of International Paper uh we just updated our U and resigned our contract through 28 IP and part of that includes refurbishing that generator proba be seeing some more on that um the the Walter Bill couple projects going on there one's the the for Bay repair so these are both Dam safety issues uh trying to address um convergence needs that problems that were surfaced the the one this year that emerged is the leak and so we're waiting

2:20:59 on just some information to decide how much that's going to cost and how much that's going to impact the other CES so that happens you know things pop up that's another risk to to our plan things pop up uh and cause you to shift and spend money into different places over the fiveyear period that should Outreach out those the idea so um I'll just point out to ber U has a project and so we did decide to um shut down the the the system and all that but in the meantime we need to do some mitigating work and so excuse me um one of the pieces of mitigation is to we move to unit one to create more uh ability for

2:21:44 more storm water to flow out of it essentially so that's what the guys are on here um the project I thought you might be interested in so since the number of you went out and looked at the IP um facility during the ice storm this is the line between the Hayden Bridge switch station and international paper bows completely went down um some pictures of the down bows so uh uh We've jumped into it engineering um purchasing uh a lot of people are really working hard uh bottom line is hopefully we'll get this back up and running in July soon as we get our permitting spr build

2:22:29 City the other thing I wanted to point out was uh about this project and I mean it seems sort of intuitively obvious right you build something new but during the course of building something new you update your designs and your features and hopefully make things more resilient and that's a big part of the capital plan is investing money over and over a little F faster than depreciation hopefully to keep the system alive and and reliable and up toate in this case hopefully we'll get some some FEMA money um I know that's still up in the a um just how much we'll get back from that but U so it's not always r

2:23:16 that that fund capital this is the project uh you're going to hear a lot more about next week or sorry next week next month uh at the board meeting Carmen Smith that's our type three electric project very big um one thing I'll n just to give you a a sneak peek at that uh is the total cost now is estimated to be $20 million more than it was the three so costs are going up um and again a lot of cases uh it's delays from um all kinds of things and and spling

2:24:01 th switching to the the water department uh there's uh some uh the master plan calls for refurbishment of our major components in the system for earthquake proof um the other goal we've done and this comes in from the Strategic plan is to increase resiliency so increasing the uh paths for main transmission lines and increasing the number uh and making the the V horse um more flexible the ability to transfer water around silk U that's where the the master plan for water is especially helpful U this project Ard was part of the4th I believe and then the next up is uh the transmission line continuing on down to connect there's

2:24:47 two Crossings on atlet then this is going to help R those two and create some ability to move water back and forth College Hill uh eort wrapped up you've heard a lot about that um into the filling stage um that's all done College Hill's about to to start again um you might hear a little bit more about that in June uh hopefully we'll get the contract to bring to start the demolition part of the construction but they've already been cutting trees there's a a historic mitigation work going wrapping up

2:25:33 there's some tours um good buy party kind of thing hopefully you've all being made aware of that participating some of those things another smaller projects the Shasta 975 obviously much smaller than the uh other big course but they're still just course to the people who need those and Second Source uh is is moving along we're we're in the uh environmental permitting and uh in planning this land use planning uh that's one of those tedious careful processes that just takes a long time but making enough progress we're

2:26:19 we're hoping to uh start construction mid 2026 so shared services uh I think a lot of times when we think about Capital we think about pools and wires um pipes and kind of things so uh takes a lot more work in running utility than that and so um here's a couple pieces of uh that shared service that that's U really important and foundational to the work that we're going to want to do we again that get that strategic plan right these are land foundations to help us balance our our supply and demand um kinds of things and and help our

2:27:05 customers um but EES the it's got a lot of people working on it right now working really hard and it's in scope and on budget there are some pressures for schedule in and budget a little bit um I think the really big news on EES is the um change in season two uh that they're going to shift to uh they call it the continuous Improvement pause or something um but essentially it's a time to step back hey we've installed a bunch of stuff um set a bunch of new processes in motion uh let's take a year and make sure we're getting it right before we jump into trying to implement more things and I

2:27:50 also give us some more time to to prep and plan for some of those other projects uh one of the things that may have flown under the radar a little bit is our uh modernizing our GIS system and software and I couldn't even pretend to tell you what that means technically uh but I would tell you how important the gis uh system is is that it is our record of choice for all our most of our assets right it is what makes us be able to design and operate and run our system that's where all it's no longer paper right it's it's in the G of this GIS system and it is also the foundation for the outage Management systems but the good news there is uh it's started this month and we'll maybe uh hopefully um be

2:28:38 done by the end of the year but maybe five a little bit but it's under budget by 300,000 so that's U another thing that you might be curious about is shared service that's uh got some money in the plan um is the property we bought out here umson uh we just uh awarded a bids the P last month I believe uh to start construction on uh building out that area out there so there's actually six phases identified can do as much or as fast and as little as we need to do to help balance this the plan over a period of

