EWEB Board of Commissioners — May 6, 2025

0:01 Call the May a next meeting of the Eugene water board to order. We will begin tonight's meeting with an agenda check. Check with any of the commissioners or staff if there's any adjustments to the agenda. At this point, seeing none, we'll move on to item number two, which is items from board members and general manager. Well, see, anybody want to say anything? I'll just for the record, I don't have a laptop this evening because my Mac decided not to honor Teams anymore with the operating system. So, I'll get that fixed tomorrow, but I've got the paper copies. I'll be got it. Good. All right.

0:48 With that, we will move on to correspondence for or Frank, did you have anything that you wanted to say other board members or general manager? The only thing I'll mention commissioners is that this is a national drinking water week and so feel really fortunate to have a great drinking water source and great staff who are managing and good stewards of the assets uh related to drinking water. So that's the only thing I'll mention under that category. As far as correspondence, if you want to move on to that, um there were five items of correspondence in the background materials uh for the board. um some of these um routine items such as the renewable portfolio standard. This is a compliance report uh that we

1:35 do for the board annually. Uh the first quarter uh results uh were part of that correspondence. Um the first quarter really getting launched into the year. Um and so uh we'll do more of a complete report out um on the where we're at relative to the goals and the performance um at the midyear check-in um after 6 months. Um there was uh some information on proposed u charges and fees. Um these are uh fairly routine uh that will be coming up uh for board action next month. um not including the forecast for uh a new fee beginning next

2:20 year. Um Jason I don't believe is available this evening for the legislative update. He wasn't feeling well today and did not have a voice. And so if you do have questions on that, we'd be happy to follow up with commissioners. And then the final item was the annual update, kind of a situational awareness update on where we stand with the WAMIT treatment plant and some of the um pre-esign work there and some um updated information relative to the CIP and long-term financial plan. Good. Thank you. um water treatment plant. I was at the beginning of that. We started at a 68 million and uh now we're $160 million and I in good conscious cannot

3:06 move forward any further on this until we know exactly what this thing's going to cost and how we're going to pay for it because every what every 1% of a a rate increase with only $400,000 in revenue will water it. And so um you know I don't even know if we have the bonding capacity to do this. So on our five-y year capital plan and our rates and things, we only budgeted 100 million spooling. Now it's up another 60. I mean, I'm not saying people are piling on, but I'm done supporting that until um we can have a financial plan and know exactly how we're going to pay for it. So I would just like to put something out here for others and see if I get three three head nods. I wrote something down. I just want you to provide further details and get approved from the board on a financial plan before finalizing

3:53 plans because to design this is 10 million bucks, 15 million bucks at least. We've got to get a 30% design so we can know what the costs are. We to take it out to a contractor and say give us a bid. We have to have a 30% design. I'm not opposed to spending that money, but I'm opposed to spending any more money. Um, and also when you report back, I'd like to know what subs treatment plants costing that they're building one on Mackenzie right now because uh this got to stop. I'm going to let Frank uh respond to that and then we'll see about a head nod or if you want to more information. Yeah, Commissioner Brown, I appreciate your your request. Um, I was just going to interject. I don't think you need three head nods. Uh, this is something that we believe is important.

4:38 I think it's it's prudent and a fair request that we take a deeper dive into the financing plan and into the impact analysis that this kind of expenditure would have uh on our rates going forward and what alternatives we have to mitigate that. Um, so I don't and unless someone else on the board halts me in mid-stream here, I think it's a prudent thing for us to do uh for the board and for the community to understand that u we do believe this is an incredibly important project. um and it's uh one that um has a lot of justification to it, but we appreciate the fact that there's financial impacts here that we need to better better assess. Um in

5:24 particular, before we uh appropriate or commit to uh larger spending on the project, I think that's a prudent thing to do. I would request since um we will likely bring to the board um some kind of contract around the design this summer that the board I would uh want to request that the board approve the at least the 30% design level um so that we can understand the specifics of the um design and construction going forward um and then we can create a um some kind of tollgate at that point after the 30% design. So that would be um I think also a prudent thing to do. Can I just

6:10 finish? I want to make sure that we continue our efforts to get the land use approvals because that's wheel is in motion and if we you know this is perceived as we're not doing this that's not going to work in our best interest but there will be some public facility there but it's so to for our continue our efforts to help get Springfield Lane County and Eugene to give us the land use approval but and but by this statement doesn't mean we're not going to build it. We're just going to figure out if there's a better way to do it or another way to accomplish this goal. So, I I will continue to support my efforts with elected officials that that's done. Yeah, I think that's important, Commissioner. Um not not just the land use piece, but all the all the permitting environmental work that goes along with it. We appreciate you and the board's support there. Um like I said,

6:55 we think it's an important project, but we have to understand the impacts financially um in greater detail um and and what options we have there before we move forward. And and if I would just if the other commissioners Yeah, I was going to say does anybody else want to weigh in on this? I have a question, but I would yield. I I guess my question would be um ballpark. What are we talking about to get to that 30% design thing? I mean, what is the the we're in so far? And then I mean, is that two million? I believe and I can verify this but um I believe that the

7:41 the the budget for the full design was about 9 and a half or 10 million. Um so it would be some percentage of that. I don't know if it's exactly 30% but it would be uh on the order of that. Okay. All right. Thank you. Other questions from commissioners regarding this and then and and you'll have the specifics around that likely in July or August. Yeah, that would be the other question time frame that we'll be seeing this back before us. Okay. Anything else on correspondence? All right. Thank you for that. Next, we're going to move on to public input. So, public input. Aweb is a nonforprofit

8:28 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, commissioners and staff value hearing from diverse perspectives and receiving community input. Speakers are asked to keep their testimony relevant to e web business and request that everyone share their comments in a productive and respectful manner. Should our should speakers and our audience members become disruptive, they may be muted and or be removed from the meeting. Um so when your name is called you'll have three minutes to pro provide your comment. The public input session is now open and we will start with we have a

9:14 couple of people who have are on the phone and calling in. We'll go to them and then we'll go to the people that are in the room. So the first one up is Kate Nottington and he may not be here. He submitted this quite a while ago. Okay. If he calls in during the meeting, we will or during the public comment, we'll do it. Next one up is Kathy Ging. Kathy, if you could unmute yourself, you hear me? Kathy, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Okay, thanks. Yeah. Yep, we can hear you. Your three minutes is starts now. Okay, Kathy Ging. Uh, today I talk about

10:01 uh smart meters, fires, explosions, and the proposed imposition of fees on those wise rate payer owners who chose not to have radios turned on last year. 2,000 people, for what I understand, do not have their radios turned on. Um, thousands of fires have occurred worldwide in the last 15 years since wireless smart meter buildout began. I sent you for the second time today a fire report free online. Discovery and science of smart meter fires. Introduction to the discovery of RF radiation and the related breakdown of electrical wiring insulation leading to fire causation. Um the uh 1.9 million acres

10:49 of Oregon forest burned last year. I think probably the worst in our history. And we have scarcer water resources and yet more causes of fires. Not only due to rising temperatures, but also to lithium ion batteries being used ubiquitously. Mainstream news locally missed the California fire in mid January in the largest battery storage center in the world. 100,000 fires exploded in Marsh Landing, California, which is also the site of America's uh salad bowl, where over 70% of all vegetables, including salad greens, are grown that are sold in the United States. Smart meter uh smart meter buildout has used a huge amount of money in ongoing firmware and software.

11:36 Another problem is that electric vehicles, including scooters, have caused fires. 700 fires in New York City alone in the first six months of 2022. Some people died including children and first responders and I myself do not want uh tenants uh using electric vehicles that are in uh charging in the house if they're not there. So there are huge problems already uh regarding the $20 imposition fee for those people who are really a lot of them are have been harmed by this technology. I I wish you had been on a phone call. I have been on for five years every Thursday for an hour and a half for five years and where I heard the stories of people harmed by uh smart meters, cell phones, etc. which

12:23 is really a poisonous and visible radiation. And so I'm asking you to not have the fees be that high. I think it should be 10 or 12, which many jurisdictions have have had. And I really think you need to go back to our original uh passage when Dick Hickerson was on the board and held the banner to have uh opt in um mean that you didn't have to have you could you could opt out fully without having a meter. And I do want to say that uh Mr. Cassidy who been in the e web board for several years he passed away recently and if he hadn't lived next to Dr. Paul Dart in East Eugene and known what integrity Paul Dart had who came out against the smart meters, we would not have had this whole

13:10 uh friction about the smart meters take place in the last uh 10 or 12 years. Thank you for your time and your service. Thank you Kathy. Next up is James Garfield followed by Joshua Korn. Hello. Uh, my name is James Garfield. I'm strongly opposed to the fees as well. Um, you know, I do a lot of reading and research on the topic as well. Um, and I choose not to have the pulsing happening in my house. I don't know how many times a day it's pulsing and communicating. Um, I know that's probably um, privy to the company that designed the meters, but um, I choose not to do it because we feel better. We feel the ill effects. Um, a good book

13:57 that I'd like to recommend is The Invisible Rainbow, a history of electricity and life by Arthur Fenberg. To get a full detail of it, I'm not going to be able to accomplish or describe some of the effects that we are feeling from all of these invisible uh forces that are around us at all times at this point. Um, and one of my main concerns is, and I noticed she brought up that, you know, to change the fee to 10 to 12. I get that that there's there's been a hundred years of ew web being able to read meters for 100% of our community for businesses and homeowners and we're down to 2% of us that don't want that smart meter or that constant pulsing. Um, so I don't understand. I feel like the fees you guys have already reduced them by 98%. And there's there's always going to be a

14:42 cost associated with doing business. I'm in the business community as well. So I I think a fair solution maybe if you don't want to have people going around and reading the meters is offer the customers that don't want to and I know there's a few you know only a couple percent of us in the community an opportunity to upload a timestamped photo. Um I just did that recently with my passport renewal and it was a wonderful easy process. In fact it was the easiest passport renewal I've ever done in my life by uploading a photo. So, um I know things things keep, you know, moving along and I understand uh you know, wanting to simplify and get rid of costs associated with business with all the other things that are going on. But I think that would be a really um smooth and and fair operation, you

15:29 know, to do that. I mean, I'm happy to do that once a month for you. It takes the guy about a minute out there to look at the meter, take a photo, or write down the number and do the waters. So, um and I'm also appreciative of the services that each provide. I mean, I just psyched Clear Lake last week. Um, and you know, for our source of primary water um, and grateful for the quick service and response that you guys all provide. But I think this fee is is is not fair uh for all of us and in the few of few percentage of us that that do not want that constant pulsing uh going on in our homes. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Joshua Korn, followed by Victor Old.

16:20 Yeah, I uh also oppose this this opt out fee for the smart meters. Um, and and I can't help but reflect on the history of of how this whole thing came about and how we were initially sold this kind of bag of goods with these smart meters that they were going to be this massively efficient system that was going to save us all so much money and save you guys all so much money. Yet, uh, what what did we see? we saw increases in rates at the same time as the smart meter infrastructure was implemented or forced on us. Um, and I mean that was your choice. You didn't have to increase rates at the same time

17:05 as implementing these meters, but that's what happened. And so while we might blame the our increased fees, our increased costs of uh electricity on uh on the actual smart meter over billing us, um we there's no way to really know whether it's just because you guys increase rates at the same time. And you know on the other side of it all this in increased efficiency uh you know I I I seem to recall reading in your 88 page report that you provided to us that there was a $50 million $50 million

17:52 um in public data information. um that was a revenue stream I believe AC like based on the the report uh that you're acquiring from our data yet uh you still still seem to be edging for this uh this nickel dimeming a few people that oppose this technology for an opt out fee which is I mean going to bring in how much revenue nothing compared to if this is accurate uh that this $50 million presumably for uh selling our data that you're acquiring through these meters and uh I I consider it theft personally. Um this is our

18:40 personal data and uh it's well known that this this is part of a monetization process of of this metering technology. Um, so I I'd like to hear some answers as to exactly what that $50 million is and if it is indeed uh revenue from our data, then you know, why don't we get some of that back and and and we could have we could use some lower rates instead of a constant increase in rates if you're monetizing our data. Thank you. Thank you, Victor, followed by Rachel McKinnus.

19:30 Yes. Uh, good evening. Um, I'm in in war two for what it's worth. And I want to thank Vice President Mindy Schlober for providing me with information which I'm going to quote here. and she said that there are now 20 meter readers for 2,000 customers. So I guess in a month one meter reader would read 100 meters. My question is as the others have said for decades there was no charge for the meter readers when everybody had an analog meter. There is no financial loss. But since the smart reader roll out, EW wants to charge for this. Now, why is this being done? You

20:17 have not stated an actual value for the budget for analog meters in 2017 versus 2018 budget for smart meters. Also budget for the hardware, the relays, the software. Um, and EWB is a nonprofit. It's a publiclyowned utility. So, I was the treasurer of several nonprofits for over 20 years. And we always had to make that 990 report at the end of the year and break down all the line items and put it up on the web and send out people so they could see what was going on. I don't see that when I go on the e webb website and that does not seem right.

21:03 I bought in 2014, that's 10 years ago, an analog meter for $35. This is a lot less than the three smart meters that were installed where I live in less than eight years. And I got the figures from Mindy, $76 for the meter. And 2022, there was a census meter. It's $115. I don't. So, I mean that there's roughly, you know, $200, $300 right there. Now, in addition to this $30 connection fee I pay every month, which was $10 years ago in 2015, the connection

21:48 fee, I've never heard of a connection fee every month. You're connected once, you're connected, but you don't pay a connection fee every month to the phone company. I mean, you don't pay a connection fee every month to Comcast. Okay. So, why is it you charge a connection fee? And I lived in Europe, Boston, Washington DC, Seattle, New York City, Richmond, Indiana. I never had to pay a connection fee. The bottom line is we are not being told the exact cost of smart meters. And I think therefore there are all these new fees being instituted to make up for the loss. Thank you. Thank you, Rachel.

