So let's call the January 22, 2018 Public Utilities Board
meeting to order.
We have, first off, a regular meeting.
We have a consent agenda with one item.
And I would ask if there are any members who
would like to pull this for individual consideration
discussion.
Yes, I would like to pull it.
OK.
All right.
So we'll just take that as an individual item.
So the first item we have then is
item number A, which is considered
recommending approval of a resolution of the city
of Denton, Texas, approving the solid waste and watershed
protection sponsorship program guidelines and application
process.
Good afternoon, members of PUB.
So this is a resolution basically formally
adopting the sponsorship suggestions and recommendations
that the PUB and council weighed in on in late October,
early November.
If you'll recall, much like DME, Solid Waste and the Waters
hed
Protection Program have a sponsorship program.
For ours, it is basically centered around a lot
of the Keep Denton Beautiful programs, Great American
Cleanup, the Rosebud Festival, things of that nature.
In addition, we also have a $10,000 sponsorship
through Solid Waste.
The city is contractually obligated for KDB
to provide that each year.
And so by this resolution, we are basically
adopting this year's budget.
And as we go through the future budget processes,
both solid waste and watershed, we'll call out specifically
what we're recommending for a budget so the PUB and council
can weigh in on that.
And I'll stand for any questions if you have them.
Questions?
This mirrors as far as the criteria for what triggers
an individual item, same dollar amounts
we have throughout the utilities for donations.
We really tailored this around the DME proposal
that was presented to PUB and adopted in a similar fashion.
And so the same criteria is going
to apply in terms of accepting applications for that.
Anything over $2,500 would come forward to PUB and council
for formal approval.
And we'll also circle back with you all on a quarterly
basis
to give you an update on anything that falls below those
levels
as well.
OK.
All right.
I do have a question.
Huh?
I just remembered.
And I remember going through the presentation and
everything.
But I don't remember why the $2,500,
why is that the cutoff?
That it has to go to the council and the PUB.
Well, this is going to be a total cop-out answer.
Again, we very much mirrored the DME approach.
And so we didn't want to do anything that
differed from that too greatly.
Certainly, if that's PUB or council's pleasure,
we could probably adjust those limits if we needed to.
Now, I just remember reading through that and seeing it.
And I couldn't remember what it was, what was that.
So that's fine.
I can give a little color to that.
When we were looking at the DME sponsorships,
we tried to find a good cutoff point where most of them
were fairly small that we were doing.
And $2,500, we looked at just the activity level that we
had.
And that's how we kind of arrived at that figure.
OK.
Most of the larger ones.
Thank you for the save.
OK.
All right, any other questions?
I have a comment.
And that is that I support the programs
that this program supports.
But for the same reason that I voted against the DME
sponsorship program, I'm going to vote no to this as well.
I want to make sure Keep Denton Beautiful stays fully
funded.
So I don't want to think that the Keep Denton Beautiful
program depends on this.
And if that's the case, I'd like it to look into why that
is.
So this is not about Keep Denton Beautiful.
It's just about my belief that public utilities should
be for the ratepayers and that the ratepayers are the ones
who
need whatever extra additional revenue we have
to go to keeping rates low.
So anyway, I just wanted to specify no disrespect
to the programs that this supports, or even
the spirit of it.
But just as a matter of principle,
that's why I'm going to be voting no.
But I appreciate your presentation
and the spirit of the program.
OK.
All right, any other comments?
Do we have a motion?
So moved.
Moved to--
To accept the--
To accept it?
As-- yeah.
OK.
And a second?
I had to ask.
Second by Brendan.
So any other discussion?
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Nay.
OK.
The motion passes for item A on the consent agenda.
Moving into items for individual consideration,
we have first item A, which is consider approval
of the public utilities board meeting minutes of January 8,
2018.
Does anybody have any comments, questions, changes on that?
I had one question on the--
I can't remember exactly where it was in the minutes.
But there was a comment about--
Page two at the bottom.
Let's see.
You've already seen it.
I'm sure you've seen it.
Somehow or another, yeah.
I don't know if that's where I had the question or not.
There was actually a comment about that staff had made
an effort to maximize costs.
I questioned that.
OK.
No, I don't.
It was in relationship to the underground versus overhead
discussion we had.
OK, item D. It's the very last paragraph of the item.
Oh, it's on the purchase of the lubrication oil and coolant
for the deck.
And the last paragraph, which says,
they will be filled with oil even if the engines do not run
.
The remainder is for maintenance.
Staff maximize cost.
There will be 10,000 gallons in the maintenance tank.
Question, maybe maximize efficiency.
I don't know what the intent was there.
But that's kind of where I recall the discussion was.
To maximize the efficiency of what we're buying,
or recommended buying, that we get the purchase of 10,000
gallons.
So I just want to clarify that.
We can go back and clarify that piece of the matter.
Let's take a look at the comments
and make sure we have that characterized correctly.
OK, good.
OK, any other comments, questions, changes?
So I guess since we're changing the way these were
published,
is there a motion to approve with those changes
to go back and make those changes?
Motion?
Second.
And a second.
Any discussion?
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Same sign.
OK, motion carries.
Next we have item B, which is consider recommending
adoption
of an ordinance, accepting competitive proposals,
and awarding a contract for the supply of electric meter
equipment for the city of Denton to be purchased
on an as needed basis for an amount not to exceed--
a three year not to exceed amount of $4,289,250.
Good evening, members of the board.
My name is J.R. Richardson.
I'm the metering superintendent for DME.
I'm here today to talk to you about the invitation for BID
6612, which is for our electric meters
and associated equipment.
I'm sorry.
I'm happy there.
Previously, we have had a three year bid with the RFP 5584,
which expired in October 7, 2017.
We put the information for BID 6612 out on the streets
on October 16.
All those proposals were brought back in on October 7.
All the bids have been reviewed, tallied, and evaluated.
Currently, we have 53,000 meters on our system.
Roughly 30,000 of those are AMI meters
with the remote disconnect.
Just about 20,000 of those are non-disconnect meters
for residential, and approximately 5,000 of those
are for commercial AMI meters.
The bid was broken up into six sections for proposal.
We did that just so that we would
get a better section of invitations or bids
from our vendors.
This is a picture of our residential tuning out
residential meter with the remote disconnect.
We also have a commercial meter that
measures the KW consumption.
And we also have meters--
the reason why we purchase our meters
is for new installations, for damaged meters,
and also for maintenance.
This is our 13-turbinal meter base.
This base is used for our three-phase customers whose load
is greater than 200 amps.
And we have to utilize instrument-rated transformers
as PTs and CTs to measure the consumption.
Here on the far edge is a primary metering set right here.
This is your potential transformer
and your current transformer.
This set is normally mounted on the top of the pole
to measure the primary voltage of a customer's load.
Here we have current transformers
that are normally used inside a transformer
for the secondary load of a customer service.
