Oct 12, 2020 Public Utilities Board on 2020-10-12 9:00 AM

All right we're on. All right it is nine o'clock and we do have a quorum so we'll call to order the Public Utilities Board of the City of Denton for Monday October 12, 2020. First item on the agenda is our consent agenda. Does any board member wish to pull an item? Really? Yeah I pull consent agenda item number G. G all right. Any others? All right do we have a motion to approve items A through F and items H through J? I move. And a second? I'll second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay carries. Item G. I have a conflict here so if you want to knock me out. Okay are you just going to abstain? You have to you know I'm abstaining I probably if there's any discussion I need to leave the room. I'll move approval of item G. Do we have a second? I second. All in favor say aye. Aye. And then Billy abstain? Okay that one carries. Motion carries. Next item is items for individual consideration. Consider the approval of the September 28th 2020 minutes. Do we have a motion to approve? I move. That's moving approval. Do we have a second? Second. Okay all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right next item is item B. Consider recommending the adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton the Texas Home Rule Municipal Corporation authorizing the city manager to execute a professional service agreement with Burns and McDonald Inc. for the supply of a solid waste management strategy for the solid waste and recycling department providing for the expenditure funds therefore and providing an effective date RFP 7281 awarded to Burns and McDonald Inc. and the not to exceed amount of $155,250. Go ahead Brown. I think you're muted. If you'll give us a second we're having some technical difficulties. Pull in the entire IT department and turn the mute off. There's Barbara. Good morning. I think he's back. Well good morning Madam Chair. Yes Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Brian Berner. I am director of solid waste for the city of Denton. Appreciate the opportunity to come before you today to talk about our comprehensive solid waste management strategy and the proposal to go with Burns and McDonald. So let me pull up my presentation here. All right can everybody see that? Yeah very good. All right what I want to talk a little bit about today is what a comprehensive management strategy is and how it differs from a plan. Talk a little bit about the process we went through to identify the consultant complete the strategy. Go about how a little bit about how we're going to go about completing the strategy and then talk about our time frame. So with that let's talk about a couple of concepts here first. The difference between a strategy and a plan. Strategy is a framework for making decisions about how you're going to play the game and the plan is a detailed proposal for for doing or achieving something. So identifying creating that that framework identifying those issues which may affect us as we move down the pike and then the plan is really what we want to do how we want to do it and in what order. So strategy we're identifying resources identifying the constraints we have to operate in whether they be something specific to the city of Denton whether they be legal regulatory and what we're trying to do is bring value to the undervalued assets as we're moving forward and then that plan is how we're going to win the game what we're going to do to take that hill as opposed to which hill are we going to take. In our comprehensive management strategy we're working to identify the materials we're going to manage the markets that are available and if there are no markets to manage those diverted materials how do we go about creating those markets or identifying how we support that marketplace. We're going to be looking at waste diversion and disposal opportunities not just in the city of Denton but region wide so we can understand what part we play in the whole waste shed in the marketplace as we move forward. What are our operational priorities? We're going to look a little bit about fiscal management developing benchmarks and performance indicators branding marketing outreach and then as I talked and what's really going to be important is the legal and regulatory opportunities and constraints. A lot of what we operate in right now are rules that have been written back in the 80s and the 90s and we know that you know between technology advances things that have been happening in the global market the national sword out of China basically shutting the entire Asian peninsula off from from our recycling waste stream or our product stream it has really constrained us and we have to look at doing things differently you know I sometimes jokingly say you know solid waste 1.0 was back in the 80s and the 90s we're really getting into recycling we were gearing it up and then back in the early 2000 it was solid waste 2.0 we were we were doing things in carts we were getting away from from you know separating things out we were commingling this is really solid waste 3.0 it's the cutting edge of identifying how solid waste is to be done not locally but potentially statewide and nationally as we move forward in the 21st century so we're going to be looking at at resource recovery policies programs and services and really setting identifying attainable goals to to anchor a solid waste management plan as as we move forward in the in in the process we had selected bernsley mcdonnell as the most qualified firm