>> Okay, it's 9 o'clock.
We do have a quorum, so we'll call the Denton Public Utilities Board
of Monday, January 27th, 2020 to order.
The first -- oh, we're going to have a change in the agenda.
We're going to move the closed meeting to the end of the agenda.
It will allow for the staff that doesn't need to be here to leave.
So the first item is receive a report and hold a discussion
and give staff direction regarding the pay as you go prepaid metering program.
Oh, there you are.
>> Good morning.
I'm Krista Foster with customer service, Madam Chair, board members.
Thank you for allowing me to be in this morning.
This work -- some of you will be a little bit of a recap.
This is a presentation we brought in August and then we're taken from the council agenda.
So I'm coming back in to bring in some updates.
So all we're doing is looking at the pay as you go prepaid metering program.
A basic overview of the program is it is open to all customers with electric service and an AMI meter.
We require a $50 service prepayment that just pays for their first several days of service.
When they start the program, they can certainly -- customers can pay more if they choose to do so at that time.
The highlights of benefits for the customer are there are no deposits.
There are no late fees or interest.
We have no delinquency fees.
So if a customer is interrupted, they're restored for simply their outstanding balance,
whatever they went into the negative, plus a $25 prepayment to ensure that their service isn't scheduled
for interruption within the next several days after that.
We also offer a debt recovery portion.
So if a customer does have outstanding previous debt with the city, they can pay a portion of that debt
and we can place the rest into an account like what you see on the screenshot, the unpaid balance of $44.
That would be a debt recovery amount.
So when a customer makes their payment, 25% of the payment they make goes to help pay that outstanding balance.
So it allows the customer a little more flexibility in taking care of past due balances without the financial burden being all at once.
>> Can we -- excuse me, can we turn off the lights right in front of the screen or not?
>> Does that make it a little bit better?
>> That's better.
>> Yeah, and any of the screenshots that you see are actual pieces of information
like the customer would be able to see as they're on the program.
So what happens is each day the customer will receive a deduction from their prepaid balance
to reflect their actual electric cost and the prorated -- not prorated, but the spread out cost
of all of their set services and their most recent water consumption.
And then they also receive usage and balance alerts.
I'm also a customer for our prepaid program.
Every morning at 10 a.m. I receive a push alert on my phone that shows me my current balance
in my prepaid account.
I can click on it, go in and see more detail about any of those transactions.
Benefits for the customer is if that customer has a deposit on file, we are going to apply
that to any balances that they may have and/or prepayment toward their pay as you go service.
If the customer is scheduled to pay a deposit or has been interrupted and would require additional deposit,
we would not require that as they move into the pay as you go program.
It helps them to manage some of that debt accrual so that they're not always paying in arrears.
You're now caught up.
You have no outstanding balances and you're always paying forward.
So without the late and delinquent fees, it allows all of the funds that that customer is paying
to actually be toward the cost of their services.
And it helps them with increased conservation awareness.
When you can see each day the dollar impact of your electrical usage,
it helps you be able to manage those costs more effectively.
For the city, it decreases our financial burden to our customers
by allowing the removal of those deposits.
And it helps the customers get out of debt while not helping the city to accrue greater amounts of debt.
So it helps us to control debt growth while allowing the customers to be debt free.
So we have two primary customer bases.
The first is customers who are needing financial flexibility.
The customer may be on a set income.
They may have inconsistent paydates.
They may need to just be able to pay small amounts more frequently than a one time a month large payment.
The second are people who are worried about consumption of electric usage.
They want greater control over how they're using their electricity and they're wanting to do things with conservation in mind.
So as an example for a customer who needs a little more financial flexibility, an actual customer who was being disconnected for past due balances,
in order for that customer to have restored, it would have been almost $700.
The customer still would have had current charges that would have been due within the next month.
And they still have unbilled consumption that would have been billing before the next payments were due.
In order to get that customer on in a much more cost effective manner,
that customer is able to move to prepay for a payment of $50.
The $50 payment will give them service for about three to five days,
which if necessary gives the customer time to come up with additional funds to be able to keep moving forward.
They had a deposit that we were able to apply to their outstanding balance and the remaining portion of their bill could be placed in debt recovery.
So instead of a $700 outstanding balance that would have to be paid in order to restore, that customer could restore for as little as $50.
For our consumption conscious customers, you're actually going to be able to see charts that give you your actual daily electric cost with the high and low temperature for the day.
So it helps you to better forecast what your costs may be.
It helps you to better see changes that you've made today.
How does that impact my bill tomorrow?
So it gives more realistic meaning to what you're doing in your home.
So you guys will have a little bit of a benefit because I was here with July 1st results and now we can see what's happened as of January 1st.
As of January 1st, we have 563 customers.
We have been able to take for those customers in place $117,000 into debt recovery and have already regained 66% of that at $77,000.
For customers who have refunded deposits, we've refunded $84,000 in deposits and not required $147,000 in either new or additional deposits for those customers.
The average customer at 70% of our customers are debt free in less than 60 days, so it helps them to be able to get ahead.
When we came in July, the difference of what we've seen since July, we've added 205 customers to the program.
We've added $46,000 to that total of debt, but we've collected $48,000 of the outstanding debt that's been in recovery.
And just since July 1st, between refunded and deposits not required,
we've saved customers $113,000 in deposits without increasing risk to the city.
What we have going on is we have the postpaid electric usage monitoring.
I know when I was here in August, I brought some basic information about that.
We were still doing some test piloting.
That has been concluded.
We now have 98 customers who are on a postpaid account that have set up with the My Usage so they can log in.
And daily, they can see their electric consumption with the high and low temperatures.
They only see that in a kilowatt hours because they are not billed in that program.
So it's a little less impactful than being able to see it in a dollar amount.
But it's still very useful information for those customers who prefer to stay in a postpaid environment.
We are moving toward having a full public push later this spring.
We also are still finishing up the testing on the Pay Near Me program.
Pay Near Me is a partnership that we have so that a customer can go into their prepaid account,
look for local area businesses like a CVS or a 7-Eleven,
where they can make a cash payment that will post real time to their Pay As You Go account.
So if they need to make a payment on the weekend, in the middle of the night,
maybe it's a college kid that realized, I'm going to be short, hey mom, who's in New York.
Mom can go to that same CVS or Walgreens or whatever in New York and post that payment real time to the account.
Then finally, we're looking at creating an educational video library to help customers be able to see some of the changes
and see how things work within the program so that they can take better control of their account.
We're still working on those right now.
We've created a couple of walk-through paper guides that we have on our website to allow customers that information.
And with that, I'll take any questions.
>> Questions?
>> I'm assuming that your customer service representatives will be trained in all this and be able to explain it to--
>> Yes, they already are and have been.
>> Okay, okay.
>> Yeah.
>> If I can make an observation, in this morning's newspaper, Denton Record Chronicle, there's a letter to the editor.
I don't know if anybody's seen it.