On this slide, we're showing you the equipment with our AMI
system.
It's composed of gateways, extender bridges, power supply
units, and repeaters.
On this picture here at the top here
is one of our extender bridges.
These are what are used to collect the reads
from the meters as they come up.
And then from there, they go to the two gateways.
We have two gateways.
One is located at our radio tower site at McKenna Park.
And the other one's located on the tower
that we'd lease space with the Denton EOC off of Teasley
Lane.
Funding for these electric meters and equipment
are broken out over the four project numbers.
These are the project numbers for the three-phase,
single-phase, instrument-rated equipment, and AMI and WAN
equipment.
The staff recommends that we approve the lowest bid
for IFB 6612 and a not-to-exceed bid
amount of $1.4 million for the three years.
Any questions?
Questions?
Yeah.
What is a meter socket?
I mean, I read that.
Is that like a meter base?
Yes, it is.
I thought a customer owned the base.
They do, except the only ones that we purchase
are the 13 terminal bases and the six terminal bases.
And those are only used with our instrument-rated equipment
,
like the PT's and CT's.
Any self-contained meter, the customer
purchased those bases.
This base right here, the meter would actually--
this is what-- oh, I didn't do that.
I promised.
Right here is our 13 terminal socket.
And this is where the meter would actually plug in.
And then there would be a cover.
Down here, we have our test switches.
These switches here are for the potentials transformers.
And here, you'll have a current, and then a current return,
a current, and a current return.
Those will be associated with your current transformers.
And that was in this picture here.
So right here, you have a potential transformer
on the primary side.
And this is the current transformer
on the primary side.
These here are just current transformers.
And they're usually put inside the transformer or CT can.
They're only measuring the secondary voltage
opposed to the primary voltage, which is this.
Thank you.
You bet.
Yes, ma'am.
Could you please explain-- could you go to page three?
And could you explain the difference
between the non-disconnect and the disconnect?
Does non-disconnect-- my assumption
is that that simply means it has to be disconnected
manually?
That is correct.
That's correct.
When we initially rolled out the MI program,
we only focused the disconnect meters
on our multifamily dwellings.
So a lot of the residential single-family homes
just have a regular AMI meter without the remote disconnect
.
So we do still have to have a technician
go out to disconnect that meter or to turn that meter on.
OK.
So why-- could you explain why it is primarily
multifamily residents that have the remote disconnect?
Is there a reason for that?
At that time, we were targeting the apartment complexes
because we have the two universities.
And we have such a flux each spring and fall of residents
moving in and moving out.
So we thought we would get our bigger bang for our buck.
Also, at the time that we began this,
the remote disconnect meter was considerably more
than just the regular meter.
So we were trying to spend those dollars wisely.
The remote disconnect costs more.
Yes, ma'am.
So that was going to be my next question about the
difference
in cost.
And what's the difference in cost?
Right now-- well, at that time, it
was probably a difference of about $70 or $80
between the two.
Now that price has come down.
So in this proposal, all the meters we purchase
will have the remote disconnect.
We will no longer purchase a meter
without the remote disconnect.
OK.
They will all now have the remote disconnect.
Yes, ma'am.
OK.
So the thinking in the past was because the multifamily
accounts-- and I've seen before in our customer service
data
that multifamily accounts are overall more likely to get
their power shut off statistically.
Yes, yes.
At the time, though, we were just
looking at the workload of actually doing the connects
and disconnects and rolling the trucks.
So we're just cutting down on the number of truck rolls.
Yeah, so now everybody will have those.
Moving forward.
Yes, ma'am.
As we're doing it now, any time that we have a maintenance
ticket or we have to turn on a meter or turn off a meter,
we'll-- especially if it's a residential meter 200 amp,
we'll replace that meter with a remote disconnect meter.
So really, the remote disconnect is primarily
for higher turnover type meters.
I mean, because you have basically multifamily,
you may have a six month or 12 month lease,
and then it changes over in tenants.
Yes.
That was the thought initially.
Now the reason why we're going to all remote meters
is because we're trying to position ourselves
to be ready for, first of all, our prepaid metering
that we may roll out this summer.
And then also, if we ever go to a time of use metering,
that would be essential as well.
OK.
All right.
Question, Charlie.
Do you know or can you conject why we only
had one bidder for the meters?
One bidder for the meters?
Actually, we have-- I think there's--
Are you only showing prices for the winning bids
on your bid sheet?
On the tabulation sheet?
Yeah.
Sorry, I don't have that in front of me.
You're talking section A and section B.
There's only one bidder.
Was that the annex here?
Yes.
I don't understand why we only had one.
Brandon, do you know?
No.
Brandon, this is Brandon Hamby, our electric meter manager.
He was in on the process.
OK.
We sent the bid out, and we gave them
the criteria of what we wanted for our electric meters.
They had an opportunity to bid or pass on that section.
And the most vendors passed on that section
except for that one bidder.
So we sent it out to--
I can't remember how many companies we sent to-- over 200.
We had about six or seven respond.
Of those six or seven that did respond to the bid,
only one of them responded for that section A.
OK.
Other questions?
Pardon?
Aren't we happy he did?
Yeah.
Well, yeah, at least we got a bid.
That's true.
Any other questions?
OK.
Is there a motion then for item B?
I recommend approval.
Motion approves or second?
Second.
Further discussion?
If not, all in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion passes.
Item C is to consider recommending adoption
of an ordinance of the city of Denton
approving an easement and right of way agreement
granting 0.857 Area Easement Encore Electric Delivery
Company located in the Moreau Forest Survey
for the purchase price of $49,630,
which is also known as the ARCO substation.
Yes, sir.
Good evening, Chairman Robinson and Public Utilities Board.
I'm Brent Heath, Executive Manager for Energy Delivery.
Here tonight to talk about the ARCO substation and an eas
ement
that we need for two of Encore's transmission lines.
You might recall ARCO was located on the northeast side
of town at the northeast corner of Black Road and Giesling.
ARCO substation, the new one, has been built
and was energized in June of 2016.
And so we're trying to convert-- it
was built adjacent to the old ARCO substation.
So everything is getting moved from the old site
to the new site.
And Encore has one transmission line now,
and they're adding a second one into that.
And so there needs to be an easement across the city
of Denton property for Encore to legally have the rights
to cross the land to tie into the substation.
And so they've agreed to pay the city of Denton the exact
same
price per square foot that we paid the landowner originally
when we bought the site, which was, I believe,
$1.33 per square foot.
And so we thought that was pretty good,
because we actually bought the land and owned the land,
and they're just going to be getting an easement.
Here's a visual diagram.
On the left-hand side shows the ARCO substation, the old
one
down in the bottom section.
And this is the outline of where the new station went.
The reason it got larger is because it does have
multiple transmission lines.
I'm kind of like JR.
I'm not sure why it's cutting out up on the screen.
Multiple transmission lines that come into that.