to complete the project for several reasons first of all they work not only locally but statewide and nationally to create solid waste management strategies they have innovative outreach and stake processes and stakeholder engagement they had probably had the best understanding of really what we were looking for there was there were other companies that said yeah we can do a solid waste management plan for you but again we were looking for something a little bit deeper with their synergy and and and leverage they do waste characterization studies all across the state and across the nation so they have a unique understanding of of what the city of denton may bring to the table and again their experience and relationship statewide and nationally helps bring some stuff so if you look at this graphic here off to the right i think it really best demonstrates what we're looking for we're looking to the future we're going to be data driven looking at metrics and focusing on the people to create alignment provide new ways of thinking and identifying those critical ends to really help us forward with that strategy that we're developing for the city of denton this is going to be unique a lot of other people have have developed plans and they've been successful and some have not been successful but again what we're looking for is that that basic foundation as we move forward with this process you know as we look at the at the burns mcdonnell leadership scott pasternak who has many years of experience leading solid waste projects will be the project manager seth cunningham an engineer as well as bob craigs who's senior vice president burns mcdonnell will round out the leadership team they will be partnering with both the recycling partnership as well as future iq which is an innovative outreach and focus-based task force uh synergistic building community to help identify the education the outreach the the communications the task force but again this is going to be very data driven so again reengineering deconstructing reconstructing what this solid waste program should be considering as we move forward if you look at what they've done in relationship to what we're looking for they worked you can see in the city of austin dallas frisco georgetown paso phoenix denver i mean just all across the state and the nation trying to help you know in the planning identifying waste quantities doing business and financial uh implementation looking at waste minimization policies uh collection so again it's it's soup to nuts what we're what we're really looking for that to help us identify our strategies we're moving forward uh specifically they actually gave us reports from work they've done with the cog georgetown city of georgetown the tceq as well as ohio department of natural resources and the city of columbia missouri with city of columbia specifically they had done a strategy a study related to their organics waste management uh program and again not only that the capability of what they were looking at but also environmental impacts greenhouse gas generation uh so of all the organic streams so again we're really excited about them bringing this this amount of of of expertise to the table our key focus areas again you know landfill waste reduction zero waste philosophies waste management diversion promotion of ingenuity and reuse and recycling so again i think we're seeing a lot of of those those key aspects of what it's been asked for over the past year and as we're moving forward uh they have fulfilled that need and and and appear to be the best qualified firm as we move forward so really over the next 12 months there's several tasks that are going to be taking place first and foremost is the waste stream characterization they're going to go into our not only our residential uh units but also multifamily and commercial units and really identify what we're throwing away and in what volumes you know exactly how much plastic is ending up in both our recycling stream as well as our solid waste stream what sort of organics are are in there what sort of a mixed material that if it was separated out better or if there was a a legislative change which would drive uh how this material was was produced on the front end it would create a commodity on the back end so using that information to help us you know uh uh create and move forward in our strategy from that we will springboard into visioning workshop workshops again structured engagement so again in in addition to individual surveys uh creation of a think tank uh developing not only you know convening not only those that are interested in recycling diversion but also uh let's just say the naysayers people that may not support the program because again we got to get buy-in from everybody to be able to move forward effectively so figure out exactly what it looks like for the city of denton what the hurdles are and as we move forward there collect the data create the identify those marketplace opportunities and again you know how does this coalesce and fit in with our sustainability plan what are those environmental uh uh impacts looking at the education outreach opportunities again you know how we educated people back in the 1990s and 2000s uh early 2000s about uh diversion is significantly different than the tools that we have today so what does that look like as we reach forward and then finally you know the the financial management how do we how do we fund a lot of this what will it be able to cost and that will help us identify how we move forward in in the