22:35 Followed by Alfredo. That's up to her. Thank you very much. Thank you. The second page is Hello. I am a citizen. I live in Eugene who opted out of the smart meter and then had my analog meter removed without my permission while I was not home. Since then, I have experienced extreme sleep disturbances and difficulty breathing. Um, I also have four children and a husband in the home. Now, the signal is turned off, but the smart meter still creates dirty electricity as I hope that you are aware of in my

23:20 entire home. Um, as you probably and hopefully know, dirty electricity is pulse electro electromagnetic radiation. So, it can cause numerous health problems such as insomnia, tonitis, memory problems, elevated blood sugar levels, and many other health issues. Long term, everyone will be affected because the fields of these meters generate they affect our cells, our hormones, our metabolic processes and our DNA. There have been thousands of independent non-industryf funded scientific studies that have shown the adverse health effects of the smart and digital

24:05 meters, including cancer, ADD, and breaching of the blood brain barrier. The burst of RF radiation emitted by their antennas is considered by the World Health Organization to be a class 2B carcinogen. Now, please show me the scientific evidence that smart meters are safe for humans. You cannot because there is no evidence to show that long-term exposure to radiation and dirty electricity does not cause adverse health effects on humans. Some of the other major concerns that I have are the privacy issues which were stated earlier um about gathering our information for data. The costs where um

24:53 smart meters typically overcharge and inaccurately represent usage with when compared with the reliable accurate analog meters. And in addition, I've been paying um for my manual meter reading for years, but suddenly I have to pay for additional fees to continue to have my meter read. Um, I would just like to say again that residents should not have they should have the ultimate authority to decide what technology is installed in their homes, not utility companies whose government protected monopoly prevents residents from choosing a competing utility provider. So, I'm requesting that my my wireless meter be removed and be replaced with an analog meter. Please

25:40 give me the choice back. I live next to a person. We share a wall. Um, he's on disability. He has opted out because I asked him to to protect our home and family, but he cannot pay the $20 increase that you guys are asking for. So, please make this fair and do not increase the charges. Thank you. Thank you, Alfredo Gormano, followed by Danny Patch. You finally said my name, right? So, everything everyone said before me, I will put that into my speech. Um, you know, it's been interesting. When my smart meter was installed in my house

26:25 and it was broadcasting for the first whatever 24 to 48 hours, I couldn't be anywhere near it. One of my neighbors up the street just spontaneously said to us when I was talking to a neighbor on the street, "Hey, do you guys have smart meters on your house? I can't be in my backyard anymore since that thing's been put in." And I advised them about the opt out to get the broadcasting turned off. I noticed that after mine was installed, at a certain moment, I felt better and I went outside to look at the meter and it said opt out on it. So, I know I was feeling the broadcasting from it. Now, as far as the charges, again, we have been paying for many, many, many years, me since 1999, for people to be coming out and

27:10 reading our meters. If you guys want to pay me 20 bucks to go read a meter, I'm happy to get out of my car, look at it, write it down, and move on to the next one. But I don't think they're being paid that much. Plus, the switching over to automated meter reading where you don't send someone out means less people having work. And what does that mean? More people on unemployment, more people on social services, more people on things that the funding is being cut for. So, I too am going to say, please knock out that $20 fee, especially for lowincome people. And interestingly enough, at an event I was at this week, one of you, I'm not

27:56 going to say who, showed up and sat behind us as we played music. And the person that was sitting right in front of you, the musician, as soon as I walked in, she said, "I just got this notice about a $20 fee to read our meters. What can we do about that?" I said, "Well, come to the meeting." You know, she it's hard for her to get places. So anyway, there's a lot a lot more opinions and feelings out there than you realize about not having smart meters in the first place. I'm part of a group on Facebook called Hilo Happenings over in Hawaii and they were talking about how what used to be called Helco, but they decided to change their initial toki electric company

28:42 um was putting on smart meters, but they had the option of paying $30 to get their analog meter back. We want would love that same option. I'd be happy to pay 30 bucks for my smart meter if you guys haven't already gleefully taken sledgehammers to it. And I know you did that out in the back after you took them in, but anyway, really, we would love our analog meters um and not have to pay for this expansion of system that we did not want or ask for. Thank you so much. Thank you, Danny Patch. I'll advise Stephen Baker.

29:28 Hi, Dan Patch. I am here to speak about this increased fee, but we have a bigger problem. Ew Webb administration constantly and the board of directors constantly lies to the public. We were promised we would never be forced to have a smart meter if we accepted the preliminary plan to implement it. We were promised that. Where does the promise stop? Does it stop after 30 days or does it stop after two years? We were promised. And we know Eb is a moneyhungry monster who refuses to give up. They'll constantly think of new ways to nickel and dime us. We're tired of

30:13 this. When are you going to stand up to them and tell them to start tightening their belt? When are you going to look for our interests? Instead of rubber stamping everything that they want, they sit up here with contempt. You set up this room so that we're not even really a part of the discussion. How about a triangle for sakes? Because they're talking to you, but we're not part of it. We can't even hear what they're saying because they're mumbling and they refuse to speak up. How about open up the circle here so we can be part of the process? But we know that you don't want us to be part of the process because you have nothing but contempt for us. I've reminded you this in the past. My brother died of electromagnetic

30:59 fields. Three independent surgeons confirm that to us. Same thing. We purposely did not prompt the conversations to find out what was wrong. We let them speak. They're brain surgeons. They all came up with the same conclusion. I don't care if the government says, "Oh, it's not real." Well, the government lies every time, every day. We know that already, don't we? These are serious health issues. My brother's dead from it. Literally dead. Diagnosed on his 50th birthday and 3 months later dead. You tell me they're not real. And by the way, we were promised we would never be forced to have a smart meter. Promised. When does the promise

31:48 stop? In my book, it never does. I want the board of directors to stand up to these thugs and start telling them to tighten their budget and look for ways to do things more efficiently and stop paying people millions and millions of dollars to do things that perhaps we don't need. You have failed at your jobs. Your job is to protect us, not to prop up this little sideshow. We're mad because you've lied to us. You haven't kept your promises. And you continue to let this thug take advantage of us financially. It'll be something else next year. It'll be a constant draw. Do your job. Thank

32:33 you, Stephen Baker, followed by Isaac. Hi, my name is Stephen Baker. Um, I've lived in Eugene for the last 50 something plus years. Been around a while. I know some familiar faces from some other city commissions. I'm opposed

33:20 to the currently proposed manual meter reading fees for customers that choose to opt out of smart meters the your AMI advanced meter in structure program for a number of reasons which I'll outline number one I think the propos proposed fees are excessive and punitive in nature compared with other publicly owned utilities and private utilities web has the highest would have the highest optout out rates in the state and the Northwest with the exception of Portland General Electric and I I provide a list below and I will expand on this in the future. Number two, there is no consideration for low-income qualified customers, seniors, disabled, veterans.

34:06 Other utilities offer lower rates for low-income customers for OPT. Three, there is no consideration for customers with severe electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome, EHS. Scientific studies by European countries estimate that 5% of the general population suffers from EHS and some of those have severe symptoms. And number four, there is no concern about meters in fireprone areas. Los Angeles wildfires have created renewed concerns about AMI meters causing fires. And I'll give some examples of opt- out fees for comparison. Emerald Peed opt out fee is $1250 a month. Meter

34:51 change is $95. Lane Electric Cooperative the monthly fee is $15 and the meter change is zero. In Lane Electric, the customer provides meter readings month monthly with a penalty if they don't. And the utility reads the meter once a year to verify specific power monthly fee $10 a month meter change zero. And they also instituted a couple years back an equal payment option plan to lower that price. So where the meter is read every four months and estimated between readings and the monthly fee for that uh opt out option is $3 a month and again zero ch

35:37 for the meter change specific gas and electric uh this is the big California electricity not PG& uh meter readings uh all monthly fees uh meter readings take place every month and the monthly fee is $10 and the meter change is $75. However, after three 36 months, three years, all monthly fees are discontinued and they have a program for income qualified, which is a monthly fee of five and a meter change of 10. Um, I'll let you read the other two, uh, two or three on the back there. Um but but uh the point is that uh with the

36:23 exception of Portland General Electric which has very high op fees comparable to what you're proposing, everyone else has lower and they're actually trying to lower those for customers. Thank you very much. David Isaac is our last speaker. Evening. Uh I was reading through the documents related to the upcoming BPA decision and I want to thank you for all the work uh going into that. Um I'd like to voice my support for the options that preserve local flexibility which I understand to be the load following max or the block with shaping. The document made it hard to understand the distinction between those two. But I

37:10 feel like I did understand that the largest cost difference between the worst case and the best was maybe only a million dollars or something like that. If a megawatt of peak power is worth $2 million uh on the open market, it seems like that's a great place to focus on and and keep our local flexibility. And I think the document rightly identifies that energy efficiency is a great place to to focus on that. I would really love to see time of use pricing, maybe some western facing solar. We've got a thousands and hundreds of thousands of square feet of public buildings and I think there's an opportunity there. Um the document was a little fuzzy. I I feel like there's a lot of good work

37:56 that's going into this decision. I know it's a big one. Um and I feel like the document should reflect how much work has gone into it. It seemed like it could use some more editing. Uh I'm not sure who the audience is exactly. There's of course tons of jargon that is somewhat unavoidable, but it was a little wordy and I felt like could have benefited from some more editing time. Uh section 4.2 notes that we have the option to switch plans, but it's not seems like we're making a big decision that's going to be a 20-year plan. So, just helping us understand even some of the basics, the you know the thousand foot view on that uh would would be helpful. Um, and lastly in terms of that document, why we included the business model change if it's not even be being considered was

38:43 hard to understand. Anyway, thanks for all the help on that and I'll keep following along. Great. Thank you for your input. Um, and thank you to everybody who came out tonight to testify. Um, I know that we're kind of on the edge of town here and it's kind of a uh kind of a a a crapshoot. Sometimes you come out here and it's pouring rain and tonight you come out and you're you're sacrificing a beautiful uh early summer evening. So, I appreciate everybody who came out tonight. With that, I'll open up the the uh floor for any comments from any commissioners or our general

39:33 manager. Seeing [Music] none, then thank you again for coming out. Let me find my agenda. Sorry folks, second. All right. Next on the agenda is the approval of the consent calendar. Consent calendar. Actual number A5. Number A5. Okay. I would entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar minus A5.

40:25 Second. All in favor? I I Okay. Uh, Commissioner Brown, would you like to speak to item five? Well, I had a premeating question and I appreciate your answers, but $300,000 for DEI when we just went through it and in the ability to do for another two years, a firm that's got four years experience out of Los Angeles. I still think that we can do this in-house because we're going to try and do it when we're due to uh to uh pricing, you know, and things like that. I still think we have the talent on staff to do this and 300,000 bucks is a lot of money and uh and you know it's 100,000 a year. I know you could have gone this, you could have gone the route and just slipped this right under the $100,000 threshold, but thank you for not doing that because I'm going to keep track of this no matter how I end up on this boat. But I'm going

41:11 to have I have trouble and there's 12 people. So I've been here 18 years. I've never seen 12 proposals any bit. And and this thing is, you know, it's it's you the metrics and what you're asking for. To me, it's analogous to saying how long is a piece of string to a consultant. It'll never go away. And I'm sorry, but I I still think we have qualified staff here that we're already paying that we could slip this in and use it when we do uh our rate making case and things such as that and save $300,000 or 500 because it's 300 for three years, but you have the extent to to move it another two years. So that's half million. So I'm going to have trouble supporting this. Other comments from commissioners or staff?

41:58 Um, I guess the I the only thing I would ask after hearing Commissioner Brown's um comments is um how timesensitive is this? Could you get back? I mean, we I know we got a little bit of a a prefer in our our uh responses to the questions. I guess my question would be if he's that concerned about it, is there time that we could look into it more? I'm not sure. Yes. Go ahead. Yeah. U Commissioner, I I appreciate Commissioner Brown's questions and and uh in particular your question also around the time frame. I'll have to double check if there's any limitations to the procurement process, which I I don't think there would be in this case.

