EWEB Board of Commissioners — February 4, 2025

0:01 president of eweb board I'm going to bring the May February 4th meeting to order um first off I'm going to do a little bit of a facility and safety awareness for staff and our public guests um thank you for attending tonight's meeting ewb manager management and subject matter experts are present in the room and virtually the meeting is being live streamed and recorded please Le speak loudly and clearly so everyone can hear you public testimony is welcome there's sign up forms available at the back of the room visitor access is limited to the board meeting and the restrooms restrooms are located on the first floor through the door in the

0:47 event of an emergency such as a fire or security instance follow all instructions given by staff and if if an evacuation is required please calmly proceed to the nearest safe exit and go to the place that the staff directs you to so with that we'll start with our first agenda item which is the agenda check does any of the Commissioners want to change or amend the agenda seeing none we'll move on to items from board members and general manager Mr Carlson just wanted to let all of you know that elog is currently

1:32 accepting they extended the due date until February 10th uh for applications for their Awards uh ceremony that happen the annual elog um dinner and that's coming up on March 7th but the nominations for uh elected official Public Employee um businesses nonprofit citizens residents more what their the website says um is that it's open until next Monday so I just wanted to let you know about that if there's somebody you'd like to recognize I think they deserve a little of attention and recognition please submit the form by next Monday okay other Commissioners Mr

2:22 Brown yeah three things thank you um number one I'd like to commend staff and uh everybody associated with College Hill in that process uh so far so good I mean I'm really impressed with the fact that we've gone in there and done all that demolition that excavation and so far even though it's not my word my phone hasn't rang and I did great job you guys are doing a wonderful job and thanks for makinging coffee to coffee with Laura and a couple other things um just thinking out loud for you know Logistics we're going to be taking on the wam Watershed here pretty soon about restoring and everything and and I would thinking if if others want to think about it as a tour to see that entire Watershed r River Coast pork um crestwell sewage treatment all the dairies everything that's going to affect our water up there and there's only one way to do it if we don't want

3:08 to spend a week doing it and that's by air and I think just look in the logistics of of the cost and and whether or not we could do it but it would I think it would give you a good perspective to see exactly just how expensive that Watershed is the proximity of the coast port to short mountain and the lee8 and all these things that are going to be we're going to be aware of and we're going to have to treat to keep our water quality the way it is so just planting that seed and and lastly um the fire service fee I know the council is going to make a decision here shortly and whether or not they refer it to the voters or not they're they're still going to try and put it on the eweb bill and I for one don't want to have to make a decision to do that on short notice because they have a budget that they have to get past and you know for us to put a non-web related cost a general fund cost on an

3:54 eweb Bill and subject people being shut off for not paying their bill because they it to me is you're going to have to have a discussion with me to get me to say that's okay to do because once that starts it's forever and uh and it's at the discretion of the city manager and they can raise that however they want and uh I'm at the at the I just want to keep utilities utilities and not start putting other charges on E bills so I I think that it would be behoove us to have that conversation because it's coming and we don't even have it on the agenda and doesn't the budget John the budget has to be done by July and so um look at look at the time we don't have and maybe we schedule one of our work sessions or something for because if others if two other head nods

4:40 want to do that I think we we should have that discussion and tell the council what where we're leaning on whether or not um we're going to be their collection agency other Commissioners commissioner Morris uh thank you commissioner I want to Echo um The College Hill uh work has incredible I think the community has stayed informed I went to a neighborhood association meeting and there were very few questions about it which I think is an incredible uh outcome so um great job Kudos um I also uh um wanted to mention last month I had the opportunity to go to the Hayden Bridge Water Filtration plant which was incredible staff was so unbelievably knowledgeable and it was it was really great and they mentioned that

5:25 they do tours of that facility as well I I didn't quite catch exact when but for anyone who's listening um or anyone who's interested I strongly recommend I think it's it's very easy to forget that when you turn on the tap water the water comes out clean and and how much of intentional process is behind that and and just so much work so um great job up at the staff uh over there and then finally and this is a repeat um conversation I continue to have with members of the public but uh there are few people who accidentally leave their sprinklers on or leave you know generators running and then they get a phone call from EB saying hey your your usage is a little high this month what's going on and I that's just such a great Outreach and pro um proactive approach

6:12 to our engagement as a public utility I think it's just incredible it's I I hear often of the many many positives and uh negatives about eweb but that one just continues to come up of of what a great idea what a great process so um again thank you to to staff for for that and whoever made that suggestion in in the work room um I hope that they're sleeping very very well at night uh because the community appreciates them so check thank you all right uh I don't have anything for at this time uh general manager yes good evening Commissioners um um I just have one thing I wanted to mention I didn't have the opportunity and want to to appreciate uh

6:57 commissioner Carlson for her invitation to meet with um herself and other members of the community to talk about the bring rethink program um it does fit quite nicely with a lot of the things that eweb is doing around Energy Efficiency and appreciate the opportunity to to brainstorm with her and the mayor and other agencies um around what we can do to help the community um through that program and and through the other things that we do and there's there's more to come there but want to appreciate you you for the invitation and uh we'll continue to work through our customer solutions group to uh figure out how our products and services can be adapted to just be that much more effective so thank you

7:47 commissioner nobody else from second round okay well just have a process question I kind of threw it out there see if I if two other people on the board want to discuss the fire service fee and whether or not it's going to be put on the web bill um in in the next month or two because it's we don't have much room on any calendars or any schedules and if we're going to do that I'd just like to know yes or no um well okay I'll let uh I was just gonna say that um if Commissioners wanted to uh inject that into the any of the meetings coming up um we saved you know half hour 45 minutes within those as we balanced out um the board agenda report and calendar for the rest of the year we could facilitate it really at

8:33 any time um based on staff Readiness and then commissioner uh Readiness um we don't know all the details of what their request would look like um the um instructions that I had from this board were that um there was some interest if the overall was benefit was a benefit to the community because it was more efficient um but that uh it was certainly from my perspective because of its profile and impact long term it was a board decision so um um I will double check U with with um city manager maderi as well as staff to see if we know more details I suspect um within the next

9:18 month or so we we would be able to prepare for that discussion yeah I would just want to weigh in on this so I think next the February 10th so that's the next week Wednesday uh council's set to take a vote on whether or not to lean that way or or not lean that way um I think it would behoove us to wait till at least that that vote happens and then we could have a preliminary in my view a preliminary conversation about it but until all the details are worked out I mean there's going to be from what was PR presented to us in our liaison meetings there was going to be some sort of uh low income uh assistance that

10:03 would be tagged to those fees and stuff so I think that yes I really think a robust uh conversation on this is happening but I think it's a little early until we decide they decide whether not we're gonna have it or commissioner slosberg later on tonight we're going to talk about some of our goals that we want to work on in terms of our work with the city and I think that this would would be a great goal to add then and to talk about not just this fire fee but just in general the city like the storm water fees and how that affects our customers um with their bills so I think that it's a great idea and that we we can address

10:54 it Prof Carlson and I I would like to have the conversation if it thinks like if if it seems like the thing has legs and it's going to be moving forward forward I mean obviously then I want to discuss it but I don't I don't think that it I think it's premature to do anything unless we actually have the details if we have um and I think we can we can put something on the agenda um vice president and president can put something on the agenda pretty quickly or we could pull together a work session if it became something that we needed to so I'm I'm supportive if it's something that looks like it's going to move right yeah thank you I was just for a the context I I do believe that that the city is aware um that while we are obligated U through city code to act as the collection agent for storm water

11:41 fees and Wastewater fees this is purely voluntary uh on the the part of the EB board it is not an obligation through code and so um the decision to do that or not is definitely falls back on the shoulders of this board if they should decide to pursue a city fee um and would ask eweb to be the collection agent for that okay that okay with you yeah just for the record I'm everybody refers to it as a fire fee I did too you know out of the 10 million two million goes to fire go to general fund and so I think it's a misnomer to say it's a fire fee it's a it's a general fund fee and so just

12:28 clarification very good okay with that we'll move on to our next agenda item which is uh public input um there is a public input Preamble up on the on the board um if you haven't signed up there are sign up forms in the back we'll take them until the end of this ghost so I'm going to open up the public comment session uh right now we have three people signed up uh the first is is kgn kgn you'll have three minutes to speak uh and uh you'll hear a beep when your time is

13:28 us okay I'll come back to you if you're still with us uh um you'll be third in in the queue we'll move on to the SE one the second one which is Max licks Max hi Max my name is maxley Rick I'm here to uh complain for myself about the eweb billing the new accounting system you have um prior to the new Bellion you had 11 characters I had a fil in in order to pay my account now I have 12 characters bill in 12 mistakes I can make now instead of just 11 I cannot figure that you have 110 sorry 210 million accounts out there it seems like

