First item on our agenda is we have a work session to
receive report, hold a
discussion, and provide direction regarding the DMV
community sponsorship
program and I think Brian Langley is going to lead us on
that.
Good morning. Brian Langley, Deputy City Manager. I want to
spend a few minutes with you today
talking about the community sponsorship program at DMV and
try to get some
direction from the PEB of how you'd like us to proceed. So
just in terms of
background DMV currently has approximately $100,000 budget
ed for
sponsorships on an annual basis in the budget. These funds
are typically used
for nonprofit organizations and sometimes other City
Department events.
The purpose really has been to provide a similar process to
what is found in Iowa
use, investor operated utilities or owned utilities. And so
over the past few years
DMV has spent between $42,000 to $64,000 annually on some
of the
sponsorships and in your backup I included a five-year
history of those
sponsorships by year. Other sponsorships for the city
typically
require City Council approval. So if you look at the agenda
, for example for
tomorrow's agenda for council, there are a couple of
sponsorships for the
Parks Department that's going forward to the City Council
for approval and some
in-kind sponsorships and some types of things that they're
going to be doing
for those events. These sponsorships also have an
application process. There's
some selection criteria and a formal agreement that's
entered into the city
and the other parties. DMV does not have any such formal
process and only an
internal approval process has been used. Very informal how
it's been done. So in
terms of the purpose of this meeting we're looking to get
some direction from
you on whether number one do you think this is a program
that should be
continued and if so we would like to present to you and the
council proposed
application and approval process for future events so that
we can try to
formalize this. This could be done where it was you would
approve them on an
individual basis or you could approve all of them at one
time potentially. So
with that I'll be happy to answer any questions that you
may have.
The rest of the money would go into the fund balance for DM
V or could be used
for other purposes in the budget.
One of the slides earlier confused me. The DMV does not
have an application
process so which ones do have an application process that
you referenced
in one of the slides? The other departments that I've
mentioned to you
that we've seen they have a formal application process. The
one I'm most
familiar with is the hotel occupancy occupancy tax process
so some of you may
be familiar with that process around the city but there's a
formal set of
guidelines that are developed in an application process and
all of the
entities that want to receive those funds they submit an
application it goes
to a committee the committee tries to evaluate those and
make a
recommendation of which ones to fund and all of that comes
as a slate to the City
Council to approve. If we were to develop something could
we have it part of the
budgeting process that next year here are the sponsorships
that we're going
to have? I really didn't think any of these are
inappropriate I mean they're
giving back to the community so especially things like the
tree giveaway
well that helps shade your house so your house is more
energy efficient you know
we need to do those kinds of things so I'm in support of
continuing this and if
we need some guidelines that's appropriate too. Okay well
we can
certainly make it as part of the budget process and the hot
funds process that
I was mentioning to you that's exactly how that works is
they come forward as
part of the budget process and the council approves them as
part of the
annual budget so if that's something the PB would like to
see we could certainly
do it that way going forward. We just wanted to make sure
that all of these
were known they were clearly visible both the PUP the City
Council and the
public. We've seen this before yeah these have come to the
public utility board
and from what I understand that a lot of these came by our
genes of various
council members and perhaps the city managers and times
past so it hasn't
been a decision that's just been made by a little group at
DME that it's come
sort of from the community and I think I think as others
have a process there
should be a process but I'd like to see it continue if we
didn't own our own
utilities and we had a vendor in for the utilities that's
what they do I
understand CAHSER is quite heavily involved in some of the
same things we
are to a greater extent so I think it's a good program and
I think the citizens
deserve to be the benefit of these things. Yeah you know my
comment would be
that we need to be as you know consistent across across how
we do it in
the city but that you know being a municipally owned
utility there is
somewhat of a an obligation if you will that and I like
Barbara I look down the
list and there's a lot of recognizable nonprofits on here
that are very
deserving and I don't know that we want to get into every
application but in the
budget process it would be nice to have okay let's set out
a criteria maybe
philosophically here's what we're going to support these
type of nonprofits it's
you know it's got to be a community-wide benefit or
something that benefits a
community and let's use that as you know kind of the
guidelines going forward so
if y'all can come back with a recommendation on how that
process is
going to look through the budget process and you know if
you're gonna
including because once you do this it's going to open it up
there's going to be
a lot of people want to apply for a grant or a nonprofit
believe me I
probably get three or four solicitations a week from from