Presently, there's three transmission lines, one here
that comes from the Denton North to ARCO line.
There's another one here that goes down Black Road
to the west.
And there's this Encore line that
comes down to the old station.
On the right-hand side shows the new station
after we energized it in June of 2016.
This clouded area is the easement that's being asked for.
Encore kept their line coming in,
but instead of coming through here,
because that's not used now, they're
coming across up to this location for the first line
that they already have.
There is a second line that's going
to be going to their NAVO substation out east of town.
This bay is going to be used in the substation, which
we did not have the capability to have an interconnection
with them in the past, but we knew to have
the room available to do that.
It also will come down in that same easement
and tie along the same transmission line.
The copy of the easement is right here.
It's 100-foot wide, easement width
across the very eastern portion of the city of Denton side.
From here over to the top left-hand corner
is the substation property where it's built.
So the easement in question is right here
that was shown in the clouded area on the previous slide.
So DME recommends the approval of the Encore easement
to get to the new Arco substation.
And I stand for any questions that you all may have.
Is aerial easement just for the line,
or they need a road, a physical road as well or something?
There's two poles that are actually out here right now
that have been placed in this one span.
So no poles across here from here down
to where their existing transmission line is at.
So just a single span.
And so they will have to be able to drive underneath it
if something should happen.
But the easement allows them the right to access and
maintain
that transmission line.
The actual poles outside the fence on the city of Denton
property is the point of demarcation.
So the substation, the city of Denton,
DME owns out to the poles.
And then from the pole all the way down here
would be Encore's line heading out to the east side of town
.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Other questions?
Is there a motion then for item number C?
Second.
We have a motion and a second to approve recommending
adoption of the ordinance for item C. Any discussion?
If not, all in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Same sign.
Motion passes.
Thank you, Brent.
OK, item D is to consider recommending
formal adoption of a renewable resource plan
for Denton Municipal Utility.
Good evening, chairman and board members.
George Morrow, general manager of DME,
here to present kind of a conclusion of the resource
planning process for DME.
As you recall, Enterprise Risk Consulting
prepared a draft renewable resource plan
and presented it to the PUB and the city council in October
.
Their purpose at that time was to get some direction
on some key questions and to present preliminary study
results.
Purpose today is to get your support or recommendation
to adopt formally this resource plan
as the results have been finalized.
Those key questions I referred to were, one,
should Denton accelerate renewable resources?
The answer we received back, the consultants received back,
was yes.
Should Denton move forward the date of the 100% renewable
goal?
Answer came back to us, yes.
Should Denton delay solar purchases because
of a potential solar tariff?
I think we heard no.
And we're hoping to hear some outcome on the solar tariff
legislation or rules pretty soon.
And lastly, should Whitetail, which is our wind resource,
be counted as a renewable resource?
And we heard no.
So those are the guidance that went back to ERC
as they pull things together.
I just wanted to give another snapshot of our existing
power
resources as of January 2019.
We've got the Whitetail, Bluebell, solar, Santa Rita
wind, and the landfill.
And the point of this slide basically
is that excluding Whitetail, our portfolio
will be 44% renewable as of 2019.
Therefore, if you're looking to go to 100%,
we've got a little ways to go.
This snapshot assumes the retirement of Gibbons Creek
on September 30, 2018.
We're moving diligently toward that goal.
But that's still an open question.
We've got other partners in that project
that we're trying to get lined up with our expectations.
So with that direction, ERC evaluated
what made sense to get to the 100% by 2020.
And they have some key findings.
And you heard this several times during their presentation.
And I'm trying not to be too redundant today.
That solar in a relatively low congestion zone
would be preferred.
So that's our number one priority.
Coastal wind rated second best.
And you heard why that was, the profiles and so forth.
And that Western wind is a lower rated option
since we've already got a large tranche of Western wind.
And the location is a bit problematic sometimes
from a congestion standpoint.
So their final recommendation that came out of the report
that you have before you tonight is that we
moved toward 200 megawatts of solar.
And you know what?
I have somehow a little typo creeped in here.
You can't really get good help sometimes.
And 100 megawatts of wind.
So originally, their preliminary--
and I did this myself.
So you got to have a sense of humor, I think.
So originally, they thought maybe 150 megawatts of wind
made sense.
But in the final analysis, kind of pushed up
the solar a little bit, the wind down.
So we're looking at 200 megawatts of solar
and 150 megawatts of wind as being
the preferred recommendation.
And it's going to depend on the bids that come back.
So we have an existing RFP out on the street,
kind of in the final conclusions of deciding which of those
offers we're going to pursue.
And there were, as was presented earlier,
a lot of different projects out there, a lot of firms that
bid.
In fact, 40 firms, 84 unique projects
with a whole lot of iterations when
you look at the time periods, the locations, the amounts.
So we'll be moving forward on one of those
and probably coming back to you in the next two months
with a recommendation following negotiation of a contract
with the preferred vendor.
And next, we'll have some additional renewable RFPs.
So probably two will focus solar, will focus wind.
And one thing I wanted to mention today,
I think you heard it at the last presentation,
is there's a possibility of including others
in with our project.
Some of the sizes that it takes to make a project happen
are pretty large.
Sometimes it makes sense to diversify and not put
of all of our eggs in one basket.
So we're looking at the possibility of partnering
with some other agencies, maybe even getting involved
in some of their RFPs.
We had one agency talk to us about, hey,
they're putting an RFP on the street,
and would we like to consider joining their project?
So if you have any input or perspective on that now
or later, let me know.
I wanted to talk briefly, one of the large subjects
in the renewable plan was the Denton Energy Center.
I wanted to give you an update.
It's 89% complete.
We're staffing that plan as we speak.
Anticipate that operating early summer on a commercial
basis.
And I think the plan was very fair about its treatment
of the deck.
It will provide a hedge against the price spikes that you
'll
see in the air-cut market.
In fact, we saw some large price spikes in the last week
as the cold front kind of swept through our area.
And it's possible.
You've heard about some of the retirements out there
of the big coal units, some of the larger, older natural
gas
units.
As they get retired, it may dramatically increase in value.
And that's going to be staff's objective,
is to look at all options to try to enhance
the value of the deck to the citizens of Denton.
Whitetail, I wanted to talk briefly about Whitetail.
It was an original 2009 contract.
Initially started with-- well, it was 30 megawatts
with an additional 30 megawatts of REX.
Of course, the first 30 megawatts also came with REX.
It's around the clock power.
It's firm power.
And in the resource plan, the one
that we're asking you to approve today,
it's not considered as a renewable resource.
That has kind of intrigued me as I came on board here.
And I'm doing some additional research on that.
So if I find anything interesting,
I've kind of found a few things that
intrigue me about the nature of this transaction going back
to 2009, and whether it is or it isn't renewable,
and also based on my experience in California,
where we've done a lot of this firmed and shaping with wind
.