This person was upset because he had to mail his DME bill payment to Dallas.
So I just tell you this because I think the educational aspect of this will be very valuable
because there's still folks who think that they have to mail it in and it goes through Dallas
and then why doesn't it just go to Denton?
I mean, it's really silly, but this sort of thing will dispel a lot of this misinformation.
>> Yeah. We will work on continuing with that.
I think right now, 35-- more than 35% of our customers are actually on electronic billing,
but we do still have a lot of customers who resort back to that paper.
>> Thanks.
>> What's the relationship between the electric bill and the water bill?
>> So currently, we allow AMI-- we have AMI meters for the electric services,
but water meters are still read manually once a month.
So we can't give you an update on your daily water usage unless we had somebody physically read your meter every day.
So the water usage, what happens is we look at it today and when we get your read
and see what you used last month, we set your daily average for the next month based on that
and charge you as of 30 days.
So we do at the end of a month, we do what's called reconciliation.
And in reconciliation, I'll actually show you a little bit about that.
With reconciliation, we actually true up the account.
So your solid waste, your drainage, your waste water, those are set fees.
So in order to do your proration for each day, we say, "Oh, your next month of service is going to cost X dollars."
We divide it by 30 and that's what you're charged each day.
At the end of the month, if that billing cycle was only 28 days, you overpaid.
If that billing cycle was 32 days, you underpaid.
If your water consumption, you used a little less or a little more water,
then we have to kind of balance that out and we'll true that up.
If the cost of your reconciliation is greater than $10, then we're going to give you a call
and give you an option to either have it deduct from your balance or we'll place that into debt recovery
so you can just pay it out through the next month.
>> But that's part-- the $50 prepayment is-- goes towards water as well.
>> Correct, correct.
So each day, as you can see over here, the miscellaneous charges,
miscellaneous charges will generally show you what your prorated is and it's the same every single day.
When we do a reconciliation-- oh, when we do--
>> You need to get closer to the mic.
>> Sorry about that.
When we do the reconciliation, the miscellaneous charges for that day will increase or decrease slightly,
but the miscellaneous charges cover all of those set fees and your water service.
>> Okay.
>> Charlie.
>> What's the cost of this program?
Briefly, I know it's--
>> Sure.
>> You're talking about the cost of it to the city.
>> What does the city spend on?
>> The-- actually, the facility fee for being on the Pay As You Go program is about $7.35 a month higher,
which covers the cost of their enrollment fee to the program as well as the increased levels
of communication for the program.
>> So there's a $7.50 additional charge to the customer to participate.
>> It's part of the regular--
>> Does that cover the city's cost of implementing this program?
>> It does.
>> Thank you.
>> It does.
>> Any questions?
All right.
Thank you.
>> You're welcome.
Thank you.
>> And I think I saw Phil did make it.
Okay. All right.
So our second item is to receive a report and hold a discussion
and give staff direction regarding updating the existing Denton Municipal Electricity Energy
Risk Management Policy.
>> Is this closed session?
>> No.
>> Okay.
We'll hold the report session.
>> Good morning.
My name is Philip DePastina and I'm a risk control analyst at DME.
I'm here to provide an update on our energy risk management policy.
Just by way of background, the energy risk management policy is the set of internal rules
that DME uses to manage the acquisition and manage the risk
that go with buying energy for our retail customers.
It was last updated in May of 2019 and our current risk policy requires that we come annually
in January to review and provide updates to the policy for the PUB and council.
And just for your information, since it was last updated in May,
we've hired an outside consultant which is Deloitte to provide feedback and review our policy
and some of the comments that are proposed recommendations
that we're making will be reflected in that.
The main change in this version of the risk policy is the incorporation of a hedge plan.
The last version required that the EMO develop a hedge plan.
And since May, they have and they presented it to the risk committee in September
and they approved it and we've added a summary of that plan to this policy in Appendix F.
And going along with that, we've made some changes to the energy transaction limit tables
in Appendix B to reflect those changes.
A few other changes we've made to this risk policy is we've added a list of key risks
or key objectives in Section 1.2.
We've proposed some greater flexibility in scheduling meetings
and providing a report to the council.
In the current version of the risk policy, there's a requirement
that an outside consultant provide a quarterly benchmark analysis of the EMO and their activities.
And Deloitte said this is far more frequent than their clients or--
than they usually do with their clients and they recommended a health check every three to five years
as being a little bit more appropriate.
We've updated the list of responsibilities for the three groups that work together as the EMO.
They provide checks and balances to each other and we've updated the list of their responsibilities
and the-- clarified the supervisory responsibility for each group.
We've made some clarifications to how these three groups interact with each other to document
and record the energy transactions that we execute.
We've updated the credit limit section to reflect our current practices.
We've updated the reports and the organizational-- org chart to reflect current job titles
and operating structure and reporting structure.
And finally, we've got in Appendix A, a list of the risks that the EMO is trying to manage.
And to that list, we've added deck outage risk.
And I believe later today, you'll receive a report on some preventive maintenance programs we have
to try to better manage that outage risk.
We've added some language talking about the risk that goes with renewable energy
and the uncertainty in when it actually gets delivered as well as the impact on the ECA account
of changes in market prices and the seasonality of DME load
and renewables and resources delivery patterns.
Now with that, we-- in the package that I've-- we provided you today is a red line
of all the changes no matter how minute we've made to the risk policy and I'd be happy to go
into any of those or answer questions you have or receive any feedback you might have for us today.
>> The light keeps coming on.
Could you check and make sure that the mic is active?
>> Is there a button?
>> Okay. No?
>> No.
>> Still on.
Okay. Questions?
Yes, I have a question about the frequency of doing a health-- economic health check.
I think you said Deloitte recommended you extend that to a period of 3 to 5 years or review.
It seems to me that the energy markets change pretty quickly
and a lot can happen in even 2 years.
Did you have any back and forth about that frequency?
I mean if we wait 5 years to have another look at this,
the whole world can be different significantly than it was 5 years ago.
>> Good question.
We actually generate reports every day and the kind of health check they're talking
about is reassessing whether the way we measure our risk is still appropriate.
The way we-- the kinds of risks we have and how we're managing them doesn't change every day.
It's the kind of absolute market impact of those.
And so, they say that most of their clients have them come in
and review the overall framework they're using about every 3 to 5 years.
>> So, it's the overall risk management plan not the day-to-day or quarterly economic?
>> That's correct.
>> I have another question.
Can you give us an example of some kind of a procedural violation that was reported
by the middle office each quarter?
Are there any?
I mean there's language in there that talks about violating procedure.
Does that happen?
What's an example of that instance?
>> An example would be one of the requirements is that the people
that execute trades report them by 5 o'clock on the day they've executed them.
And we've had a few times when they've done it late in the day and they haven't notified me
until the next morning.
That's about the only violations that I've seen in the 5 years that we've been doing this program.
>> And it also mentions-- discusses disciplinary action.
