EWEB Board of Commissioners — March 4, 2025

0:03 March 4th Eugene Water and Electric Board board meeting thank you everybody for coming out that um we'll start off with the agenda check does anybody have any additions or corrections to the agenda they like to put forward this time seeing none we'll move on to our second item which is items from board members and general manager we's just start with John Brown and then go around the circle well thank you couple items uh Rec had is it mine or is it yours I'm trying good I'm just speaking like normally all right there we go okay uh had an instance where property real

0:49 close by that somebody had come in and stolen all five heat pumps kicked in all the doors and they cut all the power to the building both inside not and just absolutely ravaged it like 600,000 bucks with damage but cold e web because power was still hot to the building how they did this without turning the power off was beyond me but they were there in 20 minutes and they came out with bucket trucks and turned everything off and uh and I really want to thank thank you for everybody that responded because it was a dangerous dangerous situation with all those hot wires hanging around there and all that and then generally speaking just about customer service I've had several people that have had challenges with the change over and everything and had a friend that was overseas for a month and he his credit card couldn't get redone and everything and so but the way they we solved the problems was

1:35 really creative and I want to thank everybody customer service all the way wherever it goes but good job thank you very much I'll pass those on son thanks I wanted to mention that the elog dinner that's a fundraiser for senior Meals on Wheels is this Friday so hope see some of you there we uh also wanted to give a I also wanted to give a little bit of an update on some of the other elog work you know as um as we deal with different uh changes in federal thought it's been interesting to see the vast majority of the funding that we get for our senior

2:20 and disabled services uh regionally flows through elog and those funds are are very much up in the air right now um to the point that at one of the events that the executive director was attending um they were told that they might Dole out funds based on um birth and marriage rates so anyway those are some of the things that that elog were trying to navigate and stay on top of and so I just wanted to share that I know I don't do too much in the way of reporting back but I think this is a a critical piece of information because it affects many many vulnerable citizens in our community that rely on that those

3:07 fundings and those services that also are customers of ours so I wanted to share that um along those lines I was contacted by a uh constituent who uh had some concerns about the timing of which we apply the late fee apparently industry standards that we apply the late fee 5 days after and it's not a huge um amount it's $5 um and customer service has a lot of leeway in order to um wave that is my understanding but for somebody who's on a very limited budget and you know maybe had an illness or you know for some reason something happened and they're a few days late I just know that that can be a very it can be a very scary thing to come because it's such a vital service so I didn't know if there

3:52 was any interest in reviewing that at the board but I I told the constituent that I would raise the issue and see if there were any other head nods for interest in in talking about it further so I'm ahead nod or two okay so that's something that we can look at um I would greatly appreciate that and then um finally I wanted to well two two last things uh I wanted to thank Anna for attending the um I had a meeting that was uh for bring in a collaboration between a number of City departments the mayor um Frank mentioned that we that he attended the meeting last month and I just wanted to thank staff for being a part of that and I did a great job and then finally um big

4:37 Kudos had a constituent that was very um happy with the work that eweb did to coordinate with the city on Paving the road on Odell so eweb thanks for a job well done okay that's it thanks VY kind of hard to follow up after that Sonia you had a lot um I just have one thing is I gave a presentation last week to um a class at the University of Oregon on um sustainability and the public good and they wanted to hear all about what it was like to be a commissioner and what we did and um we had a very robust discussion and there are a lot of young people out there now who maybe never thought about running for utility board that the seat is

5:23 planted in their minds can you give me the notes from that so I know what to do as a commissioner commissioner Mars um I think about two weeks ago or so a few months ago I think even before I won um or I I was elected as commissioner um IID signed up for the energy score uh home program where they come and and try to uh give your home an energy score um and uh I was found out almost immediately as a commissioner but uh it was really great to have uh both staff and the students come in and and uh really put a lot of expertise in into my home and trying to um figure out the energy score of a rental unit in a 40 uh unit apartment and so um just want to

6:08 pass Kudos along that it was um it was incredible they were uh very detailed they were very intentional so um kudos to staff great um as far as myself goes uh again thanks to the staff I had a couple of constituent questions and concerns uh that I reached staff on and they followed up uh very quickly and helped resolve the issues which weren't big issues but it was just a a couple times of communication so thank you the staff for that also last week um gentlem maner Lawson had the opportunity to present to the chambers local government Affairs Council and that was well received uh I think that there was a lot

6:54 of good questions that were asked there so thank you to Frank for showing up and uh I think there there were three of us that were there and uh I think I I got good input and every anytime we have a chance to put Frank in front of a group of people and answer questions it's been very helpful so that's that and then Frank good evening Commissioners uh just so people know there was no eweb business discussed between the Commissioners at that at that meeting so no Quorum necessary um thanks for the feedback just a a quick clarification um commissioner Carlson I think our first form of followup on the um the late fee

7:40 would be to Via correspondence describe um the process today and then um if Commissioners at some point want to uh um allocate agenda time to it that could be a followup to that if that's acceptable to you thank you all right any followup to anything all right we will next move on to item number three which is correspondence Commissioners there was just one item of Correspondence this evening and that had to do with um an update from Jason huser who I know is on the line if you have questions there there are some there was over 3,000 bills um introduced in the state

8:28 legislature um over the last uh month or two um not that we are tracking all 3,000 um we're trying to keep track of the ones that are most relevant to us but if Commissioners had uh any updates or questions that they needed from uh Jason um I'll volunteer him to be uh able to respond Sonia um I did have a a question just about we have a a day at the capital next Monday and I was just curious you know if the bills if this is a good time for for us to go up and support those bills or if they're you know to help move them along or help not move them along um just curious kind of what the

9:14 general lay of the land is in terms of the bills that we're monitoring and our potential to help Jason you want to respond on the timing I think the timing is is fantastic commissioner Carlson um I'm very said uh you all are making the time uh we have a great agenda we have appointments with all of our Eugene legislators and uh this year we were also able to get appointments with uh the chair of the House and Senate energy committees uh and we also have an appointment with the director of the Oregon Department of energy so uh really uh neat schedule we also um a representative Darren harck who's the new legislator uh up on the MacKenzie River Valley uh he has a do appointment

9:59 so he may not be able to have a a full meeting with us but uh we we'll probably have a short meet and greet with him as well and absolutely I think the timing is perfect uh there's a couple of key bills particularly water rights bills that are going to get some serious consideration um the bills as constructed pose difficulties for our wamit uh drinking water plant and uh we definitely need amendments to those bills to accommodate drinking water infrastructure I think we can get that but uh it would be great to have you all with me to uh reinforce that and help make that a reality great thank you Jason you there Mr Brown Jason I think I sent an email asking about I think house bills 3666 it

10:45 gives utilities Indemnity for wildfires as long as they comply with odf criteria of clearing rides away what's the status of that yeah that bill was just introduced uh probably about eight or nine days ago um so it hasn't received a hearing yet and I I will tell you it's gotten some media coverage I think the media coverage is probably a little more black and white uh when it's actually what the bill does probably is a little more gray um the key feature of the bill is creating a safety certification standard that the Oregon Public Utility Commission would be in charge of it would be mandatory for investor owned utilities and voluntary for Consumer owned utilities and as I've heard uh representative

11:31 Marsh the primary sponsor describe it I think what she's trying to the issue she's trying to solve is that she sees that utilities are going to enormous lengths to mitigate the possibility of Ting wildfires and no matter how excellent the effort is the risk will never be zero and she's trying to find I think an um a credential that could be um awarded when a utility has demonstrated um a high level of diligence um in U and with the oversight of the the Public Utility Commission so we've uh been looking at it as our many of our utility colleagues um I think we're conceptually uh supportive um but uh

12:18 there's a lot of details we don't fully understand yet and we're awaiting a amendment that probably very likely will replace uh certain portions of the bill so it's a little too soon to tell but I certainly think we appreciate where representative Marsh is coming from thank you other just a quick clarification for you commissioner Brown it is not odf it's um Oregon or Oregon pu that would be the agency that would do the certification um and like Jason said we're conceptually um you know in agreement with the fact of establishing standards of care for our industry um uh we also want to make sure we understand any impli implications for Consumer

13:04 owned utilities for voluntarily joining a certification um what are the on-ramps and off-ramps what does it do to your liability and what does you what does it do to the administration and the overhead associated with it we want to make sure we're still good stewards uh of our funds and so we want it uh to be efficient and um likely more to come as hearings and revisions um evolve okay other questions or comments uh just to heads up Jason I had a work conflict come up on Monday so I won't be able to be there I'll be there with you in spirit but I had initially uh responded Yes to it but life

13:49 happens I understand if there's anything you can do later I'll let you know thank you okay all right anybody else on correspondence all right then our next item on the agenda is public input um I'll read a little bit of uh the Preamble here welcome to the public input session for this meeting eweb is a public nonpr non for-profit organization whose Charter is to deliver drinking water and electricity to our community although this forum is not used for an open back and forth dialogue commissioner and staff value hearing diverse perspectives and receiving community inputs speakers are asked to keep their testimony relevant to eweb

14:34 businesses and request that everyone share their comments in a prod productive and respectful manner should speakers or audience member become destructive they may be muted or Andor removed the building um when your name is called you'll have up to three minutes to provide your comments public session is now open we'll begin with we've got right now I've got three do we have a couple more okay so we have six people signed up tonight uh I'll do my best to pronounce the names correctly uh if not please bear with me so the first one is Misty Bowman uh followed by

15:28 Eric good evening my name is Miss T Balman live in Word 7 I'm a dark sky Oregon Advocate and I'm here to discuss light pollution Eugene is the worst defender of light pollution in Oregon and that is no exaggeration I have in my hand dark sky Oregon Sky quality meter report a sky quality meter is a device used to measure light pollution we have 53 Sky quality meters in Oregon two are in Portland one is in Eugene and the one in Eugene measures worse light pollution than the one in Portland on a clear we are 20% more light polluted than Southwest and Southeast Portland on a cloudy night we are 25% more light polluted I've emailed eweb a copy of the complete report and have all of Eugene's data points here with the passing of

16:13 Oregon House Bill 2531 making LEDs all but mandatory in Oregon I fear the lights in Eugene will continue to Trend towards the whitest and brightest when dark sky International approved alads are available ewb being primarily responsible for the maintenance and installation of street lights in Eugene ought to take notes from other dark sky International towns in Oregon such as antilopen sisters these cities and other dark sky International cities across the world have noted environmental health and financial benefits to these lighting policies I am here today in the hopes of bringing those health environmental and financial benefits as well as brings the stars back to the to our night skies for all the citizens of Eugene to enjoy

16:59 I urge eweb to do a full review of our street light and change adjust or remove lights that do not comply with dark sky International's five principles of responsible outdoor lighting lights in Eugene ought to be one necessary two targeted fully shielded to 80 or 90° nadier three lowlevel light should only be as bright as needed four controlled lights should be on timers motions or dimmer switches five warm colored orange and yellow lights scatter less than white and blue lights I urge you web to familiarize themselves with the simple fivepoint checklist and see how many lights in Eugene fail this list there are many that fail Point number one such as the nearly 70 feet tall lights from