14:14 you got some house cleaning to do to make this a little simpler it would be really nice and be old and everything if I can just put in my address and some way sh perform to get to my accounts presently I have apartment buildings and I take over a big units and those end up on my account and I can't find them so I have to do do each one by a guest pay when I go into guest pay it tells me to register as if a I'm a regular person a portal I'm going can't we just make this stuff simple it's all I'm asking make it easier for me to pay my bills thank you thank you next is Isaac

15:00 McCoy sorry I I butchered it and you can correct me fentic okay [Music] um it seems like the time to talk about the fire fee was back in November when miss medy and Neil came and it seems like they gave this presentation like they were trying to sell the plan but I think the topic was the billing I think it would have been helpful to have the billing conversation a little more out in the open then the UB doesn't have any political dog in fight even though I know there are politics at play anyway just a thought uh I was listening to the December conversation about rate design and one of the slides mentioned that um EB really needs engaged con

15:46 consumers uh to reward them for beneficial behavior um it's a little there seems to be some natural um tension in most utilities between benefit Behavior and the bottom line of the utility um Mr Lawson mentioned that inefficient houses subsidize their neighbors in the current rate structure because it shares a higher percentage of the fixed cost and I think as we look forward to rate design it would be good to figure out and modify the rate design so that it empowers consumers to be efficient to engage in solar Weare appropriate um while obviously not threatening the bottom line of of e web um but it seems that that comment Mr

16:34 Lawson made about you know the current rate structure seems to sort of explain the current solar program is sort of disincentivizing consumers and I understand there's lots of complex issues there but I think going forward as we we have Smart Meters for how many years now and I hope time of use pricing can come online sooner batteries are coming um you know we built hundreds of thousands of square feet of really nice access new roofs in the school districts in the last few years and seems like we could leverage things you know on the on the local side I think it dub Tails nicely with what it seems like the board is moving forward with the BPA decision about having a more flexible solution

17:21 and I think if we can empower the community to be engaged it will benefit everybody in the end um I understand efficiency costs the utility at some point but then at some point like during the heat wave we ask for it by turning down your I mean it's all the kind of the same thing right efficiency solar me going on vacation it all kind of shows to the meter kind of similarly it seems like um the analyst some of the analysts have noted that uh there seems to be a pretty big deficit with between the projected load growth in the Northwest and what bpa's capacity and plans to bring things online or I think all the more reason to just create every little bit that we can

18:09 locally um so anyway I hope you would consider a rate design that really empowers consumers to be involved and be engaged well of course keep an eweb uh the but the balance the budget balance right thank you all right we will go back to kgn kgn have you had the opportunity to weigh going kgn can you try hitting star six to unmute we still see you on the

18:58 line are you there can you hear me yeah yes we can hear you know all right okay sorry I didn't all right so um I wanted to talk today about the $5 late fee and the rate increases um when the rate increase was discussed by commissioner Carlson said something to the fact if we need to do something for the people this is going to impact and now we have commissioner Morris on the board too and uh commissioner Morris ran on making eweb fair for everyone I will Champion policies that protect rate payers ensuring fair and just treatment for all eugeni regardless of their financial circumstances that's from your website so I'm glad that you're in there now and

19:44 that you won um now that we got you here it's not fair in several ways and so I'm going to talk about the late fees SLP tax the rate increases have been made up but the am that the people get for cares is the exact same like I know y'all didn't do the full 15% like you talked about but still it's an increase the costs have increased I know for the cares thing like yesterday the website didn't work and the phone didn't work and that was I believe the most that you all have had for that or at least it was a lot more than was expected and there was a

20:29 like it just did not function at all for hours and the $5 late fees I mean they're a poor tax and the way they're rationalizing them is like motivating people to pay their bills on time is absurd like that logic just doesn't stands up trust like there's trust me the threat of shut off shortly followed by eviction and less than a month of payment is sufficient enough that everyone who can pay their bill will pay their bill it's not the $5 La fee it's just attacks on poor people the only people we're getting hit with that are the people who already barely have anything the people who that is something too and it's like it takes too much from the community to

21:14 like as a whole when you think about like 18% of Eugene's population is below the poverty line and for most of us if maybe if we get the Care Act but if we don't then it's like $60 a year for a lot of people or like 45 or you know even less now because the rates gone up the cares didn't go up and or so I know cares is like donations so if you're not going to increase that like get rid of that late fee do something like it's small it's not much but with y'all with all that where the community gives to e web like it should be easy to do Working Class People need every dollar to stay in their Community they can just

21:59 if you just get like that money somewhere else I mean I'm guessing it's like around I don't know like how many rate payers you actually have I know like what Eugene's population is so like but that's $5 per person in poverty that's probably like a $100,000 a year or something coming out from the lower class community and that's not much to but it's a lot to the lower class community and like $60 a year is a lot and then just finally about like the fire fee yeah it should just be hon if it's a general fund fee say that it's a general fund fee than thank you yes thank you kga your your three minutes is up but thank you for testifying yep you're welcome all right

22:45 are there any other people to testify okay with that I will close the public testimony and ask board members if there's any comments or questions Mr Brown yeah I'd like to thank you for coming up um max if you want to give your contact info to St and you maybe have a dialogue with them I know we've got thousands of apartment units here in Eugene and I that's the first I've heard of an issue but maybe they can talk to you and see they can work something out Isaac thank you very much I appreciate public testimony but I really appreciate it when it's informed and you you've done some homework thank you very much at time of use and things like that and and uh I really appreciate that and keep it up we appreciate input like that so thank

23:30 you very much other Commissioners commissioner stord thank you everyone who came to testify um tonight and I just have a question Frank if we um I know occasionally we get reports on um our lowincome Assistance programs and kind of the statistics behind it and I'm just I don't know if that's like something that's scheduled regularly or um if not if we could just get some more information because it would be really helpful to know um kind of the state of that and how I'm curious how many people do end up getting their power shut off um just some statistics around that would maybe help us understand more

24:16 thank you Carlson similar topic um I also wanted to find out in the data request side of things if we could get a a sense of how many people actually pay the rate the late fee and if um the customer service staff are empowered to be able to wave those if people proactively reach out and um you know set up payment plans because I know that we have a uh kind of a set monthly payment plan that people can opt into so it makes their bills a lot less um volatile thanks Miss or general manager I'm not a commissioner yet um probably won't be um

25:03 I'm new at this game no I appreciate it we we will provide um statistics and data uh next month as part of our year-end recap um so we'll um normally we would do that in our quarterly reporting next month happens to be the 2024 year end report and so we'll include uh statistics and information on uh limited income support and uh how the program is is working and whatever data we can get associated with that Commissioners um I would also um just note um that the limited income program um was part of the uh goals discussion um that we'll have later um and and in fact recognizing

25:48 that U there is more opportunity to look at that and how we do it um it's something we've been thinking about how we uh serve that part of our Market that part of our customer base and so that'll be part of our goals discuss discussion later and I'll give you a little bit more background as as far as where and how we wanted to go with that great um I just want to say uh thanks to everybody for for testifying Max thank you for coming out um you know we we just implemented this whole new software and customer portals and the only way that we really can figure out the the bugs to it is by interacting with our customers who are using it you know we can't run through every single scenario when we

26:35 test it and uh this is the best type of uh testing that we can have so hopefully we'll be able to come to some sort of a resolution that can fix it if not I apologize for it but it's the time we live in and you know every time I have to change my password and add 17 more characters I curse it just like like you did so know that we we are listening to you and we'll do our best to see if we can accommodate it but that's one of the little niches it's like oh somebody who's got you know 75 door fronts that are all on different accounts is a scenario that we may not have run the run through and getting input like that is very valuable so thank you for coming out anybody

27:21 else okay then we next item is moving on to course respondence yes Commissioners uh there were four items of Correspondence in the uh public board packet U presented um that came out last week um the first one I'll really talk about later uh when we're talking about the the timing and the framing of the Bonville decision and the product options that we have uh relative to that this was just a piece of information relative to the timing of that decision and the the uh interaction with the board the bylaws review is is a requirement that we have to go through

28:07 um on an on an annual basis or periodic basis there's really only one minor update unless Commissioners had something more that they wanted to bring forth that was a reference to a particular statute um that has been revised uh since then um third item of Correspondence um is uh just reference back to the resiliency policy that the board passed and um the process of which we are uh implementing some of those items there are four different uh portions to the resiliency policy one or two of those are actually included in the 2025 uh annual goals that that we discussed last month um but the uh

28:53 material that was presented in correspondence highlighted a few of the other projects that were're working on as an organization um everything from um things like College Hill to um emergency water sites to other sorts of infrastructure uh and then the last one uh which is maybe in some cases the most dynamic is uh Jason huser's uh legislative update uh this time of year uh typically thousands of potential bills introduced in Salem um of which we are a monitor ing which ones will be shaken out which ones have the potential to impact us uh in what ways and which ones we should uh simply be monitoring