2:29:23 time uh that's another thing that what Tyler his team will do and Wally people that manage your Capital plan as a whole they'll look at income sources and they'll also look at projects and how they can smooth those out to make sure our rids stay Balan the part in red here is what will happen first so uh headquarters we actually sitting right over here right now or the rock burson's right here and Roosevelt's right here so this is the portion that will be built um but even here there will be a road connecting uh the drive out here over here to Burleson as part of the P space but this will increase our ability to uh Store and

2:30:10 park and um be a lot more efficient with our operations uh Ami um just wanted to give you a quick update on that uh We've uh we're about 91% installed on the electric meters and about 79% in the water water's going a little slower it'll it'll wrap up next year um we expect that there will be a handful of meters to toall cases different types so uh budget's going well um we're about half a million under budget on electric

2:30:58 what's next um might be curious a little bit so we want to put in some more two more Towers here in town um small part of the budget but uh really important to making sure we get reliable Communications and data and those kind of things um the other thing is we started uh an analysis of what to do up River there's a couple options being looked at but really the the one we're recommending is basically uh using the same system we had here in down we did a number of radio studies and it's it seems like despite the terrain and everything we can cover 95% at least of the need over there so that's that's the recommendation um same system uh everybody gets the same featur so Mak it

2:31:46 consistent it's roughly the same as well risks uh Capital plan risks I'm going to end on the downer note I guess um there's still a lot of supply chain issues um some things are getting better um and some are not and so I kind of detail the few of these things um but I really wanted to kind of highlight the the strategies that the folks are using um mitigate the supply chain risk so uh we're one of the things we're doing is we're keeping our our stock inventories up to uh higher than we did preo so during Co we over ordered um and so

2:32:32 we're still keeping with that strategy it's really paid off the ice storm for instance we were supplier of choice around here I guess you could say but um really getting creative uh through creating new relationships um creating some uh business Partnerships that we hadn't asked I think another thing that's going on is is engineering and purchasing getting together and looking at the standards and requirements that we have we really need widget X if if wiet y will do and so that takes a little bit of analysis and and a lot of due diligence to make sure that that what we

2:33:17 did we're also trying to create longer lead times because that's an issue with Supply chains is is lead times uh there's been uh some discussion around you know domestic versus imported materials and where we're getting it from we we don't have a real good way to track that now and separate things out except for trying to do that manually because we'd like to be able to answer some of the questions that the board has had around where does the stuff come from and couple other things though I want to touch on um and not necessarily a risk but Grant uh programs uh are we getting all we can get there's a goal organizational goal around that

2:34:03 um that uh we have options to get away to help the capital program that's always good for for rigs right so um you've been very successful we are an advance manager and just done a terrific job but we're letting use some more work on that program so how we get that internally or externally or whatever um that's something we're looking at uh inflation and I I hesitate to say John Brown might have been right but maybe we underestimated uh the total U impact that the the inflation has had on the capital program and so uh Frank is sort

2:34:50 of quite a new term for me it's the the the cost per scope right the cost per scope is going up so we have a scope that we want to do but that costs driving up faster than than traditionally it has so um that's that's a real risk to the the capital plan as a whole and that's that's where we get to have discussions with board here I think one of the things too that's interesting in this is um and I I mentioned timing right so uh as Supply chains have gummed up things and things have slowed down well that inflation starts eating your lunch a little harder and so we've had an experience that along the way U and the the current substation was a really good that that

2:35:35 was probably should been a twoe project and it h cost x amount of dollars so um that's a risk that we're we're really trying to manage um and then finally uh regulatory environmental uh permitting those kind of things those uh those are challenges that sometimes we can't control uh in many cases those tend to be discouraging for staff it's one thing that to not have enough money to be challenged uh to change your scope and all that um the the regulatory challenges not thing Cas you don't control over just certain expense so U those are the things that are impacting

2:36:20 the capital plan and in some of the projects um the questions all right I'm gonna go first uh you asked uh question I think about Project Specific updates if that's helpful and um from my perspective at least you know to the extent that it's relatively easy for you all to provide updates on individual projects I know that's the way my brain is working and like for the projects that I'm paying attention to and and so I think that's useful um as we replace like power poles that were destroyed by the ice storm do we change our engineering assumptions for ice loading I assume for new polls yeah

2:37:07 anyc ice loading has been kind of a controversial subject and I was just talking TOS day about this but um so but the short answer is yes we one I think half an inch to one inch or one inch two inches I can't okay and then is that also an opportunity to upgrade the seismic standard for tools like that do that happen at the same time um sizeb standards don't quite apply um there's U other the wind and force and some of those kind of things but I don't I shouldn't say I I'm not aware of seismic standards for poll so I would have to get back to you on that I I you're find