42:44 Um I think there's um a balance here between what we're trying to do. There's um the the board passed SD23 um in in 20 24 I think it was 2024 um and part of that implementation while I I really do believe the policy is is a good one um there is a certain degree of expertise in the implementing of that policy. Um there is the option though given the time frame and I think this is something we could look at to uh segregate the work a little bit differently and understand that in a in a little bit um more detailed a more refined way. Um and so um I guess what

43:31 what I would be comfortable with is looking at this in a little deeper fashion. Um we are this this is only committing to the first year. There were four areas of work that were pretty well defined. Um, and we could dive into those. Some of those have to do with the refinements um, we're making around rate design. Um, the refinements that we're looking at relative to our improving our our customer support programs uh, for limited income, for example, and making sure we're understanding uh, the equity impact of some of those as well as our conservation and other programs. So, there's there is a need to do it. Um the role of internal versus a consultant is something that we can have some discussions around. Um if the board is

44:16 is willing to allow staff the the time to do that, which um I would like to be involved in that assessment. Um I'm unfortunately not going to be at the the June board meeting, so that's the first board meeting I will have ever missed. Um but um it is likely that we could follow up on a discussion um in July if the board wants to go that direction. Um thank you for that question and and one of the reasons that I brought that up was the fact that Commissioner Carlson is not here this evening and this was one of the uh things that I I feel that she really helped Shepherd along and so I would love to hear her her voice on it. So, if it could be postponed, that would be something that I would I would lean into for that

45:04 reason. Um, and just to get more information on it. And commissioner, I just wanted to make sure that that in looking at this in a little bit different way and segregating the work that commissioners uh understand that that this is an important issue to staff and to the public. And it I'm not taking that and and I want to make sure commissioners are not trying to portray that this is not an important issue that we have to look at how best to um move this forward. Um taking economics and and staff talent and the opportunity cost if staff were to work on this versus something else. And so,

45:50 um, looking at this a little bit differently, I'm not taking as a lack of commitment to, uh, SD23, our our DEI policy. Thank you, Mindy. Um, I feel this was something that the board the board instituted. This was important to the board. we approved this board policy. And I do think it's hard to do this kind of work internally without somebody from the outside kind of taking a look at the systems you have in place and what's going on because when you're in an organization, you you only know what you know in the organization. And so I think this work is really important to have some experts come in and help with that. Um, so I know we're going to table this for another time, but I just want to say

46:36 that I am in support of approving this contract and I think the work is really important. Yeah, thank you, chair. Yeah, I am in a position to support this. Um, but I'm happy to table it if that's the desire of this this board. Um, I think that we have made this commitment already. And um just not to echo uh or to echo uh my uh my fellow commissioner here um but also to highlight that uh former AGM Rod Price had shephered a lot of the DEI policies in the past and has now since retired. And so um losing that uh leadership and that administrative expertise I think is also a huge loss and uh really bears a need to have an

47:21 outside consultant, an outside party to come in and really take a look at everything. So, um, if the desire of this board is to postpone and have all five commissioners and have a really intentional look, um, at this, I I'm that I'm happy to support that, but I al also I'm I'm ready to to decide on this and vote in favor. Mr. Brown, last comment. And, you know, I'm not against EI at all. You're right, but you just kind of helped make me make the point. We have the expertise at the table. I still I still think we do, but you know, $300,000 is a lot of money. 500,000 is a lot of money. We got $46 million on the consent calendar tonight alone. 15 million for, you know, one contract and 13 million for the other plus all the other projects. And we've got all these

48:06 rates. You hear what these people are saying about $10 and $20 the we just raised rates 15%. And this thing, you know, this this is, you know, we spend this money and then we say the rates are going to go up to cover. And if we can save several hundred,000, I want to save it. I want to do everything I can. If we can't, well, but I got to at least make that effort. And uh you know, and I and I'm kind of a big like I like to hire local and you know, for 3,000 bucks, we'd missed a contract between a local firm and a Los Angeles firm uh on this if you look at those numbers. Um, and so I know that we don't give criteria to local when we're awarding contracts, but something this that that would could be more interactive and we're not paying a perdm or whatever because if they're not local, they're staying in hotels or

48:52 we're going to do it over that, but it's just that effort. You know, my old saying, death out thousand cuts, rates are going to go up. You know, we have a $60 million cost over round on something. It's not a variable. So, um, I appreciate you doing that. And if you want a table to date certain or table indefinite and I think the the rules say one or the other and they're not debatable. So what I would say is I would ask you since you were the one who brought it up if you wanted to uh table this consent calendar item to another month or if you would like to put it back onto the consent calendar. I it's the will of the group. I mean I've tabled the date certain. We can just I can just make that motion to table this to a certain date. I know that Robert will say that once we do

49:37 that, it's not a debatable issue. We just do it. And or if you want to just keep it open, Mindy, I'm sure, or excuse me, Sonia will weigh in between now and then. I have a question. Yeah. Um, if we were to vote on it and it didn't it didn't pass, could you bring it up again or is that the end of it? So there are a number of piece well that's it's an interesting question commissioner the um the 98,000 which is really the commitment here is below the board threshold um and that would be managed within the operating budget of the organization. Um the the reason that

50:23 this was went through a a actually a very robust process. There were um ref requests for information in in last year, a request for proposal which goes beyond just the numbers and locations. It's um the the talents and experience which this firm had in particular relative to working with utilities uh on things like rate design. Um we we are obligated to fulfill that board policy um as as we go. Um we we chose to bring this forward because it was a substantial amount and it was felt like it was something that the board had directed us to do um even though it was below the board threshold. So

51:09 um likely would not bring it back um if it failed this evening. Um however that the work needs to continue. Um and uh we would find a way to manage that work to put that back on the table. Yeah. Okay. All right. Clarification of the motion. Is it to approve it? Did you Oh, you want vote on it tonight? Okay, that's fine. So, Commissioner Slober moved to put the agenda item five back on for approval. Is there a second to that? Second. Okay. All in favor say I. I posted. Thank you.

51:56 All right. We will move on to consent calendar B. Is there a move to adopt consent calendar B? Second. Okay. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. All right. Next we have items removed from consent calendar and that would be highlighted management by management for discussion. Consent calendar B item 13. Yes. Hi comm. Hi commissioners. This uh for the record Travis. Canabe, uh, chief information officer. And so, just because of the number that was on here,

52:42 um, really wanted to just talk through a little bit about what we're trying to accomplish, um, with this consent item. And so, I don't have a what this is not, and I probably should have. What this is not is asking for any additional dollars. This the the 15 million here is in in the long-term financial plan. And what we are asking for is to be able to leverage um a handful that are listed in the consent item of cooperative contracts to purchase anything from mice and keyboards, um servers, storage, some of our cloud hosted um services, uh laptops, um to and and the reason that we would like to do that this way is we want to take advantage of other

53:28 organizations that have gone through the RFP process, have um negotiated terms that are attractive to EW Webb. Um we get to take advantage of the volume pricing. So, as an example, I believe one of the contracts is for the state of Texas and and EW Webb's um permitted to then purchase off of those contracts and it streamlines our procurement because uh if if we were to to to not leverage the alternative would be for us to go out and do an RFP for um many of these purchases to to get our own contracts. And so we really want to take advantage of um the work that other organizations have done. A little bit of history. Back in 2020, the board approved a $15 million consent item very similar to this um allowing us to use those uh

54:14 those cooperative contracts. And wanted to just mention that we stayed within that threshold. Um also would like to mention that we didn't increase the number um from the last over the last from the last five years. Um, knowing that we've moved some things to the cloud, we also know that there's inflationary pressures um potentially some tariffs um that might impact technology equipment. And we're hoping that the the work that we've done to move some things to the cloud offsets that I think I would just wrap it up with that that um just really wanted to explain what what the effort of this um work is and so I would just hand it back to you for any questions that you might

55:00 have. Thank you. Uh questions from commissioners. The only the only thing that I would say is just because we give you a blank check for $15 million doesn't mean you have to spend it all. Absolutely. In the vein of of Commissioner Brown over here, um just because you have the authority doesn't mean that we would like to see that all spent in the final years. It'd be great if you could keep it to 10 or five. It was something that I would hope for. So I think we approved that when we did the whole consent calendar B. Is that correct? I think we did. It was on there. So

55:45 Okay. Thank you for the information. Um that's something that we've been doing lately on some of these larger ticket and and more complicated consent calendar items and I really appreciate the breakdown of those types of things. Uh yes, Frank. Yeah. Um, President Barovski, I just this is a just a quick point of order. I'm not sure that you actually voted on consent calendar A. And um, an cause is shaking her head doesn't believe you actually voted on consent calendar A. So, okay. Yeah. Go ahead, Ann. because we prefold the item that Travis just presented on. I believe that needs to be approved separately from consent

56:31 calendar B. And that's what I thought. Okay. Even though it was printed in there as consent calendar B. It was pulled by staff instead of by the commission. So with that being said, if I would entertain a motion to uh approve consent calendar B number 13. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Okay. All right. Next on the agenda [Music] is page two, customer service policy, futural manual reading.

57:18 Yeah, commissioners. Good evening. Um this is um really an item that we put forth as an agenda item specifically for awareness. Um and knowing that um the purpose of this particular item is is on the agenda is not to re-evaluate e webb's policy decisions or implementation around um smart meters or the specifics around opt out but to recognize that for some period of time we have recognized that um there would eventually be a fee for the manual meter reading option. Um the reason for that is that the

58:03 um the total costs of the metering program as well as the benefits of the metering program um um are and will be incorporated into the standard rate base which then pulls out any additional specific costs associated with the manual meter reading itself. That's why um there is uh a new fee that we are proposing go into effect when we have full deployment which is next year about this time. And so um these are the initial numbers that um are costbased. Uh we expect those to evolve a little bit over the next year. um but

58:50 wanted the commissioners and the public to understand what was the basis for those calculations and those charges. And then also um um why that was not included in the rate base which is um really covering the um both the the benefits and the costs of of the technology itself. And so um it's really an awareness issue. commissioners had any particular feedback, uh we'd welcome that either tonight or um as we go forward. Um and um look forward to um any thoughts you might have. Okay, turning upward people. So to breed a meter up in BA, Walterville, up in

59:38 those areas is going to cost us four or five times more than it's going to do here. And we've been trying to get to the equitable thing of DEI. And I know we charge people to pump their water up the hill and it cost us 14% more to provide electric service to people up the river. Are we going to charge people? I mean, I'm just thinking if it's certain amount locally and there's a scale of economies, are we going to we know who these people are? Are we going to do a cost co cost of service allocation and and find out? Because if we have to run one four-wheel drive truck all the way up there, it's going to cost us a ton more than it is to do it here. we going to differentiate there? Yeah, Commissioner Brown, I I think the simple answer as far as differentiating up river uh is yes. Um on on two fronts. One of them is um we

1:00:25 plan to bring back for the board's consideration uh the potential to have an upriver rate. um given that the costs are significantly different and as you point out u there are other areas where we have differences in in the cost based uh and then we'll also evaluate the the cost of some of the specific fees and whether it would warrant a specific u manual meter reading fee up river versus versus in town. So both of those while separate, they do um highlight the cost causation differences in that part of our service territory versus versus in town. So um yes, we'll take a look at that. Other comments or questions?

1:01:10 I do. I have a comment. So I know that there's people here tonight that are really upset about this and feel really strongly about their meters. Um, but we've made a decision to deploy smart meters. That was our our decision as an agency. And we have allowed people to opt out. So, it's not communicating. I know that's not exactly what you want, but that is the direction that we've gone. And I do feel that um because we're only looking at a small slice of people that would be opting for this that it wouldn't be fair to then have every all of our customers cover that cost. And I know that's not what you want to hear. Um, and we're not voting on it tonight, but I just want to

1:01:56 say that that's that is I do think it's fair to pay for something a service that's different from everybody else. And we're really trying to make sure when we look at our cost of service analysis that it's fair that people are paying kind of their fair share. Thank you. or the one thing I'll also mention commissioner is that that there was some some a comment made about um potentially different rate for limited income qualifying people. Um I I think this came up relative to actual rate design itself that um our approach as an organization has been to have a standard rate across separate from what Commissioner Brown mentioned but um across our entire customer base. Um,

1:02:44 however, looking at our limited income support programs as separate and um from those actual rates is has been our approach. And so um we'll we'll continue to refine that. We do have a goal this year to take a a deeper dive into the effectiveness of those programs and and that's where that's where and how we cover uh limited income support is through a separate program. Thank you. Other comments, questions? Um, I guess one of the questions that I would have is I I I see, you know, the the fairness issue

1:03:29 that that Commissioner Sloth brought up. Um, but then I noticed, you know, some of the other models that are out there in the community in other utilities. um how how closely have we looked at other models at this and is that something that may be appropriate before we implement these fees? Yeah, absolutely. We we have looked at some of the other programs and before we come back with a fee, we'll have a comparator chart like we do with a lot of things and um that'll be part of our presentation um to the board, some of the details that we work out as well as more detail on the specific um cost categories there. So, yeah, you you can expect to see that. Great. That that that'd be something that I would look look forward

1:04:15 to seeing. I mean, this is kind of just letting our customers know that this is coming down the pipe. We haven't set, you know, because it says they these dollar amounts and these fees, those aren't haven't been passed. They haven't been approved by us as a board. Hopefully, we'll look at at more things in the future and and be able to come up what we feel is fair and equitable to our all of our rate payers. And and one note that will be a a notable difference in some of the comparators we looked at is is e webb is both water and electric and an electric meter obviously different from from a water meter relative to the degree and intensity of which you have to support it and so um

1:05:01 some of the models might be just one or the other um and so we'll have to u work on some additional detail there. Great. Thank you. I look forward to that. Any other questions or comments on this agenda item? All right. Thank you very much. Item nine, city of Eugene fire fee and e-webs billing and collection. Anybody leading this? I'm leading this. That's you. All right. Well, as as many of you know, there's been a

1:05:46 uh an effort in our community in with the city of Eugene. They have a significant budget uh gap that they're trying to address. Um they the city council came forward with a a fire fee that was designed to to uh mitigate that gap. Um subsequently that that ordinance got referred to the ballot by uh a citizen referendum. Um, since then, uh, the city council has directed the, uh, staff, the city manager and staff to

1:06:32 look and see if there's alternate an alternate path forward. Um, that what that could be would be a a new ordinance that may change the name of the thing. It may change the uh the mechanism that it's being uh charged at. In the past, it was going to be based on square footage of somebody's occupancy. Um and so city staff is working on coming back to the city council with an ordinance, a proposed ordinance in the next couple of weeks. Uh one a work session on the 14th and a work session on the 17th. One of the things that was directed was look at a

1:07:17 shorter time period. The other fee was a it had no end date. Uh the direction was to look at a shorter time period. And that's kind of where it falls to us. Um because if it were a for a shorter time period, 2, four, sixyear type of a implementation, um it would not make economic sense for them to set up their own billing system. I asked the we discussed it at our work session a little bit last month and I sent some questions to the the general manager and staff as to what type of uh mechanism could be used to help facilitate if we were to put this fee on

1:08:04 our bill. Um what would be the easiest? What would be the best? what what uh programs or uh things might be interrupted or delayed by us doing that. We got a a background or memo on that. Since that, I've also heard that that some of the uh the mechanisms that we thought might be easiest and best may not necessarily work. Um but the the programs and the uh the services that are are being proposed to be cut by these uh this budget reduction strategy