good causes that some
that you just have to okay here's what the dollars are let
's let's allocate
that and let's let's go let's plan it going forward because
a lot of the a lot
of these nonprofits are going to want to plan much farther
ahead than just week
to week or month to month they want to know they want to be
able to budget you
know what's coming so any other comments on that now I'm in
a total agreement I
want to keep this program as much as possible and you know
try to be as
generous as possible to to a lot of these organizations I
saw there were a
couple that were not included in this year's budget I guess
and I had some
questions about that in particular like the Denton Public
Library and there were
a couple of others that I was kind of questioning why we
weren't doing those
this year since we had in years past because I felt like
they were really
good organizations to promote and to keep on board so but
having a criteria
across the board so that no one ever accuses us of you know
playing favorites
or you know favoritism or anything like that I definitely
want to see that
happen okay one of the things that I particularly like is
the things that
they have like the lineman rodeo and some things that the
staff the people
that do the work for us every day I think that's good for
morale to have have
that and I'd like to see that stay and the lineman's rodeo
that helps our
lineman be better and work safer in an outage so it it's an
important thing for
us to be supporting them in absolutely well if I if I've
got your direction
down then I'll bring back some some guidelines and
application process for
you I did want to mention that on tomorrow's council agenda
we have the
same work session to try to get their feedback and we'll
bring something back
based on your feedback in there to you okay okay thank you
so much for your
time thanks okay continuing now with the regular meeting we
have the consent
agenda we have two items on consent a and B years any any
member who would
like to have either of those pull for individual
consideration be Brendan
request item BB pool be be pulled okay any others no okay
then is there a
motion then to approve item a on the consent agenda motion
second Barbara and
a second Susan any discussion all in favor say aye any
opposed same sign okay
item number B Brendan I just kind of wanted a general
overview of what the
plan was what the project was I read through some of the
detailed information
that was provided but I just thought maybe general
explanation of it I do
have a very brief presentation if if you want me to go
through that otherwise I
I can just answer questions on that so the item that's
before you is an
interconnection agreement and with target this is actually
the retail
facility not the storage facility so this is on the retail
facility on the
loop so I can quickly go over this distributed generation
interconnection
process and the agreement with target our recommendation
and sort of the steps
and then if you have any questions that I don't answer in
this please just shout
them out in the process and typically when we have and
distributed generation
interconnections come to us they're small systems these are
the solar systems
that people are installing on their homes they're usually
ranging in size
from about four or five KW to maybe ten target system is to
put that in
perspective is 660 KW so it's a very large installation and
we wanted to
bring that forward to the pub one to make you aware of that
- this is going to
be part of our ongoing effort to make sure you guys are
aware of these
installations that are going on and make sure that you're
on the process that
we're going to be used so for this one in particular we
wanted to make sure
that you guys were aware these these agreements are
typically executed by DME
staff we're going to change the process a little bit and
this this one was the
first one up we thought this was a good one to bring
forward to you and so when
someone applies for interconnection it's simply a process
by which they go
through our engineering department they go through building
inspections and we
make sure that their systems are safe to interconnect with
our grid and for this
particular system we were required by the PUC to do an
inter pre interconnection
study and that's been finalized and basically what that
said was it's safe
their system design is safe and can interconnect and Brent
maybe I don't
know if you might be able to add anything on that I can't
speak to the
engineering side I apologize but and we did get the results
from that study and
it came back and they're good to go so they're going to be
applying for their
building permit probably this week if they haven't already
and so the target
system it will be the largest PV system within our service
territory like I said
it's 660 KW rooftop solar panels going in and for them the
permitting process
can't begin without the executed agreement and that's they
actually can
begin they won't be approved in the process until they have
the executed
interconnection agreement and so we recommend approval of
this this
agreement I'll add doesn't obligate the city to purchase
any energy produced by
the system will actually be coming back to you with a
separate agreement and for
that in the future so you have any questions beyond that
sure I just wanted
to know is this a trend that we're seeing this is our
second large
commercial installation so I would be hesitant to call it a
trend right in
general and the price of solar panels has come down
drastically so the value
that it's creating for customers is growing and so I
definitely think that
will continue to see commercial installations of larger
scale maybe not
this size although it wouldn't surprise me if we saw
