Jan 28, 2019 Public Utilities Board on 2019-01-28 6:00 PM

Good evening, it's 6 o'clock and we have a quorum present so we'll call the Monday, January 28, 2019 public utility board meeting to order. Our first item of the regular meeting is the consent agenda and we just have one item under the consent agenda and does anybody want to have it pulled for any additional information or questions for staff? Hearing any, does anybody would like to make a motion so we can move forward? I recommend approval. We have a motion for approval, do we have a second for approval? Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion regarding this item? Hearing no discussion. Anybody in favor of this item? Say aye. Aye. Those opposed, nay. The motion passes. The next item are items for individual consideration. The first item is the approval of the public utility board meetings from the last meeting from January 14th. They've been distributed in advance, does any member have any amendments or additions or edits they'd like made to the public utility board meeting minutes? Hearing none, I guess we'll accept those as approved, as written, distributed. Item B under items for individual consideration is to consider recommending adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas authorizing the expenditure of funds for the payment of wholesale transmission charges and the total amount of $4,655,183.48 to Cross Transmission LLC. I guess it's broken up here, there are multiple awards. One is in the value of $269,987.38 and to Electric Transmission Texas LLC in the amount of $1,103,574.81. Another one to Lone Star Transmission LLC for $333,779.25. Another award for the Lower Colorado River Authority of $1,597,852.36. Another award to Shailen Utilities LP $943,784.53 and another award for Wind Energy Transmission Texas LLC for $406,205.15 and providing an effective date. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening Chair and board members. As was indicated here tonight to get approval to pay six invoices that we've gotten for transmission service. I want to give you a little bit of background. So in Texas, all of the entities that own transmission are entitled to recover a portion of their cost for that transmission based on what the formula says other utilities use of their transmission. So that would include also us. So for instance, we have transmission, the state analyzes the grid. They use what's called down here the four CP method, the four coincident peaks between June and September to allocate the statewide pod of transmission costs. So we throw our costs in a pod as does every other entity in Texas that has transmission and those are allocated out kind of peanut buttered or postage stamped out to all of the users of transmission those who sell energy to customers pay now a piece of those costs and you know it's regulated with the Texas administrative code and there's a public utility regulatory act also that kind of governs this. So we're required to pay those entities that we owe on a net bill basis and what I mean by a net bill, so we both pay for and use transmission service and we also get compensated for ours as I mentioned earlier. So when we look at those two numbers, whichever one of us, either DME or the other transmission provider has the largest amount of money due actually issues the bill. So there's just one bill issued instead of two, it's called a net bill. So what we have before you today are the net bills that we received that are more than what we normally have authority to pay. So these are more than $50,000 and this is the list of those that were read a little bit earlier. So these are the six entities in the state that we owe more than $50,000 to on a net bill basis and there will be 11 other entities that will pay their bills because they're less than $50,000. We don't need to come to the PUB and the council for authorization. Now, the flip side of that is we also issue some net bills and we actually issue a lot more than we get. So here's some of the bills that we'll be issuing to these entities, you've heard of some of those, CenterPoint, they're the big distribution company in the Houston area, Encore has a lot of the distribution here in the Dallas area and some of the others. So this is what we're owed. There's actually 79 total entities that owe us, I just put the large ones here, more than $250,000, but you can see that's a lot of money. So we'll be sending bills out, at the same time, we're paying that $4,600,000 plus these 11 other smaller ones, we'll be getting in some money from these other entities. So that's kind of nice. And so, didn't want to belabor that, but open to questions about T-costs, I think over the years T-costs has been a little bit misunderstood, but it's fairly straightforward. It's just allowing those that build transmission, invest money, get paid by other parties that actually use that because electrons are laws of physics, speed of light, they travel across the entire network. You can't just say, okay, you're going to travel down this road and no place else. They actually impact all of the transmission. That's why this thing all gets pooled and peanut buttered across all the users. So I'm asking for the PUB to recommend approval of an ordinance to make those six payments. Open for questions. >> Anybody have any questions? >> I have one question. So are these amounts are just, they're bills. Do we receive these bills essentially from these entities and we pay them, or do we negotiate values or costs every time that it's time to pay them? >> No, the amounts that we pay are very set forth and established in a big table that's done once per year by the Public Utility Commission. So the commission aggregates all the costs for transmission in the state. They do the allocation amongst all the entities and then they tell the party who needs the Senate bill, you send the bill. So it's really very structured. There was even a period, I think maybe even before this, where we didn't really come for authorization to pay because it is mandated regulatorily. We just thought for optics and transparency may be good to bring this forward, going forward to show everybody what's going on with these T-costs. >> Thank you. Any further questions? Additional discussion? Do we have a motion for approval? Do we have a motion for approval? >> Second. >> Second. Any additional discussion? All those in favor of approval, say aye. >> Aye. >> Those against, nay. Motion passes. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> I'm going to recuse myself on this item. Item C, it involves something where Billy's company, the Jago Public Works, had made a bid on it, so he's asking to excuse himself, and there he is excused. So item C is consider recommending adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, the Texas Home Rule Municipal Corporation, authorizing the city manager to execute a public works contract with Quality Excavation Limited for the construction of the Hinkel and Windsor Paving and Drainage Project for the City of Denton, providing for the expenditures of fund therefore and providing an effective date. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. >> I'm Michael Smith. I must apologize. I thought the slideshow was going to be put up here, so I know you all have copies of it there in front of you, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> I don't think that's going to be in the slideshow. I don't think that's going to be in the slideshow. >> To the right there, there you go. There we go. Thank you. Sorry for the delay. This is the Hinkel and Windsor Paving and Drainage Project. This is also known as Magnolia Phase 2. Magnolia Phase 1 was completed a couple of years ago. The majority of this project is going to be paid for out of bonds that were issued. This is, you can see the extents of the project. It runs along Hinkel and then across Windsor. The roads are going to be fully replaced. They're being paid for out of the 2012 bonds that were issued. The drainage portion runs from roughly this place on Windsor. There's an outfall from a pond that was built as Magnolia Phase 1, and then it's going to come down Windsor, down Hinkel, and then it will discharge into the channel down here. There's a sanitary sewer component of this. The sanitary sewer department wanted to go ahead and abandon an existing line that is parallel to another line. The existing line is older and it's very small, and this portion of it will basically take all the sanitary water from the streets that are coming into it and tie it into the new line. This portion that's different, that's for public utility board to evaluate it. We're going to replace curb and gutters, sidewalks that are damaged and deteriorated. There's a base bid, and then there was an alternate bid. The base bid replaced the alternate bid, which was an open channel, concrete channel. The new one is going to be box culverts, and the main reason that we're switching to box culverts or recommending that we go with box culverts is that they're faster to construct, it's safer, more aesthetically pleasing, there's reduced maintenance, and there's less utility conflicts with that. These were the bid results that came in. Quality excavation was the low bidder, and they are approximately a million dollars less than the engineer's estimate, both for the base bid and the alternate bid. So we're looking for a recommendation to move forward on this project. Any questions? Are the box culverts, are those covered with grass, or is that part of the sidewalk? I mean, is it cement topped or grass topped? They will be, it's actually both. They're going to sit partially underneath the sidewalks, but they're also going to be underneath a green space, so they'll be buried and then covered with grass. Okay. All right. Are there any new sidewalks being included, or is it just sidewalks being fixed that are already there? Principally, sidewalks that are being fixed. There are a few places right in front of Good Samaritan that we need to do some new sidewalks because we're reorienting the alignment. So there'll be new sidewalks there, but no other additional new sidewalks. What is the walkability of Hinkle? Can you get all the way down to North Lakes Park? On the west side, you can. On the east side, it's not a contiguous sidewalk. There's two travel lanes in each direction, and then there's a buffer and bike lanes in both directions as well. Is this going to be tied into all that construction on Windsor on the west side? Yes. Fireside is the development that's going in there, and they'll tie into our new storm drain system and the sanitary sewer system, and then they will provide the sidewalks in front of their frontage. Any additional questions? So when he stepped out, we lost our quorum. Does that matter? No. You're still point. You're back. You still count. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. So do we have a motion to recommend approval? Move to approve. I'll second. I'll second. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Those against, nay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks. Okay, our last item, there's a few items under the ACM update. Sure. Mr. Vice Chair and members of the board, a few items here to provide you in this report we've got a dashboard on the Dent Energy Center. If you have any questions, we've got George Morrow here along with folks from Finance, Tony Fuente, or David Gaines. We'll be happy to answer any questions you may have on that. And so, I mean, I have other things to say, but in regards to the other item, but just wanted to give you all time if you had any specific questions about the Dent Energy Center report. Can somebody just speak to the dashboard itself and just kind of give us a quick overview of how to read it and what the things mean, please? George Morrow, General Manager of DME. Also introduced, Jason Brown, he's the Debt Plant Manager. He's here in case we get into a deep dive on this stuff, and he's done a great job. So the Dent Energy Center's been officially operating July 11th of last summer. It ran well, basically, since that time, ran a lot in July and August. Of course, August was a little bit of a less. It continued operating beyond that time. Probably December of 2018 was the softest month with the holidays and a little bit mild weathered. It didn't operate that much. And also, we moved into a little bit more of a maintenance mode during that period. So what this is intended to do is we wanted to make a relatively straightforward, simple streamlined document that could let folks look at a snapshot to see some of the key parameters associated with the deck. This is for the first quarter of 2018, and we look at updating this periodically, probably every quarter. So at the top left, you see kind of how the units ran during those four periods. It says gen set 1 through 12, so there's 12 units out there. Operated a total of 466 hours during that three-month period, made a certain number of hot starts, warm starts, cold starts. And that's important because the temperature of the starts affects our emissions. And if we keep going to the right there, we've broken down the emissions. We monitor the six different emissions items. And so we provided those to you for information for a typical month, which would have been December. So you can see our emissions through December. There's actually more information available from time to time. We provide typically a monthly report with more detail on emissions in the Friday report to the City Council and to the PUB, so you guys read that every so often, you'll get that information. If we move down to the below where we talked about the end of the starts, you've got some how many megawatt hours was generated. That's how we keep track of the production. So you see October 18, if we move to the right, revenue of $2 million, 23,521 megawatt hours. And then the cost, that was our revenue on an average basis, dollars per megawatt hour. And I can tell you those numbers are substantially more than the variable cost. So there was anything above the number that I have in my head that I typically don't share publicly is a contribution to our fixed expenses. So there's a significant contribution to our fixed expenses in that dollar per megawatt hour. And all of that is developed below. You see some expense categories for the deck. Total is a big one, personal services, the people at the deck and so on, maintenance, repair, operations. And soon at some point will be the principle. We've got a relatively nominal principle level and interest this year that will increase on the year after. So you see a net income down below, actual for last fiscal year, 8.44 million. That's the amount of revenue over and above cost. 19, you can see that the budget was 8 million. So we'll kind of watch that during the year and see how we do on a net basis. I think those are the things I would highlight for the, and if there's other items over time that you want to hear about with the deck, perhaps periodically we can just come by and give you some discussion about how it's doing. But it's done very well and I think it's a project at this point that the community can be proud of if it was built on time and it runs well. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> We expect to get one of these every quarter now. >> That would be our intent. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. The next one, Mr. Vice Chair, is a request was made over the last number of months ago to give the PUB a report on our bond program and CIP. And so what we included in your packet was a memorandum along with a lot of reports. However, there was one thing that was not included in your packet, and I have actually a copy of it. I'd like to distribute it to the board, to you all, so you can have a copy of what should have been also included in your packet. And the report that I'm handing out, excuse me, is something that our finance staff produces, I believe on a quarterly basis, to our bond oversight committee, and it gives basically a summary of all the various items that have been in past bond programs, kind of where they are in their status. And so, again, since we've never, as far as I know, have never provided information like this to the board, we basically are giving you everything tonight to understand kind of what your wishes are and how you would like to receive this information. And again, this information, the memo that I'm handing out to you, is information that's already produced and presented to our bond oversight committee, the bond oversight committee. Believe they meet in February, so they meet next month. And so if this is information that you'd like to see on a frequent basis, it's already being produced for another committee. We could very easily also present this to the board at the meeting following the bond oversight committee, and it's an easy presentation that staff can make and possibly provide feedback to you all based on what the committee at the time gave us. So just kind of wanted to see what your wishes are. The information in your packet is pretty detailed, a lot of numbers. Just trying to give you basically everything in the kitchen sink, per se, and then try to pair back as far as what information you'd like to see. But the very last page of the packet I handed out, also with the very last page of in your packet, as far as your online packet, basically gives a summary of all the items that were in each proposition of the most recent bond programs and gives you the original bond cost, any project costs that have been revised, the funding levels, what's been spent and what's left remaining for the program to be completed. So again, the bond oversight committee gets