1:08:50 that is being has been presented to the city's budget committee and the city council affect our community in in a lot of ways. Um, so for me, if I can help to facilitate a a remedy to this as an EWAB commissioner, I would at least like to have the ability to have staff work with the city of Eugene staff to see if there is a solution that we could come to for a way to implement the fee on our bill. And I know that that is is problematic for a number of reasons. As an e webb commissioner, I have I have paws about that because I know that when a

1:09:36 community member gets their e webb bill, they see it as their eweb bill. They don't know, they don't necessarily break it down to this is the city's storm water, this is the city's wastewater, oh this is the city's general service fee. they just see the e-web at the top of the bill and that reflects on us as a board and as as us as a an entity. And so I don't take it lightly. I know that this is a is a a big decision, but for me, some of the issues that that may happen if this fee doesn't go through or this alternate uh pathway doesn't happen, to me, it will

1:10:22 be damaging to our community. um whether it's a a protracted uh campaign fight or not fight a a protracted campaign to see what is going to be on the ballot or not. So, I brought this forward. I'm hoping that we can have a a robust discussion about this. Um but I would hope that we could give staff the ability to work with the city of Eugene to come up with a possible solution to see if we could put this on my on the bill. So with that, I will open it up for John Brown. Surprise. Um, so you know where I stand on this and I think Commissioner Slashberg said it best meeting. She talked me off the cliff a couple months ago about um about the

1:11:08 question is is whether or not we're going to put a non-e web related commodity on an e-web bill. And to me, the services we provide are not optional. They're not like a library. They're not like a swimming pool. They're not like anything else. They're not optional. You have to have electricity. You have to have water. And you don't have a choice. And you heard the testimony tonight about 10 or 20 bucks. We're talking about put on an e web bill and then we have people are already on the edge and and you we we're going to lose a heap it looks like and that's 50% of our lowincome subsidies right now. I think if you look at the HUD budget, it's gone. So we lose that. But more importantly, do we want to shut somebody's electricity up? a single mom with three kids that's making a choice right now between food and utilities

1:11:53 because of this fee. I do not and I will not. That's there's no way. I'm not going to solve the city's problem. You go back and look at the budget committee. They had the option to to address this. There is no way that they're looking down two years from now to solve this. None. None whatsoever. They're just raising money and and I'm not going to support it at all. I will I will write it's not the money. It's putting it on the e web bill and and that's it. And I'm we've got our own problems. We've got big problems. We got huge problems going up up upward rates. And whether it's two years or four years or whatever, it still doesn't make it affordable to people if we say, "Well, we're only going to bill you this extra money for two years." That doesn't make it affordable to the people that can't afford it. So, I am adamantly against this. The city can come up a way with

1:12:39 doing this. I don't want to see the services gone either, but you know, there there's things they can cut still that aren't that effective. They're putting a million dollars of new parking meters downtown. There's all sorts of little things that they're doing and it's the optics of it. Uh so I u personally am totally opposed to putting this on the bill indeed. Indeed. Um, so again, I want to take this away from the specific the specific fire fee that's being proposed and look at the issue of putting something else on the e webb bill. And um I guess I just have some questions about um would it would it be possible to separate this

1:13:27 if we agreed to do this? Would it be possible to separate something like this from the e webb bill? So that that's my question. So somebody gets their bill and their electricity and their water is listed. Their storm water fees. I realize that storm water fees are linked to our electricity and water, but if somebody um couldn't pay their full bill, maybe this was answered in the in the backgrounder, but um I just wouldn't want them to be penalized with their electricity and water because they couldn't pay the whole thing. So, I don't know if there's a way to kind of separate them out. Maybe that's too complicated. Um, I think what Commissioner Barski was saying was just, um, he supported directing staff to kind of look into it a little bit more, look

1:14:12 into it, to work with the city to kind of explore some ideas. I think that there's just a lot of unanswered questions. Um, I'm also curious how much would we charge the city for this service? Would we charge them for this? And and how much would that cost? Um, so I think that I would just like some more information and maybe that information needs to come from our e webb staff working with city staff to kind of hash out some of the details or some some of the particulars of what that would mean. Yeah, thank you chair. Um I to provide a small uh reminder I do uh so since this is on

1:14:57 the ballot uh both city staff and also e webb staff can't discuss at length or or provide significant um I was going to say significant detail but that's not quite accurate but also can't weigh in too deeply and so um I also I have some questions as well of of exactly what this would look like is square footage the best mechanism uh for this uh measurement or is there an alternative form that can can be used. Um, and I am in support of of us directing our staff to be able to ask those questions and have them answered. Um, I uh I uh believe wholeheartedly that our partnership with Eugene is a a very critical one, that we are in a unique

1:15:44 position than most other cities. um that their utility is just another department of the city and we operate independently. And I think that provides a lot of um positives and also provides some negatives including in this moment in which there is a uh a rock and a hard place in multiple rocks and multiple hard places happening at the same exact time. And so um I support um I support directing our our staff to to explore options with the city of Eugene. Um, and I think also uh from city staff that every month that there is a delay of some type um it's something in the realm of uh about a million dollars of of lost revenue. And so I know that their budgets are required to begin July 1st.

1:16:30 Um I know that they are anxious to have an answer um whether that comes from our community or from the council themsel or um what have you to to be able to address these these gaps. But um I share that same anxiety. Um I think that uh that we have been asked um and that uh the city deserves a chance to have a response from us. Thank you. Tim, can I ask you a clarifying question? So you want to direct staff to you want EW staff to determine if it's best to do a square footage or um sewer service based on storm water. is is you want our organization to make that determination of what's the best way to do this billing as a direct response? Yeah, just uh so city staff is coming forward with

1:17:16 proper uh proposals and also as as Commissioner Barski was mentioning that um that there is a potential new conversation that's coming about about um uh coming at this coming at this conversation in a different light. So um we don't know what we don't know. Uh, and I think providing staff to the city council to be able to discuss those conversations and and what it might look like to put it on our bill. That's our question that we have to answer here is how how will it go on our bill if Frank do we have this time to do this I mean and expertise or do we have to contract this out to do an evaluation um if to see if there is a mutually beneficial workable

1:18:04 way we would not need a consultant for that we may need to um as part of that assessment work with consultants on any particular implementation of something. So um just looking at if there is a the details there's there's a lot of details associated with how this mechanism might work and we would really have to work closely with city staff to determine um if that's practical and workable. But we at that stage we would not need to likely contract out. But we could tell the city whether or not it's better to use impervious service versus square footage. Yeah, we we can work with the city uh

1:18:52 and their staff to um figure out what the what the billing determinants would be as we we would kind of call them and then the the collection process as part of that. Um I think it as mentioned in the background material there's also some legal implications here as well that we have to pay attention to. So um it would be along the lines of what what the billing determinance what the mechanism would be like and then what the collection process would would be like. Thank you. Yeah, it's it's my understanding that getting getting the data points to match, you know, who's who lives in the city, connecting with EW Webb's data

1:19:37 points as far as, you know, how how we're building if we can make if they there's a way to make those mesh if it and and looking at different metrics that might get there and giving the city staff and our staff the ability to look at all options and then come back to us and say we found a mechanism that may be amanable to us or that may be that may be a work that could work and then we could look at that and say okay we can do that but until we have the mechanism and the the uh ability to say we can do this or we can't do it you know there may be a way that we just can't make it

1:20:22 work And that is the question that needs to be answered. The other question or the other part of that is absolutely I would want the all costs that are are uh incurred uh from this if we do move forward with billing would be covered by the fee that is is being collected and that was something that was put forward even with the initial fire fee ask when that went out almost a year ago. So, I would that that would be definitely part of the fee. Could I ask one last I was just going to respond to you. I don't think that it's EW Webb's job to tell the city this is the best this is the best way to calculate how the fee should be. I guess the thing that I'm

1:21:08 suggesting is if this isn't already happening, I think it would be good for EW Webb staff to be available to speak with city staff so that whatever proposals they're talking about could at least be feasible, right? So, I don't want some big expensive like campaign or something that's going to happen and it's not even feasible. So, I think that that our our two organizations need to I've got no problem with them talking, communicating. I mean, just thinking that the logistics and their workload and everything else and all the other things in front of us and I think about things like 22,000 customers in River Road. They're not in the city, but they're our customers. And can we easily separate those in our billing and and you know, I mean, there's going to be a lot of things to think about and you squeeze the gloom and it's going to go a

1:21:54 lot of different ways. Well, up river customers and people in the river growth boundary, all the nonprofits, the University of Oregon, every one of them. And so it's a it's a it's a logistical it's a huge herculean task, but I just want to make sure that my direction to staff is to stay on water and electricity reliability and affordability and I don't want to have to take on other people's cost. Sorry, city. Frank, any uh questions or I do have a question around the timeline. Yes. Do you know what the city's timeline is on this? It's pretty it's pretty uh advanced. They they're planning to

1:22:39 have a work session on on the 14th of May and then if there is direction from the city council to keep moving forward, there may be an ordinance that is proposed on the 21st of May. An ordinance would have to go out for a public hearing um and then come back to them for uh a vote. So this the soonest that that all could happen would be the end of June. Um but it would be yeah that that's the timeline that has been set forth for um in front of the city council. Um not that we would need to implement it by then. That would just be the direction. And what has been has been uh put out

1:23:27 there publicly is that it's a 3 to sixmonth uh implementation timeline was the first one that was was put out there by our staff to to their staff when the fire fee one was put out there. Um that it would be a 3 to six month type of time frame. And that's where uh Commissioner Morris's talk about it costing a million dollars per month. um that would be if they were to gap or bridge fund to to the thing. Um what the city manager said was that she wouldn't be willing to bridge fund unless she knew there was the bridge was going to land someplace and so that would be a a an alternate uh ordinance. Yes. Just one

1:24:14 other clarification that I would actually request of the of the board would be if uh going through this process with the city, we'll be evaluating mechanisms and tradeoffs um between the different billing components and collection components. It is likely that they'll need something from us before this body meets again. And is the board comfortable with with us providing um different levels of detail and tradeoffs um to the city of Eugene um outside of of this board meeting again um which will be you know early June. I guess I'd want to get clarification

1:24:59 around that. Um I think that this is just my take on on the the schedule that would happen. I think that there would be an opportunity for us to give a thumbs up or thumbs down at the June meeting. Um, a because it will be in the window of the public hearing that they're going to have to have. Um, they won't be able to enact it till after our June meeting. So, if we said no, um, they the chances are that that would have an impact on whether or not they would enact that ordinance. That's a clarifying question. So the ballot measure that was referred by the Chamber of Commerce is going to go be voted on in November no matter what. No, it's not. They the the city council has

1:25:45 the option to resend that ordinance at any time. Okay. And then so that's not voted on. So then then they put another one out is what they're proposing to another thing to the vote to the people. Correct. No. So this is just a fee that nobody votes on. Well, they could they could put put it to the ballot or they could just enact it as an ordinance as they did the last one. And that's a city council action. Yes. That just brings up the the question, can they always just enact fees and we have to collect them? We don't have to collect them. No, this is optional. This is a this is would be a board decision. My understanding this would be

1:26:31 a decision of the board to authorize the general manager to put this on our billing and collection system. So, any other questions from staff before I ask for um some direction from the board? You're I just want to make sure that we're clear on what parameters we're working within. You may be Yeah, I think I'm relatively clear. Um, President Barroski, what I'm what I'm expecting to hear from you shortly just

1:27:17 to see where this goes is that um get consensus across the board or majority to direct um staff to work with city staff on evaluating the various mechanisms and tradeoffs um for a potential city fee um through the e webb billing and collections process. And it's it's really looking at the the mechanisms and the tradeoffs of of those and working with city staff on that. That's basically where I would like to have. And so I'll come out on the short end of that. I I still don't want to shut somebody's power off, but they're not paying something that's optional because they have to pay

1:28:02 something that's not optional. And if that fee, if that option isn't in this, I'm so against it. I mean, I'm adamantly against most thing in 18 years I've been against more than anything because I don't want to force somebody to pay for something that they don't need, they don't want, and make a choice between water and electricity versus a swimming pool and a library because they don't have a choice. Kids don't have a choice. Seniors don't have a choice. And I'm adamant about that that there's got to be something in there. If you work with the city, there's got to be something in there. So, we're not shutting people's power off because we've just jacked their bill up for a non-eb related thing because you know what we're going you know where we're headed with rates anyhow. And um that's that's my goal is

1:28:47 to protect the children and the seniors and all the people the low income that can't can't afford this. I suspect that that would be I mean I don't that will be one of the trade-offs that's highlighted if you know to to address that issue that is in the mechanics of things one of the things that complicates the different options that we're looking at and the legalities of what those options are. So that has to be um clarified pretty significantly. Thank you chair. Yeah. um playing in the realm of ifs. Um so if uh the voters do decide on this current or that there is an an alternative fee that's proposed and if we put this on our bill. Two questions at least with the original fee

1:29:33 and maybe this is a question for you chairs. Um am I remembering correctly that um manager Maderi had mentioned that there would be a specific carve out for low and very low income people. Yeah, they were going to they were going to uh hold back 10% of the fee to to help with low-income people. And the recommendation was that would pro the easiest and best way for that to be implemented would just be to dump it into our already existing uh low-inccome thing, but that's not set in stone. I mean, the the 10% I think is is an assumed amount. the mechanisms for that isn't set. We're playing in the realm of ifs. Yes. Um and then second is I mean