Doesn't necessarily mean it's not renewable.
It just means sometimes it's very complex
to schedule wind that's so transient through the
transmission
network and through the control systems
that we negotiate these a little bit flatter, a little more
manageable delivery points.
But sometimes they're still considered as renewable.
So not ready to come forward yet with all the things
that I'm finding in that research,
but probably in the next month or so I'd like to do that,
provided that I have some feeling that a different--
that maybe ERC didn't have perhaps all of the information
that would make sense in that particular evaluation.
Yes.
I have a question, and the answer
might be that you don't feel quite ready to answer.
But just to clarify, so are you looking
into the question of whether or not whitetail actually
has more physical generation than was previously thought,
or are you looking into reconsidering
the definition of renewable energy credits as not
counting as renewables?
Does that make sense, my question?
Well, I think so.
So the physical part of the whitetail project,
which is the 30 megawatts around the clock,
I think that's what I'm reviewing as being potentially
a renewable resource.
The additional 30 megawatts of recs that we get, no.
OK, OK.
Clearly not.
OK, so you're looking at that 30%--
The physical 30 megawatts.
I'm going back to 2009.
What were the party's intentions at the time?
Why did it become a firm transaction versus a run
of the wind kind of project?
And there were some reasons that I think I found behind
that.
There were some representations made by Nextera,
the entity who built that project that I
want to get some second and third opinions on that I
think you'd find interesting.
And so yes, I think it's worth another discussion perhaps.
And I'm part way up the slope, and I'd
like to kind of save all the ammunition until I get there,
keep the powder dry for the moment.
And I have a kind of follow-up question to that,
unless anybody else has any questions about whitetail.
While we're on whitetail--
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think-- well, no.
The direction or whatever that--
stated intention both by PB and council
is that when we call it renewable,
it needs to be renewable.
And not be-- I'm not saying there's--
it's not a bait and switch, but what maybe
seemed like renewable in 2009 may not be now.
But yeah, if the firm part is actually renewable,
then that's great.
If there's some gray area there, it
means more to me to be--
Correct.
Correct, as opposed to another percentage point.
When you say firm, you mean physical?
Physical, yeah, physical energy.
Got it, got it.
So and then my other question about this
was when you say that staff is working on it,
do you mean DME staff in addition to the consultants
or DME staff plus you're looking at-- because you had said
something a moment ago about second and third opinions
from other sources?
So the process I think I'd like to undertake
is I'm heading up the review for myself.
I'm the new person here, and I want
to get a little more data on that,
because I'm used to firmed and shaped wind as being
renewable.
So that was kind of my starting point.
So when I saw a firm that would call firm and shaped
resource
here from the Wolf Ridge Wind Project,
and I think, hey, it's worth a little more.
Before I come to the utility board and council, if I do,
if it meets what I think you'd be interested in,
I'll work with ERC and see if we can get a meeting of the
minds
a little bit different than what was presented to you
earlier,
or at least get their perspective.
And their perspective may not change.
If I have a different perspective,
I'm just going to tell you what I think,
and we kind of go from there.
Thank you.
And I was wondering, since we have our enterprise
consultants
here, if it would be appropriate,
if they would feel prepared to speak to this issue.
I sense that they're probably aware of the kind of debates
about whether this 30% should count or not.
Well, I mean, I heard what they had to say.
And I'm taking that into account.
I watched the PUB meeting, and I watched the city council
meeting related to Whitetail.
And I heard the perspectives, and I
heard their expressions.
So I think my opinion is there might be some information
relevant to that decision, even support some of the
statements
I heard from ERC that would make this a renewable resource.
Why am I pursuing that?
First off, it's got to be renewable.
We'd have to all agree that that's really
what's going on here, and that we're
credible in that conclusion if we get to that point.
But there's a lot of cost at stake
if that is not a renewable resource.
Now, that's 30 megawatts around the clock,
262,000 megawatt hours that basically
are going to be over and above what we need to serve our
load
that we'll have to put out to the market.
We'll have to liquidate it, and we'll liquidate it
at some sense on the dollar.
So that kind of also got me interested.
It's worth, in my opinion, for me
to spend a little more time on that
to see if I come to the same conclusion.
I could give you some additional information right now,
but I'd kind of like to save it and open it up another time
.
And that was my guess that it probably
was about the cost issue, that there was already
a commitment to this.
No, cost did not factor in.
It cost got me interested.
Oh, OK, I see.
OK.
That was why you--
it was a little bit intriguing to me.
There's a lot at stake from that standpoint.
And then again is my experience with firm to shape
resources
in the West that these are considered as renewable.
The recs we do get for that 30 megawatts come from Wolf
Ridge.
When you look at the scale and the size of that Wolf Ridge
project, it is very similar to that 30 megawatts.
If you were to collapse it down to a straight delivery,
it would roughly equal that, maybe a tiny bit more.
I think initially it was going to be a run
of the mill type resource.
We had a third party at that time managing our QSE.
That wasn't what I hear, and again, I
want some more verification.
They weren't able to deal with that transit
nature of that resource at that time way back in those days
.
And so out of that discussion came, well,
maybe we should just modify the schedules,
take it around the clock.
But the intention would be it was a resource
from that location.
Clearly today some folks have abuse recs.
The prices have gotten very cheap.
And you can make yourself look more green probably
than you deserve by saying, hey, I'm
going to take a natural gas resource
and pair it up with some low price recs and call it green.
And there's some of that happening,
but that isn't what happened with this resource.
They're not $0.50 or $1 recs, which
is kind of what the market is today.
These are expensive recs and consistent
with the value, the renewable value of that resource
back in those days.
We still pay a lot for the recs associated
with that, consistent again with what the cost was at the
time.
So I'd like to pull a little more pieces together.
I think it's not just a spiritual issue.
I think there's some serious professional technical reasons
why maybe we ought to at least have one more discussion.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Other questions?
What's the term of that contract?
It expires at the end of 2023, so we're looking at another
five
or six years.
And you can see-- the reason I put this back up there
is to show sort of what that resource does for us.
You can see our load in the purple here, if that's purple.
And this piece up here represents the white tail.
So that's well above our load.
And it would basically all have to be sold to the market.
And if it could be considered renewable,
that would be legitimately considered.
Then that would be a benefit and help
us get to our goals a little bit quicker if we can do that.
So like I said, I mentioned I thought
it was worth my time to spend a little bit of work on that,
being kind of the new person in town.
And I don't know if I'll get to the top of the mountain or
not.
I agree.
I think the real--
the risk reward here is if they can be considered renew
ables.
Because if they can't be considered, then we have a--
I noted there's like an 18% over purchase
to make up to that to do the early adoption plan.
And so obviously, you've got to weigh the cost of that
versus the risk of, OK, we don't do the early adoption plan
.
So we're not 100% in 2020.
But what is the risk of waiting for the market
for that period of time?