17:46 the abandoned 1967 Rosevelt freeway project near Skinner but Park the quote Mar nutson sustainable Urban Design handbook retrofitting light fixtures may require additional infrastructure but often reduces long-term operating and maintenance costs thank you for your time thank you Eric is next followed by Joe Maul good evening my name is Eric Jura I live in ward 6 uh and I'm a residential customer uh wanted to make some comments

18:33 about some of the items on your massive agenda for this evening um concerning the residential customer survey results U good job um very interesting to see the improvements and change of all the changes that have occurred since the last one um a very interesting reading and and and very much in depth and I I appreciated that also happy to see that you actually use a random sample service there are a lot of public organizations that don't and I there uh I don't think those surveys are of much use but I'm glad you do with regard to policy sd9 uh the rate setting policy um very informative I learned a lot about uh the how this is done and

19:19 what the standards are and so forth and I very much appreciate the additional detail and transparency so thank you for doing that uh gp8 the meeting and executive sessions um uh um very pleased to see the addition of the definition and designation of news media organizations that can attend executive sessions and so forth I think that's something that all organizations that are subject to the public meetings law should have uh little bit concerned that it didn't happen sooner but better late than never I think it's very well done and so I I thank you for that um

20:05 uh policy gp17 the board use of electronic communications uh and uh a little bit of the same concern that uh that this this didn't happen sooner um uh but the the changes that you've made I think are very very appropriate I've seen it done in other public organizations in a similar fashion um I think it's the kind of thing that imp that improves The public's confidence in board's attentative the public meetings law so uh thank you for doing that um one other thing and this is uh it's a little bit of a point of confusion I know I'm not supposed to ask questions and you're not required to answer and that's fine I'll put it in an email but as since I was reading through it I was kind of wondering about it uh it's

20:51 interesting that it's it appears that the board doesn't have legal councel that the board uses e web's councel and I'm cons no that's not the casee you have your own I see somebody nodding okay then I'll stop there and I won't waste the time okay I'll seek further further clarification and then the last thing I'd like to talk about in my last 15 seconds is I would like to respectively suggest that the board at some sometimes consider the possibility of of having written or writing a a board training policy this is a complex organization there are only five of you you have immense responsibility might be something you want to consider I think it would be usable so thank you very much thank you next is Joe followed by Chris

21:42 Jones good evening chair Commissioners for the record Joe Maul I represent McKenzie river trust tonight we work throughout all of the wards and again appreciate all that you've done over the years to bring people together around the water sheds that now are increasingly a part of EB EB's work um had an ear War all day long today you know that remember that song three is a magic number three it's a magic all day long and it started because the first thing I looked at when I opened up my computer this morning was the notice from the core of engineers on the wetlands mitigation required of the lamit drinking water plant that hit email boxes today in case you um weren't aware of that and thumbed through the 23 pages and looked at the small footprint of the wetlands being affected and and very familiar with all of the work that

22:27 goes on to mitigate against that that and um just made me think about the scale of that and very often I know not only there but also the work that you're doing on the planned removal of the leeberg dam it forces you to focus and you do that very well and these are very expensive projects and we have a big Federal brewhaha now over just that expense and how those sorts of things get in the way but so there's one thing of the three the second tonight is at the other end of that Spectrum I'll be here all night and really look forward to the Watershed report at the end of toward the end of the night and would be happy to be a part of any conversation if something comes from that again it's hard to overemphasize how important 's investments in Watershed stewardship have been over the years they have continued to be Monumental and um I'm

23:14 really glad to see that uh mention of expansion into the coast fork and Middle Fork is something that people are beginning to think about um and in then the middle uh maybe not the middle but the third thing is the rate payer survey and what wonderful news it is to see that rate payers are so supportive of even additional funding a SE charge that um would go towards continued uh water steerage ship throughout these areas so I just want to encourage you as Commissioners um to recognize the breadth of what you have the ability to uh take care of and um Steward because going from those detailed projects to that larger real Watershed scale is really what we need

24:00 and maybe in that $1 to four range the magic number is three but I think that very quickly we should capitalize and take people at their word and add some sort of search charge that continues to fund Watershed stewardship in this larger service area that you're taking on thank you again thank you chis and then Kim Don good evening Commissioners Mr law I'm going to read this so I can stay under my time uh my name is Chris Jones I live at 22nd and concade Street in Eugene in commissioner barsky's Ward I was an eweb employee for six years during which time I worked with many water and electric field Crews on

24:45 projects and on storm responses and in my time at eweb I saw that what the management and staff say about eweb and its commitment to safety is really true um eweb almost always places the safety of its employees and its customers above all of its other priorities which is great unfortunately my neighbors and I are experiencing a situation in which the safety of our property and our lives is being threatened by EB's failure to resolve a problem that we have reported this is a followup to an email message sent to EB's vegetation management supervisor on February 11th of last year over a year ago by eweb

25:30 customer Kim donah who will speak to you next Kim is one of my neighbors on the evening of January 16th 2024 during the ice storm that I'm sure you all remember ice covered branches sagged and came into repeated contact with 12,000 volt electric lines above Kim's house on East 22 Avenue I sent a video of the event to EB's vegetation management supervisor and this afternoon to commissioner barovsky who can share it with the rest of you the video shows the trees branches burning as they came in contact with the wires the fire burned continuously for over 50 that's 5 minutes dropping pieces

26:15 of burning debris onto the roof of my neighbor's house this hazardous situation and the subsequent power outage experienced on a below freezing night by over 1,400 residences was caused by substandard levels of tree trimming due to an unusual contract e web has with Kim's neighboring homeowner John Schuster who lives at 959 East 22nd Avenue a group of homeowners in the neighborhood have been attempting for over a year to work with the EB to make this situation safe but we have continually received responses that this situation is in the hand hands of EB's lawyers nothing has

27:03 happened and the tree branches are in contact with electrical wires over Kim's house as I speak with you tonight it's pass time to make this situation safe for M doni and the four 1400 other residences if the legal situation cannot be resolved it's time to implement a technical solution whether that's rerouting the power lines placing them underground or whatever safe situation EB deems suitable thank you for your time yeah followed by Alfredo he thank you so much my name is Kim doni and I live in

27:50 ward 3 and I'm also going to read this I'm deeply concerned about the fire risk from overgrown trees near P power lines in my neighborhood a neighbor in the alley signed a contract with eweb in 1991 preventing tree trimming but conditions have changed dramatically since then wildfires weren't a major concern back then but now with increasing heat drought and high winds the risk is too great to ignore we've seen the devastation power line fires can cause the 2018 campfire sparked by a pg& power line destroyed

28:35 Paradise California killing 85 people in August 2023 drought and high winds and down power lines devastated Laha Hawaii and killed over a hundred people and displaced over 5,000 then this January Pacific Palisades and Altadena saw devastating fires power lines wind and Dr outout fueled this desolation there have been two fires in my alley in the past two Winters caused by tree branches hitting the power lines fortunately both were extinguished by rain and snow a firefighter on the scene warned us that by July Eugene could face a

29:20 disaster like California or Hawaii I understand e web is in litigation over this contract but this legal battle has gone on for a year while the fire risk continues to grow if a fire starts under summer conditions it could be catastrophic I urge eweb to take emergency action or find a way to expedite this process before it's too late waiting until after disaster strikes doesn't seem to be a good option thank you thank you and our last speaker is Alfred

30:06 all this time I can't maybe can't say my last name properly anyway I'm Alfredo gorano I think I live in W one um I'm here to talk about something interesting that happened today you know you know me because of my opposition to Smart Meters for a long time was on the street talking to a neighbor and one of our neighbor other neighbors pulled up in his car that 10 minutes to two and said you guys have a smart meter on your house like yeah I said mine's set in non- broadcasting mode he said I can't even go in my backyard anymore I I just can't stand being it just just it's just sending out so much I said you know in the first 24 to 48 hours after they put mine in and it was broadcasting I felt the same way in my yard I couldn't stand

30:53 being anywhere near that meter when the broadcasting was shut off it shifted it was okay to be around it um I don't know if these particular Smart Meters have lithium batteries in them but in some of these fires that have happened in places those batteries in Smart Meters may have been exploding and really making fires worse at houses I will gladly train to trade in my smart meter which you could probably sell on the black market somewhere for a nice Glass and Metal analog meter like I used to have on my house house there are a lot of people in Eugene that feel the same way um somebody forgot to set the timer so I don't know how much time I have left but sure I'll take three more minutes

31:43 um and and also hearing other stories today about um well about the light pollution um you know I'm a night person and I drove here today and there was so much light pollution in the sky that I had a squint I'm just kidding but no living in Hawaii and Mahala for pronouncing hav properly over there um where the lights there are orange lights yellow lights um in order to keep the light pollution level down for the telescopes on Mount AA it's amazing how many stars you see in the sky there it is so powerful and beautiful I wish we could see those kind of stars here in Eugene and I've gone out to even darker places outside of town but there's still so much light coming off of town that

32:30 you don't see the stars like you you normally can and another thing I'd like to address is this push towards Led Led Led everything I cannot stand LED lights in my house or anywhere else that I am they do not affect me very well I go online and buy Full Spectrum incandescent lights which the last ones I bought like these lasted me about 10 years and we're worried about them using too much electricity but we're pushing towards more electric cars artificial intelligence uh cryptocurrency all these things which really really really eat up tons of electricity and you're worried we're worried about incandescent lights

33:16 in houses again we should have free choice on that you know some people want to have that it might lower your electric bill cool anyway I'm not sure what amount of time I'm at but thank you very much and I won't be able to stay for the rest of the meeting which I know I will find interesting because I'm driving a friend off to the hospital this evening and yes I fix my car thank you thank you all right with that I will close public comment and ask if any Commissioners or staff would like to respond or have questions I just had a couple of quick comments um I uh my family has telescopes and we go out and can't see anything in Eugene so I feel uh for you

34:03 very much in in terms of that we can't see much um we also have the unfortunate situation that eight months out of the year it's very cloudy but um I appreciate the the thought and would very much like to see the dark sky um pollution report so please do send that over to me um wanted to say thank you to the other folks for coming out and giving their thoughts and opinions and um also we'll talk with uh general manager Lawson again to get more of an understanding on the uh litigation situation there it's certainly concerning and I I know that we're working to get what we can done um but

34:49 anyway um thank you for sharing that and coming out because as you mentioned we do value safety very much and so let's figure that out thanks great other Commissioners John I'd too like to thank everybody this evening um Eric and Joe thank you um voice is it's so nice to have somebody come to the podium and say you're doing a good job but we really like what you've done and things such as that so I really appreciate that and I appreciate the topics that the range of the topics you talked about um and Chris and Kim I know that if there's litigation involved we can't get into it but I guarantee you our general manager heard you loud clear and they will take whatever action they do need to respond to you and whatever because if anybody understands the importance of safety we do so thank you very much for bringing

35:35 that to our attention Frank you wanted to comment yeah I just wanted to to say on a couple things that just for some followup um for the testimony on on light pollution one of the things that um we can do for Commissioners is to clarify the roles between eweb and the city U we do some maintenance uh on private lighting um believe the city is actually the one who specifies and and does the maintenance on sort of street lights we'll get that clarified just so that Commissioners understand the different roles there um and then and certainly for um Chris Jones and and and Kim um totally understand the sense of urgency and and we agree with that um I think