Was there any disciplinary action taken in 2019?
>> No.
>> Another question.
Can you give me an example of an actual stress test that was used in 2019?
Stress tests are modeling our-- taking our models and putting extreme assumptions on them.
So to answer the question of what would the rate impact be if natural gas prices tripled
or if the Denton Energy Center broke and wasn't able to run during July and August of the year.
So those are the kind of stress tests we do just to see if things went really bad,
how bad would they go and develop a plan for how we'd mitigate those risks.
Not that anything did happen.
>> I'm curious who is in-- who originates these sequence series of events, these what if scenarios?
How often does that happen?
How often do you have people conceiving of situations that may develop?
Yes.
>> Good morning.
Terry Nolte, NEME.
To answer your question, we-- every year when we do our budgets,
we run a number of scenarios looking at all the variables that we have.
So that would be high and low gas price cases, high and low electric price cases,
outage rate analysis to see what the impact to the portfolio might be
if we had forced outages of the deck at inconvenient times.
Those are run annually as part of the budget process.
We do update them and run them periodically just within the EMO.
It's not something that we normally share with risk management with the middle office
but it can be done at any time.
The risk committee has the authority to request it at any time and in the quarterly reports
with the risk committee, we do keep them up to date on changes in market conditions
and we would, if we saw a big change in a market parameter,
provide that analysis to the risk committee at that time.
We also have ongoing the work with Deloitte.
They are currently assessing, completing an assessment
of the last actually the calendar fiscal year '17-'18 and the comprehensively looking
at how we manage the EMO, whether we comply with every risk policy that we have
and so we are doing these kind of health checks and risk assessments periodically.
It's just a part of the business that we do on a day-to-day basis.
>> So I think I heard you say there's probably a dozen
or so different stress tests that you run annually, maybe in that neighborhood.
>> Well, we run, I think the number of variables that we have
in our equation is 75 or 72 variables.
So we'll run various stress tests on those.
Again, during the budgeting process, we're just coming on up to that budgeting process now.
You recall a couple weeks ago when we were before you, we had an item
which was an advanced forecasting model.
That model will give us the ability to do these stress tests in real time
and it will run automatically every day so that we can see what the distribution
of potential outcomes would be during these market upset conditions.
>> Charlie, did you have some questions?
>> I do. One little one on B3, it looks like you talk about consumer risk tolerances
and in the policy it says a consumer risk tolerance in excess of 1% per kilowatt hour outside
the 12-month rolling average.
I'm not sure how one measures a tolerance.
I'm wondering if that's a rate impact or assumed rate impact, but not a question,
just a note for some time.
And then my question is if you go to B51, the transaction limits,
you've got the city manager with a limit of greater than three years.
Does that mean that he can't engage in a hedge transaction less than three years
or is that a typo?
>> That's the length of the--
>> Yeah, everyone else is up to a month, up to a week, up to a year, up to three years
and then the city manager is-- his limit is greater than three years of term of a hedge.
>> Okay. I think that might be a typo.
>> Okay.
>> I'll confirm that.
>> That just seems odd to me that he would have to hedge for a term at least three years.
>> I believe it's for more than--
>> Not more than three years.
>> Yes. If it's more than three years, we'd have to go to the city manager for approval.
That's what it's intended to say.
>> So, it shows no limit for the council and then it shows greater
than three limit-- three years for the city manager.
So, it seems like a typo to me or you wouldn't have a limit that he has
to hedge at least a certain length if he's in the supervisor.
So, that seems weird.
>> We'll clarify that.
>> The other question I had was on the volume limits.
I'm not sure I know exactly what they mean but if we're talking about 30 million megawatt hours
for the city manager and you're assuming let's grab a price of $20 per megawatt hour,
would that be-- he would be allowed 30 million times 20,
is that $600 million worth of notional principle that he could?
That seems like an awful lot of--
>> It appears that you did your reading.
Sorry, I'll never do it again.
>> No, it's a great question actually and we put the volume limits in it.
The volume limits were not in the plan prior to this year.
>> Okay.
>> And the issue there is without putting a volume limit for each level of authority,
there's effectively an open-ended amount of volume that could be done.
So, the reason why the numbers are-- appear to be high, you have to remember
that we're managing the portfolio with various-- we call them trade books.
So, we're buying the load from the market in the forward market, so three years out.
We're also selling deck and selling renewable assets into the market on a three-year basis.
So, the numbers are actually reflective of the fact that within the authority limits,
there may be a buy and a sell multiple times of that same volume.
And so, notional value, you're correct in your calculation that $20 times 60 million,
I think that's what you said, 30 million.
>> 30 million times 20 was--
>> Yeah. So, that is-- your analysis is correct but you have to remember that--
>> These are three-year and five-year and 10-year agreements.
>> Correct and they're buy and sell.
>> So, the buy and the sell would offset in terms of the risk position that we would be in.
>> I just-- I would-- would have a little concern if you've got market operations manager
and I don't know who that person is but 6 million, those numbers get enormous
if we had a-- I assume what we're trying to do is prevent a rogue trader from coming
and making speculative positions or doing something he
or she shouldn't be doing within the scope of their work.
Those seem like awfully big numbers relative to the size of the city's operation.
I understand.
>> Yeah. The market operations manager is the primary person that is doing--
[ Inaudible Remark ]
So, they need to have a significantly high enough level.
The volume limits are here just for the purpose that you've mentioned.
We don't want people to be-- we call churning trades.
So, you sell a position in the morning and you buy it back in the afternoon
and you generate a positive income or a gain in that trade
and the next day you do the same thing and you have a loss
and the next day you do the same thing and you have a gain.
We're not in the business of speculating.
We're in the business of hedging and managing risk.
So, that is exactly why the volume limits are put in there and they were calculated based
upon our projected level of activity, trading activity in the hedge plan with a bit
of a safety margin because as you'll see or if you read through the hedge plan,
you saw there was these optimization trades as well that could increase the volumes
for the benefit of rate payers.
>> For the same-- I'm not trying to be adversarial, I'm just trying to raise concerns.
On the natural gas side, those numbers look even larger in terms
of the notional principle of the hedge.
>> And that's because of the term.
>> It's a longer term.
>> Long term gas hedge is a lot of volume.
>> Okay. I was seeing notional principles of like 450 million which, again,
I realized that reversing trades--
>> Yeah, you might be doing a 10-year transaction or something to get to those levels.
>> And I think this one may be for you as well.
I noticed on the work charts that it looks like everything kind of eventually runs
at the city manager level, the front office, the back office and the mid office all have the city manager
as being the ultimate stop for that or is it manager of DMA?
>> Well, I mean our structure is--
>> I'm sorry, DMA general manager is where all three of those.
>> Yeah, so that is--
>> Have you considered having another stop for that like the city manager or some other
if the middle office or the back office had a concern with something the front office was doing,
the highest limits go to the DME general manager and that's potentially problematic.
Is that you?
>> No.
>> Oh, okay.
