Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[4:51] and welcome to tonight's study session of the Boulder City Council I am council member Nicole spear thank you so much for joining us we have on tonight's agenda two items the first is the Excel

[5:02] partnership update the second item is Council process working group full Council Direction on process Improvement items before we get into our first item I will outline how I will conduct the meeting first we will hear a presentation please hold your questions until the presentation is complete at the end of the presentation I will give us some time to ask clarifying questions then we will discuss our responses to the staff questions from the memo I will now turn to our city manager naria Rivera vandery to introduce our first item thank you so much council member Spear and good evening council members staff community members and our colleagues from Excel Energy as well as members of our advisory panel uh tonight's study session is an important opportunity to reflect on the city of Boulders partnership with Excel Energy as we mark five years since the franchise agreement was signed and while we think about energy when we talk about Excel right the reality is our

[6:01] partnership encompasses so much more than that it impacts nearly every aspect of our City's operation and long-term goals from transportation planning to emergency services and economic development the city's climate and resilience goals are deeply connected to how we work with Excel and to reduce emissions transition to renewable energy and mitigate risks such as wild fowers wild flowers oops I'm looking at uh council member Spears I mean uh Taisha Council M Adams's background such as wildfires and power outages excel's infrastructure Investments including undergrounding power lines and modernizing the grid are critical to our City's ability to maintain essential services and prepare for changing climate we'll be discussing how the partnership has evolved where we're seeing progress and where there are opportunities for improvement a key Focus tonight will be on the future state of the franchise agreement how we ensure this partnership continues to align with both ERS energy goals and

[7:01] Community priorities I want to thank you Council in advance for sharing your interest in advancing this study session as we heard a wide range of interests system reliability Wildfire risk reduction Equitable energy access and the city's long-term role in energy planning we also know those concerns mirror those we've heard from Community about how EXL is addressing safety reliability and cost and how we as a city can continue to leverage this partnership to meet our community's needs while ensuring that Excel remains a strong and accountable partner before turning it over to staff I'd like to take a moment to recognize and thank the Excel Energy team for joining us this evening we appreciate your time and continued commitment to this collaboration and look forward to tonight's discussion with Council and Community with that I'll turn it over to staff who'll provide an overview of the partnership's progress highlight key areas for discussion and address any questions you may have our own amazing director of climate initiative Jonathan Cohen will do the honors and kick us off

[8:02] Jonathan to you great thank you so much naria that was a nice introduction uh good evening mayor council colleagues and of course community members that are watching tonight as n said my name is Jonathan Cohen I am honored to serve as the Director of the climate initiatives Department here at the city um I I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to update Council and of course the community on the boulder Excel partnership this evening so I'll repeat a couple things that naria said but just to say that our goal this evening is really to provide an update on the partnership activities where we are today looking at some opportunities for improvement and again like Nua said really look to the Future state of the partnership to make sure we continue to serve the needs of bould residents businesses as well as Excel um I also really want to extend my gratitude to excel representatives for their willingness to be here this evening and of course for their ongoing partnership we all know these are really important conversations and value the opportunity for Council to engage openly with Excel

[9:01] Representatives so joining us in tonight's presentation are Robert Kenny who is the president of excel energies Colorado operating company Andrew Holder the director of community relations and local government Affairs and Nicholas Cole who is our Boulder area manager uh we'll get to their presentation in just a few moments um there's also quite a few folks from Excel that I didn't name U but I really want to acknowledge and appreciate the hours upon hours our teams spend together and value each of them brings to the partnership I also want to share a warm appreciation for the members of The Advisory panel who have volunteered a lot of their time to help guide this work uh we have a few uh I believe one or two folks here from the panel um I saw Wayne Seltzer had joined we may have a few others but they're here to help address any questions provide additional insights that Council might have and finally I'm almost done thanking people bear with me I especially want to thank uh and appreciate so many of our community members who have been instrumental in

[10:01] advancing our community's progress in this space so here's the plan for tonight uh you'll have about 15 minutes from staff about 15 minutes from Excel we'll review the two questions that we have for you all and hope to spend the remaining time really in conversation um so carollyn if you would mind let's go ahead and pull up the slides oh I love it when technology works okay so I wanted to start I thought actually thought it would be a good idea to share a bit of background for those who may be newer to this topic um Excel Energy is an electricity and natural gas utility serving customers throughout Colorado including the Boulder Community of course I think as most are aware Boulder and Excel have had a complex history with the city exploring the creation of its own electric utility for over a decade in pursuit of Greater control um so about 5 years ago in 2020 after extensive Community discussion Boulder and Excel entered into a new franchise

[11:02] and energy partnership agreement that really is intended to outline a set of shared priorities so if you look at the screen um at the center of the partnership uh was really a commitment to collaborate and Implement local projects and programs that are intended to accelerate emissions reductions to improve reliability and resiliency uh look at innovative solutions that are accessible and affordable to all customers and specifically the partnership is oriented to support our local targets of 100% renewable electricity and 100 megawatts of local installed renewable generation both by the year 2030 um I should also say that our teams focus on solutions that are replicable and scalable and what I mean by that is that they are solutions that benefit or have benefit Beyond Boulder's boundaries so the concept of incubating new ideas in Boulder was always a key point and continues to be of the agreement next slide

[12:01] please so one of the questions that we hear somewhat frequently is how decisions are made and who makes them so to deliver on the goals that are identified in the partnership agreement uh a governance structure was really created to provide input and oversight of the partnership and I'm going to start at the bottom of the graphic and kind of work my way up aligning with those arrows so first are the project teams um they are uh different groups that are comprised of staff from the city and Excel and the purpose is uh to really Define the scope of projects including timelines keepy performance indicators and project costs the next box up is that Community advisory panel that I already mentioned so this is um an appointed group of community stakeholders including residents businesses the university and other local organizations and the role of the advisory panel is to connect the community to the partnership by really representing discret customer voices so

[13:00] the panel reviews project proposals they uh spend a lot of time really um providing insight into Community impacts and and making recommendations to the Partnerships project oversight team which is the next box up so the oversight team is responsible for the implementation of the programs and projects and it's comprised of city and Excel staff again working collaboratively with implementation teams subject matter experts and the ad advisory panel then finally at the top is the executive team which represents City and Excel leadership and departmental directors and the the responsibility of the executiv is team executive team is really around oversight of the partnership agreement and that includes things like communication collaboration and really steering um the the overall um direction of the partnership efforts uh let's go to the next slide if you don't mind okay so don't panic um this is a busy slide

[14:00] what I will note is this chart that you're looking at is actually on page four of your staff memo if you want to follow along so the franchise agreement and energy partnership have an effective term of 20 years that began January 1st of 2021 um there are Provisions that allow the community to terminate the franchise prior to the full term and one of those Provisions occurs on the 5 10 and 15E anniversaries and the other is tied to emission reductions both of these opt outs um most of these op outs can occur either through a two through twoth thirds vote by city council or through a community ballot because we are at the first fiveyear anniversary Mark uh Council has expressed interest in understanding the details of the opt out provisions and while staff is not recommending Council exercise an opt out tonight's packet includes quite a bit of detail on the variety of decision points so the slide simply summarizes the dates and Provisions and we do know that there is a desire by summ in the community to

[15:00] exercise the opt out so it was important to provide council with the process details let's go on to the next slide okay so so looking ahead I I would say that like any complex relationship there are always opportunities for improvement um and I really want to acknowledge that our teams are focused on strengthening the partnership refining how we work together and addressing what I describe as emerging challenges so again as you heard nura say a key Focus tonight will be on that future state of the agreement and how we ensure this partnership continues to align with our own priorities as well as excel's priorities so we know that there are Community concerns about addressing safety and reliability and cost and while we may only be five years into this agreement the landscape has already shifted significantly from when it was first established what I mean by that is that climate disruption is more present than ever um I would say that we are dealing with the growing threats of extreme weather uh we're dealing with concerns around an

[16:01] aging grid infrastructure all while our Reliance on reliable electricity continues to increase and so I put this slide up just to really highlight the fact that our aim is to really address issues related to clean affordable resilient Equitable and safe energy and so I I would conclude some of the remarks on this Slide by saying maintaining reliable electricity isn't just about keeping the lights on it's about protecting Public Health it's about ensuring that critical infrastructure remains operational it's about keeping people connected in times of Crisis and preventing widespread economic disruptions affecting businesses and schools and productivity so there are a lot of strategies to enhance resilience um we hear things around system upgrades on-site generation energy storage microG grids I will just remark that this is not solely a utility problem so the solutions cannot rest on the utility actions we really need to think about a

[17:00] collaborative CommunityWide appro wide approach and that's really going to be essential to building a more resilient and adaptive Energy System and I know excel's eager to speak about their ongoing efforts to balance Wildfire risk mitigation with reliable power supply so we'll get to that in just a moment so with that future focus in mind I'd like to invite Carolyn to share some highlights and progress and I'll rejoin later to introduce the questions we have for Council this evening but before I hand it over I have to take a moment for one more round of appreciation I really want to sincerely thank our incredible internal staff team across multiple departments including City manager's office the city attorney's office and for my team especially Matt lman Emily sandal Lex tesak and last but not least the amazing Carolyn elim who oversees the partnership so Caroline I'm going to turn it over to you thank you Jonathan can thumbs up you can hear me yes perfect thank you um technology is working well tonight so very much appreciated again uh thank you

[18:00] uh mayor councel and Jonathan I'm carollyn El I'm a senior manager in our climate ad initiatives department and it's Jonathan mentioned I um am tasked with managing our day-to-day activities within the partnership and you know I want to Echo Jonathan's appreciation that he expressed I I could not um do this without the strength of my team and my extended team including some of our partners at Boulder County and I also really want to appreciate um our facilitation team that we' brought in from the Institute for the built environment out of CSU as well as excel's um Partners in energy team the the brandle group um who have been just really instrumental and working with us and advancing this work um to Jonathan's Point these are busy slides sometimes so so not trying to dive in too much and we're not going to detail this but I do want to take a moment to really talk about the evolution of our our work together um within the partnership and we launched the energy partnership at the beginning of 2021 um you there was an effort

[19:00] through the you know creation of that energy partnership to lay out a broad swath of areas we might work together um we spent a substantial part of our early time together really trying to turn that broad swath into actual actionable items and I really want to appreciate our advisory panel who really tasks us with bringing Clarity to the work plan um what the partnership work was going to consist of the targets that um affect each area how we were going to measure success and so so we did publish this um work plan in 2023 to cover the period from 2023 through 2025 um we highlighted the the six Focus areas you see here on the slide Energy Efficiency and building electrification very closely interwined together Transportation electrification our goals around local renewable generation and storage and resilience within that grid Supply to electricity and then overall resilience and then the bar chart you're seeing is some analysis that was conducted to understand how our work in each of these tranches to contribute towards the city's uh emissions

[20:01] reduction goals which again are a um 70% emissions reduction by 2030 as compared to our 2018 Baseline towards a trajectory of carbon neutrality by 2035 so as you look at this we've created um different uh sub areas within each of these Focus areas the idea here is not that at any given time there's a project or partnership project done play for every single area what this work plan does is it really guides um the road map for how we'll work together how we'll prioritize work how we'll review the projects that come up and and how we can move forward together um this is not exhaustive um of the accomplishments but I wanted to provide just a little flavor to support our conversation today and I know there was obviously a lot of interest in undergrounding um there was a sement provision um when we launched into the franchise around making up for the 10 years we were out of franchise plus um incremental um additions to our 1% Underground fund you know I want to really appreciate our partners at Excel

[21:02] um we still did not have commission approval and we had already launched the very first undergrounding project which was um the North Broadway project that you see in the upper left this was um really an important opportunity for us to to move those overhead lines underground while we were doing the concrete Paving on that road um so so really appreciate the the hard work that went into that that was the very first project that we done in in close to 15 years um so really a success uh we've done two uh we finished one other project which was the 19th Street and for anybody who's been out by the hospital um you've probably seen the work going on around East arapo to move those lines underground um all of these projects are really conducted to support our other Public Works projects so in these cases these are all Mobility related projects so East arapo is really to support our expansion of the multi-year path there on 19th Street was as well um but shitaka is is the one that we are just starting now and really

[22:01] excited to have this partnership with uh the shiaka organization who's bringing dollars to this as well um to really move all of the overhead lines that are up in the shiaka and leas hold areas as well as the lines running up to our um tank that sits in that area just south of the chiaka underground this is really around Community resilience and Wildfire risk reduction so a very different flavor project than has historically been done with the 1% funds the this project is just starting on this year so you're going to start to see activity um starting with the water tank the next phase we start to do some of the perimeter undergrounding um within on the edge of the leas hold and then the team will start to move into the leas hold area these four projects combined um will represent at least the the 16 plus million dollars that were part of the first five years and and may EXT stand to see um some of the other ones so we're definitely well on track um with the commitments that were made so really excited to have these projects go

[23:00] forward I've been here talking to you about street lights a few times so I won't dive into this too much but we now are the proud owners of approximately 4,400 street lights and as you saw recently um we have launching the project to start to retrofit those so really exciting uh you know within the partnership context we started this project um with Excel looking at our values and our goals around the street lighting system and and coming up together with what the best pathway was um to to achieve those goals and that's where we mutually decided to um that the city acquiring the system was the best pathway forward and we work together over the past several years to make that happen closing the gap on our emissions this was a very important um priority within the partnership agreement so how do we go from where excel's going to be in 2030 systemwide to our community goal of emissions free electricity by 2030 so there have been a number of efforts that have focused in on that the very first one out of the gate was the passing of Senate bill um 21261 this was a bill um

[24:00] developed by Senator fenberg that really Advanced access to solar energy this was a a partnership goal laid out in the very early um outline it increased how much solar you can put on your rooftop it improved um how you can take credit um for the solar and the net metering it also enhanced um opportunities um for more solar for multif Family Properties and larger commercial projects so a lot was accomplished through just that one legislation together we've been working really closely to understand like how to further close the gap on the grid emissions um we've talked about this zero emissions Community project which is really looking at what is a 247 solution where every hour of the day every day of the year we can have emissions free electricity together we've learned a tremendous amount and I would say our work together is really Advanced and matured our thinking not just ourselves but um stakeholders as well as our Utility Partners to really

[25:00] understand the nuances of and I know that our team will probably talk about this some more what it means to try and eek out those last remaining emissions in those few hours a day and few days a year where we aren't going to already be emissions free um just naturally from where Excel is going to be in 2030 um so more work to be done but but really a lot of successful work and then I want to give a shout out to our advisory panel and our community members um there is one project that will'll be launching uh this year which starts to provide a lot more tools to community members businesses to understand how they are making energy choices and what that means in terms of emissions so when they charge their car when they use electricity so lots of more public facing dashboards that provide forecasting um these were ideas that our community brought forward and worked with Excel and us to really Advance um and really excited to see some of these just on the cusp of starting to be introduced into the marketplace this year

[26:00] think this is my um last one but clean Mobility uh really uh taking advantage of the transportation electrification program projects that our partners at Excel were able to offer through their approved regulatory strategy we've been able to really drive a lot of um High adoption within the Boulder Community so this just shows some of the year-over-year project progress in that regard um we continue as the Boulder Community to lead in EV adoption as well as infrastructure deployment so exciting to see that and then we're on the um we've spoken to some in the community about launching our key pump accelerator pilot which we look forward to launching this year which is really finding ways to break down um barriers particularly for multif family condominium complexes so we've been working with the Shanahan Ridge Community to understand how we can streamline heat pump adoption there and working with Partners on a group bu opportunity so with that I am going to pass the mic over to our our colleagues and and to Robert and Robert I have your

