Jun 22, 2020 Public Utilities Board on 2020-06-22 9:00 AM

Okay, it's nine o'clock and we have a virtual quorum, so we can call to order the Public Utilities Board meeting for June 22, 2020. The first item on the agenda is the Consent Agenda. Does any board member wish to pull an item of A through D? I'd like to pull C, as in cat. Okay, Ed. And Russ? A and B. Any others? All right. I'll move approval of D. Thank you. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Both. Okay. It carries. Item A first. We have Terry Nalty here. He's moving over to the staff computer, if you'll give him just a moment. Okay. Terry Nalty, Assistant General Manager, DME. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay. Glad to answer any questions you might have about this item. Yeah. Terry, this is easy. This is not a hard one. And for the sake of us that don't live in the world of system dispatch every day, I would like to request that whenever we have a write-up about this in a document, that the first occurrence of an acronym be preceded by the words – the complete spelling of the words that acronym represents. That's done – it was done here in this document sometimes, but not all the time. So – I request. Okay. The second thing, the traders that work at home doing this, what kind of security is taken on their personal computer to project their passwords and logins and various other code things that apply here on their personal computers? None of our traders, Mr. Baffert, none of our traders use their personal computers for business-related activities. They're all company computers, and they're all – have to log in through a virtual private network that's a double – it's got a double – I don't know what the right proper term is, but basically you log in, then you've got to verify that it's you on a second device before you can actually access the system. Are they using their own router, their own Wi-Fi router in their home for this connection, you know? Yes. Whatever internet provider is in service at their home, that's the one that they're using to access the internet and the virtual private network. Okay, I was just wondering about some of these personal Wi-Fi systems are more secure than others, and what measures do we have to make sure that Wi-Fi is secure that they're using where all this information is going back and forth? I would have to have someone from – Maybe that's an IT question. Yeah, that's a tech services question, but my understanding is that the VPN that we use for all city departments is extremely secure. This is Curtis Conrad. I'm with Technology Services. I think I could answer that question for you. Anybody that's home using their systems to get into the city of Denton, especially to the Energy Office, DME, is definitely using a virtual private network, as Terry mentioned. When we do this, we actually create an encrypted tunnel, so we make a secure connection all the way from their computer into our systems. Actually, once they get into our systems, EMO actually has a second layer of potential that they have to provide to actually get into the specific Energy Management Office servers and operations. Okay, good. That explains a lot of it. One final question, Terry, on page 9 of 19 in the attachments to this – excuse me, page 8, talks about the broker incentive program. Are we in the broker incentive program? We have a number of relationships with various brokers, and I would have to look at the specific contract to tell you whether we are or not, and I'm not familiar enough with each of the agreements to tell you that. Okay. Yeah, I would like to know if Denton is in the broker incentive program. Well, I – yeah, we'll provide that information to you. Okay, those are the only questions I have. The rest looks fine with me. All right, Terry, Karen, do you have a question? Oh, no, sorry. Oh, okay. That's okay with my lamp. Maybe we'll go on to B and C, and then we'll do the three of them – we'll prove the three of them together. So item B. Yeah, the question I had there, in looking at the spreadsheet showing the proposal comparisons, the best price had a winning price of $780,000, and there's contracts for $862,000. What's the reason for the difference? We have Smith Day, who will – from DME, who will be able to answer those questions. Okay. Morning, PB. Can you hear me? This is Smith Day. I'm the regulatory interest division manager for Denton Municipal Electric. Yes. And your question, I believe, refers to the $780,000 difference versus the not-to-exceed amount in the – Correct. Correct. The difference was that in the spreadsheet, the calculation there was for straight three years. What ended up happening was we added a little bit more six months implementation at a prorated cost. So it was that yearly cost extended six months because someone's got to show up and implement and configure this thing, and that takes a lot of work, so that had to be grafted on. And the same would have happened if we had chosen the other one. But either direction, it would have been Allegro as the front runner there, as the best value for the city. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I understand that. Anything else? No. Go ahead. Go ahead. Thank you. All right. All right. Thank you. Have a great day. And then item C, Mr. Soft. Yeah. I actually had some questions about these trucks, the compressed natural gas trucks, that are eventually going to be retired, and that being the reason for the timeframe for this contract. So I really just had some questions regarding the compressed natural gas fleet and whether or not those vehicles are a result of the clean fleet ordinance. That's my first question. We have Terry Kader, who's our fleet manager, along with Brian Berner, director of solid waste on the line that can answer those questions. Thank you. Mr. Soft, this is Brian Berner, director of solid waste for the city of Denton. Unfortunately, I cannot confirm that they were part of the clean fleet ordinance. What I do know is currently we have 15 vehicles that are compressed natural gas. About half of them are frontline vehicles. The remainder are backup vehicles in our fleet and run when the frontline vehicles are down. Over the next five years, we will be phasing those out, and as a result, those will, at the end of that five-year period, will no longer have the need for this contract nor the CNG facility. Okay. Thank you. I was wondering, because if these are part of the program to clean up our air as part of that clean fleet ordinance, because they're not regular fossil fuel combustion, well, they're not combustion engines like a regular vehicle, will these be replaced by similar non-polluting vehicles? These vehicles will be replaced by Tier 4 diesel engines whose emissions are equivalent to what we're seeing in the CNG facility, and as a result, being