1:30:20 just I think I already know the answer based on that but if someone qualifies for the community cares or low-inccome rate assistance, would this fee also be included in that? if this is included on our bill. Your your ifs are getting into the complications when when it how the payments are applied, how late payments are processed, th those are all um quite complicated when you start looking at more and more billing elements and how the billing elements are prioritized and and that is one of the complications that we'll have to look at. Great. And for those reasons, I I'll be supporting um that motion just to have that question answered. Okay. So, would you like a motion at this

1:31:05 point or do you want head nods from what you described? Because what you what you described was something that I I would be happy with. I I'm okay with head nods if people are okay with that. Okay. Look, the evaluation of the mechanics. Yes, John. Sorry to be the bad one here, but so you're not going to be here next month. Okay. And this is going to get discussed with you and staff before that. And so where are we going to be in July? I think that's a question for um President Barovski. Um, if things play out in the way that

1:31:51 I I'm seeing them happening at at city council with the 14th and the 21st, I believe that an action would be would be appropriate at this from this board in June. Action an action to put it to actually add something to the bill to allow it to to go on the bill. Yes. When are we going to discuss it? Look at our agenda for June. I can I can give you about 50 questions I'll have. So when are we going to discuss this? This is this is precedent setting. This is like silt. You know the ordinance for silt is 3%. Now we're six and we're the only ones around here that pay six because somebody did something a

1:32:38 long long time ago. It's never gone away and it never will go away. and I, you know, um, better late than wrong. So, I just want to know when we're going to discuss this because it's not on the agenda for June. Yeah, I'm I will I can work with President Barski. I I think I mean the time frame isn't personal, but you don't take conflict here. He chairs a committee with the city and and and and you guys are going to go discuss this and then you're going to tell us to vote on it in June and you're not here. I have a problem with that. I'm sorry. No, I don't I don't see that conflict, but it just it's a process conflict about we're supposed to represent I

1:33:23 represent 20% of the city, 25% of whatever it is. You know, we all have a a representative. How how am I going to go back to group of people, get their input, and then come back here if I haven't even discussed it? I have no idea what's coming, and you're asking me to approve something that's going to it's going to affect them. And I I don't I don't get how I'm supposed to do my job if we're on this short of a time frame. And the city's known about this since 2023. Yeah. I don't have person I don't have a specific time frame, Commissioner. Yeah. and and I think I can we can work with we can work on that. If if it takes more time for us to have the a full and robust discussion, I would not stifle

1:34:08 that, okay, by any means. Uh I I I think that we can get the information back to us and we can discuss it if if we feel it's appropriate in June to to take a vote, that may be happen. But if it's if we don't feel that it's appropriate, we can we can move on and I will try and work with the general manager to set some time in the June agenda to to discuss this this comments? And you have what you need from us, staff. Thank you very much and thank you for the conversation everybody, especially you. I I I I hear

1:34:53 it as well. So, next agenda item is organizational goal number one, annual major capital project update. Aaron. Good evening. Let's turn this. Good evening, President Barroski, commissioners, general manager Lawson. Uh, it's a pleasure to be here tonight to give you an update on our capital plan for

1:35:38 2025. Uh, my name is Karen Kelly for the record. I'm the chief operations officer for EW Webb. And with me tonight is Mike Masters, water manager. And we um are going to present these updates and let you know that uh Tyler Nice was going to be here. He's actually at a WEI conference. So we have extra experts online and in the room to help us if uh you have technical questions that we can't answer. Okay, this presentation is going to focus on type 2 projects to give you a little more detail on the information that you can get from the quarterly report which is in your board packet. This is for information only as part of the board's ongoing participation in our capital planning and execution. uh would point out that uh in the coming

1:36:25 months we'll be talking about next year's capital planning process. So this really is just an update for 2025. The board plays an important role in the CIP process and we do appreciate your support and guidance. The capital planning process has a couple of important drivers which include the strategic plan specifically around resiliency and modernization and our master plans. Capital improvement plans take on the prioritized needs from the strategic plan and our master plans and develop projects and plan financing to meet those needs. on the right hand side I want to draw your attention to our executive limitations EL1 financial control policy I'll be referring to as EL1 you guys are

1:37:10 familiar with that um it gives us the categories uh for the types of projects and how we report them to you and I wanted to mention this because in March we had some discussion about these changes and then you did approve these changes last month in April so type one is considered general capital and is budgeted yearbyear for recurring capital expenditures from January through December. Type one includes categorized collections of projects of less than 3 million and typically involves dozens of individual projects that can add up to three and a half to four and a.5 million per year. Type two are projects that we have um discrete scopes for. They have schedules that can span multiple years and they can cost over three million during the project life.

1:38:01 Okay, moving on to how we measure and report progress. Uh, this is also defined in the EL1. It includes the maximum level of expenditure authorized by the board. And this slide shows how oversight um by the board is important here in the capital planning. So, we've got uh budget which you have a lot of influence over. Uh you also have some influence on scope and schedule. um those being more driven by staff um but also monitored by the board. I would like to point out that we also have staff dedicated in our strategic project management office and continuous improvement program who are working to improve our project management skills and capital planning process to keep us on time on budget and uh with better planning and execution. So more work is happening to continuously improve those

1:38:51 processes. Our CIP planning and project e execution is not easy. It is very complex. The projects can be discreet or span years even decades. And uh some are really more of a program um than an actual project. So I would just mention a good example of that is our Carmen Smith capital program um decades long lot of expenditure. On the left you can see spending over time as a way to to determine success. you can see um our 2025 numbers where we are year-to date, but in this slide you can also see year-over-year, but I would point you to our year-end capital um report in the quarterly uh report for that year-over-year update. That's a good place to see that. On the right, you can watch spending versus budget on a

1:39:36 quarterly basis. And note that while the type two uh labels are not specific, they do line up pretty closely with single projects. And these are the projects that I'm going to cover primarily in the next slides. So starting out with electric type two transmission and distribution. Our primary project is to rebuild the Jessen substation which will improve transmission reliability and address future load growth in northwest Eugene. Uh currently design and permitting will be completed this year with construction beginning in early 2026. And I would like to remind you that, you know, we do have a rebuild um of 10 substations in 10 years. I'm I'm not supposed to say that anymore because we're not sure that we can actually meet that time frame, but that is what this program is about,

1:40:21 continuing those rebuilds. Other key work I want to draw your attention to is the Dillard transmission reconfiguration with undergrounding distribution circuits which will reduce wildfire impacts as well as the rebuilding of the Hayden Bridge to Waltz rail transmission line that came down in the 2024 ice storm. Um Dillard funding is believed to be secure and is part of the FEMA FEMA hazard mitigation grant. Note this slide says 1.15 million. that really is covering both the Dillard project and the Hayden bridge to Walterville. Moving on to type two for generation international paper includes a major generator renewal work for this year. Walterville is focused on emergent

1:41:06 work from the seepage in the forbay which is pending approval of additional analysis by FIRK that they have required. Uh, and the Leeberg near-term risk reduction measures project, you'll notice, has no spending yet for 2025 because we're still waiting for FK to approve the drilling plan. All other parts of the pro project are contingent upon that approval. So, that is why you see um no spending there yet for generation and Carmen Smith. Want to give you some updates. you have been hearing all along um this year about Carmen Smith hot topic for us but a few uh late breaking things just point your attention to the generating unit overhaul has been a really difficult project and very complex but we are

1:41:53 making progress and the second unit is uh planned to be completed and back online in September. Uh also with the debris boom design in the trail bridge reservoir, it is still excuse me under review by Ferg um which could impact the installation for this year. So we are a little bit disappointed in in hearing that. But we are going forward with habitat projects in the lower Carmen bypass reach and Carmen reservoir which you did approve consent items for tonight. We have some good news on the load bank project as the bids on the electrical work came in under the estimated budget, but I will warn you they are still very costly and coming to the board in June. Site clearing is happening now. We are

1:42:38 operating the trail bridge dam in low load mode. It's hard to say to maximize spill for downstream passage for fish and recreation improvements are happening as we speak at Lakes End Campground and Smith Reservoir day use area. So, a lot of progress is happening at Carmen. It's a very busy place if you've been up there to um kind of take a look. With that, I'm going to let Mike cover a little bit on water and then we'll continue. Good evening, commissioners, President Barovski. Mike Masters, the water operations manager for the record. Uh talk a little bit about our type two water projects for our our main work. We continue to work to harden our resilient spine through

1:43:23 2026. The Hillyard Transmission main work is projected to be completed by the end of quarter two this year um with a city paving project to follow this summer. Our next big transmission project is the East 23rd 42inch connector. Uh that's set to begin this summer. That's uh that will improve hydraulics in the system significantly. It it it connects a 42-in transmission main that has a section of 16in pipe necking down in the middle of it. So very important project we look forward to getting done. Uh looking into next year, we our big project for next year for transmission is the project at our

1:44:10 42-in riverfront connector down by the UFO campus. So these projects are critical redundancy to the Wamtt River crossings and improve transmission of water from base level storage through the rest of the system. Moving on from transmission to the reservoirs, work continues to build two new 7 and a half million gallon storage tanks at College Hill with Earthwork wrapping up in Q2. Tank construction and tunneling for water main is set to begin in June of this year. As you see in the picture, the footprint of the tanks is starting to take shape, which for some reason is really exciting to me. If you remember walking through the process of building East 40th with us, you can

1:44:56 start to envision what's what's going to be there. So, um, that's really exciting. We're also replacing a failing Oh, excuse me. That those tanks are projected to be online by the end of 2026, the new tanks at College Hill. Uh getting into the upper elevation, we're also have a project kicked off to replace a failing 1.75 milliongal steel tank at Shasta 975 with two seismically resilient half million gallon steel tanks. Uh there that is projected to be completed by the end of this year. And with that, we will talk about I'm sorry, the project sponsor for the second source.

1:45:42 So, oops. So, you do have a much more detailed backgrounder and I can tell from our earlier discussion it has been read and I appreciate that. So, I'm just going to hit a few of the highlights for our second source. Um, environmental permitting work is proceeding as anticipated with both federal and state agencies. We have been pleasantly surprised by the agency's timeliness and response to us recent public comment period with the Army Corps of Engineers uh closed and we received no opposition in that comment period. On the land use side, uh this is a really complicated process, but it has become clear that revisions to the public facilities services plan or PFSP while desired by the Eugene by both Eugene and Springfield, uh they've made changes to

1:46:29 that and they've split that that plan apart and that is going to delay implementation. So given that delay, we did meet with the Eugene and Springfield planning staff to determine what our options were for moving ahead to get land use approval without that process and we did learn um you know how to go about that both with our code amendments and discretionary use permit applications. So we are moving ahead with that and we have also completed annexation of the property into the city of Springfield. Our projected schedule for the WAMIT treatment plant remains unchanged to to this point but significant cost increases as you have noticed were identified and will need to be accounted for. The 160 million projection includes the standard indices of 35% as is common when projecting a project cost increase

1:47:15 over time but also includes specific commodity price changes now pertaining specifically to water treatment plants with specialized equipment. This figure does include a 30% contingency, but it does not include overhead costs. So, we will need to reach the 30% design phase to fully understand the truth of the cost and ways to mitigate that cost. And I wanted to confirm that the design uh estimate for getting that uh together is 9.5 million. So, uh Frank had that correct. Moving on to some of our shared service work uh in the capital plan. This is the year of continuous improvement for SAP season 2. We are working on process development using the new system

1:48:01 including customer notification enhancements, movein moveout process, interval data and usage uh a mobile app for customers and SAP analytic cloud dashboards for budgeting and reporting. The other piece to this is preparing for season 3 which will include asset management and field service management in SAP. And to do this, we're working on operational asset management plans with a goal to complete water and electric transmission distribution by year end. That will help with our integration process. We have had some delay due to uh competing priorities for internal resources. The experts who know these processes are are somewhat few and busy, but we are working to make assignments and backfill those roles so that we can keep that

1:48:46 project moving ahead. This does include hiring two new employees that will be asset management specialists. For our Burlesen project, you did approve a consent item for phase 2 tonight. Uh construction will include a new exterior layown yard with access road, security fencing, site prep, grading, lighting, and associated work. Uh completing the access road between the existing Roosevelt yard and the new layown yard and the Burlesen Road. You can see that what phase 2 is including is in the red in this um slide. So that uh project to date amount 2.4 million was what has been spent on phase one. Uh and tonight the consent was 2.8 million

1:49:31 for phase 2. I do want to highlight that we will be looking at um future phases after these two are implemented and we you know understand that maybe this will be all we need to do. Maybe we need to do more. We will evaluate that as we go, which is why it's nice to have this in phases. But the overall cost is if we were to do the full buildout as shown um in the entire slide here, that would be $18 million. And for our automated metering infrastructure, this does span both type one and type two. I did want to u mention a few things. So we have been in a pause on mass deployment following SAP go live due to system changes and the

1:50:16 need to develop new deployment planning and scheduling tools. Mass deployment is expected to ramp back up in water and begin brand new in up river during quarter 3 either July or August. In the meantime, the project team is actively working on the base station installations up river which are needed in advance of deployment to ensure the meters can communicate. Most of that work will be done by the end of June with one station up in VIA taking longer uh which should be by early 26. Did want to point out that we have installed 54,000 of our water meters already. So 9,400 is what remains. We assume we will be getting about a thousand of those installed this year and the remainder will be next

1:51:02 year. And one last slide here is just to cover some of the risks to our capital plan. We have seen some uh supply chain is issues. Some of it is lightening up as shown. Pipes and poles are a little bit easier to get less of a lead time. Many of our brass items that we use in the water system is taking 6 months or more to obtain. Three-phase transformers are have um multiple increase in prices and long lead times. And then we are looking at ways to maintain one to two years worth of our inventory to try and handle the long lead time items and have them on hand. Labor market is also a continuing struggle for some of our highly technical skilled staff especially in engineering. Um this some of our recruitments have just flat been unsuccessful. So we are looking for ways