36:21 we're trying to expedite the process here um um to as fast as we can as well we we totally recognize that there's a sense of urgency there and we want to get this resolved also it's been since 1991 and we'd like to get it done great um anybody else uh I guess what I would say is to Eric thank you for reading the packet you read it as thoroughly or more thoroughly than most of us board members do um kudos to you for that uh and it's it's just nice that that you feel that we are doing things in a correct Manner and that there are people out there that are checking on us that's uh that's a

37:09 that's good for us we we check on on the organiza we're the check on the organization but you guys are the check on us and so we appreciate those those uh anytime somebody does that and checks on it so thank you for coming uh and with that we will move on to our next item on the agenda which is the approval of consent calendar a Mr SL to approve consent calendar a second all right is there any discussion seeing none I'll call for a vote all in favor say I post unanimous okay next is item number six

37:55 approval of consent calendar B approve consent calendar B second commissioner slosberg seconded by commissioner Brown any [Music] discussion okay seeing none all in favor say I I and unanimous thank you folks all right item seven we didn't remove anything from the consent calendar so we'll move on to item eight which is the residential consumer survey results and we'll turn it over to General Manager

38:52 LW president barsky Commissioners good evening uh for the audio record Frank Lawson EB general manager and joining me this evening to kick things off is Jen Connor Connors our Communications manager Jen right here we go okay um good evening Commissioners and E have staff members of the public um I am going to just cover a few items related to the survey methodology and then kick it back to Frank to talk about the survey results and next steps so the uh last time e web conducted a customer survey was in 2022 and those survey results were

39:38 discussed in a public session much like this one and are published on our website like the 2022 survey 2024 was also administered by an independent research firm great blue research Inc to ensure a professional unbiased approach to the survey design and data collection the questions covered a range of topics including our core services our rate structures and communication it was a uh random sample the survey was delivered via email to 34,000 uh customers by great blue and then also made available to our customers via our Uh current connections newsletter which goes to 70,000 residential customers every month it's

40:23 also published on our website and our social media platforms the survey was open for over five weeks allowing ample time for participation and the response rate was strong so you can see from the slide almost 1300 customers answered the survey and that provided us with a very uh reliable survey um with a 2.7% uh margin of error and a 95% confidence level for those of us like myself who are not survey experts what that means is that if the survey was conducted 100 times 95 of those times would come back with the same results within that margin of error with that I will turn it over to

41:08 Frank to talk about the results Thanks Jen so Commissioners in your packet uh you receive some background information with a few of the key takeaways we'll just touch on uh a few this evening won't go through all of them we'd like to leave some time for questions at the end um one of the takeaways was if you compare 2022 to 2024 really across the board uh we saw improved responses uh favorable responses in almost every category um with the exception of of two one um Investments to in infrastructure resiliency that was not a question that we asked in 2022 and the other one which is within the margin of error was

41:53 efforts to control prices and costs and so um all of the other areas uh reliability uh communication satisfactions trust we had specific questions on trust all of those uh showed favorable Trends uh in some cases significant favorable Trends relative to 2022 uh we also um because we used an outside research firm we can do some national benchmarking and the benchmarking shows that um eweb received higher ratings in a number of categories including electric service rating and also um relative to our Communications approaches and and um public awareness some of the other uh things

42:39 that we recognized um just um and this was a methodology uh where you um actually ask customers to prioritize it it isn't do you want this um it is um uh ranked um survey questions and um consistent with past surveys even even going P back further than 2022 um really reliability and affordability rank the highest amongst our customers um and that really continued the the graph on the right shows customer priorities in our in our um um in in really controlling costs relative to to other things um and

43:27 including some of the different programs that we offer but um not a surprise that affordability and reliability ranked um the highest in in the categories of of ranking and that was both with with our core functions um and also with priorities around what's our role in the in the community um we did get some open-ended responses uh 32% of those mentioned um affordability as an area that they thought eweb could improve in the other um thing to note is just the awareness that customers have in our in our different programs and services relative to National benchmarks is

44:13 significantly higher I think we've all recognized the work that our Communications team has done in in the past couple of years um awareness around projects um emergency preparedness and other things emergency water stations um and that effort really is is bearing fruit when you look at um how customers uh are aware of our emergency PR preparedness efforts um kind of across the board um even projects that haven't started you like the wamit uh water treatment plant um um The public's um significantly more aware than um what our firm says they see in other territories um also sign significant Improvement in Awareness for example

44:59 emergency water stations where really two-thirds of our customers um now recognize at least they know about it they may not know specifically where it is but significant um awareness um in in that um uh in that initiative there were some other uh kind of key takeaways U that had to do with areas for improvement for example um they did we had inred inedibly high ratings in reliability um um but also recognize that the prevention of outages our response to outages and our Communications around outages is an area that we still think we need to improve in and customers uh would agree with us on that uh there's a significant

45:45 interest in future rate design um a lot of customer interest in U programs like demand response and um little less in time of use uh rates but an interest in various programs and services um and how those are going to affect the rates how those are going to influence things like Energy Efficiency and conservation for electric and water um and then customers really value our environmental and climate actions um but also expect reliability and affordability to really remain our primary focus as an organization we as far as next steps uh we do plan to socialize the results further um

46:31 publishing those on our website also providing um Commissioners with the full report um we we started with a high level overview um and then want to dig down further there there are some areas where uh demographics U May matter um and so uh for example U it was no surprise when we started digging into it that those um income had a big influence on responses to our efforts to control cost for example and our pricing interested in how we're working on cost controls and pricing that we also noticed there was significant differences in in age so demographics did matter and we'll take a deeper dive and use this information to really help

47:17 ourselves improve um so more to come on socializing that uh also uh inside the organization making sure our own employees uh know about the survey know what we're learning from the survey and um putting customers in that loop I think it's incredibly important internally um the I'll just kind of conclude by saying one of the questions that always comes up relative to a digital survey is what does a e you know an email survey how does that tend to differ from a phone survey or other types of surveys and the feedback we got from from the research agency is that from a residential customer base the phone surveys and the digital surveys

48:03 produce similar results um and also relative to small commercial it tends to be very similar to the residential surveys um where it does start to deviate is with large commercial and Industrial and key accounts where they have particular interests and so that's an area where we will probably continue our Outreach um to those accounts really on a probably more of an individual and qualitative basis as opposed to a quantitative basis but I wanted to provide that to some context and with that Commissioners uh we'd be happy to answer some questions get your feedback um really this is uh an effort on our part to learn as much

48:48 as we can and use that information in in decisions that we're going to uh work with you on and how we prioriti our work and our resources internally how we develop our goals uh we think it's important feedback um happens to be favorable in most of the areas but also provide some opportunities to improve and we'll dive into those and and um um look at how we address them thank you uh commissioner car well wonderful results thank you for sharing that I I want to say the first thing thing that I thought of when I was reading it and the results is that we've been doing a lot of this great work all throughout I think the difference is

49:34 that we have an absolute Stellar top-notch Communications team so thank you for all of your work because I I would get contacted in the public more e web isn't doing this EB isn't doing that and I barely get that anymore I think people really see a lot of the efforts that we're doing because you're telling a wonderful story about it and it's not that we weren't doing it before it's that we're doing a better job telling people that doing it so thank you for the effort to inform our customers about that work great job okay commissioner BR thank you great results I love it um just a quick question historical perspective I know that you talked about affordability and reliability and that's the the Big East and so on the those two we used to have

50:20 the metrics on S and safety trying to stay up by 95 percentile and I think we're still staying there but the ability part we used to kind of have a forward direct policy or or goal of keeping rate increases tied to inflation and we're not there anymore even close um can we go back to that because there's this pressure because I mean you know I'm doing the math and every year when we say a percentage that's if we put this in a dollar amount it's totally different because when you take a dollar and you compounded that we we've been doing over the last decade and now we're way above and I don't know if that's on us we're not raising rates more consistently or just when we need it when you say on us you mean the

51:05 Commissioners sorry I was just kidding um I I do think that um in some ways customers have a hierarchy of needs if if we were dealing with issues such as lead in our water I think that the issue of affordability would proably people you what you'd probably hear is that hey we want to get the water fixed even if it cost costs a little bit more um we generally have good reliability from a the the reliability metrics that you mentioned Sadi and safety duration and frequency of outage is on the electric side um and then our water quality is excellent on the on the water side our brakes per 100 miles which you'll hear about later some of those statistics are are good I I do think that um this is a reminder that um

51:52 costs and prices matter now we we also have some challenges um with replacing infrastructure on the electric side the Aging of infrastructure um I would also point out uh commissioner Brown that if you look at the long-term financial plan even though we've had some near-term um price increases that are are larger than our inflationary um sort of General inflation of typically 3 or 4% the average over the the long-term financial plan still is is not far from that um we do have some some near-term pressures for a number of reasons um but we also recognize and we we we are hearing it that affordability does

52:38 matter and that's something I think we're going to dive into a little bit deeper um relative to how we can prioritize our work and projects and and other things so um it is it is important I think this is a reminder of that um and um something we should continue to learn from I'm going to work on um there's just a couple things that jumped out at me that I thought were just a little bit surprising um one was that our customer satisfaction went up especially during a time when um people's trust in public institutions seem to have gone down so I think it's really great that that we've had an increase in that um and then just

53:23 something that I found curious was that cost was obviously one of the major concerns for people and at the same time there was a support for continuing the Watershed fee for that those those two things were very interesting because it's an extra cost and I don't have a commentary on it it was just something that I noted um and then the last thing was that curious It's I'm curious about if if the survey were to be done now compared to when it was done at the end of last year I know in this past month we've heard from a lot of customers who've noticed a big jump in their bill in February for a variety of reasons um I'm just curious how people would respond then because I think that you

54:08 tend to respond based on your most recent um experience so just just some things that I was thinking about thanks commissioner schlosberg the I think it's an important reminder that a survey is a snapshot in time and um it is important to look at surveys over the course of a number of years um some of the responses for example in this survey um relating to outage management could have been that we had a major ice storm last winter and your last experience with eweb may have been either through that or we may have been in the middle of a system changeover when some of the survey was conducted um this being an

54:53 incredibly cold winter relative to last winter um I personally have seen it I my last bill was 71% higher than my same equivalent Bill same number of days last year at the same time and so there's a certainly an awareness um that um um that the bill now would look different than than it would um last year at this time so the timing of the surveys is matter I think U you have to look at these as trends um and snapshots in in time and not um look look look at it as opportunities um and what does it tell you but I don't think you can overread a particular survey as being oh this is

55:39 great we can stop working I I think what you look for is opportunities to adjust and um things that start to to look like larger Trends um it does put pressure and what what I think there is tension between some of the things that people want their utility to do and the price of which it has on their bill and um we even even saw the lowest ranking of things relative to our our role in the public as the education programs which is something that the Commissioners have been very supportive Through The Years there is a natural tension there that exists and we we have to do the same thing with infrastructure we have to do the same thing with Energy Efficiency programs with what's the trade-off

56:24 between having programs and having the the lowest price possible and there's there's a constant navigation there that takes place Mr Morris thank you chair and thank you for the uh the great work and the survey I really appreciate it and it outlined I think some clear uh information for us to continue moving forward I also just want to mention I'm glad to be joining this board when customer trust is at an all-time high so hey that works out great um I uh I wanted to just make a few comments and and observations um uh and that uh following the ice storm in particular and uh