>> Miss-- Tony Puente is the interim general manager.
The issue here is that because of the-- you know, it's not a vast staff of traders.
There's only a limited number of folks that are involved in commercial transactions
on a day-to-day basis in the front office.
And so because of our organizational structure, the division of responsibilities is back office,
middle office, front office.
In a large trading organization, you may have the risk management function reporting
to a different functional area but ultimately, those positions all report
up to a CEO or a general manager.
So it is consistent with what I'd say best practices are for risk management.
Does that answer your question?
Okay.
>> And the internal auditor is also someone that if someone was concerned,
they could report directly to the city's internal auditor, correct?
>> Correct.
And there is a whistleblower policy as well.
>> And he's also part of the risk management committee, isn't he?
>> Yes.
>> Official member.
>> Yes.
>> I have one question.
>> Go ahead.
>> On page 28, carbon cost, have you all run any numbers of what that might,
what that potential cost might be if carbon costs became reality?
There's quite a bit of discussion about that now.
>> We have not.
It's a little premature, we think, until we see a good paradigm, a good model
that might be used such as a carbon tax or various other market models.
It's very difficult for us to put a price on that carbon.
But certainly, it's in the policy for a reason that we want to be able to look at it when
and if it becomes a economic factor in the decisions we're making.
>> Are you familiar with the carbon fee and dividend proposal?
>> I am not.
>> Where the, I just wondered how this would fit in with something like this where,
under that program, which is getting bipartisan scrutiny, believe it or not,
the money that is collected, the tax, is redistributed through social security to the rate payers
to enable them to, first of all, pay for any increase in their rate because of this carbon fee
and also to give them a financial leg up in purchasing renewable energy.
So I think that that might be something that we would want to look at simply
because of all the things that have been out there.
That seems to be the one approach that is getting some traction
and may end up becoming policy someday.
The Citizens' Climate Lobby is the main proponent of that.
>> I'll take a look at that.
>> Yeah, thanks.
>> Appreciate that information.
I have a question about the consumer risk tolerance that's mentioned in the documentation,
and I'm trying to understand that better.
As I read it, it's defined as one cent, a change in one cent per kilowatt hour
over a 12-month rolling window time frame.
Is that what we're trying to, the whole purpose of all these hedges
and all this future stuff is to bring stability,
relative stability to the rate payers, correct?
>> That is correct.
>> And is the one cent per kilowatt hour the target we're trying to stay within?
>> There's actually two trigger levels, and I'm glad to let you speak to it, Phil.
One is we're trying to manage the ECA account within $5 million.
So when we look at the rolling 12-month average movement in the ECA account,
we're trying to manage that within plus or minus $5 million.
The second one is the one cent.
And that becomes a trigger that we would go to the risk committee with if we saw changes
in the market or poorly performing hedges that would result in a one cent.
So one cent would be little less than a 10% impact on the rate payer.
>> Other questions?
All right, thank you.
As I said earlier, we're going to move the closed session to the end of the meeting.
We're on to the consent agenda.
Does any board member wish to pull any-- oh, I'm sorry.
>> I think we were looking for your direction on that policy as well.
>> Oh, of course you were.
Well, I actually-- and I know that Billy Cheek attended a risk management meeting for me
when I was gone in September.
So we've both been pretty well informed on this.
I'm in support of it.
I--
>> Yeah, I am too.
I think staff's done a really good job of looking forward and trying to minimize our risk.
>> I think people get nervous with the word hedge.
We're not-- as Mr. Nalti said, we're not in speculation.
We're looking at our risks and trying to mitigate those through hedging.
So it's a little bit different than derivatives and hedging.
>> They're keeping-- this department is keeping their eye on the boards constantly.
>> Constantly, so other board members?
>> I'm also impressed with the effort and the-- I got involved in the details but only because--
>> You should.
>> -- it's important that I care about it.
I think they're doing great work.
>> Yes.
>> I move we approve this proposed revision.
>> I'll second that.
>> Oh, there's no action item.
They're just giving direction.
>> We'll be coming back to you in a few weeks to ask for approval.
We're going to brief the city council tomorrow.
>> And maybe the one item that wasn't too clear about where the city manager's authority lands.
>> Right, we'll take a look at that and address that.
Thank you.
>> All right, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Nalti for-- consent agenda, any board members wish to pull any items of A through F?
>> I had a quick question on A, I don't know if we need to pull it.
>> You have to pull it if you have a quick question.
>> Just a quick question.
>> No question on item F, the last one.
>> Okay. All right, so item A first.
I guess you have to be by the mic, but I was wondering what sort of gas is being extracted, is this the methane flare-off?
>> This is the landfill gas, so it's methane and other gases that are produced as the waste mass decays.
That gas is collected by DTE and then it's either run through the engine to generate electricity or flared off if there's excess.
>> So it's a mix of?
>> It's mostly methane but then there's oxygen and oxygen, carbon dioxide and other things.
>> Okay. I was just trying to get my head around what this sort of thing is coming out of the landfill.
>> Okay.
>> Thank you.
>> You're welcome.
>> I forgot to say we needed to approve items B through E.
>> I'll move approval.
Let's check it.
>> All in favor say aye.
>> Aye.
>> Motion carries.
Okay, now item A, do you wish to move approval?
>> Yes, I'll move approval of item A.
>> Second.
>> Okay. All in favor say aye.
>> Aye.
>> That carries.
Item F. That is also you.
>> Good morning, Brian Burner, Director of Solid Waste.
>> This pertains to getting the environmental approvals through the state formally, right?
>> Correct. This is for our permit modification.
>> And as I read this, this is really for continuing to hire a legal firm.
>> Correct.
>> For their interaction with the state agencies.
Is there a reason that the technical people that do these revisions can't do the same thing?
The reason I'm asking is I used to do in a previous life a lot of these permits.
>> Correct.
>> And we almost never needed a legal firm to handle the permit.
As I read what this legal company is going to do is it's going to be the interface
between the agency and the technical firm.
Is that true?
>> That is true.
And in addition, they are going to be working with the state to respond to comments and really focus
on the legal aspects of the permit, what's within state law, what's required,
moving us forward to hopefully getting our permit as we move through this process.
This is a contract that just recently expired and due to the fact that we're still working
on getting our permit expansion, all we are actually seeking is an extension of the contract.
It's not any new services, any new task, any new monetary outlay.
It's just extending the current task that they're currently --
or that they were currently contracted to do an additional 18 months.
>> I guess my question is, so this is a function that the technical --
whoever you're using to do the technical aspect of the permit, they're not able to do that as well?
>> It was not tasked within the technical piece of that to do it.
Normally when a landfill goes out to do like this, you have your technical folks that focus
on the engineering and then you have your legal team that will focus
on the legal aspect of the submittal.
>> And I had a question on this as well.
Number one, these were the people that were previously under contract to do this work, correct?
>> Correct.
>> Okay. Did you go out for bids for any additional work or --
>> No, we did not.
