Good afternoon, everybody.
We're going to give us everybody about another minute or two
to join the meeting.
I got 8 on my.
Well, good afternoon and welcome to the 6th February 2023
community.
Renewable Energy Agency board meeting, and
we'll go through introductions.
We'll start with those in the room
and then we'll go through the ones online
and I'll just call out your name.
So starting with Councilmember Quinn.
Drew Quinn, city of Holiday.
And I'm a voting member, Shari Jackson, millcreek,
and I'm voting today.
I'm Dan Duggan, Salt Lake City voting today.
Emily Quinton, Summit County alternate board member.
Our primary bot member, Roger Armstrong
will not be able to make it today, so I will be voting.
Christopher Thomas, Salt Lake City
alternate board member will not be voting today.
And Luke.
Luke Carton Park City municipal voting today.
Michele Barney.
I'm Michelle.
Barney I'm doing your minutes today with Salt
Lake City recorder's office.
Thank you, Bob Davis.
Division of public utilities just listening to.
Thank you, Joe.
Bill Frazier, Oakley, Citi and I am voting, Randy.
In the tiny town of Springdale.
We'll be voting today.
Chris?
a Chris Conley 10 about the ultimate board member.
It will be voting today.
Suzanne Suzanne alger, town of Springdale.
I will not be voting today.
Given Galen Jones city of Moab voting
Angela and Susie Angela to at Ogden city
and I will be voting today.
Pamela you don't hear you, Pamela,
but I saw you clicked your mic.
Can you hear me now?
Faintly, Yes.
Can you hear me now?
Yes of that famous classical ballet.
Thank you, Alexi.
Like Salem city of moab, not voting Lorenzo.
Lorenzo long Ogden city.
Just observing.
Monica Monica O'Malley, Salt Lake City staff.
Not a board member, not voting Gordon.
We're in a minute.
Immigration mature Township council
listening and not voting.
Samantha hey, everybody.
Samantha Steele, horse alternate board
member with Cottonwood heights.
I will be voting today.
Zach Zach Garvey.
Summit County not voting.
Dina all right.
Dina blase, was Salt Lake County not voting?
And Sarah.
Sarah Montoya from the Salt Lake City attorney's office here,
listening and not voting.
Mark Holt. Mark Logan just interested observer David.
I see a kid you like, David, but I don't hear you.
OK, Eliza.
Elisa Martin, Grand County planning and zoning.
I'm voting.
Thank you, Elisa.
Sam on.
Salt Lake City council staff.
Salmon listening.
Not voting in, Jeremy.
OK well, we have David and Jeremy are on the screen,
but their mics are.
Not working at this time.
Hopefully they can hear us.
So we'll move on to continue on to item number 1.2.
Well, at 1.1, the purpose of the overview purpose
is just to review everybody, a couple community.
Groups and going through their issues.
And then we're also going to hear from Phil Russell
on some the utility agreement.
1.2 the current participation percentages
are in your board packet.
If you have any questions on those,
you can ask Christopher myself to clarify anything.
Business matters.
Item 22.1 I would be looking for a motion
to approve the minutes of January 9 2023.
Mr chair, I move that we approve the January
9 2023 board meeting minutes.
I'll second that.
I have most of the Councilmember coin, the second
from Councilmember Jackson.
Any discussion of this item?
I see no discussion of this item.
I will look for approval.
All in favor of say I, I, I, I opposed Hirono.
No, oppose that motion passes unanimously.
Moving on to item 2.2, the Treasury report.
Mayor silver Zinni is not here today.
And I think we're good.
Mr chair, this is Emily Quintin with Summit County.
And just as the secretary, since I handled the treasurer's
report, I don't think there are any particularly
noteworthy items.
I do believe we're still waiting on just
one final payment to come in.
That is grand county's phase two anchor payment.
Alisa, if there's any support that you need on that
or if you need to get the invoice again, let me know.
It's possible that it had gone to former commissioner stock
and that it kind of got lost in the transition.
So I'll just reach out to you, Alisa, directly about that.
That would be great.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you, Emily.
We're going on to 2.3 reports from the committee.
We'll start with the Communications
Committee and Chris Corley.
And Chris Christopher is here if you need him to.
Move to your sides.
Great thanks, Christopher.
And yeah, if you could advance the slides.
And add any necessary additional commentary,
that would be great.