57:09 customer trust in eweb is at an all-time high and I think that's reflective of what I was hearing on the ground and I think what we all heard as well from from many eweb customers of of uh EB's response to that uh to the ice storm and how quickly and how dedicated uh we were so I just want to comment on that that I I I'm glad to see that that is reflected in this survey as well um one thing that really surprised me on the third slide related to Affordable affordability was uh how much knowledge there was of the ew bill assistance program um at 70 the text is really tiny but 70 somewhat percent um and with that knowledge and knowing that um that customer care uh

57:56 seems to be exhausted every month um I think that that's just something to connect the dots on and and really see um that our community is aware of this uh our bill assistance program but then our community is also utilizing and exhausting uh 100% of it or as much as possible so um I just want to to observe that um and otherwise great job thank you thank you I put myself in the queue um yeah great great survey great numbers um it is a snapshot in time uh I don't know what was going on in 2022 that that may have depressed some of the numbers

58:41 uh we'd have to look back on them and and and do it but I'm very encouraged by the Numbers going forward um I am going to channel uh former commissioner Matt McCrae and and Jo what and Jo mall and and just throw out there that there was a 25 Point increase in efforts to protect the local Watershed um the drinking water source to me that's that's huge um that's something that I think is one a core mission that we we want to do is make sure that we have good water coming into the treatment plant um and hopefully into our new treatment plant

59:26 um and the possibility of of looking into maintaining the the fee that we put on after holiday Farm fires um I will be Champion championing that going forward I hope that there'll be other people on the board that'll do that but I think with this these types of numbers and the tangible good work that we've seen come out of that up the McKenzie I think is a testament to show that we are doing good work and we're showing our work and uh that's that's something that I'm looking forward to encouraging so thank you for that other questions or comments yes R yeah president barovsky the the one

1:00:11 thing that I would um would want to stress just just a couple of points um first of all the communications team I would agree with commissioner comment have done a phenomenal job um of communicating uh attempting to be transparent um developing relationships in the cases um of large impactful projects with with neighbors for example who are affected by the work that we do and some of it's very impactful to different neighborhoods um I would also probably be remiss if I didn't on behalf of the communications team um reflect that a lot of that comes from the fact that good work is taking place um well

1:00:56 planned work um it's not just it's it makes it easier when you have something good to communicate than if you have something challenging or bad to communicate so Communications team has done a great job um but it's also um staff has done a great job in the in particular with the projects and the issues that we know are in out in the Forefront of of our community um I also want to emphasize that I don't believe that we personally look at this and say oh we're we're going to celebrate this too much um this this is something that customers will evaluate US based on their last experience with

1:01:43 us and so we're only as good as the next interaction we have with people and so um I really want to emphasize there's more information to dive into we are looking at things like our limited income program this year how can we make that more effective um it's also a reminder of the the importance of the the affordability of of the organization um and reminds us that we need to focus on some real core things and so um it's good news um it's better than the other way um at the same time we really can't rest on our Laurels here we need to keep working and keep uh attempting to do better continuous

1:02:28 Improvement really needs to have to has to be part of our culture okay other comments or questions all right thank you very much um next we'll move on to the annual board policy review and that's Frank you paid by the hour what's that are you paid by by the hour you know you're getting I don't think so get a little you're getting a little uh I hear there over time rule changes coming but I that is not paying attention to that are we ready yep Commissioners again this is Frank Lawson uh an cause joining me uh here

1:03:14 for this particular U part of the evening um this is to review board policies um potential revisions um as an reminded me yesterday we have you you sorry I just say we you have 51 board policies um could be did that include the new one was 50 now it's 51 um there's a number of these uh and and it was really established a standard practice that the board would take a look at these on an annual basis um and look for opportunities again another example of continuous Improvement um in the packet um there were a number of different um

1:04:00 potential opportunities uh I won't go through these individually I think you all have the markup you all have the um um uh the the the policies themselves and uh really this this evening is for your discussion around what some of those uh modifications might be um there's potentially a couple of new policies um one was gp18 just a little bit of clarification around that that's not only for Commissioners it's also for staff to understand when we bring you certain plans for example what is what are we asking Commissioners to approve what are we asking you to for example acknowledge or endorse this was uh for

1:04:46 clarification around governance uh specific to certain outcomes of documents or planning um and so that we felt was both of benefit to staff and Commissioners um and then um the other one that's in development um probably be presented in an upcoming meeting U will be a policy around um the water system development charges or sdc's that's important to capturing policy because we don't do it very often and policies tend to live on so that a board 10 years from now can understand the the goal and the intent of of sdc's and what the direction was with that um I did hear a suggestion earlier this evening around um board PR new board member training um

1:05:35 as uh you you know for sure recently and all of you except for maybe commissioner Brown um who's been on the board for a number of years uh we have a pretty well scripted uh process um already um for Commissioners um whether you would want to make that policy would be something that um could be could be discussed this evening could be debated um amongst the board so um the the goal tonight is for you to discuss the changes um if they're fairly straightforward um as far as um suggestions or revisions those potentially could come back for Action as early as

1:06:21 next probably may I I would say um probably incorporate those give you a a clean version in April uh for likely approval in Carson couple of points on there on gp5 that is the role of board president um it mentions that the board president or their design is responsible for orientation of new commissioners um her board policy and then jp15 and then in jp15 it says the office of the general manager is responsible for coordinating the orientation of new Commissioners the general manager their

1:07:06 delegate shall conduct the board president to determine consult the board president to determine their desired level of participation in the orientation process and obtain General guidance around the priorities orientation um just in my experience um I I think it's nice for the board president to be involved but it's by and large the general manager's office I mean like you said you have a you know a full list of trainings and uh you know staff meetings and all of the information that's gathered and even you know ongoing training for the board like we had this evening around um internal um Information Systems so I don't know if it it is necessary but it just it

1:07:52 kind of seemed a little bit of a conflict because one said that the board president or their design as responsible and then the other one said that it's the general manager's office so if there's an interest there and just clarifying that that's the general manager's office that might be helpful to help folks understand that but I'll look at others and then the only other thing that I um noted is that jp16 says that EB board members will be allowed an annual annual budget for travel and expenses related to utility business and any amount in excess of the total amount allotted for all board memb shall be reviewed and considered by the board and I mean we we travel so little that I think it probably hasn't mattered but I don't even know what that number is and have never known so I just

1:08:37 thought I would put that out there sorry I don't have all those numbers memorized it's okay um just at some point okay you're over budget commissioner just I'm just kidding any other comments or questions I'd just like to say thank you for all that work because that's just one step above reading the audit but seriously 57 policies and a 240 page pet this evening I I go along with what Eric suggested as public testimony about having a board new board member policy on on doing that and kind of cleaning it up again because what we saw this evening what commissioner Morris got to

1:09:24 see and all that that that's invaluable and you just don't have to learn by trial and error because this is a pretty complex topic and it's just so many different arms and things I I would like to see myself if we could move that way and made to make that a enough any other discussion um again I would just like to say thanks to an and St staff who uh put this all together I know going through and reading those and figuring out where you need to Red Line and and change things even if it's just changing an an to a but those types of things uh are

1:10:12 tedious at least um and you've did an excellent job of editing I think that that's a a skill that a lot of us don't don't have and I really appreciate all the hard work that you've you've done to help bring this this packet to us for review it it was it was very clear and concise you know when the red line when I saw a red line I looked at it and said yeah that does make sense to take that word out or or this that out so I really appreciate all the hard work that's done oh yeah I just did want to note that we do have I mean gp5 is the new commissioner orientation policy so there is a policy there and I agree that you know maybe cleaning that little piece up but otherwise there is a policy around

1:10:58 doing new commissioner orientation so if if we want to add more information on what that entails although I wouldn't want to be so um comprehensive that it we miss key things I think the list that you generally have is Pretty good overall and anyway Mr morren thank you chair yeah I wanted to mention gp15 um pretty much outlines my experience on being onboarded here and so I I mean a quick copy paste I think makes sense to me but um highlighting uh some some minor key things but otherwise yeah this uh I was reading it and it it really followed along this the same track that I've I've done as a new commissioner and I I just wanted to also share my my Kudos as well um I've

1:11:45 professionally written bylaws before and uh it's a very tedious task and this is excellent work and and very appreciated so um it was you with every uh red line there's there's thoughtfulness behind it so I just want to say thank you for that check okay need any clarifications I don't think so if it sounds like you're pretty much in support of the red lines as proposed so I'll get you a clean copy next month and we can probably put it through a consent calendar even at that point if if there's no objection I just had one clarification uh commissioner Carlson brought up the the the conflict in words between

1:12:30 policies what I what I heard was that you wanted to delegate that to the general manager's office in general the responsibility for new commissioner orientation um however the board president and in fact other members of of the board could play a role but that the primary responsibility was with the general manager Office I'm I just want to make sure I'm hearing that correctly the the way that I heard it would be that I would be more Comfort or would be comfortable with is that it's it's the general manager's uh Duty in consultation with the with the board president you know so then you just say hey we're going to be on boarding if this is the process does that seem okay with you as a board

1:13:15 president that that still gives the uh the board uh a little bit of oversight of what we see as what we would like to have on boarded um you know what worked best for us and that may be May differ from what your perspective is so I think having a little bit of perspective from the board is is valuable and however you would like to implement that into the policy was a direction that I would feel comfortable with Mr mors thank you um yeah I wan to highlight so in I would I mean I'm in suppor of of changing the language in gp5 to um uh change the uh the lead of of who is responsible for the the commission

1:14:01 orientation um to the general manager's office um I wanted to highlight in in 15 I think three bullet points down is um design a series of orientations for new Commissioners which includes but not limited to board president and board members and so I think it sounds like that's addressed as well I I do hear um of of maybe being a little bit more intentional with board president excl exclusively um but I also want to share too in my experience the last board president uh disappeared into the night so uh thank you commissioner uh McCrae uh but so there are certain uh scenarios in which that might not make the most sense um in that transition but um yeah I wanted to just highlight it as

1:14:46 mention um board president there my my only point in raising it is that it says the board president and then it says or there does Desy is responsible and it just seems like it's really more the general manager in consultation with the you know president or with the other board members so I just think flipping that around helps clarify it so that if a new person coming in like oh what is the role of the board president I'm entirely responsible for the orientation of new Commissioners that's really not the case so I think it just if there's a quick word switch it would clarify it and I don't want to get too to into the weeds think already have but um okay I think we have enough to work with Commissioners uh thank you I would also

1:15:31 just just a note for someone who might be listening in we normally do this in December of every year um this year it got put off a couple of months the reason that we do it in December is if we do have any commissioner changeover that we're able to leverage the experience of of any Commissioners who may be leaving at the end of the year so um this is normally a December process we'll try to get back to December um this year um including reviewing any specifically any new policies that that may we may have so thank you thank you all right 7 we're a little bit ahead of schedule go and go into the bylaws

1:16:18 next what the heck thank you president barovsky I think I'm just going to sit here all evening um um and this this one actually should be fairly straightforward um the bylaws um as written in the bylaws uh need to be reviewed within three months after there is a new commissioner uh which uh we have uh there were two recommended updates and and really just sort of modernization um one relative to addressing virtual attendance and the other is simply an or reference um in one of the sections the the process for the bylaw is a little bit different than board policy in that if

