WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:13.100 We do have a quorum. It's 9.02 and we're going to call to order the Public Utilities Board 00:00:13.100 --> 00:00:22.600 of the City of Denton for July 27th, 2020. The first item on the agenda and I'm going 00:00:22.600 --> 00:00:30.480 to pull item A that will give Billy an opportunity to not vote or abstain from the vote. Does 00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:38.360 any board member wish to pull another item? What item did you say, Susan? E. Yeah, C is 00:00:38.360 --> 00:00:52.240 in Charlie. And I had a couple of brief questions on A and B. A and D is in Donald? No, B is 00:00:52.240 --> 00:01:05.880 in boy. Okay. Oh, and also F. Sorry. All right. So Susan, or I guess Larry, do I need to just 00:01:05.880 --> 00:01:10.600 leave the meeting and then get Kim to let me back on after this discussion? Correct. 00:01:10.600 --> 00:01:19.800 Okay, so I'm not sure how that's going to work and when she'll tell me it's over. She 00:01:19.800 --> 00:01:36.040 can email you or text you. Okay. So. So then we have item D. You wanna go backwards? Could 00:01:36.040 --> 00:01:43.480 we approve item D? Motion to approve. I move we approve item D. I'll second. All in favor 00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:54.880 say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Why don't we do item E first so that Billy can get off 00:01:54.880 --> 00:02:04.320 and then we'll come back in and he can hear the rest of the discussion. I didn't really 00:02:04.320 --> 00:02:08.640 have any questions on it. I just knew that we needed to give Billy the opportunity to. 00:02:08.640 --> 00:02:15.920 Yeah, I have a question, Susan. Okay. On the spreadsheet that shows a summary of the bid 00:02:15.920 --> 00:02:23.920 amounts, there are dollars shown, there are quantities shown, but there are no units of 00:02:23.920 --> 00:02:34.640 measure shown. So that needs to be shown. For instance, there are 740 something at a 00:02:34.640 --> 00:02:43.120 price of so many dollars, but the units of measure are not described on the sheet. We 00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:47.360 have Laurie Huell. She's our purchasing manager. She's on the on the line. She may be able 00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:56.120 to give some insight on that. Hi, yes. Laurie Huell, purchasing manager. We can add that 00:02:56.120 --> 00:03:02.040 to there and send it out to you. Yeah, we need to see that. That's an important piece 00:03:02.040 --> 00:03:15.920 of information. Okay. That's all I had. Do we have a moment to move the item? One silly 00:03:15.920 --> 00:03:36.200 question. What does PEC stand for? PEC stands for Pecan Creek. That's just part of a drainage 00:03:36.200 --> 00:03:47.020 area within the city. EEC4. Okay. That's just one of the branches of the concrete drainage 00:03:47.020 --> 00:03:52.160 ways through the city. I don't feel as stupid for not knowing what that was. That's okay. 00:03:52.160 --> 00:04:05.880 I'll move approval. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. We can get Billy back on. 00:04:05.880 --> 00:04:28.520 I've got it, Doc. Hold on. 00:04:28.520 --> 00:04:56.320 Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. 00:04:56.320 --> 00:05:25.800 I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. 00:05:25.800 --> 00:05:52.000 Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:06:17.200 Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. And he's back. Okay. Item A. Karen, what was your question? 00:06:17.200 --> 00:06:22.520 Yeah, I just had a quick question clarification on A and B. So maybe we can vote on both of 00:06:22.520 --> 00:06:31.160 those. I just wanted to clarify that if a vendor is on the pre-qualified list that then 00:06:31.160 --> 00:06:39.240 it doesn't go out for bids. Is that why these two items didn't go out for bids? Or we don't 00:06:39.240 --> 00:06:46.360 have a bid list at any rate. That's correct. Ms. Huell is on the phone as well. She'd be 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:53.520 able to explain that. And we should have someone from solid waste as well. Okay. Just clarification 00:06:53.520 --> 00:07:01.000 of policy here. Sure. Yeah, that's correct. When they use the pre-qualified list where 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:07.400 we sent the RFQ request for qualifications out, and then we brought that list to council. 00:07:07.400 --> 00:07:14.000 Here's all the firms that were pre-qualified. If they're using someone from the pre-qualified 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:21.120 list, we do not have to do another RFQ. Thanks. Just wanted that sort of to clear my head. 00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:26.880 So I would move for approval of A and B, unless anybody else has questions? 00:07:26.880 --> 00:07:36.400 Carolee, did you have a question? One quick question on item A. That's a pretty stout 00:07:36.400 --> 00:07:42.920 amount for engineering and design services for a project. Do we have a ballpark idea 00:07:42.920 --> 00:07:50.720 how much the total expenditure for the public disposal area is going to be? 00:07:50.720 --> 00:08:00.640 This is Tina Eck, the senior business analyst for solid waste recycling. Part of the design 00:08:00.640 --> 00:08:08.400 process will be to determine that full build, the full construction cost for the facility. 00:08:08.400 --> 00:08:13.120 So you don't have a budget number? The budget number would essentially be that 00:08:13.120 --> 00:08:18.240 design services, if you estimate that being about eight to 10% of the total construction 00:08:18.240 --> 00:08:25.000 cost. Okay. So does that mean that rough numbers 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:34.240 you're thinking about spending a million and a half dollars for a public disposal facility? 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:38.760 That would be our estimate at this time, yes, until we get that design estimate back from 00:08:38.760 --> 00:08:45.600 Biggs and Matthews. Okay. I'll just note that that seems like an 00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:52.520 awful lot of expenditure for something we already own the land for. And maybe I'm missing 00:08:52.520 --> 00:08:57.520 what's included in the design facility, but I am concerned about the level of expenditure 00:08:57.520 --> 00:09:02.240 for that. The disposal facility will be where all of 00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:07.080 our public traffic is routed. So if you think non-commercial traffic, it's meant to be a 00:09:07.080 --> 00:09:12.600 safety improvement as well as a process improvement to get all of our smaller traffic vehicles 00:09:12.600 --> 00:09:18.840 away from the booking space site and to have them an area to essentially deliver their 00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:24.800 trash to more safely. So it's not just for the, say, recycling drop-off. It'll be more 00:09:24.800 --> 00:09:29.720 expensive than that. Mr. Parker, I think there's also going to 00:09:29.720 --> 00:09:36.080 be expenses on flat work, concrete work, as Tana mentioned, rerouting that to separate 00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:41.160 commercial and residential traffic. So there'll be a lot of concrete work, probably a building 00:09:41.160 --> 00:09:46.680 of some sorts to be able to accommodate those folks that come through. So there will be 00:09:46.680 --> 00:09:52.120 an expense. So it's probably well over a million and a half dollars to do that kind of work, 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:55.000 even though we own the property, but it's just a construction work that's going to go 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:59.800 along with it. Okay. Thank you. All right. We had a motion 00:09:59.800 --> 00:10:02.560 by Karen. Do we have a second? Second. 00:10:02.560 --> 00:10:06.000 All in favor, say aye. Aye. 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:11.240 All opposed? I'll go opposed on that, please. 00:10:11.240 --> 00:10:17.200 Okay. So just to clarify, my motion was for both 00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:25.360 A and B. Right. I think Charlie is just objecting to A. That's correct. 00:10:25.360 --> 00:10:33.720 Should we have another vote on B? I'm good with B, if we want to formalize that. 00:10:33.720 --> 00:10:36.160 Larry had. Let's just go ahead. Since they were pulled 00:10:36.160 --> 00:10:41.560 off consent, take individual votes. Okay. Okay. So I move for approval of B. 00:10:41.560 --> 00:10:49.400 Second. Okay. All in favor, say aye. 00:10:49.400 --> 00:10:55.400 Aye. Opposed? Okay. Are we good? 00:10:55.400 --> 00:11:08.000 Then item C. Yes, I had a question about that. This is not so much about the cost here described, 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:16.240 but rather the event that happened that we had to clean up and repair and so forth. I'd 00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:24.680 like to ask some questions about that. Mainly, did we – did anyone ever create any kind 00:11:24.680 --> 00:11:33.600 of a root cause analysis or report on why and how that failure happened? That's a question 00:11:33.600 --> 00:11:39.880 for management, not really for the purchasing department. Sure. We've got Ken Banks on 00:11:39.880 --> 00:11:45.040 the phone who should be able to answer those specifics on what happened in that – on 00:11:45.040 --> 00:11:49.680 that incident. Good morning, board members. Can you hear 00:11:49.680 --> 00:11:50.680 me? Morning, yes. 00:11:50.680 --> 00:11:58.960 Yes, good morning, everyone. To answer the question, yes, we did. We went back and took 00:11:58.960 --> 00:12:05.080 a look at exactly what happened. In reconstructing those events, sometimes it's difficult to 00:12:05.080 --> 00:12:11.840 tell. We basically had a catastrophic failure at the bell housing of the pump. We believe 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:19.360 that that was caused by a water hammer event that likely happened with an interruption 00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:26.120 of electrical service out there briefly and corresponding water hammer event that went 00:12:26.120 --> 00:12:32.640 down the line. Basically, those rebounded, came back, and caused the bell housing to 00:12:32.640 --> 00:12:40.680 lose integrity. So we believe that that is what caused the problem. I can tell you also 00:12:40.680 --> 00:12:47.760 that we have – we've got a brand-new pump station going in there. It's nearing the 00:12:47.760 --> 00:12:53.760 end of completion of construction. We've got a few more things to do on the piping. 00:12:53.760 --> 00:12:59.880 We've really focused our efforts on trying to ensure that we have redundancy and bypass 00:12:59.880 --> 00:13:07.360 options that do not require us to cross Old Alton Street near the bridge. If you recall, 00:13:07.360 --> 00:13:14.040 we had to bypass and basically go to the live station for Upper Trinity to pump the waste 00:13:14.040 --> 00:13:22.000 until the repair was effective. Now we have a bypass with a direct pipe in that will allow 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:28.540 us to use an on-site emergency pump and continue to operate the force main if we have a catastrophic 00:13:28.540 --> 00:13:36.200 failure in the new live station. So we've got a much more redundant system in place 00:13:36.200 --> 00:13:42.560 now with the new live station, and we have the ability now to do a very high level of 00:13:42.560 --> 00:13:47.800 bypass without having to cross the street. So we feel like we've got a reasonable idea 00:13:47.800 --> 00:13:55.720 about what caused the event, and it was something that really couldn't have been managed for 00:13:55.720 --> 00:14:01.560 effectively. The new pumps will be able to handle that in a much more better fashion. 00:14:01.560 --> 00:14:07.880 And then at the same time, we really focused on ensuring that we had on-site bypass capabilities 00:14:07.880 --> 00:14:14.160 so that we could respond to an event like that again much more rapidly and without having 00:14:14.160 --> 00:14:19.160 to cause the inconvenience for citizens of us having to cross the street. 00:14:19.160 --> 00:14:29.320 Okay. That's good, Ken. I guess my question is more a matter of internal processes and 00:14:29.320 --> 00:14:35.760 the department for future – the future knowledge of future employees and so forth here. If 00:14:35.760 --> 00:14:42.000 there's something here that can be learned, that can be documented, it would benefit people 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:48.360 down the road to know how this – exactly how this happened, how we think it happened, 00:14:48.360 --> 00:14:51.440 and what could be done. 00:14:51.440 --> 00:14:58.040 Absolutely. Yeah, and that's definitely something that we can put together. It's – the issue 00:14:58.040 --> 00:15:02.880 is it's not going to – with the new live station and the new pumps, we don't feel 00:15:02.880 --> 00:15:07.760 like we're going to have a similar event, but we have documented what we felt was the 00:15:07.760 --> 00:15:16.000 cause of the situation. And certainly, we're in process now of trying to coalesce all those 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:21.280 post-event documents and really trying to get those into a centralized location. And 00:15:21.280 --> 00:15:24.800 this will be one of those documents that we add. 00:15:24.800 --> 00:15:30.880 Yeah, I would suggest that if we – if we don't already have a written procedure or 00:15:30.880 --> 00:15:37.640 policy about doing a formal root cause analysis whenever we have a failure that results in 00:15:37.640 --> 00:15:41.960 a permit violation – this was a permit violation, right, of our – 00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:51.880 That – yes, that is correct. It resulted in a sanitary sewer overflow, so it is – absolutely. 