2:37:53 um um Frank sorry so um mcra the poish Sol might not it would have a tensil strength creating to it but what we may might look into is the the actual how the poles are mounted ni say mounted um the base how we design the base of those poles may be imped that's something we can look at I think the the force of an earthquake to the tension of the wires and the weight of the wires is pretty that's a curious

2:38:38 question right um I don't want to go too far down this rapit hole but but but I'm gonna ask a couple questions so the wal Balter 4 Bay repairs I think it said was like 2.9 Million are we starting in into that or is that scheduled I apologize I was going to get to that uh and I didn't get generation so I'll have to get back to you on that okay yeah my my question really is are we going to start investing money in repairs there before we've had a chance to look at the rest of the canal that's a really good good ide bot because the especially with the emergence of that other Leak Detection um uh there's going to be some analysis and um I believe your team has already started looking at and finance started looking at this same conversation we're having about theber and you know how

2:39:25 much money do you put into it before it's return yeah yeah I would the I I think the plan throughout the summer is to do a pretty detailed assessment we really can't do anything there without going through process so there's going to be a number of checks and balances you have to get for approval to do any testing to do to all different kinds of things so before we end up spending a lot of money we'll understand what our position and assessment is okay oh yeah Lisa uh Frank cover Frank and Rod covered it well um just a a couple items of note we are we do think it's going to

2:40:10 take uh another couple of weeks before we have options for a potential repair plan back from our dam safety Consultants um coincident with that we're also doing a financial analysis uh so by the time we get some estimates on repair options we'll have a sense of uh what the impact might be so um all of that would need to come to the board presumably the amount of spend required to repair the canal um meets the board threshold so you'll be seeing more information on that before we move forward with any spending okay thanks Lisa um all right so one last question um the Second Source uh water admin building

2:40:57 that we have there do we have a seismic standard established for what that will be all all that design meets all the latest seismic standards this so that my understanding is the current seismic like bar the minimum is life safety which is I can get out without it falling on my head which is awesome okay follow uh and then the the one step above that is immediate occupancy that the building can still be used and is likely repairable and I just wonder if we're building to that higher standard I don't expect us to be building to the like fire station standard where everything is fully functional but I'm curious about that I do you want to stab at that oh yeah this Wally M Engineering

2:41:43 supervisor yeah on the Second Source it's designed to be it's basically fully operational within 24 hours after an event and um so it's almost to the top rating that we're designing the that that plant for and does that does that include the office space the not not just we haven't we haven't got into the detail design but any components that would be necessary for the plant to be operational treating water would be designed to that standard so if there's scada computer systems inside that office so that areas those would be designed for

2:42:30 that that makes sense that makes sense yeah I just voice my view on this again where I know it was an issue with this building um you know and and I don't question the decisions that were made um right I think you know the in terms of office space and having functional space that staff can work on even if it's not essential to running the water treatment facility any office space after sismic event I think will be super critical and it seems like a huge opportunity on the design end um to bump up the standard for all the office space that would be constructed at that site I don't know I don't know what the analysis is there I my my understanding is that the additional cost is typically on the order of 5% and it seems like a

2:43:15 premium that's at least considering yeah it it it's a very robust plant and you know we know we we've invested a lot in our Hayden Bridge plant but you can only invest so much in an old facility and um we need this to operate so it's yeah very robust thanks and then the last thing um on this one this agenda item um I was looking all over through my packet I'm like where's the briefing on this and I didn't there there wasn't one uh anyway I just wonder what we have the when we have items that don't have a backgrounder if we can just Wag that on the agenda um that' be great all I have other questions comments for

2:44:00 run yeah so I lost the argument on the inflation thing even though you acknowledged it but in our five and 10e capital plan we only used 3% we're going to go back and three to five% are we going to go back and revise that for the cost for I don't know what the current assumptions will be but that's part of what we'll uh we'll cover next week or next I keep saying next week next month uh when we come and talk about the capital plan assumptions I was just going to say that the near-term Assumption will be more 5% the long term maybe closer to three I I think we have some decisions to make around um the scope that drives what we need to

2:44:46 do I mean that that gives you a certain allocation of funds but I think as an organization we have to take a really close look at the work that we're driving um and how that impacts the funding that we need and that those going to work hand in hand right anything else thank sir all right moving on to the corly Strategic and operational report for q1 and this is all roses and unicorns um president McCrae Commissioners good evening um or the record Frank Lawson the general manager um usually when I

2:45:31 give a quarterly report it's it's really a roster of various accomplishments and all kinds of of great news um I really do feel like um when you have difficult times it it both builds and reveals an organization's character and and we have a certain number of opportunities in front of us to to show our character based on some of the the results that we're seeing and some of the challenges quite honestly that we're seeing um first of all um on the electric side specifically this does not apply to the water we saw a pretty substantial um it's called change in net position you might also if you're familiar with financial terms that's basically your net income uh was roughly

