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 Good morning and welcome to the Public Utility Board's meeting of Monday, April 10, 2023.

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 We're in the council work session room. We do have a quorum and we will start, I guess

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 we're not going to do, shouldn't we do the, members of the public request before we go

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 into anything? It's up to you. Okay, that's what we're going to do. Are there any, there's

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 probably not, but are there any presentations from members of the public? Got that over

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 with. Okay. We are going to move to a closed meeting. The Public Utility Board, we're now

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 at 9.01 a.m. convene in a closed meeting to deliberate the closed meeting items set forth

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 in the agenda, which include the following. PUB 23-071, deliberations regarding certain

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 public power utilities, competitive matters under Texas Government Code section 551.086,

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 consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code section 551.071. Okay, so that's, I

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 say that next. Okay, got it. All right, so anybody that doesn't have any interest in

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 this, please leave the room. I guess they're all here. It is, the Public Utility Board,

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 Public Utility Board has now at 9.20 a.m. reconvened from the closed session and no official

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 action was taken. So we will move on to the consent agenda. Would any members of the board

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 like to pull any of these items for discussion? Mr. Chairman, I'd like to pull items D and

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 E. Dog and Everett. Yes. Having no others wish to be pulled, consider action on items

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 A, B, C, and F. Oh, and G, excuse me. So moved. Do we have a motion? Second. Any further discussion?

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 If not, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Item D. Freeze

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 and Nichols. Lake Ray Roberts. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Good morning. I was

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 just curious, this mentioned that it was the third amendment expenditure amount for the

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 professional services agreement. I was just curious, and this isn't like you're spending

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 too much money or I'm concerned. I'm just curious if this is the natural progression

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 of this project where they have moved from stage A to stage B to stage C. Is that why

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 this is the third amendment? When they started out, this is a re-rate for the Ray Roberts.

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 And then we wanted to add, we wanted to do a separate project and they decided to add

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 in on that second amendment would be the backwash filter system, which is going basically it's

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 putting in an elevation storage to do some backwash. So it was going to be separate.

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 We decided we needed to put them together at one time for that second amendment. I mean

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 for the first amendment. I'm sorry. Okay. So this is an add on to the work at the Ray

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 Roberts facility for the upgrade modernization. Yes, sir. This amendment is for one of the

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 things that is the actuator control system. And we decided that it's best to bring it

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 on into the future and go with a field bus type actuator. So that's what this is for.

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 While we're already there, let's go ahead and take care of that. So this is the design

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 of that, not the actual installation. Yes, sir. It is completely designed as far as the

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 re-rate ready to go. We actually, we're going to put it out to bid and it's ready to go

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 to bid. It's just a matter of staff recommended we go to this style actuators, which is bringing

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 it into the future, really going to help us as far as reliability. Right. So just a curiosity

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 question. What is the proposed budget for this change out? It's an, it's an extra about

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 a million dollars, I believe. Okay. Yeah. But as far as it will save us money in the

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 long run, as far as maintenance reliability, as far as just operations, it'll save us

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 money. Replaceability. Yeah. Replaceability as far as basically we're moving into fiber

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 as far as it's not going to be a gang run of multiple conductors. It's going to go into

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 the fiber. So bring it into the 21st century. Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay. Well, that was my only

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 question on item D. Thank you. Thank you. I had a question, please. Yes, ma'am. I'm

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 sorry. Mine's on D. All right. Yours is on E. Okay. Yeah. On E. This is B. Yeah. Okay.

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 Different. Excuse me. That's okay. We're good. Thank you. So would you entertain a motion

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 then, Lee? Oh, Mr. Chairman, I move we accept item D. Consent agenda. Motion. Second. Second.

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 All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, sign the same. Thank you. D passes.