diesel, it allows us much more flexibility as we operate throughout the city, as opposed to having one fill point in the entire city. I see. Okay. And again, at some point, I was given the actual ordinance, I think I got that at the last meeting, but I still would like to find out at some point the actual numbers of the fleet, the percentage of the fleet that is clean fuel vehicles, whether electric or whatever, and just, I'd be curious to know the number of the entire vehicle fleet as operated by the city now, everything from staff cars, the whole thing, just to see what the size is, and the percentage of that that is, as I said before, could be considered clean fleet vehicles. We're going to provide that to the board in a separate memo. Okay. It should have been included, it was an oversight for this meeting, so we'll include it for you here, that's an easy request to fulfill, we'll send that over to you and the whole board here this week. Thank you very much. You bet. All right, so then do we have a motion to approve item A, B, and C. I so move. And a second. Karen second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Rose. Aye. Okay. Curious. Next items are considered approval of the minutes of the June 8th, 2020 meeting. Are there any changes or corrections? All right. Do we have a motion to approve? I move. Okay. Okay. Barber motions. And do we have a second? Second. All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Management update. Yes. Members of the board, good morning. Report will be brief. As I mentioned to Mr. Sof, he had received, and you all received a copy of the Clean Fleet Ordinance from 2015. As mentioned, we also owe the board a brief report that indicates the inventory of the fleet that is gas or diesel powered along with the counts of those that are hybrid and electric vehicles as well. We'll give you the percentages and counts that way you have all that, and we'll provide that later this week and then we'll upload it at your subsequent board meeting in July. A number of things are attached as part of the management update. We've got the environmental preferred purchasing policy. Cassie Ogden's in the room if you've got any questions specific to that. We've got the Dent Energy year to date, April 2020 dashboards. The notice of intent, bond refunding, which will be, is here, finance is available online as well if you've got any questions on that. Looking ahead for your future board agendas, as July rolls around the corner, we've got a number of discussions related to the budget, and we'll also be including a discussion about the burn rate on our capital projects when it relates to water and wastewater utility. I think that was a question by Mr. Bafford, and we'll have that presentation or that information available at your next board meeting when we discuss budget. So as mentioned, as the summer rolls around, a lot of discussions related to the budget and the various utilities will be brought forward to the board. And just trying to knock off some of these requests that have been pending for the past and the ones that are here made recently. So if you have any questions, be happy to answer those, and we've got staff on the line that can answer any specifics that you may have. Question? Mr. Self, go ahead. Yeah, I had a question about the environmental preferred purchasing policy. I appreciate very much getting this document that sort of gives a history of the three ordinances that are in place implementing the policy. And what I wondered was I think it would be really informative if there was any way that we could get an update or a progress report that shows what initiatives in various divisions of the city have been implemented towards this sort of procurement because it's been 13 years since the first ordinance was passed, I believe in 20 or 27. And I think it would be interesting to see to get an overview of the program to see possibly where there might be ways of moving ahead if there are areas that need improvement. So I would appreciate receiving some sort of survey or accountability document as to what has been done over the past 13 years to enhance green, environmentally conscious procurement policy. Mr. Self, is that something that you would like to ask as part of concluding items? I'm just asking, or are you wanting a response right now? Well, I don't need it right now. I mean, I wouldn't expect it right now. Okay. But as part of concluding items, kind of an update on where the progress made with the departments and with this ordinance. Okay. We can do that. 13 years. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Well, we have one concluding item. Is there any other concluding items that a board member wishes to add? All right. Before we adjourn into closed meeting, I'm required to read off while we're going into closed meeting. So the first item is deliberation regarding certain public power utilities competitive matters under Texas government code section 551.086, consultation with attorneys under Texas government code 551.071. Discuss and deliberate strategies and opportunities to amend the renewable energy supply strategies and agreements, including potential power purchase agreements, receive a presentation from staff regarding the public power competitive and financial matters pertaining to the purchase of renewable energy, consultation with the city's attorneys regarding legal issues associates with the agreements described above, where discussions of these legal matters in an open meeting would conflict with the duty of the city attorneys to the city of Denton and the Denton city council under Texas disciplinary rules of professional conduct from the state part of Texas. The second item is deliberations regarding real property under Texas government code section 551.072, consultation with attorneys under Texas government code section 551.071. Discuss, deliberate, receive information from staff and provide staff with direction about the valuation uses and or disposition of real property owned by the city located at the southeast corner of Eagle drive in Bernard street, Denton, Denton County, Texas, where the deliberation of the same in an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the position of the governmental body and negotiations with a third person or potential litigation consultation with the city's attorneys regarding legal issues associated with the uses and or disposition of the property or public discussion of the legal matters would conflict with the duty of the city attorneys to the city and the city council under Texas disciplinary rules of professional content at the state part of Texas or would jeopardize the city's legal position in negotiations or potential litigation. Having said all that, do we have a motion to adjourn into closed session? So moved. Okay. All right. We are adjourned.