So I'm curious to see what you come up with there.
And we can make that decision when we need to.
Got it.
Yeah, there's that piece also on the economics.
So I think ERC did answer the question,
what is the impact economically of that?
And I recall a number in the six or seven or eight million
per year for that period that we're talking about.
And that's roughly what I calculate, too.
It's almost $0.06 resource selling in a market that's
not even $0.03.
So that's your cost and that's your recovery
for that resource.
But again, I'm not thinking economics necessarily.
It's like a little extra incentive maybe
to at least do the research.
Sure.
So that's whitetail.
[LAUGHTER]
And thank you for letting me bring that up
and have that discussion.
Absolutely.
And catch your thoughts.
So just going to roll this up here.
Renewable resource plan has been developed for Denton.
You had a very detailed conversation
about that in October.
Again, the goal is to achieve 100% renewable no later
than 2020.
The highest rated renewable is solar in the right location,
followed by coastal wind.
And I totally agree with those findings.
We're evaluating the existing RFPs offers for renewable
and planning some additional RFPs in the future
for solar and wind, perhaps in conjunction
with some other cities.
And what I'm asking for is that you
consider recommending formal adoption
of the renewable resource plan by the Denton City Council
and whether we consider whitetail renewable or not.
And this time frame is not critical,
because we have time before we really
get the full commitment in that second round of renewable.
So we have a little bit of time if we come forward again
for that discussion.
So the RFPs we have out now we'll
be able to look at at what point do you think?
So we're at the pinnacle of choosing the low bidder,
very complex evaluation, a lot of offers and matrices.
We want to be correct.
We're getting ready to engage that low bidder
and have a discussion about contract terms
and confirming that that offer is still available.
Maybe it's gotten better or maybe not.
So we'll find out if they can stand with their proposal.
I'm hoping that they can, and I suspect they will.
And then closing up that contract and bring it back.
So I'm guessing we're out another possibly 45 days or so.
OK, that's fine.
So in the near future.
And we'll probably wait right around that time
before we issue that next tranche,
see what we have under our belt, and go forward
with some others.
So we're going to get contracts committed to do the 100%
sometime this year.
That's kind of the plan.
Some of those projects won't get built or operating
for another year or two.
It could be into 2020 for some of the projects
actually get constructed.
But we'll have that contract in hand.
That's the expectation this calendar year, this fiscal year
.
OK.
Other questions?
Yeah, in the full 86 page report,
there was one question.
So most of the questions that are listed in that report
got touched on.
There was one-- I was wondering if you could elaborate
on a little bit more.
And this is on page 20 in the full report.
Are you able to put that on there,
or would that take too much time?
Is that complicated?
I could probably do it.
Never mind that.
If it would take any more time.
If it was just a press of button, that's fine.
I'll just read it.
We have a copy of the presentation
that you saw last time, but I didn't have the--
The full report.
Yeah.
Well, so it's on page--
I mean, the rest of PUB can see it.
It's on page 20.
So you're back up.
Yeah, in the back.
Exhibit two-- I mean, the public can see it too.
It's exhibit two, Denton Renewable Resource Plan.
But on page 20, the second to last question
was, should Denton purchase additional renewable supplies
above its target levels because of the annual variance
in production amounts?
I was wondering if you could speak to that a little bit
because that was one of the questions that we haven't
already been over, at least not in that iteration.
Yes, I'm happy to give you some thoughts.
So to me, achieving 100% means that we've
contracted for renewables, renewable energy,
equal to our annual load.
So if our annual load was, if you recall,
1.5 million kilowatt hours, I think,
was the projection for 2019.
If we contract for 1.5 million kilowatt hours of renewables
,
that is what is typically considered as 100% renewable.
So we match up those two numbers.
Now, will there be some hours of the year that we're over?
Yes, and we'll have to liquidate that.
Will there be some hours of the year we're under?
Yes, and we'll have to purchase some additional.
But I think the one way to calculate that, the one
that I would think makes the--
one that I'm most familiar with is energy versus energy,
1.5 million versus 1.5 million.
So where it gets complicated, you
start talking about capacity.
And then you say, oh, did you take
into account that that megawatt is not going to really give
you--
it's not going to really operate 8,000, 760 hours
and all that kind of stuff.
So it's easier to just go to the energy associated
with those contracts and match that with the energy
you're serving customers.
So every single kilowatt hour we sell in Denton
is intended to be matched up with a kilowatt hour
of renewable.
And that's how we would, in my opinion, define 100%.
OK, thanks.
So this is just so it--
that confirms my sense that this is just enough.
This is not something-- this is not a brand new question.
This is a just kind of slightly different wording of issues
that we've already been over with the consultants.
Right.
And I should have mentioned that--
So that's great.
Our great consultants are here today.
And they'd be happy to get up and talk at length
and follow up on some of the other things.
And I thought it was a great dialogue
that the board had with them.
And it was educational for me.
And hopefully it was interesting for the public and for you
at the same time.
OK.
We do have a motion and a second.
Any other discussion?
Mr. Chairman, before you go on your vote,
I wanted to let you all know the board.
About 3 o'clock today, just before 3 o'clock,
Mr. James Ornstein from Duncanville, Texas
had emailed me and asked me to pass some information
onto the board.
I apologize for the late hour.
But I just wanted to pass this information on
as you look to the proposal you have in front of you.
I just wanted to pass this--
[INAUDIBLE]
--to the board.
James Ornstein, he's from Duncanville, Texas.
And--
Sir?
[INAUDIBLE]
Well, he asked me to pass it onto the PUB.
So I'm doing so--
Yeah, that's the way to--
Actually, I've read-- there are some suggestions in here.
A lot of things we're doing already
in our overall energy program.
And so since it came so late in the day, it couldn't be--
it looks like he may be in the industry.
I don't know.
I have no idea.
But anyway--
This is something, by the way, that I
would encourage for any public watching
that if you want to communicate with the PUB,
our individual emails aren't on the website.
And we don't have official city emails.
But through contacting the assistant city manager,
I would think any staff and just requesting--
and if it's deemed appropriate, then it
would go to all of public utility board.
So I had some--
Oh, that's right.
We were about to--
We didn't make a vote.
We didn't make an actual-- make a motion for discussion.
Actually--
Or have discussion before making a motion.
We do have a motion in a second.
So--
Yeah, no, no.
We didn't--
OK, then I will call.
Is there a motion for item--
To vote?
We have a motion for approval.
I thought we were going to have discussion before--
Well, we will.
After we have a first motion in a second.
Yes, just checking.
A second.
OK, motion in a second.
Discussion.
It's now.
No, I know.
I was waiting.
I want to see if any-- be gracious,
see if anybody else wants to speak.
Obviously, I have some--
[INAUDIBLE]
Yeah, so several things, both for my colleagues on PUB
and also for the public that I wanted
to point out about the full report,
because it's 86 pages.
