Nov 11, 2019 Public Utilities Board on 2019-11-11 9:00 AM

Okay, it's nine o'clock. Let's call to order the November 11th Public Utilities Board. Can you hear me? Hello. It's nine o'clock. November 11th. Let's call to order the Public Utilities Board of November 11th, 2019. Before we jump into the work session, I just wanted to thank any of our veterans who are serving or have served. Today we honor them, but we should really honor them every day for keeping us safe and keeping our democracy in place. With that, let's hop into the work session. Brian. Well, good morning, Madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is Brian Burner. I'm Director of Solid Waste for the City of Denton. I do appreciate the opportunity today to come before you to talk about a proposal to create a comprehensive solid waste management strategy for the City of Denton. You may remember about two years ago, the City of Denton hired a consultant to basically come and look at its solid waste program, STEM to Stern. And over the past 18 months, we've come before you with several business case analysis talking about the effectiveness of certain programs, some programs we've enhanced, some we've actually dismantled, and just because they weren't cost effective, they weren't effective in meeting the goals and objectives of the of the plan or of the program initially. And they've been done sort of piecemeal. What we want to do today is to really talk about coming together to develop this strategy to define really where we want to go over the next 15, 20 years. The purpose of today's presentation, again, is to define what a comprehensive solid waste management strategy is, talk about the process, identify potential funding sources, and at the end of the day, set a schedule for completing this process. So really, what is a comprehensive solid waste management strategy? It is a forward looking, futuristic thinking document, for lack of a better term, that allows us to ask some very serious questions about what we want to do, where we want to go, how we want to actually affect solid waste management over the next 10, 15, 20, 30 years. We'll be identifying trends, you know, looking at markets, establishing baselines, forecasting waste streams, and all this is going to come together to basically create some very, very strong goals. And from those goals will flow our ability to put into place programs and ordinances to potentially affect the way that we look at solid waste strategy. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Arizona at the what was called WasteCon, which is really the big solid waste conference in North America. You know, you don't think about going to conferences for this or that, but who would think about going to a garbage conference? Well, we spent about four days there, and it was really an exciting conference. If for no other term, they focused on really future thinking. You know, we've gotten into a place now looking at recycling programs, garbage programs. We keep doing the same things over and over, and they said, if we're going to break this cycle, we've got to look at things differently. There was a very pointed question that was asked, and really affects the way that we do recycling today, but really how we may do it tomorrow. You know, with the national sword that China cast here two years ago, the question was, what is our next China? Where is our next China? And at the end of the day, it may be here in America. It may be in North Texas. We don't know. But by putting into place this strategy and asking those tough questions, what it does is it allows us to be sort of on the front end of being able to react or to steer ourselves so that we're not caught behind, we're not looking at diverting materials to where we don't want them to go. That's really the purpose of the strategy. Now when we look at strategies, these are just words on a list. There's no order or whatever to them. It's just things that we consider. We look at garbage, recycling, residential, commercial, multifamily. We look at ordinances. We look at states and federal laws. I know that, you know, between council and public utilities board and other committees, we've talked about our recycling program and things that we would like to see. We talk about food waste and organics diversion and things we like to see. We've talked about zero waste concepts and things that we would like to see. At the end of the day, we'll develop strategies around these and a whole lot more of our diversion and goals. And from that, create this plan that will move forward. How will we strategize this? Again, it will not be done in a vacuum. This is going to be a very open, very transparent process starting with this committee, with the council, with committee on the environment. We'll be looking at citizens, city council staff inputs. We're going to be evaluating city and regional growth demographics. This will be a solid strategy for the city of Denton, but from that could flow things that actually affect bigger. Denton County, the small cities around here, even the way that we manage garbage in the North Texas area. It's going to have a very, very heavy sustainability aspect, looking at market dynamics, constraints from regulations. Going back to WasteCon, there was a discussion that right now, you know, we talk about packaging and recycling, but a lot of our packaging is related on federal regulations that were cast 30 years ago. So we may have to work with our federal legislators to look at some of these health and safety packaging issues to help drive what we're going to be doing in the future. From a funding standpoint, we're at a point of potentially a perfect storm, so to speak. Every biennium, the North Central Texas Council of Governments on behalf of the TCEQ actually administers a grant program. The source of the funding is actually our landfill tipping fee. Every ton of garbage that comes across the scale, 94 cents of that actually goes to the state to help fund state processes, but part of that goes back into a fund to help put back into the community to help define grants that will help manage source reduction, and part of what one of the eligible -- or actually two of the eligible categories include solid waste management, planning, and technical studies. Again, you know, this strategy actually falls within both of those two, so we feel fairly confident that we would actually be able to win one of these grants if it was applied for. Each of the grants that we can apply for is up to $200,000 per project. We anticipate that the funding for this would be in the $100,000 range. Save for that, if we're not successful in getting funding from the North Central Texas Council of Governments, we would be coming forward mid-year for a solid waste budget amendment to help fund this. From a timing standpoint, this will be about an 18-month process. Part of it is dictated by the grant funding cycle, and part of it is just dictated by the amount of effort that's going to go into this. The grants are due to the COG in January, and they will take about two or three months to actually evaluate and award these, so it will not be until about the