This -- all we're doing is looking to extend the existing contract that they have
to complete the task that are currently within that contract.
That have not been approached because we're currently entering
into the public meeting phase of this and that is task three under this contract.
It's just an additional 18 months for the services.
>> And was this already in your budget?
>> Yes.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> Is the public meeting, the TCEQ public meeting?
>> Correct.
>> Okay. Do you know when that's going to occur?
>> We do not know yet.
We're in discussions with them.
It will be sometime in the future.
We don't know how soon yet.
>> Okay. Thanks.
>> I guess my only parting comment would be you might consider
if there's a more cost effective way to use the tax money than pay these folks.
I saw the rates, $375 an hour down to 280 something an hour.
There may be some potential savings there for the taxpayers and rate payers
to get the same thing done if you approach it a little bit different way.
>> That's my only comment.
>> Okay.
>> And just one question.
I know this firm.
Who is your ramrod at the firm?
>> Jeffrey.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. Other questions?
Do we have a motion to approve?
>> I'll move approval.
>> Do we have a second?
>> I'll second.
>> All in favor say aye.
>> Aye.
>> Opposed?
>> Opposed.
>> Thank you.
>> All right. Items for individual consideration.
Consider the approval of the minutes of January 13th, 2020.
Were there any changes?
>> I will move approval but I also had one typographical.
>> Okay.
>> Dementamus.
>> All right.
>> Change that I noticed that.
So I'll move approval with the typo corrected.
>> I just have an observation that it frequently says in the minutes
that many questions were asked by the board.
I wondered in the future if there could be at least some sort
of substantive description as to what the question was and what the reply was
and I'm simply basing this on a question that I asked the gentleman last time
about electric garbage trucks.
>> Okay.
>> And his reply was that they were looking at it and I think something like that
where a commitment is made for future investigation that might come to PUB.
I think that might be in better detail than minutes.
>> All right.
>> Thank you.
>> Is that possible?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> So it's pretty much just when they've made a commitment to a question that we've--
>> Right.
>> Okay. So it's limited.
Okay.
>> I'll continue my motion to approve.
>> Okay.
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> All in favor say aye.
>> Aye.
>> Opposed?
Okay. Item B, consider recommending adoption of an ordinance.
I'm just going to make it shorter.
With Wartzella, North America for the parts and services, the DM&E.
[ Pause ]
>> Good morning.
Terry Nolte, DM&E.
I'm going to talk to you this morning about the major maintenance efforts that we have
at the DEC and the cost of parts to support that effort.
Our objectives in bringing this to you are shown here on this slide but as we know,
achieving the highest level of availability on the DEC engines is critical.
It's most critical during those high-priced hours because if we're not running the units during
those high-priced hours, we're buying from the market at that high price
without an offsetting revenue stream coming to us.
Summer readiness is absolutely critical now with low reserve margins in the marketplace.
We are expecting this summer to have the same level of volatility and price that we've seen
and without a change in the market design, the continued reliance
on intermittent renewable resources, primarily wind, are likely to continue to drive prices high
in certain hours of the peak period in the summer.
Despite our best efforts, these are mechanical pieces of equipment just
like the engine in your car.
They are subject to failure and while we do the best we can to predict that
and to perform maintenance pursuant to the manufacturer's specifications,
we'll nonetheless experience forced outages.
And having these parts on hand will enable us to minimize the duration of those outages.
Cost is always a concern and one of the reasons why we're bringing this to you today is
because we believe that purchasing these parts today will ultimately save ratepayers money
by not having to pay escalation charges in the coming years.
And with that, I'm going to turn it over to the real expert, Jason Brown, the plant manager.
>> Good morning, Madam Chair.
Board. So as Terry stated, we're trying to achieve the highest availability of the facility
and the way to achieve this is through preventative maintenance and spare parts.
We're requesting the approval of additional parts as the best solution
in reducing our outage timeframe during normal routine maintenance
and also during forced outage scenarios.
And the next few slides I'll briefly be discussing preventative maintenance schedules,
parts and the benefits of having these parts.
So please feel free to ask any questions as we go through this.
The Denton Energy Center equipment is much like your car engine, just like Terry said.
It must be maintained routinely as recommended by the manufacturer to operate correctly.
This is called the preventative maintenance program where preventative predictive
and corrective maintenance activities occur.
Many components require routine maintenance to proactively inspect for repair or for wear, sorry.
Premature failure and critical items must also be rebuilt or replaced.
The preventative maintenance activities are performed consistent
with manufacturer's guidelines based on operating hours.
This chart depicts our current estimate of when these major maintenance items will occur.
Major maintenance activities require shutdown of the individual units,
but we want to minimize the length of time that they're unavailable for generation.
The first major maintenance outages will take place when the units reach 12,000 hours.
We currently estimate that to happen in 2024.
However, since the units are dispatched against the aircraft market at 12,000 hours,
could either be earlier or later than the current projection.
This slide lists the parts that are currently installed on the engines
and what we are requesting as swing sets.
The swing sets that we're requesting you can see are the requested quantities
over here on the right-hand side of the slide.
The term swing set recognizes that if the first set of parts are installed,
the removed parts are sent back to be rebuilt or reconditioned.
When the reconditioned parts return back to the deck, they're placed into the warehouse
and then the cycle starts over again once you,
once the next engine reaches its hour interval for maintenance, maintenance service.
This swapping out of the components is where the term swing set comes from.
When we receive these parts, they'll be inspected and placed into a warehouse
that will be built at the Denton Energy Center.
The swing set parts will be warrantied for 12 months upon installation or 18 months upon arrival,
whichever occurs earlier.
While it's likely that the swing sets will not be in warranty by the time they're installed
in the first round, the parts that are removed during the overhaul will be sent
out for refurbishment and come back and thus the warranty will be on the parts for that direction.
>> Jason, I have a question about that.
>> Yes, sir.
>> When you end up with your extra set of parts to take out, will you send those back
to Wurziller or will you look for a third party refurbishing?
>> We'll look for a third party for refurbishment.
>> And what does LT mean?
Is that low temperature?
>> Yes, low temperature.
There's two different cooling systems on each engine, low temperature and high temperature.
High temperature where all the firing deck is and all the higher temperatures.
So to be clear, the initial warranty for the Wurziller engines and this project ended
on in April of 2019, so this has nothing to do really with that warranty period.
There are still 115 warranty claims remaining from that original warranty period
that we're still taking care of at this time.
So as Terry stated, our objective is to make the units available as often as possible
to generate the most revenue from the market.
The swing set enables us to reduce the downtime because we have the parts on hand
and because we can schedule maintenance activities during the lowest prices in the market.
Also having the parts on hand will minimize downtime in the event of forced outages.
The other benefits of purchasing the swing sets now are
that we'll be paying 2019 parts prices instead of the projected 5% increase
in the coming years with later purchases.