[27:02] slides um here in the deck so if you just want to let me know when you're ready for me to advents well thank you very much um let me just start by also adding well first can you hear me okay can you hear us well excellent let me just add my thanks I'm not going to list everybody because I'll invariably forget someone but first council members and Mr Mayor thank you for uh inviting us to be here with you all tonight we look forward to presenting and just looking forward to the dialogue and then to Jonathan and and Carolyn and Nua and everybody um at Boulder thank you for your partnership you know I joined the company a little less than three years ago and I have found that this partnership has worked extraordinarily well I have also discovered that we candidly have much more in common than that which separates us which is maybe something that's true for all of our endeavors in the world so

[28:01] um I'm really encouraged by what we've been able to accomplish so far and I'm looking forward to this presentation tonight um we can go to the next slide please so this is uh slide is really just intended to illustrate you guys have characterized it as clean affordable resilient Equitable and safe I think this is another way of depicting and stating our shared uh goals and values as a company we strive every day to provide safe reliable affordable and increasingly clean energy to the 1.6 million electric and 1.5 million gas customers we serve and so we're much we're very much aligned in terms of our goals and our mission next slide please this slide will look familiar because you saw it in both Jonathan and Carolyn's portion of the presentation but again just to reiterate that the partner ship allowed us to agree upon

[29:01] four goals uh that we were able to codify in the uh in the agreement and the goals are listed in the top graphic and then it trickles down into the six Focus areas that you see below and those are the focus areas where we focus on our new projects and programs we know that the partnership started in 2021 and since then we've been able to create multiple new programs and projects in partnership with the city and the advisory panel and with collaboration with the council members um most recently uh and something that we're very proud of is the virtual power plant Grant from the Department of energy um that is our most recent project that's underway in Boulder next slide please so I know and I've I've heard from you and from everyone else and it's it's equally as important to us that reducing Wildfire risk is a top priority for all of our communities and I and I say it's not just reducing Wildfire risk but it's protecting the public and it's

[30:02] and the things that we're doing to mitigate Wildfire risk are intended to enhance Public Safety that's first and foremost so this graphic really kind of depicts all the things that we're doing uh around Wildfire what's depicted in our Wildfire mitigation plan as you know we have a wildfire mitigation plan on file at the Pu and I'll just briefly describe very quickly the buckets the big buckets of work fall into four four main categories first is situational awareness and that includes additional weather detection cameras that allow us to Garner additional weather data so weather cameras and other um items that allow us to enhance our situational awareness our Pano AI cameras and our weather detection stations the second big bucket is system hardening system strengthening and resiliency that includes targeted undergrounding uh strategic and targeted undergrounding

[31:00] replacing small conductor with larger conductor replacing bare conductor with covered conductor all the ways in which we're making our system uh stronger and hardened so that if it can withand uh extreme weather events but also allowing us to restore more quickly when there are outages caused by extreme weather events we have operational mitigations and I don't know if that's described on there but yes there we go the enhanced power line safety settings and the tool of Last Resort the public safety power shut off and I'll just very briefly Define these terms because I know that even internally we sometimes have a tendency to conflate the two the enhanced power line safety settings that refers to uh the change in sensitivity in the recloser settings on our power lines making them more sensitive to items that might come into contact with a power line and preventing a the reclosing device from automatically

[32:00] reclosing so that is the enhanced power line safety settings that is distinct from the PSPs which is the public safety power shut off and that is an operational mitigation that we employ in the most extreme weather situations and that requires us to proactively de-energize our allines when we see the most extreme weather events that's a tool that we've employed only once that was the April 6th and 7th event and then uh under ging situational awareness system hardening and our operational mitigations are enhanced Communications and customer support and so we have a separate section in our Wildfire mitigation plan that describes um the plans for executing a PSPs and the communication protocols that accompany that so we know and we've acknowledged that our our a one and only PSPs event had significant opportunity for improvement around Communications we heard all that feedback and Incorporated

[33:00] it into our Wildfire mitigation plan um and that contemplates that we would provide much more advanced notice to our customers our communities our OEM partners and others uh in advance of a potential PSPs around what's happening what the outage would look like what the polygons would look like we're also enhancing and building our critical customer lists so that we can have greater visibility and inside into where our critical customers are so this infographic I think is something that's uh helpful to be able to depict in one place what we're doing to help mitigate Wildfire risk and to protect the public safety uh next slide please all right so this is really our um way of depicting how much we are aligned with you guys and it's really kind of amazing to me to see how well

[34:00] aligned we are the commission's uh and the state's uh goals for us in terms of decarbonizing our LDC as well as more beneficial electrification are very aligned with the goals that we already had uh to reduce carbon emissions from both our electric and gas systems we filed just recently our clean heat plan that is a first of a Kind filing that demonstrates how we intend to reduce uh G HG emissions from our LDC focusing significantly on beneficial electrification um and just at a glance we've got $440 million in that plan to help Advance beneficial electrification to help those customers that want to Electrify their homes and move from gas uh to electrification so we have significant um funding available for that the other items that you see under here the coal action plan the new clean energy program our Colorado power

[35:00] pathway and the maintenance of reliability these are all just indicators and additional um proof points of what we're doing to help meet your goals our shared goals while also maintaining reliability I'll just I'll just very briefly talk about the Colorado power path pathway because that is an exciting transmission line that's going to allow us to unlock a lot of the renewable energy that we see on the Eastern planes and bring that uh renewable energy to to load centers uh just briefly we have a heat pump program that started in 2024 and that's in the Shannon neighborhood which is intended to increase and accelerate heat pump adoption in Boulder our Pearl Street uh non-pipeline alternative program is intended to Electrify the Pro Street mall we're collaborating with the city uh to communicate this project to the community I I I'll just pause here and just say when I first joined the company um we know that we still have a lot of

[36:00] customers candidly that are using electric I mean using natural gas for Home Heating and cooking and we know that um there are challenges to being able to Electrify whole neighborhoods and large swaths of our community we took a significant amount of effort through our integrated system planning program to come up with a methodology by which we can analyze um non-pipeline alternatives for those communities that want to move from gas to electric ification the Pearl Street uh NPA program is one example of that and we're very excited about our ability to work on that with you and we think that that can be um a model and a proof of concept that we can apply to other parts of our system our partners in Energy Group has been tracking our demand side management program and the emission reductions and cost savings that we're achieving through that and then our evsi program the electric vehicle Supply infrastructure program we've completed 22 projects and Boulder far and we have eight additional projects scheduled for

[37:04] 2025 next slide please all right this is pretty exciting to me too this is our our distribution system plan we um uh we've had to do a whole different way of thinking about how we're going to plan our distribution system much of this is driven by the fact that we're seeing so much beneficial electrification electrification of transportation is requiring us to have to significantly bolster the distribution system we're having to bolster our entire system from generation to transmission to distribution but the local distribution system is really the um the significant part of the grid that's bringing electricity to your home and so we filed our first uh distribution system plan under the new distribution system planning rules um at the commission just last year that process will proceed through 2 at the commission but it's a

[38:00] significant uh step up in the amount of distribution capacity that we'll be adding and you can see it here 108 new or upgraded substation Transformer Banks 35 new substations 300 new feeders 154 capacity projects which will unlock and allow for 3.1 gigawatts of new capacity so this is something that's really exciting and something that we know is going to be necessary in order to accommodate everything that we want to do to increase uh our systems ability to handle more renewable electricity more distributed electricity and then it's also going to serve to bolster the resilience and the reliability of the system simultaneously just a couple of uh the boulder terminal is a full substation rebuild that will provide future capacity flexibility we're also of we have these 300 new feeders two of the feeders serving south of Cu of have been scoped to be undergrounded as a part of our Wildfire program so there's a lot of

[39:02] work that we're doing systemwide but specific work that will bolster the system and Boulder next slide please so we have a distribution system plan that shows how we're going to bolster the capacity of our distribution system and this is the reference to our just transition solicitation this is the process at the commission um that describes our load forecast for a 5-year period of time through 2030 how we've uh the methodology we've used to derive that load forecast and then how we intend to meet that load and what resources we intend to use this is the electric resource planning process that happens at the commission this one specifically is referred to as the just transition solicitation because it's in addition to looking systemwide at the resources we're going to need it's really also focusing on identifying new power at our Hayden sub our hadenson and

[40:01] uh in Pueblo where we will be retiring on coal plants and the reason we refer to it as a just transition is because we recognize that as we close these coal plants and we'll be completely out of coal by 2030 as we close these coal plants we know that there are co-workers there who have depended upon that plant for their livelihoods we know that those assets provide tax basee in those communities and so our goal goal is to look at ways to replace the coal Assets in Hayden and Pueblo with new power resources at that location in the absence of that we do intend to make payments in lie of taxes and I'm proud to say that we've closed something like 17 different coal plants across our eight State territory and we've been able to do that without having to lay off any of our co-workers and find new jobs for them um we hosted a webinar uh um for the advisory panel and for the city council members on February 24th to go

[41:01] in more detail on the just just transition solicitation we also know and I referred to this on the previous Slide the virtual power plant Grant that's a key project that's sponsored by the department of energy um and the the just transition solicitation will continue to advocate for we continue to collaborate with the city and the advisory panel and we you all our collaboration will be key in pushing for additional projects to meet our emission reduction goal so the the just transition solicitation it's a two-phase project so we go through the methodology and we say a variety of different scenarios but just at a very high level and this may have been already um discussed on the webinar but we're anticipating about 14,000 megawatts of new generation to come out of this just transition solicitation and about 7,000 of those megawatts would be wind about 5,000 would be solar and storage um and so we expect that with the just transist with with this solicitation whether it's a 12,000 or 14,000 megawatt portfolio that would get

[42:02] us to a 90% reduction in emissions from 2005 levels and 90% renewable energy being delivered to our customers by 2031 or by the end of 2030 so it's a it's a it's a a gigantic plan and it's going to get us well on our way to being 90% renewable by by the end of 2030 so very exciting plan next slide please well that's the end so I think at this point we move into question and answer but thank you for the time and I'm looking forward to uh answering these questions or yeah engaging with you on these questions Robert thank you so much I will pick it back up um in a quick transition back to you council member Spear and just wanted to go over the questions that we have for Council this evening there are two um and I can read

[43:01] these aloud if useful I think we can leave them up on the screen but it's always helpful just to be able to see one another really the first question is to really understand from Council um what areas of focus that you didn't hear tonight or that you did here tonight would you really like to see uh receive greater priority uh within the partnership work plan for the next five years so really that that future look uh what are areas that we need to really accelerate or prioritize then the second question really relates to the the 5year anniversary term um is there any additional information or analysis that Council might need from staff or from Excel to inform an affir a decision to continue with the franchise so we thought it' be good to just circle up around these two particular questions but we'll turn it to you council member spear to open it up and love to hear the conversation thanks so much great thank you so much um and thank you for both of the presentations and thank you Mr Kenny for being here to with some of your team we really appreciate the opportunity to talk with

[44:00] you um by my calculations uh we have about um 80 minutes left in this part of the uh meeting tonight so I was thinking we could spend about 20 minutes until 7 o'clock with some clarifying questions because I expect that what we want to get to is more of the answering staff questions but I know that folks will have clarifying questions too so two wish three minutes a piece um if we do all three minutes piece is a little too long so somewhere in that area um and please hold on comments for now uh we will have plenty of time for that in our um next hour of of this item um okay so as you are asking your questions please indicate to whom you are addressing your question whether it is to Excel or whether it is to staff and the other group will have a chance to answer the question too but just so that it's a little bit easier to understand please clarify who your uh question is addressed too um so I

[45:00] will now open it up to clarifying questions not comments yet we'll have that chance this is just clarifying comments on the presentations or items in the memo who has clarifying questions um Tina I see you up first then Mark yeah um this is a question for Excel I think and just hearing about the larger plan that includes um more equipment and funding for equipment to uh switch to electrification has your company discussed risk risks from changes in the federal government where you feel that some of these plans are vulnerable or might be significantly more expensive than originally budgeted um we have so I'll say a couple things about it I don't just at a very high level I think the things that we've paid a lot of attention to would be um continuation of the investment and

[46:00] production tax credits that were in the inflation reduction act and we've been working collaboratively with other utilities and with our Trade Organization the Edison Electric Institute um to continue to advocate for the maintenance of those tax credits so our our uh wind farms uh part of what makes those projects more cost effective are the tax credits that are associated with those and those are tax credits on the um investment in the in the asset and on the production of the electrons that the wind farm will create and we're able to monetize and sell those tax credits but that endures to the benefit of our customers by lowering the overall cost of the project and so what we have found is that how do I say this in both red and blue States people are benefiting from the creation of these projects and so we think that there's a good chance that those projects I mean that those tax credits will remain um you know the

[47:01] tariffs we're still studying whe what what the tariffs may or may not do in terms of adding cost to various projects um but we do think it's manageable at this point we don't perceive that it's going to uh require us to cancel anything at this point okay and and then a follow-up question is is there a way to because I think it's it's so complicated but is there a way to get an understanding in numbers of what kind of cost savings are um the people living in Boulder might realize over time through these Investments as a community so I mean I think our goal is to to ensure that the cost of living doesn't increase and Boulder to the extent that we can um so is there anything that we are that we could see that's being projected that we can communicate yeah I think we can and I can and I can give you just right off the top of my head a relatively high level understanding of our wind farms in particular through the avoided fuel

[48:02] costs over a period of maybe 2017 to 2022 and I may have the time run we could follow up with you but we have Savings of about $700 million in avoided fuel costs so when we build a renewable energy project it's Capital intensive and there's capital and that has to be spent to build that project but we're not buying natural gas or coal or other fuels to be able to power that and make electrons and so there's the voided fuel cost which results in a savings for our customers of about $700 million I think there's probably ways for us to quantify how tax credits have reduced the overall cost of various projects um and that's something we probably need to follow up on because I just don't have it in the top of my head but those would be the two buckets of savings would be uh reduction in the cost of the project attributable to tax credits and then avoided fuel costs as a attributable to renewable projects thank you and thank you Dina um next up is

[49:01] Mark okay thank you I I assume we should not be addressing the two questions raised by staff uh earlier yep yeah this is just clarifying questions well we'll next um my first question uh is that we did not discuss one of the sort of elephants in the room when we entered into the franchise agreement it was with the primary purpose of reducing uh CO2 emissions and in 2022 we very narrowly missed our objective uh we missed it by more in 2024 what's the basis for your believing that in 2020 um 7 and3 we're going to meet the targets we have not yet met and is that a question for Excel that's an Excel question okay thank you so I'd say a couple things um we have very smart load forecasters and

[50:00] modelers that say if we add X number of megawatts of new Renewables that we would expect to reduce the tons of carbon that are emitted by why amount and so it's it's not speculative I mean it's based upon modeling and assumptions but if we're adding 14,000 megawatts of new Renewables and if about 12,000 megawatts or 14,000 megawatts of new generation and about 12 and a half thousand megawatts of that are wind solar solar paired with storage we would expect to see and we're retiring our coal plants that will no longer emit carbon um then we would expect to see carbon emissions reduced by 90% from 2005 levels we we were at about 45% carbon free in 2024 across Colorado I don't know how many tons we reduced of carbon um but my understanding is we we did miss it but

[51:01] we missed it narrowly and so we project forward based upon the resources that we intend to add based upon uh the resources we know we will be retiring and that's why we're able to say that we think will be 90% carbon free with a 90% reduction in emissions by 2030 thank you my my next question um regards the um uh the public safety power shut off uh we're coming up on the oneyear anniversary of that Pleasant event and if we were to have in April another similar uh shut off um would it still require three days to turn the power back on so I I can't answer that with any level of specificity and I'll tell you why and and I don't know that in candidly I don't think you'd want me to because it would be speculation when we are I what I can tell you is that we'll give you more advanced notice and one of the things that we've committed to is to