29:39 versus supporting or opposing um that is um at the direction of the board which originally starts in December with your legislative agenda items so those were the items we do have staff available if you have any questions some of these topics that will be covered later in our agenda items but uh we'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have much as I love acronyms what crap stand for that's a good hey Jason we have Ada another darn acronym um yeah uh Frank uh I got it right here it's the community renewable energy program thank you it's it's a also a resiliency

30:25 program thank you so R could have two meanings in that case other questions or comments commissioner Carlson on the State Legislative agenda obviously there's a number of bills that are on there and it's hard to say which way some of these will go but I noticed that there were many of them were just kind of a watch and wait and see and I just wondered if um kind of two things one if we would get like an update of some of those do get traction and if um it warrants more of our input or support or lack thereof and then if we're going to do a um I know there's some discussion about doing a kind of day at the capital sort of thing I just

31:10 wondered if these raised to the the level of what we need to do if a lot of them were watching then um so my two thoughts thanks yeah I think we have regular updates planned um in particular if something were to change um outside of just the General in particular the general Direct direction that the board's provided I do believe the legislative um trip was is is or was originally scheduled for mid-march at some point um where you'll get an opportunity to um to work with Jason on particular items some of these are are watched simply because um there may be an indirect interest that we have some of them might apply to investor own utilities and not consumer own utilities

31:56 so there's um whether those make it through committee and actually get get discussed that's in some reasons why we we have a just a monitor on those thank you um I put myself in the queue Jason I uh I heard tell of a a bill that is being sponsored by com representative fragula and it has to do with the McKenzie river trust and something about being able to put lands into trust with without uh without so much of the uh red tape and stuff like that is that something that you're following and we should weigh in on it seems like it's in our

32:41 wheelhouse uh yes commissioner uh you are correct um the MacKenzie River trust has brought that bill forward uh the bill actually was heard in committee yesterday and we did have a letter of support uh from eweb uh for that that measure um essentially uh there's been a couple CP of transactions conservation um Parcels that uh did not have legally determined lot lines and it's a a very honorous process to get that corrected um it can create a potential liability for sellers that um often can frankly jeopardize a transaction um so the the bill is incredibly narrow in uh Surgical and only applies to land acquired for

33:26 conservation purposes by a public benefit corporation which is essentially like a 501c3 so MRT easily fits in that definition uh it creates a um uh basically a way to indemnify uh the seller um from any consequences uh that could result from the transaction uh and it also requires that the deed records that it's for conservation purposes so uh I don't probably shouldn't try to make any more complicated than that at the end of the to day it's really going to help um these these very narrow scope transactions for conservation purposes and uh could help uh protect uh transactions from going sideways could help us avoid potentially losing uh

34:12 grant funding that's been awarded um when a transaction is delayed so great bill um we may want to find out if uh eweb could Avail ourselves to it in the future uh we we'll see how it goes uh getting this bill passed for MRT and we are supporting it okay yeah that was something that that was brought up it it it added almost a year and a half to the the courts Creek restoration because of the the legal things that they had to go through to acquire the property which is a willing seller and a willing buyer but the the uh land use laws made it hard so anything we can do to help shepher that one forward I think would be appropriate anybody else on

34:57 correspondent yes commissioner Carson so I had one other question on the um the bylaw review uh is there a state uh definition for attendance uh coming out of covid because it doesn't Define that attendance could be online and in person and I'm not sure if we need to codify that or if that's kind of already generally accepted in um in other statutes that was one thing I noticed I'll take a review take a look at that commissioner Carlson relative to whether that has to be specifically stated in the bylaws there there are um there have been interpretations since covid that attendance can be virtual or in person there are rules around

35:44 providing access to individuals uh relative to testimony and their attendance um but whether that has to be included in the bylaws we'll double check on that okay all right thank you for everybody Jason you can watch the rest of this exciting meeting or you can move on all right next is the uh approval of consent calendar a move to adopt consent counter a moved and by commissioner Brown second ADV by commissioner slosberg all in favor or discussion I all in favor I

36:29 unanimous item six is approval of consent calendar B move to adopt consent calendar B moved by commissioner Brown seconded by commissioner slosberg any discussion Rich Carlson I just have one question about the um the difference in the project scope I know or not scope but the um cost I know when we did the two up on um on 40th and Patterson um just looking at the data it was you know a lower cost I know if most of that was due to um kind of different design or if it was um more because it's just the cost of everything

37:14 now is so much higher and I just wondered if somebody could speak to that a little bit I'd be happy to defer to the project engineer on that specifically it it it didn't seem that much different but you can come up here I don't need to can everyone hear me uh come on up record press the green button or the right button there you go great question thank you so we um the scope is a little bit different just because of the transmission piping to get the water into the tanks uh Lincoln Street is pretty narrow in that section um and the piping is very deep so because of that it's about 30t deep at the top of the hill so we have uh went through an evaluation in decided to use a tunneling technique so it'll bore

38:00 under the road um just because it's safer uh that did add about 4 million well it didn't add but it that cost about $4 million compared to the open trench at Patterson which was I think around two and a half million and then the rest is just due to inflation and bidding climate thank you very much Mr Brown I'd just like to com compliment you on the bidding process to see how close the bids were you know within 10% and you know 25 doll contract is big and I'm glad to see we The Local Company got it and everything else so again kudos to do that and as long as you continue good good work you did a great job on Patterson and so far I think you're diding a great job on College Hill thank you thank you I appreciate that yeah I just want to also comment on

38:45 the fact that these are major infrastructure projects that we've been tackling over the last few years and it's it by no means goes past our our view that we're approving a contract for $25 million we we look into that and realize that that's a lot of our rate payers money and we take it very seriously but we also know that it's vital to the to the community for generations to come and we're doing our best to sharpen our pencil wherever we can so thank you anybody else Miss general manager president president barowski thank you um I just wanted to point out from a process perspective

39:30 just just so Commissioners know why this was left in um consent calendar B typically something at this level we would pull out and do separately on its own um however since it was the only item in consent calendar B this month uh we figured that it was an opportunity to just highlight it and call it out uh under under that particular structure but in the future if things get to a point or something significant from a community perspective or from a dollars perspective uh we'll probably have a separate um line item with within the consent calendar allocated time but we'll pull that out as a as a separate item but I just wanted to make a note

40:15 that's why it was it was left in consent calendar b as it was the only thing but uh there'll be some procedural changes um to note going forward thank you all right so we've had a motion in a second any other discussion all in favor say I unanimous all right thank you moving on to item Eight Annual goals amendments and additions general manager lawon

41:01 president barovsky Commissioners good evening I I did want to make a note just I I know that that Laura's in the back and you complimented her on the project management aspect of that the projects that she's been working on I also wanted to just compliment and um recognize our Communications staff um that has also done a tremendous amount of Outreach um on that particular project and the project before um I get weekly I think it's weekly updates just as a member of the general public um as well as I get other updates um um being an internal employee but I wanted to complement all the different types of Outreach that they've done on this project and and facilitated the answering of many questions so that so

41:47 that you don't have to when you uh go to a meeting so appreciate that thank you to them I did want to uh talk about for the record audio record this is Frank Lawson general manager I wanted to talk a little bit about uh some revisions and additions to the annual goals um just uh to recall we talked about some of the themes that we were looking at for 2025 in December of last year um in January last month we um presented um uh the results of the conversation with the board um around seven um organizational goals for 2025 um you approved those goals um but also uh directed myself to look into one

42:33 additional goal relative to the uh opportunities that we might see for Energy Efficiency projects in the um rental stock in in Eugene um in reviewing um the goals um as they existed uh we wanted to propose this evening for your consideration a revision to uh one of the goals relative to our limited income programs when we originally presented this last month we we talked about specifically uh looking at the impact and the reach of the eweb customer care program and I think if you recall I said that the customer care program is a is a pretty blunt instrument in how we use it it's basically uh we um help certain

43:21 customers meeting an income qualification it's it's the same amount um there's some review that we could do on how we improve that program but working with staff we didn't want to limit our discussions to just the eweb um customer care program we wanted to look at this holistically across the other limited income programs which include we have special incentives for Energy Efficiency and conservation that are also based on on income and so our proposal this evening would be to revise this to be uh more holistic and more inclusive to our our total limited income programs not just eweb customer care and then in the same uh type of

44:09 concept we didn't want to look just at prepay where we would look at opportunities for people to wave deposits uh pay as you go you know it's easier to pay $20 at a time if that's what you have uh we wanted to actually look at this as payment programs generically prepay of which could be one of the options that we create so our our proposal would be to modify the language around our limited income programs to be U more inclusive than just looking at two programs as they exist today the other uh goal which is um a new goal it'll be uh goal number eight um would be to uh look at uh