Parts will be on hand in the event we have unforeseen outages due to premature failure
and most importantly having the swing sets on site will reduce major overhaul timeframes
by 20 days as compared to 45 to 65 days without swing sets.
So in summary, we're proactively preparing for future outages
that are projected to start in 2024.
These parts are intended to reduce outage durations to help maximize revenue potential
and we are requesting approval of soil source purchase major overhaul swing sets
in the amount of $2,228,970 to where it's all led to be funded
from the $3.9 million that's remaining in the original revenue bond from the project.
And then there's a last bullet point there about some turbos.
As you noticed on a couple slides before, we were planning
on bringing turbochargers here at the same time.
They didn't make it through legal, but we'll be bringing that back to you at a later date.
>> It looks like Mr. Parker has a question.
No?
>> No, no questions.
>> I have just a--
>> Just a motion.
>> Why didn't we-- I mean, I'm going to support you need to have those on hand.
Why didn't we do it originally?
Is that because we were under warranty and we didn't need to expend the funds yet?
>> I-- originally, when I got here, there wasn't any real thought on before future.
When I got here, it was-- we only needed six engines.
We need 12 engines now, so it was kind of-- you can either go this route or not go this route.
It's not really--
>> I'm in support.
I was just curious why--
>> It's definitely-- I would have brought it last year except the mindset was we don't need all
of the engines, so why do this if time frame doesn't really matter with the outage.
>> Okay.
>> Now that we're actually seeing what this equipment can do in this market and what it brings
to the table, I think it's time to bring it and--
>> Fully in support of it, just curious.
Okay. Now, do we have-- other questions?
>> I'll move-- oh, excuse me.
I think I heard you say 18 months, these two million dollars worth of parts will be spent
over that 18-month period or they're going to be sitting here for much longer than that?
>> No, these parts will be sitting here up until 2024.
I think the part-- the first parts that would come out of this, yeah.
Let me-- oh, let me back up to that slide.
>> I saw that list but there was no dollar amounts beside it and so that's--
>> Correct. So out of the two million dollars, it's swing sets of major parts
that will be removed from engine over a long duration.
So in 2024, we're going to be removing charge air coolers and turbos.
In-- actually in 4,000 hours, we'll be removing pre-chambers.
So it's not all the parts coming off at one time.
They're sporadic and really all over the place based on the maintenance of the board.
>> Yeah, I understand it's a good idea to always keep inventory
to be able to keep things running.
I don't understand.
It's just there was nothing that traced-- I mean, you had the chart that said,
"Here's the maintenance hours over at 2022."
>> That one, yeah.
>> But there's no dollar amount out there beside them.
So that's what I was curious about.
Are we talking about-- you're not buying parts to replace through 2058, are you?
>> No.
>> Okay.
>> No. So these parts are not actually to replace any parts.
These parts are solely to swap out so that we can take the parts that are on there
and refurbish them aside from the actual maintenance.
>> Yeah, I would just say that.
It's just-- there's not a prediction of how the money will be spent over a period of time.
And so I guess my concern would be the good-- it's good to have inventory to repair things
but sometimes they deteriorate sitting on the shelf or they need--
I mean, do you have to maintain cylinders?
Do you have to keep oil on them?
I mean--
>> So as these parts come in from overseas, they have what's called cosmoline on them,
so a rust inhibitor.
It's actually maintained on there and we have preventative maintenance
for long-term storage of components.
So if there were-- I think in this list, there were LT pump, HT pump.
Those pumps will be turned once a month to keep rust from forming on that one spot on the shaft.
That's the only thing that would need to be turned.
Everything else is just make sure that they're desiccant in the container
and that the cosmoline is intact.
>> So I mean, you'll-- I mean, we talked about the turbos coming back here soon, I would assume.
It's something that you want to get pretty quickly in here.
But I mean, it's not-- how far does this $2 million go out?
Do you know?
I mean, is it an eight-year period?
Is it a four-year period?
It's not clear.
>> Yeah, let me--
>> Because I know you'll be coming back for more money on this--
>> Absolutely.
>> -- to maintain it and I know you will.
So-- and it's necessary, I'm not disagreeing, I'm just curious.
>> So the-- these are for these major spares.
We have routine maintenance activities and routine parts that we're buying, instrumentation,
monitors, things about a million, million and a half a year that we spend for that.
When these parts are shipped out, so they put in place, the ones that were taken
out are shipped out and rebuilt, in 2024 when we do that first one or whenever it occurs,
we'll then incur a rebuild expense for those parts.
And once they're rebuilt, they'll come back in and they'll be put into the warehouse,
very quickly put on the machine because if you think about it, we operate the deck pretty much
if one unit is in the money, so to speak, relative to the market, all units are in the money.
>> Crank them all up right now.
>> So we crank them all up but we do try to operate them in a way
so that we don't have all the maintenance activities coming at the same time on all 12 engines.
>> OK.
>> So what do you think the rebuild cost would be for the equipment, for the swing set?
>> So if we're looking at this current year, we're looking at $418,000 for this year's overall,
aside from swing sets or any of that nature that we're trying to buy.
>> 20% of what you bought or what you intend to buy?
>> Next year, about 100,000 more.
>> OK.
>> The next year, about 100,000 less.
>> We really start seeing a big increase around 12,000, this 24,000 timeframe where it'll get pretty heavy.
>> OK. All right, Will.
>> How much do you think it costs to rebuild the swing sets that you send out?
>> That's included in that price.
>> It's in the 400.
>> Right, the 418, OK.
Well, I deal with a lot of inventory and sometimes I go, what year do we get this?
It's been sitting there for 10 years.
So that was really what my question was pointed at.
>> Yeah, these are really not really going to depreciate as they go through with a 90,000 hour service life.
>> We're looking at anywhere from 90,000 to 120,000 operating hour service life on them.
So whenever we remove a head, we're not actually doing anything with the body of it.
It's replacing the seats and the valves and components within it.
The shell stays the same throughout the life of it.
So yeah, in a sense, it is going to depreciate to some extent.
But it's going to be reconditioned and then go on to the next one and then cycle all the way.
>> It's just a little bit for my education there.
I appreciate it and I'll move approval.
>> I hope that answers your question.
>> Yes.
>> Second.
>> Also.
>> All in favor say aye.
>> Aye.
>> Opposed?
OK, that carries.
The next item is consider recommending adoption of contract between the City of Denton and
Range Line Pipeline Services and for Terra Pipe Precast LLC for various types of pipe, water, etc, etc.
>> Is that the amount of 11 million?
Wow.
>> Yep, there's a lot of inventory there.
>> Good morning.
My name's Rebecca Davini.
I'm Deputy Director for Water and Wastewater Utilities.
Daniel Kramer, who is also Deputy Director of Public Works.
We're going to be sharing this presentation as this was a bid that was done together.
So Water and Wastewater Utilities relies on Range Line Pipeline Services for a number of things.
Currently we have been issuing declaration of emergencies for issues when these types of things come up.