this information as well. So again, just to provide this information to you, and I apologize for not having this memo in the packet on Friday, but I wanted you to have it tonight and just see what your wishes are. Do they discuss the anticipated completion of the projects? I see how far they are along as far as dollar amount and things like that, but do they discuss how the project's going as far as completing on time or extensions of time? Typically what's been happening, and again, we can also provide that, is usually when we have these meetings with the bond oversight committee, it's all hands on deck. So just about every department represented with these bond programs are present. So a lot of times it's verbal updates just because there's a lot to cover and this is not inundate the committee with too much information, but yet try to be there on hand to answer any specific questions that at the time the committee may have, if that's something that you all would like to have, we can certainly as we schedule these have the respective departments available to answer specific questions on timing or if there's something that you specifically wanted to get answers on, we'd be happy to modify the report or include that as part of the backup. Okay. So just whatever your pleasure is, we're just trying to gauge what all you want because it's a lot of work and a lot of information to provide and not to bog you down with too much information, but give you the things that you need to be able to yourselves keep informed and also inform the public as well. Thank you. I don't know about the rest of you, but at this point I can't say what else I would want. Yes. The 31 page tiny font thing I still have to kind of get through. Because this was not included in your packet, what we'll do is work with Ken to make sure that it's included in the next PED packet so it's available to the public. And if you would like to have this item on your next agenda, just to cover it again, just so you can have an opportunity to kind of read through and digest it, we'd be happy to do that. Why don't we do that? Just as a follow up? Yeah, so that if anybody has any questions they can bring it up and we can kind of refine it because obviously we don't really need to hear about the public art bond project really unless it has something to do with something that comes under our purview. So we can include this again as an item next week, excuse me, next month and get your direction from there. Just wanted to provide you with this information. Yeah, no thank you. Thank you. The last thing on there is an informal staff report on the new streets, on the dumpster, blocking the sidewalks, we're reading through that and Ms. Devaney had requested that a number of weeks ago. Also was requested by a couple of our council members and so Ethan Cox with Solid Waste had provided an informal staff report to the council on what our plans are and so I believe we've given notice to those customers that have dumpsters located blocking the sidewalks so we've given them some notice, given them the opportunity to move or adjust their size of container and I believe we have until March to make that happen and so we'll be working with them and get compliance so that we can keep our sidewalks clear. So what is the stick attached to asking for compliance? Mr. Cox? Yes. Yeah. Is this like a class C misdemeanor? No, essentially working with legal, we have the authority and the ordinance as service provider that says we will determine the location where we're going to set that container so if you wish to receive service, that's the condition that we're providing the service with and so I think what we found, we're actually down until about 11 locations right now out of the 31 so we've actually made significant progress over a number of years trying to get to this point and so I think we're down to like the last 11 and they may be kind of challenging but they do have incentive to comply and we are going to offer a number of options for them so we can kind of find a solution that fits their needs. The problem in the older part of town is just there's no place else to put the dumpsters without eating into their parking or? There's going to be some trade-offs there, some challenges and I think what we found some success with for commercial properties is going to commercial car service. Doesn't work necessarily for a food-oriented business because the level of service may not be such that it addresses their frequency of collection but we are going to be flexible on that and if we run into any roadblocks we're going to do our best to kind of get creative with some of those businesses. And the last two things are just your future agenda items and like I said we'll bring back this information for next month to have on your early PV meeting in the morning. There's a few other items coming up in February as well and the new business matrix I believe a lot of these things will be coming off based on the reporting that was made today. Like I said we'll carry one forward for next month and then some things that we'll have ongoing as far as the DME, the energy center performance report along with the bond programs will have that on a continual rotation on a quarterly basis so those will be ongoing. So with any other, unless you have any other questions I have nothing else to report. Any additional questions? Okay concluding items under section 551.042 of the Texas Open Meetings Act respond to inquiries from the public utilities board or the public with specific factual information or recitation of policy or accepted proposal to place the matter on the agenda for an upcoming meeting. So if anybody would like to add anything to the business matrix or present anything for a future agenda item how would be the time to do it? Doesn't look like any. Can we get a motion to adjourn this meeting? Second. Those in favor of adjourning and we're done.