another retail facility
that was a similar scale to a target a big-box store moving
forward with this
type of installation in the future you mentioned that we'll
get another
presentation regarding any purchase purchases of their
power yes so
typically on the smaller systems we have a rate that
applies for the credits that
are generated if this system pushes back any energy DME
buys it and the
particular terms of the interconnection agreement require
any system that's over
50 KW to have a separate agreement the reason being is that
it works a little
bit different the rate can it can really be impacted by
someone intentionally
over sizing their system to generate a lot so we have to
take a closer look at
that but we're gonna come back with that just out of
curiosity do we allow them
to negotiate that right or do we just say right and this is
how we talk with
them about that and so for but for residential customers it
's just no it's
that in there in the rate book yes sir but there is a
reimbursement or a
purchase we purchase some power from residents yes as well
yes okay thank you
I guess it's probably hard to make an estimate of what how
much of the power
out of this that we would actually be able to purchase
until you really get
into you know what what their usage is and all that but as
a comparison 60
kilowatts I mean for instance what's the methane that we
get off of methane out
of the landfill that generates is that about 60 okay how
does that transfer to
60 okay okay so 1500 even though it's large it's relatively
I guess small
because in the grand scheme of things but you know I'm like
Lily I like the I
like the trend and it's and I don't know that you could you
could get enough
rooftops in the city you know maybe we could use this as a
model or whatever
but if we're looking for solar power to purchase you know
if we I just want to
make sure that we're through our Emo I know we're buying
bigger contracts of
solar but at the same time if we can have some piece of
that solar power that
we're doing that are rooftops of some of the large
buildings around town I think
that'd be a great thing to pursue you know like I say it
may not be it may not
be in the grand scheme of things a large piece of it but at
least it's some piece
of it and it's it's something that benefits our our
customers as well as it
it adds more into our renewable portfolio that's that's
kind of generated
here at home so I like I like I like this type of deal we
should use this to
go out and you know maybe we should encourage more we agree
we're very proud
to have this system installed I think I'm noticing a lot
more rooftops with
solar panels on them now as I drive around seems like just
the last few
weeks there's been yes ma'am we've had a significant
increase in the number of
applications we've received in the last few years and we're
very excited about
that it'd be interesting to see the statistics of how it's
increasing sure I
don't is it in maybe nope not in this one but I can
certainly bring that bring
that back and we have that in another presentation I'll
believe later today at
committee on the environment so can help me to share that
with you guys and with
Tesla announcing their new solar roof I think we're gonna
see a lot more of that
yes we've had we've seen interest in that particular
product already okay any
other I was just gonna move for approval okay so we have a
motion to approve and
a second to recommend adopting an ordinance to execute the
interconnection
and parallel operation distributed generation with target
and keep in mind
this is only for that does not include any any purchase but
just the ability to
connect and to install it so motion is second any
discussion the other
discussion hearing none all in favor say aye any opposed
same sign okay thank you
very good okay items for individual consideration we have
the public utility
board minutes of July 24th 2017 these have been distributed
in advance any
corrections comments to these no hearing none then these
will stand approved as
submitted item number B is to receive report hold a
discussion and provide
recommendation regarding compressed natural gas fueling
facility good
morning I wanted to bring an update to the board we have
been discussing the
issue of the compressed natural gas fueling facility and
the Associated
Fleet out at a solid waste that has come before you on the
24th of July we took
the same presentation to the council on July 25th and had a
fairly lengthy
discussion on the various options that were available
council recommended that
we pursue the compressed natural gas station for city of
didn't use only
option which was option three on the performance that we
shared with you last
time but they did request staff to first search for
existing CNG stations if
those happen to be around here in the city of Denton and so
the closest
existing station that we can find is in grapevine Irving
area it's about a 40
mile round trip we did through our research find that there
was a possibility
of a Denton compressed natural gas station that would offer
retail sales
off of I 35 this is just in the formative stages right now
but we
thought that there was enough interest in that from our
perspective to at
least run some numbers on and see what that might look like
for our particular
fleet keeping in mind that we've got 24 vehicles and those
vehicles are not
known for their exceptional mileage and as a result running
the numbers on those
on a 20 mile round trip per vehicle on a daily basis
putting in the staff time
associated with that the depreciation of the vehicles
themselves from the extra
mileage ultimately ends up in about a 3.2 million dollar
price tag before we
are able to age the CNG fleet out so that we felt that that
option is
obviously more expensive than the option that we have on