beginning of Q2 that North Central Texas Council of Government is in place to actually start contracting with eligible agencies that were successful in the granting opportunity. We'll know in late February whether we were successful or not. So in this six months between now and basically end of Q1, we'll go ahead and start developing our RFQ, start shopping it out on the street, getting all the front-end stuff that we need to have done so that come Q1, we can go ahead and contract with them with our funding source in line. From there, it'll take about a year for us to go back and do all the things that we had discussed. All the COG projects have to be completed by May 2021. So again, we hope to be done well before that so that we can turn in all the grant information that they need and move forward. So again, about an 18-month process from the time we hit the go button. With that, I'm here to answer any questions that you might have. This was presented to the Committee on the Environment last Monday and to the Denton City Council last Tuesday. We're going to be coming back to the Council with our RFQ or excuse me, our RFP once that's developed and then we'll get the go-forward to put that out on the street here probably in December sometime. I have a question. Yes, ma'am. On the grants, what kind of requirements are there for a report? Sometimes grants have so many requirements that it's not worth the hundred grand that you just got. Correct. And this is a little bit different. This process has been in the North Texas area now and across the state for about a dozen years. On a quarterly basis, they're basically looking for metrics that we set. So it's not anything like you have to hold on to a piece of equipment for 15 years or use it for 80 percent of the time. We define the metrics in conjunction with the Council of Governments and really it's the 2021 time period that is important for us to report those. Other questions? So the grant would cover the consultant and other expenses or just the consultant? Consultant and other expenses that we outline require to create this strategy. But mainly the consultant? Mainly the consultant and again that building process. So if we have to, I mean, let's say printing and travel and things of that nature, but if we're going to be renting a place to have a community meeting, that could go in there, things of that nature. Mr. Sopac, question? Actually, I have a comment and that is that I'm very pleased with the broad focus of this and the fact that it's proactive rather than reactive. And I applaud you for initiating this process and I hope it comes to fruition as planned. Thank you. So the results of the study will be built into the rate payers' fees, correct? From these goals, from this strategy, we'll create goals which will create programs which will define what we put on the street and what will face the rate payers. So in a very lineated way it will, but part of that, you know, once we start with the implementation, it comes to the staff to probably and again that triple point of sustainability where not only do you affect the environment and affect the people, but you also have to look at the financial piece of this and how do we do it, you know, in the least cost possible with the highest quality and customer service at the end. You don't want it ending up in the ditches. Yeah, I guess the really I was getting at is that this, the grant, is going to pay for the study and the direction for staff to take into consideration, but in the end it's we'll all be paying for whatever this costs. Correct. Okay. Mr. Brecker. On your list you mentioned that it was just a list of different areas for concern, but there's three of them that are highlighted. Is there a reason for highlighting on those three? Yes. You know, I've been the Solace Director for about six months and coming to this committee, coming to Committee on Environment, coming to Council, these are just programs that have been brought up in part of the discussion. So we wanted to highlight that yes, we've heard you, we understand that these are important, but again there's other things that will be considered as we move forward. Thanks. Other questions? Oh, all right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. The next item is the consent agenda. We have items A through C. Does any board member wish to pull one of the items? I would like to pull B. Okay. Item B? I would like to pull C. Okay. Item C. Do we have item A? Okay. Do we have a motion to approve item A? I move we approve item A. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Item B. I'd just like to hear the discussion about this. Okay. Is there someone available for item B? Yes. Good morning. Terry Nalti, Assistant General Manager at DME. I've got a quick presentation I can run you through just to give you an update of what the Black Start service is. Okay. Here's what we'll just cover real quickly. What it is and why it's needed, our role during the process, the requirements, and then benefits. So what it is, blackout is a system wide interruption of power. And here you can see in 2003 we had a major blackout in the eastern interconnect. This is what it looked like when the blackout took place. The blackout actually lasted between seven and 14 days. It took 14 days to restore power completely to all communities impacted. So in the event that we do have a failure like that in ERCOT, the Black Start units would be called on for specific service to bring the grid back online. The recovery is managed by ERCOT, who's the reliability coordinator for Texas. And the Black Start agreement is a bilateral contract between the market and a resource entity. In this case, it would be the Denton Energy Center. It is one of the few generators that has the ability to start completely front with no outside resources. So it has its own generator on site that can bring the units online to power air compressors and other critical equipment to bring the units online. The process is very coordinated with ERCOT. It defines a specific path that we have to be able to energize. And in this case, we would energize certain gas compressors because we need gas in that line to continue to burn gas. And it requires for us to staff the facility on a 24-hour basis, and that means we'll be adding two additional FTEs to bring our complement out there to, what's the total, Jason? 