2:46:17 188 million below our forecast for the first quarter um that was a combination of a couple things there were some operational uh impacts as we know from the ice storm both uh uh from the recovery perspective but also from The Lost Generation perspective we also other than those that that week or so um the quarter was very mild from a temperature perspective and so load was off sign iFly and the combination of those two things drove that that $18 million variance from from budget we also uh in in looking at that um and and I will say that this is not

2:47:04 something that we're just going to say idle you know stand idly by and come to the board at the end of the year with an $18 million budget amendment uh we think this is part of our character is to look at these things and understand how it drives decision and what we can do about it going forward to mitigate that now one of the things that we're keeping a very close eye on and it's it's not a very optimistic um piece of information but um the Columbia Basin water situation usually when we come to the board with a budget amendment it's because we have extra water and therefore uh we can offset that additional expenditure with more than um the that amount of Revenue um right now

2:47:49 the Columbia basin's about 80% of its mean it's about 89% of what we budget because we do budget that a little bit conservatively but you think about roughly 10% below our budget again on the wholesale side primarily of of that we we also in the in the quarter you know we talked about the storm events and that was a challenging uh um event for us but there's also some some lingering effects to that I think we we responded to it but the recovery from that goes a little bit beyond that particularly on the electric side but not just on the electric side it had some water significant water disruption as well our safety incidents uh per

2:48:34 exposure hours was up um I think you saw a number of different pieces of work um that um we um have fallen behind on some of that directly related that some of that is something I'll talk a bit a little bit more about um going forward really feel like right now we have stretched the organization pretty significantly um you can exercise your muscles you can stretch your muscles as an organization but you also have to be careful not to tear your muscles um I think I I feel like we're a little bit on the edge we've stretched the organization I think it kind of reflects in the fact that our our first two goals

2:49:19 in particular uh the organizational goals which are centered on operations and um compliance um are below Target um from from our perspective we've also um and I think Rod touched on a little bit uh we've seen some pretty um substantial pressures on the the costos scope ratio um which is really you know what are it's it's one thing to have a budget but at the end of the day uh we want to be able to execute projects we're very asset intensive organization we need to be able to both operate maintain those and also replace those as needed um and um while we can we have a certain amount of risk U type projects that we can turn

2:50:05 the dial up and down on um right now we need to take a really close look at where we're going to turn the dial uh and still maintain uh and get done what we need to get done the the current substation a really good example of that I think all of the Commissioners visited the current substation uh you met Philip Peterson the project manager they a good project manager um but there were some challenges along the way relative to contractor availability uh we have we buy parts and pieces with a really heavy content of of of copper of of materials and so um we're seeing probably an extra pressure on those because they cost a lot to ship

2:50:51 they cost a lot to produce and so with commodity prices and transportation costs going up we're not just seeing contractor related pressures we're seeing a lot more than sort of typical inflation on on some of those items just quickly to look at the goals I you know I did mention that the first two goals which uh I I would describe as the blocking and tackling of the organization this is this is really something that uh we're going to work with um the management team on um to take a look at I guess I would describe it as as maybe rebalancing our Investment Portfolio we're going to have to take a look at the work that we're doing and how we prioritize that work um

2:51:38 there's really important preventative maintenance that that we need to do to on our assets of course compliance adherence is something we thought was important enough to actually identify as a separate goal this year we're a little bit behind in some of those areas um and we need to take a look at how we can address these issues um given the resources and the financial pressures that that we're also under um as as you can imagine um some of these projects are are really hard emotionally for an organization who likes to get things done and you have a regulatory environment that that um requires a different level of of skill than than

2:52:23 someone who's a project manager for example um who probably gets frustrated with the fact that things move slowly and so we're going to have to look at our Workforce and how we address going forward through the balance between those who deal with things like Regulatory and administrative overhead versus project execution there's some updates on here that I I won't for you um since you had this presentation ahead of time especially and then um there are a number of things that that are on on track um we we do have and goal three I mentioned um we're looking uh at the labor market specifically we're trying to balance that with the needs going

2:53:09 forward especially under some of the the changing operating environments that we're working in and some of the different talents that we need uh to to bring in going forward um we process of of looking at and socializing some of the results from our Employee Engagement survey that was that was done in February um the EES project um Rod U mentioned that a little bit in his presentation um the the scope piece has been um actually very successful from the standpoint of wanting to standardize on on um just available technology and not do a lot of customization ation that that has led to pretty good acceptance rate on the on the testing phase which we've moved from

2:53:55 building build the build phase into the the integration testing which will take a lot of resources from the utility over the next several months um we are seeing a little bit of pressure on that schedule um there's a lot to to get done in this in this phase and then some slight cost pressures although those were changes in scope not necessarily inflationary pressures uh we we changed some licensing around we extended a little bit uh we added some Integrations to things that we thought were were important um those were fairly minor um relative to the to the budget but those were not driven for the same reasons that we've seen um project cost