00:15:51.880 --> 00:15:58.800 So I guess my suggestion is simply this. If we don't have a formal written policy or 00:15:58.800 --> 00:16:06.240 procedure for initiating an investigation on something like this, then I think we should 00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:12.880 think about creating a policy or a procedure that would require it to be done whenever 00:16:12.880 --> 00:16:18.760 there's a failure like this that results in a permit violation or some other big event 00:16:18.760 --> 00:16:24.040 that happens. That's my – that's really my thought and my suggestion in this. 00:16:24.040 --> 00:16:29.840 Yes, absolutely. We have – we definitely have standard operating procedures that require 00:16:29.840 --> 00:16:36.640 an investigation for any on-site sanitary sewer overflow that we have. I will review 00:16:36.640 --> 00:16:41.440 those and make sure that we have something in there that talks about lift station failures 00:16:41.440 --> 00:16:46.680 in particular. I am pretty sure that we do, but I will go back and verify that. If we 00:16:46.680 --> 00:16:50.360 don't, we'll get that added to our existing SOP. 00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:54.720 Yeah, okay. That's my only concern. With that said, I move – 00:16:54.720 --> 00:17:01.280 Wait, Barbara has her hand up. Now, wasn't Hickory Creek the one we just 00:17:01.280 --> 00:17:07.920 did a lot of work on and replacing stuff? Am I – is my timeframe correct or is the 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:13.880 work not completed? Yes, ma'am, you're absolutely correct. We've 00:17:13.880 --> 00:17:22.600 got a new lift station there now. It is in – it is nearing completion for its construction. 00:17:22.600 --> 00:17:28.240 We anticipate on having that online. We're doing a few more bypass options, so it's 00:17:28.240 --> 00:17:33.280 taking a little bit longer. We had originally thought that it would be done at the – near 00:17:33.280 --> 00:17:38.280 the end of the summer. We're looking at a date now of into the fall, and that's simply 00:17:38.280 --> 00:17:43.000 because we're adding a couple more options to that system to allow us to more effectively 00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:46.560 bypass. Okay, and secondly, I didn't see anything 00:17:46.560 --> 00:17:55.320 about a fine, which usually – was it because it was reported so quickly or – 00:17:55.320 --> 00:18:00.760 We have not received any information from the TCQ indicating that we have – we will 00:18:00.760 --> 00:18:07.880 incur a fine. They have taken all of the information. We were in contact with them during the entire 00:18:07.880 --> 00:18:14.440 event from the – right after it happened through all of the information exchanged with 00:18:14.440 --> 00:18:20.560 them as we facilitated the repair. We feel that we did a very good and very responsive 00:18:20.560 --> 00:18:25.880 job. I believe they feel that as well. So we have not gotten any communication from 00:18:25.880 --> 00:18:32.920 them since the event that they are anticipating a fine. It's a possibility. It always is, 00:18:32.920 --> 00:18:38.600 but I think that it's likely the look at this is just simply a force – or a catastrophic 00:18:38.600 --> 00:18:44.280 event that we had no control over. Well, that's good. I was also glad to see 00:18:44.280 --> 00:18:50.760 that local vendors were used on this job. I always like to see that. 00:18:50.760 --> 00:18:54.120 Yes, ma'am. Ed has a question. 00:18:54.120 --> 00:19:00.360 Yeah. Ken, I have a question. You used the term – I think you said water hammer? 00:19:00.360 --> 00:19:03.800 Yes. What – can you tell me what a water hammer 00:19:03.800 --> 00:19:10.080 is, please? Yes, it's a pressure wave that is caused by 00:19:10.080 --> 00:19:20.040 a quick turnoff and turn on, if you will, of the flow of water through a pipe. It creates 00:19:20.040 --> 00:19:26.240 a pressure wave that has a tendency to move down the pipe and then come back and can cause 00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:32.920 some pretty significant pressure on the pipe when it encounters the – a valve, for example, 00:19:32.920 --> 00:19:38.920 or any other type of obstruction of flow. An example would be if you've ever had a 00:19:38.920 --> 00:19:43.760 bathtub where you turn on the hot water and turn it on real – or turn it off real fast 00:19:43.760 --> 00:19:47.680 in the pipe rattles. That's a small water hammer. 00:19:47.680 --> 00:19:52.160 Okay. Thank you very much. Sure. 00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:55.480 Any other questions? Charlie? 00:19:55.480 --> 00:20:02.000 I would like to move approval, and I would also ask that we note our thanks to the people 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:07.360 who dealt with the triage on this event. I'm guessing there was some really nasty work 00:20:07.360 --> 00:20:12.720 that took place, and on behalf of the citizens, tell those people thanks. 00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:18.000 Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. 00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:20.800 All in favor, say aye. Aye. 00:20:20.800 --> 00:20:25.520 Ghost? Carries. I can't remember who pulled F. Is that you, Russ? 00:20:25.520 --> 00:20:33.600 No, that was me. I'm sure Russ has a question as well. But I just had a quick – another 00:20:33.600 --> 00:20:43.080 quick clarification. So for this contract with Genscape, I was just wondering if there 00:20:43.080 --> 00:20:47.080 was any software involved that would need tech support, or if tech support was part 00:20:47.080 --> 00:20:55.880 of the contract. I didn't notice it listed. Or is this just a sort of information feed 00:20:55.880 --> 00:21:05.360 that we're contracting them for? And the software is our own responsibility. 00:21:05.360 --> 00:21:11.640 Terry Lutrick – excuse me. Terry Nolte, excuse me, will be able to give you some insight 00:21:11.640 --> 00:21:18.720 on that as well. You're muted. 00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:24.160 Good morning, Terry Nolte, Assistant General Manager, Amy. So Genscape is a data feed. 00:21:24.160 --> 00:21:33.200 It provides us with relevant market information about the generating status of all the generation 00:21:33.200 --> 00:21:41.920 units in haircut market. It's a piece of software that we have had under contract for 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:46.280 a number of years, and this is a renewal of that contract. It's critical information 00:21:46.280 --> 00:21:51.640 for us to put together our bids and offers into the day ahead in real-time markets. 00:21:51.640 --> 00:21:59.920 Yeah. So is – I mean, do you anticipate any need for tech support or upgrades or anything 00:21:59.920 --> 00:22:02.440 like that? I think this is a four-year contract. 00:22:02.440 --> 00:22:11.080 Yes, it is a – I believe it's a three-year with two one-year extensions. As I said, we've 00:22:11.080 --> 00:22:15.480 had this piece of software in place for a number of years. It's the kind of Cadillac 00:22:15.480 --> 00:22:25.000 of systems available in – throughout North America, and it's supported primarily by 00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.880 the vendor. Any software upgrades are just pushed to us by the vendor. 00:22:29.880 --> 00:22:33.200 Okay. So it does include upgrades and – 00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:34.200 Yes, ma'am. 00:22:34.200 --> 00:22:39.040 Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? 00:22:39.040 --> 00:22:46.760 Honestly, I do have a question. Terry, this – it's described as a sole source. The 00:22:46.760 --> 00:22:51.760 only ones that can do this, that's this group here, do they not have any competition 00:22:51.760 --> 00:22:59.920 at all? Because I'm wondering if, from what I read in the description, they're taking 00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:06.880 information that's available from other locations and basically compiling it and making it easier 00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:10.120 and quicker for you to use. Is that right? 00:23:10.120 --> 00:23:17.440 That's partially what they do, Mr. Bafford. But one of the unique things that Genscape 00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:27.080 does is they actually have field-located meters that measure the magnetic fields around the 00:23:27.080 --> 00:23:34.880 transmission systems that are exiting each of these power plants. And so while information 00:23:34.880 --> 00:23:42.880 that is publicly available as to the status of the facilities, Genscape provides real-time 00:23:42.880 --> 00:23:48.640 information where we can get that information quicker than through ERCOT or other publicly 00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:57.280 available means. And in our business, since prices change every five minutes, having that 00:23:57.280 --> 00:23:59.960 real-time information is critically important. 00:23:59.960 --> 00:24:02.040 Okay. Thank you. 00:24:02.040 --> 00:24:03.040 You're welcome. 00:24:03.040 --> 00:24:06.680 All right. Do we have a motion to approve? 00:24:06.680 --> 00:24:07.680 So moved. 00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:08.680 Second. 00:24:08.680 --> 00:24:10.240 All in favor say aye. 00:24:10.240 --> 00:24:11.240 Aye. 00:24:11.240 --> 00:24:15.560 I'm sorry, Ed, did you have a question or you just? 00:24:15.560 --> 00:24:19.320 No, I was second or I was second. 00:24:19.320 --> 00:24:26.640 Okay. All right. So the next item is consider approval of the minutes of July 13th, 2020. 00:24:26.640 --> 00:24:30.640 Does anyone have any corrections or changes? 00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:42.200 The attachment that I received was for June 22nd. Does anybody have the minutes of July 00:24:42.200 --> 00:24:46.360 13th? I'm just looking at something weird. 00:24:46.360 --> 00:24:49.800 Huh. I thought I read July 13th. 00:24:49.800 --> 00:24:54.000 Yeah, but the actual attachment says June 22nd. 00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:55.000 Oh. 00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:57.000 Yeah, you're correct. 00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:04.400 Since I missed that one, I was curious about it. 00:25:04.400 --> 00:25:07.920 Looks like there may be an attachment error. So we may need to postpone that vote until 00:25:07.920 --> 00:25:14.280 the following meeting. I may ask the city attorney to weigh in on that since the wrong 00:25:14.280 --> 00:25:16.560 attachment was included in the item. 00:25:16.560 --> 00:25:20.520 Moved to table until the next meeting. 00:25:20.520 --> 00:25:21.520 Second. 00:25:21.520 --> 00:25:24.080 Okay. All in favor say aye. 00:25:24.080 --> 00:25:25.080 Aye. 00:25:25.080 --> 00:25:27.600 Okay. I got to leave again. 00:25:27.600 --> 00:25:29.680 Yes, you do. 00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:36.720 So Larry, I'll sign off and then ask to join and you can just let me on afterwards. How 00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:37.720 about that? 00:25:37.720 --> 00:25:38.720 Okay. 00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:39.720 Barbara? 00:25:39.720 --> 00:25:40.720 Question of Billy before he leaves. 00:25:40.720 --> 00:25:41.720 Yes, ma'am. 00:25:41.720 --> 00:25:45.720 What is a fire hydrant lateral? 00:25:45.720 --> 00:25:51.720 The lateral line coming from the fire hydrant. It goes laterally. It's just a term for a 00:25:51.720 --> 00:25:55.240 fire hydrant attack, you know, the water line attached to the fire hydrant. 00:25:55.240 --> 00:25:56.240 Okay. Thank you. 00:25:56.240 --> 00:25:59.000 Keep it. Okay. I'm out now. 00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:00.000 Bye. 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:08.160 All right. Who's presenting this one, Mario? 00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:13.800 That's a good question. I believe we've got Trevor Cain on the line along with Becky DeVine. 00:26:13.800 --> 00:26:18.360 So I'm going to reach out to them. 00:26:18.360 --> 00:26:23.280 Yeah, I'm here. This is Trevor Cain. Can you hear me? 00:26:23.280 --> 00:26:24.280 Yes. 00:26:24.280 --> 00:26:29.560 You may need to call them the caption, Susan. 00:26:29.560 --> 00:26:33.200 I'm sorry. Oh, you want me to read the caption? 00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:34.200 Yes, ma'am. 00:26:34.200 --> 00:26:38.440 Consider recommending the adoption of an ordinance for the city of Denton, a Texas home rule 00:26:38.440 --> 00:26:44.840 municipal corporation, authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with Jagle Public 00:26:44.840 --> 00:26:49.760 Company for the construction of the McKinney Street/Mayhill intersection project for the 00:26:49.760 --> 00:26:54.440 city of Denton, providing the expenditure of funds, therefore providing an effective 00:26:54.440 --> 00:27:03.360 date award to the company and not to exceed $4,391,631.04. 00:27:03.360 --> 00:27:10.320 Susan, before we get started, Trevor, is someone supposed to be bringing the presentation up 00:27:10.320 --> 00:27:15.960 here on site or do you have the controls remotely? 