1:17:03 we are going to make a change um and the board is looking at taking action we do have to provide um a 14-day basically two week public notice of what those amendments are and um if the board is agreeable to the the two changes this evening then we could uh potentially uh serve that public notice and um uh bring that issue back for board approval in April okay comments or discussion D can you clarify Article Five Section one the last there's a general manager secretary that's you shall designate an assistant secretary not an assistant general manager

1:17:49 secretary but assistant secretary so that's a different job description yes okay and and basically um the assistant secretary presently is an okay and then the treasurer right who's that okay so you're treasur and assistant Treasurer that's T Marie Harwood all right I just had never heard those terms and you know I don't read this every day so um thank you for that clarification to roles Sonia I I didn't get to mention but I I did appreciate the uh the work that was done on the media

1:18:34 policy I'm sorry that I missed that I thought that was in the bylaw section both of them were so anyway I just wanted to note that otherwise thank you for again for all of the work I think that the the work that you've done on on all of these sections to bring it back up and make the adjustments looked really good so um you know I personally would be supportive of bringing it back in April there discussion you need to vote on us to move it to the public um I don't believe so president I think if if anybody um is in disagreement to these revisions um we're not taking action tonight but if anybody's not in agreement to these revisions I think now would be the time to to speak about it

1:19:20 to otherwise we can proceed to potential action um in public setting at next month's meeting okay see no s we will go with that thing thank you president brai okay uh item 11 is a break we're had a schedule but I'm going to take the break anyway so we'll come back at 7 o'clock by that clock whatever that one up there is that's different from your phone that's the one I'm using

1:30:59 7 o'clock introducing EB board uh our item number item number 12 is prior year end results of the operation and strategic goals report president barovsky Commissioners good evening again um again for the record Frank Lawson the CEO and general manager um but I wanted to start off uh this evening with just uh a couple of of comments uh the the goal this evening of the presentation is to provide some context uh relative to the 82 page report uh that you got on the results from last year um overall um compliments

1:31:48 to the board and to staff for really having an incredible year and getting an incredible amount of work done um in saying that though there's some years that just feel harder than others and 2024 certainly had its challenges uh but really wanted to start off by just complimenting um our staff our partners we have a lot of Partners uh locally um and the and the board um for all of their work this past year it did um start off um rather in a challenging fashion this last year um in the first quarter uh on the El so I'll start with

1:32:35 water the the finances um for water that's looking at affordability uh really solid this year um some of that driven by some higher consumption around 433,000 kilog gallons over um relatively conservative budget um but the the water uh finances uh performed in a solid fashion um the uh electric side in the very first quarter um had an 18 million doll hole some of that was driven by storm response some of it was driven by in that storm uh lost connection to our own generation that we would typically

1:33:21 be marketing uh we also had um other than the few days of Ice uh we had a very mild winter so consumption was down um and overall um water availability for generation was roughly 80% 82% of what was normally available and so um the the financial pressures on the electric side were were significant we did finish the year um with a positive contribution to net margin or or um change in net position and so want to complement staff in particular for the last six months uh

1:34:06 working on looking for opportunities to improve our financial position on the electric side the results um also from Investments and uh looking at our financial metrics we did have a revenue requirement increase of 8% on the water side 7% on the electric side some of that driven by some pretty significant Investments uh that we're looking to make going forward and creating the the financial head room to be able to do that and so um continue to see some pressure um um particularly on on the electric side um but also just through investment on the water side the electric side um from a really

1:34:52 overall performance the S and safy which is really the system average duration of outage and frequency of outage um relatively close to our five-year average which is tends to be um very good numbers if you look across the country um we perform very well um you have to dive into that a little bit deeper because we're in urban utility and there's differences between urban and rural areas um and so um wanted to at least mentioned that it is it always isn't in one number um we also look at response times and and other things uh we did have some generation work going on uh some of that was Carmen

1:35:38 Smith relicensing we did make Headway on some of the the dam safety issues at at trailbridge U but also had an emerging issue at Walterville so a number of sort of of challenges yet great work taking place um 98% deployed for our ad Advanced metering um probably more than that at this point um inside the city limits and completed um a really key substation um one of multiple substations that we'll be working on and I know all Commissioners uh were there for the opening of the current substation so I wanted to to commend staff for that on the water side um water quality

1:36:24 remains good reliability is good um some really significant um Project work taking place um we we know that we have substantially completed the East 40th project um many of you were involved from the very beginning on that one before we even broke ground um some of you more recently involved with uh the College Hill water storage project uh both of those have really significant impacts uh in the long term because of the resiliency that they add but in the near term the just the impacts on those those neighborhoods is significant and we always want to appreciate that I think this is an area where the project team and the communications team and the

1:37:10 amount and the quality of the Outreach has been um significant we have a number of transmission work projects going on on the water side as well um and we're continuing to progress on the permitting um pieces for uh the will AMT second water treatment plan one of the more significant um projects that was completed um at least launched I'll say um in 2024 uh was the modernization of our some of our major systems our customer systems um and also our finance systems our customer portal there were there were a number of things

1:37:55 that were tied in with that um this um was an incredibly incredible amount of effort and probably I I say here where business continuity meets meets strategic opportunity uh this was a necessary project um given that we were replacing systems that were initially put in in the 1990s and so um there was a necessity to it um but it also facilitates some new products and services new customer analysis and other things that we think will be useful strategically going forward and I just have to compliment uh the leadership of that so uh Deborah and Julie and Travis um but also recognized that this was an area where uh probably

1:38:40 for the first time as an organization we fully implemented change management continuous Improvement we documented we had to document over 100 different unique processes associated with changing out the system and so the the teams that were involved here approximately 75 of our employees uh were involved directly in this project but then we also had their backfills so they were used to develop the new system and we had to backfill their positions with other people in the organization and so um this this was an amazing amount um of work and part of which made it so strategic was we've

1:39:25 never done anything successfully like this before um and so when you're doing something new and try to set set a new standard on how you do projects like this um we wanted to do this one well we are now as you know in our some of stabilization hyperare we're working through we've launched it it went live in December now there's lots of of details to to work on to make the is um usable going forward and so I just wanted to commend a number of different people and the board for being willing to make those Investments um in this really critical system as many of you know uh we're we're very involved uh we have a lot of

1:40:12 touch points with the community um most of these uh were were part of the the packet um that that you received um continue to do a lot lot of work in Energy Efficiency and conservation um the the work this year was was um significant as far as the number of projects I think it's an all-time high almost 2,000 Energy Efficiency projects were completed um there's a kind of a a breakdown significant amount in the residential sector also in the residential limited income sector as far as number of projects those projects um though compared with the amount of energy efficiency you get out the the highest

1:40:57 degree of actual savings per dollar invested was in in the commercial area and so um just some of the the data there lots of work continued on on water conservation as well um Leak Detection um bill assistance um and so um helped almost uh a little under 6,000 customers 5700 customers through bill Assistance programs and so significant amount of of work and and also um you know through our some of our programs related to uh our use of clean fuels credits such as our um electrification of Transportation um those actually come from from funds

1:41:42 that um come through those um those credits that we receive from the state so a lot of work there and then kind of what was touched on earlier uh the the amount of touch points that the amount of communications um significant um and I have to mention this because I put the picture up there um phenomenal event and phenomenal approach to take um with a reservoir that's going away um and um thought this was a a a really um great opportunity for us to connect with the community and celebrate the fact that since 1930 8 this Reservoir has served our community in a number of different ways including stargazing and

1:42:28 skateboarding and bike riding um but also recognize that well while that's a certain role it fulfilled our primary role is to make sure that our community has safe um drinking water going forward and so I thought that was a significant event um as well as just the number of of opportunities that we have to talk to customers um we respond to customers the customer survey I think was reflective of that I'll end with just a couple quick summaries we do go through the the goals um and provide quarterly updates uh to Commissioners um overall when I looked at all the goals and sub goals you know

1:43:13 there there's usually kind of an overarching goal and then there's a few um specific details within those um looks like a little over my first estimate a little over 90% of those sub goals uh were achieved in 2024 some had progress with some um mixed debate whether they were fully completed quite a few of them were either fully completed or substantially completed um goal one and goal two tend to be more operations in their orientation so you see things like compliance um operational efficiencies um major projects things like that and then um the rest of the goals from this last year tended to be

1:43:58 more strategic looking at think everything from Workforce to the new system I mentioned rate design um integrated resource planning and the actions associated with that including Bonville and how we're engaged in uh in the provider of choice decision and then how we approached alternative funding which wasn't just about um getting grants um which we have um been awarded over 20 million of those but also developing a process by which we can make sure that this type of funding aligns with our strategic Direction and we're not just chasing money to chase money but there's a particular purpose that can provide um rate benefits for

1:44:43 our customers as well as helping us fulfill our mission and so um with that Commissioners um I know there's 82 pages I have no idea what you're going to pull out from those 82 pages to ask about so I think what I'll do is just turn it back to you if we can answer them on the spot we will if you um or if you just want to make comments that's great too so really appreciate it want to thank you for all your help lot of decisions made this last year a lot of guidance you provided and to thank staff and our Community Partners um and our suppliers there's there's a lot of different people that we call our community so um we appreciate that and president brai

1:45:29 I'll just turn it back to you great thank you for the presentation I will look to board members for questions or comments Sona you draw I guess so well I I don't have a very much to add but I did want to say that I just very much appr appreciate the structure by which um the goals and the achievements are made quarterly and annually it just makes it so much easier as a board member to be able to get that view inside of each of the I mean we we vote on so many different projects and they're multi-year projects and so staying up to date on them I know it's

1:46:14 an immense amount of work and sometimes when we don't say very much or have you know it I just don't want staff to feel like that is it's time wasted because it is certainly not um part of the reason that I think we don't have many questions aside from pre-meeting questions um is that it's just so detailed that we I feel like we have a very clear picture of what is happening in the organization so um very much appreciate the 82 pages that went into and all of the work that went into creating those 82 Pages great Mindy I just have a very small question um and it's on the slide uh of

1:47:01 community go back yeah so I just have a question where it says the 2024 Energy Efficiency and we have like almost 7,800 megawatts and the target was 11 almost 1,200 12,000 does that mean that can you say did we not meet our goal that we wanted to in Energy Efficiency projects or what does that say so I I would say yes and no so there's there's two ways to look at Energy Efficiency one is um megawatt hours which tends to be the energy component which uh as you can see because of the makeup of the projects um and how the budgets were allocated we did not make our en our megawatt hour objective on the other hand um Peak is

1:47:46 also part of that measurement and we were 131% of our goal on the peak side side some of that was just the makeup of the projects that got completed in 2024 so technically you could say we were under on the energy side we were over on the peak side um and so kind of mixed mixed in that sense although I I I would point out pretty intentional that um we looked at how the projects um kind of were evolving we did get um several million dollars extra from Bonville projects that we had turned in um and so um just kind of some it was really more of a makeup of the projects and and how they