16 people, okay. Here's what we have to do. We had to pass a test to ensure that we were capable of providing the Black Start service. Again, as I mentioned, we have to run without any external support. We have to operate at a stable, low output and flexible levels, and then ramp up as we're called upon. We have, there's a competitive bidding process for these, so there are a number of units that have the capability to do it, and it's a declining auction. So we start at a high price, and it goes down until the lowest price no longer is willing to provide the service, and that's the price that the auction clears at. Can I ask a question? Yes. Can you explain how an external electric supply would affect the deck? I don't understand what that... So the deck is configured so that it can be completely isolated from the grid, and it can start up without any electric. So think about starting up a power plant. You have air compressors, pumps, motors, all those run on electricity. So we have a small generator out there that supplies enough electrical output to start the equipment that we need in order to start the bigger engines. It's a two-year contract. It begins in January, and we receive a standby fee for this, and the fee is to compensate us for the 24-hour availability and the equipment that's necessary in order to do the testing. So here's the fee. So the contract starts in January, and that's why you see the higher fee in the second year of the contract. We don't have a full fiscal year. We have a full fiscal year next year. We have included this revenue in the budgets, and it is curious to note that if we do have a blackout situation, the control moves from ERCOT to DME for our control area, for the city itself. And so as we power back up the grid, it's very likely that we'll be able to, which is termed island, we island the Denton and we're able to provide power here. Again it does not increase our operating hours. If it is called upon, we'll all be glad that it's there to be run, everyone in the state would. So any questions? You have a question. I'm just curious. ERCOT's a pretty big area. How many Black Star facilities do they have? I think the award, do you remember the number, Jerry? 13 units. This is a good thing in my opinion. It's something that the citizens of Denton get revenue for just being there. I commend DME for putting this together. And in a major blackout, they're the first ones with the power back on. It's a good thing. Keeping the lights on, keeping the water running. Any other questions? Thank you. Move approval. Do we have a second? All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. C. Good morning board members. Frank Pugsley, water utilities director, here to answer any questions you've got about the RPR phase services contract for free syndicals. So this is an amendment to a 2017 contract and the amendment amounts to almost a third of the original contract. Was there a way to predict this? The way we plan construction phase services really has to start after we have the design or near completion. We have been negotiating this with free syndicals since about February or April I believe, but we're just taking the construction contract today on the IC and then to council tomorrow. And this actual, their RPR phase actually covers two construction contracts. The Lake Louisville phase two improvements as well as the Lake Louisville treatment plant dewatering improvements. So their personnel will be our eyes and ears and inspector on the ground for both of those contracts, which total about 23 million. Would it have made any sense to predict this in the original contract or does it make more sense to just kind of keep adding amendments? It's since this contract, you know, the design phase runs about a year and there's lots of scoping items that occur. We could make some estimates in the outset, but it'd be difficult to really hit a good target number. We'd end up taking a larger, probably conservative fee to be approved up front. I was just really surprised at the amount of the amendment compared to the one and two. Well, those were small design amendments and this one is someone to basically be a resident at their water treatment plant for I think 18 months essentially. Yeah. No, I was just, I was just curious about the amount. Sure. No, no problem. Thank you. Yes. Just what, what, what do they do to hopefully keep zebra mussels under control? In this project, we are adding zebra muscle control at both raw water intakes and we are installing a copper ion generators. So they will put a very low dose of copper ion into the raw water line to make it uncomfortable for the zebra mussel larva to attach to the pipe. So they run on an intermittent basis, kind of a pulse basis to stop them from attaching. Does it work? This is, yes, it works. The copper concentration is something that zebra mussels don't particularly like. And there are other utilities that are installing this same technology as we speak. I come from up north where zebra mussels are everywhere. And the last time I was talking to a biologist up there, they were like, the only way I've killed them is boiling them. They can, if you've got something that, that works, that's a, that's a good thing. Yeah, I think like Tarrant Regional Water District has been doing a pilot study on this and they've seen success. Since the lakes have had zebra mussels, they had a kind of a peak and they've kind of subsided. We haven't really seen too much impact lately, but we want to be prepared so that we don't end up with a problem in the future. All right. Do we have a motion to approve? Oh, I'm sorry. I've almost forgotten my question. I remember when these came on board and there was a public awareness. Are we doing, are we continuing on about telling people that use their boats to check, do whatever's necessary to make the public involved in this? Right. We rely primarily on Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and their clean, drain, dry campaign for, for boating. We should have that water plant fixed after this, you've been working on it. A lot of deferred maintenance, if I recall. Correct. This is, there is a lot, this contract, the, the primary construction contract we'll talk about in a minute is, is a lot of major maintenance at the plant. Nothing new, no new processes, major maintenance. Any other questions? Do we have a motion to approve? Move approval. And a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Next item is approval of the minutes of October 28th, 2019. Did anyone have any changes or suggestions? No. I'll move approval of minutes. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. That carries. Next item is consider recommending an adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas authorizing the expenditure of funds for payment of wholesale transmission charges in the amount of $7,219,975 and 36 cents. I have a couple of questions. Well, who's, let somebody say, oh here comes Mr. Fuentes. Tony, point to the Chief Financial Officer. I was wondering just for my own education, do you have a map that shows the location of these eight different transmission service providers, their lines, their substations and so forth? I'm sure we do. I don't have it with me today. Could we get that or can you give me a link or something? Absolutely. Okay. Another question, it says that in the agreement here that DME is going to be going to receive payment from other people for their distribution. Who do you have that you provide other distribution services for? So any investment the city makes on any improvements for its transmission service in our service territory then gets allocated out as well to all the other recipient organizations and then those payments come back to us through ERCOT and so there's a netting that occurs. I know that there's been some questions that the PB has had about T COAS and so our plan is to come back to you in November, later in November or December