00:27:15.960 --> 00:27:20.960 I do not. I was told just to call in. 00:27:20.960 --> 00:27:29.640 Okay. All right. Can we take just a five minute break so we can kind of get our act together 00:27:29.640 --> 00:27:41.040 here on site, if that's okay? Could we do that just for a few moments? 00:27:41.040 --> 00:27:51.880 Okay. We're back from our five minute break and we're going on to the item for the McKinney 00:27:51.880 --> 00:27:56.440 Street/Mayhill intersection project. Go ahead, Trevor. 00:27:56.440 --> 00:28:02.360 All right. Good morning. I'm sorry for the mix-up here, but we'll make it work. So y'all 00:28:02.360 --> 00:28:08.360 should be looking at the title slide, the McKinney/Mayhill intersection improvement. 00:28:08.360 --> 00:28:15.680 We can go ahead and go to the second slide. It shows the project overview. This project 00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:22.760 is the actual McKinney Street/Mayhill intersection. It includes traffic control, paving, drainage, 00:28:22.760 --> 00:28:27.700 sidewalks, street lights, traffic signals, pavement markings, and water and wastewater 00:28:27.700 --> 00:28:34.520 improvements. In essence, it's just the actual intersection and about 300 or 600 feet each 00:28:34.520 --> 00:28:41.400 way. It ties in in the middle of the current McKinney Street widening phase 2 project that's 00:28:41.400 --> 00:28:49.680 currently underway. We can move to the next slide. These are the bids that we received. 00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:57.560 We actually got three on this project. To the far left you'll see Hewitt dollars, OPC. 00:28:57.560 --> 00:29:02.320 Jago Public Company was the low bidder. They actually came in a little bit lower than what 00:29:02.320 --> 00:29:09.280 we were looking at, but pretty much right on budget what we were looking at. We can 00:29:09.280 --> 00:29:15.280 move to the next slide. This is our construction schedule. We go to council tomorrow pending 00:29:15.280 --> 00:29:23.160 a decision here. Notice to proceed, we're looking at middle of August and it's a one 00:29:23.160 --> 00:29:31.260 year contract. So we're looking at August 18, 2021 to be completed with this project. 00:29:31.260 --> 00:29:35.560 The next slide is just the recommendation. We recommend adoption of an ordinance accepting 00:29:35.560 --> 00:29:39.680 the competitive low bid that award a public works contract for construction on McKinney 00:29:39.680 --> 00:29:51.300 Street/Mayhill intersection project to Jago in the amount of $4,108,575 plus a contingency 00:29:51.300 --> 00:30:06.880 in the amount of $209,125.29. For the total not to exceed amount of $391,631.04. The next 00:30:06.880 --> 00:30:13.280 slide is just the question slide and that's the end of the presentation. I can take any 00:30:13.280 --> 00:30:22.040 questions that anybody has. Barbara, go ahead. Yes. Give me an example of a contingency at 00:30:22.040 --> 00:30:28.600 the city's discretion. What would that be like? So this 5% is something we're starting 00:30:28.600 --> 00:30:36.600 to add to contract. It's really just a mechanism for us to do if there's a quantity adjustments 00:30:36.600 --> 00:30:44.880 or change orders that fall underneath so that we don't have to go back to count, these will 00:30:44.880 --> 00:30:55.240 be things, you know, some items to that nature. Okay. Thanks, Matt. Yeah, I have a question. 00:30:55.240 --> 00:31:03.880 On the agenda information sheet, it says it makes reference to 600 liner feet. What is 00:31:03.880 --> 00:31:15.360 a liner foot? That's probably a typo. It should be linear feet. I would suggest when we deal 00:31:15.360 --> 00:31:20.240 with something that involves this much money, we have somebody proofread these dimensions 00:31:20.240 --> 00:31:27.140 because I can guess what it means and usually come pretty close, but it should be very clear. 00:31:27.140 --> 00:31:35.440 Another thing, another question. You mentioned 600 linear feet. Is that 600 feet west of 00:31:35.440 --> 00:31:42.040 Mayhill and 600 feet east of Mayhill? Is that what that means? Yes, sir. 600 linear feet 00:31:42.040 --> 00:31:52.480 east and west of the intersection. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. Other questions? Do we have 00:31:52.480 --> 00:32:06.480 a motion to approve? I move, we approve. Second. Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. All right. 00:32:06.480 --> 00:32:12.380 Management reports. Yes, Madam Chair, members of the board, good morning. You have a number 00:32:12.380 --> 00:32:17.680 of attachments in the management report. You've got that. Do you want to wait for Billy? Oh, 00:32:17.680 --> 00:32:28.080 I forgot. Good point, Larry. Yes, Barbara? Charlie asked the question about all the verbiage 00:32:28.080 --> 00:32:35.960 in the agenda and to answer your question, yes, it has been since I was on here another 00:32:35.960 --> 00:32:43.760 time. There's verbiage at the beginning of everyone and Mario maybe cannot tell us why, 00:32:43.760 --> 00:32:48.180 but they consider recommending the adoption of the ordinance, home rule, municipal, blah, 00:32:48.180 --> 00:32:58.720 blah, blah. Why is that at the beginning of every agenda item? It did not feel like that. 00:32:58.720 --> 00:33:07.320 I'm not following your question, Barbara. Okay. At each, on the agenda, each one starts 00:33:07.320 --> 00:33:11.520 off with consider recommending the adoption of the ordinance of the city of Denton at 00:33:11.520 --> 00:33:17.160 Texas home rule municipal corporation or raising the city manager or his designated to execute 00:33:17.160 --> 00:33:25.520 the contract with. And that that verbiage is at the beginning of every item. And what 00:33:25.520 --> 00:33:36.160 is the reason for that? Larry? I can jump in. So, PUB is just making 00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:42.480 a recommendation and it's to comply with the open meetings act about what the PUB is doing. 00:33:42.480 --> 00:33:48.080 So you're considering making a recommendation for council to take an action. We've added 00:33:48.080 --> 00:33:54.000 city of Denton, Texas home rule municipal corporation. That's the official legal description 00:33:54.000 --> 00:34:01.000 of the city. And that's why we've done that. The charter is strange in that Texas in that 00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:05.280 Denton is just known as the city of Denton. It's not known as the city of Denton, Texas. 00:34:05.280 --> 00:34:11.460 And so that's why we go ahead and add all that. Could that be added at the beginning 00:34:11.460 --> 00:34:20.320 before before it just said the following items are considered recommending instead of each 00:34:20.320 --> 00:34:26.000 time, because every time, you know, you have to quickly sift through that because oh, yeah, 00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:31.120 they printed that again. Could you just put that once at the beginning of the agenda to 00:34:31.120 --> 00:34:37.880 all items that it applied to and not have to constantly be skipping over that because 00:34:37.880 --> 00:34:43.760 you've already read it on the first, second, third and fourth items? 00:34:43.760 --> 00:34:47.880 We can look at that. The bigger issue is one of complying with the Texas Open Meetings 00:34:47.880 --> 00:34:54.800 Act. One item, one action. And that may look like you're taking like with consent. We're 00:34:54.800 --> 00:35:01.080 able to do that because we're stating on consent. It's all being acted on. We can look at it 00:35:01.080 --> 00:35:06.280 I'll be honest with you. It's always been done that way. And no, we're the first part. 00:35:06.280 --> 00:35:10.020 Well, it's always been done that way since I've been here. And so there may have been 00:35:10.020 --> 00:35:15.840 another way we can certainly look at that. Well, before you were here, it did not. It 00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:21.400 was not done like that. Oh, just saying. Well, I can give you a little brief history. 00:35:21.400 --> 00:35:28.120 There have been council members since I have been here that have wanted to have great detail 00:35:28.120 --> 00:35:36.080 put in the captions that is really way beyond what the Open Meetings Act requires. But that's 00:35:36.080 --> 00:35:41.280 the direction they've asked us to go. And we've accommodated that. 00:35:41.280 --> 00:35:49.800 Understand. All right. Management reports, Murray. All right, I'll start over. Madam 00:35:49.800 --> 00:35:54.880 chair, members of the board. Good morning. You do have a number of items listed and in 00:35:54.880 --> 00:36:01.000 this month, or excuse me, this meetings report, we've got the energy center informal staff 00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:05.560 report and dashboard. I know the board has requested that on a number of occasions. And 00:36:05.560 --> 00:36:11.560 this is the latest version of that. And we've got staff from DME that can respond to those 00:36:11.560 --> 00:36:17.720 questions along with finance if you have any. And then we've got the identity theft prevention 00:36:17.720 --> 00:36:25.000 program during the emergency declaration. Got information on that. Krista Foster should 00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:30.920 be on the line to be able to answer any questions that you may have. And then the environmental 00:36:30.920 --> 00:36:34.960 preferred procurement request. That was a request that had been made previously, I believe, 00:36:34.960 --> 00:36:40.080 by Mr. Soph. And we're providing you all what we've done so far. I know that our staff is 00:36:40.080 --> 00:36:47.720 looking over the next coming months to be able to add additional components to the environmental 00:36:47.720 --> 00:36:53.080 preferred procurement policy. So that will be coming forward to the committee on the 00:36:53.080 --> 00:36:58.400 environment here in the near future and then ultimately adoption by city council. As far 00:36:58.400 --> 00:37:06.400 as future agenda items, you have those listed there. And then as far as today, we would 00:37:06.400 --> 00:37:12.520 have been covering items regarding the budget on the utilities. And I believe we are covering 00:37:12.520 --> 00:37:19.600 a few. But the majority of those would be covered next Tuesday, excuse me, next Monday 00:37:19.600 --> 00:37:24.920 on special called meeting. And then lastly, it's just any new business items that we have 00:37:24.920 --> 00:37:33.160 on your report. Any questions that you may have on any of these reports that we can get 00:37:33.160 --> 00:37:40.600 staff on the line for? Yes, I have one. Ed's hands up, too. So we'll go to Ed first, then 00:37:40.600 --> 00:37:52.000 you, then Gerald. I had a question regarding the DEC report. And that question is, in keeping 00:37:52.000 --> 00:38:02.440 with Denton's sustainability goals, is there a policy or initiative in place to offset 00:38:02.440 --> 00:38:15.880 the DEC's greenhouse gas emissions? Terry Nolte will be able to answer that. And I believe 00:38:15.880 --> 00:38:25.840 Ken Banks is on the line as well. Good morning. Terry Nolte, Assistant General Manager. There 00:38:25.840 --> 00:38:35.240 is no current policy at DME with regard to offsetting those carbon emissions. I think 00:38:35.240 --> 00:38:45.480 as the board knows, as 100% renewable supplied utility, the metric that we use for determining 00:38:45.480 --> 00:38:53.520 that 100% renewable is based on the renewable energy credits that we have associated with 00:38:53.520 --> 00:39:01.120 contracted renewable energy resources, those equal the total load that served over the 00:39:01.120 --> 00:39:09.200 year. And therefore, we net to kind of a zero sum game on carbon to serve the load. However, 00:39:09.200 --> 00:39:17.280 we do not have any active program to account for those carbon emissions that take place 00:39:17.280 --> 00:39:23.920 from the DEC. We are looking at a number of technologies. Recently, there's been a lot 00:39:23.920 --> 00:39:33.920 of work on introducing hydrogen into natural gas pipelines as a measure or a means to offset 00:39:33.920 --> 00:39:39.440 some of those carbon emissions. If you combust hydrogen, there are no carbon emissions from 00:39:39.440 --> 00:39:48.740 hydrogen. However, that is in its infancy across the United States. Interestingly, the 00:39:48.740 --> 00:40:02.000 Wurzilla engines at the DEC do have the capability of processing natural gas combined with hydrogen. 00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:08.640 Is there any – do you think, Terry, there's any interest between, say, DME working with 00:40:08.640 --> 00:40:18.600 the sustainability folks in working out some sort of means of offsets until there is a 00:40:18.600 --> 00:40:22.280 technological advance where the emissions are reduced? 00:40:22.280 --> 00:40:29.920 We'd be glad to work with sustainability on what the options are and determine whether 00:40:29.920 --> 00:40:37.080 that's something that the PUB or the council would be willing to pursue and what the cost 00:40:37.080 --> 00:40:38.920 would be. 00:40:38.920 --> 00:40:46.800 I hope you can go forward with that and keep us apprised of any progress. 00:40:46.800 --> 00:40:51.000 All right. Russ, you had a question? 00:40:51.000 --> 00:41:00.040 Yes, I do. On the DEC report, the line item that says insurance, we're spending roughly 00:41:00.040 --> 00:41:06.400 twice the amount budgeted for insurance. And I know part of that – that's a $580,000 00:41:06.400 --> 00:41:13.520 increase, I believe. And part of that is because of the outage insurance we agreed to purchase. 