looking at the ability
to construct a compressed natural gas station for didn't
use at the existing
renewable fuels island it also has some additional
uncertainties associated with
it and some risk one we don't know what this process
project is even going to
occur we do not know at this point what that fuel island
would look like how
many available fill-up opportunities there are on a per
vehicle basis we
would be in competition for it with anyone else that would
actually be out
there doing the fueling as well we did a staff time on that
of a about 30-minute
transit I think that's highly optimistic especially going
down I 35
with that number of vehicles and and with the uncertainties
associated with
the number of pumps that would be available so we chose to
not modify our
recommendation based on this just due to those uncertain
ties and also due to the
overall cost so we had talked with y'all last time and kind
of circle around this
idea of the retail sales versus city of Denton use only we
had talked about the
last time about the complications associated with retail
sales and I guess
the only thing I'd like to add on top of that is that we at
this point at least
have some indication that we might have a retail competitor
that would be much
more favorably located and would be able to sell the fuel
at a lower price than
us that that to me means even less support from my
perspective on the idea
of having public retail sales for this fuel island so we
are at this point
recommending going forward with the city of Denton use only
at the renewable
fuels island we've talked in some detail last time about
what this looks like
from a monetary standpoint and basically we're looking at
about a one point one
three million dollar total investment that would allow us
to basically age the
fleet out and would also provide us some flexibility to
keep the options
available if C&G turns around or we make some other
decisions but right now that
is what staff is is recommending and I'd be happy to take
any additional
questions that you might have we'd like to get a formal
recommendation from the
board and if you're in support of this and then take that
back to the City
Council at the next opportunity so I'd be happy to answer
any questions I'm
sorry Brendan so the the fuel where so the fueling station
would be where the
landfill entrance is that's correct one is already that's
correct and so is this
I'm sorry I just have kind of a limited understanding of
this is this is this
fuel piped to a source or does somebody bring it and fill
up a tank that resides
right now we have a mobile fueling option but then the
future in the future
what we will have is a there is a connection point that we
can actually
access at 1001 Mayhill which is just down the road in fact
if you drive down
Mayhill you'll see two buildings sitting there and there's
some yellow bollards
that exist around a gas distribution point what we would do
is we would
basically locate the meter there and then there would be a
line extended to
the fueling station where there would be a all of the
apparatus necessary to fuel
the trucks so it would be coming out of a line and not
being delivered at that
whose line is that it is an atmosphere line okay right so
we discussed last
time the environmental differences between compressed
natural gas right and
diesel and it seemed like you know diesel the diesel was
favored towards low
ozone causing emissions is that correct the the the b20
blend that we use will
produce slightly more nitrogen oxides than the compressed
natural gas will so
from an ozone standpoint it is just slightly worse from a
green greenhouse
gas standpoint though it is much better okay so that's that
's the the difference
between the two so the compressed natural gas then is more
harmful from the
perspective of greenhouse gases is that what you're saying
that that's correct so is
there anything that we can do that can make sure that we
don't you know that
our trucks are burning it properly that we're handling it
properly at the point
and is there anything we can do to put pressure on the
atmosphere to make sure
that they're handling it properly I don't know if we can
put pressure on
atmosphere I think that there is certainly a an improvement
in having a
fixed fueling versus a mobile option just from the
standpoint of connections
and disconnects and the way the fuels handled etc so there
's a I would I would
say from the standpoint of where we are today with the
mobile fueling platform
versus the the platform that we're putting in place we'll
have less leak
loss we'll have a better opportunity to top off the the
truck so we can get the
best mileage out of them possible so there's some there's
some ancillary
benefits from a operational standpoint as well as things
like leak loss that
will be improved by having a fixed station so and in
emission control
technologies are constantly evolving as well and so that I
expect that as we
move into the future there's possibilities to see that on
both the
biodiesel and CNG platforms sure and so how much longer
will it take before our
CNG trucks are you know phased out the the trucks
themselves keeping in mind
that the majority of them have been fairly recent purchases
we're probably
looking at a five to seven year age out on those and so it
will if you look at
the at the pro forma that we put together for them for the
retail option
that we just discussed where we're seeing a pretty
substantial drop off
about year five and then we've got a couple of vehicles
that we feel would
probably last another two years so we think by the time we
get to about year
seven from now we'll be through that that fleet and age
them out. Okay and how
long will the CNG set up last I mean what's the lifetime on
that?