2:54:40 escalation and things like substations and raw materials we're in process of of looking uh again at great design we have a uh on the agenda talk about that with the board in in August we're making progress on the the integrated resource plan actions from last year um the board recently approved um a consultant to look at the demand response capability for example that that assessment um was is part of that work um and then well it's shown as as below Target I think you probably noticed in the report that we have pending applications for about $12 million um for for Grant work that aligns with with things that we uh think

2:55:26 align with our strategy um but it's it's below Target because we want to establish a a more rigorous process to um develop and understand when we will apply for Grants uh under what conditions and and grants are not free necessarily they come with a certain degree of overhead and they also come with an opportunity costs and we need to make sure that as an organization we're not chasing money that um ends up having a detrimental effect in some other part of the organization and so that's why this one is is listed as below Target it's not that we're not doing a good job of going after grants and working on those is the process um that initiates that work and manages that work so um

2:56:12 there's there's a lot on our plate right now commissioner really appreciate your support in that um I wish I had just the roster of all the accomplishments for the quarter there doesn't mean that there aren't some things that have gone really well also um across the organization um but I think it's fair to say that we have some challenges in front of us um some work to do both on the the operations maintenance preventative maintenance and then how we're scoping and looking at capital projects and budgets going forward and fortunately for for I'm looking at Tyler in the back I'm looking at a few others and Deborah fortunately we coming up on a on the time when we normally assess our long-term Financial plans um and uh our our investments going forward and so

2:56:57 the timing will be McCrae I'll turn back to you for questions thanks Carlon I just a really quick question um the on the other funding opportunities um had there 11 million intending applications but you had I mean in the I know this is for this quarter but we had 20 million that is that inorder or was that all of last running total is somewhere around and I say running total this probably goes back several years um is somewhat I we we'll get to an exact number but it's this this is just pending this quarter it does not include what we got up to this point so and I want to say it's

2:57:44 somewhere between 10 and 20 million I guess I was kind of getting what is the Target because this is saying it's below Target but that seems like there's a lot in the mix that's yeah the the Target in this case is not a number it's not a dollar amount that we're chasing it's um the goal was specifically written around developing a process to manage this and we're below Target on that Pursuit okay you know I mean we have challenges I think alone I mean I mean were every every business nonprofit Etc that I mean through January's weather event it wasn't just a week and it's

2:58:30 weeks following it that impact um so it it makes sense that we have similar impacts and it's unfortunate that we can't get some of that re I mean some of it we can get reimbursed for from femma but I think we're seeing that shortfall in the monetary side of it because we we can't get that funding back because it's a revenue related it's not an expense yeah they there's also and we'll keep an eye on the fact that usually when there's a feem event like this there's resiliency grants which um in 2016 we we left that with I think it was 16 different projects across the organization to improve resiliency and

2:59:15 so there there may be some opportunities that come out of that specifically around that but it's I think some of this has been challenges because of the storm but I I also think that we we just have some challenges in the regulatory environment the inflationary pressures that we're seeing I I I can't say that that's storm related those are those are challenges that are maybe a little bit more fundamental that we need to roll up our sleeves and address and we've we've seen them coming for we not still and we did have a really um I think good presentation um Deborah and Aaron and Tyler were were part of our presentation to to the rating agencies um is that

3:00:01 last week last Thursday um seems like a yearo and and um while there there's some challenges and they recognize that we also um there financial position to be able to address those and a lot of that has to do with with the over it that the board has provided through the years so um really adding that two quick questions number one um the cost for on energy fishing and conservation the cost for megawatt hour save for residential was 950 but for residential limited income is 7,158 is that an outlier or is it really that why is it so much I mean 10 times more expensive to save energy and

3:00:46 limited income housing well it's it's generally the amount of the kinds of projects and the amount that you're investing in those incentives versus the amount of megawatts you're actually saving this is a discussion that we want to have with the board um specifically around this program is what does the board see as the objective of the Energy Efficiency program is it to Save megawatt hours um where you're looking at um the cost per megawatt hour being important or is it as a social service to provide some kind of of I'll say temporary Financial relief to a certain segment of our customers which I call it temporary

3:01:32 because yes you can say that this will save money but because we have a really high fixed cost if you're not um if you're not capturing all those fixed costs in a fixed charge that's temporary um you then have to amortize that fixed cost over Less megawatt hours which then results in a rate increase so I think ultimately we have to have a discussion with the board around what are the the ultimate objectives of this is it to Save megawatt hours which has always been historically part of it but what role does the social side play in that the second question is I know one of the Epic fights that I heard discussions I should say that I had at a board level was when we went we H the