1:48:32 they worked out um and so um we will hear more going forward on the role of Energy Efficiency in our energy planning that's that's coming up we do have the assessment of the demand side potential that we're seeing so this is not the end of it um but um that's a good observation it has a lot to do with the makeup of the projects that we completed great that's it thank you Tim thank you chair um want to Echo uh um commissioner Carlson's sentiment I think uh I don't have significant questions because everything has been laid out so clearly and I think as a as a new commissioner I hope that that uh

1:49:17 carries a lot of water that this is uh very well thought through this is um uh very uh extensive and 82 pages is a lot but a good it's a good a lot um uh one slide backwards I have a just a clarifying question and this caught my attention a few times um you have the um the uh list for the Enterprise Solutions on 1210 uh 101% of bills were sent out I'm can you clarify that for me Deborah do you want to help with that one or

1:50:02 be that we were under in previous like we were under 99% and so didn't we have we we held some I'm happy to take my question off the air and and I I think that's relative to the bills that were scheduled that day so there's um a certain cycle that we go through for billing and we could be a little under on one day and a little over on the next depending so it's it's more relative to a schedule than it is I don't know how you would be over billing if you sent out 101% of the bills so it it has to do with the scheduling as opposed to the the to the actual number excellent thank you yeah that was my only that's the only thing that really caught my attention otherwise

1:50:48 great work thank you chck yes i' just like to thank you for putting this the funding source on the community investment where you see where like the money is coming from the state or whatever on the EV grants and things like that a real quick question it shows that we had an expense to run run to stay warm is that our expense and that that's netted out with the gross revenue or is that really costing us is is it going backwards I'm sorry which what are your run to stay warm like it's 6,000 bucks but it's just it shows it as an expense and I thought we made money on I I'll check into that I know that um we do receive a check on that so I don't know if that's offsetting that or not but I can look into that that that

1:51:33 we can clarify that for you thank you okay um yeah thank you for the report um it is quite extensive and thorough you know when I go through and look at it um I always look for the ones that are underperforming because that's to me those are the ones that are the that need to look at a little bit more closely and for the most part there's always a good explanation as to why they're they're underperforming whether it's a regulatory hoop that we have to jump through and we're we thought we would hit a benchmark and we can't because of because of we're waiting for somebody to check a box in in a place that we have no control over um and so

1:52:18 that clarification is very helpful on the under performances um and the number of underperformance is it's it's a little bit lower I think um well I don't know there were there were there were a few areas where under you know I saw a lot of the the negative ones but again they all had reasonable explanations to them um and hopefully that those those will get cleared up in in the next quarter and we'll we'll see the dial moving in the right direction but other than that thank you for the comprehensive report yeah um appreciate that um president barovsky I think there's there's a couple of ways that we try to

1:53:03 look at at the metrics and the metrics can kind of continue to evolve as we go some of it is the absoluteness of the metric um and the other is the trend and um for example we saw a bit um trending to the unfavorable side um of some of our safety metrics for example in 2024 now that's off of a basis that has probably been the best in our history um and there were some reasonable explanations for that some of those are normalized some of it um resulted because of a the largest um storm response in our history and so there's uh there's some things that we we are looking for relative to trends that we think um maybe larger than a particular

1:53:49 snapshot in time we were talking about the survey and a snapshot shot in time so we we are looking at that um and um to the point earlier you know do you invest in things that are already is there a diminishing return at some point where your investment doesn't doesn't go there there are some areas that that honestly I think we're we're keeping a pretty close eye on one is we want to make sure we're doing the right things on the leading side of safety as opposed to the lagging side of safety which some of your measurements are um we also really trying to pay attention to things like water years and and how we mitigate um for uh changes in water availability for for market conditions there's a

1:54:35 number of things there that that we're looking at um compliance is is high on our list um as well um along with uh a number of other things um the the leadership team and I are really trying to dive into um some of our priorities are right now and how we create the the appropriate milestones and metrics to to capture that um I think there's uh one of the things that um we're a bit concerned with is are we becoming too fragmented um you know you have to stay focused on what your what your core business is and so those are some of the things that we're looking at to make sure as an organization we're we're keeping our eye on the ball when you

1:55:21 have 8 2 Pages which page in the 82 is the most important um and I think that's where we want to make sure that we're paying attention to things and and um so it's it's great that we have the availability and the staff and and um who's who's diligent with that but um there's there's a lot to take a look at there and and and just to going back to what you just said um I don't I hope that if in that lens of you looking at are we measuring this the correct way that we're not changing the way we're looking at measuring it just to get better outcomes you know that that we're actually if we're making a change in the

1:56:06 way we're measuring some of the the outcomes that we're doing we have a a grounded reason why we're doing that and if we are changing that have a footnote in the in the uh in the cour of the reports it says this went from a below average to above average because we changed the way we're looking at it and the reason we did that is blank that would be something I would like it because if you're just going to say well let's change the way we metrize this just so we get better numbers that's not what we're looking for yeah I I totally agree it's not what we're looking for I think what we're looking for is is what is the most informative and um in some cases that makes the

1:56:51 number worse in some cases it makes it better um but I think it's based on creating the appropriate measurements that can drive decisions and actions I think that's what we're really looking at and so we we don't make decisions on whether it makes it better or worse is it is it giving us the guidance that we need I think that's the real important thing for us it sounds like for you as well yeah uh just building up of what commissioner Brown asked about I was just curious uh because I know that we have e web staff that participate in that would that be a count in that cost column so as you review I'm curious if if and if so are all of the other ones because I know there's a eweb Ambassador efforts and events section in there

1:57:36 that's separate but it it doesn't seem to have all of those individually called out so I just wonder if maybe it's staff time that's paid that helps set to the Water trailer and such yeah we'll take a look at that in in part of the reason that we in the case of the Run stay warm moved that to an outside organization was with staff time and opportunity cost we were um you know spending significantly more than we were um bringing in for the benefit of our customers um and so um that didn't seem to accomplish the objective so we'll dive into that a little bit deeper Mr Rob quick question um so I know there's been chatter is there a problem with

1:58:21 billing up River because I know that he's seen a lot of online chat about conspiracies and and I just got just happened to get text from a person I know up there and their bill double it went from like um 1120 in November to 4,194 and then back down to 12200 now back up to 4,100 but his bills have been consistent all up until these last couple months and now they're going off the charts there's there's nothing wrong with the actual billing there could be a couple things going on relative to to um potential for estimated reads in that process um we did go through some some weather conditions um there's also and as Commissioners know and i' I've mentioned um significant changes from

1:59:08 last year to this year relative to some of the breakdown of the bill and then also um when your average temperature goes from 39 to 36 it's in that window where um efficiency starts to come into play if you have electric heat for example so there's a number of things there but there's um nothing wrong with the the way that the billing is operating um up River might have had more estimated reads for example or something like that but I'm respond that way because I mean it's a coincidence that he got some he's got some information and I just actually received too and they're all up River yeah and and you know it is we do if customers have specific comments or questions about their bill there's a number of ways that they they can get a hold of us

1:59:53 we can also do a a reread potentially of of a particular meter those up River are U not um um automated meters so they would have to be manually read so but we'd be we Havey look into it specifically all right any other questions or comments on this thanks again for your support Commissioners appreciate it okay next St moving on to the Watershed annual report Mike and

2:00:49 Susan good evening Commissioners president barowski GM law others uh Mike Masters here the water operations manager with Susan fricky our Water Resource and quality assurance supervisor um we're here pleased to bring you some highlights of the 2024 state of the McKenzie Watershed report first I wanted to remind everyone of our source to tap multibarrier approach to protecting our drinking water and you know the first layer of that is our source water protection so can't thank you enough for the continued support and investment in protecting that Source um there's efficiencies with treatment that can be

2:01:34 realized there financially and other ways also positive effects on our environment um also want to thank Susan and her staff for diligently working to protect our source day in day out and our multi- agency partners that participate in app so thank you um starting off just remind everybody of our drinking water source protection goals before I turn it over to Susan uh we want to work with Partners to maintain Source water quality prioritize the benefits to the water treatment and electric generation in the McKenzie Watershed and promote public awareness and stewardship

2:02:22 Susan Susan pry for the record um and here we are we're going to go into some of the data we have some highlights to share for you tonight um let's see for harmful alal blooms I guess the best data is not much data so we didn't really have that much happen that was a big deal for 2024 which is a wonderful thing it's less work for treatment it's less things that we need to be worrying about and tracking that's good we did have a fire at Blue River Reservoir that blocked access for a little bit but we continued to monitor Downstream and then last year we had had that pretty big sample in August of bacteria and some of the urban storm drains so the storm water sites so we've been continuing to monitor that this year we've been going out a little bit more regularly looking at those sites and we

2:03:07 found some pretty high levels so um you know anything above Frank asked me to talk about when we have concerns you know anything above the thousands and anything above a thousand um I'm not going to go into regulations right now but you wouldn't want like your animals or your kids playing and those kind of things that are high like that definitely and um while they are a minor contribution into the McKenzie river as a whole um it definitely is a concern and it's something we want to look at partially because we want to work with our partners and as part of our Urban Waters program that if we do have these high levels and we can find the source we can work on mitigating it with our partners this has happened before when we found large amounts of um canine like feal material that was in

2:03:52 there and so we worked with City of Springfield they went out and had people that were going to be able to put more of the pet waste bags out and so then you did community outreach for that this year we started doing some of the DNA Source tracking and we just have preliminary info we'll share more with you next year um or later in the year but it actually looks like the dominant this time is human and then there's also contributions by bird and dogs as well but dogs aren't the dominant one that we found yet but we want to keep looking into it um so we're not done with this one yet so this is more just preliminary and we'll come back with more information we're also going to try to get a little bit of the information about how much of this is it you know is it like this much of the water that's contributing and once that gets into the McKenzie it might not really it dilutes

2:04:38 out a lot so it's not such an issue um some of the highlights around Source protection we installed a permanent um continuous monitoring Network at Quartz Creek and so that does not only flow so it does our discharge but it also does water quality and why that's really important is that we have that big restoration project that's going to be happening there so we're getting some pre- dat right now it was a great collaboration with USGS on that um we also updated the emergency response system and then one of the best things I think that we did this year that I'm really proud of our source water protection folks is um we had of course the annual spill drill this year it was up at finrock that went really well but we've been working across the region to

2:05:24 really help support other programs as well so David Donnie who one of our staff went up and presented at the EPA region 10 spill response Workshop which was great um because he's our local expert and then they also went down some of our staff went down to Medford and helped them actually set up a response trying to figure out how they would um react to a spill around their intake and then they also participated in a training as well so one of the highlights that great work because I love that we're able to share our work with other utilities and help make their responses better um for the pure water Partners um we've been doing a lot of amazing work with the rate fee that you heard about earlier and that um Mr Mo was talking about and that Mr brosi commissioner

2:06:10 Browski was talking about and so some of that work has been with the pure water partnership as of this year we've planted we planted almost a million trees and shrubs which is great we've been working with over 230 land owners which is also amazing um we've got a lot of natural regeneration happening and what we're doing is we're kind of wrapping up a lot of that holiday Farm fire response around the for the pure water Partners um this year and so we've done a lot of great work out there we're going to wrap it up this summer and um we also did a lot of strategic planning with the pure water Partners to try to figure out what next and we're going to kind of going to go back to the original intent of doing the riparian protections and enhancement which will be