44:54 understanding the and creating what I would call the jump off point for where we are with Energy Efficiency and conservation programs with our uh rental stock um use the results of our demand side potential assessment study which is occurring right now U we're starting to get some of the results there uh use that to then develop some specific um outcomes that we're looking for with Commissioners um that would drive again a more effective a more impactful program uh specifically to address um targeted Direction with our uh rental stock segment of our community um this this goal um is not a typical goal in

45:40 the sense that it says we're going to go from x% to White percent uh this is more of a process goal it's really to look at the factual information that we have then use that information to develop where we are and understand where we are and where we'd like to go where with the board on that and then develop an action plan to pursue that so um we tried to walk a little bit of a fine line um between the comments last month and then also our history knowing that we have done uh some work with rental stocks historically U but then also using factual information and data to to drive what our next actions are going to be and so this is this is the result of a number of different um word smithing

46:26 exercises to develop a goal that we thought would satisfy your direction and also give us enough Direction internally and so um just just to recap um as we go through the goals and trying to make sure these these align with a number of the different objectives of the organization um sorry this is sideways commissioner Carl said um s you you tilting your head um when we look at sort of the major um initiatives and organizational priorities um many of those are around um optimizing our our energy and I mean the rate design was mentioned earlier I was actually excited to hear somebody who likes rate design as as much as Brian does I think there's

47:13 a lot of opportunities that are going to come out of that also resiliency work and then a recognition that part of our mission is the day in and day out 365 247 delivery of of two essential service to a community that's pretty diverse and so um uh mapping those back the goals back to which of these they support we think is something that we should regularly be doing and with that Commissioners I just open it up for any conversations any discussions Direction and or potential uh approval or modified approval of the goals as presented president barovsky thank you commissioners comments

47:58 commissioner Carlson well thank you since I'm the one that sparked off this the start of this I really appreciate the staff went through the the motion to look at not only um what I wanted to do is improve it but look at what is the current state and that really gets it what um what the motion or what the uh updated organizational goal is I think it it gives us the potential to see where we're currently at so then we can decide where we need to go and and I really appreciate that uh Nuance to what I brought up last time so thank you for addressing that I um would be happy to move to adopt the revisions to 2025 annual organizational goals as directed

48:43 by the board and presented by management SAR a second right discussion commissioner slosberg then Morris um well I know we're going to vote on this in just a minute but I'm very supportive of both of these and I'm also very um appreciative that we are adopting these two organizational goals that really Target our most vulnerable customers both of them do in different ways and um I'm just really happy to see us do that Mr Morris thank you commissioner um I want to Echo the sentiment um that there's an intentionality of supporting those most vulnerable in our community and I see that reflected here and I want to um specifically highlight under goal four

49:29 that change um and I want to emphasize uh how important I think um the line of new potential payment options such as and I think that that opens up eweb to explore more options it's not hampering or limiting and so I I just want to um share share my appreciation of that and um I think that my my perspective last meeting is is reflected right here so I I support this and um I appreciate zap work on this thank you okay I know there's a motion on the floor and we're on discussion but we kind of jumped it pretty quickly so if there's more discussion that you guys want to have we have plenty of time in this agenda item um thank you for bringing this forward I'm I'm happy you uh you heard what we

50:16 said as a board last month I I think we are all in alignment with trying to to achieve goal eight um and goal four all of our goals we're we're to that but being a new goal um on goal eight I'm just wondering you mentioned we're going to do the we're going to have the results of the demand side potential assessment coming in I'm wondering when we think that will happen and then the other thing that I was wondering is is there a timeline for us to develop the a an action plan to to achieve this goal I'm not saying that we have to have it there but just in in the back of your

51:03 mind and the back and the amount of work that staff has you know is this a something we'll be seeing later on in this year is this a year and a half two years before we kind of actually see an action plan on this just just a a guess would be what I was hoping for here a guess well I'll give you more than a guess so but but um you asked two questions one of them the demand s potential assessment is actually on the agenda for the work session in March and so um that will be the basis as to how it applies directly to the Bonville decision um a number of these goals actually are complementary from a a workflow and a staff perspective uh I think when we look at customer programs

51:48 we look at at rate design we look at the Bonville decision um certain segments of of the population that we serve those those are all complimentary um our intent would be to have an initial action plan developed by the end of the year um based on the assessments um that commissioner Carlson referenced um also having some discussions uh with the board around okay once we know where we are where is a reasonable path to go and then we can develop the specific action plans that fall from that so um I would expect that to happen this this year um the goal eight has not been fully implemented into the board Agenda Report yet um we put some placeholders in there

52:35 um but I would need to get with Julie mahe and staff and some others just to uh specifically develop some some more definitive meeting times around that but our our intent would be have an action plan by the end of the year fabulous that's that's very exciting um other questions or comments on this agenda item all right there is a motion on the on the floor by commissioner Carlson seconded by commissioner slosberg any further discussion okay all in favor say I I unanimous thank you thank you Commissioners I can I have to say after last after last month's meeting I wasn't quite quite clear where I was going to take this but I think with staff's help

53:22 we and your guidance we got a a good start on it from thank you from the amount of discussion that was given to you I think you landed it pretty good thank thanks okay next up is break or no oh go BPA go three sorry that's that's used just stay there unless you want to take the break I'd have to ask commissioner Brown's approval to take a break at this point so commissioner um really appreciate the opportunity again to talk to you about um an up upcoming decision that um we have um as a utility that has pretty wide ranging

54:08 and long lasting impacts um on our utility on our staff um and on the community um I wanted to go through roughly with you this evening the the remaining timeline how we're looking at approaching the decision um it was included in the back grounder roughly a description of what staff's role Management's role would be and what the board's role would be also uh we recognize that uh there's an incredible amount of analysis and Reporting and details and contract details uh that go into this decision um and uh at the same time looking to you for guidance and

54:53 Direction um so that we can understand which details to to pursue which data to pursue and what you'd be interested in knowing about this decision in order to make a recommendation and provide guidance so we'll go through roughly the time frame um how we're looking at the recommendation that we will present to the board in June and then um discuss would like to get your feedback on anything that you think we're missing questions that you might foresee coming um and any comments on the process itself so this is um an updated uh schedule um there's a number of

55:38 different board meetings uh that we have scheduled for touch points uh with Commissioners um you'll see mid-march there's the demand site potential assessment um that particular meeting uh will focus on what we see from a Energy Efficiency conservation side relative to using it as a resource to offset load um um we will include some discussion around the breakdown of the segments but that is really a discussion around what we see as the potential and the cost of that potential um to offset other types of resources that we would uh need to acquire or uh procure from Bonville or others um we'll also um provide uh the

56:25 model in results uh to the board in May and some additional sort of leanings toward our recommendations of the different product options um if you recall there's there's roughly three or four different product selection options from Bonville and then there are some uh additional um flavors of those uh those options uh that we've we' presented in the past um probably the sort of the big meeting here here uh will be uh in as a work session in June uh where you will hear Management's um full recommendation uh for the Bonville product option Choice bonnaville re

57:10 really refers to this um as provider their provider of choice contract so this is um how theyve they've referred to it but that will be uh you'll you'll get our recommendation as to where we think the organization should go and then um a few weeks after that in July uh we would U submit um the request for a resolution authorizing the general manager to sign and negotiate such a contract that's consistent with that recommendation or any modifications that you would like to have to that recommendation so there's a there's a combined role in that between staff modeling analysis qualitative feedback

57:56 um and direction from the board the things that we'll be considering as we go through um our recommendation um covers a number of different different areas kind of classified this in three ways U the first is to look at the portfolio economics and so this is uh really looking at the cost the projected cost of the Bondville contract um over a 20-year view um it is also inclusive that we recognize that um we have to supplement that contract with other resources in order to fulfill Our obligation to serve load in the community and so it's there's different flavors of the bonab contract that would

58:41 require us to procure more or less or different types of resources so this is a uh a view of the cost relative to all of those resources not just the bonab bill resource but also any that we would have to procure and also uh the management uh costs of that um when you're you're dealing with a dynamic Market uh the management costs will include we know that throughout the course of days weeks months there are opportunities and times where we have Surplus and where we have deficits and so we're buying and selling and trading energy on wholesale markets uh which is how we manage those um surpluses and deficiencies and those costs need to be recognized and and analyzed if there are

59:26 differences between the product options from Bonville as part of that analysis we're going to look at a number of different sensitivities the the goal in doing that is to make sure we understand from a product selection perspective um what matters you know if we have larger load growth than anticipated or we have uh wholesale prices are stronger or weaker uh we need to understand of all the inputs that go into this model uh what are the sensitivities uh in the outcome and the cost based on if we turn the dials one way or the other with a number of those different sensitivities now we then also recognize those sensitivities don't always work in isolation and so we're going to create