3:02:18 budget at 85% water and now everybody argued to go to 90 and now looks like it's 80 and do you how long do you think it'll be if I mean if you consistently see 80% water are we going to maybe consider going back to budgeting an 85% instead of 90 yeah the uh what we do on the electric side is we we've created this contribution margin risk factor number and that's that that has represent presented two or three different things um one of them is a 90% water level in the near term in the budgeted year the other one could be an impact on an unfavorable impact on wholesale prices

3:03:03 that were selling to or it could be consumption related now this was in this first quarter we had all three of those um but I I do think at some point we have to look at what degree we're budgeting conservatively um and how conservative does that need to be um there's there's pros and cons to being conservative in your budgeting if you're if you're too conservative then that puts pressures on rates um if if you're too liberal then you take more risks and maybe it's appropriate in that case to balance that approach with having higher reserves so there's there can be a trade-off

3:03:48 where we could yeah let's let's leave it at 90 but let's build a reserve bry's a point that that that we have certain degree to tap into and replenish or we conservatively but we know that we're going to have to change what we do as an organization or adjust our rates so do you think that you'll see that as something that we'll just Monitor and look at over the years because of climate change and things because they got a pretty bad water situation up north I think yeah the um the climate change models um don't typically show that there's there's going to be a lot of decrease in water the but what they tend to be showing is the when that water comes and how it comes it doesn't necessarily come as snow pack it comes earlier in the winter

3:04:34 period so it's it's going to be a shift in when that generation is available I think we'll have to put that into our our modeling there's there's also um some diversification of resource where that could benefit um in other words not being so tied to hydro in the long term so I think that's a piece of it I think all those things have to be looked at together and my question is about climate change so when I look at the noteworthy and the quarter and some of the really big things that have happened they're due to climate change so the low the 80% water year a storm and I know like we can we can talk about budgeting and kind of different rates of infy but but like how we

3:05:22 change plan um we can't know if there's going to be another ice storm or a really hot um event over the summer but like we do know that these things were happening more often so how do we plan for it so that we're not always kind of playing catchup happens well I think um you know one of the things that um we have to look at when we think about our strategic plan is the role of resiliency and what we're going to be resilient to um and how do we roll that into the decisions that we're looking at whether that's um the resources that we pick on the generation side how do we allocate and how much effort do we put in on the water side to things like

3:06:07 conservation of water which um relative to some drier parts of the country we really don't tap into that resource very much at least at least now what's financial resiliency look like um all those in the context of what you're saying um climate change is a variable um and it it it's becoming more volatile um we we I know historically we've looked at um climate change as our impact on the climate not as much our climate's impact on us um you know I think rod and I were talking the other day on on um wildfire mitigation really diving into what are we doing to make ourselves more resilient to those kinds

3:06:54 of impacts as well so I think it's something we're going to have to be very intentional about and how we do our designs how we select our resources how we do our forecasting um and probably an area that we've we've maybe underestimated a little bit I mean there's all kinds of resil I say that all kinds of volatility that's one of of I don't know how many fingers I have but there's than R you going to jump in I think there's a natural Hazard mitigation uh plan conversation coming up and I can't remember if we're doing a correspondence or we do need to put it in front of the board but there's components to that where that comes out that's how to respond in some ways but

3:07:40 it's it's there including thinking ahead how to build resilience is I mean that's the Strategic plan piece that that we're grabing our capital from financial piece of there's a cost absolutely there is a cost to it and we this this comes back to really something that I I kind of feel like we in the Strategic plan that we started in 2018 one of the very first parts of that we we talked about customer confidence and building customer confidence through our financial management controlling rates executing things well um kind of felt like we were making really good progress on that that's a prerequisite

3:08:27 to doing a lot of the other things we want to do and we're going to have to be really diligent about making choices between and around liability resiliency and cost those are those are all things that that are going to tug and push on each other as we um decide what we're going to do the the thing that um I think we really have to take a look at here is what we do drives our money it and it drives our Workforce um it's not the other way around we're not an employment agency and we're not a bank so we have to really take a look and I'm going to say

3:09:13 kind of press the reset button a little bit on what are we going to prioritize over the next few years in particular as we deal with this volatility we can't do everything and that's that's the thing that we're going to have to work with Management on we're going have to work with the board on we're going to have to be selective otherwise we are just going to be throwing money at it and that's know our customers aren't going to appreciate if we're not doing that wisely and intentionally joh yeah um couple things stuck out to me um I on the easy one first because it it makes sense um on the grant side you know I

3:09:59 think it's what you said was was spot on you don't want to chase grants to just get money make sure that the grants forward are strategic goals because if you're just going out there oh there's a grant for $200,000 and but it's that focused sure that that's going good and it sounded like that's when you were the one the other one that that is really complicated but I also think it's really important is the compliance one and the and the interaction between compliance that we have control over and compliance that we don't have control over so there's compliance that you know people just are just throwing things at us and