[52:01] being able to give you 72 hours 48 hours 24 hours notice and what I can also tell you is that we're working really closely with our offices of Emergency Management to make sure that we well we are well coordinated and that there's visibility into what we're doing but to be very specific about would it take three days to restore the power we will restore the power as quickly as possible and as safely as possible one of the ch challenges when you execute a public safety power shut off and again we've only done one here um but we have done them in other parts of our service territory when the wind event ends that is not when the power will be restored because we have to patrol the lines and so we think we will be able to do that more quickly than we did it last time we will station and pre- station Crews to be able to get out there and restore power as quickly as possible but it's very challenging to say without knowing what the scope of the event

[53:01] would be without knowing how many line miles that need to be patrolled what the restoration time would be we're going to do it as fast as possible we're going to do it as quickly as possible we'll use drones and we'll use human beings to patrol but we have to actually physically get our eyes on there either through uh foot patrols or through drone inspections okay we can discuss this more during comments I just want to point out that the discontent was was not a it wasn't a notice issue it was a turning the power back on issue and I have one more question um I I've been told that it costs four to6 million per mile to underground lines um and assuming that that's a correct estimate the the $ 1.2 million we receive every year uh basically buys us about a quarter of a mile of undergrounding um is there any way for

[54:00] us to be uh accelerating that or for Excel to be accelerating that well I'd say two things I don't I don't want to affirm or disprove the $4.6 million a mile that that that could be right it depends I mean there's there's a lot of variables that determine how much it's going to cost to underground a a distribution line and let me just also be clear we don't typically Underground transmission level lines so there's there's sometimes a conflation of the transmission system and the distribution system so our high voltage transmission lines that are usually located in remote areas that's usually a 10x cost to underground those lines so we just don't typically underground transmission lines it's not that we never do it in urban centers that are heavily populated we do do that but typically we don't underground transmission so the cost to underground a distribution line it is going to be more expensive it will depend upon uh the topography and the

[55:00] location and the complication of actually doing it what the route is so yes it will be more expensive I don't know if it's always going to be a you know a million dollars a mile for overhead versus 4.6 million because it's going to depend on the topography the program that you're referring to if I'm not mistaken these guys will keep me honest I think that's separate and aart from the undergrounding that we've described in our Wildfire mitigation plan what I do know is that oftentimes cities and municipalities will have separate funds to underground strategically and use that money as they see fit I've seen that in other jurisdictions in which I've worked that's typically um more for cosmetic purposes than for our safety and resiliency the undergrounding that we've described in our plan is specifically going to be targeted for uh system resiliency and for safety related to our Wildfire mitigation plan so I think those are two separate programs that we're talking about okay do you have to spend the money in the year that you collected or can you build it up and use it okay so I think that's the int

[56:01] that's how I thought it worked you can build that up over time and then use it as you see fit as that as that fund Aggregates and collects okay I used up my time I turn it over to my colleague Ryan thanks Mark and um I just want to note this is taking a lot longer probably your question fine right like I think um I we we can do this I just I'm gonna ask the people who have already given their qu their um ask their questions please start thinking about what your comments are going to be so that we can keep those really tight um and and try to get through this otherwise we really will be here all night um okay Ryan you are next welcome uh Mr Kenny and team appreciate your work with the partnership um over the years um I'd like to pick up on Mark's analogy and in decarbonization if uh if electrification and what's happening there is the elephant in the room I think the blue whale is what's going on in our with

[57:00] natural gas and um I'd like to ask you to just talk about how are ongoing invest or your your ongoing investments in natural gas system work uh with respect to is it just sort of a generally a smooth um continuous approach over the years versus are there big lumpy Investments coming up and then secondly what are you doing to to avoid stranded assets uh in this system as we collectively think about how to how to fully decarbonize our entire Energy System all right I'm I'm gonna take your advice and I'm G try to be really piffy in my answer so the investment is I think and I think this is in a public investment deck so I'm not saying anything that's private but we we we aren't expecting to invest $500 million in our natural gas System 25 to 29 that'll probably fluctuate up or down I'd say 60% 60 to 70% of that is what we

[58:03] call Asset health and reliability I like to think of it as maintenance and safety whether we retire our gas system tomorrow 20 years from now 30 years from now those pipes are going to still be in the ground and we're going to have to maintain them for the purposes of safety so a big chunk of that investment is safety how are we avoiding that stranded Asset Risk I it's a tough question and and I I'm not going to be able to answer it two or three minutes because it's a difficult question and and I'm not actually sure it's the right thing for us to be focused on it that's probably a longer question a longer dialogue as well we're trying as we can and this is we have dollars in the clean heat plan to help customers that want to Electrify their homes do that the point that I I will make to you and I've made it to the Public Utilities Commission is that in the absence of somebody telling us I don't have to serve customers we have customers that still want Natural Gas we still have developers that are developing subdivisions that want natural gas for

[59:00] heating and cooking and we can tell them the programs that we have available to Electrify and we're working to do that to Pro to uh promote more electrification um but I don't there's no law that tells that customer that he can't install natural she can't install a natural gas stove and we have an obligation to serve them um so one of the things that I think we're going to need to think about in terms of stranded Asset Risk is that as customers leave the gas system and go over to the Electric System who should should they be able to avoid the costs of a gas system that was built to serve them that's a question that we're going to ask ourselves you know and so who should bear the costs as customers decide to move off the gas system recognizing that we still have pipes in the ground that are going to be need to be maintained until there are zero customers on that system there's a system that's going to have to be maintained I hope that's helpful it's a longer conversation than we probably time for sorry okay thank you I'll look forward to the the deeper dive and then

[60:00] just real briefly if I could I've had a number of community members ask me they've said gosh my my power went out the other day then it came back on seems like it's happening more than it used to maybe people are jumpy I don't know but I I think what I heard you say is the PSPs events are scheduled they're noticed so if people are experiencing no I'm sorry not PSPs events we've only had one PSPs event they're not so that's that's there aren't PSPs events there was one PSPs event I just want to be very clear because people keep thinking that we've had multiple PSPs events we haven't we have our system set on certain uh days when there's high winds we'll have the settings in enhanced Powerline safety settings that's epss and so people might be experiencing more frequent outages because we've set our system to be more sensitive so that if something touches a line it de energizes and it stays deenergized when there's no no Wildfire risk and under normal climate circumstances things hit our lines they

[61:00] may de energize and they would reenergize automatically we've prevented them from doing that because we want to avoid an ignition so that might be what people are experiencing we're actually using a different metric now it's called see4 it's customers experiencing multi multiple interruptions more than four times and when we see locations that have experienced multiple interruptions four times are greater we are adjusting the sensitivity yet again and so we're trying to make sure that to the we're balancing Public Safety and reliability and it's and it's we're having to do that in a way that we just haven't historically I feel like my answers are getting too long I'm sorry I'm trying thank you we're we're asking complicated questions too um Tara you are up hi there hello first of all don't fret we all have PTSD from PSPs that's a joke but it's true that that event in U A in April was really

[62:00] difficult for everybody so I guess my first question is in terms of you said 7248 and 24 hours which is it or is it all of them it's all of them so thank you it's a great question I'm sorry I wasn't clear on that so we will be giving Communications at each of those lines of demarcation so it's 72 hours and again the thing to remember is that weather's Dynamic and so so what we see at 96 hours is not necessarily what we're going to see at 7248 and 24 so at 72 hours our commitment is to tell our offices of Emergency Management and critical facility customers here's what we're seeing we're seeing weather that would tend to indicate that we might have to conduct a proactive deenergization 72 hours hence we will update that again at 48 hours and say Here's the weather that we're seeing and that's when we'll start to do customer Communications as well and say customers here's what we're seeing

[63:03] please begin to make preparations in advance of a potential Public Safety power shut off event at 24 hours we will say again the weather conditions are such that we fully expect that we're going to have to execute a public safety power shut off please take care and make preparations for that so at each of those different stages we'll be providing um different levels of specificity based upon whether that we're seeing and providing Communications at each of those steps of the way and that's all outlined in it's a separate part of our Wildfire mitigation plan there's a PSPs Playbook that outlines that so when you talked about you're going to tell your critical customers I remember that was a Saturday night or a Friday night whatever night it was it was the weekend and businesses and restaurants and bars were just totally you know taken off guard are they included in your who's included in your CR critical customers

[64:01] yeah I will I don't know uh explicitly all the different critical customers these guys can fill in but I can a restaurant's not and and when we say a critical customer it's going to be like a hospital um water treatment plant you know pharmacies that's that's a critical customer and and I don't mean to be flipping I mean it's a it's a business that that's a restaurant it's not providing life I get it I I understand 48 24 hours notice yeah I mean I'm thankful that you're that we don't have to deal with the uh you know the thing that happened with the shutdown of the sewage plan but we w't go into that right now um but how I don't want to take people's time so we can talk about this later about how do we get people uh the businesses whose one Saturday night wiped out is so critical to them staying in business like how do they find out ahead of time but we don't have to talk about that now because what

[65:00] I'm going to ask you to think about is if you would have some sort of a subcommittee on um customer service no offense but monopolies are like and customer service you know that's hard because monopolies you know it's not like the customer can go somewhere else so I'll just talk about that later I'll just do my second question now if you don't mind and that is respond to that what me I think I really want to respond to that because it it was we don't care about customer service by virtue of being a natural monopoly okay I just I maybe just want to disabuse people of the premise because I think the the fact that we're a natural monopoly doesn't mean that we don't care about our customers and and and we we we do focus on customer service um as if we were a competitive business you know and I I would ask you know I I I beg Grace that we not be judged by the April 6th and 7th wind event as illustrative of how we feel about our customers that's

[66:01] fair I know I'm feeling pressure from Nicole I'm gonna quickly do my second question right Nicole um so I guess my question is is you know in order to protect businesses in critical infrastructure during a power outage could Boulder or why couldn't they or are we allowed to uh create geographical zones that would be electricity self-sufficient so that um businesses SL uh critical infrastructure could keep operating even if the grid power is lost now I heard through the gra find that we're not allowed to do that and if not then why not I think maybe that there's a maybe embedded in your questions the concept of could we partner together to construct micro grids yes that is my question and I and I think that that's something we've seen in other places I I think it's something that merits more discussion um because we have to think about how we pay for it who pays for it it's it's only serving a certain group

[67:00] of customers that's not something that we would socialize across all our customer base and in the way that we do traditional utility infrastructure I I think it's a conversation that merits more discussion council member okay thank you all right um Lauren and again just want to remind people start preparing your answers to those questions so we can get through those really quickly thanks um so I I heard something that sort of surprised me which was that the standard that um you use in terms of wind speed for your systems is a regionally based wind speed and I just wanted to see is that true because like as an architect I know we're in a special wind Zone in Boulder and we have to design for like 165 M hour 7c gusts west of Broadway is that the same thing you guys are doing um with your system yeah so we design our polls to withstand

[68:00] winds so that's kind of like whether it's in Boulder or Denver or someplace else when we have Regional wind zones is because of the wind speed in Boulder because of the topography and again I'm not I'm not an architect or a scientist so I'm being a little colloquial here but it's going to differ than it is in an urban population Center and so what I think is intended by what you just described is that um well we use wind speed and relative humidity and fuel moisture and technos silver modeling it's all four of those that go into determining whether we're going to conduct um a public safety power shut off for purposes of determining whether we're going to put our system in epss it's wind speed and relative humidity and moisture on the ground as well so the the what is a I was just wondering about the poles and lines not the not the lines are designed our poles and lines are designed to withstand wind speeds and we and we use

[69:00] that the uniform standard there's not a there's not a bolder Pole or Denver pool so that's okay thanks for cl know we're in a special wind region that has higher wind ratings than Denver does you have higher you have different wind determinations for purposes of determining whether we're going to have epss or wso or a conductive proactive deenergization but that's not the same as we don't design our polls differently for different regions okay um I live in Shanahan Ridge where most of our polls or most of our lines are undergrounded already but you know we still we experience a significant number of power outages some recently during a council meeting um and I'm just wondering what you you know why that is that when my lines are undergrounded here I'm still experiencing fairly high levels of um unreliability and how are you making sure that that

[70:01] doesn't happen as we underground more areas and making sure that those are providing a higher level of reliability so I'd probably need to get back to you to understand specifically your location and why you're experiencing more outages I just I I can't answer it I just don't know the answer and we'd need to I Love to Get Your Service address we can do it later so that not everybody on the call knows your home address and then we can figure out if there's something specific at that location I'll say as a general proposition we can see outages even where there's undergrounding because you your lines may be undergrounded but they may be fed by lines that are overhead someplace else and so the way our system is constructed you might still experience under under um faults because of even where it's undergrounded the other thing I'll say you have underground infrastructure it's still it's human equipment it's still subject to failure so even if it's undergrounded it might

[71:00] have it might fail for other reasons thank you um and then my final question is just around mapping um after the PSPs um my one of my main requests was around making publicly available maps of course with critical infrastructure information redacted um available to the community so that we can better understand and communicate around um areas that what's going to be shut off turned back on both for future power shut offs but also for other outage events where are you guys with that um when can we expect something like that so I'd say our plan is in the moment is to be able to have more accurate outage maps that show where the outages are taking place in a mo in a in the moment we can't develop a PSPs map per say because we won't know until we're about to conduct a PSPs event what the

[72:00] polygon is but in the polygon meaning what's the shape around the area that we intend to De energize that's going to necessarily be different with every single event um so we're actually in managing a PSPs event another part of our service territory now and we have uh polygon maps that we're able to share with the public that says based upon what we're seeing today here's the area that we would expect to be impacted by a PSPs so I you know let's let's hope that we're not going to need a PSPs but should we have to execute a PSPs event I think we'll have maps that will be able to illustrate um the perimeter and the polygon of the potential event thank you hopefully that will be with because I've seen those with fairly low levels of resolution and accuracy so hopefully we're stepping it up there um that's all I have for questions thank you Lauren um Erin

[73:00] you're up next great thanks I just got a couple of quick questions for Excel hopefully we can have quick answers as well uh so we can move on thanks so much for being with us here tonight the first one is about um interconnections for solar systems um I've heard from installers and some customers that that can take uh quite a while sometimes and in fact I believe our Boulder modular home Factory is waiting for an intern connection right now did what does that delay result from is and is there potential to make uh make progress on those delays yeah Mr Mayor there I with all CED I can't answer the question without knowing more specifics because every single one of those delays will have a very different cause we had we had some issues with our process probably two summers ago where we had a backlog there was an extension in one of the tax credit programs resulted in influx of applications and we had a backlog and we redesigned our inin process some of the common causes um have been applications that were filled out incorrectly um there were miscommunications between developers and

[74:02] the customer miscommunications between the customer and US miscommunication between the developer and us so there there's any number of reasons why there might be delays and interconnection so I there's there's no single reason that I can give you okay appreciate that maybe we'll follow up on the specifics of our particular project thank you I will commit to getting back with you once we know those details appreci apprciate that and then my one other one uh relates to the um full Ash cleanup at the Valmont power plant I know you got some information over to us in response to council member Shu hard's um questions but the one thing I want to follow up on that specifically around that is about um air quality monitoring just wondering what the specific plans are for monitoring uh any changes to air quality as that project is carried out maybe I will ask you guys I don't know if we're doing air quality monitor uh we'll have to follow up we'll have to follow up on that I know that we're re we've got a we've got a partnership with