00:41:13.520 --> 00:41:21.240 But I don't remember how much the cost was for that outage insurance. 00:41:21.240 --> 00:41:27.400 My memory – I don't have the exact number – somewhere around $280,000 was the bill 00:41:27.400 --> 00:41:33.300 for that. We did not budget that as an insurance item. We actually budgeted that as a – one 00:41:33.300 --> 00:41:41.220 of the costs of power supply in the Energy Management Office. The balance of the increase 00:41:41.220 --> 00:41:50.000 is due to a very large premium increase in our property and business interruption insurance 00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:58.200 that took place this year. We renew those policies each year. It's premised upon kind 00:41:58.200 --> 00:42:06.040 of the market that's being offered in – for that particular type of service. 00:42:06.040 --> 00:42:12.280 And as I know, Bafford, you've got a background in power generation. So, you know, each year 00:42:12.280 --> 00:42:20.100 the carrier comes out, reviews metrics, performance, and then assesses its reinsurance options 00:42:20.100 --> 00:42:26.080 in the marketplace. And for some reason, this year, across the industry, we've seen about 00:42:26.080 --> 00:42:36.120 a 30 to 40 percent increase in business interruption and property and casualty insurance for these 00:42:36.120 --> 00:42:38.040 types of generating facilities. 00:42:38.040 --> 00:42:46.400 Yeah, I understand that. Given how really few hours we operate those engines compared 00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:53.640 to the total hours in a year, our interruption, I would think, wouldn't be all that much. 00:42:53.640 --> 00:42:59.240 And it's a new facility. So my only suggestion is it might be time to think about shopping 00:42:59.240 --> 00:43:07.280 for some insurance. You ever shop for different carriers? 00:43:07.280 --> 00:43:14.160 In fact, this year we just switched brokers, and that happened during a transition period 00:43:14.160 --> 00:43:20.600 where we – where the risk department was transitioning from one manager to another. 00:43:20.600 --> 00:43:28.940 And the prior insurance carrier provided us a quote. We are currently shopping that property 00:43:28.940 --> 00:43:34.920 and casualty and business interruption insurance. And to the extent we can find a provider that 00:43:34.920 --> 00:43:41.640 would provide us with comparable coverage at a lower rate, under the current trend – the 00:43:41.640 --> 00:43:47.560 current policy, we can seek, and they will reimburse us for the unused portion. So we 00:43:47.560 --> 00:43:51.840 are actively trying to find a way to lower that cost. 00:43:51.840 --> 00:43:56.040 Yeah, that's good. That's all I had on that one. 00:43:56.040 --> 00:44:04.880 Charlie, you had your hand up earlier, right? You're on mute. 00:44:04.880 --> 00:44:14.280 Sorry. Back on the red flags rule briefing, thank you for that. I just wanted to make 00:44:14.280 --> 00:44:20.840 one comment on that. I think our City customer service does an excellent job of balancing 00:44:20.840 --> 00:44:28.200 preventing identity theft and giving customer service to people. I really am grateful for 00:44:28.200 --> 00:44:35.080 the good job they do. I just – as we implement this formally rather than informally, I think 00:44:35.080 --> 00:44:41.360 it's important to remember where identity theft is a risk, perhaps new accounts, and 00:44:41.360 --> 00:44:46.480 where it's probably not a risk, and that we don't add a lot of red tape to our staff 00:44:46.480 --> 00:44:52.960 and to our customers. I think that could be a bad thing as we implement a formal policy 00:44:52.960 --> 00:45:01.000 rather than just good common sense. Thanks. Billy, did you have your hand up? No. Ed, 00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:09.040 did you? Yep, go ahead. I just wanted to request, if it's handy, 00:45:09.040 --> 00:45:23.760 I would like to receive a DEC emissions report that the cumulative amounts of all emissions 00:45:23.760 --> 00:45:33.760 since the plant began operation, would that be possible to receive? Like a year to date 00:45:33.760 --> 00:45:40.720 from the initial operation of the plant when it was first fired up? Absolutely, we can 00:45:40.720 --> 00:45:43.200 certainly do that. Mario, this is Chris Ludrick. I think I can 00:45:43.200 --> 00:45:47.680 answer that question. Please do. 00:45:47.680 --> 00:45:55.080 I didn't know if you could hear me or not. Yes, Mr. So, on our webpage, we have summaries 00:45:55.080 --> 00:45:58.600 from 2018 and 2019. Okay. 00:45:58.600 --> 00:46:06.320 Those emissions on the tonnage are year to date. So, the 2019 annual summary will have 00:46:06.320 --> 00:46:09.680 those figures you're looking for, and if you would like, we could add them together and 00:46:09.680 --> 00:46:14.120 send them to you, but those figures are available on the webpage. 00:46:14.120 --> 00:46:17.680 Okay, thank you, Chris. You're welcome. 00:46:17.680 --> 00:46:23.720 I have a question about the procurement program, too. Is this the right time to ask? 00:46:23.720 --> 00:46:30.680 It's under your environmental preferred? Yes, absolutely. Go ahead. 00:46:30.680 --> 00:46:40.840 Okay. Let me see here. I just want, the first question is, is Staples the sole environmentally 00:46:40.840 --> 00:46:51.080 conscious vendor that the city uses for all its eco products? 00:46:51.080 --> 00:46:57.120 This is Cassie Ogden, well, previous director of procurement and compliance. Yes, the Staples 00:46:57.120 --> 00:47:04.800 is our sole provider of office supplies, and so they do report on those items. We can request 00:47:04.800 --> 00:47:11.480 the report as often as we would like, but we've opted to do the report annually. 00:47:11.480 --> 00:47:22.080 Thank you. Does the city ever issue purchasing requests or send bids out for environmentally 00:47:22.080 --> 00:47:29.160 preferred products, like very often the DME does for when it has construction work done? 00:47:29.160 --> 00:47:35.880 In other words, have you actually, or has the city explored other venues for purchasing 00:47:35.880 --> 00:47:43.640 these products, especially with businesses and distributors who deal exclusively in that 00:47:43.640 --> 00:47:50.960 sort of product? Not to my knowledge, like I said in the memo, 00:47:50.960 --> 00:47:57.440 our purchasing records were very limited prior to 2017. We changed the requirements in 2017 00:47:57.440 --> 00:48:01.720 for the records that we were required to keep and how they were organized. So those were 00:48:01.720 --> 00:48:07.380 the only items that I was able to find. Catherine Barnett might be able to give you some more 00:48:07.380 --> 00:48:15.960 context to that, but we are working to draft a policy, should be coming to you in the fall, 00:48:15.960 --> 00:48:21.800 that will give us more parameters when we do go out to bid on items that we can include 00:48:21.800 --> 00:48:26.680 and kind of give us some targets to hit for those recyclable items. 00:48:26.680 --> 00:48:32.440 Okay. The reason I ask, and I don't know if there's anybody from sustainability on 00:48:32.440 --> 00:48:42.340 the line, but with a program that was instituted in 2007, the results, according to the pie 00:48:42.340 --> 00:48:50.640 charts that are included in the backup material, are not very encouraging in terms of the percentages 00:48:50.640 --> 00:48:59.600 of how much of the product that are supplies that the city uses, furniture, et cetera, 00:48:59.600 --> 00:49:06.680 the small percentage of that, which is eco-friendly. And you can see that in the pie chart that 00:49:06.680 --> 00:49:11.320 provided. So I'm wondering if part of the problem for 00:49:11.320 --> 00:49:18.360 what is clearly perhaps a lack of progress over these 13 years might be the fact that 00:49:18.360 --> 00:49:24.360 the city has been relying on one vendor for all of this and the limitations that could 00:49:24.360 --> 00:49:32.120 be imposed upon possible purchases by the fact that the city is only using one vendor. 00:49:32.120 --> 00:49:37.720 We have Catherine Barnett, she's with sustainability on the line. 00:49:37.720 --> 00:49:45.840 Hi Ed, this is Catherine, sustainability manager. Like Cassie said, they were only able to go 00:49:45.840 --> 00:49:52.880 back and confirm some of the records to 2017. Staples is just our vendor for office supplies, 00:49:52.880 --> 00:50:00.640 so that's just going to be our typical office used paper, those type of items. Now we've 00:50:00.640 --> 00:50:06.880 done green cement, you probably remember that, several years ago we had that whenever we 00:50:06.880 --> 00:50:15.520 were trying to use some of the kilns that had already made the environmental improvements. 00:50:15.520 --> 00:50:21.520 There's an air quality preference that's in some of our bid specs, and then of course 00:50:21.520 --> 00:50:27.560 we have the local preference. So there have been a few bid items, but Staples is just 00:50:27.560 --> 00:50:37.200 a small part of what we do. We've done janitorial supplies that were environmentally preferable. 00:50:37.200 --> 00:50:44.880 And this is, unfortunately we're relying on my memory for some of this, but office supplies 00:50:44.880 --> 00:50:50.240 definitely aren't the only thing that we've done, but there there is room to embed more 00:50:50.240 --> 00:50:55.920 in our policies. Yeah, and as someone mentioned, a forthcoming 00:50:55.920 --> 00:51:02.600 document that's going to flesh out what the policies, what the city's policies are on 00:51:02.600 --> 00:51:07.280 a sustainable procurement program. Is that true? Because as it is now, there's really 00:51:07.280 --> 00:51:13.280 nothing solely dealing with it. It's dealt very, very briefly in the city procurement 00:51:13.280 --> 00:51:22.800 manual on page 61, but there really is no standout document that really outlines everything 00:51:22.800 --> 00:51:28.040 from plastics to air quality, which you know what I'm talking about, and a comprehensive 00:51:28.040 --> 00:51:35.320 document that puts goals and accomplishments in place. 00:51:35.320 --> 00:51:39.880 Yeah, and I can elaborate, that is going to be bringing, being brought forward to the 00:51:39.880 --> 00:51:45.000 Committee on the Environment, that'll go along with the, this is the Simple Sustainability 00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:51.040 Strategy Plan. Along the way, the city has, through city council, has embraced a number 00:51:51.040 --> 00:51:57.480 of new policies like the integrated pest management program. That is a program that is a lot further 00:51:57.480 --> 00:52:03.000 along than what it was before as far as the use of sustainable products out in our fields 00:52:03.000 --> 00:52:10.240 that when we maintain our ball fields, medians, et cetera, and also the utilization of pesticides 00:52:10.240 --> 00:52:15.120 when they're used inside city buildings, et cetera. So the city has come a long way. I 00:52:15.120 --> 00:52:20.080 mean, there is a lot to be done. And quite honestly, you never really arrive because 00:52:20.080 --> 00:52:24.320 the marketplace dictates a lot of these things when it comes to fixtures, when it comes to 00:52:24.320 --> 00:52:30.300 plumbing fixtures, and as a city adopts energy codes, those things have just become much 00:52:30.300 --> 00:52:37.520 more ubiquitous across a lot of different aspects of the, not only the community organization 00:52:37.520 --> 00:52:44.520 itself, but across the community as development occurs. So there's more to come. And so certainly 00:52:44.520 --> 00:52:49.720 we as staff recognize that it's, we've only scratched the surface when it comes to this. 00:52:49.720 --> 00:52:55.640 And so we're also taking a concerted effort to up our game when it comes to these types 00:52:55.640 --> 00:53:01.960 of products and practices. - Thank you. I appreciate that very much. 00:53:01.960 --> 00:53:07.280 - Any other questions? - Yes, I have one. 00:53:07.280 --> 00:53:11.800 - Yes, go ahead, Russ. - Item number five, action items. There's 00:53:11.800 --> 00:53:19.240 an item on there says that today, July 27th, we'd receive some kind of a presentation about 00:53:19.240 --> 00:53:29.960 why our capital budget items that we've identified and funded and budgeted for cannot get done. 00:53:29.960 --> 00:53:38.640 And that was a question I had pre-COVID days. This predates the COVID thing that overwhelmed 00:53:38.640 --> 00:53:42.400 everybody. So I'd just like to follow up on that. 00:53:42.400 --> 00:53:46.160 - Are you talking about item number four on the capital utilities? 00:53:46.160 --> 00:53:52.800 - Yes. Let's see. Yeah, the one that's got my name by it. 00:53:52.800 --> 00:53:58.320 - Sure. That would have been presented today as part of your budget overview. However, 00:53:58.320 --> 00:54:03.420 it's not scheduled today. It'll be scheduled next Monday. You all have a special call meeting 00:54:03.420 --> 00:54:09.160 next Monday to go over all the utility budgets. So with that will be a presentation that gives 00:54:09.160 --> 00:54:14.660 you an overview of the progress on our capital improvement plan for the utilities. 