Yeah Thanks.
So I'm Christopher.
Chris Colley, rather alternate board
member from the town of Alta.
I do help facilitate the Communications Committee.
Our committee membership has not changed.
So Yeah.
Onto our first slide.
We met twice in January.
Our first meeting was on January 3.
That was our regular monthly meeting.
Meeting was focused mostly on charting
a course forward with our consultant procurement project.
And then we made a plan to produce some monthly newsletter
and more social media content.
On January 19th, we had a great meeting with
environmental nonprofits the Utah chapter
this year club in 02 Utah.
Talk more about that in a moment.
The image on the right side of this slide
is from the kit of communications
content that went out to the board a week ago today.
Next slide.
So the latest on our communications
consultant procurement project.
As a refresher, we developed an RFP
and published it through Mill Creek city in November.
When the RFP closed in December, we
had only received one proposal and the committee
declined to accept that proposal.
After the holiday break in January,
we got direction from Mill Creek city that
under Mill Creek procurement rules.
Rather than issue another RFP, we
could hire a communications firm with an active state
of Utah cooperative contract.
And just for those of you who aren't aware,
the so-called state contract is a contract.
The state of Utah Division of purchasing
negotiates with vendors to obtain services based on a set
pricing schedule so eligible users can purchase goods
and services through these contracts
in order to streamline the solicitation
and procurement process.
We have begun to engage communications firms that have
active state contracts, and we aspire to bring a proposed
scope of work and fee to the board of directors for approval
at the March 6 board meeting.
We're pursuing basically our original scope of work
with an updated timeline.
If you go to the next slide, Christopher,
I can run through that scope work a little bit.
So this is basically a slide I've used in the past
to depict the scope of work that we
developed for our original RFP.
The tasks outlined in the scope are
associated basically with our four major program
development milestones.
Those are program application, the Public Service Commission
decision to approve our application,
then the ordnance adoption milestone
and finally program launch.
What's different about this illustration
of a communication scope of work is that it
reflects our adjusted timeline.
Basically, we shifted everything forward one quarter.
And then one thing we might do this time around
is shift some of the tasks we originally associated
with the program application milestone
and a further down the timeline to the Public Service
Commission decision milestone.
So things like social media newsletter content, calendar
brochures and posters and other physical collateral and then
a branding and website refresh.
Those tasks are not required for us to submit a program
application, so we may move those tasks down the timeline
in order to allow a firm that we select
more time to get up to speed.
Next slide, Christopher.
So you with a great meeting on January 19 with 0 2 Utah
and the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club.
As we approach those key program milestones,
these organizations are ramping up efforts
to engage community members and elected officials
in participating communities.
Basically, these words are requesting guidance
on messaging they can share to ensure our constituents have
the best and most accurate information about the program
and some of the steps and program development
we're approaching.
One topic these organizations shared
they'd like to be able to provide really good information
about is the utility agreement.
And basically, when that utility agreement
is closer to its final form, we'll
work with the organizations to develop an info sheet
they can use to begin educating, educating constituents
and elected officials about what that utility agreement does
and what it doesn't do.
And I think we'll hear some more about the utility
agreement later in the meeting.
We do have another meeting scheduled with 0 2
and the Sierra Club on February 16th,
and I think we expect to have regular meetings
with these organizations going forward
as we move through the steps in our program development.
Next slide.
So just a reminder, we did produce
one of our monthly email newsletters
that went out on January 24.
And then the next day I sent out an e!
Kit of communications materials that all of you
should have in your inbox.
Topics we covered in these materials
include our municipal ordinance finalization
and update on all the great work we
did to adopt low income assistance strategies
and then plans for the agency to present
at the upcoming Intermountain Sustainability Summit.
If you didn't receive the newsletter
or you haven't seen it yet, you can find it on our website
under subscribe or you can click on one
of the links in this slide.
So yet going forward, we plan to continue focusing on hiring
a communications firm.
And once again, we do hope to be able to bring up
proposed scope of work and the proposal
to the board for approval at our regular March 6 board meeting.
We'll work with Utah and the Sierra Club
again on February 16.
We'll work on some content specifically regarding
the utility agreement.
We'll keep the monthly newsletter and kit projects
going until we have a communications firm on board
at least to help us prepare that material
or maybe recommend a change in course with those channels.