1:51:48 to build that in-house uh perhaps with entry level folks and a new training program. and we do supplement uh where we can with contractors and consultants and we have ongoing issues with policy and regulatory uncertainty. So our grant grant programs have been cut. I think you received a memo from uh general manager Lawson about what we're seeing with the with the federal situation here on May 1st. U so we continue to evaluate what we can do about the funding. We're watching the tariff increases and changes and um trying to um figure out alternatives where we can and then monitoring uh resource cuts at the federal agencies, primarily BPA and FK. We're seeing some delays um in responses and planning. I did want to leave with a

1:52:35 one positive thing about delays. Two of our regulators at FK are pregnant, so I support those kinds of delays. One positive thing. I know you have questions um and so we are here to try and answer what we can for you. Thank you. I will open it up for questions. God, I'm not going to be negative anymore. Um so the logic behind doing the Walterville line if we don't know if Walterville is going to be alive next year, what is Could you help me with that? Mhm. Uh so we are still doing the analysis on the seismic risks. Uh when we did the um return on investment for the liner, we do still have time to

1:53:21 recover those costs and still make revenue before the license term is up. So it is still showing that we should pursue uh relining at this point. Now depending on how much longer these delays take um that could change but that's under the assumption that Walterville goes back online and we still have to address that one in 10 million year flood event thing and we we still are feeling positive about our ability to address that risk. Okay. So you think we're going to bring Walterville back? Yes, we are still still going that path. Okay. Thank you. And I just like to comment, Mike. Um, one of the things I really like about nobody showing up to that podium is to complain about what our water projects and nobody has ever done that. I mean, we had a little bit on 40th, but on

1:54:06 College Hill and kudos to you and everybody else involved that no news is good news. So, thank you very much for that project. That's uh really good to have. Thank you. That's all I got. Tim. Yeah. Thank you, chair. Thank you for the presentation. I think it was great. Very easily laid out. I don't have any questions. I just have compliments. Um, you guys are doing a great job. You are very transparent and it's clear of what you're presenting. Um, I am excited to hear what my my fellow commissioners have in terms of questions, but I just wanted to to highlight uh the neighbors of of College Hill are also extremely appreciated that excavating is is done. Um, and so they share your excitement in that. Um, and I wanted to highlight to the the Burlesen site. Um, and I'm just extremely appreciative of the the

1:54:52 flexibility that's happening there and the intentionality that's there as well. I just met with support services um to talk about this and um I uh catching up. It's been great just to hear that that's the intention is is to be um proactive and reactive at the same exact time. So um I just want to highlight highlight that and say um kudos to that. I'm sure I had other compliments to give. Uh but uh I I'll pause there, but I just wanted to say thank you for your work. You'll take compliments anytime. Andy, um well, I want to say what a hard time to be doing this work. Um, so I just want to acknowledge that there's a lot of potentially exciting projects, but with the cancellation of grants, supply chain issues, the cost of

1:55:39 everything going up, labor, it's kind of a bummer. So, um, I just want to thank you for all of your hard work and also for keeping us updated on everything that's going on. Um, my question is about the second source and I know that we need a second source and I know that this cost inflation is it's a lot and especially if there aren't going to be any federal grants or anything like that. Um, do we have an alternate plan? I don't know when we're talking about it more in depth. Maybe that's the time to really ask the question. So like when do we dig a little bit deeper into that? That's my question. So I think that 30% design is going to be the place to have that that solid

1:56:25 conversation because there may be some options in the design that could help. Maybe there will be additional grant opportunities. Uh we will also have dug in with finance on what the actual um impact is to rates and our borrowing capability. So um that's really I think where we need to have that hard conversation. Thank you. That's it. Great. Um, so I have a couple of questions. Um, on Burlesson, is is that going to be paved? Is it going to be aggregate or gravel? What What is I mean, you couldn't couldn't really tell from the rendering, right? Some of it is paved, some of it

1:57:10 is gravel. And I'm looking online if Scott Milovich if I can phone my friend to hop on and if not I can get back to you. I guess I'm here. Can you? Yeah. Hi commissioners. This is Scott Milovich. Um I'm the support services operations manager and uh yes the surfaces that you see in that Burlesson diagram are are paved. So we have to be uh by code uh to use for the use that we want to have there. the the surface has to be paved. There is a um there is some um planted area there that u breaks up the uh breaks up the area a little bit and um on the edges of it um kind of in the uh u color is is concrete or um there would

1:57:58 be heavy storage area and then there's also an area for um the uh uh heavy equipment training that will be uh marked out and that will be not paved. Right. But everything you see in gray there is paved. Um, so with that being said, I I sit on a committee at the city of Eugene where where we uh it's a road committee. So we we talk a lot about um the impact to the to our greenhouse gases that that result from paving. Um so I know that in public or non road or public type things there's an opportunity to use higher um recycled asphalts in those things and

1:58:44 warm warm asphalt as opposed to hot. I would just hope that you guys are looking at that to to try and bring down as much utilize what is out there in the in the new technologies as far as uh the materials that you're using when you're doing this. That's just a comment. I'm not telling you anything to do there. Second question I have is um on the the ability to have one to two years worth of inventory of our our needed supplies. Is that um like a budgetary increase? I mean what is our what was our standard before and what are we going to I mean you know in the past it was probably 9 months to a year's worth and now we're going to one

1:59:29 to two years and and what is I mean how much sump cost do we have sitting in in the yard back there and do we have to have any any type of uh budgetary actions as far as that goes I'm going to answer that by saying that the what we're targeting are the long lead time items and many of those are highly expensive specialized equipment and I want to phone my friend Josh Reic to see if he might have anything to add to about I know that we have done that with some transformers that that maybe we would have just ordered as needed and now we're trying to keep on used to be about uh 12 months or

2:00:14 somewhere in that range is is more like three to four years and so we're not necessarily plan more usage or anything. We have five in stock now. Um, and that was a pretty big purchase. Uh, so those ones were about 36 month time frame. So, no additional spending. I'm not sure how that's managed in on on the warehouse side of the budget, but yeah, it's change that. That's great. And I think that's a prudent move. I I um am in favor of that obviously. Um I know it you buy it today you're sitting on it but in in today's world that is actually advantageous I think having it bought in today's dollars and not Frank you wanted to say yeah from a budgetary perspective

2:00:59 and this this takes the cash flow side of it out of it um in many cases these are for capital projects so the value of the capital is then budgeted and depreciated over time so from an accounting perspective that that's how it works. Although there's some items that are what are called pre-capped, which means when you receive them, they actually hit hit the books at that point. Um, and a lot of the larger items that that Josh described will tend to have progress payments. And so when you reach certain review points with transformers, for example, you'll make a 30% payment or a 50% payment. Um and so probably likely um over time if that trend continues you you kind of bake that into your financial planning. Um but um it is diminished in some or I

2:01:46 I'll say the budgetary impact is spread over a number of years in cap the case of capital. Yeah. And and then then again that also is something that is is advantageous to us in mutual aid. you know, when there's a a huge thing in somebody has an ice storm in Salem and helping out is important. Yes, Deborah. And I just wanted to add that holding more inventory is not the only way in which we're ensuring that we have the products available. The procurement team is working closely with engineering staff to plan out so that we know what we need out in the future as well as uh make sure we've identified alternatives that may be easier for us to get. Right. And then my last question

2:02:33 is, how long until I'm going to be able to put a fishing pole in Smith River? Because those fish have been growing for about five years now without anybody having access. Is there any timeline on when that that access to that reservoir is going to be available to the public? I don't know the answer to that, but Lisa Crren is online. I bet she probably does. Good evening, commissioners. Uh, could you repeat the question please, Mr. Frosty? When when is Smith res river reservoir going to be available to the public for us to put worms in there and catch those big truck been growing for 5 years? Very good question. Um, the work on the Karman unit should be done in September

2:03:20 with commissioning um towards the end of the year. We have a bunch of testing. So, uh, we're targeting the 2026 season for, um, the campgrounds to be open, both Trailbridge and Smith Day use, um, area and Lakes End Campground. So, next year. Great. Thank you very much. And thank you for everybody else. Any other questions or comments? All right. Thank you very much. We are at item number 11, which is a break. So, let's take 10 minutes. be back at 7:45.

2:04:10 Okay. Next item on the agenda is organizational goal number three, the BPA product initial recommendation. President Baroski, commissioners, good evening. uh for the audio record. Um I'm Frank Lawson, the CEO and general manager. Joining me up here are Deborah Hart, our assistant general manager and chief financial officer, and Brian Booth, our chief energy resources officer. And before I actually get started into the agenda, I just wanted to acknowledge the staff, the core team. There's there's a number of people that have uh contributed to where we are with uh the Bonavville decision commissioners. Many of of the people uh you would recognize some of them are in

2:04:56 the room here um kind of along this this side, but the core team, their expertise, their ability to model, their critical thinking has really uh been outstanding. um and uh really wanted to appreciate uh their efforts. Specifically, we're going to cover tonight a little bit of background, a little bit about the initial leaning on the product decision and the rationale. We do have one action that we need uh commissioners to execute tonight has a resolution to do with the provider of choice contract and initiating uh that request. It is not the decision on the product. It is uh an administrative requirement of Bonavville and then we have some opportunity for discussion and

2:05:43 feedback. A little bit about background uh has to highlight the journey that we have been on um been on together uh commissioners staff. This probably goes actually well to the left of this uh particular um schedule a timeline that's up here all the way back to when we started doing electrification analysis and studies the the 2023 integrated resource plan. We got into more and more information this year around the demand side uh energy resources study. We do have uh really and and this is one of the things I'd really like to emphasize in this presentation this evening is that we don't have a oneanddone decision

2:06:28 here. Um I think even you heard public testimony there was reference made to load following max or load following strategy um versus uh block with shaping. We have a product decision around the Bonavville contract, but also later this year, we have another decision that I'll talk a little bit more about um in some of the upcoming slides. We've looked at this decision uh in a number of different ways. Uh we wanted to highlight that this uh yes, it has impacts economically. There's portfolio costs. There's management costs associated with that. the there's there are costs and opportunities related to whether a decision now opens

2:07:15 up business model impacts business model options going forward. Um even though there was some comment around the business model not being part of this decision, it is impacted indirectly and over the long term by this decision and is something to consider. And then a number of different qualitative assessments uh whether that be local control, environmental attributes, decision resiliency, what options do we have going forward? Uh feedback from the community table for example. Uh there's a number of of interested party here and parties here and we wanted to uh acknowledge that a number of different product choices uh when it came to the BPA product. Um I know that um um this is a

2:08:01 a chart you've seen before uh relative to the fact that we looked at different sensitivities. Um the across the bottom on this chart you see various product options ranging from more of the full service options around load following to uh different block with shaping. We over the course of the last six months um working uh with staff um uh and the core team and others kind of narrowed it down to uh two of the best choices and these are um a choice between good choices. And so um we feel like um a number of these options are good um but narrowed it down for the most part to load following and block with shaping plus a

2:08:48 what's called PLVS which is basically I'll call it a peaking service um for for no other reason. There are some qualitative differences um between load following and block shaping. uh load following um puts a little heavier emphasis on the federal system and and the management of that especially around peaking um and provides um some ability to buffer us from the the volatility of the market and BPA is is on the hook to hold various reserves flatten volatility and you'll you'll actually see that in the chart when you see the whisker chart and there's a very narrow band around the the the dot that means there's not as much variability with that um block with shaping can create some different

2:09:34 pricing signals relative to customer programs um and has some degree of higher resource portfolio management responsibilities as well as opportunities uh for e webb. There is some degree of increased cost uncertainty especially around read u meeting some of the resource adequacy requirements going forward. Again, this is the choice between good choices. Just to really kind of highlight how the differences uh would work. Um uh EW web does have a certain amount of resource base on our own. We are uh such as hydro and wind primarily. Uh a little bit of thermal geothermal as

2:10:19 not geothermal. Not that I know of yet, do we? Oh, okay. um and some some thermal resources, biomass and other things. Um Bonavville's requirement is to supply a net requirement for us. So uh we are not a full requirements customer. So there is their obligation is a net requirement above what our resources our dedicated resources are. In the case of load following, we are leaning in to Monavville to a greater extent, especially relative to their ability to meet capacity and meet peak. Um, the federal resource is a in particular an awesome resource for that. uh relative to the at cost basis they can and and I'll try to differentiate

2:11:04 between the tier one or at cost um opportunity that we have with Bonavville versus the block with shaping where there is is some requirement on us to fill that gap um between our varying peak load and what could be supplied as part of the Bonavville product. This is kind of another way of looking at it. And and one of the the differences in the economics in particular came down to how much of the peaking capacity uh can be leveraged across the federal system versus how much uh come from other other sources um some of which managed uh by e-web.