when we provide you an update on the budget and also give you kind of a T COAS 101 and kind of go through that process at that time. That'd be good. I just have one question comment with respect to this. It's very possible I missed it. I'm assuming this is for last fiscal year, the true up, the seven million dollar expenditure. No those are for this current fiscal year. For this current fiscal year. These are payments that we're going to be making this fiscal year. Okay. I looked for some kind of a dating to say this seven million dollars applies to this period of time and it didn't find it. If it's not there it seems like it would be a good idea to clarify that. Okay. But in looking through the city packet and the ordinance itself I didn't see where it referred to a specific period of time. I assumed it was for last fiscal year. It sounds like it's budgeted for this coming, this current fiscal year. Correct. These are payments that we're going to be making in the current fiscal year. Correct. But for services provided during what period? No it's for investments that were made probably in previous years and so there's a number of investments that are made that are amortized over a 20 or 30 year period and so that's what these payments reflect is investments that were made in previous years that are now going to be recouped going forward. That we need to pay for. Yes. But this expenditure applies to usage during the current fiscal year? It's not it's not usage it's an investment in capital that was made and it's a return on that capital investment. The transmission cost of service. Yes. So it's. Microphone please. Historically what happens is as transmission companies provide investment to the transmission grid that's authorized by ERCOT those chargers are then we term peanut buttered across the entire market and so it's the load ratio share of our component it's 0.5 percent of the total cost annual cost of the total transmission system in ERCOT so in each fiscal year the reason why we forecast this is nothing new comes in this year it would have came in last year so we're paying for costs that were incurred last year and prior to that over a 20 year period 30 year period any new investments that are made would be recurred recouped in the following year. Got it. Are these calculations made based on megawatt hours in the current fiscal year or are they based on physical dollar expenditures? It's it's actually um. I mean obviously it's to recoup the capital from prior years I get that. So it's supposed to. I'm just talking about how the calculations how we come up with the seven million dollars net. So that's actually calculated by ERCOT it's a it's our rate load ratio share of the total operating and fixed cost expenses including debt and interest expense for the entire transmission grid in ERCOT. Got it. Load ratio share for what period of time? For the year. So the load ratio. For the current fiscal year? The prior year. For the prior year? Yeah. Okay so this is based on what we used in a prior year. Yeah the actual load ratio share is calculated based on our contribution to the what's called the four CPs the four coincident peaks that occurred through the last fiscal year. Got it. Okay. Other questions? Motion to approve. So moved. I second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Next item is consider recommending adoption of an ordinance for the city of Denton a Texas Home Rule Municipal Corporation authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with Archer Western Construction for the construction of Lake Louisville water treatment plant phase two improvements providing for the expenditure of funds therefore and providing an effective date award the Archer Western Construction LLC and not to exceed amount of fifteen million five eighty eight eight eighty. Thank you. Good morning again. Frank Pugsley water utilities director. Just a brief recap on this project we bid this project previously in the year and the base bids came in above our budgeted amount so we broke it up into multiple ad alternates with a base bid and based upon the bid we received again from the original contractor Archer Western was the only one to bid the first time and as well as the second time even though we tried to solicit additional local qualified contractors we were going to select the base bid which is the major maintenance items at the Lake Louisville water treatment plant the two chemical facilities and zebra muscle control at the Ray Roberts intake and the Lake Louisville intake as well as select bid alternate a two which is improvements to the Lake Louisville raw water intake structure the we have two levels of intake at Lake Louisville and the lower intake is currently silted in and we're going to clear that up and provide some siltation protection so that we can have that access to the lower water in the event we experience a severe drought in the future some of that scope like we mentioned is a new electrical building and electrical improvements for the plant currently all the electrical equipment is inside the original building that was constructed in the 50s it's tight and it's constrained and there's no way to upgrade or repair any electrical equipment and keep it under current codes replacing the treated water meters the large diameter meters that measure how much water we're sending to the distribution system that will help us tighten up our water audit making drainage improvements around the clear wells just to prevent standing water there replacing large valves as valves age they get more difficult to operate and it's difficult for our staff to maintain and replace very large valves some major maintenance on the high service pumps the pumps that actually send water to the distribution system and an extensive amount of basically structural preservation and maintenance as concrete ages it does develop cracks and surface deficiencies that we're going to again to take care of under this contract and Archer Western as I mentioned was the the one bidder we received we reviewed the bids and feel that the prices is is a fair price and additionally alternate a2 we find to be much cheaper than some of the other contractors we discussed that piece of the project with it's our understanding that Archer Western currently has a barge on Lake Louisville and so this would probably be the cheapest time we'll ever get these intake modifications done without having to have someone mobilize a new barge in the future I think they're about half the cost of what we had heard from other contractors we're discussing the project with and there's a site map we will be at three locations stretching north to south across the city entertain any questions you may have I have a question about the motor control centers yes sir you're installing a new motor control center or more than one we're constructing a new electrical building to house new motor controls for the pumps all the large pumps okay do you have 4160 volt motors or are they all 480 volt or you know I don't have that information on the big I believe we're running 480 at that plan I know we have some 4160s at Ray Roberts but I think the way the