00:54:14.660 --> 00:54:17.080 - Thank you. - You heard your hand up. 00:54:17.080 --> 00:54:24.680 - I did. Item one on the new business action items. About four and a half months ago, I 00:54:24.680 --> 00:54:30.940 requested a briefing on a lawsuit lost by the city of Denton involving the determination 00:54:30.940 --> 00:54:37.840 of two DME employees. Nothing's happened since I requested the briefing. Barbara kindly brought 00:54:37.840 --> 00:54:44.040 it up last meeting and still nothing has happened. If staff thinks this request is outside of 00:54:44.040 --> 00:54:49.880 the PUB's purview, or if it's best handled in a closed meeting, that's fine. Just say 00:54:49.880 --> 00:54:56.280 so. However, we're dealing with an enormous lawsuit with implications both to DME personnel 00:54:56.280 --> 00:55:01.660 and to the budget. So I think it's both relevant and time sensitive. And I would ask staff 00:55:01.660 --> 00:55:10.680 to respond at the next meeting. - Okay. Larry, do you want to say anything? 00:55:10.680 --> 00:55:15.560 - At this point, we can probably put something together. 00:55:15.560 --> 00:55:22.560 - We'll put something together. - Thank you. Any other questions? All right. 00:55:22.560 --> 00:55:28.000 On to concluding items. Does a board member wish to have anything added to a future agenda 00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:36.440 or have comments for staff? - What Charlie's comments and questions just 00:55:36.440 --> 00:55:44.880 work as far as that goes. The DME employee situation is starting to go in that category 00:55:44.880 --> 00:55:50.680 better than where we were. - Yeah. I would like to congratulate Mario 00:55:50.680 --> 00:55:55.520 and thank you for his service to Denton. You'll be missed. 00:55:55.520 --> 00:55:57.720 - Thank you. - Their gain is our loss. 00:55:57.720 --> 00:56:01.080 - Well, I appreciated this. It's going to be my last PUB meeting, even though you do 00:56:01.080 --> 00:56:07.360 have a special call one, but we'll miss staff and certainly the board and appreciate all 00:56:07.360 --> 00:56:12.440 your, certainly your patience today and past meetings when we've had issues brought before, 00:56:12.440 --> 00:56:16.480 you appreciate your professionalism and just your ability to support city staff and city 00:56:16.480 --> 00:56:23.660 operations. With that being said, at the next meeting, Tony Puente will be the staff liaison 00:56:23.660 --> 00:56:29.920 between the city and the public utilities board. You know Tony well, so it's a familiar face. 00:56:29.920 --> 00:56:34.160 And so I know he'll do a great job. - Best wishes to you. 00:56:34.160 --> 00:56:36.920 - Thank you very much. - Yes. Mario, for those of us who live in 00:56:36.920 --> 00:56:42.980 the dark sometimes, where are you going? - Well, I will be, I have been appointed the 00:56:42.980 --> 00:56:48.240 city manager of Nacogdoches, Texas, which is in East Texas. I went to college and I'm 00:56:48.240 --> 00:56:54.200 from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but I went to undergrad as Stephen F. Austin. And so 00:56:54.200 --> 00:56:57.960 I'll be being their next city manager starting August 10th. 00:56:57.960 --> 00:57:00.320 - Great, congratulations. - Appreciate it. 00:57:00.320 --> 00:57:06.360 - So you're going to be lumberjack, right? - Go Jacks, go Jacks. Yes, ma'am. 00:57:06.360 --> 00:57:09.120 - Good luck. - Thank you. 00:57:09.120 --> 00:57:13.160 - All right, so now we're going into work session. We're going to receive a report, 00:57:13.160 --> 00:57:19.920 hold a discussion and give direction regarding the electric fiscal year 2021 proposed budget 00:57:19.920 --> 00:57:24.400 capital improvement program and the five-year financial summary. 00:57:24.400 --> 00:57:32.680 - Good morning, PB members, chairs, Nick Benson, assistant director of finance. Can you hear 00:57:32.680 --> 00:57:34.160 me okay? - Yes. 00:57:34.160 --> 00:57:39.880 - Perfect. Let me get the presentation pulled up and then I'll do a quick introduction to 00:57:39.880 --> 00:57:44.240 Tony who will take over the operational discussion of the presentation. But to facilitate the 00:57:44.240 --> 00:57:47.720 online meeting, we've actually broken the discussion up into two parts. The first part 00:57:47.720 --> 00:57:52.400 of the presentation will be an operating discussion to cover really the goals and accomplishments 00:57:52.400 --> 00:57:56.920 of the electric department. About halfway through, there will be a slide to allow for 00:57:56.920 --> 00:58:02.120 questions. You can ask Tony any questions that you may have regarding the operations. 00:58:02.120 --> 00:58:05.840 After it gets done, I'll come back up and present the financial portion of the presentation, 00:58:05.840 --> 00:58:10.560 and then of course we'll finish out with questions regarding the financial section. A couple 00:58:10.560 --> 00:58:14.120 of things. When you read to the financial presentation today, this is an abbreviated 00:58:14.120 --> 00:58:18.200 presentation of the budget. Our full intent is to circle back to the public utility board 00:58:18.200 --> 00:58:22.520 this winter in November and December to have a detailed budget discussion with both the 00:58:22.520 --> 00:58:27.800 public utility board and city council. This will allow us time to have those high revenue 00:58:27.800 --> 00:58:31.680 months for the utilities of July and August. So actually this is July, but we'll also have 00:58:31.680 --> 00:58:37.640 August also and fully understand the COVID impact to the city utilities to further those 00:58:37.640 --> 00:58:43.760 discussions with both the PB and city council. With that, I'll turn it over to Tony and he 00:58:43.760 --> 00:59:02.280 will take the presentation over. Oh, let me go back. Sorry about that. I just realized 00:59:02.280 --> 00:59:05.320 you couldn't see me. So now you can't see me. Hang on a second. I'll turn it over to 00:59:05.320 --> 00:59:31.240 Tony. We can't hear you, Tony. Here we go. So Madam Chair and members of the PB, some 00:59:31.240 --> 00:59:35.480 of the changes in the organization, I recently assumed the position of executive manager 00:59:35.480 --> 00:59:41.800 of utilities. And so I'll be providing management oversight of all the utilities as well as 00:59:41.800 --> 00:59:46.920 being the liaison to the sports. I certainly look forward to that. But with those changes, 00:59:46.920 --> 00:59:50.560 I will continue to serve as the DME general manager. And that's the reason why I'm doing 00:59:50.560 --> 00:59:55.000 the presentation today. Obviously Terry Nolte is also in the room in case I get into any 00:59:55.000 --> 00:59:59.240 trouble, or there's any questions that you may have. So with that, I'll go ahead and 00:59:59.240 --> 01:00:08.920 shift over to the presentation and get the operational component going. So the first 01:00:08.920 --> 01:00:14.400 thing that I want to say before we get started, obviously this past year has been a challenging 01:00:14.400 --> 01:00:19.160 one. I certainly want to thank all our staff for all the work that they've done. Really 01:00:19.160 --> 01:00:24.920 unprecedented times, as you know, across not just the utilities, but our state or city 01:00:24.920 --> 01:00:29.680 and certainly the country. But I do want to thank them for all the work they've done. 01:00:29.680 --> 01:00:34.280 I will report to you that our staff is in good shape. We've been able to continue to 01:00:34.280 --> 01:00:40.880 keep the lights on and serve the community. And as well, through this process, we also 01:00:40.880 --> 01:00:45.800 had the opportunity, if you want to call it that, to respond to a F-1 tornado that tore 01:00:45.800 --> 01:00:51.440 through downtown Bowie. And so we provided mutual aid during that time. And so I really 01:00:51.440 --> 01:00:57.320 just want to thank Brad Watts and some of our other line operations staff that responded 01:00:57.320 --> 01:01:02.560 to that. And just let me say that there was no shortage of volunteers. The staff has been 01:01:02.560 --> 01:01:08.080 very responsive to those situations where we respond to mutual aid. And so I just report 01:01:08.080 --> 01:01:12.480 to you that we continue to do that. And we're happy to help out our neighbors through that, 01:01:12.480 --> 01:01:16.320 because again, we never know when we may need that same kind of help. So I just want to 01:01:16.320 --> 01:01:20.160 thank them for all the work they've done over the last year. So I want to go through just 01:01:20.160 --> 01:01:24.000 a couple of these accomplishments and goals. Certainly, I'm not going to cover every single 01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:29.960 one of these. But the one that I wanted to point out is number two that you see on there. 01:01:29.960 --> 01:01:34.720 And we did a lot of work over the last year with the Hunter and Coal Ranch developments. 01:01:34.720 --> 01:01:42.040 I'll report to you that every location where we could serve that development, if it was 01:01:42.040 --> 01:01:52.960 monthly certified, we were... What's that? The presentation isn't up on the screen. All 01:01:52.960 --> 01:02:11.880 right. Sorry about that. It's okay. Rookie mistake. Sorry about that. So as I said, with 01:02:11.880 --> 01:02:17.700 the Hunter and Coal Ranch, every area that was available for us to serve, we did get 01:02:17.700 --> 01:02:22.720 a commitment, a contract commitment for those developers to serve that area. We estimate 01:02:22.720 --> 01:02:28.080 that's going to be about four to 6,000 new customers over that build out period. Now, 01:02:28.080 --> 01:02:34.200 that is a 30-year build out period. But through those negotiations, we were also able to... 01:02:34.200 --> 01:02:42.360 Over 10 acres that were donated to the city that we are working through the title transfer. 01:02:42.360 --> 01:02:47.920 That property will be utilized to site the Underwood substation, which will primarily 01:02:47.920 --> 01:02:53.960 serve that development, but certainly that area as we continue to expand that southwest 01:02:53.960 --> 01:03:01.920 sector of the city. The next item that I wanted to talk about is there on number three. And 01:03:01.920 --> 01:03:05.600 I'll talk a little bit more about this when we get into the FT accounts, but we continue 01:03:05.600 --> 01:03:10.400 to look at our organization. We had an external review that was done and we've been restructuring 01:03:10.400 --> 01:03:19.900 DME over the last year. Currently, in this phase one, we've concentrated on our engineering 01:03:19.900 --> 01:03:26.440 department and also our metering department. Certainly, the voluntary separation program 01:03:26.440 --> 01:03:33.240 has also assisted in helping us take a look at our organization and where FT's are found 01:03:33.240 --> 01:03:41.360 and try just to be more efficient, more conscious of our labor costs. And so that is something 01:03:41.360 --> 01:03:46.440 that we've done. We no longer have two separate engineering groups. We've combined those into 01:03:46.440 --> 01:03:50.880 a single engineering group under a single manager. And also we've made some changes 01:03:50.880 --> 01:03:55.760 and continue to look for some additional changes over the next year, year and a half in our 01:03:55.760 --> 01:04:01.800 metering shop. Currently, we provide water metering services for our water department. 01:04:01.800 --> 01:04:07.840 And so we're looking at potential transitions, looking at technology that could further reduce 01:04:07.840 --> 01:04:12.420 some of the headcount or at least transfer the headcount over to the water department. 01:04:12.420 --> 01:04:17.200 The last item that I'll kind of touch base with you is number seven on here is that's 01:04:17.200 --> 01:04:22.160 the achieving the 100% renewable power supplies. You know, we had a lot of discussions with 01:04:22.160 --> 01:04:27.800 the PAB and certainly with the council. Terry Nolte kind of led us through those discussions. 01:04:27.800 --> 01:04:35.940 But I'll report to you that based on the Denton renewable plan, resource renewable plan, we 01:04:35.940 --> 01:04:43.320 will be 100% renewable under contract by the end of this year. So we will, and we have 01:04:43.320 --> 01:04:49.320 a slide after this that will just talk a little bit more about kind of where we are as far 01:04:49.320 --> 01:04:56.760 as those goals. Future goals. So we want to talk a little bit about number three here. 01:04:56.760 --> 01:05:03.120 So we continue to look for additional opportunities for, you know, short term and long term PPAs. 01:05:03.120 --> 01:05:08.880 Currently have three RFPs that that are being evaluated. We anticipate bringing those back 01:05:08.880 --> 01:05:14.620 to the PAB and then the council sometime in August, maybe towards the end of August. Those 01:05:14.620 --> 01:05:22.840 include additional coastal wind, solar, and also a smaller solar with battery. We're currently, 01:05:22.840 --> 01:05:27.960 like I said, evaluating those and we will be bringing that back to you for consideration. 01:05:27.960 --> 01:05:34.680 Again, that will help us as some of our other contracts begin to roll off in 2024, that 01:05:34.680 --> 01:05:42.460 these will then come online so that we continue with that 100% goal in mind. And then finally, 01:05:42.460 --> 01:05:49.760 I'll touch base on number six. So next to our people, data is our next biggest resource. 01:05:49.760 --> 01:05:54.720 We continue to look at our metering data. DME spent a lot of money over the last few 01:05:54.720 --> 01:06:02.200 years to automate our meters. And so making sure that we have access to that interval 01:06:02.200 --> 01:06:10.320 data will not just help our EMO in purchasing power for our customers, but certainly be 01:06:10.320 --> 01:06:16.920 able to give us some additional rate opportunities to offer time of use rates and other types 01:06:16.920 --> 01:06:22.040 of rates to our customers, as well as giving them more access and more control to their 01:06:22.040 --> 01:06:27.720 consumption in their residence. And so that's certainly something that we look forward to. 01:06:27.720 --> 01:06:33.440 We've been working towards already, but we anticipate that going into next year we'll 01:06:33.440 --> 01:06:40.000 continue to make progress. So just some philosophical changes. Certainly over the last year, we've 01:06:40.000 --> 01:06:48.560 been focusing on reducing rate pressures. We've looked at our capital improvement program. 