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 Thank you. So now we have item E. I guess I should have said echo if I was doing it correctly,

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 whatever just came to mind. Good morning, Board. Jeff Brown, Safety and Training Division

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 Manager with DME. My question was I think this is a great idea, but I don't remember

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 hearing about this before. Is this something we've just started? Well, this contract was

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 initiated last year when we were trying to catch up on our training from COVID. And as

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 we moved forward, I was also using historical data. And we have moved from approximately

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 five apprentices a year, because this is required training for our alignment work on our power

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 grid. We are now close to 30. So that has increased the overall contract cost exponentially,

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 as well as when we did the initial contract, we added extra programs to see if their quality

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 was good, because this was a one-year contract with extension. So we're actually asking for

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 the full amount for the four years to accommodate all the training that is available to our

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 employees. Did I answer your question? A great idea, because when you're dealing with electricity,

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 you need to know best practices well. Yes. So no, you guys did not see this because the

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 original contract was only for 50,000. But the quality of the product has proven out.

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 It was one of those. We wanted to make sure the training was of the same standard that

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 DME used to have. That's a good question. Are we retaining the employees that were training

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 through these programs, or are they taking these skills and going elsewhere? Well, historical,

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 I don't have all of that information. There is some turnover. But for the most part, DME's

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 longevity is very high. I would like to point out we have an employee that has been with

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 us for 44 years. So we do have quite a bit of tenure. Is that Rowdy? Pardon? Is that

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 Rowdy? No, Rowdy's around 33 or 34. Rowdy's a rookie compared to Pete Shaw. Pete Shaw,

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 yeah. So the Northwest Lineman College has been in Denton for now over a decade. What

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 we're doing here is instead of sending our linemen and apprentices outside of the city

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 to do training, they're going to be doing it here locally. It was just the right time

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 for us to do that. And I think there's been some improvements at the lineman's college

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 and we're ready to take advantage of it. But employee recruitment is certainly something

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 that's always on our mind. It's how we work in our culture and make sure that our employees

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 have a safe place to work. And matter of fact, safety is our number one priority when it

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 comes to budgetary issues. I think I've said this before to you. My goal is to increase

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 that budget to 1% of our total budget. So we're at about $290,000. We still have a little

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 bit of $290 million. So we still have a little bit of ways to go. But as you see the budgets

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 coming back to you this year, you're going to see some more focus on safety. Do you have

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 -- have you guys considered reimbursement agreements where, hey, you get a loan for

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 $10,000 lineman and we will pay it as long as you stay here for five years? Well, we

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 provide this training without those types of requirements. And, you know, these numbers

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 that Jeff threw out, you know, what we're seeing a lot of turnover has been really in

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 our senior lineman. So these are the people that already have their journeyman's card.

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 And so, you know, trying to recruit those individuals from other utilities is where

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 some of the competitiveness comes into play. But we've been working on that over the last

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 couple of years on compensation. But that's why we've seen such a big growth in apprenticeships

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 because we've had some senior people leave and trying to recruit their replacements at

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 that level is challenging. But it's a challenge that all utilities have across the state.

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 But you don't -- and they fall under the same 20-year TRS, whatever -- TRS is not right,

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 that's the teachers, but -- Yes, they're all in TMRS.

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 TMRS, yeah. Okay. Mr. Ryback.

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 My question was more about that training budget. So you had a small agreement, now you've grown

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 it to this larger agreement, and I'm thrilled to see you spending the money locally. I'm

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 all for that. I was just curious, obviously, you're growing it because you found the product

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 is good, the quality of the training is good. And my other question was about the budget.

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 So I was like, was this the whole budget? Is there more budget than we've seen on the,

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 you know, your projections on costs and expenses and looking at, you know, the rate increase

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 and all that? Or -- so is this the whole budget for four years then, the 1.2 mil?

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 Yes, sir. Okay, that's only three. And that's to not exceed.

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 Not to exceed. My goal is not to spend all of that.

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 That's still roughly $300,000 a year for four years.