1:00:12 some scenarios where dials would move together an example would be we might see a further constraining of resources across the Pacific Northwest that also might drive wholesale prices higher and so we would want to look what happens to the portfolio costs under that kind of scenario there's probably anywhere from two to five different scenarios uh that we want to test mainly to check the resiliency of a product option choice that we might recommend the other thing that uh we are we are bearing in mind when we and this this is recognized in the business model impacts is um we've had some discussion around sort of the future of what eweb could look like relative to

1:01:00 generation transmission we are completely vertically integrated utility and so we have all of those things um the goal here would be to to check to see if any of the bonab bill choices either further restrict um or leave open Future choices for boards to make relative to um other types of resources and business models and so um that's something that we want to make sure again to check the resiliency of the decision this is going to look at the costs that are spread out across the utility and what's the impact or the future ability to um to manage those in a different way going forward and is any

1:01:45 of the product options either more or less restrictive um relative to to those choices um the kind of the third area that we want to make sure that we're including is uh I'll call this in in this for this discussion a qualitative assessment uh we we recognize that not everything is about the economics we we also recognize that the environmental impacts we have a number of different values as an organization environmental social we also have governance uh the board has expressed interest in the past in local control and having a certain degree of of uh control over our own destiny from a resiliency perspective from a cost and and social perspective U

1:02:32 this is where we want to make sure we're capturing the uh impacts from a non-economic perspective um to ensure that um um we're not creating some unintentional consequences by just looking at at one particular aspect of the decision and so when we ultimately uh come to you in June um we will present a recommendation that is based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative uh assessments and Analysis it will have some data it will have some modeling results it will also have uh some various assessments of certain things that we see in the market uh

1:03:18 certain qualitative things that we think are more or less aligned um and as part of that um if there are issues that come up that might be misaligned or we might see some risk what are the opportunities to mitigate those risks and so uh whenever you think about a TBL a TBL can inform a decision it one of the other values of a triple bottom line assessment or um what a lot of organizations call ESG assessments now which is environmental social governance isn't just to help you with the decision is to help you mitigate some of the impacts of those decisions and so that will be our intent when we resisit this uh when we bring you our final what we hope is our final recommendation um in

1:04:04 June what we'd like to hear from you this evening um is um any thoughts on things that you would like to make sure we're including um in in our assessments things that you would like to learn more or or I won't say less about it but don't know that there's a less option here um but um understand if you're comfortable with with looking at it this way um with the process that we've outlined uh with the fact that at some point likely July um you'll be potentially uh voting on a resolution that authorizes uh the general manager to pursue a contract consistent with your direction and so any comments and

1:04:49 discussion that you would have on that uh we would appreciate Mr sber yeah so I just want to make sure I have this right so between now and when we vote to approve the recommendation we have three three meetings that we're going to be discussing this three and a half probably so I just want to make sure that we have enough time like as as a board to digest all of this because this is probably one of the biggest decisions that we're going to be making as a board um and for those of us who don't live in this world sometimes it just takes a little longer to understand everything so I just want to make sure that um we have enough time and even some flexibility if we needed to add

1:05:35 another work session or something like that to make sure that we have all the information we need to make the decision I know that you're going to be giving us a recommendation so we don't have to build something ourselves but um I it is a it is a really important decision and I just want to make sure that we feel comfortable with the amount of time yes I I certainly think that there can be some flexibility what is not also built into this schedule is any potential direct meetings that you would want to have with staff so where we can uh meet directly with staff in two on ones we figured there would probably be certain times over the next few months where you might want to sit down directly with staff and go through your

1:06:21 your list of of I'll call an interrogation but qu question questions on what's going on or your perspective so that was not built in here what is a solid deadline is that by July we have to inform Bonville what our direction is so that's the fixed point between now and then um and really the past year or so since we've we've been working with the board on this we have quite a few things to package I I'm going to say at this point really finish the analysis and package this up in a way that then becomes meaningful for you and the public by the way it's not just for Commissioners but it's also um for those who are interested from a public perspective

1:07:08 Sonia um outline timeline looks good I appreciate the and and also will'll probably need some additional time to dig in the one thing that I hope to get from this process and that would help me feel good about what we come out at the end is when you know we have we have people that constantly come to us and say our rates are high and they're looking at sub and you know we have two very different models and I know we have two very different um sizes and scale and all that but in the most simplest terms if we could break down well if we went with BPA only what our costs would really look like and how that difference would still kind of be in play because

1:07:54 of our size and what not or maybe we would eliminate a number of those costs just so that when we do vote on whatever comes out of this um decision-making process I feel comfortable knowing that we did what we could for the rate payers to keep the cost down but also make sure that we are able to respond um for our community because I I know that's another one of our um and we call it Community I sometimes think oh I should really call that local just because it flows better but um making sure that we can make the best decision and again that just that difference in model of Allin versus having flexibility and what we

1:08:40 get from that thank you brown yeah I've got more questions and answers and I know what I don't know you guys have given us a drink out of a fire hydrant but doing doing a good job of it but I'm going to need some sidebar things such as um we not we've got AI competing with all this electricity and we've got recently the cor Engineers deciding that it's not efficient to generate electricity with hydropower anymore so the entire well hit drainage basin is gone and here we are relicensing a facility for $190 million up to McKenzie and we've got we've got contracts with Supply that are going to expire during the term of this contract we've got you know some U senica and Walterville and things such as that so I I need to

1:09:25 understand how that's all going to work especially with this wrap this Western regional adequacy thing when we have to supply more than we buy to to kind of help cover these shortages um you know what if these shortages are not what they predict and they're they're greater and so I you know I don't know if it's a one-onone or one two onone if you just tell me to go away but I I've got a lot of lot of questions um so I can understand it better I'm glad you're on the track you're on but I kind of need to wrap my head around it it's pretty all uh pretty dominating black a better term right well it sounds like um commissioner Brown has opened up the hood and wants to look at the engine a little bit at which is there are a number of complexities that interact

1:10:11 with a contract decision and so um to both your comments and commissioner Carlson's comments um I do think it is important for us to recognize um the costs and the impacts beyond the contract itself that's part of the opportunity to look at this from a business model perspective um now that said it it it took decades to to build the kind of business model that we have and a contract decision by itself will not unwind that but there are aspects that could make that more flexible or less flexible or more attainable um and so those are those are the questions

1:10:56 that that we want to understand the impact of um as well as a number of the the regional conditions that that you mentioned um Bonville has certain restrictions with contracts um the Western re resource adequacy program you mentioned is is one that has some operating and planning criteria with it um when when you over or unders shoot there are certain um um situations that happen that that you have to address um and so um there are contract impacts to that um whether we would be under that obligation or Bonville would be under that obligation and so um there are differences there so our our goal is to not just look at this

1:11:44 from a dollars and cents contract perspective but also the impacts and the sort of the tangled web that it creates with uh the rest um of the things that we do and how we do them so um that's why there's three sides to that triangle uh not just running a model and saying this one's the cheapest um and going with that but to understand the impact beyond that Mr Morris questions not up no thank you that yeah um so I've got a couple of comments um first I'll go to the the timing of uh

1:12:29 information to the board I I do think that that's important I do think two on ones are a valuable tool but I also feel that having the full board present is a another valuable tool because a lot of times I don't know the question to ask and somebody who might have been on the board for 20 plus years might have more knowledge about that question and if he's not in my two-on-one I'm not getting that perspective so I think that there's a place for both of those types of things um because the question that somebody else asks will pique a question that I may want to know more about um so keep that in mind when when we're moving forward um one of the things that I would want to hear about is in the

1:13:17 business model impacts you talked about flexibility um I would like to know the relationship between flexibility and cost because flexibility to me I mean the decision that we make is as this board going into this contract is going to have implications on boards coming up for the next 20 years and so to me building in as much flexibility as we can and knowing or at least knowing what the cost of of build building in flexibility for for future boards would be some information that would be helpful for me in making a decision um that was just something that that stood out I you know this is the high level

1:14:03 one we get to dig into the the scenarios and those types of things which will be much more helpful but just going forward that would be something I would really like to be able to give future boards the amount of flexibility that they have uh without having a major impact on cost if that's possible so those are some of my commissioner brsk I would also mention that the um our plan is to look at this not just from a tradeoff perspective relative to flexibility and cost there are a number of things that are attention that we're trying to balance we're trying to balance all of our values safe reliable affordable environmental um but also where and how the risk is born so

1:14:51 who bears that risk and um what kind of risk is it and I'll give you an example we talk a lot about the importance of hydrogenation we're always looking at snow pack for example water years do we budget for what level of water year there's there's a certain risk of production that we have as a generator specifically a hydroelectric generator that's a risk that we have taken on by being a hydroelectric generator if we have bonnaville take on that role there is um there is still risk there is contract risk and there is pricing risk associated with the implementation of a contract and so we have to recognize