3:10:45 saying you've got to do this but then there's other ones that we're not in compliance and that may be because we don't have the bodies to fill out all the forms and do what it takes to be be in compliance and in in those cases that's time and that's money right because if we're not in compliance okay that pushes out a project a year and we see what a year does to the costs so the ones that we you know that are thrown at us and just said you've got to jump through this hoop okay we got to jump through that hoop but making sure that we have the people that know one where the hoop is and and how high we have to jump to

3:11:31 get in there is something that I'm hoping will make that needle go a little bit further because the the ones that just get thrown at us tough the ones that we have direct control over that really adjust the timing of these projects that are the ones that can be really expensive to be and I I hope that that's something that we're looking at oh yes I I think that so even the tough ones as far as I know all the easy jobs are gone commissioner uh we that doesn't it doesn't get us off the hook I think what we realize and um in this in the context of the workforce we have to recognize that having assets managing those assets and

3:12:17 executing projects is not just an issue of doing a design and putting in a piece of equipment there there are regul the regulatory environment that we operate under today is much different and it and it's changed significantly in the last five to 10 years so we have to have the right mix of there's some people that love compliance work not me but it's there's there's people and and Rod and I were talking about this earlier we have to adjust the mix of the re of the workforce resources that we have that have the right combination of people who love to execute projects people love to design things and also people who love to operate and manage the administration

3:13:03 and the overhead associated with the regulatory work now we we there will be regulatory things that are thrown at us some we expect some of them we don't um but we do need to execute and be compliant it's part of our obligation as an organization and um we'll have to adjust our resources so we I think um agree with that and we have to take that head on um yeah and the last thing goes to what commissioner Brown said and that's the you know setting that bar on the water right and and knowing that that has an impact on rids right if we say we're going to 80 going to 80% in our long-term financial

3:13:49 plan that means we've got to build rates to be able to substantiate that um and so I look forward to that conversation when the long-term financial plan comes because I'm sure that'll be one of the one of the key the dials that we can turn and and looking at that and and being able to figure out something that would be helpful for me when that comes up is what exactly that rate impact is if we were to go from 90% % to 85% to 80% what actually would that do to a to our rate payers and how much percentage that would have giving you that heads up going forward so that we don't have to ask that at that point and come back would be helpful I I agree commissioner I think

3:14:34 there's certain sensitivities that we need to be able to to show um that's one example right the sensitivities around what work we decide to do and what work we decide to do is another one um the the thing about reserves and and money is that we constantly have to come back to the fact that when we have on the electric side what was $131 Million that's not our money it came from our customers and we we are managing that and using that to mitigate risk um but it's not an empty Supply and we have to be really cous about that

3:15:20 I just want to take coup one minute to make a couple of comments um one when we get stressed I think as you were pointing out at the beginning like there's an opportunity it really kind of shows us what we care about I think I think that's Valu I also want to acknowledge there is just like a palpable weight in the room um I know staff are carrying this all of you packing around this weight of frustration from this Challenge and so I want to acknowledge the work you're doing carrying that and also the work you're doing to keep everything going in the way it needs to go um and I just want to call out that this um and not just in the room but I suspect staff online too are in the same spot um this

3:16:07 organization really does a ton of work to manage risk really carefully and um I know it's a tight squeeze right now especially with the last quarter and probably last couple of quarters but also having been on this board for a few years now this is not the normal circumstance right there's kind of a convergence of really challenging dynamics that are kind of pressing right now but I don't think that's probably forever um anyway I just I have a tremendous faith in this team and also appreciation for the work that you all do to keep the ship upright and and you know moving in the right direction so thank you for the work thank you for the burden I know you're all carrying and um I know it gets better not too far down the road I just

3:16:54 make one comment about that sure I I do think that there's while we see the the risk challenge that we have to mitigate and some of that's Financial um we also are driving the organization pretty hard just from a things that we're doing perspective you think about the EES project we have there's going to be 70 people working on that over many hours including extra time and overtime to to see overtime weekends what whatever um and we pushing an organization pretty hard in some ways we have to take a look at um where the relief points are and we

3:17:40 you know we Tak about continuous improvement from an operational perspective we have to do the same thing to eliminate waste and develop priorities around our decision methodology and what things we may or may not choose to put off a little bit we may have to work with the board on some of those I'm just G giving a little up on that yeah my observation is this board sees that and is prepared to make you know adjustments to make sure that we're not burning people thank you yeah other questions comments on this topic not we'll go over to the next item which is the process for the next GM performance

3:18:37 should um this uh is just our conversation it looks like at least the way it's queued up right now right so this is um for us to discuss um I actually Wonder I'm looking at the time and wondering if we're prepared to have this conversation or if we should that's till the next meeting I think we is that are you does that cause you conation if we wait another month to provide some additional feedback I don't care if you ever talk about it no it does it does I think we were trying to do it if things were fresh in your mind I felt the process was helpful for me if that's valuable to you but we there's nothing magical about doing it yeah I propose we bring this back next month then if that's okay everybody