2:06:55 wonderful um this is the one that keeps changing every day we're talking about impacts of federal funding right now we have planned a 1.75 mile restoration project at Quartz Creek I think most of you have been out there and seen the project and where this is going to happen um the last part of the implementation funding is about $4 and A5 million doar that's funded through a Noah transformational Grant um as of right now the funding is still available still aable for for us to be used by Mackenzie Gaters council is actually the one that holds that um we're hoping that we can Implement that project this summer there might be impa a delay as we all know there's Federal funding uncertainty um also some of the project managers for this one have been um the work for the forest service has been

2:07:40 terminated um some the layoffs that have happening so there is a lot of uncertainty we will keep you posted we are very helpful this is one of the biggest issues for water quality in the Basin it's what turn our River chocolatey milk in the winter time a lot and we really want to get this project done we've spent a lot of our resources and time and our in our staff energy and we've supported a lot of our partners so we're we'll keep it posted let's all pull for this one to happen I think it's a great project um we have some of our other staff Nancy who's here tonight as well has been working with Misty on the septic system assistance um I the septic grants sorry I'm just so excited about this we've had over 120 Grands to homeowners for septic repair and replacement I mean what a great use of

2:08:26 government funds we had funding from both DEQ and from bis Oregon Lane County and um we still have about $300,000 from the bis Oregon Lane County money the DEQ we had to stop spending the end of 2024 um the L County money we still have a little over a year I think still little bit over a year to keep spending that money and so we'll keep working with land owners on that that it's just a wonderful success success story of um these Partnerships that we've developed and our staff's great work it's so awesome then as far as money we've also been able to get more Grant funds back this year so while we did put out a considerable amount of money we put out about 2.3 we were able to get quite a

2:09:12 bit of grant funding back so we really only spent about $800,000 of the rate fee this year which is lovely um it's great we done a really good job of making our operations more efficient and also getting Grant reimbursements everything we were hoping to do and then there's more numbers and things and if you want to talk about numbers we can look at those and um I just want to make sure we had plenty of time for questions and answers this is a beautiful picture that David Don Hughes um kiddo took up at cougar River reservoir for Northern Lights what we wanted to talk about is kind of what's coming next and what's coming next is we're hoping to be working on Source water protection efforts for the Second Source um we're

2:09:57 not going to do it quite as the scattered way we do probably like with the pure water Partners down way we want to work with anybody who wants to work with us we already have amazing partners that are working in the Middle Fork and the coast Fork um rivers and so we're going to let them work on doing strategic prioritization with us and then working with those land owners working with those folks who we need to to really do those high quality water water quality improvements that we can do so we're strategically using our resources when we get to that point and I know commissioner Brown has questions I can see it in his face so I think we all do thank you for the presentation I will put it around qu questions we'll start on this side Tim I'm glad I got in before commissioner

2:10:43 Brown uh I and forgive uh great report um thank you so much for for the work and it's um clear to me a lot of the the intention and and um protections that have been put in um uh if this is an inappropriate question for you please let me know and maybe I'll direct towards Frank um for the thank you for mentioning the middle and Coast Fork um uh uh Rivers I'm wondering if we're also going to be receiving as a board a middle and Coast Fork Watershed report like we're receiving right now for uh the McKenzie river we need to start back up few steps for that one so we'll be doing a sourcewater assessment report um our staff are already getting working um with DQ and other folks on that we're

2:11:30 kind of just waiting for it to be the right time to start working on that um and then we'll figure out what kind of report you all want to see and what we'll be presenting we've also already started doing some like preliminary monitoring in for both Source water protection and compliance at where the intake will be for the treatment plan so we're starting to do those things we can start incorporating them in but there's still still a little preliminary we finally just heard about the first permit that's going out so we've kind of been waiting for that green flag to go and do more of this for you all yeah thank you so much Mindy yeah I just have a couple questions okay the first one goes back to the fecal bacteria um and you're thinking that

2:12:15 it's primarily or human so we're doing this um thing when they look at the genetic marker to see what kind of thing it is is it you know human dog bird whatnot and the predominant one right now seems to be human um we've got some more work we want to do on that this is a new lab that we're using for the first time and so we kind of want to see a little bit more data we didn't have tons of data points we want to have a little bit more data for you all before we say yes that's what's going on okay yeah we would work with City of Springfield on trying to figure out where that's coming from how we would clean it up you know like is there a sewer leak or something let's find it that was my question is how would it was it leaky septic systems are people going

2:13:02 to the bathroom in the river I don't well I mean it could be somebody like you know pumping out on RP the interesting thing is all the different colors so if you look at the different colors like let's look at September which is L so September is right there but each one of these bars is a different channel so we're like if we saw it in the same channel every time and it was really high only in that channel to me they would be like there's a leak there but we're seeing it across different ones so we still need to do a little bit more investigation and try to see is it just because we didn't used to go out and example when we were getting some more of these first flush events when these canals were sitting channels were sitting all summer long and then the

2:13:47 water comes in and flushes them out is it is something else going on and that's I want to do a little bit more work on this um I also have a question on the um the Watershed recovery work that we've done and um I believe that the fee is set to expire like in the in the fall is that right or the end of this year July of 26 okay so we have another year um and I'm curious how many like apart from the Quartz Creek are there other major unfinished work that needs to be done um I know it's been a great success but like overall how would you summarize the work that's been done the work that still

2:14:32 needs to be done um yeah answer and uh see if I'm doing this right um no I think we've done amazing work with this I think we've helped leverage this money I for I didn't get the number and I'm sorry I did just say budget stuff and I'm sure my budget person will be like Susan why did you do that because I wanted to have this conversation you know but um we've done amazing work with Partners I think we've leveraged something like $20 million in Grants with the money that we've provided it's just wonderful it's been a wonderful way to support Community work to support our nonprofits and we also do have some really great amazing work to continue doing like for example we Ed the rate fee to do a lot of the planning and design for courtz Creek that we were

2:15:18 talking about which is you know going to be a wonderful project that will help water quality Fisheries infrastructure protection all those good things um we don't have funding yet for we have funding FEMA funding for the planning and design for inis Creek which is another acquisition MacKenzie River trusted we have another acquisition we're looking into that we'll talk about in April hopefully we have FEMA planning and design for that but we don't have implementation funding yet we also have a lot of federal uncertainty right now we had a bunch of Noah people get like I think 8 people Nationwide got laid off Friday um we have a lot of uncertainty with Federal for service staff retention that's going to be coming up we might lose our whole like project team that's going to be working on these and so

2:16:03 we're going to need to find ways to bring those experts in to help train our people so we can get built up I mean this is happening about six months to a year ahead of where we wanted it to happen because we're hoping to train a lot of these folks so we have experts at every um agency and nonprofit that work on these projects and we don't have that yet so we definitely um could find really productive ways to use this funding should it continue great thank you GNA yield my time to your questions no I'm good are you sure yeah go ahead all right well thank you

2:16:50 very much and you know where my why I'm sitting here the primary reason why I've sat here for 18 years um and you I've gone through it I've got the old one and I've done some comparisons and some general things because I do want to have one-on-one with you and anybody else because I got more questions than we have time for but um General macro so upper willamet Soil and Water they're on our tax bill now they get millions of dollars a year and are they going to be taking the lead on the financing of this because you know we're not the only ones using water init um sub does and I'm not so sure they you know and and the same thing with McKenzie so are we going to try and expand the the participation from other agencies that have sources of funding like we do because we're going to get pressed up on rates and it's

2:17:37 really important to protect this and will Amit is going to be 10 times more difficult than than theen based on what I know and uh respond to that one first before you move on to the next is that okay otherwise I'll forget because it's past we're sleeping I forget okay so for soil Water Conservation District we actually just had a meeting with them um they have taken over the filbert moth monitoring which was a smaller project it was about 10 12,000 a year where we went out with hazelnut Growers and you know monitored for the MTH so they would have better timing for spraying use less spray they've taken over that project and then we've kind of ended up ratting some funding um around um we're closing out some of the pure water partner work that e web's funding and The Soil and Water Conservation District right now is

2:18:23 looking at their budget because their budget starts July 1st for their next fiscal year and they're looking at up picking up a considerable amount of the Staffing time for being able to do some of the planning for the pure water parters and so that's something that will definitely be a benefit for us so that we can reroute some of this Federal uncertainty with the rate fee that we have right now um but they we're hoping that they pick up some of the paycheck for that one yes so um all the problems are down in 69 57 42nd 5502 that's where our problems are that's where our problems were last year that's where our problems have been for a long time Carl was sitting up there we had the same thing with the dogs and the kennels and people washing them out and things like that nothing's happened um we're still getting these high reports of that and

2:19:09 it's same thing with the December event when we had the City of Springfield sewage overflow and go into the McKenzie and um you know nobody you know and and it was an overflow so it's going to happen again and where's the followup on saying okay you got to fix the system because if that's that wasn't equipment failure or anything else that was just overloading of the system and so that could happen every month you know I I mean where are we going to go out and push back and say this is unacceptable you know of all the actions and things there and I I'm sorry I don't want you to fight my fight but what do you need from us because like I say on the pent report that the DEQ that every year I I said this last year the minutes

2:19:55 don't reflect it but okay in two weeks we're going to get the report we're not going to see those results on the pentac corol plume until next year so we're a year behind by two weeks because we have this report last week of February first week of March every year and the DEQ doesn't require them to report until the third week of March so we got old data again and it looks like it's migrating so things like that that I would like to say what do you need from us to I'm not saying you're not doing it right I want to do it better because to me it doesn't make sense to put a chemical in water to clean it let's just not let it dirty in the first place and I want to be more proactive I want to B more funding um so uh what can we do to help you what can we do well we do have our Urban Waters

2:20:40 partnership which is a collaboration of folks like we have nonprofits that are there we also have City of Springfield Eugene Lane County um sub and eweb are all there along with other partners so that is a really good way that started bringing people together but I think to me it looks like we and David you can weigh in if you'd like I also don't want to call you out I think we need to do some more investigative monitoring and right now e web is the only one who has the ability to really do that and I want to make sure that we like how much we need to do what we need to dig into because David and I were actually just emailing about this I waiting to talk earlier and um we need try to figure out where this is like I was telling um commissioner schosberg like if it was in one storm water

2:21:28 outflow it would be one thing but it's in a lot of them so we're not quite sure what's happening we want to do more monitoring and then we want to have the ability to work with City of Springfield and that's where I think you all could use when you're meeting with City of Springfield sub all those folks is what do we want to do to fix these things so is there going to be a plan in place to do it because I I think this was a very similar problem in last year's report and all the way back to Carl's days we we've had these fights with these outflows and uh and we know where it's coming from and it's coming in right above our intake and is there a plan to sit down and have a meeting with people and say this we need to deal with this we're hoping we had a plan at one point from what I've been told by staff

2:22:13 for 52nd um to do a restoration project there that got shut down and I am hoping with the work that's happening at IP where there might be a decommissioning of the cooling ponds and we're going to work on a restoration project there I would like to get that going again I feel like we have a lot of pressure to do projects lots of different places I feel that's a really important one and I want to start picking up the energy now that we're kind of closing up on some of the holiday Farm fire restoration we've had a lot of our staff and a lot of our resources working on that is very important for us it's very important for our community um important for you all and i' would like to turn more like I think that's while we did our board flot trip last year was more urban I think we need to turn turn more urban and have a plan for those kind of areas and start that project work but we're also being