And we worked with the purchasing department and it was recommended that we do a contract
that will allow for these types of services to be provided for the water utilities.
These services are typically for 14 inch through 54 inch in diameter.
It services our concrete cylinder pipeline, our pre-stressed concrete pipeline, also our still pipelines.
The information you see before you is not only for just the pipe itself, it's also for any emergency repair.
Range Line is on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days out of the year.
Any time we have an issue that might arise.
Typically this is for the majority of the pipeline, will be for our transmission.
But there are some of the pipelines that we consider in our distribution system.
What I will mention to you is it's not only for welding services, for all types of materials for pipes and fittings.
Such as the diapers and all the different fittings, it's also for taps and line stops.
They also assist us with cutting in valves and can come out on a 24 hour basis
and do a pipeline assessment to help us with whatever repair needs to be made.
In the 8 months I've been here, we've already had them on, I guess on call would be the best way to describe it.
In two different instances when they've helped assist with a 27 inch repair we made to our raw water line.
And then over Thanksgiving we had a 20 inch water line that also had a failure.
The concrete cylinder pipe is not something that our in-house crews have the expertise to do the type of work on.
So we're requesting that we move forward with this contract.
I'm going to allow Daniel to come up and make a presentation about his drainage pipe.
And then we'll take any questions you might have.
>> Good morning Madam Chair, Ford.
So the drainage department used these precast pipes in order to replace any emergency repairs or
any of the small capital projects that we have going on throughout the year.
This bid includes 17 different pipe sizes with two different classifications, either class three or four.
And seven different sizes for the boxes.
Most of this is just for emergencies, this covers everything that we have throughout the city.
So that we can get it when we need it.
So as this proposal goes through, there's two different proposals.
It goes through with 7.3 million, which is for the range line pipe services.
And then the four terabyte, which is 11.8 for the drainage department.
Any questions or anything that we can answer?
>> So in essence, this is a $19 million request for funds, okay.
>> But this is a pneumatic seat.
So this just gives us the ability to spend what pipes we need, when we need it.
And gets us a pricing sheet all the way through so we have those prices locked in for five years.
>> So it appears that you really only got one bidder on the water and sewer and one bidder on the precast.
>> Correct, yes, sir.
>> And you're going to award one for the one bidder for each one, correct?
>> Correct.
>> Okay. >> Yes, sir.
>> And it's really more of a unit price.
So whatever we use is what we're going to pay for.
>> Yes, ma'am.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Yeah, so I actually congratulate you for
doing this because you're being a little proactive in emergencies.
And you're not then running to see what you're going to pay, so.
>> I have a question.
Is there really only one person that can make concrete pipe in the DFW area or in the North Texas area?
Was there no interest in any other vendor supplying the pipe?
>> On that, I'm not sure actually how many bidders that we had that went in or how many we sent it out to.
I don't know if- >> I think it's like 344 in your factor.
>> There are other concrete pipe and a water pipe.
>> I think purchasing is coming up to answer.
>> Sometimes they're just not interested in municipal work.
>> Yeah.
>> Laurie Hill, Purchasing Manager.
>> Yeah, we put this out in our electronic bidding software, and we sent it to 344 vendors.
And we just got the one response for Terra for the concrete, and
then the one response for Rangeline for their services.
>> Unfortunately.
>> Yeah, we advertise it in the newspaper.
>> It's interesting to me that Rangeline never bid on something that Fortera bid on.
>> They're two different. >> Two different things.
Fortera's just supply the material.
Rangeline is the installation service and repair, right?
>> And the water pipe. >> One to what, yeah.
>> Both water and sewer. >> Sure, yeah.
>> So not only does Rangeline provide the repair services or the stoppile services or
welding services, they're also providing the joints of pipe to do the repairs or fittings,
whatever types of connections are needing to be made.
>> Does that answer your question?
>> Kind of, yeah. >> If there's no other questions,
I'll move approval. >> Do we have a second?
>> I'll second. >> All in favor say aye.
>> Aye. >> Opposed?
Okay, carries. Consider recommending adoption of an ordinance authorizing approval of change order
number one to the contract between the City of Denton and Quality Excavation LLC for the Hinkle
and Windsor Paving Drainage Project and the amount of change order not to exceed 518,744.21.
>> Good morning, my name's Dustin Draper. I'm with Capital Projects.
A little about the project is Magnolia phase two drainage. It started out as a drainage project
and then became a street project when the road to the excavation was going to be expanded so much.
All we're asking for is the replacement additionally, a replacement of more curb, concrete
pavement, and a small utility connections for the change order. This is the terms our project was
originally only drainage from here, it extended all the way from University to Windsor and all
the way to 77 as a road project as well. We're here to recommend adoption of the ordinance for
change order 120 quality excavation for 518,744.21. >> Let me start by saying I have no problem with
these additional funds, but haven't we already seen this? Didn't this come through this board
already? >> No, sir, not that I know of. >> Not the change order. >> Not the change
order, the original contract probably did. >> No, no, no. There was something that came
through here and about that same amount I thought that added. >> We can check not that I know of,
sir. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Any other questions? >> I move we approve. >> Do we have a second?
>> Second. >> All in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> Opposed? Motion carries. >> Okay. >>
Consider recommending approval of a resolution to recognize all the renewable energy credits
associated with the electric power purchase from the city from the whitetail wind turbine
electric generation facility. >> This is formalizing what we talked about previously. >>
Correct. We talked about it at the last meeting and we're formalizing it today.
>> There's no questions. I'll move approval. >> I have some questions. >> Oh, sorry.
>> It gave you 30 seconds. >> It wasn't exactly 30. Do you want to go through the presentation
or do you just want to jump to questions? >> I have no problem with what the presentation is.
>> Okay. >> Whatever you want to do. >> Madam Chairman, members of the board, Terry Nolte,
DME. This is in fact what you said. We were here two weeks ago to talk about the whitetail contract
and the potential for inclusion of the whitetail credits. We did present the same work session
item to the council two weeks ago and they did give us direction to include all of the renewable
energy credits that we have purchased from or under the whitetail contract.
We went over this information last time. One change to this, you can see under the whitetail
contract, the red line, we purchased 30 megawatts of energy. We also purchased 60 megawatts of
renewable energy credits from the -- from the -- under the contract. The additional 30 megawatts
of recs above the energy were part of the original renewable dentin plan to achieve 40%. That was
authorized by council in 2014 as part of the original contract with whitetail.
The results of this decision, if the -- if the resolution is adopted, would be as follows.
You can see that we move from 71% in 2021 up to 103% of renewable energy.
It does avoid $5.1 million in incremental costs that we would have to spend otherwise
to replace this energy with energy that was -- that was like our other contracts,
like for instance Santa Rita where we have a wind farm and we get the actual -- whatever the full
output of the farm is, we count those recs. This one will give us 60 recs on all hours.
May I ask a question about this? Yes, sir.