And most people in the public wouldn't
have the time to read that.
But there were a number of points
that I found really interesting that I wanted
to call people's attention to.
And for anyone in the public following along,
it's on the agenda exhibit too.
So one, this is about the Denton Energy Center.
And this is on pages 10 and 11 and 13 in the full report.
And I'm just calling attention to what's already
here in the report.
So on page 10, this is right under the bottom of page 10,
right under reporting and summary analysis.
The statement, the Denton Energy Center
will play a role in Denton's renewable resource portfolio
as a cost hedge during certain super high priced hours.
This is not necessarily new to us,
because we've heard this from the presentations
from enterprise consulting.
But it's really important to get this information out here
to the public, because in relatively recent memory,
there have been some misinformation
disseminated about this and what the purpose was of the gas
plant.
So they say, and I'm just reading here,
an example of when the DEC would be dispatched rather than
using
DAM purchases to hedge a supply shortfall is in figure ES3.
And there's a really helpful illustration of that.
During a peak demand month such as August, the DEC,
that's the gas plant, might be dispatched about half the
time.
So it might be dispatched half the time.
So that just underscores--
in my reading of this is how little the gas plant is needed
.
And it is, in my view, reading this,
it's a bittersweet feeling, because I really
appreciate this information, which
makes a lot of sense to me.
But it's also sad that we've made this financial commitment
.
And I'm looking forward to looking into ways
that we can minimize the gas plant and its impact
and eventually get rid of it, because of it's just really
not
being hardly useful at all.
That's not in the report, by the way.
That's your opinion?
Oh, absolutely, which is why I stated--
I just want to make sure that was--
Which is why I stated that this is my--
For the public.
That was my reading.
For the public.
I want them to know that was what that was.
Oh, absolutely, which is why I said
that's my interpretation.
So I'm trying to be clear.
So thank you for clarifying that.
Yeah.
Let's see.
And then it goes on into a difference in pricing.
On page 13, and this is under takeaway,
the DEC will serve a role as a cost supply hedge
to firm debt and renewable resource portfolio.
But based on the financial evaluation in this resource
plan, the majority of firming the supply portfolio
will be more economically efficient
through purchases in the dam.
Denton should look for opportunities to sell
a portion of the DEC forward during national gas or heat
rate spikes and for opportunities
to sell firming services, et cetera, et cetera.
So this is just reiterating for the public.
And I know those of us in PUB, we've been over this a lot
with the consultants.
But just to make sure that that's clear to people.
Another thing, only because, number one,
so much money went into the gas plant,
and also so much great effort went into this report,
I feel like it's worth the time to just call attention
to some aspects of it.
On item-- let's see.
It's from that same-- oh, shoot.
Can we call the vote?
Yeah.
This really-- I know this is--
you want to get these things out from the report.
I know that.
But I don't know what the relevance is,
whether we're going to adopt this or not.
Well, if I may, I just have just a few things
that I would like to say that I believe are relevant,
because they're actually coming from the report.
And then there are a couple things from this,
which was also sent to me that I want to reiterate,
since this just came to us.
But this isn't on the agenda, though.
No, no, no.
But it's a member of the public responding to this report.
From somebody who lives in a completely different city.
So is that not allowed?
I'm just saying it's not on the agenda
to discuss it in this meeting.
And it's from somebody who doesn't even live in the city.
So I'm not sure how much time we need to give it.
So public-- so just to clarify.
So public input from somebody who doesn't live in Denton
is not considered relevant?
Certainly not on the agenda to discuss it
during this meeting, right?
I'm asking the chair, our assistant city manager.
Well, I think some information we receive at the meeting,
I don't know that it's--
we really need to stick with what our backup says.
OK, well, this is--
If at some point in time, I think
somebody would take the time to write an email and give
input,
I think we owe it to look at it and listen to it.
I do think that had we had this--
had this been part of the backup prior to--
that was published.
OK, so members of the public should
make sure to get their comments in on the backup.
It's not enough for them to just communicate with us.
Is that what you're saying?
I'm not sure members of the public
have direct access to our agenda.
I think we have to agree to allow something on our agenda
to be discussed.
If you just-- we don't know who this gentleman is.
We don't know that this--
We're representing the--
sorry to drag this up.
We're representing the public.
We're representing the city of Denton Public, not
the Duncanville guy that works for a solar company.
But it just so happens, OK, that this information that I
saw
is actually important to me and to other members
of our Denton public.
I'm a member of the Denton public.
I have also been speaking to members of the Denton public
and communicating with them about these issues.
And I have some things that I wanted to share.
And I can appreciate that, but what we typically do
is we get backup information on Friday.
We have an opportunity to look over it,
to be prepared to discuss it.
That didn't happen with this particular item.
So I don't think we should really bring it up.
It doesn't happen with any--
I don't mind sitting listening to what
you think about the report that we got,
because it's actually on our agenda.
OK, OK, so this is what I think about the report then.
I really appreciate the paragraph
about customer satisfaction.
And I would encourage members of the public to read that.
And I would urge the new DME general manager
to gauge residential customer satisfaction at all income
levels and type without privileging
any one class of customers and see what we can do to
improve
customer service.
If you read the report, there's really good--
I'm talking about-- this is in the report that you were--
yeah, about how, yes, we have no competition,
but it's still important to keep rates--
to keep our rates competitive and to factor that in when
we're looking into our renewable plan in any aspect of DME,
because people are coming in from elsewhere
and they're making comparisons between our rates
and other rates.
So I really appreciated having that in the presentation.
I just wanted to thank staff and the consultants
for that.
And so finally, I just wanted to say
that I would like to see us set targets for decommissioning
the debt and energy center, because the evidence
in this report and the evidence that we've seen before
seems to suggest that could we go back in time, which we
can't?
It wouldn't have been the best purchase.
So I would like to see this being factored in
as we move forward, and also to look into purchasing and
setting
up some actual renewable generation,
either here in Denton or simply owned--
actually owned by Denton, including the possibility
of converting part of the gas plant
into the future into renewable generation, which
is something that I'm not going to pretend to be an expert
in that,
but I know that that technology is out there.
So thank you for your time.
And hearing that, I know that took a while,
but this gas plant, the most expensive purchase
in all of Denton history, this renewable stuff
is really exciting and a big deal.
People put a lot of time into making this report.
Anyway, and I truly appreciate all of the public input
that I got.
So I thank the members of the public
for communicating with us.
So anyway, thank you.
Apologies for taking so much time with that.
It's not necessarily to apologize, but you know what?
I actually take a little bit of offense
at you pushing an agenda to decommission something that
isn't even running yet that everybody in this room
has spent hours and hours and hours discussing.
And you use almost every opportunity
you can to talk about how you want to stop something.
And at the same time, you also provide a little bit
of misinformation when you do--
even what you just said.
There was misinformation.
So what misinformation?
That misinformation was provided.
What misinformation?
You said it.
