WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.880 Okay, it is nine o'clock, and we do have a quorum, so we'll call to order the public 00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:14.520 utilities board meeting for the City of Denton for Monday, March 22, 2021. 00:00:14.520 --> 00:00:17.640 Do we have anybody who's waiting on the phone to speak? 00:00:17.640 --> 00:00:21.040 No, ma'am, we do not, not this morning. 00:00:21.040 --> 00:00:22.040 Okay. 00:00:22.040 --> 00:00:26.200 And we'll go on to the first item, which is the consent agenda. 00:00:26.200 --> 00:00:30.600 Does any board member wish to pull an agenda item? 00:00:30.600 --> 00:00:33.320 Okay, I see none. 00:00:33.320 --> 00:00:36.480 Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda? 00:00:36.480 --> 00:00:41.320 Okay, Ed has moved, Barbara has seconded. 00:00:41.320 --> 00:00:43.280 All in favor say aye. 00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:44.280 Aye. 00:00:44.280 --> 00:00:45.280 Any nay? 00:00:45.280 --> 00:00:46.280 Aye. 00:00:46.280 --> 00:00:52.240 Okay, that motion carries, this might be a record today, Tony. 00:00:52.240 --> 00:00:58.600 Plans for individual consideration, the approval of the March 8th, 2021 minutes. 00:00:58.600 --> 00:01:00.160 Were there any changes? 00:01:00.160 --> 00:01:04.640 Okay, I see Ed's been a motion to approve. 00:01:04.640 --> 00:01:05.640 Do we have a second? 00:01:05.640 --> 00:01:06.640 Second. 00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:07.640 Okay. 00:01:07.640 --> 00:01:10.600 Okay, Billy's got, Billy got to second this time. 00:01:10.600 --> 00:01:12.600 All in favor say aye. 00:01:12.600 --> 00:01:13.600 Aye. 00:01:13.600 --> 00:01:14.600 Aye. 00:01:14.600 --> 00:01:15.600 Any nays? 00:01:15.600 --> 00:01:16.600 All right. 00:01:16.600 --> 00:01:18.720 Management reports, Tony. 00:01:18.720 --> 00:01:27.840 Okay, so the first item that we have for you is the Den Energy Center dashboard ending 00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:30.160 December 2020. 00:01:30.160 --> 00:01:34.840 We should have folks from finance on the phone if anyone has any questions. 00:01:34.840 --> 00:01:41.040 I will just say that these tend to be a little bit late just simply because finance is working 00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:45.480 on closing out the previous fiscal year and so things seem to be a little bit delayed 00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:51.080 but we have this report to you and then we'll have the January report coming to you here 00:01:51.080 --> 00:01:56.320 pretty quick and so, but you know, if anyone has any questions, of course the finance team 00:01:56.320 --> 00:02:02.960 is on and they'd be happy to answer any questions you may have or I can. 00:02:02.960 --> 00:02:03.960 Questions? 00:02:03.960 --> 00:02:07.600 I don't see any, go ahead. 00:02:07.600 --> 00:02:12.560 Okay, so the next item is the Public Utilities Board agenda items. 00:02:12.560 --> 00:02:19.400 We've added quite a few items on here primarily from finance but I do want to point out that 00:02:19.400 --> 00:02:25.840 on the 12th of April we are planning to come back with a end of year summary and just a 00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:31.600 general discussion about the budget for 2021 and rate discussion as well, kind of brief 00:02:31.600 --> 00:02:37.880 you on those items related to all of the utilities that's electric, water, wastewater and solid 00:02:37.880 --> 00:02:38.880 waste. 00:02:38.880 --> 00:02:44.000 And then the other item that I wanted to point out really quickly is for April 26, you know, 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:51.040 we did have, we had a short meeting just so that we can let the full PUB know we, city 00:02:51.040 --> 00:02:56.480 management met with Susan Parker and Billy Cheek, Chair and Vice Chair, and we had a 00:02:56.480 --> 00:03:03.520 very productive discussion about the PUB and its role with the city and certainly as an 00:03:03.520 --> 00:03:07.080 advisory role to the council and one of the things that we agreed on is that we would 00:03:07.080 --> 00:03:13.800 put a utilities budget priorities discussion on the agenda and so we scheduled that for 00:03:13.800 --> 00:03:20.840 April 26 and just want to know from this board what kind