01:06:48.560 --> 01:06:54.120 As you may recall, that for the current year, we did reduce the amount of debt that we issued 01:06:54.120 --> 01:07:00.160 by about $10 million. That was really just taking a fresh look at the CIP program that 01:07:00.160 --> 01:07:07.240 was in place. We'll continue to do that in the next year. And so we anticipate that if 01:07:07.240 --> 01:07:12.200 there are opportunities for us to put off some things, maybe do things a little bit 01:07:12.200 --> 01:07:17.080 differently, reevaluate some of our projects, we'll continue to do that. One of the examples 01:07:17.080 --> 01:07:23.200 that I'll put out there that we've discussed is with the two GIS substations that we're 01:07:23.200 --> 01:07:31.120 planning, the Hickory GIS substation, the Eagle. We made a recommendation that taking 01:07:31.120 --> 01:07:37.440 a fresh look at the Eagle substation, we think that that substation may be somewhat premature, 01:07:37.440 --> 01:07:44.680 and so we anticipate about $17 million in deferred cost by not doing that substation. 01:07:44.680 --> 01:07:48.640 But we do anticipate a little bit of additional cost on the Hickory substations to be able 01:07:48.640 --> 01:07:54.320 to serve the UNT load. That's something that we continue to have conversations and anticipate 01:07:54.320 --> 01:08:00.040 having conversations with the University of North Texas as well. The other item on here 01:08:00.040 --> 01:08:05.080 is just evaluating distributed generation policies. As you know, we've come to you 01:08:05.080 --> 01:08:10.000 and also with the council to discuss our rooftop solar program, both on the rebate side and 01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:14.840 also on the utility side. We've gotten some good information. We're doing some additional 01:08:14.840 --> 01:08:19.520 research based on the questions that we've gotten, and we anticipate coming back to you 01:08:19.520 --> 01:08:26.040 probably sometime next month to continue to have those conversations on where we may go 01:08:26.040 --> 01:08:33.140 with those types of policies. And then finally, certainly as a result of the current pandemic, 01:08:33.140 --> 01:08:38.560 we've had some opportunities to look at telecommuting in our organization. And so if you walk onto 01:08:38.560 --> 01:08:44.080 the DME campus today, you'll find that there's a lot of buildings with not a lot of people 01:08:44.080 --> 01:08:48.680 in them. And so we have a lot of folks that are working from home and have been doing 01:08:48.680 --> 01:08:55.080 so very effectively. And so we've seen no impacts to our service level, certainly not 01:08:55.080 --> 01:08:59.400 as a result of that telecommuting. As a matter of fact, I think we've had a lot more productivity 01:08:59.400 --> 01:09:04.240 from our staff as a result of them being able to work from home. And so we'll continue to 01:09:04.240 --> 01:09:10.960 evaluate that and continue to look at what spaces we may have currently at DME. We certainly 01:09:10.960 --> 01:09:16.160 have some needs, certainly for our operational folks by way of locker rooms and restrooms 01:09:16.160 --> 01:09:20.520 and other adequate training areas. So we'll be looking at that over the next year, but 01:09:20.520 --> 01:09:26.480 certainly the pandemic is forced us to look at these sorts of things. And so it is one 01:09:26.480 --> 01:09:33.520 of the positive things, if you will, that's come out of the current challenges. So just 01:09:33.520 --> 01:09:38.840 a couple of metrics that I'll cover. This is certainly, I already spoke about the renewable 01:09:38.840 --> 01:09:47.800 energy and this is really how do we sustain that goal going out beyond even 2023. So as 01:09:47.800 --> 01:09:52.600 I mentioned earlier, we've already achieved the goal that's outlined in the Renewable 01:09:52.600 --> 01:10:00.000 Plan, but certainly being able to sustain that over the long haul. We do have the lawn 01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:05.320 draw project that has been somewhat delayed, but we anticipate that there will be back 01:10:05.320 --> 01:10:10.720 online and certainly they've had some challenges with getting materials from China and other 01:10:10.720 --> 01:10:17.640 places and so, but we anticipate that that project will be back on schedule. And then 01:10:17.640 --> 01:10:21.480 the other item that I'll mention, which is one that we've talked with you about is the 01:10:21.480 --> 01:10:28.600 Whitetail contract. That contract will expire in December of 2023 and so that is the reason 01:10:28.600 --> 01:10:34.680 for the current RFPs that we have, that we're currently evaluating. Our hope is to be able 01:10:34.680 --> 01:10:41.480 to have something in place so that when Whitetail expires, it will have a new resource in place 01:10:41.480 --> 01:10:51.600 to continue down the path of 100% renewable or more. And as I mentioned earlier, we did 01:10:51.600 --> 01:10:59.720 issue a smaller five megawatt RFP for a solar project that's combined with battery storage. 01:10:59.720 --> 01:11:05.440 We would anticipate that that would be located somewhere in the city. We've had positive 01:11:05.440 --> 01:11:09.460 conversations with the University of North Texas as a property that they may have and 01:11:09.460 --> 01:11:15.520 so we'll continue to evaluate that and be ready to discuss that with you in more detail 01:11:15.520 --> 01:11:22.280 over the next month or so. You know, certainly one of the things that we're very proud of 01:11:22.280 --> 01:11:28.260 is DME's reliability. As you can see here and this national average is a little dated, 01:11:28.260 --> 01:11:33.720 but again I think it's a good measuring stick for us. The national average is about 139 01:11:33.720 --> 01:11:38.360 minutes worth of outage. As you can see over the last four years, we've certainly been 01:11:38.360 --> 01:11:47.880 well below that. 2019, our average outage was about 39 minutes and so certainly if you 01:11:47.880 --> 01:11:53.560 are a DME customer, you know that there's very few times that your electricity is out 01:11:53.560 --> 01:11:59.400 and when it is out, we get you back up in pretty short order. So we're very proud of 01:11:59.400 --> 01:12:07.320 this reliability measure. It is something that we're recognized routinely for our accomplishments 01:12:07.320 --> 01:12:13.880 there. And then competitive rates, this is a little bit dated. As Nick mentioned, we 01:12:13.880 --> 01:12:19.440 will be coming back to you in November after we've closed out the fiscal year and having 01:12:19.440 --> 01:12:26.000 a much broader discussion with you about where we are financially. Certainly the month of 01:12:26.000 --> 01:12:33.480 August and September are busy months, both from a demand standpoint, but also we're hopeful 01:12:33.480 --> 01:12:40.400 that also for that the deck is up and running during that time period. And so we think that 01:12:40.400 --> 01:12:43.760 making sure that we have a closed out year to be able to have a good discussion with 01:12:43.760 --> 01:12:48.480 the PV and with the council about rates, but kind of based on where we are and where we've 01:12:48.480 --> 01:12:56.120 been, I think historically we've been about the midpoint when we compare to some of the 01:12:56.120 --> 01:13:02.200 other municipally owned utilities, we're now recommending any changes to our base rate. 01:13:02.200 --> 01:13:10.200 So $124.80, which is the average over that 12 month period is where we anticipate remaining 01:13:10.200 --> 01:13:14.880 going forward, at least to the beginning of the fiscal year. And certainly we'll evaluate 01:13:14.880 --> 01:13:23.880 that going after that in November. And this is just comparison to other municipally owned 01:13:23.880 --> 01:13:30.480 utilities, we'll refresh this data for you in November and as well as comparing it to 01:13:30.480 --> 01:13:41.920 some of the private IOUs as well. So the next item here is our FTE summary. As you can see, 01:13:41.920 --> 01:13:51.760 I did want to point out that the total for FY 2021 is actually 169 FTEs. And so if you 01:13:51.760 --> 01:14:02.120 compare that from our 19-20, that's a 20 FTE reduction. I did go back and I looked in FY 01:14:02.120 --> 01:14:10.520 17-18 as an example, we were at 199 FTEs. Now 10 of those FTEs were related to a transfer 01:14:10.520 --> 01:14:18.120 of a tech operation, a tech services operation. And so the cost is still embedded as a transfer 01:14:18.120 --> 01:14:24.880 for DME, but the FTEs don't show up here. Some of these positions that have been reduced 01:14:24.880 --> 01:14:31.000 were directly related to the voluntary separation program. Some of those positions we've not 01:14:31.000 --> 01:14:38.120 requested to refill. A couple of examples, we had a superintendent that oversaw our metering 01:14:38.120 --> 01:14:45.280 division. We've opted to not refill that position and instead, we'll have a manager that is 01:14:45.280 --> 01:14:51.560 already in the division that will continue to run that. But that superintendent will 01:14:51.560 --> 01:14:56.280 not be replaced. I already mentioned to you that we've combined our two engineering groups. 01:14:56.280 --> 01:15:00.680 We had a transmission engineering group and a distribution engineering group. We've now 01:15:00.680 --> 01:15:06.480 combined those under a single engineering manager. That would be Jerry Fiedler, but 01:15:06.480 --> 01:15:12.440 we've not refilled the other position. So those are just a couple of examples, but certainly 01:15:12.440 --> 01:15:19.480 we have a reconciliation of those 20 positions across DME. We think that based on the FTE 01:15:19.480 --> 01:15:25.920 accounts that we have going into 2021, that we'll be in good shape. Certainly if things 01:15:25.920 --> 01:15:32.480 change, if there's service issues that we run against or other demands, we'll be happy 01:15:32.480 --> 01:15:37.800 to come back to the PB and to the council and justify additional FTEs either mid-year 01:15:37.800 --> 01:15:44.600 or going into 21, 22. But currently with the 169 FTEs, we feel pretty comfortable going 01:15:44.600 --> 01:15:53.360 into that year as far as labor. And then just briefly, my final slide here is just what 01:15:53.360 --> 01:15:59.760 the current organizational chart looks like. As you know, Terry Nolte is our assistant 01:15:59.760 --> 01:16:05.600 general manager. He oversees a number of areas, including our safety and training program 01:16:05.600 --> 01:16:12.960 that we are working to revamp and working with the city as well through an outside contract. 01:16:12.960 --> 01:16:18.400 And over the next six months, we'll continue to evaluate that program and our needs. And 01:16:18.400 --> 01:16:24.000 then we have Chris Lutrick, who's our executive manager of energy services. And among the 01:16:24.000 --> 01:16:29.900 things that Chris oversees currently is the metering division. Again, working closely 01:16:29.900 --> 01:16:37.240 with those folks to really make improvements in that area. And I'll mention as well, Terry 01:16:37.240 --> 01:16:41.160 also oversees our engineering group and is working very closely with them as we continue 01:16:41.160 --> 01:16:47.840 to merge those two divisions. And then some of the other folks that we have on here, currently 01:16:47.840 --> 01:16:53.040 Smith Day oversees most of our cyber and physical security, our risk management office, and 01:16:53.040 --> 01:16:58.080 also we've recently combined our administrative assistance into an administrative pool to 01:16:58.080 --> 01:17:04.920 provide better service across all our divisions of DME. And then presently, the line operations 01:17:04.920 --> 01:17:12.160 groups under Brad Watts and Rowdy Patterson and also our substation group under Sam Bridges, 01:17:12.160 --> 01:17:17.200 they currently report to me as the general manager. I will tell you that over the next 01:17:17.200 --> 01:17:25.760 few weeks, we'll be looking at this organization as I look at across all our utilities on where 01:17:25.760 --> 01:17:31.560 my time need to be spent. And so we may update this chart in the next few weeks. If we do 01:17:31.560 --> 01:17:38.000 that, we'll get that back out to you. So you're aware on what the organizational chart will 01:17:38.000 --> 01:17:46.640 look like going forward. So with that, that concludes my portion of the operational section 01:17:46.640 --> 01:17:54.400 and I'm happy to answer any questions or we can certainly go to the financial section 01:17:54.400 --> 01:18:06.360 with Nick. Madam Chair, what is your pleasure? You'll need to minimize the presentation, 01:18:06.360 --> 01:18:15.240 Tony. I'm trying to do that. I think people do already have questions and I want to note 01:18:15.240 --> 01:18:22.280 that Billy Cheek needed to hop off. He had a 1030 meeting, so I should make sure that's 01:18:22.280 --> 01:18:31.480 in the minutes. Okay, Charlie, you had your hand up first. Quick question on the employment 01:18:31.480 --> 01:18:41.480 summary on page six. I see that you have 189 full-time equivalent employees right now and 01:18:41.480 --> 01:18:51.840 then the vacant of 43. Does that mean you have 43 places you could fill, making it 232? 