I would think that from I don't know an exact answer on
that but you're
looking at decades at least for the line and then the
actual equipment itself I
don't know Nick if you've got a sense of that but I would I
would expect just on
a retail pump basis it lasts at least 10 to 15 years so
yeah I'm getting a nod so
that yeah. And then one final question is is there any way
that that once we
finished out with a CNG that it can be converted into a
different type of line?
I would think probably not just simply because of the
construction
for it but keep in mind that that's a full-service fueling
facility already
and so we have options of E85 gasoline and biodiesel there
already on site so
the fueling station itself would certainly still be usable
and it would
really depend if we have any additional equipment or make
some other decision in
the future as to whether we would use that compressed
natural gas component.
I've got a question about can you go back to the pro-former
chart yeah yes okay
so so really the difference in the public sales is a $600,
000 grant from
TCEQ yes you're basically looking at the differential
between the money that we
would have to pay back which is $201,000 and the additional
money that remains
which is $398,000 there's a slight differential in the
franchise fee not
much. But I don't see any operation as any O&M expense
associated with the
public sales there would be some of that absolutely yes
absolutely so that
difference could be that kind of looks like the only
difference is we've got to
send a check back to TCEQ and that's the only difference it
's really more than
that because there's going to be some O&M cost to that as
well. That's correct we
we it's a little bit difficult having not been in the
retail fuel business to
put a put a number to that. We certainly anticipate that
there'll be some
administrative components associated with the cash handling
side of it even
though these are card reading pumps but the the other thing
that we're a little
bit concerned with as well is just the security of the
facility. We feel at
minimum we're going to need cameras we're going to perhaps
have the the need to
restrict access at certain times and so we we don't have a
sense of what those
expenses might look like but I would completely agree with
you that gap is is
probably much smaller in reality once you take those into
consideration. You
know it seems like if we're if we pull the trigger on the
construction of the
fueling the CNG fueling station that we're committed to
using compressed
natural gas in our fleet won't we since it's a 20-year
asset and we're I mean
it's I would not say it's going to be stranded cost if we
don't. It will be it
will be a stranded cost that is correct. If we choose to
not have the additional
fleet added then certainly that will be a stranded cost. I
would totally agree
it's a stranded cost I think the way I would probably
encourage you to look at
this though is there's probably about a two-year ROI. We're
bleeding you know
forty to sixty thousand dollars a month on this decision so
if we've got five to
seven years left of the fleet you've probably recouped this
investment in a
couple of years. Based upon our what we're paying now.
Based upon what we're losing
right now. Correct. And who knows what will happen in seven
years maybe it'll be a
great idea again. You don't know. Possibility. Okay any
other questions? No.
I had one thing Mr. Carroll last time asked about what the
mobile options look
like and so this is what the the actual truck is for doing
the the mobile
option. So the front part is a about 700 gallons worth of
tanks. The back part
with the C&G on it is a actually a mobile compressing unit
that allows the
filling of multiple trucks on a on a rapid basis. So this
is this is an example
of what's coming out to our side. These things are are very
expensive and they
also have limited fill capability due to the connections
that that they require
and so we we chose not to pursue this just from a monetary
and operational
standpoint. One more question. Sure. I'm sorry on the we
comparing the cost of
the actual trucks with compressed natural gas versus diesel
is there a
difference between the cost of the of the vehicles to use
biodiesel versus
what I'd call regular diesel because that's what we're
picking up the the
biodiesel is we're picking up the
not the greenhouse gas but the nitrogen oxide savings I
guess if you
will reduction in that so is there a difference in the cost
there? I don't
I don't believe those platforms are different and I'm
getting another nod
suggesting that was a good guess. Okay. So okay any other
questions? None. Is there
a motion then to make a recommendation regarding the CNG
fueling facility?
I'll move approval. A motion from Susan and a second from
Barbara. Any other
discussion? It's kind of odd that we've ended up in a
situation like this and so it's I'm
reluctant to vote for it as reluctant as we were to even
motion for approval on
it but it seems like it's the best step forward and in the
tight spot that we're
in. I think the the reality is we have the best way to
recover what our
stranded cost is going to be at this point. I agree with
Brandon. Okay I'll
call the vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed same
sign. Thank you. Thanks
Kenny. Thank you. Okay item C is ACM update. Mr. Chairman I
believe there is a
slight modification on the water or water fee ordinances. I
don't know if it
was Chuck or Kenny that's going to be presenting that.