of things you'd like to see in the 00:03:20.840 --> 00:03:25.280 upcoming budget for 2021-22 and we'll certainly be discussing that, you know, taking that 00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:30.160 forward to the council but we'll also share with you some recent priorities that the council 00:03:30.160 --> 00:03:34.280 established and there was a couple of items there that we'll highlight for you that pertain 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:40.040 to the utilities and hopefully we can have some synergies there between the board and 00:03:40.040 --> 00:03:45.320 also the city council but again that came out of a, what I feel was a very productive 00:03:45.320 --> 00:03:48.920 discussion with the Chair and the Vice Chair. 00:03:48.920 --> 00:03:54.040 So happy to answer any questions that anyone may have on any of these items. 00:03:54.040 --> 00:04:07.720 Good to see we're starting the budget discussion earlier than last year. 00:04:07.720 --> 00:04:08.720 Yes sir. 00:04:08.720 --> 00:04:09.720 Thank you. 00:04:09.720 --> 00:04:10.720 Karen, you had your hand up. 00:04:10.720 --> 00:04:15.240 Yeah, I just, I don't know if this is the right place but I just wanted to confirm when 00:04:15.240 --> 00:04:18.060 the joint meeting is tomorrow, 1130? 00:04:18.060 --> 00:04:19.320 Yes ma'am, 1130. 00:04:19.320 --> 00:04:20.920 And that's a non-voting meeting, right? 00:04:20.920 --> 00:04:27.200 Well it's just to provide direction, so there'll be items on there, there's going to be items 00:04:27.200 --> 00:04:32.000 on there that we're going to ask for some feedback on, certainly on the D&E side specific 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:37.920 to some of the legislative priorities that we've listed out and I'm assuming that everyone's 00:04:37.920 --> 00:04:39.560 received that backup. 00:04:39.560 --> 00:04:40.560 Yeah. 00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:41.560 Okay. 00:04:41.560 --> 00:04:42.560 Sorry, thanks. 00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:43.560 Okay. 00:04:43.560 --> 00:04:49.520 Just so I can clarify, but it's not an actual motion and vote, it's a provide direction. 00:04:49.520 --> 00:04:52.640 Correct, correct, just by consensus. 00:04:52.640 --> 00:04:53.640 Yes. 00:04:53.640 --> 00:04:59.800 So, and just so the PUB knows too, you know, Susan and I spoke a little bit about how those 00:04:59.800 --> 00:05:04.440 meetings tend to go and kind of the structure for them but certainly if there's any changes 00:05:04.440 --> 00:05:08.040 I'll visit with her but generally speaking, the mayor will open up the meeting, it'll 00:05:08.040 --> 00:05:12.560 be a meeting of the council and then Susan will open up the meeting for the PUB, generally 00:05:12.560 --> 00:05:18.760 the mayor will kind of take the lead on questions that people may have and he'll pretty much 00:05:18.760 --> 00:05:19.760 be the moderator. 00:05:19.760 --> 00:05:25.840 But again, he'll work in tandem with Susan on making sure that the meeting flows in good 00:05:25.840 --> 00:05:26.840 order. 00:05:26.840 --> 00:05:32.920 I thought Mr. Rybeck had his hand up. 00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:33.920 Did you, Mr. Rybeck? 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:34.920 Yes ma'am. 00:05:34.920 --> 00:05:35.920 I had my hand up. 00:05:35.920 --> 00:05:36.920 Thank you. 00:05:36.920 --> 00:05:37.920 Two things. 00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:47.080 One, Tony, it's so much easier to hear you without a mask on, I really appreciate it. 00:05:47.080 --> 00:05:48.320 So much easier to hear. 00:05:48.320 --> 00:05:53.680 The second thing is you asked about any priorities we might have or interests in the upcoming 00:05:53.680 --> 00:05:55.280 budget discussion. 00:05:55.280 --> 00:06:00.080 Having never seen the budget, I would like to know where I can get a copy of the current 00:06:00.080 --> 00:06:02.960 budget so I might be able to generate some questions. 00:06:02.960 --> 00:06:09.600 Yes sir, we can, I'll send you a link and also send it to Mr. Jumper but it's on the 00:06:09.600 --> 00:06:15.000 city's website and there's about five years worth of budgets and also our annual financial 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:18.840 report is on there along with a number of other financial documents but we'll send you 00:06:18.840 --> 00:06:20.840 a link so you can get to this. 00:06:20.840 --> 00:06:21.840 That would be great. 