2:22:59 spread then with you know we've got these projects here and those projects here and we've got people getting laid off and we're trying to reroute so I don't know what the best answer is I know it's a priority for me and I would like to help come up with a plan for that and thank you for indulging me all I me I got my last question is it is just an observation is that um if we're not going to go out and and do this um the you know you one of the reports we just put in a very expensive monitoring in the Kaiser SLO and for those you don't know that's a where IP dumps their boiler water in right above the Heen rdge and uh and do we do anything on temperature there because I know some River guides that are going in there and putting a thermometer in and saying water's in the 60s and I'd be

2:23:46 glad to get you data on that uh absolutely if we can get the date on that we definitely have that and we can pull that for you because I'm just wondering that you know if they're dumping warm water into the river that's not that's one of the reasons we put that in so we can keep an eye on it um yeah we'll make sure and get that when you come out talk with us and I I well go to the time but I do want to see if you can schedule a meeting with me and whoever you want to uh have me engage with and just have a conversation so I can get more educated so I can help bring a message to get you the resources you need to address some of these concerns because I think they are concerns I would love that this is a very cursory book I have amazing staff that take thousands of data points and compress it into like 30 pages and like

2:24:33 five pages of 10 pages of data and it's very hard to tell the story in that limited time so I would opportunity to come talk with you I'm GNA be your best Ally and I will be and did you just throw throw the bone and I'll Chase all right thank you very much thank you sir okay um I put myself in the queue um couple of questions and a comment um on the algae blooms that were lower this year do we think that that has any correlation with the the level that Cougar's at and that that a lot more cooler water is coming in rather than it's sitting up high there and being warm I mean i' I've booted a lot of these lakes and you get the pesto in August right the picture they have there

2:25:19 I I was call it pesto cuz that's what it looks like to me uh I don't know where I get that reference from but um it's not as tasty as some of the pesto I've had um but I know that it was a little bit cooler of Summer and then yeah is cougar's draw down do you think has an influence on those algae blooms I me I'll I'll talk right now generally about harmful Alo blooms and would you take free flowing rivers and turn them into warm bathtubs with longer resonance time where the water is sitting there for longer it has a longer time to get warmer you potentially have more nutrients that can pull up and settle and like into those to feed the blooms you do get bigger blooms than you generally find within free flowing Rivers so if you're reducing that time

2:26:05 that's definitely something that could be happening and also there's just not the surface area the large body of water at that point either right I'm just thinking you said year to year it was it was it was a down year and is that I know it's that correlated with kind of cougar being drawn down because of the the fish mitigation I was just wondering if anything you'd like to add sir back there I don't have a speaker but David Donahue environmental specialist in Social protection I would concur with that I think the core managing cougar a lot lower means the retention times a lot um lower but I also think when you don't set up a thermal Clin early in the season um that also contributes to GL form so yeah the water's probably a

2:26:52 little cooler and you're just not setting up that really stratified system in the reservoir which kind of helps promote so perfect um and then I would also kind of piggyback on what commissioner Brown said um as far as leaning into the upper wamit Soil and Water District uh you know they got their taxing district a couple of years ago and I think that they're trying to figure out the highest and best use uses for those funds and I think that not necessarily going to them and saying please fund this but but going to them as more of a partner than we were in in the past because their funds were so limited in the past that the projects that they could lean into were rather small and now they've got a

2:27:38 a larger capacity so I think leaning into them as willing Partners I think would work both ways I think they'll they'll see the positive impacts that we've had in in other of the Watershed and and want to work with us to partner um I know that um you know on the council on the on the McKenzie Watershed Council our funding has been really instrumental in like you said leveraging leveraging grants and and money going forward because it is there and it is there early and so we can we can demonstrate that yes we've got we we've got some money to get the planning and and and the people to help write the

2:28:25 grants and it is that's been leveraged very well and I think we can take that learning and and partner with the the water district um and try and use those types of leveraging as well it is a it is a great organization that has been working long and hard on a very shoestring budget and now their Sho string goes all the way up to their knee and so it's going to be good to help them to uh work on our on our was so I look forward to that collaboration going forward I think it would be useful other than just at a staff level us saying hey my board says you need to step up I I mean I feel it would be beneficial if there was some kind of direct

2:29:12 board-to-board input I'm not sure how that works with the swcd I know they're trying to work on how they want to do their granting programs how they want to prioritize fing and it might mean more coming from you all than just from like me and Nancy all the time of can you guys pay for stuff too um if that there's an option for that ever okay great any other comments or questions yeah um I uh failed to mention it um when I last spoke I just want to celebrate uh your work with um over almost a million shrubs and native trees planted since 2021 and the septic T that's that's what I am called to and

2:29:57 what I observe is the direct Community engagement and I just want to celebrate your intentionality and your work with that so I I just want to reshare congratulations to that I would love to turn that appreciation around to Nancy to is sitting in her back room and she is the energy and the amazingness behind that work she's been leading that for us so thank you so much Nancy I app appreciate what she does and her and David every day because they we just have an amazing team okay any other comments John you gotta have one more care what we asked for no I I want to Echo but Tim said and others I mean there's not you know I'm not my barking isn't because I don't think you're doing a good job I don't I

2:30:42 want you to do a great job and if I you know if you want 10 yeah you ask for 20 and so read between the lines I'm I'm totally in support of what you're doing but I also want to bring some other people to the table that are getting a free ride and and make sure that we address this uh the way we we should because uh we're the keepers of it look the great job we've done with McKenzie and uh it's going to be a big task to do to continue to do what we want to do to just maintain it and that's why um you know I want to push a little bit on some of that not saying you're not doing a good job I'm just saying I just want to maintain that we don't let it have more of these instances of uh systems getting overwhelmed and dumping that ra sewage into the river it's just to me that's unacceptable so let's so that's all I

2:31:29 got to say I hear and appreciate your support and one of the reasons I'm excited about the Second Source is we have so many great partners that are doing amazing work we don't have to always be the leader there we can support our amazing partners and we have a team that's worked really hard on building those collaborations so we're ready to like Plug and Play over on that part instead of starting from scratch and that's really exciting to me and that will give us more energy to work on some of the urban things that have been a priority for you over and over again yep thank you well I'm gonna one last thing that I want to say is that um a lot of our you know we a lot of times we have uh issues with some of the regulatory bodies you know because we're like oh my gosh what are you doing and

2:32:14 how you know things may not seem to make common sense but in our Watershed um a huge part of our Watershed is federal lands and the people that are being affected by some of the things that are happening in in in Washington these days you know you alluded to some of the the really knowledgeable people that were that are getting taken out of the conversation I'm not sure how this board wants to weigh in on that but to me it's it's almost devastating seeing some of the people that are going to be going away and the institutional knowledge that we have in our Watershed that's not going to be there to lead into and so I don't know as a board if there's

2:33:01 anything we can do to you know have a resolution that we support you know the the forest department or or Noah or some of our partners in in the vital work that we're doing and and I don't I just I wanted to put that out there am so grateful and I think our partners and our team is so grateful that we have this rate fee right now we've been able to kind of reroute it a little bit pull away a little bit from the pwp a little early hand that off to the S swcd hopefully in this summer because we have some funds I can say yes let's do this training we have some funds we can do that the funds from eweb and the fact that you have staff and resources supporting folks like Nancy and David and us is huge because

2:33:47 we know we have stable like staff resources and we have some supplemental funding I mean I don't think you understand how big of a deal that is also just for us being able to support our partners and colleagues because we know we have a job tomorrow so we can provide that support to them just emotionally you know all those kind of things so I don't know I've been thinking a lot about it too all right Frank anybody else want to weigh in no okay great well that's good we're moving right ahead of schedule thank you thank you um future board

2:34:34 agendas yes Commissioners um really only one I I I would like to put forth to the Commissioners that they decide not to do my annual performance review in March that's not just kidding um didn't think that would apply but um only two changes uh since last month in particular and that and that we added a city fee discussion for April and for May um for this board to discuss that issue so I think really that's the most substantial change in the last month okay anybody else yes I

2:35:20 do well I think that we're going to have to have some reports on a somewhat regular basis about how tariffs impact our regular Supply chains and I mean I as information comes up but I'm just anticipating that there's going to be something that we're going to have to deal with um we also have I know this morning I read Canada is cutting you know threatening to cut power to the us we have a lot of power that comes into the states and I think into our region from dams that are in Canada I don't know how entirely that all works with BPA but um I I think as that comes up we're just going to have to stay a bre of it and um certainly appreciate the

2:36:08 idea of if there is anything that we can do to advocate for the work that we need to support um if we need to have a broader discussion about what that looks like as a utility if there's any further advocacy band word um that we want to do then I think we should do it regarding the city fee do you want questions posed to you that we could maybe have you and or staff answer before we have that because I probably going to have a bunch of questions and if we do it in April we won't get a response till May and you probably look at for decision sometime within those two meetings you want questions first or not any yes whatever questions you could

2:36:53 send to my direction beforehand that would be helpful um it's not absolutely necessary um we've been doing um some research on the the mechanics of the implementation for example but really this is a a boort decision um around the content of of a utility bill but um we can certainly ENT you know look into researching whatever questions Commission would have and and the sooner you want to get us those questions the better was just speaking to Sonia's potential suggestion about some kind of resolution or of advocacy um and I know this is not up the topic of

2:37:38 discussion but uh hearing Susan talk about how many outstanding federal funds that we're still waiting on I would be really hesitant to put forward a public statement just given um how punitive the current Administration is and I would hate to do something that would jeopardize the funding that we're waiting for because that could be kind of disastrous and I don't think thus putting forth a resolution would make it do anything so that's just my feeling just in response to that I mean if we find that those funds don't come back I think we should jump on that and I'm sure Jason is in contact uh with our federal

2:38:25 delegation too but it doesn't feel like there's much that they can do that's right yeah president barasi I I just would would highlight that um we interact with federal agencies on a number of levels um I do think that um most of what we do and I think this is real credit to our organization is done with very specific intent in mind when we set out to do it so when we have projects or we have uh finances that may come from outside sources we generally know the the intent and the purpose for those and and what the risk may be um on one hand I think

2:39:11 we're in a good position in that um a large percentage of our funding does not come from a federal Source it is supplemental it is specific it enhances what we do it has again specific purposes um but I would also say that this goes way be Beyond Supply chains and particular relationships with with people in the McKenzie Valley um we have a number of relationships with with Bonville for example they're a federal agency um as well and so um we're trying to make sure that we keep track of what the sort of the real world on the ground impacts to our organization are um there are lots of there's lots of churn I

2:39:59 guess I'll say it that way um I think as staff if we do feel like there's a particular point and purpose for advocacy that we would um make that request of the board um you are public servants and so you have the ability to to voice your individual views or even your Collective views as a board as individual um public servants we're not quite in the same position so we're we'll try and be very practical in our requests okay so that takes care board's agenda um board wrapup start with

2:40:47 John Andy Tim um okay I will go go with the flow Frank anything for you to wrap things up I did just want to uh answer one of the questions that came up on that run to stay warm that was $6,000 net to our Customer Care Program not actually expense because others look like expense thank you okay well with that we will adjourn again ahead of schedule two for two