3:19:22 heads all right we'll do that um then the going on to the future board agendas just a couple comments um in the the GM report uh the Commissioners were given some information around the the planned agenda for the river trip also for the the sort of format and agenda and process for the up River board meeting I will say that doing both of those in the same year and the same month is a pretty heavy load on staff um and we want to take a look at maybe alternating some of those going forward doing one one year doing one the next year unless there's some pressing topic um but um that those were included in the the GM that's the proposals for that to do

3:20:10 the up reparatory thing hey some Services we offer storms are coming inant we got Mo we to resp that this this there were a couple reasons we at the spring there were a lot of updates around um our up River operations that we felt giving them heads up going into the summer and the construction and things that might impact them or directly going part of that that was a big reason we moved into the spring given the fact that we now have the ability to dial into to board meetings

3:20:56 and have people testify um I would propose that we look unless there's a pressing topic we look at an everyone but that's something that for the board um I appreciate all the time and planning that going anyway I just think well um talk to Jan and Adam facilitator

3:21:45 around how flexible we what priority topics are talks about Frank's proposal of doing that River meeting every maybe guarantee range on 30 on so it sounds like keeping the up meeting but maybe every other year on not Al wonder if we start thinking about

3:22:37 right mix so do you remember a few minutes ago I was talking about the things we're not going to do having discussion I was not proposing an additional one I was thinking if we do every other year maybe one of those every other year is a coast Fork we're thinking about water that we're taking it up and I'm also you know we have the upw meeting for a thousand customers we have 90,000 customers down here we're doing all these special formats to engage those customers but not doing anything down here I don't know it really feels really lopsided and I understand they're not represented so we're trying to you know reach out to them in a different way to help and there's a lot of projects up there that affect them in ways so I appreciate that but I

3:23:22 also have some conation because we do have the ability to log in they can write to us take can email to us we could do smaller things where we go up and have like coffee meetings like we could do something that's less of a burden on staff it's not a full 20 person staff involvement that's typically we go up River and we have all of the people in this room seems like overk I used to Coffee meetings for state representative and you know you set up at times like an hour go up there we just chat and they ask questions and you talk to them about the things they care about and you give like a five to 10 minute thing and it's

3:24:07 a discussion time so maybe they wouldn't necessarily agree but um I don't know I just thought that would really effective way to get to well what I hearing is there's there some different ideas and some different perspectives and we a little bit more intentional conversation around it yeah I appreciate this SL work personally to ruce

3:24:57 thatly understand and appreciate the fact that we have an entire history of presence in an impact Valley and in the water shed as well so it's not it's not to diminish that at all it's to recognize that meeting people at the places where they are might look a little different depending on how yeah I've had several calls from people construction downtown um and I know most of that's

3:25:43 not us the City of Eugene and while this this and that you know we had last week was six or seventh street was closed down with the UF trucks 4 in the afternoon um and it backed it all the way up to Chambers to get it through just want to just want to bring it up you know that there's a lot of construction I mean you can't plan your grp downtown that any consistency so just know that there is frustration out there in the in the community and although it's not um All About Us part of it is us and

3:26:29 it's and I understand it's because you do them in conjunction with the with the street stuff but just know that there's as far as people are seeing John Brown says our guys do the best job of toning It Off and making sure it's all done right and there's an eweb truck there and so people see it and know that there's a problem conception out there that part of this problem down I don't know if there's anything we can do about it I just wanted to bring it up because I've had several calls on on that saying Street's closed and not we truck so I just want to bring it up we have an ebike program bike month around really I I

3:27:19 don't I really appreciate our role in that make sure you alluded to this for the record though that the road construction before roads are repaved and rebuilt we go and do all the work underneath to make sure that we don't have to dig into that really for the next five or 10 years and so the work that we're doing often maybe not all of it but often is driven by the city's plan for repaving and reconstructing roads so we're being driven in large part by those road projects um and and they go to Communications I mean you know there was something today Jennifer Willer had to had to stand up and say yeah we're sorry we're trying

3:28:04 our best um but maybe we communicate joke aside sorry about that um sure that the right people are we and we make sure that there that topic if there's the capability to not start projects like get brush hour because I've seen that along some of those major materials like this have to go right now from

3:28:50 I just like to comment I think sta conru Cru have been done aary job I've lived in leave that thing to last 18 months and to me is the most challenging we left in our parking half hour hour to time not and been a disaster it keeps telling us the city does well trucks is Supply we don't have concrete so we point block it off see us will the it's a and it's been a disaster yeah we're getting some

3:29:49 4:00 so you watch it and it is it is no fun but it's six months take feedback seriously and we'll make sure the right people we you no that's why I just literally