And then finally, we did change our monthly meeting schedule.
We'll be meeting on the second Friday
of each month at 10 a.m., including this upcoming
Friday, the tenth of February.
That's going to have for you today.
Thank you very much for the update, Chris.
Any questions for chris?
Mr chair, I have a couple of comments
for Chris and the Communications Committee.
I wanted to let you all know that I received a comment
from a resident who had signed up for the newsletter,
complimenting the January newsletter,
and just wanted to express that it was very well written
and clearly communicated.
So I wanted to pass along that compliment.
And then I also just wanted to let everyone know.
Chris mentioned that the January newsletter
had promoted the potential inter mountain
Sustainability Summit panel.
We did get accepted to present at the Intermountain
Sustainability Summit on Thursday, March 23rd.
The final agenda has not come out yet,
but once that's available, I will share that
with you, Chris, so that the Communications Committee can
promote the session more specifically
in terms of when it will actually
occur on the conference agenda.
Thanks again, Mike.
Thank you for that comment.
Any other comments or questions for chris?
CNN all right.
Thank you, Chris.
Well, we will.
On to the low income plan committee and Samantha
the seahorse.
Yeah, I was going to see Christopher
if you'd be willing to advance my slides
or if you want to turn over screen sharing to me,
I can do it.
He's got it right now.
He's got the clicker.
Awesome So this is our committee membership.
We haven't had any changes to that membership recently.
We were planning to meet or we are scheduled to meet
in our next committee meeting.
One week from today, I will be sending
out an email to the committee with a possible adjustment
to that.
I will be traveling and had hoped to convene that meeting
while working remotely.
But some logistics have changed and won't allow me to do that.
So if you're on that committee, keep an eye
out for an email from me.
I'll be reaching out to data for any kind of an alternative,
we can forward one slide.
Great so I wanted to start off with a huge Thank
you to all the board members and support staff who collaborated
on the low income plans for the communities
participating in this program.
I know it was a lot of work to read through those
and to coordinate with your teams
to make sure they reflect the approach
that each community is taking.
And we're just about there.
So as the plans have been completed,
I've just moved them from the general Google Drive folder
that you were all accessing them from to kind
of a completed folder so I can see
which ones still are remaining.
So on that note, if you need to get back
into your plan for any reason, if you need to see it
or what have it changes or anything
trying to limit any additional changes made.
But I'd be happy to send you access to that separate folder.
If you need to get back into your plan, just let me know.
And then just wanted to remind everybody
the next step on these plans, they're going to be included
in our program application.
So as this little graphic I put together tries to convey,
we're going to have 18 or we do have 18 low income plans,
and those are going to go into our overall program application
along with a variety of other documents.
Move forward.
One slide, please.
So now that we've finished the plans
and are kind of just tying up the final loose ends there,
I wanted to start talking about some of the next steps
for actually doing the outreach.
So as you all recall, within the outreach strategies section
of your plan, you identified organizations or groups that
serve your community, maybe specifically
serve low income constituents in your community.
And those community organizations on your list
were the ones that you've planned to do outreach
about the program with this outreach doesn't need
to actually take place until after the program application
has been approved because we don't want to be doing outreach
with information that hasn't necessarily
been finalized or approved.
We want to make sure it's moving forward in the way
that we expect it to before we start
doing too much content on it.
However, I just wanted to start these conversations now,
so we kind of have a good background
when the time does come.
So as a reminder for the organizations
you've identified, that outreach you're
going to need to conduct with them
will entail these five things.
So the first is an offer to meet with the organization
to just make them aware of the program,
answer questions they have.
This could be a virtual meeting or even a phone call.
The second will be to invite the organization
to a quarterly meeting hosted by the low income plan committee,
just to talk through how things are working with the program
and low income customer membership in it
and kind of run through any concerns they might have.
The third will be just to add a contact
email address for that organization
to our agency listserv.
The fourth will be to provide a printed
poster in English and Spanish to the organization.
So that they can post it in high visibility
areas of their offices where they might
be working with clientele.
These poster files will be provided by the low income plan
committee, hopefully in coordination with
our Communications Committee.
So communities aren't having to make these posters unless they
want to make their own.
And then the fifth thing will just
be to provide the organization with kind
of a template informational email
that gives pretty standard aq information for their clients.