00:06:21.840 --> 00:06:22.840 Thank you very much. 00:06:22.840 --> 00:06:23.840 Appreciate it. 00:06:23.840 --> 00:06:24.840 Yes sir. 00:06:24.840 --> 00:06:29.040 So the other item, Susan, if it's okay for me to jump to the new business. 00:06:29.040 --> 00:06:33.760 So under the new business item again, we have a couple of items on here that we continue 00:06:33.760 --> 00:06:36.960 to work towards and hope to get that back to you soon. 00:06:36.960 --> 00:06:42.160 I did want to just briefly speak to the minutes and we could not get a memo out to you this 00:06:42.160 --> 00:06:46.000 time but we'll try to get that to you next meeting but just to give you a little bit 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:51.440 of heads up on that, spoken with the city secretary's office, the minutes are the official 00:06:51.440 --> 00:06:59.440 record of your meeting but the minutes are not intended to be verbatim. 00:06:59.440 --> 00:07:04.640 They are in keeping with the directives of the city secretary's office. 00:07:04.640 --> 00:07:10.040 Obviously, we do have the video archive that then serves to provide additional context 00:07:10.040 --> 00:07:16.000 to the minutes but the minutes are the official record and we'll provide some additional detail 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:21.200 on that in a subsequent memo that I'll be working with our legal department to make 00:07:21.200 --> 00:07:24.640 sure that I state that correctly. 00:07:24.640 --> 00:07:31.800 So I just wanted to follow up on that and then the last item that I'll just speak to 00:07:31.800 --> 00:07:37.960 under this new business, for the meeting tomorrow, we obviously have a joint meeting and you 00:07:37.960 --> 00:07:39.040 have the agenda for that. 00:07:39.040 --> 00:07:45.840 I did want to just briefly just tell the committee that in the council's special called meeting, 00:07:45.840 --> 00:07:51.280 you're in the regular meeting, there is a closed session discussion to talk about some 00:07:51.280 --> 00:07:56.560 competitive matters related to DME along with some legal matters. 00:07:56.560 --> 00:08:02.880 The competitive matters, we did not bring that to the PUB and the PUB at this time will 00:08:02.880 --> 00:08:05.220 not be part of that discussion. 00:08:05.220 --> 00:08:09.480 We do plan to visit with the council in keeping with some direction that we've gotten from 00:08:09.480 --> 00:08:16.000 them before to see how much of the legal information can be provided back to the PUB and then subsequent 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:20.080 to that, based on that direction, we'll come back to the PUB at the next meeting and have 00:08:20.080 --> 00:08:26.080 a closed session discussion with you on those items that we are able to visit with you on. 00:08:26.080 --> 00:08:30.960 Again, they specifically pertain more to the legal matters, not so much to the competitive 00:08:30.960 --> 00:08:35.560 power matters, but because those are tied pretty closely, we just wanted to make sure 00:08:35.560 --> 00:08:39.240 that we kind of stayed in keeping with what the general direction from the council was. 00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:46.160 I wanted to just let the PUB know that I'd already spoken with Susan and Billy about 00:08:46.160 --> 00:08:47.160 that. 00:08:47.160 --> 00:08:50.580 I just wanted to be clear and transparent in case anyone saw that on the other agenda 00:08:50.580 --> 00:08:53.320 and said, "A, why aren't we part of that discussion?" 00:08:53.320 --> 00:08:56.880 So happy to answer any questions that you may have. 00:08:56.880 --> 00:08:57.880 Any questions? 00:08:57.880 --> 00:09:02.000 Okay, I don't see any this time, Tony. 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:03.000 Okay. 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:04.000 Thank you. 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:05.720 So that brings us to concluding items. 00:09:05.720 --> 00:09:13.280 Does any board member wish to have something added to a future agenda item or have something 00:09:13.280 --> 00:09:16.680 to say? 00:09:16.680 --> 00:09:17.680 Seeing none. 00:09:17.680 --> 00:09:18.680 Okay. 00:09:18.680 --> 00:09:19.680 No, this is the time where... 