[75:01] um the company that's helping us do the cleanup I know that we contain the coal ash and have a way to beneficially reuse it and we contain it as it's being transported to be mixed into concrete I'm not sure that we are doing air quality monitoring but we'll have to follow up on that if you could get back to us of course interest to uh for our Boulder County neighbors but also the winds blow back towards Boulder as well so certainly of interest to our residents also that's what I got thanks again for joining us thank you Ain and taasa and then I've got just a couple question awesome thank you so much um really appreciate I'll save my comments and go to my three quick questions the first is around climate resilience and so um it's been really wonderful to hear all of the incredible efforts which I'll give kudos to more specifically during the comment section but one of the areas I didn't hear or read very much about is habitat and Wildlife I noticed neither habitat and nor Wildlife mentioned in

[76:01] the memo can you speak to excel Energy's efforts please note that I am aware of the nature conservancy and the Colorado Parks and Wildlife study on sensitive areas for habitat and Wildlife to inform energy sighting with the energy office but I'm especi I'm in this moment interested in curious to know what current efforts are being done Beyond planting native grasses to accelerate biod diversity in light of disturbances from infrastructure and transition lines well thanks for the question council member Adams and you know we are we comply with all the state and federal laws and there are lots of them particularly around endangered species like the Lesser Prairie trick and this comes up a lot when we build transmission lines um which Traverse uh BLM lands Forest Service lands and so we're subject to quite a bit of of regulation with respect to not building a transmission line in the first place in an area where there is an endangered species so that's probably

[77:01] point one um we try to make sure that we restore areas back to what they were before we began our construction and our infrastructure I I think I might have to just uh beg your grace that we go back and talk to some of our sustainability folks to be more specific about other things that we're doing I appreciate that and and that's actually one of I'll have more questions in my comments of things I'd like to see when we get to the priority section so I appreciate that I'll go ahead and move on to my second question um it's around just transition and um again I app appreciate the focus areas on transitioning away from gas uh both natural gas and coal to renewable but wanted to ask a little bit more deeply about the equity considerations and uh was curious how um Excel is monitoring and um tracking the cumulative effects of those uh who have been disproportionately impacted both uh because we in the city of Boulder use um you know obviously energy generated here uh within our community but the majority

[78:01] of the energy that we use comes from other areas so again just curious um to to get a deeper and and I will have additional comments on things I know I would like to see as we move forward in the priority section but I just wanted to hold space to hear a little bit more um than than the half-page paragraph uh around um you know um the cumulative impact studies thank you so we we have and one of the interesting things when I got here was to was to learn how many different definitions we have for various impacted communities so we have disproportion interacted communities which means something different than income qualified communities and we have low and moderate income customers and so I I've been um something that I've personally leaned into is making sure that the programs that we offer I'll just give you an example we have Community solar Gardens and we build these Community solar Gardens and the intention is to allow those that aren't otherwise able to install solar rooftop or to otherwise deploy renewable energy to be able to have renewable energy delivered to them and they can subscribe

[79:01] to these we offer particular discounts for those programs and we're in the process of Designing a program now that will go into our next renewable energy plan um and it and it does have specific uh benefits for both disproportionately impacted communities as well as income qualified communities and I'm happy to share more details with our res plan um and other programs that we have that are specifically designed for Di and IQ communities awesome thank you so much I I certainly look forward to hearing more and and I absolutely hear you on how many different um definitions they are I'm especially um challenged by the use of Frontline Community both uh those who are F close to uh the wildlife inter interface but it's also the same word use uh to address and and uh those communities that are living next to or are polluted by uh uh energy generation and transition uh trans transition so again I'm looking forward to getting more

[80:00] clarity and Community CL uh com common uh definitions around some of these terms um this is my last question um and it is around the clean heat benefica uh beneficial electrification very excited to hear about the replacing of fossil fuel use with electricity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs particularly in heating cooling and cooking um as you know we are in the midst of conversations again to ensure that we can have strong local uh restaurants um and I think there are more levers that our community and our Council can use um to ensure a robust environment and one of them is that clean heat beneficial electrification and so curious to know how much of these Investments do you see expect coming to Boulder so I will say a significant part of the clean heat plan funding some of it is to provide rebates for those customers that want to switch from gas to electric and so it's going to

[81:01] really depend upon where the customers are that are taking advantage of the programs so it's not specifically necessarily saying that that some percentage of that 441 million is earmarked for Boulder um it's going to be you know we're actually in the process now we have a customer programs office that actually is designing how they're going out and so letting people know that these programs are available and receiving the applications um so maybe maybe we can take an action to find out if we've started that Outreach to to Boulder or not that's that's well I certainly appreciate it as we consider this marriage if you will and if we want to go back to dating right um these are the opportunities and these are the differentiators so again thank you for for your uh feedback and the work that we I look forward to the work we have ahead and the opportunity to uh give comments as well but thank you very much for these uh three questions that I had thank you thank you um and I just have a couple questions myself um the first one's for Excel second one is for staff or possibly one of the advisory committee members um the Excel question

[82:02] is is the virtual power plant funding um already in hand or is that something that's potentially at risk with Federal funding cuts and again just quick answer it's not a not trying to go deep here I think the doe funding for that is safe we've already started working with the doe to get those funds I think actually last year before the inauguration so I think that's in hand thank you it's take it's it's safe okay thank you appreciate that and then um Jonathan I think this this one may be for your team or maybe the advisory committee um how are we defining uh energy being produced close to where it's used um because that was kind of one of the one of the things we're trying to aim for um in the memo uh the energy Boulder's clean energy has produced close to where it's used by 2050 that about half of it would be I was just wondering how we're defining that sure thanks for the question council member um happy to jump in here and would invite both Carolyn and any of our advisory panel members to jump in here too so I think what you're

[83:00] referring to is our Target to achieve a certain amount of renewable electricity generated um in city limit since the way we describe that is it's owned um or installed and we talk about installed capacity uh so what we know is the name plate rating of all of the systems that are permitted and that that are installed inside City Limits and so that's how we Define um what is local so the one caveat to that is that we do include our B our Hydro electric power that's generated from the hydro facilities that the city uh own and operate so it was important to uh talk about it in installed capacity so we weren't getting into a little bit of a um I would say a tension around well who owns the renewable energy credits or is it Excel is it the city is it the customer it was really just about the installed capacity locally and I'm really delighted to say that the the first Target that we had for and I'm going to look to Carolyn to remind me if I get this wrong um that we had a target

[84:00] a 2030 Target that we actually met two years ago so we've been incredibly effective in this space of encouraging residents and businesses to install solar on rooftops and in rights ways and Community solar so um we continue to move in that space it's a critically important piece of our program because we know that uh we believe anyway that that energy that is generated close to where it's being used is more resilient um we avoid those long transmission of of energy uh problems that we might incur and so really trying to connect the generation to where it's being used and then potentially adding storage um in that system as well so Carolyn did I get anything wrong there yeah no I appreciate that Jonathan and um you know the the number as of the end of last year or actually even I it might have actually been the year before was 105 megawatts towards our 100 megawatt goal um I think the one thing I would add um and I think this gets to um council member folker's question of excel a

[85:01] little bit while ago having the generation Alone um really isn't sufficient for res the resiliency goals and so our advisory panel has really flagged you know this need to think about how we you know take you know become a bunch of virtual power plants meaning create more enhanced resiliency and and I see this as a priority work plan within the the city's work plan um for this this coming um few years is really to reimagine um that local generation goal to more Encompass solar and the resiliency aspects of that so we're looking forward to kicking that conversation off this year great thank you so much I appreciate the response um okay so we're done with the uh clarifying questions took twice as long as I thought it might but um hopefully it's been informative for everyone um how we're going to move through the rest of this conversation uh we've got about 30 minutes for us to answer staff's questions and what I'm going to ask folks to do is to combine their responses to both questions um

[86:01] everybody will have about three is minutes uh to answer those questions and what I'm hoping is that this can be a time for us to talk to staff and answer those questions um with Mr Kenny with you all at Excel listening to us um so I'm going to ask you all to listen to this conversation and then um I'll give you some time at the end about five or 10 minutes um to share back what you heard uh any reactions that you have to the things that we have said and um just share share your thoughts before we wrap up so um I will take hands as they come up uh but but I'm thinking everybody is gonna want to have a chance to say some words here so mark it looks like you got in there first so well can can we put the question can we put the back up on the screen yeah and I can I can um I'll read them aloud too just for uh if anybody can't see it um what areas of we put them in the chat yeah so there what areas of focus would you like to see receive greater

[87:00] priority um for the next five years and um is there any additional information or analysis that Council needs from staff or Excel um to inform our decisions about continuing the franchise okay um so mark would you like to yes so Ki us off yes I I will kick us off uh um again um for me uh the priority is has to be Wildfire resilience um that is my priority one two and three um having seen what the Marshall fire did um you know we are We Are One a burning Ember away from having the same experience here and to the extent that fires can be caused by anything uh related to our um our energy utility uh we need to be addressing that um with great attention uh I I just um I

[88:02] can't emphasize it too much um and I would like to to have a a clear listing of the the projects that um Exel wishes to undertake in the near future on that subject and then we can have further conversation later amongst ourselves and with Exel as to whether that scope is satisfactory or we need more um but the the short answer is we will probably always need more um the other area of concern for me is is still the um uh the um PSPs um and I just have a couple of comments with respect to that um you give notice to critical um facilities and institutions um I I want to go back to something that Tara was saying you know restaurants can go out of business and people can lose their livelihoods uh as a result of a shutdown uh loss of

[89:03] inventory and three days without service okay um giving notice at this point is the flick of a switch electrons moving through the system and and an email we should be much more expansive in the people we notify that an event like this is is coming and it's got to be King Super it's got to be a Safeway and it's got to be restaurants people who can lose everything because you've decided to turn the power off and nobody objects to your doing so um it's a safety issue and we all understand that but people need notice um and lastly I I I simply uh urge you um again to review your processes for turning power back on it's not satisfactory that that that to deal with a a 2hour high wind incident that people can be without power for three

[90:00] days that's just not good enough and um for for me if if you want to continue this kind of a relationship you've got to do better on that you really do um and I understand you need to examine the lines get more people to examine the lines it's it's just not a a reasonable response to say well it takes a long time we've got to get people out there there are people who are cold and hungry and losing their business and losing their food supplies um it's it's not good enough to say that three days is okay um and in terms of of additional information that I need with respect to the decision to go or no go with with EXL I've been relatively impressed with what I've heard today with couple of exceptions um uh I don't think I require more information because I've gotten

[91:00] quite a lot from staff and to the extent that it's accurate and I assume it is um it's given me a lot of uh uh material to to Think Through uh I don't know that I need a whole lot more um other than some greater Assurance as to how you're going to meet your 27 and 30 goals um that I was here when this franchise agreement was uh negotiated and it was a sensitive and contentious issue um you can't have four goals and not meet them okay this was the heart of of our understanding so you need to give the community better assurance that in 27 and 30 we are going to meet the goals that you guys agreed to um and I think that is that's critical in my thought process as to how we move forward thank you thank you Mark uh Tina you are next

[92:01] yeah and thank you Mark for um saying a lot of the things I'm interested in also reiterating especially about Wildfire mitigation and prevention as well as um meeting our goals that we all agreed to when we did this I wasn't here when that um agreement was made but um I agre I appreciate the way you spoke about that um I am also interested in just understanding as my question indicated sort of the outlook on how people benefit from a cost perspective of the Investments that they make in energy from what they pay in utilities and making sure that the people in Boulder who and and our town as a whole reap some of the rewards one of the most um common thing that we are shown is how much the stock price of excel is rising and yet we sometimes don't know if there's a connection with how our community is benefiting so if that could

[93:00] be made more clear um and you you address the qu question really well and and to keep letting us understand how that how we're benefiting when I think many of us still regret that we didn't become our own um provider of electricity um so uh the other piece is just if there's a way to have transparency around the air and water quality monitoring around the coal plant that would be terrific so that um community members can access that information on their own when they want and be assured that those activities are happening um consistently so um that would be really helpful I think for the community um whether to stay in this relationship I think um I asked staff when I about how they felt about the relationship and it it felt to me that it's worth continuing but to really make sure that we're benefiting from it consistent stly so that's all I have to say thank you and thank you for being here thank you so much Tina Lauren

[94:01] you're next thanks um for the Excel team there are several areas where I would like to see Improvement the first um is that we have something like 21 City programs and initiatives that are dependent upon um engagement with excel at some level and I really would like to see those moving forward smoothly and for for that I think we need more communication um in terms of detailed promises and timelines to enable that work to be efficient second there needs to be an increased focus on improving reliability and safety for our community members in businesses when I look back at some of the records of fires it seems like there's been Excel infrastructure um responsible for a fire almost every five years or so in our community and as we see an increase in Red Flag Warning it's only a matter of time before one of these fires becomes a

[95:00] catastrophic event additionally as our polls our polls and lines I really feel like should be designed to our unique and higher wind speeds um we also need better communication related to systems shut down for any reason and finally I would like to see Excel go be above and beyond during the fly ash contamination Remediation in terms of monitoring so that the community can easily find upto-date data and feel confident that they are not being put at risk during this process from staff I would like to know what options are available to us if we decide to leave the partnership in the next year or two I personally expect cell Excel to be an exceptional partner with us and for that our community needs them to meet their commitments communicate proactively and be creative in thinking about how they meet our community's shifting needs to me and

[96:01] many many of our community members I don't think we're currently meeting that Mark and while I'm hopeful that that will change I also think we need to be prepared in case it does not thank you thank you Lauren uh Ryan you are up oh sorry Tina you're oh that's an old hand okay yes Ryan oh okay the overall thesis I think for me is that Boulder is a community that wants to be very sophisticated about climate Solutions and if you were if somebody were thinking about this from a blank slate they would they would conclude that our energy provider is probably the most important or one of the top few most important Partners in getting deep decarbonization deep resilience and a

[97:02] better future right so what I expect in some is that we are doing things together that are really confronting big structural challenges that include challenges that um are established through current legislation and other structural issues um so I'm going to say four things in particular um and I'm braiding partly what I've I've already heard so the first is Wildfire management um clearly this is an existential concern for our community it is complicated though because it there is a tension between making us safe and also preserving the reliable energy utility that that people have come to expect and so I think the outcome is that Excel internalizes how to provide both of those to get it right to do it in a way that provides an accessible streamline positive experience for community members that are trying to learn about and prepare for the

[98:01] disruptions and beyond that I would like Excel to um you know sort of just make make it happen second one is is related and it's um that we seem to be specifically in need of developing a network of resilience centers or hubs um and or micro grids the kinds of things that give us large scale battery storage and other amenities that we can use in times of disaster and trouble this is a a whole um this is an emerging area I understand there's quite a bit of good practice that's understood on with how to do that here in town I think part of that is going to need to involve finding ways to come together to allow for for competition in our distribution system I recognize that as an investor own utility with the Monopoly um that's been granted it is not conventional to lean into that but I also think that the opes here we should be giving this is is that we need all of the tools we can possibly have in the community um to imagine a better future so I look I look forward

[99:00] to to that um the third is on beneficial electrification Renewables and electrification are inherently more affordable Technologies and they give us the tools to manage energy even further more affordably so I would like to see quantitatively concretely how our how our residents are benefiting from those we can see this in some of the slides that um show money going to investors we can see concretely quantitatively those benefits I would like us and our members to be able to see that in some some way that makes it really concrete and clear um and then finally um we need a plan to transition from natural gas to electrification on the supply side um the decarbonization is happening in electrification but the natural gas system is problematic it stands in the way of our further widespread electrification it's carbon intense and it's and it just it doesn't work to incrementally reduce the system because the system relies on economies of scales so we need a plan and we need to plan