You said that in the past, provided misinformation.
Yeah, when they were talking about firming,
when they had said that the gas plant was necessary for fir
ming.
Could we vote?
Yes.
Yes, we can.
So I'm sorry that you're offended, Brandon.
And yes, you're absolutely right.
I have been trying to--
And I don't think anybody on this board
has a personal agenda except you.
I don't think it's a personal agenda.
I'm going to call the vote.
We have a motion and a second.
We've been through discussion.
All in favor of item D, which is to consider
recommending formal adoption of the renewable resource plan
for Denton Municipal Utility.
Say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Same sign.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
OK, next item we have is item E, which
is to consider recommending adoption
of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas,
providing for the schedule of miscellaneous fees, deposits,
billings, and procedures for administrative services
to city utility customers, providing for repealer,
providing for severability clause,
providing for an effective date.
Thank you.
George Morogh and DME general manager.
I wanted to introduce this item and introduce again
JR Richardson, who's the DME supervisor
for electric metering.
The item we're trying to address here
is that we've installed smart meters on almost all the
homes
and businesses in Denton, with the exception of just
a very small number of customers.
And we're looking at implementing a policy
on how to address that.
We'd like everybody to have a smart meter.
It offers them a lot of advantages
that maybe they can't even recognize at this point,
and also offers the utility a number of advantages.
And I think JR is going to talk about that.
And he's come up with-- did some research
and has crafted a policy that--
a rate for opting out of our smart meter program
that would be part of our fees and charges
that we'd ask you to adopt, along
with some additional changes that have already
been gone through the process and been approved
by the board and the city council.
So from a customer service standpoint.
So JR, if you want to come up and take it away.
Thank you, George.
Members of the board.
Today, as George stated, we're going
to talk about some of the topics of offering the opt-out
program
for our citizens of Denton.
And at the end, we'll have time for questions.
Currently, as I stated earlier, we have roughly 53,000
electric meters in the city.
And as George stated, 99.9% of those are AMI meters.
We have less than 40 customers who, at the time of rollout,
made their wish known not to have an AMI meter.
Some of that was the concerns that they have over the RF
signal that is emitted by the meter.
There have been several institutions
that have done studies on the RF signal of the meter.
And based on those studies, the FCC
has come out to say that the radio output exposure has
no negative health or safety impacts to the public.
AMI meters don't continuously transmit.
Our meters, we get all of our data
in less than six minutes of a total day.
So that's pretty small.
Here, we want to talk about some of the disadvantages
for customers whenever they don't participate
with the AMI meter.
One is they won't be eligible for the prepaid
that we talked about earlier.
I think one of the biggest points here
is that they're not available to be part of our outage
management system.
Currently, our AMI meters, whenever there's an outage,
they send a last gas to our outage management system.
So a lot of times, a customer will be out of power,
and our system operator has the ability
to dispatch a truck before we even receive
a call from the customer.
I think that's a big point.
Some of the disadvantages for the utility, of course,
is not being able to monitor those meters
to know when they're out of power.
Another big part that touches on safety
is not being able to monitor the meter that
may have either a diversion or have
an illegal generation system connected.
We have had at least four or five different instances
where a customer has gone out and bought
some type of a solar panel and connected it to their system
,
not legally the way we do with a disconnect device.
So therefore, if we ever have an outage
and that thing is connected, it poses safety potential
for our alignment when they go out to work on that service.
But if we have an AMI meter, we'll
be able to notice that on our reverse flow report
and be able to go out and talk with that customer
and get them on board with the proper installation.
This slide here shows some of the utilities in Texas
that now offer an opt out program.
All of the programs begin with a fee,
one time fee for a nonstandard meter or a meter
without that communication board.
And then primarily all of them also
have a monthly fee to recruit the cost of having someone
go out and manually read that meter and also the billing
process that goes along with that.
I will point out on this slide as well
that Bryan utilities do have an AMI program,
but they currently do not offer an opt out program.
All their customers will have an AMI meter.
Georgetown?
Georgetown is in the process of rolling out their AMI
system
at this time.
I'm sorry, Brendan.
Come on.
When I spoke to Georgetown, they do have an AMI system,
but they're in the same process as Denton is on creating
an opt out fee program.
So they're doing the same thing that we're doing right now,
going through their public utility board and city council
doing the same thing currently.
On January the 9th, the city council
did approve a credit and collection policy ordinance.
DME has taken the opportunity to draft an opt out fee
schedule
that would be added to the utility rates
if the recommendation was to move forward with that
and the city council was to approve that.
Our two options is one, of course,
is not to have an option and do similar to Bryan
and have every customer have an AMI meter
to make the system more whole.
Or two, to have an opt out program
where we will have a one time fee for a non-standard meter
and a $30 monthly fee for reading the meter manually
and doing the billing process.
And on here we have that staff recommends the option
to provide an opt out program so the customer would have a
choice.
Any questions?
Questions?
Yeah, so I found it interesting that--
so less than 40 people opt out.
Is that correct?
That's correct.
Out of 53,000.
And it's not that they opt out whenever we went to set the
meter.
They just made their wishes known not to have a meter set
at that time.
And we respected that wish.
Yeah, so because-- and it wasn't called opting out
because that wasn't an option.
That is correct.
So I definitely prefer the--
I prefer the opt out option to no opt out option.
And I'm wondering-- and this is generally a question,
an open question, because my mind's not quite--
not entirely made up.
Is it-- in charging, since it's less than 40 people,
charging them this extra and making sure they pay it,
is it worth that extra charge to them
and making sure they pay it to charge them that?
In other words-- sorry, that was awkwardly worded.
In other words, what about--
and again, I'm not saying I think that this is an ideal
option.
But what about a third option of let them opt out
and they don't have to pay extra for it?
That's probably not a good idea.
But I'm just curious in terms of risk analysis.
Is it-- from a financial perspective.
I think JR noted it on one of his slides,
but he didn't mention it.
There's special handling that we have to do for these
customers.
There's special meter reads.
We've got the-- there's a little extra cost.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
A little extra time going out there.
And we're having to do special handling for the billing.
It's manual billing.
It doesn't feed into our billing system
quite as efficiently as our AMI meter reads.
So--
This covers that.
The fees would cover that, yes.
So that's why--
And nothing extra.
So that's the background for the cost.
And it just seems that we're incurring the cost
and that we should pass that along to those.
And hopefully, we could-- out of that process,
if the board and the council were inclined to adopt this
policy,
maybe out of that, we could enhance our discussions
and our communications with the residents.
They're essentially all residential customers
that haven't opted in.
And see if we couldn't do a better job maybe
at explaining the benefits of going with a smart meter.
And part of the benefits will be, hey, there's no fees and
cost
that you might have to deal with.
Yeah.
It just gives us a little bit of something to discuss
further.
Yeah.
Well, that's really sensible to me.
I just wanted to ask that and just to make clear.