Louisville plan is set up it's all 480 I was just curious why there was only one bid because the 15 and a half million dollars and I know a little bit about motor control centers a lot of people it's almost a commodity anymore the cubicles and the motor starters and that kind of stuff what we're seeing right now in especially the water and wastewater utility construction industry in north Texas is there is so much work that the contractors aren't really that eager to bid and provide construction services on all of the projects that are going on there's a lot of projects going out there from our other similar utilities are only getting one or two bids as well it's just the market is so flush with work the contractors don't have to try very hard at the moment and the 15 and a half million dollars that includes the relays and motor starters and so forth inside the cubicles or not it's a full new electrical facility to house all of the electrical distribution and motor control equipment for the pumps all of the old equipment is obsolete we can't you can't obtain parts for the old equipment anymore okay other oh you're done with it mr cheek just a follow-up question with that also I noticed that you mentioned the ll you uh included the llc members I wasn't clear as to why that was oh that's a council direction council has requested that whenever uh anyone coming to be awarded a contract that is an llc we are required to provide the members of the llc okay archwestern is such a big company that's why I was pretty interesting it's transparency all right other questions do we have a motion to approve move approval second all in favor say aye aye motion carries okay I'm not going to read this whole one um next item is uh consider recommending adoption of ordinance the city of denton regarding well right-of-way construction and other things is that that's fully legal looking for my icon here you know what I can do this all right well I'm pulling this up um good morning my name is Hayley Salazar and I'm with the traffic engineering department at the city of denton and here we go sure all right and so I'm here today as part of our efforts to move forward in the adoption of article two the construction portion of a new comprehensive right-of-way ordinance and so as a city our main priority has always been to ensure the safe travel of pedestrians and vehicles in our right-of-way and that includes during times of construction but currently we lack the tools we need to make sure that that happens um we've been operating under uh what you see here this is our current um article two not only is it not very robust but it's lost some of its relevance since it was created over half a century ago as we all know dentons changed quite a bit since the 60s um as have the players in our right-of-way and the technology we use to track and monitor the activity in our right-of-way so what we're proposing to do is repeal this right here and replace it with this much more robust article two you see to the left um and this is also much more relevant and I want to be really clear though that we are just talking about the construction in the right-of-way so boots on the ground backhoes barricades that's what we're talking about right now we're not talking about um storefronts or patio furniture walkability within our right-of-way that's a different portion of the right-of-way ordinance that we're going to get to at a later date um but a little bit about the methodology that we use to draft the right-of-way ordinance in order to save time and money we sought out other texas cities who had recently been through the exercise of adopting successful right-of-way ordinances and we took the parts that were relevant to the city of denton and used that as our foundation and then of course went through extensively to ensure it was cohesive and part of this ordinance to give us the authority we need to enforce the rules um does include fees but once again we did not do this in a vacuum we sought out other cities um as a yardstick with which we set our fees by and so the next steps are we hope to move forward and adopt this so that it's in place by the first of the year so do we have any questions questions could you show that previous slide again please yes can you give an example of the situation maybe that brought this to a head that you felt like you needed to change the ordinance absolutely um oh okay um there was over by the central fire station off of mulberry we had planned construction in the right-of-way um i forget the intersection but it was a planned activity we knew was going on to improve our infrastructure okay so stormwater of the sycamore and there was unplanned activity also in the right-of-way farther farther down but mulberry was that was that a franchise utility or that was the unplanned is that what you would refer to unplanned so we have this occur all the time construction going on right away several things happen all at one time one we don't know about it because it was a vertical construction project somebody forgot that that might have to tie into water which then has to get out across the sidewalk and into the street and you start tearing up all those components the example that hayley's referring to is kind of the perfect storm we were out there working on a project on sycamore we had sycamore shut down we were doing stormwater improvements to the system at the exact same time nctc started going to construction on both the their building the building of the old dental chronicle building and then the parking structure that's on the other side of mulberry so they're right across the street from each other they shut down mulberry so the segment of mulberry they shut down is the back entrance to the fire station they have a large crane sitting out there so what our ordinance allows us to do today is it says i as a city engineer can go out there and say would you please move your equipment you're in the way and you didn't ask for a permit and if you don't move i'll be back here tomorrow and i'll ask you to do the same thing again and then somewhere down the line would you finally move i'll send you a bill for any damages potentially you made to the right-of-way the only teeth we have to that is that if it's over 500 you can pursue it in court that's really the limit of what our current ordinance allows us to do what the proposed ordinance will allow us to do is in the event something like that happened that person for doing any kind of work within the right-of-way or that company would have to go get a permit if they don't get a permit it gives the city real teeth to be able to say you don't have a permit you must stop all activities within the right-of-way till you get a permit and until you get a permit you're going to pay a fee or a fine per day so in this case where they were right behind the fire station it wouldn't be just a an inconvenience in the right-of-way which would be up to 500 this is more a safety and welfare concern so it'd be uh be something we could potentially go up to two thousand dollars a day and if you ignored us then we'll come back tomorrow and we'll give you another one and another one until