So if this organization has a client who reaches out to them
with questions, this informational email
can be a good resource.
And that email content will also be provided with.
The low income band committee and hopefully
the Communications Committee collaborating.
So hopefully with the support from our various committees
and the kind of longer timeline we have to do this outreach,
I hope that this isn't too heavy of a lift,
but I wanted to talk a little bit
about some additional support from the low income
plan committee.
So let's move forward.
One more slide, please.
Samantha, can I ask a question?
This is Sherri Jackson with Monique.
So, yeah, so looking at the list,
I am assuming that there's some overlap
on some of those organizations between multiple cities.
Is there going to be some coordination
to say like Mill Creek will talk with this organization and salt
lake, we'll talk to this one so that we're
not all bombarding them with.
With yeah, I actually have a slide coming up on that.
You're way ahead of me.
Thank you.
No worries, because that's a great point to bring up.
OK let's move forward one slide.
So first of all, we're going to be putting together a contact
information appendix so that at the end of these low income
plans, there will be one master appendix that has contact
info for every organization that's been identified,
and that appendix will be given to every community.
So that you have contact info for your organizations
as well as for any others that maybe you need down the road.
So that'll be a single resource where you don't have
to be hopefully chasing down contact
information for organizations.
OK, next slide.
OK so now getting into the outreach
overlap, so where you are also and have already started
identifying overlap in various outreach organizations,
just like Councilmember Jackson was mentioning,
there's some natural overlap where
multiple communities may have identified outreach
to the same organization.
So to help coordinate with that, the low income plan committee
will notify communities of overlap
with other communities in the organizations they've selected
so that those communities can coordinate
on a single outreach effort.
So the example I gave is it's Salt Lake city,
Creek and Kern's all identified the same organization
on their outreach lists.
The committee will notify Salt Lake city, Creek and Kerns,
so that they can coordinate on that single outreach
push instead of three separate outreach pushes.
And I think that will help not only community bandwidth
with doing that outreach, but also will
prevent these organizations from being bombarded
with the same information.
And then if we move forward, one more slide
just to kind of further this idea for overlaps that
constitute a majority of communities,
the low income plan committee will just
facilitate the outreach itself.
So for the overlaps that maybe only involve two
to three communities, we will just give that information
to those communities and they can
facilitate outreach together.
But for the overlap where the majority of our communities
want to do outreach with a single group,
we felt like it was most appropriate for the low income
plan committee to just do that outreach
as a single point of contact.
So one example of this was most of our communities
listed the Salvation Army as a group
we want to do outreach with.
And so to just streamline that, we
figured the committee can just can just take that outreach
and handle that.
And this will all be communicated
to all of the communities so that you're knowing which ones
on our list are going to be covered by the committee
itself, and then which ones on our list or
may be going to be covered by an adjacent community who's
planning to do the outreach.
Does that answer your question, Councilmember Jackson.
Yes, that does.
Thank you.
OK, perfect.
Next slide.
So then just to circle back to the actual outreach,
this doesn't need to take place until after the program
application is approved.
I even kind of recommend waiting to communicate
details about the program just until it's approved.
We want to make sure we're giving the accurate approved
information.
However, if some of the groups or organizations you're
planning to do outreach with are ones you've never worked
with before, I do recommend initiating contact early on,
and I think that's something we could kind of all start on now
if it applies to us, where maybe we just reach out and kind
of let them know that this is coming, that we'll be following
back up with program details once they're approved
and give that contact early on to help
prime the pump for the outreach to take place later on.
So once communities have the appendix we're working on,
that should help where you can decide if you want to start
reaching out now and just kind of having
those initial conversations.
And I think it's always appropriate to give
the high level detail of our program
that we share in these public meetings.
I just would be remiss if we provided specific program
details to somebody.
And then through the regulatory process,
those changed and there was confusion.
Next slide.
OK yeah, there's the end, so feel free to reach
out if you have any questions.
I'm always happy to set up a meeting with myself
or other willing members from the committee
and just want to say Thanks again to everyone who worked
on those low income plans.
I know it's an imperfect process using virtual platforms
to collaborate, and I just appreciate everyone's grace
and patience and getting onto the Google Drive
and being flexible with how that process worked.
You guys are all great, so does anyone
have any questions for me?
Thank you very much, Samantha.
Appreciate the work of your committee and yourself on this.