[100:01] with Excel that's it but I want to just do one final thing on the Kash situation in Valmont I'm extremely concerned about this I don't think we have the air quality regulations that we need in place it's not clear to me that that we are protected um and we don't have time to go into detail but I want to just endorse that we we need to get something together um for that um and we have some questions Offline that I I know we'd like to ask you to take um so I'll just conclude what does it take um for the second question um I would look for Excel to be being a good partner in the things I've just mentioned and especially the the one on natural gas and if we can't get to that place I think we should be talking about what would it take for the city to take control of that natural gas system and to do it ourselves or at least to be exploring that um thank you all and everybody for um all the great work thank you Ryan um Taisha you are

[101:01] next thank you so much um so I Echo um though I echo my colleagues um interest around the Wildfire resilience uh especially the targeted um undergrounding I do not see that as the sole uh priority and if anything I would love to see an incredible acceleration around renewable work and specifically in the areas of sighting for habitat and Wildlife which I've already referenced the Colorado energy office's efforts um posts solar uh installation activation by Excel um to ensure uh predictability um you know we have some folks waiting seven months uh for Activation so we go through all this installation which uh is already a 3 to six month uh experience and then uh to have this additional time so really want to accelerate that that um third on this list is storage and storage considerations inclusive of security and micro grid planning uh for developing

[102:02] goals around storage and micro grids the resilience centers as my colleague Ryan mentioned and others uh Community controlled um virtual power plants I know we have a pilot going on and that's wonderful and just in general mono anything is death so our community cannot solely rely on excel's Big Grid Alone um throughout uh additional considerations that I would love to see Amplified next time um the entire Equity section for every single one of those needs to I look forward to having some deeper um components around again this is not charity this is a debt owed um and our city is known we are not generating all of the energy that we use in our city and we are responsible for um the health and planetary impacts of That So within the equity considerations I would love to hear more around the following direct compensation and assistance that could look like Bill credits and debt forgiveness Health

[103:01] considerations for polluted for pollution related health issues like asthma and respiratory conditions paid through some kind of historic profit margins perhaps uh to infrastructure and services so again we talked about the targeted grid modernization again this is where we need to balance the efforts around undergrounding which tends to happen um closer to the wildlife interest space which is where more wealthy people live versus um targeted grid modernization uh which was which is not being considered or prioritized the third Equity consideration is around environmental remediation and so many have discussed the coal ash I would love to specifically lift up air quality monitoring and reduction uh especially now that the county has reduced funding for air quality monitoring due to the extensive Federal cuts and other um competing priorities the force consideration is around Equitable energy transition so again escalating our community solar and micro grids and of

[104:00] course stronger environmental justice regulations perhaps local mandates requiring Excel to assess and mitigate disproportionate impacts on marginalized communities um and so that is the um Equity consideration and I know I'm still within my three minutes I have a few more areas I'd love in the next sections and that's around offramp the 2025 off-ramp from XL Energy so as Council does not have to make any decisions at this moment I think it's absolutely critical that we have um as much information as possible and I know our community wants to know that as well um natural gas transition to REM let us make sure that we are transitioning natural gas uh away from Renewables um but all Renewables are not the same um so when we're generating that energy that it is to my colleague Ryan's thing um no um no Carbon on that and again I just want to lift up nuclear here um I I commend Excel Energy and their efforts in Pueblo but I have significant

[105:00] concerns around what I'm hearing of a transition to nuclear which we know is water intensive as well as mineral intensive um so would love to just make sure that we are doing everything we can in that transition to differentiate uh when we are and make sure that we are being specific around renewable energy with renewable batteries um and those kinds of things I welcome hearing more about the pilots in research as well particularly those that have not started around the second life battery storage and the solar Tech accelerator Center I cannot and for staff um one document that will be absolutely critical is the fiscal note moving forward we must have all financial information about this partnership in an Excel document that can be easily toggled with multiple years of data as opposed to having to toggle between hundred you know hundreds of of of Word documents um making it very difficult to ensure the fiscal consideration especially since we're fiscally constrained and we were fiscally constrained last year uh I can

[106:01] only imagine what it's going to look like moving forward and then lastly Council Communications I have reached out to our your local and state Excel Liaisons without response this is not this was not the part the type of partnership that I had hoped following such excellent ongoing communication and up updates under the previous liaison Fe since the transition to the new Representatives I have not been able to get that continued effort of support and so as we move forward I am hopeful that we can hear from you more than once a year and um and our community members as well um I hope we can build on the incredible um successes of the targeted undergrounding and public engagement and EVS um but we can we must always be careful of greenwashing um thank you very much thank you Taisha Erin you're up next great well my my colleagues have made a number really fantastic comments so I will not reiterate all of those um just a a brief note that in terms of the partnership I continue to look for uh

[107:01] tangible results that uh make a difference for energy use in our community and reduce emissions so excited about the virtual power plant um we'll see how that goes um and also the the plus one on the the air monitoring for the P Ash project so look forward to that on the um on the terms of the franchise I guess in order for me to make a final decision on that question I just need to see a really thorough kind of cost benefit analysis like if we were to leave the franchise what benefits would that bring to our community because I would need to see that for us to consider that I would need to see a compelling um case for what the benefits would be to if we pulled out of the franchise so the one other thing I'll do is um I'll turn to Wayne and George from our advisory panel and ask them if they have any particular items they'd like to see highlighted in the partnership work going forward Wayne and George any thoughts there sure this is Wayne um something

[108:03] we've been discussing in our panel meetings is um creating some kind of a dashboard that is a single source of truth that the council Excel and the advisory panel all agreed to be true that says what is the status of all the projects leading to the 2030 goal personally I'm most concerned about how we're going to meet the 100% Renewables um the last time presented to council um we were pretty excited about the um the uh Federal funding that was going to be available to do those projects but we only have five years and where are we and are we going to make it and um is it even possible so I I you know it's an accountability exercise that we all agree upon and I know I know there's lots of projects in place and you know we can earmark some of that energy to Boulder or not with a spreadsheet but we' like to see the new capacity was added to get us from our know ongoing consumption to 100%

[109:00] renewable that's all I got George and I'd like to join I'd like to jump in here if you don't mind Nicole um I I'd like to see this be a Cooperative agreement we could talk about it as a partnership I think that both sides of this have to contribute I don't think that we can um as a city we can demand things I don't think as Excel we can demand things like any Cooperative agreement like any partnership we both have to give and take and I think that uh Excel is making some efforts to meet our goals I think that our goals are very high and that's not wrong but I'd like to see us jump into this as an agreement that we want to make work as opposed to being very selfish about it thank

[110:02] you thank you George yeah Wayne and George thanks so much for for speaking up I appreciate that and Nicole that's all I got thanks okay thanks aarin Tera you're up okay great I also don't want to repeat all the great things everybody said but I do want to go back to the Monopoly issue just for a second because it's not your guys fault that that you're a monopoly I mean monopolies are not made to please the customer I have a successful business and I have a lot of happy customers but that's because I know that if I'm not good to them they could go somewhere else and so for you to have great customer service is just harder it's just it's The Human Condition doesn't want to do that so what I would like to see and I'm going to go back to what Mark said and then what I said and others that how are we going to add the businesses to your list and consumers to your list of critical I realize it's a different definition of critical by the way of

[111:00] course it's not critical infrastructure but it's critical to people that you have the kind of customer service that we all expect in our lives even if you are Monopoly because I know that's important to you you said it was so how can we be assured that this is going to happen just by you saying it's going to happen to me isn't quite good enough we do still remember what happened last April we're going to give I will give you Grace for that but then how do we know it's going to change in the future and what can you do think about that could prove that you are thinking about the critical infrastructure the businesses the homeowners and so that brings me to my second point is I think that micr grids and local storage are win-win because for you because even though you might look at it as like well we don't want to give up any control there's not a world where the way the grid is now is going to ever be okay during climate you know

[112:02] our our winds and our climate and different weather I'm losing my voice my thoughts but weather incident is there's not a world so it can only help you if we have options once the grid does go down so I guess I would like monopolies don't often think outside of the box but if it's a partnership then you would say to yourself goodness we can't have this happen again and we know we can't meet all the needs of Boulder and we sometimes are going to have the grid is sometimes going to go down so why don't we let creative thinking come forth and how can we include the local storage and the grids that some of us were talking about earlier do you know what I mean it's like it's good for you and it's good for us to me that's the kind of partnership that I like and that monopolies have always failed to do but I will not give up hope that you will do it which brings to the last I think I agree with my colleagues that I really

[113:01] just we don't have a lot of options so unless we keep our off is that the word offboard no what is the word off off ramp thanks unless we keep that off RM we have no way to you know not fight back but push you to do better so do want to look into the possibilities of what can be in the future it's something like what Ryan said in terms of off ramps um and I'd like to be a let's just say that in my past life I was not a supportive of the imunity but now with some of the experience that we've had I I'm trying not to second guess myself but I need a reason why to think that you are as good a partner as your PowerPoint suggests that you are and also I appreciate you

[114:00] all you good tara y okay thank you um I'm just going to offer my thoughts then and then Mr Kenny I'll give you and your team a chance to respond um so for me for areas of focus uh as we um consider next steps um I am interested in three main areas partnership resilience and assistance uh as George Wasing I would like to see commitments that reflect a real partnership um I'd like to the way we work together to be an area of focus for us and this means that none of us as either the city or Excel is moving forward without the other on big plans and decisions but rather in Partnership as people who jointly care about our community's well-being uh Mr Kenny you've heard a lot tonight uh from us about the PSPs because we're all really still struggling with that um as an example of what a partnership is not uh the city and Community were left behind in many aspects of the planning and response and you know I know it was for

[115:01] safety but that kind of thing where something big happens like that without including us it can't happen again for a partnership I know we're a relatively small City in uh the context of of all the customers that you serve but we're really Innovative and we're climate leaders and other communities look to us for examples of of how to be Innovative so our inclusion as partners is really valuable to you all as well I'd really like to see a greater focus on resilience and specifically enabling micro grids that uh might even allow us to still have power when the grid goes down um during the next PSPs uh for example my my house has a a PB system on the roof um we were uh producing power but we couldn't use it because it was going to the grid um something that would create resilience would be something that that gives us an option to um switch over so that during a PSPs or some kind of event like that uh we

[116:00] can still use the power that we're producing uh my home could be a hub for my neighbors in an emergency a place where people could stay warm where we could preserve and cook food and have access to power um even during a more prolonged emergency and who knows what we're going to be facing in the coming decades with the climate crisis but it's these kinds of things that that I see us thinking about about how can we partner together um to keep us uh safe um no matter what's going on uh with the larger grid and I'd like to see us set some clear targets for growing Energy Assistance programs in alignment with what people are being charged and what shareholders are receiving so if profits increase for example um especially as households like mine are Genting generating more of their power from renewable energy um then a percentage of those profits could be returned to the community and the form of energy assistance I I don't mind your profiting off of the home the power that my home produces uh but I especially don't mind

[117:00] it if I know that some of those profits are coming back into uh my community and as far as I what I would like to see to a for inform an affirmative decision to continue I want to see us get a little bit more specific with our goals um for our partnership and just really thinking about goals that are smart goals specific measurable achievable um relevant time bound and I really appreciate Wayne's suggestion to make them transparent and accessible to the community in some way um I want to see those goals specify the role of the city and of Excel and the consequences of not Meeting those goals those consequences should also be really specific and things that both sides are willing to keep to I want to see an agreement for how we're going to work together what defines a partnership for each of us and what we're committing to in terms of communication and collaboration as new things come up um and I I can't speak for my colleagues I'm just speaking for myself but um I would be willing to consider adjusting some of the off-ramp

[118:00] check-ins if we could get to these levels of clarity and transparency and accountability in what it means to be partners what we're prioritizing together and what happens when one of us isn't able to uh meet our com commitments to the partnership um so with that kind of closes our comment section um I just want to open the floor um to you all at Excel and see if you have um any comments you would like to um share back to us given what you've heard well I I thank you all for the very thoughtful comments and I've taken copious notes and I'm G to try to address each of the comments in turn if I may and I I'll do the best I can and I know um Council council member wallak we started and I heard you talk about resiliency Wildfire resiliency I think you want a clear listing of Boulder specific projects I think that's something we can commit to do I will say

[119:00] uh your second comment on critical facilities and institutions and how we Define that I I I want to be clear that a critical facility for purposes of our PSPs and and the offices of Emergency Management that get 72 hours notice that doesn't mean that we're not going to also communicate with our customers RIT large at the 48 and 24-hour marks it just I I don't want it to be the case that we're not communicating with all of our customers but we are saying that at 72 hours we want to be in close concert with our offices of Emergency Management and those facilities that are critical and essential for for human existence we we will then at the 48 hour and 24-h hour mark is when we do the broader communication to all impacted customers um a process for uh turning the power back on and that three days is not okay I agreee with you I never said it was and so I just want to be clear about that um we we want to make sure

[120:00] that we get the power restored as quickly and as safely as possible if there is a windstorm and there's a wire on the ground and we were to re-energize that without having looked at it we would have created the very risk we were looking to mitigate but pre-positioning Crews hiring more contractors in the event of an of a storm that is something that we absolutely will and plan to do uh commissioner Maris you talked about Wildfire prevention and Mr Mr Kenny I just wanted to note so um we are we do have one more big item that we need to get through tonight that's gonna take us a while you don't need to respond to every single one of our um comments I think you're welcome to email us um those those kinds of things but just any kind of larger maybe I let me just amalgamate and summarized I to say a couple things we share a lot of the same goals you know we want to work cooperatively we want to work in partnership with all of our customers

[121:01] with all of the cities with which we work we share decarbonization goals we want to make sure we're mitigating Wildfire risk to the greatest extent possible we want to make sure that we're also serving as a partner um on Innovative things you know whether it is we we have a history of innovation we work with enell we work with our National Labs I just I I will just very quickly say two things we're I always like to say we're a natural monopoly because the natural component of it is important as a matter of Economics it's more economically efficient to have one person one entity stringing distribution wires than having a bunch of people do it and it's Capital intensive so that's where the natural monopoly component comes from that's that's separate and distinct from our commitment to our customers and so by virtue of the fact that we're a natural monopoly does not render us indifferent to our customers they're disconnected so I just we care about our customers um and so I just want to be very clear about that we're going to work with you guys on natural gas to uh

[122:01] to electricity conversion we share that the natural gas system will not be eliminated anytime soon and while we continue to have a natural gas system we do need to maintain it through safety um we share the commitment to tangible results the monitoring for col as remediation I did hear that we are monitoring groundwater because that's where the risk lies from an environmental perspective I will have to get back to you on whether we are monitoring for air I know I know I know um that my colleague Nick is committed to communicating with all of the council people and everybody in Boulder and so if there's been some miscommunication then we'll have to work on that but I'm very confident uh in Nick's abilities and his succession of of iffy Jennings um I I'll say say something very briefly and I'll stop throughout this process we've worked with uh with with our with your partners with Jonathan with Nuria with

[123:01] Caroline we want to continue to serve you and we think that this is what we do and we're experts at it and I don't want to criticize the municipal model or the rural Electrical Cooperative model those are models that work but there's a reason that 75 to 80% of the United States is served by investor owned utilities and it's because we do it well we do it safely reliably efficiently and we do it at the lowest cost because we have big balance sheets and so you should explore those other models to the extent that you see fit to do that um but we're very confident in our ability to be an excellent service provider to the city and county of Boulder as well as to all the other communities we serve so with that we will um I'll amalgamate my notes and we'll look to get them over to you guys via email and thanks again for the opportunity great thank you so much um Jonathan and Carolyn just a thumbs up if you have gotten what you need from us from the questions you