01:18:51.840 --> 01:19:02.560 Or does that mean that you currently have 146 employees? So we have 189 positions budgeted. 01:19:02.560 --> 01:19:11.280 Got it. Going into this, we had 43 vacancies, but we've refilled 19 of those vacancies. 01:19:11.280 --> 01:19:19.320 And so the difference there, that's what 165. Okay. That's correct. So going into next fiscal 01:19:19.320 --> 01:19:26.280 year, 165, that's what we anticipate having as far as labor. Okay. So the labor is essentially 01:19:26.280 --> 01:19:33.960 a no change. From where we are currently, that's correct. But from the budget, it is 01:19:33.960 --> 01:19:42.480 a reduction of 20 FTEs. Absolutely. Thank you. Yes, sir. Russ, go ahead. Yes, 20. In 01:19:42.480 --> 01:19:48.720 looking at the utility rate cost per megawatt hour graph that you had up there, I think 01:19:48.720 --> 01:19:59.000 on slide five, something like that, I noticed that Garland and Bryan had lower rates than 01:19:59.000 --> 01:20:04.960 the city of Denton. And Garland and Bryan were also in the Texas municipal power agency, 01:20:04.960 --> 01:20:11.120 correct? That's correct. So what I'm wondering is, do you know, maybe there's no answer to 01:20:11.120 --> 01:20:16.160 this right now. I don't want to belabor the point, but do you know why their average rates 01:20:16.160 --> 01:20:22.040 are lower than ours? Well, certainly, I think, you know, one of the explanations is they 01:20:22.040 --> 01:20:28.040 have more customers than we do. And so they have a much broader base for them to spread 01:20:28.040 --> 01:20:32.880 their costs and be able to have lower rates. But they also have a slightly different operation 01:20:32.880 --> 01:20:37.080 when it comes to EML and their QSC services. And so they have a little bit more diversity 01:20:37.080 --> 01:20:42.480 and in some of their non base rate revenue that comes into their utility, that also helps 01:20:42.480 --> 01:20:48.120 prop some of those base rates down for those utilities. We can certainly take a closer 01:20:48.120 --> 01:20:52.120 look at that. And then when we come back in November, we can certainly give you a little 01:20:52.120 --> 01:20:56.680 bit more insights into why that may be. Okay, thank you. Yes, sir. 01:20:56.680 --> 01:21:05.000 Any other questions? I have one, Tony. Can you remind me what the percentage of our underground 01:21:05.000 --> 01:21:12.440 electric, I mean, that always helps with our outage management. So hold on, I'm looking 01:21:12.440 --> 01:21:19.920 at Terry, see if Terry, Terry has that percentage. I don't have the exact percentage. Just approximate, 01:21:19.920 --> 01:21:27.400 you know? Yeah, it's about, I think it's about 40% underground. About 20%? 40. About 40%. 01:21:27.400 --> 01:21:33.400 Okay. All right. And then as we're developing, we're doing underground. And any new developments 01:21:33.400 --> 01:21:38.600 are required to have underground, yes ma'am. So all of Hunter Cole Ranch will, as an example, 01:21:38.600 --> 01:21:44.080 will all be underground. Okay. All right. Thank you. I guess there's no other questions. 01:21:44.080 --> 01:22:02.080 Okay, with that, I'll turn it over to Nick. Thank you, Tony. Pull this back up. All right. 01:22:02.080 --> 01:22:11.680 Can everybody see that? Yes. Okay. So real quick, we'll go over the financial assumptions 01:22:11.680 --> 01:22:16.500 that are currently covered in this five-year forecast. Be certain. I can answer questions 01:22:16.500 --> 01:22:20.080 at the end if you have any when we get that slide. I think there's four or five slides 01:22:20.080 --> 01:22:23.120 to cover the financials. And like I said, we'll circle back in November, December with 01:22:23.120 --> 01:22:27.920 a detailed budget discussion for DME. So on the revenue side, we are currently, we do 01:22:27.920 --> 01:22:34.840 have a low growth of 3.2% forecasted for the five-year period. Our T-cost allowed rate 01:22:34.840 --> 01:22:42.400 of return. We are currently showing a 28.04% through 2022. To be conservative, we are showing 01:22:42.400 --> 01:22:48.440 this to decrease to 16% starting in 2023 through 2025. And I'll review that with you on the 01:22:48.440 --> 01:22:54.400 five-year forecast here shortly. Expenses, we do have the ROI. So city council recently 01:22:54.400 --> 01:23:01.400 approved rate of return increased to 3.5% to 6% for the electric utility to transfer 01:23:01.400 --> 01:23:05.600 to the general fund. I'll review this with you on the forecast here shortly. And this 01:23:05.600 --> 01:23:11.720 does account for about 11.7 million over the five-year period. We are not forecasting any 01:23:11.720 --> 01:23:17.240 sale to Gibbons Creek facility. We do have some money built in for the decommissioning 01:23:17.240 --> 01:23:22.020 of that site over the five-year period. That does make up $21 million. It's currently included 01:23:22.020 --> 01:23:27.920 in purchase power. And then ultimately, Tony reviewed the position changes with you. That 01:23:27.920 --> 01:23:35.280 does account for 1.7 million in savings starting in 2021. 01:23:35.280 --> 01:23:38.600 This is the five-year forecast for the electric fund. I will do my best to walk you through 01:23:38.600 --> 01:23:45.240 this from the left-hand side. You can see the adopted 2020 budget here in this column. 01:23:45.240 --> 01:23:51.600 We did have budget use of reserves of $6.9 million. As you move down the page, you can 01:23:51.600 --> 01:23:56.360 see, of course, we had no rate increase included in the adopted budget. Finally, down here 01:23:56.360 --> 01:24:01.720 in the yellow, you can see what we were forecasting the reserves to be at the end of the fiscal 01:24:01.720 --> 01:24:08.280 or the beginning of the fiscal year, so when we adopted the 2020 budget of $48.6. Moving 01:24:08.280 --> 01:24:12.040 to your right here, you can see the estimate column of 2020. We are forecasting to use 01:24:12.040 --> 01:24:17.120 a little bit less than reserves, about $3.4 million. So coming in a little bit better 01:24:17.120 --> 01:24:22.120 than we originally budgeted. Still see no rate increases. We are forecasting a little 01:24:22.120 --> 01:24:29.720 bit better ending fund balance of $73.2 million coming in this fiscal year. And then finally, 01:24:29.720 --> 01:24:34.160 here in the dotted line, you can see the proposed 2021 budget. We are not forecasting to use 01:24:34.160 --> 01:24:39.160 any reserves. We actually have all the reserve usage taken out. We are showing a net income 01:24:39.160 --> 01:24:45.080 of $295,000 for the proposed budget. No rate increases, as Tony has previously mentioned 01:24:45.080 --> 01:24:50.920 in his part of the presentation. And then the ending fund balance is $73.5 million. 01:24:50.920 --> 01:24:53.860 A couple of other things I want to point out on this slide, you can see the debt coverage 01:24:53.860 --> 01:25:00.880 ratio is 1.4. We currently have an internal policy of 1.25. And then you can see the reserve 01:25:00.880 --> 01:25:06.040 requirement. So in the electric fund, we budget a minimum of 60 days, which represents 16% 01:25:06.040 --> 01:25:12.120 of expenses. Our maximum target is 75 days, which represents 21% of expenses. So you can 01:25:12.120 --> 01:25:17.320 see that reserve of $73.5 million is definitely above that maximum. So we do have a healthy 01:25:17.320 --> 01:25:21.240 fund balance in the electric fund. A couple of other things I want to point out. So as 01:25:21.240 --> 01:25:26.320 I said on the previous slide, we do have no sell for the TNPA facility. We are accounting 01:25:26.320 --> 01:25:31.720 for $21 million in decommissioning expenses associated with that facility. That number 01:25:31.720 --> 01:25:36.200 is included in this purchase power number that you see. A couple other things that stand 01:25:36.200 --> 01:25:40.400 out on this reform I want to show you really quick. The rate of return, you can see it 01:25:40.400 --> 01:25:45.540 does increase. So we had $16 million in the adopted budget. We do show it coming in over 01:25:45.540 --> 01:25:52.060 budget $18.8 million. That is half of the year at the 6% rate of return for the general 01:25:52.060 --> 01:25:56.800 fund. I mean, you can see it continuing on. It does end in 2022 and 2023. It goes back 01:25:56.800 --> 01:26:04.320 down to $16.3. And then one other on the revenues, jumping back up here to the top really quick, 01:26:04.320 --> 01:26:11.440 that no rate revenues. You can't see the decrease between '22 and '23. And that is the decrease 01:26:11.440 --> 01:26:18.380 in the rate of return for those transmission assets. This is the deck pro forma. So this 01:26:18.380 --> 01:26:22.400 number is included in the previous pro forma that you saw. So total revenues for the electric 01:26:22.400 --> 01:26:27.920 fund. You can see the deck revenues are $24.5 million in the proposed budget. We do have 01:26:27.920 --> 01:26:33.880 expenses including debt service of $33.2 million. So we are currently budgeting a loss for the 01:26:33.880 --> 01:26:39.120 deck of $8.6 million. A couple things I want to point out. We did put a note in here at 01:26:39.120 --> 01:26:45.320 the bottom. The net income for the deck is decreasing. The Ford market is showing energy 01:26:45.320 --> 01:26:52.240 to cost less than the future, which is less need for the deck to produce energy for the 01:26:52.240 --> 01:26:57.120 city. So you can see as you track across here, it actually goes from $24.5 million in the 01:26:57.120 --> 01:27:01.520 current proposed budget to $11.5 million in the future years. We wanted to be sure to 01:27:01.520 --> 01:27:14.360 put that note on there for an explanation. This is the five-year CIP for the electric 01:27:14.360 --> 01:27:20.000 fund. A couple things I want to point out. We are budgeting about $6.8 million for distribution 01:27:20.000 --> 01:27:24.680 substations in this budget. We do have some street lighting funding in here. This is something 01:27:24.680 --> 01:27:29.000 Tony had previously communicated to city council we had budget for moving forward. So we do 01:27:29.000 --> 01:27:33.400 have $3 million in street lighting budget for the electric fund. Distribution total 01:27:33.400 --> 01:27:40.040 is about $32.2 million in bond funded projects. Transmission is about $32.8 million. This 01:27:40.040 --> 01:27:45.920 is that Hickory substation that Tony had mentioned. Total is $65 million in projects. Over the 01:27:45.920 --> 01:27:52.400 five-year period, you can see it's $237.6 million. And all this is accounted for in the five-year 01:27:52.400 --> 01:28:00.520 forecast that I just showed you. Electric rates. We're not looking to make any substantial 01:28:00.520 --> 01:28:04.560 changes to the electric rates. We will be bringing the rate ordinance back to you for 01:28:04.560 --> 01:28:08.820 adoption. What we would like to do leading up to the conversation in November and December 01:28:08.820 --> 01:28:13.440 is make minimum updates to the electric rate ordinance. Currently, we are proposing to 01:28:13.440 --> 01:28:17.280 change the following rates that are included in this table. The first one being the residential 01:28:17.280 --> 01:28:23.180 renewable energy services rider. Also referred to as the RG. All customers now receive 100% 01:28:23.180 --> 01:28:27.920 renewable energy. So we are just looking to take this out of the rate ordinance. Weekend 01:28:27.920 --> 01:28:33.000 services. This is another one we're looking to do away with. We actually in a recent audit, 01:28:33.000 --> 01:28:37.500 we did reveal that customers were hitting their monthly peak during the week instead 01:28:37.500 --> 01:28:43.080 of the weekends. Downtown decorative lighting. This rating is known or applicable. So we 01:28:43.080 --> 01:28:50.000 are looking to take this out. The dark fiber. This rate is currently in the electric ordinance. 01:28:50.000 --> 01:28:54.600 This will move over to tech services and tech services will show on their schedule of fees. 01:28:54.600 --> 01:28:58.080 So we are coordinating with them currently to make sure that makes its way into their 01:28:58.080 --> 01:29:02.880 fees. The banner install fee. We are working with development services to take this out 01:29:02.880 --> 01:29:09.520 of the electric ordinance. We should have a consensus among staff soon, but we are currently 01:29:09.520 --> 01:29:14.440 recommending to take it out of the electric rate ordinance. Commercial renewable energy 01:29:14.440 --> 01:29:19.440 services. CGR. Also similar to the residential renewable. We are looking to take this out. 01:29:19.440 --> 01:29:25.240 All customers do receive 100% renewable energy. And then the independent wholesale generator 01:29:25.240 --> 01:29:33.360 IWG. We are also looking to do away with that rate. And then for reference, if anybody had 01:29:33.360 --> 01:29:37.960 this question, there's 186 residential customers currently on the RG rate, which is average 01:29:37.960 --> 01:29:45.960 annual savings of 47.36. Next step. So as Tony has previously communicated, we do have 01:29:45.960 --> 01:29:51.800 a special called meeting with you on August 3rd to talk about the remainder of the utilities. 