1:15:36 that different product options will lead us to have to look at not just cost but different forms of risk and where we feel the most comfortable with that risk falling so um our plan is to do that um our plan is to look at the resiliency of the decision relative to future business models which is also part of it um and try and decipher all the acronyms for for everybody who happens to read anything that we put out so that's the biggest challenge I mean for me it's like we're at a point in time and we can make our best guess right but we've we've been at or not this board but the eweb board's been in that position

1:16:21 before and thought that the price of energy was going to be something and then natural gas prices went down and and the price that we expected didn't didn't occur so that's what when I talk about flexibility it's like not that we could get out of it but it's just knowing that we're looking at a point in time and doing our best to look forward but his crystal ball isn't as clear as it used to be so thank you well and and commissioner Brown's crystal ball aside um I think we have tried to make this point from the very beginning we are choosing between good options um unlike some of the other decisions this board has had to make which is a a choice between bad options

1:17:07 these are actually the the the Bonville Federal resource is an incredibly valuable resource that we have have priority rights to and um it's any product that we choose with bonnaville is a choice between good choices and so um that doesn't take the pressure off necessarily it is probably a two and a half to three billion decision um but it's a choice between good choices great commissioner Carl don't want to be a wet blanket on that comment but I am curious um do we foresee any other risks or changes that might come from the most recent Administration change and are there any

1:17:54 um protections that are in place to keep those good options that that you're aware of is is there any risk there than you crystal ball I I would say whenever you're talking about Federal legislation and um there can be potential risks I do know that historically there have been opportunities there have been administrative changes there's been discussions about privatizing certain C portions of Bonville transmission for example the Northwest delegation has tended to come together in a pretty strong fashion to defend that this is all based in the Northwest power act um so while there is there is some risk um

1:18:40 anytime you're talking about uh things associated with Federal code or support or programs or uh resources um there is some risk um baville is different from the um Power marketing agencies in the sense that they do do not rely on federal Appropriations uh they are rooted in um the rates that we as customers pay to them so they are much different than the other uh uh for example Tennessee Valley Authority and others which rely on on federal Appropriations for their funding um bonnaville is not so there there are pros and cons and and um some of those will matter in a product decision some

1:19:25 will not um like I said there's a choice really between probably some good choices here but they all come with some degree of risk thank you other comments or questions okay good thank you for the presentation thank you for the guidance Commissioners all right we are on agenda item 10 which is a break oh look at who's on our on our screen looks like it's happy birthday commissioner schosberg and I believe that there might be people in the house that would like to say happy birthday happy

1:20:24 birthday we just want to say thank you for attending the board meeting on your birthday and some of your friends thought it would be appropriate to show off constituents absolutely that sounds like they've been demoted I'm not quite sure how that works so at this point we will take a a short break let's come back at 7:20 we're going to take 15

1:35:17 open the board meeting after our wonderful break again happy birthday Mindy uh our next item on the agenda is the eweb City of Eugene joint initiative uh agendas so as you know uh the President and Vice President meet on a regular basis with the heads of the the city usually it's the city manager the mayor and the President and Vice President of their city council um so in your packet there was some ideas of what we might want to present to them uh we were asked to see if there was other things added or

1:36:02 withdrawn um obviously this would lend into commissioner Brown's talk about the proposed uh billing for a a city service fee um but we can talk about anything else at this time Mr Brown so I'm being the Dark Cloud now I've got an energy a Sugar High um I've been talking to some counselors and things there I think there's a concerted effort to give us the maintenance and uh operation to the fire hydrants and it's my understanding they haven't been doing this they have not been maintaining the fire hydrants and their deplorable conditions some of them which causes me alarm for Community awareness but are we if if we're GNA have that discussion can we have that

1:36:47 discussion because I don't I want to know you know not only maintaining them but how about replacing them I mean what is the condition age and condition of all these fire heyers all over the city Eugene are they going to hand us a million dollar obligation to Big it up because they're not doing what we this communities assumed they've been doing so before they hand it off to us I'd like to know what the financial impact not only the capital outlay with the o o and m so um not totally opposed to it because I've got a pretty good perspective from of one of the counselors that used to be the fire chief and he tell tells me about some of the uh friction between the city and eweb on this topic yes so commissioner Brown I I will

1:37:32 just say that um under most Community models the um drinking water utility does manage everything from the source all the way through the the hydrant there's been probably for decades and interest both on eweb side and um the city's side for eweb to take over ownership operations and maintenance of of the hydrants those those go back prior to to my time um before we get into sort of a go noo decision there's a number of things that that were in process of assessing as well as um still need to assess um the the cost associated with capital

1:38:18 replacement certainly on that list the cost to operate those and maintain those going forward is on the list um what you didn't mention which is also on our list is to understand what liabilities we have associated with that today just as a water utility but also um what new obligations and risks and liabilities we would have under um under ownership so um um before we um go back and talk to the city more about details of of any kind of transaction there's a number of pieces of details that we feel like we would owe this board be or we would come before you and say we we have interest

1:39:05 for certain reasons um we um do want to continue to have dialogue between um management of the city and and eweb on on potential options and details should something look like it's favorable um but before we would do any kind of transfer we'd come back to the but the the answer to those questions others Mr C it it's not lost on me that we have a discussion about a rate for fire and a rate for fire hydrant um with the same entity and you know we obviously right now we have a rate mechanism to pay for electricity we have the right mechanism to pay for water If

1:39:51 This Were incorporated into our costs of service what would be our mechanism to pay for it is one of my big questions Mr SL um so we've been having these meetings with the city for five or six years now and um I was the one that kind of got them started I had really grand um Ambitions for it and I don't know what what these joint meetings have gotten us and so I think we should really really think about the purpose of them and um what kind of tangible things we can get from them um something I am thinking about is our

1:40:37 joint billing so whether it's a fire sgen fund fee or something else the fact that when the city does something like raise their storm water rates which they're totally entitled to do but that it really impacts people who are paying for their utilities um I don't I don't know the answers of like how you decouple that but have the same bill still but maybe just talking about those things with them I don't know that maybe they fully understand the impacts of um of rate increases again not that they shouldn't increase their rates but just just with the impacts of them so I think that would be something that's really important something that we keep coming back to every single year is the um Energy Efficiency with rental units and

1:41:22 we just haven't gotten a lot of traction with the city in that area so um even if that's something that comes up I don't know how much we're going to get from it um so anyway I don't have a ton of suggestions other than like really what is the point of this and what how can we do something collaboratively with the city I don't I don't know the answer to that so I'm just kind of putting it out there commissioner Morris thank you commissioner I um uh I in some ways I agree that the meetings with the City of Eugene may be more impactful I think that there is an

1:42:08 energy I think both locally within EB and in the City of Eugene to take further step and I think that we are now um entering a future in which Independence and collaboration is going to be more important than ever and so I agree that I think we should take a look at these coordinated meetings and see if they're being effective um I would be wary of of abandoning or moving away because I think that c coordination and collaboration with the city vene is of highest importance and I see um what I'm seeing from my perspective attending some of the City of Eugene meetings and and watching their public um watching their public meetings especially with the environmental staff is a a real

1:42:54 energy to try to make even just small tangential steps um and so I looking at this at number four um of programs of public interests and potential Partnerships I see you know um weatherization uh assistance for renters and limited income and I think that there's there's a lot of um I hear I hear this phrase a lot and I don't know how much I like it but there's a lot of lwh hanging fruit that exists um but it would require I think both eweb and Eugene to to work on those together and so um I uh yeah I'll stop there check commiss BR yeah I'd like to Echo both your sentiments about the effectiveness and the is time well spent but you know I

1:43:41 push back a little bit too I think as a board we should probably have a discussion because you know that this is Mission creep you know they you may not be aware that the council redefined what storm water could be used for and so now they raised rates so now they can use the money for Parks operations not just Parks maintenance so it's just Mission Creek and they're getting into things that we Bill and is still an ewe bill it's not a city bill it's an ewe Bill and here we go with with the general fund fee and we have what they've already done with storm water and say you know I take a position and that would be my stance is I don't want to get ad to seral I want to work with them but I also want to stay in our own lane and uh you know we got fire hydrants maybe that is Our obligation but it's going to be a financial obligation it's

1:44:27 could be millions of dollars and uh and rates are going up and they're going up without any of this happening and we need to as a board figure out are we going to take a stance and say you know we need to push back a little bit and say this is not where we're going because we've got a lot of big big ticket items coming up as well and so um I I agree with whether or not you know we need to I don't think we need to to stop them I think we need to make you know we need to say we need something to come out of them other than just say we'll see in three months he I put myself in the queue um as somebody who's attended these for the last year um I would say they are productive um a lot of it