00:09:19.680 --> 00:09:20.680 Oh, sorry, Billy. 00:09:20.680 --> 00:09:21.680 Go ahead. 00:09:21.680 --> 00:09:22.680 You were delayed. 00:09:22.680 --> 00:09:23.680 I guess so. 00:09:23.680 --> 00:09:27.400 So, Tony, how's this going to run, or we're going to go a little bit more into Robert's 00:09:27.400 --> 00:09:33.840 rules here with this meeting tomorrow, or is it still going to be just casual? 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:38.400 Well, I think Robert's rules probably always apply. 00:09:38.400 --> 00:09:43.240 I think that's certainly going to be up to the chair and the mayor, but certainly the 00:09:43.240 --> 00:09:51.640 mayor will take pretty much the lead, and I think he'll recognize folks as they want 00:09:51.640 --> 00:09:52.880 to ask questions. 00:09:52.880 --> 00:09:57.360 The presentations tomorrow will flow pretty much like the way you've seen them. 00:09:57.360 --> 00:10:00.400 The DME presentation is very long. 00:10:00.400 --> 00:10:01.920 It's about 40 slides. 00:10:01.920 --> 00:10:07.480 We've tried to break that out into two segments to allow for questions in between that are 00:10:07.480 --> 00:10:13.880 pertinent to what we believe are areas that there'll be a lot of questions about, specifically 00:10:13.880 --> 00:10:20.080 our system operations and dispatch, and obviously then we've broken out the DEC and the energy 00:10:20.080 --> 00:10:24.720 management organizations separately to allow for questions, and then we have a separate 00:10:24.720 --> 00:10:31.200 discussion on kind of financial matters that the finance team will present. 00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:38.000 So, yeah, again, Billy, I would say that Robert's rules of order always apply, but again, the 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:44.000 mayor will kind of see how things flow and work with Susan on making sure that we keep 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:47.680 good decorum and a good process going, good flow going. 00:10:47.680 --> 00:10:54.000 Okay, because if I have to raise my hand with this virtual program, I'm not sure how to 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:55.000 do that. 00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:56.000 Okay. 00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:59.800 Well, we'll see if we can get you some instructions on how to do that. 00:10:59.800 --> 00:11:00.800 I can look those up. 00:11:00.800 --> 00:11:03.920 I'm just saying maybe a little slow for me. 00:11:03.920 --> 00:11:04.920 Okay. 00:11:04.920 --> 00:11:05.920 Just whistle. 00:11:05.920 --> 00:11:06.920 Whistle. 00:11:06.920 --> 00:11:09.920 I can do that. 00:11:09.920 --> 00:11:10.920 Okay. 00:11:10.920 --> 00:11:14.000 Well, welcome, Ben. 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:18.760 This would be the place where we'd say, "Tell us a little bit about yourself." 00:11:18.760 --> 00:11:19.760 Yeah. 00:11:19.760 --> 00:11:30.400 Well, my wife and I have three kids currently, and I graduated from UNT back in '07 after 00:11:30.400 --> 00:11:31.400 a little tour of Texas. 00:11:31.400 --> 00:11:36.400 That was my fourth college here in Texas, but finally made it out. 00:11:36.400 --> 00:11:38.320 And I just fell in love with Denton. 00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:44.080 So I've moved away and back a couple of times, and hopefully we're here for good now. 00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:47.400 Who doesn't fall in love with Denton, huh? 00:11:47.400 --> 00:11:48.400 Exactly. 00:11:48.400 --> 00:11:52.000 Oh, I would assume you were cheering for UNT then last night. 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:53.000 Absolutely. 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:54.000 Heartbreaking. 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:55.000 All right. 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:59.120 Well, I guess that's the agenda. 00:11:59.120 --> 00:12:01.160 Do we have a motion to adjourn? 00:12:01.160 --> 00:12:02.160 Billy? 00:12:02.160 --> 00:12:03.160 Okay. 00:12:03.160 --> 00:12:04.160 And Karen. 00:12:04.160 --> 00:12:05.160 Okay. 00:12:05.160 --> 00:12:06.160 We are adjourned. 00:12:06.160 --> 00:12:07.160 Bye. 00:12:07.160 --> 00:12:07.160 Bye.