2324 is when the contract expires in '24? It expires at the end of 2023.
It bridges the fiscal year 2324. My question is if that drops us down
in 2324 to 88%, how do we get it back up to 100? We'll have to do another procurement.
We'll add additional resources at that time under either a short term or long term contract.
With -- for recs? It will be energy and recs.
But I think it will be at the direction of the PUBN council.
However, you would like us to proceed at that point in time.
We'll take your desires, your wishes into account and that's what we'll go out and procure.
I'm not asking you to be a future -- a seer into the future, but I'm going to ask anyway.
That's the business we're in. Do you envision a time when
Denton will be 100% renewable energy from physical energy rather than --
the actual energy itself rather than recs? Impossible.
I guess just a clarifying statement about that. If we have a rec in our account, it means physical
renewable energy was generated and delivered to the ERCOT grid.
We buy all of our power from the ERCOT grid.
So are there any of our renewables actual from the source, not a rec,
but actually buying megawatt hours directly from a wind farm or solar farm?
Yes, sir. All of our contracts, all of our
renewable energy contracts are direct purchases from physical resources.
The issue here is that the extra 30 that we contracted for here can be provided by this
wind farm because it is 110 megawatt capacity. We're only contracted for 60.
So because of the way that the recs are serialized, identified in accounts,
we know exactly where they were generated and by what resource.
And therefore, ERCOT deems those to be renewable megawatts that were delivered into the grid.
I think you're speaking of the kind of nuance between, for example, our Santa Rita project,
which we have a 150 megawatt contract. The farm is a 150 megawatt farm.
And we only are allocated recs based upon the physical output of the farm in each hour.
All of those recs, we count. And we don't necessarily count the energy.
The rec is the tag, if you will, that demonstrates that it was renewable.
And that's the premise for this resolution is to recognize that the renewable energy credit itself
is the proof that it was physically delivered as a renewable energy.
Okay. Thank you. I want to preface this remark before that I'm a big fan of renewable energy,
no doubt. But all electricity that is produced by any source goes onto a grid, correct?
Yes, sir. In ERCOT, that is correct.
That is correct. It's not connected directly into our system, necessarily.
With the exception of the landfill, that is correct.
And the rooftop solar facilities that we have about four megawatts of rooftop solar
throughout the city that's privately owned by businesses and residents.
We're just, once ERCOT says this is what you use and this is what you owe, we say,
okay, yeah, we owe it to these different renewable energy sources.
We owe the renewable energy sources as a direct result of our contracts with them.
We pay for the energy to ERCOT. We sell from Santa Rita and White Tail
into the market. We're paying them to run.
We're not necessarily getting their energy. That's correct.
Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye.
Opposed? Motion carries. Assistant City Manager update.
Good morning board members. The first item that you have is an ACM update on the landfill
expansion. So this is for the 1590B permit that is currently working through the system.
Public notice was out on that about mid-December.
Public comment, to my knowledge, just ended about 10 days ago.
So staff is here to answer any questions if you have any.
I will note this was provided to City Council previously, so we're closing with the PEB.
Maybe it was in some backup somewhere, but what are the numbers for opposed
and in support that you got from public comment?
My apologies if it's somewhere buried and you didn't see it.
It is not. Brian Burner, Director of Solid Waste.
Currently there are about 500 comments on the electronic system.
There are several of them that are for the proposal. There are many that are against.
There are many that are duplicates in the system. So we're in the process right now
working with the state to go through those, remove those that were entered
several times, figure out exactly what that variant is.
Thank you. No other questions?
On our future Public Utility Board agenda items, you'll note on January 27th
there's an RFP for Solid Waste Management Strategy.
That went out to City Council in the Friday reading pile this Friday
and was disseminated to the board via email.
And so you should have the same information.
And again, staff is here to answer any questions that you might have.
I will note that it will be included as an ACM update in the next PEB package.
So we'll have it for the record. Staff will be glad to answer any questions if you have them.
Okay, for future agenda items, I have a question I'd like answered.
How many of these items on our agenda today go directly to City Council of tomorrow?
I don't have a number on that. Typically we try to leave a week between the time frame,
at least a week between the time frame between when they're presented to the PEB
and when they go to the council. But there are some cases where because of timing issues that
they will actually be on the next council agenda. We try to avoid that sometimes. It's unavoidable.
I understand that.
So in the minutes, will they be part of, will they be intact and ready to go
when the PEB action is presented to the council?
If there is a situation where we have the gap between, we certainly will put the PEB decision
or recommendation in there with the council packet. Typically the minutes are not disseminated
to the council in that fashion, but the recommendation of the board is. In those
instances where because of timing issues, we have to take it to the to the city council.
We obviously don't have enough time to place the board's recommendation in terms of the
overall vote in the item. What we do though is we will bring that up to the council in
the presentation for the item and essentially tell them what the vote for the PEB is.
Okay and it goes further with Mr. Soph's comment earlier. He asked specific questions because he
wanted council to see his concern about those items and of course they didn't see that.
So I guess I don't want to be blunt. Well yeah, I usually am but
what sometimes I'm not clear what the use of the PEB is to the city if none of these
comments or questions are not given to the city council.
Okay. And so I'd like to see the council answer that question.
Not for staff. I'm not saying anything against staff. This is for the council
and I've asked several council members that question already so
no they won't be surprised.
All right so then new business.
A couple of items that we've taken care of. The tour of the Denton Energy Center has been
completed on December the 5th. There was a request from several board members about a tour of the
Recycling Center for Pratt. We're trying to time that where the weather will be a little bit more
conducive so he will be reaching out to the board members in the next couple of weeks to see about
arranging a time for that. Keep in mind depending on the amount of or the participation we may have
to end up posting and so that makes more time depending on how many people want to attend.
And then the only other item that we have on new business action items is the currently is the
work session to identify equipment replacement cost and kind of how that process is is done
and that's scheduled to occur in February next month. That's all I have.
And you wanted to speak to the minutes.
Yeah I just want to address a comment that Mr. Sofen made about the minutes and what I was looking
at is I've been emailing Billy Matthews who does the DTV and when they record the meetings and also
looking at the most recent city council minutes even the city council minutes are that is talking
about discussion ensued and the record is actually the recording itself and so you can go back and
see exactly what happened and the PUB video is available within an hour after the meeting
and so that's why the detailed minutes aren't it's not kept the way they used to be kept because the
recording is the record itself. Does that address your concern or yeah okay okay I just want you to
I do know several council people watch the video so and it raised a question that now we're going
to address is how long we're going to archive all the videos that's not been addressed so that's
something that I've already got down and we're going to not we need direction on how far along we're going to keep that so
I just want to bring that forward thanks okay then we're into concluding items does a board
member wish to add anything to a future agenda or congratulate a staff member
all right congratulations to all the staff members for all the work you did
just because I'm asking questions doesn't mean I'm insulting you at all
that is our job correct so then do we just adjourn into closed session
okay so we are adjourning into closed session