1:45:12 is educating our city councilors on the last few of them have been they're asking us questions that are per pertinent to some of the policies that they're enacting and and how eweb interacts with some of those policies whether it be their climate goals or or those types of things um I also think that um with the new leadership that's that's at the city I I think it's very important that we establish or continue this relationship going on I do feel that there's value for it the the last few of them I think it's been more of a US presenting to them what we're doing in the community and what we're doing to help push their a lot of their uh interactive goals the

1:46:00 other thing that has been brought up is the the fact that the relationship between the two staffs is probably in one of the best places that it's been in a long time I keep hearing that over and over from our staff and from the City of Eugene staff saying that the staff is working together in a very collegial way so I think that that's important one thing that I would say that's going to be I mean this is a long list and the meeting isn't this long so I would say we need to pick one or two items that we really want to engage with them on because what will happen is we'll start talking about something and a commissioner will say what about rooftop solar and we have to go into the we we go into and explain

1:46:46 where we're at on some of these things so I would I would hope that you could give us myself and Mindy Direction on the top couple of priorities on here that you'd like us to lean in on and then maybe have staff present a memo that can go to them in advance on these other ones so that if they really want to bring it up they can bring it up but you know the one-on ones it really comes down to one or two topics and I'll I'll let Frank another R yeah thanks um president bar barovsky I would say that even as a information sharing meeting it has been productive uh from the standpoint of of the city understanding generally what

1:47:31 we're doing our priorities um and um and in the same way us theirs and so um there are a number of things that we do already for the city we send them the copy of our quarterly report for example um which is a routine that that at some point in the past was a commissioner showing up at their meetings saying all is good at eweb last quarter or what whatever it was but um we now give them more detail uh we also provide updates relative to our work and their climate action plan um but from a staff perspective there are a few things that we would really appreciate their ongoing support on and these primarily have to do with large infrastructure projects like support for

1:48:17 the W treatment plant as we go through various land use issues and opportunity ities there um the other one is anytime we're dealing with large impactful things um related to things like College Hill for example and so having their support um when we know there's large community impacts those are the things that that we've asked for and the relationships built at this level where they can um ask questions and inquire and understand our position I think is is incred incredibly important so those are a couple items that I would just kind of reiterate um that we need their ongoing support of other than that information sharing has been useful um and um really

1:49:04 just identifying where their priorities are and where where ours are on you so when we when I look at this list outside of the billing agent and the fire hydrant issue you know some of the other items I I I appreciate we need their support but I think when we go into these meetings it would be really helpful to say like this is what support looks like you're voting to support Bond measures you're helping Advocate at you know X meeting just whatever that looks like what that support is so it's as tangible and quick for them to get and understand so that these two when they go into these meetings can can really hit it please ask the rest of the counselors for this type of support um

1:49:51 and I don't know we can flesh that out right here I don't think we have enough time for that but I think that would be really useful is to just flesh out what the most direct ask is as possible and then um on those other two items you know in the past we have had uh Joint City Council eweb meetings we've had joint you know Springfield you know sub eweb meetings I don't know if that's valuable or not but it does seem like there's some issues that we would like to raise in I don't know if that's best with the two leadership directly or if there is some interest in in possibly seeing if there could be a joint meeting around the topic um because it's so involved for both of us um our

1:50:38 organizations thanks Mr SL yeah I want to say I'm not I'm not advocating for stopping these meetings I guess um I think hearing what Frank has to say that those two big issues about the wamit treatment plant um and just in general the the billing structure would be two that I would really support working with the city on um other ones might arise like after we do our study about um uh rental weatherization there might be specific asks there but I agree with Sonia if we don't have a specific ask I think what happens at these meetings is

1:51:24 there's a lot of talk which is important it's relationship building but this is going on five or six years now and I don't know I can't really name one tangible thing in terms of um like rental units weatherization that's come from it and I believe that I also use that term loow hanging fruit because I thought there must be so many things that we could just like really easily do and it's just proven to be more difficult I think part of the issue is City just doesn't have any money so anything that requires any kind of funding um so anyway that's a long way of saying the two things that Frank recommended I think that those would be great starting points to kind of engage with the city on and then if something else comes up we can always bring it back to the

1:52:10 board Mr Morris thank you um and thank you for the clarification I um my my blood pressure rows quickly um so I uh I appreciate the clarification I also want to provide my own clarification of talking about um of uh coordination um goes beyond my from my perspective goes beyond just this fir feed conversation I know that that's the most immediate thing but I think um I think that in in this next uh two four years I think that we're g to um see a lot of uh different and other opportunities to to engage and work with them um and I uh I realize that I'm I I presented a thought without providing an example but um one of those lwh hanging fruits is is I'm thinking back to gosh it feels like 10 years ago now

1:52:57 but uh I think it was last November um City staff had presented um a few uh interesting options of of ways to collaborate or ways to just engage in the community and one of those was like cross communication um information sharing so eweb being able to use the city of Eugene's communication tools and vice versa so that we could share um different programs or different thoughts that's not necessarily what I'm advocating for and obviously the details are incredibly important but that's just one of those not there's not much of a fiscal there's not much of a huge impact there's not much of an investment but there is a huge CommunityWide impact that that can happen there um I think uh I would agree with um if there's a prioritization uh conversation I I I

1:53:43 don't see a lot of action steps I see a lot of conversation that's there and so the billing agent for the City of Eugene and the the land use planning conversation ation are those that um have direct action and direct uh uh Beyond just conversation so um I think that those would would probably be of high interest and I think um just as a note I'm a programs guy so uh programs of public interest would would be my advocacy as well but um I hear what what the conversation is of of direct action versus um conversations leading to more action so thank you check Mr three and five um the public facilities plan I mean that to me it's a it's a no-brainer they're going to

1:54:28 support it and it's going to do the metro plan Amendment and the changes and so that's obviously one that you can go in and put hopefully have a short conversation with and then five I mean that's forever and I go back to the history of silt you know the ordinance says 3% but why are we paying six because it happened and it can't be changed now without a charter vote and I just that's why it to me and it's pressing it's it's right up right up our doorstep it's coming up in July and to have that conversation sooner than later even though they're going to vote on it next week something has to happen and uh those would be my two priorities for you and then four as soon as we have more information because they've got a pretty good database on the rental pool and you know people come to them with security

1:55:13 issues and everything else well weatherization issues I mean it's it's easy if you come to me and say your electric bill is $400 a month in a one-bedroom apartment probably a little bell ringer there they've got those that data and they can help us so I three and five to start with and four in close second okay um well I think I've got a little bit of clarity I think that again touch on three dig deep on five also on on number four I think we could share with them our new goal eight that we just put in what we talked about today and and let them know that that's a priority for our board and any opportunity to work with the the city

1:55:59 would be incourage we would encourage that I think that that would be the direction that I I can see it going Frank yeah just I I just want to make a statement that I I I believe I've heard from from the city manager and who who has talked with me about it well while these meetings are informative um we're also very cautious about making commitments on behalf of staff at these through these conversations and so I think we need to be careful we have eight goals it's going to take a lot to get those eight goals done and I do see some creeping Elegance starting to come in if we're not talking about things that that

1:56:44 support those goals now if they're complimentary or there's ways to work together um staff City staff and and aweb staff work well together and we can we can have those conversations as we outline our action plans um but we also have a lot to do with what we already have laid out on the table just and so I don't I want to be careful that these don't lead to City staff commitments that they're uncomfortable with or commitments that I'm not sure we can fulfill without sacrificing something else and I just want to bring that to the table just for context okay other comments or questions was there anything specific that made you make that last

1:57:32 comment well I just know that um I think when we go into if if someone says we want some some tangible actions to come out of these meetings it it those tend to be we have to do things and commit resources to doing those and and and that's where I get a little uncomfortable cu can't speak on behalf of the city and um I need to be careful in making those commitments because I've already made commitments to this board through the goals so it's it's just an area to be mindful of when we go into those meetings that um um there's there's resource constraints here on both sides yeah so and I'm just I'm just

1:58:18 kind of figuring this out in my head so for example on the on the the pfsp just letting them know that this is a land use decision that will come before the policy makers after it works its way through and it's very important to us that's not committing resources on them it's it's letting their policy makers know that there is going to be a policy that's going to come before them that would be advantageous to the community as whole and the value there is soliciting support right that's that's I think different than implementing a program for example would be would be something that would be separate from that okay just wanted to be clear so that I we we weren't jumping and I wasn't trying to ask you

1:59:03 for support in the meeting I wanted them to know what support could look like so as they go back and talk to other counselors or they go back and talk to staff they have some idea of how they can be potentially beneficial to the projects not that they're committing to it in that moment but if there are potential issues crop up they can let us know about that all right any other discussion on this topic all right thank you um I don't think we've got the meeting set up yet do we I have to look at Holly's shaking her head now okay got some dates so they'll be some coming soon okay we'll look forward to those and we it may be out far enough that if something else comes up we can we can always adjust at that point too and president barovsky I