And I think--
Mike, I'm sorry.
No, no, no.
Go on.
My question is going to be, have we already done that?
To avoid going through this process,
why didn't we reach out to them and say, OK,
you can keep your meter, but there's going
to be an extra charge, maybe?
We have had calls come in.
And what we've been telling the customers
is that we've been trying to work on this type of a program
.
We actually started late last summer working on this.
But then there were some changes in management
that caused us to delay the process.
I've recently spoke with a couple of the customers
here recently and told them that we were coming today
and that we also have on the agenda
to go to the city council on February the 6th.
And we still want to keep them.
So--
They're not sure yet.
It actually kind of sounds like you anticipate additional
people
wanting to opt out.
Kind of some of both.
Some of both.
Also, when you put this in place,
some people may see some of the disadvantages
that they have by not having it.
For one, not being able to go online and see
your historical data, not being able to participate
in the prepaid metering, and also the fact
that if you're out of town, for instance, and your power
goes
out, and say you're at the end of the line,
and we get it back on, but there's
a tree that's falling against your service.
So everyone else on your street is on,
but your service is still out.
With the AMI meter there, our system operators
may have to know that without you having
to make that phone call.
And we would send someone out to make those repairs.
Yeah, that's a good feature of that.
Yes, sir.
Just to have that available.
I did have one question on the solar panel.
Yes.
If somebody's got a solar panel, it
seems like part of the permit process,
they would have to have an AMI meter as part of that.
They do.
So this would be somebody who installed without a permit?
That is correct.
That's correct.
And we've had that happen, Chairman Robinson.
We've had customers go out and just-- actually,
one of the installations we found,
they had just plugged it into their outlet on the patio.
And the only reason we were able to find it
was because Brandon and his group-- we have an AMI group.
He was recently the supervisor, but now he's the manager.
And what they do is they have a report that comes out.
And there's a reverse flow report that comes out.
So we were able to determine that.
And when we went out to this customer's home,
they too were out of town.
So we weren't able to contact them.
But with everything down low, there
was just enough power going back onto our system
that we could see that reverse flow.
And looking over the fence, they had panels
that were just laying in the backyard.
So we left the notification there.
And whenever they did come back, they contacted our
department.
And we had them go through the proper process
to get a proper installation installed.
OK.
All right.
One question, a clarification.
The heading says, we're providing for a repealer.
Could you tell me what that is?
Providing for--
Repealer.
And that was in this slide.
It's on the ordinance.
Oh, OK.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
No, what we're doing is we're repealing prior ordinances.
And this is replacing what was in effect in the past.
Nothing to do with electricity.
Nothing I'm aware of.
OK, any other questions?
Thank you for your presentation.
Thank you, sir, for your time.
Do we have a motion in reference to item E, which
is consider putting an opt out fee in our utility rates?
Yes.
Motion?
Second.
And a second.
Further discussion?
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Same sign.
OK, ACM update.
Yes, members of the board, in your packet,
there is a memo from PS Aurora regarding the Texas
Commissioner of Environmental Quality Wastewater Quality
Fee.
That was an item that was approved by the city council
last Tuesday.
And it was just informational for the board.
And then-- I'm sorry.
Oh, and then you've got your future agendas as well.
And then we have the new business matrix for 2018.
OK, questions?
Hearing none.
Just comment.
We're at that stage.
We can-- we'll move into concluding items.
OK.
This memo we received, could we get that addressed
in our extraneous business in the ACM area?
I think most of these things have been discussed
and considered.
Just maybe a recap for those questions that were posed.
And I think that would cover it.
OK.
Very good.
If not, a presentation.
Maybe do.
OK.
Any other member of the utilities board
who would like to place something on future agendas?
Yes.
Several things.
One, let's see.
Customers have gotten in touch with me about an issue
that I was not yet aware of.
It's a customer service issue, I guess.
And that-- and this is something that might just
involve being confirmed or looked into by staff.
Or it might necessitate a discussion as a committee.
So I'll just ask for more information from staff on this.
But there was-- apparently, if you
want to pay your bill over the phone--
or I should say this one customer
said that she had to, for various reasons,
pay her bill over the phone instead of on the internet.
And she was charged $10 to pay over the phone,
and then $6 to change her credit card.
So apparently, there's a $6 credit card fee.
And this was on an internet discussion.
I forget what site, but this was one of these things
where someone commented.
And it was on some Facebook page.
And then someone tagged me.
And then a bunch of other people started commenting, me too
.
And I was very interested, because I didn't know this.
So both an extra charge, apparently,
for paying your bill over the phone instead of via internet
.
And then a $6 charge, or some extra charge,
to change your credit card if you get a new credit card.
So I just had a question, just wanted to look into that.
Is that the case?
I think we could bring up maybe an ACM update on our fee
schedule.
Yes, sir.
I'll be glad to do that.
Next time.
Yeah, that would be wonderful.
And then two more things.
One-- and this would probably be best around the time
when we talk about the permanent gas supply for the debt
and energy center.
But I would like to see us look into, in addition to--
and this was something I brought up in a close session
discussion.
I'm mentioning it because it was my comment about looking
into trying to leverage for more transparency
in finding out which gas companies, the gas supplier
and enterprise is purchasing their gas from that they give
us, kind of looking into to what extent we
could get more transparency, both for us, for council,
and for the public on that.
So that would be--
so I want to reiterate that and mention it
for the first time publicly.
And in addition to that, I'd like
to request that we consider the possibility of joining
the Natural Gas Supply Collaborative, which the city
of Austin has joined.
And it's just about looking into more responsible ways
of getting natural gas for the gas plant.
And yeah, I think I will stop at that,
because there are some others under that umbrella.
And then the final thing is just about the vote
that we had in close session on test gas.
And that's how it was described in the agenda posting.
So I'm not revealing anything just as a vote on a test gas.
I just wanted to say that I had assumed
when we made that vote to recommend
that it would be followed up with a public vote
since we were voting to recommend a contract.
And it turned out that I was mistaken.
I was very pleased that council or councilperson Briggs
had caught that at the council level,
because council was supposed to be
voting to approve the contract in closed session.
So then that ended up being open session.
Anyway, I thought that handled really well.
And I'm sorry that I wasn't able to catch that.
But I would just request that in the future, we follow up--
if we do recommend a contract in closed session
and have a discussion with legal about that,
that we follow that recommendation up
with a public vote without the confidential legal advice.
Does that make sense?
So that's just a matter of policy.
And I don't know if you want to have a staff report on that
,
or maybe a memo from staff to--
I don't quite see us having a discussion on that.
I don't know.
But I did want to mention that publicly,
largely for the members of any members of the public
watching
this.
But that was all.
Thank you.
Anybody else have anything?
No?
We have a motion to adjourn.
So moved.
Motion?
A second.
I see a head nod.
That's a second.
I'll take that for a second.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Thank you.