[124:00] asked yes thank thank you so much council member I just wanted to acknowledge and appreciate the conversation that we've had tonight and I really want to appreciate our colleagues from Excel I'm going to try very hard to not let it hurt my feelings the council had so few questions for staff uh but I'm also so grateful that you've had this time with Robert and his team I would say we've heard a great list from Council um and our advisory panel members our staff team remains 100% committed to integrating the desires of council and to making this partnership as effective as it possibly can be we'll loop back up and figure out how to get the information that Robert is going to provide back to council and I heard a lot of desire for future conversations on particular topics and so uh we'll go to work on figuring out the best way to do that thanks so much great thank you so much and um thank you colleagues for wrapping this up in time um thank you staff and thank you George and Wayne for joining us uh and of course thank you Robert Andrew and Nick for being with us tonight um I look forward to hearing more about next steps

[125:00] but really appreciate everyone's time thanks all all right um well our next item then is to uh talk about process improvements um we have 75 minutes for that discussion if we want to finish on time and um naria I will hand it back over to you to launch us thank you so much council member and I won't keep us long other than just to thank you so much uh uh to yourself to council member Marist to uh council member Wier and to council member Adams for your help as we were working through this Council priority and with that I will pass it on to assistant city manager Pam Davis who has so ably uh walked us through uh and champion this priority Pam you and I'm so sorry to interrupt I just I realized that I forgot got to explain how I was going to facilitate this part of our conversation so I'm going to do that and then and then Pam sounds good so staff basically has six items for us to

[126:01] discuss and we're going to go through those one at a time um after staff presents each item I'll take some clarifying questions and then I will um do a straw poll the general question from staff uh if a majority are interested we'll have a little bit of time to share some highlevel suggestions or questions that we'd like to have um staff answer before comes back to us we don't have time tonight to hammer out the details of every process change we want to do so I just want to be very clear about that as noted in the memo those details will come at another time um tonight we're really just focused on which ones are we interested in moving forward as a body um and if a majority is not interested in uh process change in any one of those six items I'll provide some time for folks to add any uh comments or questions does anybody have any clarifying questions on we're going to get through this in 75 minutes okay great um then I will hand it over to you Pat Pam thank you so much

[127:00] for letting me interrupt there thank you council member Spear and good evening Council um since our topic tonight is process Improvement I will aim for 73 minutes total um my name is Pam Davis and I use she her pronouns and I serve the community as assistant city manager um and I believe that Emily is graciously pulling up our slide deck and if you could just go to slide two Emily that'd be great tonight I have the opportunity to present the update regarding workto dat of your city council process working group and as council member spear mentioned bring forward six potential improvements for your discussion and consideration you can see those here on the screen next slide very brief background one of the 2024 to 202 5 city council priorities was to form a process working group to assess and refer a variety of council procedure Improvement ideas following

[128:00] the spring 2024 Retreat council did appoint working group members council members Adams Marquis Spear and Wier this group solicited process ideas from all of council and received 36 in total to discuss and prioritize ultimately they determined a list of 15 process Improvement priorities for staff and Council consideration and potential implementation nine of these items are fairly easy to understand and operational in nature and are already moving forward to be further developed by relevant staff teams or Council committees next Slide the six items that we're presenting before you tonight will require essentially a not of five from the full Council before staff can move forward final Solutions are not predetermined at this stage because we want to First understand stand if we have majority support for the work and to receive Clarity of direction as Nicole mentioned I will present one item at a time and pause the presentation for

[129:02] discussion and Direction on each item before moving to the next and thanks in advance for the facilitation help next slide our first item this evening addresses our process for electing the mayor proem annually the mayor proem has traditionally been selected using criteria of tenure on Council usually Council selects the longest serving member of council who has not already served as mayor proem and wants to do so this informal tradition is not written into Council procedure and as a result the selection process May occasionally be questioned depending on whether or not members of council view the process as deferring to that tradition or as a competitive election next slide please discussion by our process working group concluded with a desire to ensure that our mayor protem selection is transparent and predictable they discussed that the

[130:01] tradition of tenure as a preferred qualification should either be formally codified or discontinued to enhance process transparency and so tonight we do seek Direction whether Council desires to formalize the process for electing mayor proen Beyond existing Council procedure and with that I will turn that over over to you council member spear for the first convers wonderful thank you um and could I see everybody that's going to help me a little bit and sorry this we're gonna be P putting up slides and pulling them down periodically um okay so my first question is does anybody have any clarifying questions on this concept yes Erin uh not on this one specifically but Nicole wanted to check in uh Matt had sent in some thoughts via hotline are we going to sort of include his thoughts as part of whether we get a not of five or how are those going to be factored in um that's a really good question I mean maybe let's just see what what folks are oh sorry I see

[131:02] Teresa come up so I'm gonna let her answer that yeah thanks um so an absent council member cannot participate in an a of five and let me let me rephrase that a little bit because as I understanded at a study session we can't actually make a formal not of five but we're giving direction and correct me if I'm wrong about that so in that slightly different context is there any room for those comments still no okay thanks for clarifying great um and I don't yeah see see we can see where we get to if there's anything that is that close um and Lauren I just wanted to clarify what we mean by formalize I saw you know in the memo it went into some specifics around like really how we could could do this in a very formal way but I could also see another option that is more like recording that this is our common

[132:01] practice um that isn't necessarily hold like would that also be formalization in this sense Pam would you like to answer that question or or Teresa I was Finding mute I was going to defer to um or City attorney if uh you have an opinion about the formality I I do um I have opinions about all kinds of things and this is one of them um so we do currently have a process outlined in the council procedure so my recommendation would be that you codify a process that you're going to use okay thank you answer your question Len it's a good answer okay thanks okay so I'm gonna pose the question then um and and what I would hope people can do is just um put up oh sorry Brian I see you sorry that

[133:00] prompted another question for Teresa um could would it be sufficient to say that our just for example if we don't can we decide that there is not a process in as much as um it's a vote you you know and and we're and and we are establishing that there has been a previous um use or or tendency to use tenure we are now establishing that that is not something that we are adhering to and it's just a vote I mean would that be sufficient so if you were to if the if it was the will of council to do that then I would suggest that you all revert to the process as outlined in the council procedure rules which just gives a process for the election itself s okay thank you and Mark Nicole I I recall that that you

[134:01] have submitted a proposed methodology for selection of the mayor proem um Teresa have you looked at that and does it have any defects that would uh need to be addressed I I thought it was a a very substantive process um thanks for the question it is it is a skeleton of a process that we could certainly flush out and um and use as the basis if that's the will of council okay then I Nicole I hope you will make that one of the choices well I think the the main the main kind of General concept question that we want to get at first is um and this just a show of fans uh who is interested in formalizing the mayor protem election tradition um that we use tenure um into Council procedure for future mayor protm elections so that

[135:00] council is directed to select the senior most member of council who is not already served as mayor protem and to show of hands if that is uh in alignment with what you would like okay okay I see five five people who are kind of interested in that in that idea um so um does anybody have any highlevel conceptual information or questions to offer as the city manager and City attorney staff consider ways to implement this process change yes Ain just plus one Mark's uh review positive review of your approach that you outlined in I would hope we could use that as the basis that the cityu charg will show anybody um and uh anybody have you know just other ideas or anything you want to put out there concerns things you're hoping for anything like that Ryan yeah

[136:01] so my concern is that um I've come to learn that that this is a job both the mayor and the mayor protm that uh involve a lot of facilitation and time management and are getting work done over the course of the year is is so fundamentally about facilitation and time management and Nico we have really benefited from you as somebody who has a lot of strength in this area and so I didn't raise my hand earlier because I'm kind of interested in in folks volunteering who have that and other qualifications um so I suppose if we go forward with a kind of a default for the T for tenure I just would hope that um there would be space in there to you know if there's a clear case where somebody you know maybe they wouldn't would they wouldn't be running for it if not being told to because they have tenure that that they are giving an they're giv an offramp and and we make it ideally I don't know clear or a

[137:02] culture that um yeah you're not forced to do it if you don't feel like it's one of your strengths and there's no shame in not doing it I don't know how we would do that but I just I guess I'm raising that as a concern and thank you by the way for this incredible work on all of it to put all this together so easy to read and the you know the example for this one so well done thank you and tiisha yes thank you I Echo uh Ryan's comments around you know especially since we've moved to an elected mayor because we recognize right that there are skill sets that are needed there are responsibilities and although I appreciate always uh comments and recommendations by my colleague um who is not here tonight um Matt regarding not politicizing I'm sorry but there are so so many critical DEC anytime a policy is being considered that is policy it is politics and so it really is important that is a lot of power to have those

[138:01] meetings and to be able to attend all year round and not just for the however many times that non mayor and mayor protm are allowed so and in addition the facilitation and just the organization components are really really critical um and just my general thinking you know when something isn't codified like that's where Equity goes to die so I appreciate and I wanted to Echo others comments on what was put together my only consideration or issue is really around ten year I really think that it should be focused and even with the 10e you're still not going to get to everyone so what is the criteria and I think there could be a broader conversation around the criteria that really is needed for that role uh because it is different um than um than than serving as a member so I think we need to honor that as well um so those are my primary um concerns around moving forward I I I I I agreee with codification um but my primary concern is around tenure thank you great thank you um and um Pam I was just gonna ask

[139:02] if if you uh wouldn't mind um one of the things that did make our top um list from the working group was um facilitation skills for uh council members and so I was just wondering if you could maybe take a moment to speak to that as well even though it's not something we're toci on yeah happy too there was um a lot of support for that uh as we discussed with the process working group Our intention at this time given timing and workloads is to do some research and create opportunities for that training to happen as part of the council onboarding process so the first kind of iteration of providing that development would be this fall after the election um you know certainly that said as individuals become interested in various resources we could explore that but in a formal staff-driven way it would be this fall great thank you so much um okay then I think oh yes

[140:04] Tara I wouldn't say anything but I just want to say that in the three and a half years that um I remember Mark's first comment was when he first started on Cil he couldn't even find the bathroom you know Mark I still remember that comment that was pretty funny um and sometimes pushing yourself I agree with you Ryan I can use myself as an example that I'm naturally not a facilitator but I'm also naturally not a council member right so we grow and we learn and we try hard and it's amazing sometimes that we can really get a lot better and I think for mayor protemp that gives each one of us each one of us is an elected official that deserves in my opinion to try to if they want to be only May appr Pro him because uh we were elected and we people voted for us and we got in that's hard enough to do so for the in that sense I've grown to appreciate and agree

[141:01] totally with Nicole's hotline about process for this um because it it gives people an opportunity to learn and grow to try new things become a great facilitator if they want to um but also if if you've been on Council a while and you still haven't gotten a chance because let's say your side um you know didn't win or whatever I also think that that's not really fair because we all did get fairely elected so for that reason that's what I really like about Nicole's many reasons well there's many reasons I like what you said Nicole but those are my top reasons so thank you for listening to my little Spiel here oh no it looks like Nicole Frozen yeah she maybe I could

[142:01] just okay Lauren you're next sorry my internet blipped um so I guess one of my concerns with formalizing this process is sort of the uncertainty of the future and while I might be okay with this process right now I do worry that um and and I part of that is because I trust our current mayor a lot but being that the mayor is directly elected that might not always be the case and there might be a reason a certain skill set or a certain something that is really concerning that they lack that we might want to balance out with who we appoint to Mayor proem that might not be considered in a formalization of these um and that's sort of my main concern with creating an expectation

[143:00] that we might not follow in the future yeah great thank you um so staff just some other things to kind of think about um as we you know move forward with thinking about this one so and sorry my my intention for having a little bit of time for comments is just to raise any other you know issues or things that staff might consider as they're putting this together um not necessarily to like you know go go back and forth on the the merits of it um because otherwise I don't we really will be here for much longer than an hour so okay can we move on to landmarks is that all right and thank you everybody for your comments yes appreciate the feedback and if we could get the slides back up on slide seven that would be great thank you so our next item is related to Historic preservation items with the council concern that arose that Landmark reviews are taking up too much council meeting time I wanted to provide a little context on this one currently the code does require Council review for

[144:01] certain types of historic preservation applications over the last five years Council has spent an average of three hours and 10 minutes of meeting time per year on historic preservation items this is less than 2% of total council meeting time per year the largest volume of these items are in routine call-ups and consent agenda items while the largest amount of time is for landmark and historic district designations and what we see is that the majority of simple designations which are typically owner nominated take about 10 to 15 minutes each at about four public hearings per year where complex de complex designations which are typically third party nominated or city-owned they average just about one per year but do take an average about two hours each next slide the desired outcome discussed at the council working group is that Landmark reviews take less time from Council given the context on the previous slide

[145:00] I will ass share that our staff assessment does not indicate that Landmark items take disproportionate council meeting time given that it is currently less than 2% however the team did want to bring forward some options that would reduce Council review of landmark items which would need to be done through a future code Amendment this can include shift in from a callup period or an appeals process for landmark board's decisions on Landmark alteration certificates while council's meeting time is not significant for these call-ups the current process does require that the property owner must wait three weeks after a landmarks board meeting for a final decision and approximately three hours of Staff time for each callup in total moving from a callup to an appeals process could save a property owner three weeks of time and reduce staff Time by 24 hours per year another idea is to change from an automatic public hearing to a callup item for landmark and historic district designations this likely would not impact the more complex designations but

[146:01] it could reduce Council time on some Landmark items by about an hour a year depending on the scope of our proposed changes this project will require significant time from both our city attorney's office and planning and development services team and I also do wish to note that later this year City staff are preparing to scope an update to the over arching historic preservation plan so there will be future opportunities to discuss items of Interest not directly related to the question before you tonight our Direction sought this evening is whether Council would like to investigate options for revising city code to reduce the requirement for city council review of historic preservation items thank you so much Pam um and we've got clarifying questions on the concept um not not sort of our opinions on it just clarifying questions at the moment um Lauren were you first yeah Lauren um I just wanted to ask about the logic of potentially trying to look at

[147:01] this at the same time as we um look at the update to our Landmark ordinances would there be an efficiency there um and if we gave Direction now could could we roll it into that future project just if there is efficiency in looking at them together thank you for that I do want to I think phone a friend we I have um Marcy and KJ here they would know a little bit more about the process of scoping that um future look at the the program um and was trying to keep them off camera tonight but I don't want to uh misspeak about that future project sure thanks Pam uh good good evening Council Christopher Johnson comprehensive planning senior manager um to answer your question Lauren I do think there probably would be some time savings and efficiency to have a conversation around uh the any any code

[148:00] changes um as part of a larger conversation about the The Landmark program itself and uh the historic preservation plan really serves as our uh strategic plan for the program and is updated on about a 10-year Cadence so so we'll be we'll be diving pretty deeply into um you know into the program itself and into the plan and there could certainly be some code changes that would come out of that that would be appropriate at that time thank you did that get it um and Mark clarifying question not really I just want to say that if Lauren's concept can produce efficiencies of time I I I I think it makes sense okay um great thank you and so the I think that the main question for um us say if we would like staff to investigate options for revising city code to reduce the requirement for city council review of historic preservation

[149:00] items so like we're not talking about um this sort of code option this is just um kind of a separate to is anybody interested in that please put up your hand if so and that's separate I'll mention the code thing next okay I see one so um okay so I I think then what you were mentioning um uh Pam around and and Lauren just around as we're working on this if there are things that come up that seem like they may be uh Time Savers feel free to to bring them um to us but we're not asking you to scope a specific thing to reduce the time we're spending on it does that offer enough Clarity I believe it does thank you okay great oh and maybe I should to just check to make sure um is are there who who agrees that as staff is working on this if they see things that could make make the process a little bit more efficient for Council that would be