We'll move on to the program design committee
and Christopher Thomas.
Oh, everyone.
Christopher Thomas with Salt Lake City and I
convened the program design committee and
happy to give you some updates.
Let's see if I'm plugged in here.
Thank you, Kurt.
Our program design committee membership has
stayed the same as it has been.
But you're welcome to look at this slide
if you've got questions.
Key activities.
The committee met three times in January.
We did have a small group who met with the Department
of Energy loan Programs Office.
That's a part of the federal government, department
of energy loan Programs Office.
We did host a meeting where we invited municipal attorneys
for the communities who are part of the program design committee
to meet with our outside counsel, Phil Russell,
to discuss a draft of the utility agreement.
So we had provided an initial draft.
We received back red line edits from Rocky Mountain power,
and then we brought in the municipal attorneys
to look at it together and raise additional questions
and comments.
And then finally, we received a data request
from Rocky Mountain Power to prepare budgeting guidance
for noticing costs, which I'll talk
about later in the slide deck.
Here is the program application dashboard.
I like to call it which kind of shows where
we are with each of these.
So on along the left hand side are
all of the specific items that need to be included
in the Program application that goes to the Utah
public Service Commission.
And then to the right, you can see kind of our status
with green, meaning we're good, you know,
we've completed it fully or mostly blue,
meaning we're working toward completing it orange meaning
it's more conceptual and red meaning
it hasn't been started yet.
So slowly but surely we're turning more of these rows,
green and blue.
but.
Certainly not.
We're not there yet.
We do have a meeting scheduled with Rocky Mountain
Power this month to basically do around up of all
of the required items where we are with them
and what we need to do to complete them
with our hopeful application submission
deadline of the end of March.
OK here are some requests for board
members regarding the utility agreement.
So our current hope is that the program design committee can
distribute a near-final version of the utility agreement
to board members around February.
As soon as we do that, we would ask for your help
from the board members to please solicit
feedback from your municipal attorney on that draft.
We hope to.
Then the committee then hopes to bring in near-final version
of that utility agreement to the special board meeting that
is scheduled for February 27.
So we would not look to vote on the agreement at the February
27 meeting, more just to look at it together, have
our outside counsel explain it, entertain questions and so
on and so forth, so that then hopefully by our regular board
meeting on March 6th, the board would
be in a position to vote on whether
or not to adopt that utility agreement.
In the meantime, though, and I know this
is a bit awkward for some of our communities
because of how they schedule their council
or commission meetings.
But we ask that if you can please
do try to schedule time on your council or commission's
agenda to present the utility agreement for signature
during the month of March after March 6th,
and that so that we can stay on timeline with hopefully being
in a position to submit the program application
by the end of March.
We do hope to bring additional program design issues
to the board for consideration at either our regular meeting
on March 6th or the special meeting on March 27.
OK I was going to present this slide to you with a map.
But I'm not going to present this slide to you with the map.
So the maps have been very complicated.
It's one of those things that you
think is going to be simple.
And then the more you peel back the layers,
the more complicated you realize it is.
And so we I'm going to go through a little bit of why
we're suggesting going back to just a really simple map now,
just showing boundaries.
And here, here's the thinking on it.
So I've been doing some research on this issue of community
jurisdiction and getting good input
from our various communities, which is actually
kind of a nice well, it's a very nice thing about our agency,
right?
We all can get into our little bubbles
with how our community does things.
And then being in this larger agency with many communities,
you realize there's a bigger picture.
Right so anyway, through discovering that bigger picture
and then talking to our outside counsel for Russell,
we're now recommending that our maps only show the boundaries,
not jurisdictional areas, not state
and federal own federal land ownership.
And here's the thinking behind it.
So one is that it turns out that municipal jurisdiction
over state and federal lands is pretty complex.
So in talking through it with our.
With it's an understatement.
So in talking it through with Sara from Salt Lake City
attorney's office, it sounds like it can really vary
on an issue by issue basis.
So one example that we discussed was
that when it came to an issue of requiring sprinkler heads
for fire suppression in buildings,
a municipal entity had jurisdiction.
Salt Lake City could require those things in a federal
or a State Building.
However, not so much when it comes to levying taxes.
So you can see jurisdiction kind of changes
depending upon the issue area.
In the case of our program.
The question is not settled.
Right and it could be a complex legal.