01:29:51.800 --> 01:29:56.600 We will discuss water, wastewater and solid waste during that meeting. So we'll be bringing 01:29:56.600 --> 01:30:01.080 that back forward to you. This actually will go forward to city council on July 30th. This 01:30:01.080 --> 01:30:05.240 does say July 28th. So that is a typo. That should be the 30th. We will discuss this with 01:30:05.240 --> 01:30:11.120 the city council during a budget work session. We will circle back with the PBB on August 01:30:11.120 --> 01:30:17.720 10th to review the budget one final time and seek your approval for that in the rates and 01:30:17.720 --> 01:30:22.720 then September 15th this year, the city council was scheduled to adopt the budget, the tax 01:30:22.720 --> 01:30:26.560 rate and the capital improvement plan. And then as Tony has mentioned November, December 01:30:26.560 --> 01:30:30.720 timeframe, we will circle back to the PBB and city council for a detailed rate and budget 01:30:30.720 --> 01:30:36.440 discussion. But that that'll conclude the financial portion of the presentation. And 01:30:36.440 --> 01:30:43.520 if you give me a second, I will pull it down or you can ask questions. Okay. Questions. 01:30:43.520 --> 01:30:52.160 Go ahead, Russ. Yeah. What is the biggest risk factor in your opinion to hitting the 01:30:52.160 --> 01:30:57.520 projected budgeted numbers you have for the coming year? All of these assumptions have 01:30:57.520 --> 01:31:03.000 some amount of risk to them. What do you think is the most risky assumption that you've made 01:31:03.000 --> 01:31:10.520 in your budget for the coming year? Um, do you mean to do directly related to the pandemic 01:31:10.520 --> 01:31:16.600 or just the load forecast that we currently have plugged in or or is it both? All of them. 01:31:16.600 --> 01:31:22.720 All of the factors that go into making your annual budget projection. Let me, let me, 01:31:22.720 --> 01:31:25.620 let me answer one part of it and then I'll turn it over to Terry Nolte. They'll address 01:31:25.620 --> 01:31:30.200 the load factor of it. Um, the first part is so the COVID pandemic on the utilities, 01:31:30.200 --> 01:31:33.680 we are currently monitoring that for each of the utilities to see what the financial 01:31:33.680 --> 01:31:39.560 impact will be. And we do have a revenue loss assumption in the electric proforma now. That 01:31:39.560 --> 01:31:43.240 is one reason we want to circle back with you November and December. So around the October 01:31:43.240 --> 01:31:47.280 timeframe, we'll actually get that hard data of how the pandemic has impacted the utilities 01:31:47.280 --> 01:31:51.480 from a billing standpoint. So we'll be able to true that number up in the proforma when 01:31:51.480 --> 01:31:55.120 we come back to you. Um, now with that being said, let me turn it over to Terry for the 01:31:55.120 --> 01:32:05.280 load portion of it. I mean, he can address that question. 01:32:05.280 --> 01:32:11.280 So financially, the, uh, the largest risk that we always face is the, uh, the price 01:32:11.280 --> 01:32:18.520 formation in the air cop market. Um, you know, each year we project, uh, our revenues and 01:32:18.520 --> 01:32:26.120 our, our, uh, our expenses, expenses being loved, uh, the expenses to purchase energy 01:32:26.120 --> 01:32:33.100 from the market, uh, to serve the load and, uh, the estimates of what we, what revenues 01:32:33.100 --> 01:32:39.700 will achieve from the sales of renewable energy and deck energy to the market. Uh, those forecasts 01:32:39.700 --> 01:32:46.660 are based upon visibly traded forward markets, which change like the stock market does from 01:32:46.660 --> 01:32:53.820 hour to hour, day to day. Uh, we do have a hedge plan that we, uh, are executing against 01:32:53.820 --> 01:33:02.160 in order to, uh, try to stabilize those revenues and, uh, those expenses as best as possible. 01:33:02.160 --> 01:33:07.580 But we, uh, because of our, the nature of our portfolio, which is heavily driven by 01:33:07.580 --> 01:33:15.440 weather events, mainly wind and, and solar intensity, there's a large portion of the 01:33:15.440 --> 01:33:22.280 supply that we cannot forward hedge because we don't know, uh, exactly what the output 01:33:22.280 --> 01:33:30.280 would be. So that's the biggest single risk, uh, looking forward financially, the biggest, 01:33:30.280 --> 01:33:36.520 one of the bigger risks. Uh, and we've, as Nick mentioned, we've, uh, we've conservatively 01:33:36.520 --> 01:33:46.300 forecasted our T-cost revenues. Uh, T-cost returns are 28.04%. Uh, last year, uh, provided 01:33:46.300 --> 01:33:54.980 about 17, a little over $17 million of incremental, uh, non-rate revenue for the benefit of customers 01:33:54.980 --> 01:34:01.900 to the extent that that T-cost revenue, uh, diminishes as a result of a, a filing that 01:34:01.900 --> 01:34:07.520 we would be called in to make, uh, and lower the allowed rate of return. That would have 01:34:07.520 --> 01:34:14.320 a significant impact in the out years. We don't anticipate such a call, uh, for at least 01:34:14.320 --> 01:34:19.520 two to three years. Uh, but to be prudent, we are including that reduction. So those 01:34:19.520 --> 01:34:23.040 are the two biggest financial risks, uh, that we face. 01:34:23.040 --> 01:34:29.480 Is that an interesting question? It does. I was just, one other thing, uh, 01:34:29.480 --> 01:34:36.440 I was curious about the, uh, the demand on ERCOT. Uh, people are, are moving into Texas. 01:34:36.440 --> 01:34:42.760 That's generally known. So I would think the demand on ERCOT as a system is going to increase 01:34:42.760 --> 01:34:47.520 in the next year compared to what it is this year. Is there a, is there an estimate on 01:34:47.520 --> 01:34:56.560 what the system demand increase might be in terms of percentage or megawatt hours or whatever? 01:34:56.560 --> 01:35:01.560 I think as a market, the market is growing at about two to two and a half percent per 01:35:01.560 --> 01:35:08.640 year on annual, on peak demand. That would be the instantaneous hourly peak demand across 01:35:08.640 --> 01:35:15.560 the market. Uh, but we are seeing, uh, as, as our forecast shows about three and a half, 01:35:15.560 --> 01:35:22.760 3.2 to three and a half percent, uh, annual energy increase. So across the year, the total 01:35:22.760 --> 01:35:29.440 kilowatt hours, uh, consumed by customers is increasing at a greater rate than the peak 01:35:29.440 --> 01:35:37.280 demand is. The peak demand, uh, is met, uh, through capacity additions in the marketplace, 01:35:37.280 --> 01:35:46.520 which are primarily renewables, wind and solar, uh, which, uh, the solar tends to be very 01:35:46.520 --> 01:35:53.360 highly correlated with peak demand, summer, hottest day of the summer. Uh, but the wind 01:35:53.360 --> 01:35:59.640 is not as well correlated. It doesn't necessarily show up as we saw, uh, last summer on the 01:35:59.640 --> 01:36:04.560 hottest day of the year. Uh, there was very little wind output in West Texas and that 01:36:04.560 --> 01:36:11.440 caused prices to go up. And, uh, that, uh, goes to the issue that I mentioned before, 01:36:11.440 --> 01:36:17.480 which is that price formation. Um, no one has a crystal ball. That's, that's, uh, clear 01:36:17.480 --> 01:36:25.640 enough to predict what each hourly price is going to, uh, show up as in the future and 01:36:25.640 --> 01:36:31.920 very high prices while, while they have benefits for the deck revenue and debt gross margin, 01:36:31.920 --> 01:36:38.840 uh, they have an offsetting effect of high purchase power costs to, to meet the load. 01:36:38.840 --> 01:36:44.920 So, uh, as we've mentioned to you before, the deck acts as an insurance policy to insulate 01:36:44.920 --> 01:36:52.080 the load from those super high prices, but it generally nets out. Uh, we receive $9,000 01:36:52.080 --> 01:36:57.840 for energy delivered from the deck and we purchase energy at $9,000 so that nets out, 01:36:57.840 --> 01:37:02.920 but customers aren't exposed to that. So, uh, that's the benefit of our portfolio and 01:37:02.920 --> 01:37:09.100 having that, that component in the supply portfolio to kind of insulate our, our customers 01:37:09.100 --> 01:37:26.720 from those high price periods. Okay. Thank you. Questions. All right. So what do you 01:37:26.720 --> 01:37:34.960 need from us, Mario? Just really nothing. Uh, madam chair, it's just a presentation 01:37:34.960 --> 01:37:39.440 like we typically do during the budget cycle. So it's really just to be able to bring those 01:37:39.440 --> 01:37:44.160 in that those pieces of information to you all, allow you all to ask whatever questions 01:37:44.160 --> 01:37:49.280 you have of staff and, and, uh, if the council asks questions about the, what the thoughts 01:37:49.280 --> 01:37:54.320 with the pub, we'll be able to relate those to them as well. And you'll be seeing similar 01:37:54.320 --> 01:37:58.840 presentations from the other utilities, uh, next Monday at your special meeting. I believe 01:37:58.840 --> 01:38:06.720 that said eight 30 or started eight 30 on Monday, the third. Yep. And, um, Billy cheek 01:38:06.720 --> 01:38:11.000 did say that he will not have to leave early next Monday. He has to leave, he had to leave 01:38:11.000 --> 01:38:18.280 early this Monday. So, okay. And I think before we, I don't want to get in if we are adjourning 01:38:18.280 --> 01:38:26.720 soon, I believe Mr. Collister may have a question or a statement to make. Yes. I make sure. 01:38:26.720 --> 01:38:31.080 I was talking to the city attorney and we just, we discussed this before the lawsuit 01:38:31.080 --> 01:38:35.140 is a personnel matter, which is really, which is outside the purview of the PB under the 01:38:35.140 --> 01:38:41.400 charter and there has not been a judgment entered yet by the court. Once the judgment 01:38:41.400 --> 01:38:46.720 is entered, you'll be able to take the, uh, impact of that judgment consideration with 01:38:46.720 --> 01:38:53.840 a budget. And that's as far as we can go right now. Absent council providing direction, uh, 01:38:53.840 --> 01:38:58.360 for us to give you all a briefing. And if you want to make a request to council to go 01:38:58.360 --> 01:39:07.880 into the details of the lawsuit, that can be done. Okay. Do we, how does the board feel? 01:39:07.880 --> 01:39:13.480 Do they want, do you want to make a request to city council? Yeah, I would personally 01:39:13.480 --> 01:39:18.700 like to know what's going on there. And if there's, if it's going to require any kind 01:39:18.700 --> 01:39:23.720 of a change in policy with the utilities, the way they handle personnel or anything 01:39:23.720 --> 01:39:31.200 like that, perhaps we could discuss that. I know there's feeling, I know how Charlie 01:39:31.200 --> 01:39:40.200 feels Barbara. Yes, I agree. Okay. Karen. I understand the reasons why we can't be, 01:39:40.200 --> 01:39:46.400 you know, apprised of details. I mean, yeah, I think I brought this up when it first started 01:39:46.400 --> 01:39:52.320 hitting the newspaper quite a while ago. And so I'm satisfied with the fact that, you know, 01:39:52.320 --> 01:40:14.000 it's a personnel matter that we can't really throw. Yeah. And sorry. Yeah. I agree with 01:40:14.000 --> 01:40:21.080 Karen's assessment of the situation. So kind of a split here. Cause I, I understand it's 01:40:21.080 --> 01:40:26.560 a personnel matter and I'm waiting, I'm willing to wait until the court puts in a judgment. 01:40:26.560 --> 01:40:33.840 I don't see any reason at this point to put staff through that work. When we, when it, 01:40:33.840 --> 01:40:38.840 when, once it's settled, we can get the big picture. Larry, when you say the judgment 01:40:38.840 --> 01:40:46.040 has not been entered, I learned from the paper that the jury has found against the city of 01:40:46.040 --> 01:40:54.000 Denton and the city, is this on appeal or has the judgment itself not been? The judgment 01:40:54.000 --> 01:40:59.580 itself has not been entered. There was a discussion among both sides on the form of the judgment 01:40:59.580 --> 01:41:07.200 and it's been going on for quite a while. And the, and the state has also entered in 01:41:07.200 --> 01:41:13.480 to lawsuit with respect to caps on the judgment amounts and the court has ruled in their favor 01:41:13.480 --> 01:41:19.160 on that. There, there's a lot more to be done. The court has ruled in his favor. The court 01:41:19.160 --> 01:41:22.800 ruled in the favor of the state, which is essentially in favor of the city about putting 01:41:22.800 --> 01:41:32.160 limitations on the damage caps. Okay. I would argue these are the kinds of things that help 01:41:32.160 --> 01:41:44.280 us stay up to speed on that. The other question is what, what fund do you anticipate resolving 01:41:44.280 --> 01:42:00.120 the costs of this litigation and judgment? Let Finance answer that question. Nick Vinson, 01:42:00.120 --> 01:42:04.680 assistant director of finance. This would come from the electric fund. I'm taking your 01:42:04.680 --> 01:42:11.360 question. Okay. Then I would renew my mention that it's relevant to the public utilities 01:42:11.360 --> 01:42:21.760 board. Thanks. Well, maybe we should discuss it again on the third, since Billy's not here 01:42:21.760 --> 01:42:28.480 and can't weigh in and we were basically split. So, so what we'll do is we'll go, we'll go 01:42:28.480 --> 01:42:35.520 ahead and keep it on the matrix like it has. And so we'll, I'll ask Kim Mankin to go ahead 01:42:35.520 --> 01:42:40.840 and put a management report item like we normally would for a normal meeting. And that way, 01:42:40.840 --> 01:42:46.960 if you do have a seven or an odd number, that way the board can give direction one way or 01:42:46.960 --> 01:42:52.480 the other on how you would like to proceed since you're tied three, three, it is an important 01:42:52.480 --> 01:43:00.040 subject. I am not saying that that it's not, it, it impacts the utility greatly. Just it's 01:43:00.040 --> 01:43:08.160 not settled yet. So, all right. With that, do we have a motion to adjourn? So I move. 01:43:08.160 --> 01:43:12.920 All right. I guess we're adjourned. Have a great one. Take care. Thank you.