These two items are adjusted by either a consumer price
index or as a percentage
of the Dallas water rate and so they are basically a at the
time that the
information was presented to the board we did not have that
information in hand.
This is typically brought to you all around this time of
the year to just let
you know what we had put in the actual rate books and so
the rate books that
have gone forward to counsel for their evaluation have
these corrected numbers
in them. So this is a set 85% of Dallas. That's correct yes
and the other
rate is just simply a consumer price index adjustment.
Right okay thank you.
And the next item is a excuse me is regarding Senate bill
1004. This is a new
law that the governor Abbott recently signed back in early
June that that
will be that affects all cities within the state of Texas
and what it is is is
basically allowing allowing the cellular industry to
install radio antennas on
city right-of-way whether it be utility poles, traffic
signal poles, or
erect their own poles as needed within the community. The
issue is that the
cellular industry is indicating that they need additional
coverage due to
public demand of their services, wireless services, and
they see this as as an
easier and and also cheaper opportunity in which to do so.
So they were able to
get some legislation passed in the most recent legislative
session and it goes
into effect September 1st. All cities around the state of
Texas are doing this
very same thing. So this information is just being
presented to you today. It's
been presented to the was was presented to the Planning and
Zoning Commission
last week. It'll be also presented to the Historical Land
mark Commission this
this evening as well with ultimately being presented to the
City Council for
ordinance adoption on the 22nd of August. So we're ramping
up internally as far as
our staff working with our engineering folks, the folks at
DME, the folks in our
Public Works Department from an inspections perspective,
and so we
anticipate about 125 of these devices to be installed over
the next six months
with potentially another 35 or so over the next three years
within Denton. Wow.
So in your packet there's a memorandum along with the
presentation to kind of
give you an idea of what those what those those devices
look like. There is
one of the issues that we have had is the fact that the the
industry this other
industry is wanting to put these devices within the city's
right-of-way at a very
inexpensive cost to them and so that is a little bit of a
level of consternation
amongst the cities. The the city of McAllen down in South
Texas is
potentially wanting to sue the state of Texas to to stop
this piece of
legislation or at least to slow it down to assist us or
assist cities and trying
to seek additional compensation. Some cities for the
example city of Dallas,
city Arlington, and other cities around the state were
averaging around $2,500
per node or per cellular device and so they're at $250 per
cellular device. So
very different scale in far as compensation for the use of
the city's
right-of-way. So that isn't a lawsuit that we're looking at
or at least from
the standpoint of just visiting with the folks in McAllen
and our city attorney's
offices involved with that. So it's still in the works but
we are marching ahead
with implementing this this law for September 1st. We have
to be ready
because the industries are coming. Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T,
they have been
talking to staff for the last number of weeks about this
legislation so we're
geared up for it and we'll be ready to go. Yes, Barbara.
Are they going to be paying a fee
per installation for using the right-of-way? Yes ma'am. The
way the legislation
is written is the company when they make an application
they can they can they
can bundle these devices up to five per application so they
'll be charged a
maximum of $500 per bundle and then each device above that
is $250. So but what
they're doing for example one company is looking at
potentially doing 55 units so
what they'll be doing is just submitting 11 sets of five at
$500 a piece. Is this
just a one-time fee or is this per month? No ma'am or yes
it's a one-time fee
initially for the permit and then there'll be a small
rental charge that
they can that the cities can charge but it's all
legislative and it's all it's
prescribed the maximum amount the city can charge. The
other thing with the
with the legislation it sets up time clocks so once the
application is made
by the industry then the city has to deem whether or not it
's appropriately
completed as far as the application process and once that
happens then a
series of it then it's dictated by the amount of time the
city can can issue the
permit. So it's very prescribed in the way it's done so it
's heavily favored in
the in the telecom industry. Is there is there a policy I
've I've been in another
city recently and I've seen on their water towers there are
numerous devices
like this is there is that a city policy we don't have any
on ours how does that
happen? Typically in the cities that I've worked in there
are policies and those
are leases that are that are negotiated on an individual
basis not knowing what
Denton has done in the past I can't speak to that but I
know in the previous
cities that I've worked for it's been on a case-by-case
basis and so a lot of
times some cities don't want any of those devices on those
water towers just
for the structural integrity of them some cities see that
as a revenue
opportunity. I think Tim has a comment. We've had these
requests before and we have basically turned them down some
of it's a
security issue because you've got to start opening your
facility up for
mobile access so sometimes when you're doing a security
audit there's a little
concern of you know how many people can access these sites.