2:11:49 Some of the key takeaways around the variability does go back to again some of this a little bit of this is review relative to what's driving product uncertainty uh on a product that uh block with shaping versus um a load following. Um some of those are listed here. Um these come down to over the course of and I think it was mentioned earlier a few million dollars. Those are a few million dollars per year. those are they're annual portfolio costs and so those do add up um over the life of the contract. As far as the initial leaning um as we're describing it, um again I want to emphasize that this initial leaning is relative to the tier one at cost piece um that we can leverage the

2:12:37 the federal system and um in particular relative to their net requirement on base load feel like that is um an area of opportunity that we should take advantage of. There's very we are blessed in the Northwest to have the access to this capacity while it exists and at the tier one at cost level for base load. Um that should be something that we we feel like we take advantage of. It's the least cost under the expected case scenario and it's also the most certain the most the most stable uh relative to the different options. um there's still some uncertainty from from other variability um that that the uh other product option creates although it

2:13:24 was pointed out and I think accurately so many of the cost determinants are shared between the two products um but some of those um are not and so that's that's part of the reason that there is a wider band around block with shaping uh with PL PLVs the peaking service versus load following. We do know that there are ways um that we can shrink that variability around block with shaping as to how we would manage some of the local contrast contracts and so that would come down and there are ways to do that. Um part of the other um aspect of the decision was really to create flexibility, intentionality when

2:14:10 we start to look in particular beyond the tier one level. um by by leveraging the federal system at the base load tier one level at cost, it will allow e webb to take a very intentional strategic view of our needed resources beyond that. And so it becomes very intentional when you start to look at growth, when you start to look at economic development, when you start to look at managing our own resources uh going forward. And it uh will have the benefit of focusing the organization when it comes to looking at the tier 2 versus managing our own resources going forward for things above and beyond um the tier

2:14:56 one level. Kind of what was mentioned earlier around some of the boundaries of the choice um is is kind of interesting. Um when we start to think about and and on the far right you see block with shaping and then you see load following maximum load following minimum. Uh the comment earlier around load following maximum um I think was was the one where u the feedback had to do with local control. Um this is why we're not looking at this as a singular oneandone decision. um if you pick any of the load following options, it creates other choices. And so whereas if you pick block with shaping, some of those choices around how you manage things um

2:15:43 um doesn't quite have the flexibility that that you would you would have and um the load following um to take on the next level of decisions at the at the uh nonfederal level. What this means for us is is how the these decisions would stack up would be um moving to load following in the initial leaning in July gives us the ability to then also um in 2025 decide whether we are going to go with load following minimum or load following maximum that has to do with when you start looking at resources beyond the federal system the non-federal resources do you lean into Bonavville as a power

2:16:29 marketing agency and our and our balancing authority to manage that or do we take that on ourselves. Um that is something that is part of this number two decision here. Uh which we think is important to make um because of the the expertise that we have developed internally around managing resources. We think it's important to make that decision intentionally uh within a reasonable time frame. uh this year. I think we have the capabilities to do that. Um and then over the course of a number of years and some of this has to do with the when you're starting to make decisions as an organization around rellicensing hydro facilities for example um which part and what ownership

2:17:16 criteria do you want to have in your own generation? Um I don't want to say do you want to rent or do you want to own to what degree does your own port portfolio um um and how do you build that the rest of that portfolio and that's that's another follow- on decision. Um part of the the part highlighted in yellow there does have to do with the acquisition specifically the acquisition and the management of the non-federal resources above base load. And so, uh, I think part of the initial leaning, I just kind of want to make this this clear, is that at base load with at cost resources, you lean into the federal system the most you can, which is load following. That

2:18:02 frees the organization up to then make intentional decisions around the non-federal resources and the management and acquisition of those which we know we are going to have based on the future forecasts and the future needs and the future future expiration and negotiation of contracts um with with local resources and actually distant resources for that matter. And so the basis for the leading has to do with there's a difference here between when you lead into the federal government um and the federal resources through the power marketing agency. you could that makes a whole lot of sense to maximize that when it's an at cost resource. Um when you're starting to go out to the market to the tier 2 level or the non-federal level,

2:18:49 whether that's tier 2 or our own is an intentional follow-on decision. Brings us to the resolution this evening. Um and we'll I'm sure we'll get to this later. The the motion on this would be to uh pass resolution 25009 authorizing the general manager or designate to request a provider of choice contract offer from the Bonavville Power Administration. Again, this is not requesting something specific around a product. This is requesting that they uh bring that we're interested in a contract with them. Um, and so it's more of an administrative um, piece of work than anything else, but we'd appreciate you're launching us in that direction. And, um, with that,

2:19:36 we'll just open it up. I've got a number of experts in the room, both beside me and all around the room. Um but and definitely wanted to acknowledge their expertise and um be happy to answer any questions or you just discuss it amongst yourselves and we'll listen. All right, I will open it up for discussion. Indie, so I have some questions and I apologize if some of them are kind of basic and maybe have been gone over before, but so we currently get 80% of our electricity from BPA. Is that correct? Yeah. Okay. And then so under load following we would still get 80% right because it because we currently own that 20%,

2:20:22 right? Yeah. The 80% is a it's an average over a year. There is a what what's called a basically a contract high water mark. We're only allowed on an average basis to get a certain amount of tier one at cost power. Um, I think part of the difference in in this case is um they're filling in the gaps um uh that um we would still have our base load that goes into that and then the it's not an average. So it goes like this and they would then fill in that but essentially it is still 80%. Okay? No matter what it's always going to be 80%. Okay? It it could be less than that. Okay? It won't be more than that unless we lean

2:21:09 in at the to Bonavville um at the tier 2 level which would be we would use them to buy marketbased or other kinds of resources which is part of that second decision. Okay. Um so there's been some talk federally about bringing back coal and things like that. So, is it possible that BPA's portfolio could change? It's it's not likely within the horizon of this particular contract. Um, first of all, um, I don't know of any uh federal re federal coal resources in the Bonavville portfolio. Do you um their portfolio is dominated by hydro with a

2:21:55 little bit of nuclear mixed in? I I don't believe that coal will be part of the federal system. I think most of what you're hearing around coal has to do with either independent power producers or or some other utility-based organization. Okay. Because my question was if we have a goal to be 90% carbon free and either one of these options, we're still going to be able to maintain that. Yeah, I think the um so I did a little bit of of checking. Um the Oregon DEEQ publishes the carbon intensity for um has done that for the last number of years. Um my my curiosity was it in a good or a bad hydro year that affects our um the intensity of our electricity.

2:22:43 in a in a really bad hydro year, it actually affects us more than it has those organizations that are full requirements of bonaban which is hydro dominated um and also nuclear. Those are really sort of non-carbon based resources. Um where we will have to be very intentional is when we start to look at uh growth um beyond the base load uh that Bonavville contractually would be obligated to provide and then when we start making uh decisions around additional resource decisions um outside of that 80%. Um,

2:23:28 um, you said if we opted for the block with shaping that we'd be able to lean into time of use and, um, direct response for rate design. So, how does that differ with the block with shape versus the load following? Yeah, there there is still pricing signals that um that can come as far as how Bonavville meets peak load, what the costs are during the day. Um it is attenuated a little bit. So with that certainty, um you don't quite have the variability, but there there is still the opportunity for time of use and for some of these other customer programs. um the exact cost drivers uh might be attenuated and we'll we'll look at that. I think one of the primary reasons we would implement

2:24:14 those has to do with uh our own ability to manage growth which is beyond the tier one level beyond the base load level. Those still make a lot of sense from an avoided cost perspective. And so even though the signal might be a little bit attenuated because we're reducing the variability and the risk, there are still some of those signals that exist, but a really big driver of that is future avoided cost. And then one last question is um if we did opt to go with load following, would you anticipate that potentially our rate increases would be less over time? like is that is that a driver? I you know when you looked at and I'll

2:25:00 let you the e economist here go going going to work if so I think um again this a little bit comes back to the there's two good choices here you you looked at the difference over the life of the contract you looked at the expected case the expected case there's there's a percentage point here and there over a long period of time um you won't What you won't see is oh the contract changes in 2028 and 2029 there is a rate spike or a rate decline. You you won't see that degree of of attenuation. What you will see is that we will be less subject to volatility in the market for that base load for

2:25:45 example. Um and our programs will have really intentional um design criteria. they'll have sideboards around what we're trying to accomplish with those programs with those whether it be customer programs um avoided um energy consumption through conservation. Um I wouldn't expect to see a sort of a student body left um pricing impact on day one of the contract. I think this is um and that's reflected because they're both good choices and how those get realized is sort of diminished over time. But I don't know, Do you want to weigh in on that? Hang Frank, you said everything I was going to say. Um, let let me set a couple of bounds on

2:26:30 this and we we do have a couple of economists at the table. We're pretty good at saying on the one hand this and the other hand that without giving a definitive answer. Uh, but let me give just a couple of uh statements that I believe are are true. Uh the first one is that no matter which product we pick, it would likely be more expensive than what we currently pay Bonavville today. They are premium products include additional flexibility. Slice block is relatively inexpensive, half a cent a kilowatt hour less expensive, something like that. However, the amount of additional capacity that we would get from this would be very cost-effective compared to, you know, other capacity resources that we will be obligated to

2:27:15 acquire in the future no matter what. So, I do want to table set. We think this will be a a stably priced product, but no matter which way we go, there will be a a step up in our bond costs in the next few years. And and I would um pile on a little bit to that. I think that there's that doesn't just hold for Bonavville capacity. It holds for capacity in in general. Um I think really capacity um hasn't really been fully included in p in the past contracts and valued like it it will be going forward. And so I I think that we what we saw in the analysis from the team was the how

2:28:00 capacity is handled is is maybe one of the most important things. And and we're not saying that we're going to give up local control for future capacity. Um that's part of this follow-on decision as far as how we want to control that. Uh what we're saying is exactly what Brian said, probably the most cost-effective way you can address capacity. um in and as well as being stable about it in the process is to leverage the the federal systems ability to get that capacity while we can get it. Thank you. Thank you. Um just a couple questions macro then maybe micro. So um our

2:28:45 relation you know the United States Canada and Canada controls the b the water in the Colombia through a treaty and I know that treaty wasn't is there any risk there with be because of our international relationship with Canada and the treaty about affecting our working with Bonavville? You want to go ahead? I would I'll answer it too. I can either one of us. Um, I I'll say that the the treaty um there's not risk in the sense of it getting worse than it has been. Um it it really the the settlement had to do with an amount of money that was going to um

2:29:30 to Canada. Um in in you it's I would equate it to we'd paid off the mortgage and we were still making the mortgage payments situation. Um I I do think Bonavville has some degree of risk that they have to manage but it's um within the capacity of the system and I think that's that's part of their thinking. So I I wouldn't expect that alone to be any sort of a particular risk one way or the other. Okay. when so and now when Bonavville does a rate hike we pass through maybe sometimes 60 70% of that rate hike as as a percentage we don't pass it percentage percentage by load following either either one of these

2:30:15 products will that change that ratio so if Bonavville jacks their rates 8% are we we're only going to pass through 6% will that change that ratio that we historically had how it affects our rates we don't pass through the full rate increase. We pass we we do not pass through the full rate increase. We would still not pass through the full rate increase because we their requirement is a net requirement. It's not our full gross requirement. It's it's going to be restructured a little bit. Commissioner, to be honest, there's some different billing components in the new contract than the old contract, but it will not be um a full 100% whatever they do, we do. Some of that will have to be based on the structure of of how they're recapturing the the their their rates as

2:31:02 well. So, and we have an 8020 like Mindy just said and so we got a contract coming up in a year or two with uh with Sierra Pacific and if we don't renegotiate that contract, if we don't buy their product, how is that going to will that have any adverse effect on our our requirement here? or are we going to have to go out and replace that and replace new new loads? I I'll answer that and then you can weigh in too. Sorry. So, um an example uh being the the one you use Sierra Pacific Sierra Pacific is not a a product or not a a contract that we or a resource we dedicate to load. Okay. And so we are not obligated to go replace

2:31:47 that um of our net requirement that would not be affected affected. Um however the um that particular contract and I I'll say beyond the contract that particular resource could have long-term value for us as an organization that we'll need to evaluate on its own merits. Um and so um it doesn't mean that um and depending on how we want to handle the non-federal beyond tier one um resources, those are things we'll have intentional decisions around. Uh there may be some things that and and by the way the the contract that we have now and and many of the contracts will

2:32:32 actually go through 2028 that would be an important date to continue some of these through 2028 because that's this con new contract won't take effect until 2028. So I wouldn't want to say oh yeah we this one expires next week and let's let it go. We we still have some um obligation between now and 2028. But the um the the general decision around those non-federal resources that are not dedicated to load. If we have a resource that we is dedicated to load and there's a a few of them there's there's a finite list of those then we are not obligated to replace those from a load perspective. So are that like harvest wind or things like I mean any of the ones that are coming up or that may be

2:33:18 on question they're not dedicated to load the the I'll I'll go the other way. The ones that are dedicated to load are Carmen Smith Stone Creek Walterville Leeberg. There's part of one in Idaho that we have replaced because we sold it. Um, all the others are not dedicated to load. Is that correct? That's correct. Uh, by law, any pre980 hydro must be dedicated to load. Uh, Stone Creek's the one that's got kind of an asterisk next to it. And that, uh, it is officially dedicated to new large single loads such as the Heinix facility. Since we no longer have the Heinx load, it is a free agent for

2:34:04 lack of a better term at at this point. But uh yes, all of our non-hydro resources IP, Harvest Wind, the various contracts, Sarah Pacific, they are undeedicated. Thank you. Yeah. Uh thank you for the presentation and it is uh very technical and so yeah the Isaac was right when he made comments about there's lots of jargon involved in in the report. So we'll we'll get that cleaned up some I'm very glad my fifth month here I get to weigh in on this. Uh cool. Um are there any concern I mean we are we just got a memo

2:34:50 about changes at the federal level. Are there any concerns with letting go of our own local control and commitments from EPA and not and those commitments not being met? So, I'll I'll clarify a little bit. We're not giving up total local control. Um the the second phase of the decision has more to do with local control than the first part. Um the um I also would point out in either product choice, we're 80% reliant on Bonavville's resource and the and these are federal resources that have been invested in through the decades. Um we and 140 other

2:35:35 utilities are are um reliant some more than us on on that resource and so there is some degree of power in numbers. Um, I think also in in stating that we have to treat them like we would any super important key supplier relationship and that's that um we have to be active in it. We have to manage it. Um we have to pay attention to it. Um and um the fact that we have access to this this federal resource um that um has still some capacity left that we we want to gain access to that's very affordable is