[150:00] something to look at along the lines of what um Lauren and Pam were talking about okay okay cool um anybody have any additional um questions or comments on that okay I think we can move on to the next one thank you okay sounds good Emily if I could get slide nine up please our third item prioritized by the working group relates to full participation in Council employee performance review questionnaires currently all council members are invited to provide input on Council employee performance through the annual evaluation questionnaires and the council employee evaluation committee provides one-on-one feedback to the city manager City attorney and municipal judge while the full body is invited to provide feedback Council employees have not always received feedback from all nine council members in previous years next Slide the process working group

[151:01] requested that we explore opportunities to ensure every council member provides evaluation feedback about each Council employee during annual reviews mandatory participation in annual reviews for Council employees would require a change to council procedure and accountability would have to be managed by city council as a self-regulating body and so our question before you tonight is whether Council desires to proceed with formalizing mandatory council member participation in all Council employee performance reviews thank you uh we'll start with any clarifying questions on the concept here Tina yeah um a quick question we have a Review Committee correct um are is the Review Committee looking at um adding an executive session under Personnel matters so that there could be a group discussion uh listening to each other about um performance is that

[152:01] already being con contemplated uh we haven't talked about that at all um as part of it so traditionally there is an evaluation that folks are filling out um with similar questions from year to year um every council member is asked uh multiple times to fill that out and then um performance uh evaluations are determined based on the overall scoring of that so um we have not we have not traditionally had that that sort of discussion so I think that that that might be a slightly different question than what is what what's going on here so that may be something else to talk about yeah and I think I'm asking it because it might achieve the same outcome uh in a different way so I just am throwing it out there for people to consider as as we think about um holding each other accountable in this way thank

[153:00] you thank you and Mark clarifying questions yes my question is what is the remedy for this will we be getting the merits will be will we be flogged in the uh in the Town Square I mean if one does not comply what's the remedy yep I think it's a really good question no we can be told we're a bad bad council member but that's about it y have to wear a little um cap for a few meetings or something Ryan as a member of the uh employee committee I would be happy to read a list of the remaining folks who have not uh yet filled this out if you work in an organization this is not this is not something that you have a choice about and this is not only that but this is the right thing to do um given the importance of this so um that would be my proposal that a member of the

[154:01] committee um read who's who's remaining somebody maybe Matt had suggested um docking pay I don't know if we can do that that might get that might be too far but um anyway I'll offer I'll offer my services thanks Ryan and Taisha um you know I one I'm I'm interested in hearing the response to to Tina's recommendation around now that we have executive session perhaps that's an opportunity that would mitigate this but if it is not um one other recommendation I would have is just to publish whoever responded to the our community has a right to know whether or not you did this part of your duty or not so my refer my preference would be to just in you know inclusive of whatever in whatever ways um you know we can report out who participated and who didn't I think that our community has a right to know thank you thank you um and Mark and then I see

[155:02] Ryan again I just to say I I I like that suggestion and by the way I am one of the guilty parties and I failed to submit um the form for one of our Council employees who I had not had a conversation with did not have personal knowledge of and was absolutely unqualified to judge job performance and I'm happy to stand in front of anybody and say that's why I did it um and maybe I should have remedied that situation but I had not at the time that uh our opinions were solicited and so rather than simply checking off boxes I declined and and put that up in lights if you'd like I stand by it thanks Mark be on Ryan's list Ryan thanks I just wanted to address the couple of folks uh asking

[156:01] about the the executive session idea um and Nicole y are on the on the employer committee I'm just wondering if maybe I guess I would I would propose as a as a counter proposal that the employee committee come to with a recommendation to consider I do think there are some um dynamics that that I don't know that we should be trying to decide on the spot for example if we brought everybody together we would have I mean Teresa is one of our employees she would be at the executive session um maybe that works maybe that I don't know but I would if if folks would be willing I would suggest that perhaps the committee come back with a recommendations and considerations I don't know if Nicole that's appropriate yeah no no I mean it's a separate it's a separate conversation from the one that we're sort of having so I I would prefer to not have that conversation um tonight partly so that you know again we we can stay on track Tara two quick things because it's

[157:00] 32 and I got my shows to watch the first thing is is um isn't it better that it's private even though I understand what Tina is saying or is it not private so we're not we're not having that convers we're not doing that okay then the only thing that I have to say is that I agree with Mark in that I did a lot of n/a because some of the questions a lot of the questions I had no idea the answer and I didn't really want to guess it just didn't feel like it was my place so is it possible that we do fill it in but if we feel we're we're not um you know it's not our if we don't know somebody why would we weigh in can we just write na on all the questions is I can't remember if we're allowed to do that yeah I mean you know we're we're council members we can kind of do what we want here but I think that you know that the main reason that this sort of came forward and just divert back to that for a moment um is that you know the raises the merits all this it it's

[158:00] based on our responses in part um it's also based on a you know broader um broader ratings from um you know peers and everything but but we are a part of that right and if um one Council employee or two are not getting the full benefit of having us all weigh in that means that whoever is responding um kind of has more of a say for that person than others right because it's sort of all you know average together and things so so that's really it so if I could just sort of summarize what I'm hearing here um that we don't necessarily need it to formalize um a a mandatory council member participation in the council employee performance review but um Ryan has committed to reading a list people who don't respond and you know know maybe U Ryan you and I can kind of talk as the employee evaluation committee too um just about ways that we can try to encourage people earlier to uh to get to

[159:00] know our staff and the work they do so that you do feel that you can um fill out those forms and be a contributing member to um their score from Council so that's what um maybe just raise your hands if you really want to vote on or not vote sorry if if you're wanting to kind of strw pull this idea of normalizing a mandatory council member participation all right um Ain I saw your hand go up was that a I thought we were straw pulling oh yes yeah yeah okay yes yeah that was I I saw one then I think I said two but definitely not a majority yep oh okay thank you thanks TAA um yeah I mean as I said I think there's some more information that we would like to receive I think before if it would be possible to revisit this one once we have more information I think particularly around executive sessions and how we can perhaps reimagine our whole process now that that is a options so you know again

[160:00] thank you okay yep yeah Ryan I I hear that you and I have some homework is is what I'm kind of hearing um and and let me just ask just to kind of make sure that folks here in line uh or or um can you raise your hand if um you would like Ryan and me to just kind of think about how we can do this um yeah okay Lauren looks confused I think I I didn't uh specify exactly what it is we're thinking about but just uh Ryan and I will come back with some creative ideas that involve Ryan reading a list and uh we will we will report back to everybody okay so council member spear thank you for that and just to clarify essentially what I'm hearing is kind of refer this issue generally back to convene the council um performance evaluation committee to really kind of talk through some different options okay great thank you yeah yep and I'm not necessarily like revisit the whole process or anything like that um it like

[161:01] I don't I didn't correct me if I'm wrong if anybody feels like that was what they're saying raise your hand now but that that to me feels like a whole other thing that's involving a more work from Ryan and me that I'm not super excited about taking on right now okay great um so does that did did you get clarity there Pam I did thank you okay wonderful um then I think we can move on to our next topic okay thank you we are now on our fourth item of the evening Emily slide 11 please thank you our fourth item that the council working group prioritized is relates to concerns about usage of Community member email addresses or other information for purposes Beyond official city council communication currently city council members do gain access to Community member email addresses and other details in their official capacity through correspondence from the public there's no formal policy

[162:02] regulating the use of this information next slide discussion among the process working group concluded that Council should consider whether to establish rules and procedures related to communication privacy and information sharing specifically regarding Community email address addresses and so we're seeking Direction tonight whether Council desires us to pursue establishing rules prohibiting the use of Community member email addresses or other information outside of official capacity great thank you um we will start with clarifying questions anybody have any questions on the concept being presented here yes Tina yeah do we have any rules about other person person Al identifiable information just like a street address or um and anything about information that we get through or how how much of

[163:00] this information is available through our email to the community we've made all those emails public are the email addresses public as well that the public can access no they just see the email that a community okay thank you that's right yeah yep that yeah we had this discussion I think a year or two ago and a staff if I'm misremembering please correct me but um the issue is that the public does not have access to that information um Lauren could aora request make that information public like could someone Kora all people who've emailed us on a particular topic Teresa um certainly somebody could submit a COR request like that um if it takes more than an hour there's a cost associated with that but also it is our policy that we redact email addresses very helpful thank you yeah

[164:00] thanks for the clarification any other clarifying um questions on this concept all right then um please raise your hand if you would like to establish rules prohibiting the use of Community member email addresses for purposes other than replying to community inquiries and council members official capacity as elected officials all right um then I would ask if anybody has any highlevel conceptual information or questions to offer our staff as they consider ways to implement this process change yes Lauren iess guess I would just say that because sometimes these conversations evolve right someone reaches out through email and maybe there's a back and forth over

[165:01] time I think that there could be a scenario where a use of an email address might go beyond that initial request and that might make sense and be an okay thing and I think we want to allow for that but you know my concern is more around kind of like the collection of email add like broader scale collecting email addresses for personal gain or distribution kinds of things Mark I think that's a good point um if you've gone back and forth three times with somebody and and you've actually established a bit of a relationship with them I don't know if there's any harm in being being able to um maintain that communication at will as opposed to just you know downloading 150 people who've emailed us on an issue that you happen

[166:01] to agree with that position and and collecting email addresses for campaign purposes thank you um that's a good distinction yeah yep and I I would agree with that too and just as we're thinking about this staff just you know some way I mean there there may be some that emails um me or councel and it's clear they're very interested in some topic and in you know I may hear about something that's going on in community and want to let them know or something like that right just of how do we how do we um sustain you know or pull people back into conversations where where relevant I think um Lauren and Mark make make a good point there so um does that does that offer you enough to move forward Teresa yeah wouldn't that still be in your official capacity yes yeah I I would say so yes so that that language may be sufficient and Erin did you want to cqu

[167:01] well just I think it might Encompass something where you know you had learned enough about somebody that you might email them personally about some different topic like oh you mentioned that you love this kind of ice cream they're having that kind of Ice Cream festival next week you know FY you might have a you might enjoy that so seems like you might be able to send a a personal relevant personal email uh Brian do do we currently have a a a policy that prohibits um adding um people to a newsletter or a large group correspondents um opting them in without the permission or is do we not have that on the books okay to me that seems like the probably majority issue here um and most most newsletters you know sort of that's best practice anyway um but to me that seems like the real kind of um need here is to clarify that we

[168:01] should not um as a news you know as a newsletter writer myself um yeah I should not be opting anybody into to a newsletter um but people have the opportunity to do it on their own to me that seems like the something we should both specify in a policy like this um and also seems like it's in my mind probably most of what this what what matters thank you um any other high level conceptual information Teresa everyone do you feel like you have what you need from us I do Pam I do great um then I think we can move on to number five okay sounds great thanks Emily we are on slide 13 our fifth item prioritized relates to

[169:02] the potential desire to make public speaking at City events and Council agenda committee uh substitute or fill in Opportunities more equit equitably available to all council members current Council procedure describes that the mayor has discretion whenever possible to share respons responsibilities equitably among the other council members but there is no formal procedure for doing so CAC absences are currently managed by Council procedure requiring that substitutes should be solicited from all council members whenever a CAC member cannot attend a meeting and if more council members wish to attend then there are vacancies the mayor makes the appointment the current language does not identify a time frame for response and so sometimes what we observe is one person respond saying they can do it and they immediately get appointed next slide process working group members supported bringing forward a council discussion about making CAC substitute

[170:00] and public event participation opportunities to be shared among council members in a more predictable and Equitable way considerations for you to consider include that Council procedure does not currently Define a role for City staff and administering the sharing of ceremonial and other responsibilities among council members and Council ask staff to outline and administer a formal process there are staff capacity constraints to consider depending on the future frequency and lead time of event opportunities today we seek some direction related to whether Council desires to formalize a process for sharing fill and opportunities for ceremonial CAC and other duties and if so is the preference of staff is it the preference for staff to begin administering that process uh versus the mayoral discretion and that is it great thank you for the summary um do folks have clarifying questions on this

[171:05] concept yep Aron well Nicole I just had something I wanted to raise before we did the straw poll it's not a question per se is now our right time to do that and I would just say like I the um you know I support the the concept of this I think the just the question is kind of of a amount of time and resources involved that um you know the the requests to speak often come in with a relatively constrained time frame and uh and people often want a response pretty quickly and so the you know the the time that it the amount of time it takes to kind of maybe potentially pull everybody and then get an answer and then get back to people who are organizing event is probably going to be longer than they would like and maybe often longer than is practical for filling the slot so and then somebody would have to manage that sort of kind of oh nobody's answered that one yet they said they might they Haven so anyway there's it's just kind of a

[172:00] management issue and and it's why I is currently as the the mayor don't have a formal process for that because I personally don't have time to manage it so if we do that which I think could be positive it would just need to be Eyes Wide Open that it would need to be a process that would need some barely intensive management thank you um Tara so I guess my question is if someone says we want the mayor what do we say no I mean the mayor was the elected mayor it's so I feel like it's you know is it really right to say you can't have the mayor so I'm just that's why I I'm not going to vote this way but that's my question and comment thank you felt like a little bit of a rhetorical question so no I mean really can you tell me yeah no for sure I mean that is a question like can we say no you can't I meant it I don't

[173:02] know um Mark oh yeaha yeah sorry sorry yeah I can answer that so the mayor is a ceremonial head pursuant to the at least the code perhaps the charter as well forgive me for not knowing off the top of my head and um so it it is certainly the mayor's discretion whether to share those opportunities or not you all have codified in your Council procedure that those opportunities should be shared when the opportunity arises um I don't think the question is about whether to share those opportunities if it arises I think the question is more here about and Pam please correct me if I'm wrong um the question more is about do you all want a more formalized process for doing so that's exactly right um Teresa thank you for that and you know as as previously mentioned in a couple of the

[174:00] um questions and comments so far if we were to further um codify what that process looks like frankly it would need to be quite strict and we would need Council support that um as staff members who support the administration of these things we would need to just be able to follow kind of the letter of a future procedure so it would be things like a rotation base so we know who to call first second third a you know you have five hours to respond and then you have to be okay moving on to the next person Etc so it it would have um certainly a high level of detail and um and require really your support thank you Pam and thanks Teresa for the question um I saw more hands go up Tara is that an old hand there you have okay um then Mark this seems to me to be a lot of drafting and a lot of procedure and I don't know that it will create the kinds of results that we want

[175:01] um I I am more than happy to rely upon the fundamental fairness of the mayor this mayor next mayor whatever mayor um to to do these things correctly and uh I I I just don't know that we need to you know weighed through a lot of additional bureaucracy in terms of how these things are done um that's just how I feel about it um I I'm assuming uh you know Aaron will will behave in a just fashion but more than that the next mayor beyond that I expect to to to do the same and the mayor beond that as well so I I I I just don't think we're going to get a lot of bang for our here in terms of the efforts to put this together uh formulate it and and adhere to it um so um I would my preference would be not to

[176:00] go forward thank you Aron I will say that if we don't move forward with something more formal something that I personally would find helpful in doing a better job because I will admit that I do not do a perfect job of this a better job of Distributing these is if I had a sense of different members interest in speaking events and which kinds of events they would like to speak at because certainly when I when I hear about an event and I know it has a Nexus with a council member's interests I I try my best to invite them instead but I don't know everybody's interests and I do sometimes reach out to people and they say you know I I don't care about that topic or you know what I'm I'm busy I don't really need to do something like that so if there were just like a you know a something on um the online spreadsheet or something where people kind of recorded those things that would help me do a better job suion great thank you um so I am really not hearing much support for this one but just to check um it would uh who