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 Yeah, so it's not all the safety budget. Certainly, there's additional dollars that are there

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 that are beyond what's covered in this particular contract. But, you know, but Jeff will probably

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 tell you that he's requested quite a bit more money going into next year's budget, and this

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 part of the process that we're going to still to evaluate that and then come back to you

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 in here in the next couple of months to make a recommendation on what we're going to recommend

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 to add to Dean's budget. Well, I think I used the wrong term, safety

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 budget. I meant the training budget for your personnel.

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 Yeah, I think there's other dollars beyond just this particular contract that are dedicated

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 towards training. Okay. Well, thank you. Those are my questions.

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 In the marketplace, is it feasible that you ask after they've been trained that they stay

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 a certain amount of time? Is that a negotiable item?

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 That's kind of what I was getting at. Yeah, we'd have to get with HR to see if that's

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 something that's possible. I will tell you, personally, I'm not very concerned about spending

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 these dollars on these employees because the majority of them do stay. You know, I think

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 where we get into challenges sometimes, it's once they reach the journeyman level, getting

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 them to the next level, there's very few positions, and that's where we have some challenges.

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 But I think as we continue to grow, we're likely going to continue to add additional

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 FTEs, additional senior level positions, crew foremen, even superintendents. I think those

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 opportunities will come up. But I will tell you, it's no different than what the rest

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 of the cities is dealing with when it comes to recruitment and retaining employees.

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 And to add to what Tony said, our last four people that we needed apprentices for, they

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 were retirees. They'd done more than 20 with the city. So, I mean, we do have the tenure.

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 Well, I just, as we were discussing the Trans Am situation this morning, it's a different

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 generation, and the loyalty's just not there anymore.

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 Yeah, the other thing, too, that I'll just kind of volunteer out there, so Jeff and his

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 team have been working on certifying our program, which it's been certified through the Veterans

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 Administration. And so if we hire you and you are a veteran and you're going through

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 our apprenticeship program, you can actually utilize that to access your GI bill benefits.

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 So if you decide not to go through a vocational program or two-year college or four-year university,

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 our program is now certified to that. It's recognized by the VA for you to draw down

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 your GI benefits. And so we're seeing more and more veterans come to our program, and

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 we'll probably continue to see that because of that added benefit, because it's additional

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 income to them at the end of the day, and it gives them opportunity to draw down that

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 benefit because some of these folks may never want to go to university, and that's fine.

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 We certainly want them and need them here.

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 Okay, looks like there's nothing further. We entertain a motion to approve item E.

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 So moved.

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 Second.

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 Motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye.

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 Aye.

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 Any opposed, sign the same. It's unanimous. Okay, items for individual considerate. Thank

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 you very much, by the way.

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 Adams for individual consideration, consider approval of the minutes from March 27th.

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 Motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye.

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 Aye.

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 Move on to management report, Tony.

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 So members of the board, so we have a few items for you. The first one is the January

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 23 financials for the DEC. Certainly if there's any questions from the board, happy to answer

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 those. And then the next item is the purchase of property related to the Hickory Creek Wishwater

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 Attention Facility. I think we provided information to you on that. That item already went to

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 the council because the timing has already been approved by council, but certainly there's

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 staff here if you have questions about either one of those two items.

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 You have briefed us on that several times, so.

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 Correct. There's no questions on those two items. Future items, I think I've said this

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 every time we've met, certainly budget, budget, budget, right? So make sure you're aware of

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 these dates. We certainly need you here, need your participation, and those will be coming

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 to you here relatively quick.

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 And then for new business action items, we did have one question at the last meeting

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 regarding debt load trends. I think Mr. Devon, you asked for that information. Finance is

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 working on it. They anticipate having it for you at the next meeting through a memo and

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 it'll be part of the management update as well. So that concludes my item. Happy to

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 answer any questions that you may have.

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 No, I would remind the board though that if you've got questions or concerns that staff

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 is always there to, you know, set up a meeting and discuss them if you want to do it separately

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 from the board meetings. Of course, those can't be quorums, but they've always been

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 very helpful.

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 Concluding items, there does not appear to be any, so I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

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 Those in favor, say aye.

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 Aye.

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 If you're opposed, don't say a word.

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