A process to actually settle that question by law.
The other thing that was brought to me by Moab
was that sometimes the jurisdictional issue
can change based upon contractual arrangements.
So it could be that there's a piece of state owned land,
but there can be a contractual agreement that could expand
or restricted jurisdiction, a community's
jurisdiction over that land.
So for all these reasons, it's just a complicated issue.
And so we thought better not to say anything about jurisdiction
specifically and just really stick to the state
administrative code, which only says that we must include,
quote, maps depicting the geographic boundaries of
each such eligible community.
So I think we just keep it simple
and and as much as we can just show the boundaries.
And then when it comes to how electric accounts on state
and federal lands inside of our participating communities
will be handled.
The answer is we don't exactly know right now.
But what we've done to try to answer this question
is we've worked with two large electric customers who
are partially on federal and state or state land
and partially not.
And so they have gone to the trouble of getting a whole list
of their electric accounts.
They've provided them to pacificorp and basically said,
here's all of our accounts.
How what are our options from participating in this program?
And so we're still awaiting an answer on that.
But nevertheless, I don't think it's that question is one
we can answer with our maps.
So now I know that some communities have certain maps
that they want to include.
I think if they're open to having us generate
just a uniform map for everyone, same style,
just showing the border, that would be great.
If a community feels really strongly
they want to have their own map, I think that's fine also.
OK so that's maps.
Now let's move to opt out noticing costs.
So this is the one cost that was on our radar screen
that we did not budget for as part of the agency.
So this is what we hope will be the largest
cost that our individual communities would need
to appropriate toward this whole effort of the community
renewable energy program.
So state law requires that communities cover
the cost to mail two opt out notices to customers
within their boundaries.
Again, these are the last costs we
envision participating communities
will need to appropriate.
All future costs should be paid through program rates.
Chair Dugan, Thank you.
Sent a spreadsheet with updated noticing
costs plus a 5% margin.
And the reason we added a 5% margin
is because we don't want to budget too little
and then have a situation where there needs to be
a new appropriation process.
Now you'll notice probably that your opt out,
your communities opt out, noticing estimated cost
went up.
Salt Lake City is definitely did and it seemed to be mainly
for Salt Lake city's case.
We had more customers in 2022 than we did back in 2019,
so that's one reason our cost went up.
But the main reason was because the per
mailer cost increased by about 77% from the 2020 quote.
And I, I have asked Rocky Mountain Power
to why that has that been a across the board
uniform increase for them?
Or is there something specific about our mailer
that made it more susceptible to a cost increase?
And so they're looking into it and they
haven't gotten back to me yet.
So in any case, the yeah, it's a lot in terms of budgeting
purposes for cities and towns, please do
use this opt out notice spreadsheet
as a guide for budgeting for fiscal year
2024 for cities and towns that begins July 1st, 2023,
like Salt Lake City.
For counties some of you may have already
budgeted for fiscal year 2023.
That's the current calendar year.
But if you haven't or you can't for this fiscal year,
please definitely budget for fiscal year 2024,
which begins on January 1 for counties.
And please note that a community only needs to actually pay
for this noticing cost if it passes the final ordinance
to finalize its participation.
So if for whatever reason, our application doesn't get
approved by the Public Service Commission
or it gets approved with changes and nobody likes it
and the community doesn't pass the final ordinance,
those costs are never incurred.
It's just that we need to budget for them
now in case we get to that step.
Oh, Kirk, could I get a click, please?
Well oh, that's my last slide.
Thank you.
That's my last slide.
Happy to take any questions.
Thank you, Chris.
Any questions for christopher?
Christopher, I have a question.
This is Emily Quinton with Summit County.
I think well, I would just want to Thank you
for waiting through this maps issue,
because it sounds like it's gone on a lot longer
than you were anticipating.
I'm curious if we have a sense of.
When we will know exactly what the boundaries of the program
are, if that will come as a result of what you kind
of described as having a couple of large electric customers
ask Pacific core about their potential eligibility
or if this is something that would
be decided through the program application.
And just it now occurs to me that the answer on jurisdiction
is obviously then going to define how many of these opt
out notices are going out.
Right so yeah, just kind of curious
what you're anticipating.
It's a great question.
I don't know for sure.
I mean.
I would hope we would have this question answered by the time
that our program application were submitted.