the uh implementation of these programs all across the city so with that i would like uh like to answer any questions that you might have and uh uh move for approval if if acceptable questions yes i think this sounds really really promising and the only the only question i have really is um what's the time frame or how far out is this strategy going to be looked at a 2030 2040 i'm just curious as to to how far into the future that this is going to project well again that you know that with just just like investing and everything else you know you sort of look at the past to help predict the future here though we're going to be looking at the fast at the past but trying to future think into the future so you know the further out we go that the fuzzier the vision is so we don't want to go so far that again we have no confidence in what we're looking at so we're looking really at a 15 20 year time period and in about seven to ten years actually go back in do a a a gut check you know where our assumptions are right where our variables correct and then do a course correction in that time period so you're saying you're looking ahead 15 to 20 years 15 to 20 years i think that is that that is a very safe uh uh window for us to be looking at uh from an investment standpoint as well as an implementation standpoint and by that time technology is going to change have changed significantly and hopefully uh what we're doing uh from a diversion standpoint has changed significantly and the variables will need to be recalibrated for us as we move forward from that point okay thank you you're welcome go ahead karen i just uh i wanted to echo and i think this is looks like it's going to be pretty comprehensive and broad i think it's really important to focus on the buy-in as you said because if people won't recycle you know your wonderful plans aren't really going to be any any use and at least you know word on the street is in austin is that they've had a really hard time getting buy-in you know they're they're sort of feeling overloaded by bins at the curb and they're having a hard time getting the the residents to actually participate so i'd be interested in participation rates in dentin um especially potential participation rates for commercial recycling i'm sure they're going to cover all of that but i don't want that to get lost in the weeds because that's that's the bottom line is how do you get people to participate so anyway otherwise it sounds great thank you i want to echo karen to both karen and add the participation is important multifamily housing is very difficult to get participation rates so we really need to get some buy-in in that particular sector as well as the food waste and organic that's going into the landfill if people don't recycle it ends up in the landfill anyway so we need them to participate but it does look like a real good plan burns and mcdonald is probably one of the best in the country so yes go ahead and yeah i'm just a little institutional memory i was involved in the community committee to initially establish curbside recycling here and there were all sorts of problems raised by people i don't want to carry the carts out and and you know we all know the know the scenario but i think that with a with a strong educational component uh just as was done with with the initial recycling program i think that uh that this will be very successful especially from a commercial aspect i think these a lot of these folks are would be very very happy to have this kind of service yes billy you know we had the same problem we wanted to put our trash bags in a can in a dumpster and once people saw it and saw how clean it was and how how much more efficient it was i think that they took to getting them there is the problem right and and i was on the pb we instituted recycling by the way too so i'll take a look that old yeah yeah no they put me on there when i was 15 any other questions comments all right do we have a motion to approve thank you ed it's a motion do we have a second second billy second all in favor say aye aye opposed all right thank you brian thank you very much management update good morning everyone uh we have a memorandum and this was in response to i think it's a question that barbara had on related to amherst and so we've provided in your backup but i have premium deshmuth is on the phone if if there's any questions on on that memo any questions barbara i've been challenged this weekend with lack of internet and also my ipad is not working so would you talk a little bit about that uh yes i'm gonna ask premium if he can jump in premium are you on the phone um yes everyone hear me yes yes hi good morning uh this is premium deshmuth deputy director of water wastewater chair members of the board thanks for the opportunity uh i really want to highlight uh quickly highlight or summarize what was written in the memorandum as i understand the question on this particular topic was amherst it was recently done by the streets department it feels brand new and why are we going at a later date and putting in water and wastewater or doing these uh upgrades to the water and wastewater line and the memo pretty much outlines what exactly was done there are several types of maintenance that street department does and one of the lower and maintenance uh which kind of lasts for anywhere between a year and three years is a micro sealing it's a type of a asphalt emulsion that you just lay on top of the surface so uh it kind of seals in the cracks and and releases moisture to penetration