at some point it does have enough teeth that you're ready to quit and you say this happens all the time all the time yes and we find out about it through various means it's important yes so and part of what we're trying to do is have a mechanism for keeping tabs on where everything is right question what kind of turnaround time do you would you expect between the time contractor applies for a permit and your granting of the permit depends on the type of permit so there are a variety of types of permits this would apply for city utilities as well as it would to anybody else turnaround time can be is very quick depending on what is they're doing if they're just going out there to say turn a valve or do some kind of modification to what they have in in place that we could turn around in a day or less depending on what it is other types of things where they're going to be in the right away for longer where it might have more impact to the right away say they're shutting down an entire lane or the entire roadway then we would go through a process of reviewing what their plans are making sure that we understood the impact to the transportation network that could be five to ten days depending on how extensive their application is go ahead berber you described that a lot of times this happens when you get into one thing and then something else happens it's an emergency yes you don't know about it and so pre-planning might not have been possible and there's provision in here for those emergency scenarios if there is an emergency that crops up we understand that happens i mean atmas has issues or we have a leak in a line we're not saying don't go do it go take care of it but as soon as you get it under control come get a permit we're not going to find anybody for taking care of emergency work there is provision within the ordinance that allows them to go do the work you need to do just come back and get that permit as soon as you possibly can so because typically they're doing other things you fix the problem now i've got to start putting the asphalt back or the concrete back and they're going to be back out there a little bit longer than that and what kind of public outreach are we going to do so that they know this is changing and they start being a little more proactive i think hayley can address that probably better than i can but we have been through a process of making sure we reach out to franchise utilities to the development community folks know this is coming it's this has not been done in a vacuum we actually talked about this for the first time with council in its draft format in february so they knew where we were in that process and then we spent the last seven eight months going through revisions as we got feedback from the utilities good enough telling me to know could you explain the barricade fee a little more what exactly is that barricade fee it's actually a deposit on our end so if you look at the other cities that we're comparing against they have actual fees we're charging a deposit with the intent of returning the deposit and it's just an incentivization to remove the barricades in a timely manner so that's why it looks a bit higher than what you see with san antonio is that a 500 deposit per project or per barricade per project per project if a project has four requires four barricades the cost is 500 deposit is that true yes what about the other cities i'm asking because i don't know how they do this they charge per square foot what does that mean so that's typically per square foot of what you've shut down in the right away so if you've taken up a thousand feet and it's 12 foot wide that's what's under construction and you've blocked off they're going to charge you by square foot for that area you're basically leasing the right of way for that period of time it's a half million dollars in it it could be ouch typically it's going to be a you're not typically going to see that kind of fee for an overall construction project that's going to be a limited space our biggest problem here is really the the barricade fee where you're attempting to use it like hailey said as a means of making sure that you come get your stuff i don't know how many times you walk through the downtown area especially you look down the sidewalks there are signs there are barricades that are left and get the construction and the contractors long gone so how do we at least get them to pay attention enough to come back and get their signs when they're done sometimes what does happen is the barricade company most of your contractors will hire out to a barricade company to come set up signs and barricades for a construction zone and that barricade company may know they've got another project that's just a week or two out so they don't want to come pick up everything take it back to dallas or fort worth and then haul it right back a lot of times they will just attempt to leave it and then come pick it up when they're ready to move it to another site it seems to be it might be smart to wrap this include this in some way with your purchasing procedure to have some kind of hold back with a contract to prevent final payment until he retrieves all of his but it's not always our project yeah it's not always our project it could be a private developer and that's really where this fee is geared towards is towards the private developer mr parker you gave us the perfect storm example and i think we clearly all agree that it's a bad idea to have a crane blocking access to fire trucks to and from the fire station yeah that's kind of a no-brainer let's talk at the other end of the extreme where do you see this application fee start and again i'm a little naive on this but for instance a typical water meters are those typically located in the often located in the right away there's a lot of variability there sometimes it is in the right away just on the extreme edge of the right away so it's out of the sidewalk it's out of the roadway if you're just setting a meter you're typically not going to be getting that permit because we're even if you are it's just us knowing that you're in the right away this is really geared towards your blocking access to the sidewalk the roadway you're going to be impacting the roadway or the sidewalk in some form or fashion where people can't walk they can't move through the area okay so at the most benign if you mentioned the example of turning a valve earlier if somebody needs to turn a valve in a residential street obviously for shutting down teasley lane i agree this kind of enforcement should apply if you're talking about a residential street or a lightly traveled street or a sidewalk at what point does this kick in if you're planning on closing any lane of traffic anywhere for any period of time we need to know you're going to be there so the problem you all invariably run into is you have a vehicle out say a city vehicle it's just like a city vehicle they go out there's a valve right in the middle of the road they're wanting to do something typically you're not turning that valve just because they want to turn the valve if they're going to do that just to exercise the valve yeah that they're