1:59:49 believe that we have on the agenda for next month to sort of reiterate the priorities back to the board and have you actually approve them right so we we'll work on the wording for that sounds good K right okay next item is future board agendas yeah president barovsky U listening to the the commentary over the last few months this is this has been something we've been wanting to do for a while is to to kind of take a step back and look at the board genda report um there are a number of ways that we've we've looked at this um certainly trying to balance out uh and prioritize meeting time as a piece of it also recognizing

2:00:36 that the the goal the the board provides direction to the organization um through not only annual processes like budgeting processes and that are driven by policy but also through the goals that uh we work work on and and approve at the beginning of the year and so we have um worked with staff to um slot those in in different times and different ways depending on on the goal there's still a few placeholders um that we're looking at for a new goal for example I mentioned that earlier um but we try to take a good look um at what we're doing how we're allocating um your time what we're trying to prioritize

2:01:22 um even some of the recurring items as as much as it might appear like oh that's staff bringing that forward most of those have been at the request of the board um that we want to hear about this on a regular basis and and you I'll give you an example of the state of the Watershed report um we we've heard that that's an important thing for Commissioners and we want to make sure we have the opportunity to talk to you about that and that's at your request and so um um we tried to prioritize the recurring items based on what we thought were your priorities as well so um this is kind of a zerob based view of it and um if you have any additional input and comments we we'd certainly like to

2:02:07 accommodate those and and work with you on them and but that that was our intent just why it looks kind of different from it from what it did last time hopefully a bit cleaner although you didn't you don't see the working copy which has like 18,000 pages of notes associated with it decoder rings and and other things but okay commissioner sler I really appreciate you um pointing out which ones are recurring putting it in red um that might seem really minor and kind of dumb but for again for those of us who don't live this all the time sometimes it's easy to for it's easy to forget like when did we

2:02:52 last talk about that is this the first time we're hearing about it and it can be kind of embarrassing when you're up here to like ask a question that makes it seem like you can't remember that so um sometimes it's just hard to hold all these things together so just reminding us what's recurring is a lot easier to follow that way like oh yeah that's something we heard about three months ago or four months ago it's really helpful other comments the one comment that I have is on the March 18th work session so it starts at 5 and we've got our organizational goal three the energy resource demand study

2:03:37 side and we're given 45 minutes to that I mean if we're coming in for a work session we were just all talking about the fact that these are some deep dive subjects that we really want to dig into I can see the presentation on that being 30 minutes and talk all night if you like and 15 minutes for us so I mean if I'm coming in for a special work session I want this is me personally I want to be able to have a full conversation of that so I don't know if we might and Mindy and I can talk about this when we do the the uh agendas but it seems to me that that's a little short considering that we've got an hour to discuss Frank's uh you know executive session so

2:04:22 I just want to throw that out there because I heard it earlier in the meeting and if we're coming in for a special meeting I want it to be meaningful and have enough back and forth that it takes some of that out than yeah uh commissioner um I I will point out even though Brian could talk for hours about this our intent will be to put a lot more into backgrounders or materials to before the meeting so that most of especially work sessions are about discussion dialogue guidance back and forth between Commissioners and then also some staff involvement that said we we could shorten my review dramatically and put more of that time into the work session I would certainly be in favor of that um

2:05:08 I'm just kidding uh we we can extend the time on that work session recognizing that if you're going to come all the way in for a work session you want to make sure that it's meaningful and lengthy enough to get U the the uh um make it make it a robust discussion so we could we could extend that time if you need to and that's just my my thoughts I didn't know if the rest of the Commissioners wanted to keep it short and sweet but any other discussion I just want to I know we used to have an Unwritten policy about if there's 30 minutes on the agenda staff gets 15 and we get 15 and that gives us each three minutes but that's both dialogue questions the whole thing and so just be make sure that that's Ste the

2:05:59 rule yeah yeah and and I think for me as as being the the board president I would like to see the work sessions be a little bit looser as far as the discussion goes back and forth not be okay you've got three minutes here three minutes there and that's kind of why I was leaning into that because a a free free flow of information is what I'm looking for on these on these Deep dive topics so it might be a little bit Loosey Goosey on a work session so that we can we can get what the information that we need that's what I'm hoping for other comments on future board agendas okay I will work with the vice president and we'll move these forward when the agendas come out um if you have any input you can absolutely uh weigh in

2:06:46 through email all right last thing is board wrapup uh we'll start with commissioner Brown and or on the table I'd like to thank Minny for getting a year older because that was the best cupcake I've had a long time so we'll expect that every month thank you Sonia uh I had just a couple of quick comments hopefully um again uh just thinking about our risk federally um I'd love to hear from staff or from you I know earlier we were talking specifically about BPA but you know given some of the events of the last couple of weeks like do we have any other risk um from a federal government perspective and what that looks like um if you have any thoughts now that's great if not I'll look for that in a you

2:07:33 know future um communication and then um you know especially around we have a Dei policy does that now put us at risk not that I'm willing to get rid of it but also what does that look like and then um if you have a comment I'll let you that if you want to hold and then I have one other comment to make commissioner I I think there's always risk federally um on the the whims of change that can seem like they have occurred for the last 20 years when changes in administration the first thing they do is roll back everything the previous administration did um that said I think we've been really careful about the for example grants and applications for alternative

2:08:18 financing we've been really careful to make sure those line with things that we would be doing anyway and so we look we aren't chasing grant money for example to do lots of R&D type work or speculative work these are things where we can adjust time frames to provide rate relief if possible but not necessarily uh absolutely necessary uh We've we've been careful there um we do have a Dei policy um what what I really appreciate about that policy is very much in the beginning of it it discusses the the fundamental reasons why we want diversity uh in its assistance with our

2:09:04 creating better Solutions and it really focuses on why we're doing this stuff um and if for some reason there is is federal mandates around how you structure that I feel pretty good about where we are with our structure at this point and we do have a Dei update coming up for the board um and so that where we potentially see some risk U and you'll hear more about this when you meet with staff um has to do with uh how we interact with the federal government on things such as FK licenses um and the potential for changes uh in administration and the impact of those those changes there so um we're looking at it pretty holistically and and often

2:09:50 and um more opportunity to talk about that going forward okay great and then um one other thought uh now that we have the new bill system up and running I know we've talked about it in the past that we can't as easily incorporate our bill inserts and some of the other communication directly into the email and I'm curious if that will change now that we have the new system up and running because and I'm only speaking because I have auto pay and don't see it as easily but um you know you you have to log in and then you get to see the other email is are we going to be able to see those U more tied in like somebody who would be getting a bill in the mail would see those Communications or is that still expected to be separate

2:10:35 moving forward I don't know all the details commissioner we can look into it I think what we're U really trying to do there is we we better not be no cat before so um anyway commissioner Carl Carlson um we we launched the new system um we've really are looking at the this year 2025 as the continuous Improvement year I don't know if we're where that is on the list um we can we can get back to you on that specifically um and where we're

2:11:20 prioritizing the improvements and so you might hear about particular cases like you did earlier where that is in the exact CU I'm not not sure but I know we're managing a healthy queue of improvements and that's the reason you go with a standard system um but we can we can follow up with you on that okay thank you just L um on the new bill plate pay system I just have a question when we hear from people who are have comment ments on the bill pay system what do you want us to do with those comments I imagine that there's a lot of fine tuning that's going on we would love to hear the comments so if you want to forward those to me that's great if they have something specific we also have the eweb

2:12:07 answers um um e whatever that I'm looking at Jen back there ansers e web. anwers eweb.org if they have General feedback or something specific um um if they need assistance specifically um your path can be through me and I'll make sure that the right person assists them but it's it's helpful to get any and all kind of feedback we can get um and some of those we may know about already some of them might be more obscure some of them might be uh a whole bunch of people share that some might be really um not very common so we'd love to hear the feedback though okay thank you thank you commissioner um I on the same

2:12:54 vein of that conversation I'm wondering if it's possible to provide uh just a high level overview of what the most common issues or complaints or challenges our community is facing um I know that we've heard um from folks who come in with really Niche issues but I've also in my capacity U have heard just some general challenges of the auto pay transferring over or things just of that nature and so I'm I'm wondering if that's possible just to get some some type of just general understanding high level overview not super detailed but uh but yeah just what what seems to be common challenges I believe we have something on the agenda for March is it or maybe part of the the annual report so um I think maybe we folded it

2:13:41 into the annual report but we can certainly give you some some high level overview okay and I don't have want to say I I did have a customer interaction uh along the Billings and I forwarded through through Frank and staff and it was resolved very well that my constituent was was happy um so thank you for that thank you staff for helping out with that um it means a lot when when I can actually do my job as a commissioner and help keep a constituent and a customer happy when they're not happy um so thank you again for that other than that I don't have anything else Frank anything on the wrap up all right with that we are adjourned