2:36:20 important. Um but I think those are things that we want to make sure we're paying attention to. um helping Bonavville um in that we have a lot of people who used to work at Bonavville, have tight relationships still as we manage that relationship. So it's not something that you ignore. You treat it like a a hund00 million a year re resource and and that's the way we have to do it. But um either of the first phases of the product decision um I I don't think dramatically impact that statement either way. Thank you for the clarifying my language and and I appreciate that. Um I think I mean and this is maybe an odd question so feel free to bail on it but are there are

2:37:07 there questions that we as a board are not asking that you are excited to answer? um excited maybe. I I'm not going to punt that. I I think that um I think there's a number of things that that we we consider in this process. Um you know, one of the things of consideration is the the intellectual knowledge that we have built up in the management of resources. I think that's that's an important consideration. um in the first part of this decision, but especially the number two part of the decision, how you manage your resources beyond the Bonavville contract, beyond the the base load at

2:37:53 cost. I think those are things that that we're considering in internally. It's important part of our decision. Um it impacts not not just people, but what people do and I think that's that's pretty important thing for consideration. Um I think through time I and you you've been immersed in this for about five months. Some some of these other poor people have been immersed in it for a lot longer and and through the course of time have asked a lot of really good probing questions of us. Um and so I'll give that some thought. I think um maybe some I don't know what to call it but we wish you would have asked questions for our June meeting. some of the things that maybe we we didn't um

2:38:39 think that you asked, but we want to tell you. How was that? We want to answer the question without you asking it. Thank you. Um couple of questions. one um by leaning into Bonavville in this way um as heavily as it is with the lowering the risks does that give us any advantage when it comes to transmission because Bonavville is is a ma big player in the transmission side as well a a little bit part of um and I I say a little bit so um we network transmission

2:39:24 um customer and and as part of this arrangement everything underneath the blue would have to be firm transmission from Bonavville. So they are obligated to deliver that electricity not just acquire the electricity. um under the block with shaping. Um there is some degree of the peaking service also covers transmission, but there is I I think probably a little bit of exposure, but minimal I I wouldn't say that was a primary driver of the decision. And there's a little bit more uh assurityity around the transmission under under um the load following um

2:40:10 product option but probably enough to not really drive the decision by itself one way or the other. I do think transmission when we start to look at um the beyond the federal system transmission is is an important consideration for us. So when we think about a local resource versus a distant resource that is that is a real consideration um that we have to take into account given transmission is incredibly long to build. Um we're talking decades to actually construct anything. It is becoming more and more fully if not overly subscribed. Um growth is forecasted. um the the um

2:40:56 um the integration of of renewables in different locations is is also uh a consideration uh when it comes to transmission as as well as resources. So I would say there was there's a slight degree of there there is a security in it for sure at load following. It's probably not as much of a difference relative to block with shaping that would drive that decision by itself, but it's it's a little better. Sure. Thank you. Um I'm gonna address this to you, Brian. in one of our previous talks about this last fall that you were um quite enthusiastic about the product of block shaping with

2:41:43 PLVS because it was like I can't it was almost like I can't believe that Bonavville is offering this to us was kind of the the take that I got from it. Um, and I'm going to put you on the spot here. Which which product did you choose? So, first of all, let me say like the Supreme Court right here, I think. Yeah. So, let me speak to the process just a little bit. Uh, we had we're not exactly a democracy, but uh, everyone did have an opportunity to vote and then the king decided um, we were the the king's court

2:42:28 um staff were were split roughly 50/50 and pretty much everyone gave a leaning of how strongly they felt and it was all like I'm 5545 this way I'm 60 6040 that way there was no one who pounded their fist on the table and said let's do this that being said So my my vote was to do a a nuanced approach. There is a whole lot of that band of uncertainty and sorry I have cottonwood allergies and I'm feeling it today. A whole bunch of that band of uncertainty around block was shaping was driven by capacity pricing e webb's ability to acquire you know inexpensive

2:43:14 capacity and a pretty short runway by the end of 2028 and uncertainty around the way that Vonavville will price block with shaping. They've never had it before. they have been perhaps deliberately cy about the ways in which they will price parts of it and that drove a lot of that band of uncertainty. So my recommendation was to go load following and okay should that band of uncertainty shrink should we find ways to acquire the capacity that makes up the difference then we would have an opportunity to make a product switch. Okay, that's a nuanced position. I understand that and I and I appreciate I appreciate you

2:44:01 doing that. I'm sorry that I put you on the spot, but the reason I did the reason I did that is because I really appreciate your takes on the on these issues over the years. And so I I just wanted to know that that's that's why I put you on the spot. I'm I'm not going to be making my decision on that, but I just I want you to know that every time that I've had interactions with you on this issue, I come away knowing more and being having a clearer thing from it. So, that's why I asked you that question, Frank. Yeah, I would. Um, so I I appreciate the question. You can ask Deborah what her vote was after after this. Um I I think this is one of those decisions um where I really appreciate the value that

2:44:48 the core team brought in their various perspectives. Um Brian's absolutely right when you said well I'm leaning and even on this stage one leaning 584 or 5248 the other is 48 50 52 there's and there's a lot of nuance associated with it. Um, one of the considerations that um, that really struck me that I'm not sure was in the analysis, and by the way, I did say in my response that it wasn't a consensus issue, but one of the things that really drove my thought process was around organizational psychology and strategy. You cannot as an organization be everything for

2:45:33 everybody all at the same time. And the fact that we do have the opportunity to leverage a very valuable federal resource, including capacity, while it exists, while it's affordable, allows the organization to stabilize one part of our existence, while we really focus on the the other decisions that that follow onto this. Um, and that wasn't in an analysis anywhere. Um, other than to recognize that there are ways that you can stage this so that at the end of the day ultimately we're adding the most valuable most value for our customers

2:46:18 with the least amount of risk. And that um that's ultimately just listening to to the various core members and which elements they tended to value more than others or place more weight on than others. um eventually kind of walked away with the fact that this creates an environment the sideboards of which future decisions both management and boards can truly evaluate in in a way that um is is unburdened by a past decision. Great. Thank you. Um, yeah. I mean, I know that, you know, what struck struck out in that comment was you we can't please everybody all

2:47:05 the time. Um, you know, as in the worlds of politics, which I mean, we're on the lower rungs of the political ladder, but that's part of the the balancing act that we have to deal with every day is trying to make sure we can please the most people for our for our constituencies. So, thank you. Thank you for for being uh upfront and honest with us. Deborah, do you want to weigh in on what your choice was? Um, so my choice was load following. It probably is not a surprise to any of you that I am somewhat averse to volatility and that is what init more than somewhat that is what initially uh attracted me to load following uh but

2:47:52 what really keeps me there is is that ability to focus so that Frank spoke about. I appreciate I appreciate everybody who's put in all the hard work on this. Um, and it's it's it is a big decision. And yeah, I'll just a little bit of a caveat on this number two item that relates to load following, min middle, max there. There's various degrees that that were one of the decisions the follow-on decisions for this if we go with the load following product option will be the non-federal side. It is well Bonavville it from my perspective and this is just a

2:48:37 pre-leaning leaning on number two if if you want to look at it that way. Well the federal resource is tremendous at cost tier one resource to tap into. It is hard to see how they add that same value at a tier 2 level at a beyond federal resource level. and that starts to lean toward a more heavily involved e-web in the management of the non-federal the acquisition and management of the non-federal resources. But that's that's an early reading on that and and that needs to be proven out intentionally, but it's well on one hand you see there's lots of value on the other hand you go I'm not sure how much value at is added in this this other

2:49:24 world. Just we're going to make a motion to adopt resolution 259 authorizing a general manager designate to request uh provider of choice contract offer from the Bonavville Power Administration. Okay. Uh motion and a second. Any other discussion? Again, this is this is just one step. We haven't made a decision as to which product we're going to do at this time. It just allows you to go into negotiation, let them know, hey, put us in in the queue. Correct. Great. All those in favor of the resolution, say I. Opposed? Unanimous. All right. Anything else from staff on this before we move

2:50:09 on to the next agenda item? Thanks for making the motion. I'd forgotten about the resolution and I'm sure staff was going about the resolution. Excellent. Next item is future board agendas. Any thing that I think I'll throw that to Frank. Obviously, there was a some discussion earlier about fitting in some talk about the the billing into an upcoming agenda. Um yes, President Barovski, commissioners, I um looking at the board agenda report

2:50:54 there. There was 30 minutes available in June. That's with no other changes. there is the potential that we you and I and Vice President Schlloberg can talk about incorporating some time um around the the addition of a non-utility based um fee in the mechanism even though I'm I won't be present in June. the the people that really know the processes and the system um will be here and so I'll I'll be leaning into them probably specifically uh Deborah Hart and and Julie McGee and and potentially uh Travis Canab um on on that front. So I'm going to I'm going to pass that off to them and get out of

2:51:40 town. Um and so and and I don't believe um Commissioner Schllober is here in for the June meeting either. So question on the June 17th work session. Will you be here for that? Yes, I will be here. And will you be here for that? Okay. Um Commissioner Schlober and I have some one-on-one time set aside um prior to the July 8th decision on Bonavville. um to to meet and go through the the various perspectives um so that she's um has an opportunity to to uh inquire about what's going on prior to the July meetings. Okay. Other comments or

2:52:26 questions about future agendas and just just more work to come there, commissioners? Yeah. And I I'll work with the with the chair I also think that, you know, we'll have to take a look at um some of the upcoming agenda time around long-term financial planning, rates, impacts, rate, you know, immediate rate structures. Uh I think July is is going to be an interesting meeting. Deborah Hart and I've already had some discussions around what the importance of that meeting, but also um looking at allocating some time around the the second source design and the the

2:53:12 financing plans for that I think are going to be important and we'll have to figure out throughout the summer how to work work that information in. Right. Yes. So, um, I still have a desire to get something on the agenda sometime in the next year about the lower river and the stewardship of that. And I want to make sure that that doesn't fall by the wayside for lack of a second. It is. It is in the queue, Commissioner. Yes, it is in the queue. It's It's Is it up at the top or is it actually in a month? Oh, I didn't get another iteration of the board agenda out, but we are planning to do that with the same timing as the next state of the utility in advance of the um watershed

2:53:59 fee expiration. So, it's it's in there. It's in the queue. Okay. Thank you. Right. Other comments or questions? All right. When do you leave, Bindy? of May. May. Okay. Yeah. Um and I'm gone the 17th to the 26th of May. So maybe we should have just kind of a touch base the the leadership with you before the 17th of of May. I'll I'll put some out there. We can get it. Great. Um All right. Board wrapup. Go around the table. John, I

2:54:44 just like to thank everybody for tolerating me this evening. I had a little tirade, but you know, I think a good discussion is u healthy. Um that you know, we have differing opinions. We agree to disagree or whatever, but you know, I just have my opinions on a couple things that were on the agenda this evening and uh I voiced them and granted I came on the lower end of a a boat. That doesn't happen very often here, but I think it's good for the dialogue and it's good for the order of the organization because if not, if we're 50 100% of the time, you know, my four of us here, so think about it. Thank you for tolerating me. Tim, you're welcome, John. No, of I'm glad that we're able to have that discussion and truly Yeah, I I I think that this is a a really functional and really great really great board.

2:55:30 We're talking about a lot of really complicated topics in a really uncertain time in a really really challenging environment both locally and nationally. So um just grateful. And we haven't mentioned that our upriver meeting is next week. So looking forward to seeing everybody there. Um, and then one other thing I wanted to say is I was somewhere last weekend and um, some people who are who do a lot of social work. Um, they were all talking about e webb actually and praising our customer service. They work with a lot of clients that have to access some of our lowinccome assistance programs um, or just help them navigate through the customer service process. and they just

2:56:17 said such wonderful things about our customer service team. So, if you could pass that on to them that they are really appreciated in the community. I sure will. Thank you. Yeah. Um and then just wrap up, I would just say um I did attend the watershed council meeting last last month and there have been federal impacts uh to those communities up there and the partners that are part of the the McKenzie wershed council, ODW, uh the Forest Service, the core, all of those people are experiencing either staff reductions, grants on hold, things like that. So, that remains to be seen, but

2:57:03 it's something that that I know that our staff is is tracking. But a lot of the stuff that we do as far as our wershed goes flows through federal lands and is part of of the federal uh infrastructure. And so, that's something that we're keeping a track, keeping an eye on. And I think that's probably one of the areas where we may see impacts from some of the the things that are coming down on the federal side. Even if it's just staffing, it's it's tough up there. There's really good people that have uh that have lost their jobs. It's a it's a shame. Yeah. I just

2:57:48 I forgot to mention that the one-on-one we or the the one that we had with staff about customer care and weatherization was incredibly beneficial for me and I think for everybody else. But um I did see you know one thing on the HUD cuts. I saw the acronym WEI going away. That's 50% of our low-inccome assistance and it was alarm to learn that 20% of our people are uh utility birth and we're only serving 5%. And if that 50% goes away, um we're going to have to make a decision on what we're going to do. Yes. Yeah. I I think that um sometimes we we look at the summer months, oh, it's kind it's kind of a time of light agendas. I

2:58:35 I really do think July, August, September, when we're looking at limited income, we're looking at the long-term financial plan, we're going to have to roll up our sleeves and and make some uh really interesting choices around some of the impacts here and and some of our own work. and um be because um it it's it's our our jobs and duties to balance the the values that we have and one of those is affordability and so affordability to whom and is is part of that and I know we have as a goal to look at the the way that we have our limited income programs structured and for what purpose and and that'll be part

2:59:21 of a deeper dive there and and So there's there's a lot of work between when we sort of launch the CIP and the long-term financial plan and when we come out with rates in November, December, that's going to be a pretty intense period for us to roll up our sleeves and look at it. Okay. Well, 2024 was supposed to be a hard year. How come you're making 2025 this difficult? I That was just a warm-up, you know. 2024 was the warm-up and now it's the real game. This meeting is adjourned one minutely.