into the pavement and uh that was done a year ago uh typically the life um the life line for for this particular type of treatment is about a year anywhere between a year and three years so that's why uh we believe that this street or this segment of the street was cleared for us to move in as this was very low maintenance low cost option that was conducted recently yes the surface does look uh nice and it does feel that it's completely redone but it's a very low cost quick fix after the water wastewater utilities along this segment are completed we'll come back and redo a segment uh rehabilitate a segment of that particular uh amherst street and then also repatch and redo the remaining amherst and that's what all is lined out in this memo thank you okay so um the next item that we have for you is just future agenda items i did want to point out that on december 14th we are planning to come to you to give you a wrap-up of where we ended the year with the utilities and then just have a wrap-up discussion about rates going forward certainly um it'll all be contingent upon where we ended the year you may recall we started doing that last year um you know primarily because of the deck and kind of wanted to get a full picture where where we were with with the dme but uh we'll be covering all the utilities for you on december 14th um and and not that there won't be other items there'll be other items um on agendas as we're just trying to highlight at least one of the major items and then on the new business action matrix uh we've completed uh the uh the discussion on on the dme lawsuit um that's been completed and then there was also a request um well there was a discussion in pilot project on recycling and resident residential compost composting as um brian mentioned this morning um that'll be rolled into the discussion on this comprehensive solid waste study so hopefully that that provides a response that you need um but if you have any questions on that or any of these items just let us know that's all i have any questions charlie do you have a question yes uh tony you mentioned that the uh um the update on the lawsuit between grim and the city of denton was complete we talked about what was going to happen not we did not get an update on the lawsuit we talked about what the update on the lawsuit would look like and so i think we still have things to go in the future on that and second uh larry i think you were going to get us links to uh see the public data on that lawsuit and uh that was two weeks ago we haven't gotten those links yet so if we could get those links i'd appreciate that but no i i disagree that the status is complete we talked about what we were going to talk about we didn't get the update itself okay and i i'd like to keep that date of march 9th on the date requested okay right we can do that we'll get the links out to you it was my understanding that we were going to do that in conjunction with another report but i'll go ahead and do that independent of what's going to happen and i'll go out to you all this afternoon thanks all right then that leads concluding items does any board member wish to uh have anything added to a future agenda or have some words to say barbara would you give us an update on the bonnie bray station what the timeline is for that are you talking about the um the gis electric substation uh so um so we recently had some some discussions with the with the council on that and um that that is proceeding it is included in the fy 2021 cip budget for for dme uh we uh did recently send the council a informal staff report i i will i will forward that to you today i do apologize i did not include that and send that to you um earlier that but um but the plans are still moving forward um as previously discussed the eagle substation is is not a project that we're going to be doing so there's some additional distribution components that we've added to the gis substation but it has no impact on the architectural design or the footprint of that substation from what was previously discussed with that neighborhood committee any other board member i just want to thank kenny dr kenny banks for 20 years of service here at the city of denton you will certainly be missed but congratulations to you is he on the line i wanted to ask him he's on the line he is yes i am can you hear me yeah yes just wanted to see thank you so much season you want i just wanted to see if you were going to be doing any bird watching down in rockport i absolutely will be it's a great place for it and uh i just uh i i do want to take just a second and um thank all the board members uh and and previous boards for all their support through the years it's a um you know it's an interesting uh place to be in life and we have been planning to uh to come down here to rockport for quite some time and circumstances aligned and so uh here we find ourselves but i greatly appreciate all the support uh through the years and um and uh thank you for your service and um i um you know just really appreciate um all your thoughts and kind words your talents will be missed yes thank you very much just been a pleasure to work with you and see your dedication and your caring about what you actually do yeah it's been a pleasure to work with you thank you i appreciate it definitely all the way back to unt thank you thank you all yeah ed and i have been working together all 20 years but i've been there yeah all right so then do we have a motion to adjourn so moved second i guess we're adjourned 926 thank you thanks