not even going to be there more than five minutes i mean they're going to hop out turn it and move on we're not worried about that what we're worried about is if they're really going to be there for some period of time it's going to say like a fire flow test so they may be shutting a valve here and shutting a valve here or they're shutting one valve and then turning a fire hydrant but they're closing off lanes of traffic for an hour two hours long enough that i'm probably going to be getting a phone call anyway that something's going on in the right away did you know about it today we have really no mechanism of knowing when things like that happen but they absolutely do impact people and what they're doing so are we going to catch everything probably not there will be things that happen within the right away that we'll miss but this does give us the better chance right if you're impacted for an hour by the time you make a phone call say a citizen calls i'm probably going to get out there and look at it and they're gone we're really targeting those types of things where they've shut it down to the point where you can't access your house or your business or you can't move through the corridor for hours on end this is really what we're talking about is shutting down mulberry for months and not having direct access to the backside of the fire station or i have a whole lane of traffic that's shut down for a week and a half with no cover over the top because atmas is doing some work or dme is doing something in the right away and they have a truck parked out there for four or five hours where they're trying to make adjustments in the line i need to know that's there because i absolutely am going to get phone calls about that that's why this is all in place okay i guess my concern is a local plumber needs to go shut off water to something he shuts off water he's back out of the right away in 15 minutes he does his work he goes back out he turns it on is that the kind of case that he would not be required to do a permit application fee and an annual registration fee etc it would it totally depend on what he's doing uh a lot of time valve for 15 minutes i understand it very much depends on what he's doing if he's repairing something in your house there is a valve on the back side of the meter which is on the private side of the property he's doing that work he's going to do that work and it's not permanent i mean it now if he's doing something where he's re-plumbing the house that's a whole different set of permits that typically goes through building inspections uh we're just purely talking about stuff that's in the right way it yes we do need to know but most of your contractors already know they got to go pull a permit anyway for that kind of work right pulling a permit i'm just trying to add to avoid adding a new permit to a small contractor who's trying to do a relatively small job obviously if he's shutting down a lane of street for four hours yeah you need to be involved let's be clear blocking a sidewalk for 15 minutes well let's be clear this is not a new permit this is a permit that has always been exists been in existence since 1966 as a requirement it's just we had had no teeth to enforce nor the time to enforce a lot of these things over our history so it just was the way it was the policing powers of the city right exactly it's always been there i've got a couple of questions uh i know i don't mean to imply at all that the various departments the city might not get along and argue over these things but uh does this apply to other departments in the city yes okay the mechanism by which they make the application will be a little different just because it is internal but they have to pull a permit they do today uh this but and they won't be any different okay okay and my second one was so you have public works contracts hypothetically that uh the city directs the contractor to do some work how does how might that be complicated well now you shut them down obviously you have the right to you're the owner you can shut them down but well and when you get into a large public works project like that it is a little different so much of that they're still going to pull permits but it's a longer no the permits there in the contract that's what i'm saying it's still a permit it's just a variety of it's a different variety of permit because okay the review that we go through on a capital project is very different and much more extensive since we're doing the design ourselves we're also looking through every piece well we're not physically doing our consultants designing it we're reviewing it with a fine tooth comb and then we go through the overall purchase process as well as ticket to council for awards so there's no other permit that you're going to pull in the city well i probably shouldn't say that there's probably some others there's very few permits that you'll get within the city that requires you to go to council before you ever take action out in the field every one of our construction projects absolutely does okay okay thank you oh yeah i see where where uh there were two opportunities for the public to comment on this do you have any sort of sub summary of what the results were of the public comments yes and i'll let hailey answer that because she was wrangling all of this thanks so first what we did was we brought this in front of the franchise utilities at our franchise utility meeting that we have once a month we brought that in front of them twice then later i worked with the public affairs department and we got a draft version of the ordinance online for a um two and a half week comment period every comment we got whether or not we accepted the comment or we thought well it's not really applicable we kept track of it in a comment log and then not only do we keep track of it we listed out what the action was whether or not we accepted the comment applied it or um didn't and why um then we took the draft version of the ordinance off of the website and applied all of the comments from the first round and then put it back up again for a second period of comment and repeated that exercise one other time just in case not everybody got the word that it was out the first time and then once again we combed through all those second comments and um kept that log up to date and then that's what we used to make sure everyone's voice was heard other questions it just looks like you it's a lot of good house cleaning is what you did here so it's good good job updating 50 years of something do we have a motion to approve oh and a second second all in favor say aye aye okay motion carries on to city assistant manager update good morning uh madam chair members of the board you have several uh memos in your acm update uh this morning one of those um and again we can certainly answer questions if the board has has um any certainly questions uh to those but one of those was brought up last month about the schedule for the pub and i've included a memo believe it or not it was almost exactly to the day two years ago when the request was made to to move our meetings uh to split one in the morning one in the