Right now the only
thing that we have on our towers is dedicated microwave or
licensed radio for
our own SCADA system so they're dedicated so I think if you
drive around
the Metroplex you'll see some communities with probably an
excessive
proliferation I'll pick on a tower I drove by on Roanoke
where it looks more
like a communication tower than an elevator. But right now
we don't have
right now we have none on any of our towers. Okay thank you
. Yes. How does the
the app was in an application fee and then a monthly fee I
guess how does that
compare to other things that are co-located on on telephone
poles right
now? Like pole attachment? Yes. Yeah. As far as how it's
done today. No just the price
comparison. Fees like our fee schedule yeah current fee
schedule. I'd have to
find that out but but as far as but the fee schedule that
they're prescribed
here in in in the law it's pretty low. Right. But I'll have
to find it. I don't
know. We can put something together that answers that what
our other various fees
are for the pole attachments and give you some context.
And then in neighborhoods where we're trying to push we're
spending money to
put electrical lines underground are they going to be
allowed to come in and
put a pole in and put their device on if we're trying to
make it a wireless
neighborhood so to speak? Actually no there is some
provisions when the law
that that does not allow them to install new poles within
their residential
subdivision or even in some of the parks they can attach it
to existing poles
that are within residential areas but not add new ones just
to avoid the
visual clutter or some of the very things you described. So
there are some
things that that that gives cities a little bit of leverage
as far as where
they can and can't go but but it's again heavily favored in
the in the industry's
favor. Well that's a good point because if we if we have a
for instance we're
looking to take utilities underground where there is
existing poles and there's
something attached to it then who does that just go away or
do we have to
accommodate that and that's and that may be something we'll
have to cross that
bridge when we get to it because I don't I don't know not
having read the
legislation and it may change out of the lawsuit there may
be some compromises or
whatever as that comes along. And to that point if we know
we might be going
underground in an area can we under the law say no you're
not gonna attach to
that pole at this point or? At this point I think it's I
think the law is silent on
that but we can we can check that and make that and let you
know but again
it's yeah there are a lot of things with with there's more
a lot more questions
that are being asked from city to city because this is a
very new thing and
just how prescribed it is by the state so before cities had
a lot more leverage
as far as you could come into our communities based on
certain fees that
you would pay but this is a one-size-fits-all for the city
of Texas.
And so we should see our cell phone bills come down right?
Yeah right.
Okay any other we look forward to future updates on this
and where it's going but
nobody likes being restricted and being told what you got
to do. Hopefully there
will be some local control still maintained in this. Any
other comments on
the new business action items? Can we get a review or
report of our existing rooftop
solar installation? Not necessarily the commercial part
although if there are
more than this one target one it'd be nice to know about
them and
specifically I'd like to know what rate we're buying that
power back at. Have we
actually bought any power back and have we spent any money
buying power back
from those rooftops? I would also like us to review the
ordinance that we seems
like we recently passed or proposed an ordinance that would
change the rebate
structure and also it included something about battery
systems as well. I just
wanted to know see if we could review that since the light
has changed a
little bit. Yeah I think this and it may be it may have
been last year we was the
first time we had in our rate ordinance that the rebate
there was two two rebate
levels one was without battery storage and one was with
battery storage and I
think that's the way we still have it today but yeah that'd
be great.
And see if we may have limited what we could be doing in
that area for no
apparent reason. Okay okay anything else we want to sell in
the new business
matrix? Okay all right completing items any future agenda
items that any any
board member would like to see? We've kind of gone through
the new business
stuff so all this any any general comments? No? Well and I
promised her I
wouldn't do it but I just can't help I want to this is the
time of the meeting
that we can do things like this. I'm just want to thank
Barbara for your service
over the years and I don't know what you're gonna do every
other Monday now
you're gonna have a lot of you know half a day I'm sure you
'll find something to
fill that time but thank you very much appreciate it. At
the same time I want to
recognize I noticed we have our newest member Deborah Arm
antars here she has
not been sworn in yet I guess that happened I'm sure that
'll happen within
the next two weeks so next meeting we'll see you up here
and look forward to it.
So with that is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second
. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any
opposed? Same sign. Thank you.