[177:01] who would um like to formalize a process for sharing fill and opportunities and um anybody there we got one I mean not if it's crazy burden for staff but if there's any way to do it in a sure there's yeah yeah yep okay maybe so not a formal maybe not a formal process um one thing that I am wondering though because I I I think that part of this is really about transparency um and so I was just wondering if we could potentially think about changing the section that says whenever possible the mayor shall to say when the mayor is unavailable the mayor shall because that that that to me is more transparent um it's not kind of setting the expectation that these might be shared um sometimes whenever possible whatever that means but really just states that so I'm just curious if people have thoughts on that

[178:00] Tina I have a different thought but I I do like that thought too yes what is your thought um I think my other interest is knowing when the mayor is out speaking on behalf of the city not in their individual capacity I think that might be a big lift but sometimes I am surprised at how many different places the city voice is being um you know projected out and um sometimes I'll go to an event and not realize that the mayor is going to be speaking so and you always do a great job Erin thank you but that's that's something that's not a big deal but I wouldn't mind knowing if there's a schedule if I may address that comment Tina I will remind um you all that our city council program manager um does maintain the city council calendar of events and we really rely on you all to inform us when there are events to to

[179:02] sort of help build that awareness so I actually believe the infrastructure exists um but to your point even we don't always know um exactly what is of council interest and so I would just re encourage all of you please send those things our way when uh you believe it kind of Falls within the category that council member marus was just describing because I think that tool can continue to to lift awareness thank you um and Erin I see your hand up yeah and just to Tina that certainly if there were like a decent document that available that I could just fill out like a spreadsheet to list that I'd be happy to do that I will say that uh oftentimes I don't know that I'm speaking um until the event you know you show up at something at a certain point like hey would you say a couple words right sure I guess so there there's always that caveat it may not be on a list and it might still happen thank you um and I just is anybody interested in potentially changing the

[180:01] language I know I sort of just SLI slid a new one in there so it's okay if not but is anybody else interested in changing that language to say when the mayor is unavailable the mayor shall attempt and uh staff have I just like done anything to you all and putting that in there seems fairly straightforward I'll defer the City attorney who would be writing the language on that and bringing it back to you yeah that's that's totally doable okay um what I don't feel like we have Clarity around yet though is CAC villains thank you yep thank you for that um is that anything that would would folks like staff to um explore a process a more formal process for C Fillin yes Lauren um I think that the the question

[181:00] around like a time period for which we solicit a cic fill in is one that I think would be good to clarify like what is the expectation in terms of response time or or that the mayor should wait before appointing someone thanks for that I do believe that we have varying amounts of time by which we have notice that someone is unavailable and so I think if we were to kind of implement something like that we would have to do it in such a way you know if someone wakes up ill for example and 00 am and two of you happen to see it and can jump on great you know but we're not going to wait six hours in that situation so it it is a little bit flexible in our experience um um you know we could certainly attempt to accommodate Council Direction in that um or we could give the the mayor informal advice on kind of uh what to do in the event that there's large

[182:06] interest I get I guess I could see it being like up to 24 hours in advance this is the expectation or something like that and after that all bets are off and maybe if I may it could be depending on when the request comes in it could be that there is a deadline placed I will wait until such time before appointing and then people have to put an interest in but just a putting a thought out there so might I just um just note just because we've got very little time remaining and our one of our bigger items um it is any are folks interested in thinking about um maybe not not like formalizing in our code but just in our our processes and operations formalizing what exactly it is what the timing um and and who's going to be notified as Lauren as we were just

[183:01] saying okay okay great thank you um does everybody have Pam Teresa nura do you have what you need on this one yeah if I may ask for a little latitude I think we can work with our city clerk team and mayor Brock bucket to try some things and um start you know start based on when we receive requests set some some timing and um just check in with you if we feel like it's working great thank you appreciate that all right on to our last one okay thank you and we are now on slide 15 okay so our declaration s process uh was another one that came up with our process working group um and that it is not comprehensive and and clearly defined or frankly our practices aren't completely aligned with what is written

[184:00] in Council rule of procedure as well as declarations taking significant meeting time um so there's kind of a few concerns rolled into one on this one I have a little bit of context so bear with me here um our current city practices only partially align uh with coun procedure the parts that really do is that uh we rely heavily on the mayor to screen all declaration requests from there we do present uh recommendations for read alloud declarations so declarations that take meeting time on the CAC agenda and those get reviewed by CAC on a rolling basis where our current practice deviates from existing rules of procedure our rules state that declaration requests can be initiated by a group with substantial local support um however that isn't defined particularly well um in our common understanding at the city and staff observed over the years that several declarations were being

[185:00] requested and approved annually that were consistently important to the mayor and Council so four or five years ago we did create a process where we would have an annual calendar of anticipated declarations rather than waiting for the community to initiate every single request and then staff themselves behind on getting the Declarations produced in time we also experience that declarations are frequently requested by council members or city staff members which may not qualify as a group with substantial local support for the purposes of the current Council procedure the rules of procedure also assume that declarations are issued by the mayor unless CAC specifically asked for them to issue by the full Council that practice fell by the ways side um largely as a result of council member desire to alternate reading declarations in a regular rotation and when you do that it's sort of illogical to have a different council member read a

[186:00] declaration in the voice of the mayor it just kind of feels funky so we adapted some of our language to our declarations finally our rules of procedure assume that all declarations are issue only unless specifically a CAC scheduling request is presented um and cic deliberates whether or not to read it aloud our current practice essentially is that when we seek mayoral Direction on a particular declaration we often then move them straight to the agenda for read aloud if there's a belief that this will have significant Community Interest next slide our consensus among the process working group was to improve the city declaration process in some way um to be more comprehensive easy to understand and transp parent for all of our audiences council members community members and the city staff who administer it as well as reduced time taken overall for the development and presentation of declarations staff does

[187:00] estimate that nearly six hours per year are spent reading declarations and Council meetings and we hear from the community that while symbolic celebration and recognition can be important thoughtful and meaningful connections between community and council members builds greater trust and is more valuable on the whole Direction tonight is kind of being sought in two parts we're interested in hearing council's long-term hopes for the overall declarations process but also how to approach upcoming declarations in the interim so our first piece is whether we'd like to know whether Council supports moving forward with a full declarations policy review and potential redesign that we would bring back to you all and if yes while that work is underway how would like how would Council like to proceed with CR declarations shall the four currently scheduled to be read aloud in meetings through the end of April remain on the agenda and new declarations be issued and not read for example until this

[188:01] process Improvement is implemented that was a short summary of a big topic so feel free to ask questions thank you Pam um and I just want to reiterate we are not trying to redesign this process tonight we are really just looking for overall um is this something that we would like to do and Pam I'm just going to start out with a clarifying question um it was a recommendation from the process working group that we consider doing a full uh a redesign correct that's the way we interpreted the conversation certainly yep thank you uh Tara just a quick question um Pam when you look at the April um you know how sometimes we can't even find somebody to accept the Declaration is it possible to Omit and put into the IP the Declarations where it seems like it doesn't matter or we can't find people to receive it or you think it's inappropriate yeah council member Wier that's a bit of a

[189:01] nuanced question we don't always seek a recipient depending on the content of the Declaration so for example um next week we have the boulder strong day of remembrance declaration that specific declaration is really intended to be the voice of council speaking to all of community and so to have a specific recipient in that case was deemed sort of not not the goal um in other cases when we have declarations that are certainly when they're honoring a specific group or when they're a topic that ties to a community group of strong interest um and Council brings forward a potential connection or suggestion then we do that so certainly that would be something to explore if we were to move forward in a larger process redesign is when do we invite folks or not Etc sorry I asked for get a dumb question move on Ian just a question about the um the the

[190:00] split between declarations that we read aloud which is what I think people often think of when we say declarations between those and and the other declarations that are in the packet but we don't read is there any sorry if I'm putting you on the spot but just generally generally we issue more than we read a allow so we have an informal practice of no more than two declarations to be read aloud in a meeting um for example and I was supplied with some good back pocket information between now and the end of April what we currently have on Deck scheduled is four declarations to be read aloud and one two three four five six seven eight and ten or 11 declarations that are issue only okay so two or three times more thank you thank you um and uh okay so I think I want to separate out this question of U what we do with current declarations that are scheduled or others that um are

[191:00] kind of pending and um what we do uh moving forward so um first question and again trying to separate out things that are pending um are we interested in moving forward with a full declarations policy and process redesign okay great so we have an answer to that and then the second question was um what are we going to do with the um declarations that are uh either already on the um CAC agenda or um are pending because we have at least one that I believe is still pending I don't know if there are others that we've maybe already committed to Beyond April so what are we going to do about that um Ain may I make a suggestion so as as we know we have that uh calendar of declarations they're scheduled throughout the year so my

[192:00] suggestion would be to continue with what's on the calendar in terms of being read aloud or not read aloud until we have the proc new process in place and in the meantime if there are additional uh requests from the community for read alloud declarations that those go to CAC consideration um and I just maybe one follow-up question on that um how much time do you think uh staff this might take to get something in place redesign and and get something else in place so I'm thinking through our current work plan and the same staff working on agenda management transition boards and commissions are kind of the same staff that would be working through this item and certainly the procedure would require um further discussion with Council I mean I certainly think that we can land the new process kind of before the end of this Council term but it may

[193:02] it may very well take a few months to work through the different options and then ultimately have a new procedure passed by council is that specific enough for you yeah yeah no it is and um if if I may just as long as I'm speaking um I think I I worry then a little bit about kind of sticking to the um the current list of readal outs because we've got a lot of stuff to talk about um and so what I might suggest is that ones that we have already committed to reading allowed in um some fashion um those will be the ones that we maybe stick with and the others perhaps not um read aloud unless one of us requests it specifically so that would be my proposal there um Ain is that an old hand have up or did you have something else okay um uh let's see Mark I think I think you're next I respond to that as well um thinking through the The Proposal mayor Rockett put on the table and then that

[194:01] comment what we also could do is bring the calendar related to the the read allows as they go along as scheduling items and include kind of both the calendar and any new requests and treat them kind of as a CAC decision versus um our kind of default practice of mayoral suggestion but I'll allow the conversation to continue of course thank you Mark yeah I I may be the only one on this but I think there's something important and very human about reading declarations to the community and and you know whether it's immigration month or if the recognition of of dick jesser as a remarkable individual I think we can save a lot of time and if we can limit um all declarations to 300 words um and you know not make them 15 minute Productions

[195:00] um but I think there's something very nice about um recognizing uh important dates um in our history or um important issues that we want to highlight and important people in our community and so I I would I would want us to continue to do so under this uh structure or any new structure yep thank you so just some comments on things to think about as uh as we're redesigning um uh Taisha um I'm fine with uh the full review again I would be remiss if I didn't bring up the current one that is in limbo regarding anti-muslim hate um and just a concern around having to have that Community weight um and just more in general you know even if we do have a full um Council review or even a CAC review goes back to the conversation

[196:01] I said before all of us are not present at CAC reviews and so that is not even a majority of the council that are making decisions at that point so I have significant concerns there in addition when a community group is not um represented on our Council when we're making these decisions I feel incredibly uncomfortable um and so even when we are going to be talking about the anti-muslim and anti- um Arab hate declaration we have zero representation um of those Community groups on our Council right now um and so I have some concerns there as to a process section or or question as it relates to that um and and just in general um have concerns around the current separate but equal process that we've used for that so not sure um you know where where all of those comments fit but I look forward to a full Fuller review I'm wondering if there if we could potentially um identify kind of like tiers or

[197:00] prioritize the process that we're not waiting until the very end but there's maybe some components that we can decide sooner rather than later that would would allow us to proceed and not have to wait a potential 3 to six months um to revisit this critical issue thank you you um I think those are those are things that it sounds like U just kind of taking into account comments um as as we are starting to think about what this redesign might look like um thank you and uh Tina uh just I'm commenting on the interim I'm I'm fine with what Ain said although uh the only thing would be if it's a repeat de aration and there's not a Community member receiving it and there's a new uh request I would just um like us to think about maybe replacing them and moving one to the UN declared piece um but maintaining the

[198:01] two per meeting and not extend it to three where possible just in interest of time thank you um okay so I heard a couple potential um routes here uh what Aon put forward uh that kind of all the ones that were listed in that um initial list of things we were going to be reading aloud this year the calendar that was set up in advance still read those aloud um and uh what I was suggesting was maybe just think about the ones that we've committed to reading aloud and then um and committed in the sense that we have people or there is a declaration pending um like the anti-muslim hate uh declaration um and just moving forward with those um with the idea that if anybody wanted one of the other ones to be read aloud they could ask CAC for that and CAC could consider it kind of a little hybrid between current practice and and what's in the rules so um I'm going to categorize those as all and some so um who would like the

[199:05] all who would like the sum okay who doesn't really care or is just deeply confused yes Teresa I believe some got five in the straw pole yeah that's that's what I was seeing I did see uh one or two confused uh faces so if there is H anything that you would like to try to clarify in our last minute feel free to do so yes Erin yeah so that that's totally fine that works out I will just say that I think that some of those that were scheduled to be read allowed later on this year are uh have groups associated with them that have been coming each year and will most likely expect to come back or be quite disappointed if they're not brought back so I think we probably want to spend a few minutes looking over that list and thinking about which ones

[200:01] fall into that category to maybe make a specific CC request about okay cool yeah then I yeah just leave that to whoever whoever would like that um can make that c CAC request okay um Council memb spear can I repeat back what I think is happen so excited I want to spare my team members any future confusion so um we will take a look at the existing read alloud calendar for the year and we will do a quick assessment to decide um who has a committed recipient Andor where do we have specific Associated Community groups that that we sort of know there's an expectation but if there are some we've identified as read aloud that are kind of just floating because they're associated with a holiday and don't have a commitment we'll move those to issue only and then we will provide that list to to council um for visibility

[201:01] or would you like to sorry that's not what I heard ma'am okay okay so we can just do that assessment as staff yeah and bring It Forward on this the agenda okay let me make sure I heard back and just to make sure I mean I what I heard is that what we are committed to is taking the CAC agenda and for every uh everyone that we already have uh currently on the agenda we are committed to reading aloud and those that we have already approved so for example um the anti-muslim hate even though it's not currently scheduled that has been approved so when that comes forward we will read that aloud um and and though and any others that will come along if a council member is interested they will request that to CAC the additional thing I believe uh mayor correct me if I'm uh incorrect is that to your point about there are some uh existing and I think Pam I think this is what you were getting to if there are some existing declarations that when we

[202:03] look at the list we anticipate have been around for so long our pollinator uh for example declaration that we have such expectations in community that perhaps those staff can take a look at that list and uh we can certainly provide that to council so that you can bring that forward as a CAC request yourselves and and point that out but that we should be thoughtful about making sure that that comes forward um because we know that there are expectations in community am I saying that correctly um that Nia you you hit it how I did but um if anybody that does not drive with what everybody else is walking away with you have 30 seconds maybe not even 30 okay will be thoughtful about that list to make sure we we identify those yeah I appreciate that um okay we have

[203:01] uh made it through I just want to thank um everybody else on the process working group um really really appreciate all the work that um that that went in to get us to tonight thank you um Pam Nia Teresa um for all the work that you all have put in on this too um and I think yeah was mags also helping with us with this a little bit too so thank you to Ms as well um so I just really really appreciate everything that went in here so does anybody else have anything else to say just thank you Nicole this is a huge amount of work and uh yeah I appreciate all of the everything that went into this great work ran you rock yeah great job keeping us on track thanks niichel almost four minutes minut over anyway good night everybody thank you for your time and thanks again staff for helping us tonight

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