evening and so really um it's just purely informational um we'll continue doing what we've been doing we can certainly entertain making a change it's really up to the board uh at the last meeting when i looked back at the minutes and there was no formal action it was just a work session and then you all just through consensus or the board at the time through consensus just just recommended making that change and we started that that change i believe january the first meeting in january that way finish out the year and then start the new year with that revised schedule so however you want to do it we're happy to oblige i was trying to think back who else was on the board two years ago besides me at the time we made the change you were no okay i it's you it's me it's all my fault no i saw i mean i see the reasoning yeah well this doesn't seem to have any pertinence right at the time it seemed like that would increase transparency and that we wanted people to have the opportunity if they worked that they could attend the evening meeting but it just doesn't seem to be working that way so i it's probably better we go back to 9 a.m but i i think does that impact you greatly i've got lots of vacation time i mean i i do actually have to take time off from work okay but it's i'm a good person yes okay i think probably everybody else in the room would find it more convenient yeah right i mean i do think the impact of the staff i mean i mean i know that you always say it doesn't matter but it does it does matter during work hours yeah okay well and you know as you mentioned transparency in the previous month we had included statistics regarding the the viewership these meetings and many of our board meetings are streamed live streamed they're also through the the app that you can download or through the city's website or dtv and then also as you know they're recorded so a member of the public a lot of time staff goes back and reviews the the previous meeting and its index so member of the public or really any anyone can go back and go to an item that they specifically wanted to see and i have to fast forward so it's it's fully recorded and it's uh and it's archived in that way as well and any item that we are seeking public input we would we could move it to a time period where the public could attend so my preference is to go back to 9 a.m both meetings that's okay that's fine with me all right so that being said um just if that's the wishes of the board then we would if that's okay we would make that official january january 2020 uh if you look into your uh future calendars there are no more evening meetings for november and december because of the thanksgiving and and uh christmas holiday so uh it would be effect uh come january 2020 okay so we'll start at 9 a.m for the second and fourth monday of the month okay good thank you uh in regards to the other items um again we've got staff here that can answer specific questions that you all may have there are several things on here and certainly can entertain any questions about any of these uh uh memos we've got the energy center quarterly report as requested from before uh we uh included an item here just informational just because of the timing of some contracts uh solid waste cost of service detail based on the reduction in rates um and then of course we've got the future agenda items and then new business and i believe the new business a lot of those things and again we can get direction from the board can either come off because some are being answered through the solid waste management study that's about to uh we're about to embark upon uh we can leave it on the matrix if you would like or we can bring it up or we can take it off and then bring it back forward uh bring it up again whenever uh those results come back from that study so it's really the wishes of the board however you would like to do that well i know it was mr solfe's request so i'd really look to him how comfortable he is taking it off there and if it's going to be covered in future presentations i see no reason to keep it on yeah yeah sounds good so for the the facility tours i know most people got the tour of the solid waste water treatment is there a possibility for a recycling facilities tour to be added i would also be interested yeah we can do that uh certainly we can do a recycling tour and i believe there was a request to do a dead energy center tour as well yes so we can i think that was through email so we can certainly schedule that it's just a matter of just getting it on the schedule and potentially posting it for quorum so if that's okay uh i'll lean over to kim mankin to help coordinate schedules with board members on doing both the dead energy center tour and a tour of the recycling facility is that okay that's good so on that i think same line we talked about earlier that dme was going to do some education on t-cost and other other relationships to urcon is that going to be away from the board meeting i think more of an orientation to the budget process okay it would be through the budget process if that's okay it would be but we can also do a work session if you'd like to do it ahead of time it's just it seems like it ought to be an orientation and not part of the board meeting i would agree with that it it's hard to ask informal questions when you're on tv and you have a posted agenda if the objective is learning and continuing education and getting the board up to speed i think i understand we want to stay away from public meetings oh no we want to stay in public meetings well stay in public meetings we want to stay away from illegal public meetings and we would still have to post that as a quorum so i guess really if if we have four i believe mr four more members of the board present at anything is going to be posted our preference would always be that it get videoed so i mean i think the end of the day it's just if you want to do it with smaller numbers we can certainly do that it just requires more scheduled meetings but um regardless it's going to be done in this room we can do it in another facility but it would just require the the videoing minute taking agenda posting etc etc so is there not an education continuing education available if requested i mean if he wants to meet with someone by himself for an hour or two people be fine absolutely yeah okay yeah we'll anyway we can do that to help educate board members uh about the intricacies of our various utility system we'd love to do that i mean we can do it all in in a session like this work session we can do it privately it's just really your preference but honestly and i'm not so sure some of that isn't appropriate to be public because we want the public to understand too sure so but i understand that you'd want some detailed questions asked too i i understand that we can do we can do it however you would like so if we would like to do it privately we can do that as well okay in addition yeah all right i think that brings us to concluding items is there a board member that wishes to have anything added to the future agendas okay not at this time do we have motion to dismiss adjourn all right we're adjourned