I guess it's possible that it could linger on beyond that.
But yeah, I think we want we're going
to do everything we can to try to answer it
before the program application.
Thank you for the comment.
And questions.
Appreciate that.
See, no further questions for Christopher.
I want to just Thank the committee's
leads on their work and and passion for this program.
So I appreciate that very much.
I'm going to move on since we have Phil Russell,
our outside counsel here.
I'm going to move on to item 2.5 and then come back to item
2.4 for the public comments.
So we have our outside counsel here
to give us an update on the Public
Service Commission filing and the utility agreement.
And I'm going to turn the time over to Phil Russell
because I saw him join the meeting.
So, Phil, I'm a.
Giving you the time.
I'm here.
Thank you, Phil.
Yeah can you hear me OK?
Yes OK, great.
I actually if the board doesn't mind,
I actually would like to respond to Emily Clinton's question
about when we will know about the borders of the program.
And on some level, the borders of the program
will not be set definitively.
And finally, at the time of the commission ruling,
because the act the act contemplates
that municipalities might annex new areas
into it, which would, of course, change the program boundaries.
But for purposes of what are the program
boundaries at the time that the program is implemented?
And that is something that I think as we've all kind of
found out, those of us who've been kind
of track mapping and nobody's done more
work on that than Christopher.
It's a bit of a difficult question to answer.
What I anticipate is that we will submit
the maps in connection in response to the requirement
of the act and the commission rules,
and that we will go forward as though those
are the program boundaries until we are told otherwise.
And when I say until we were, we are told otherwise.
What I mean is either a customer who
is within those the boundaries of the maps
that we submit doesn't opt out and then challenges
the termination fee that is imposed on them
and then challenges on the ground
that they should never have been included in the program
in the first place.
Maybe that's when we get some sort
of resolution on this issue.
Or the inverse is that somebody who
is in one of those federal lands and thinks
that they should have been able to participate in a program.
But Rocky Mountain Power said no, then
we could have a conflict there.
Otherwise, I just frankly don't know that the commission
is going to address this.
We can raise the issue with the commission,
but it's going to say it's probably not the entity that
is the correct entity to be determining the relative power
of a municipality versus the state versus federal government
on those issues on this subject matter.
So so my guess is that this may actually
remain in flux for some period of time,
but I don't think it's going to affect
a great number of parties.
What I would suggest is that each individual community,
to the extent that there are large industrial or commercial
customers that are in question, we
should get those questions answered sooner rather
than later, because that's where it's going to affect
the program the most is if a commercial customer that wants
to participate but isn't noticed because Rocky Mountain Power
thinks they're not in or the inverse where they're
in the program, but then later determined
that they shouldn't have been.
That's when it's going to have the biggest
effect on the program.
So all of that is to say, I don't know that we're
going to get an answer on this soon or even
by the time the application felt as much as we might like
that answer to come then, but it may come over time,
and there are things we can do to address those questions
before they become a big problem for the program
and any questions about any of that.
Healing? none.
I will go to the issues that I've
been asked to address today, one of which
is the utility agreement.
Just as a reminder to all the community.
Renewable Energy Act requires the utility agreement
to address several things, one of which
is an agreement by the agency that it will
or by the communities excuse me, that they will make payment
to Rocky Mountain Power for third party expertise that will
be engaged by the Office of consumer services
and the division of public utilities.
We entered into an agreement to that effect back in July
in order to allow the division in the office
to go out and initiate their solicitation processes
for third party consultants during the run up to the filing
of the application.
Another requirement is that the utility
agreement address and payment for the notices
that Christopher was just talking about,
the utility agreement also has to address
if there are going to be any initially
identified replace assets.
Those are existing assets that we're
going to say we don't want to have providing service
to program participants.
And then finally, it has to the agreement
has to identify what we're going to do with termination
fees that are imposed on customers that don't initially
opt out, but opt out later, but that are not ultimately rolled
back into to program rates.
The idea is that the vast majority of those
will be rolled back in to program rates,
but there are certain circumstances in which
that might not be possible.
And so we need to address that in the utility agreement.
We sent a draft of the utility agreement
to Rocky Mountain Power back in October,
and then for various reasons, it took them a little while
to get it back to us.
We didn't get it back until mid-january.
As Christopher mentioned, we had a meeting
with the municipal attorneys last week.
Part of the reason for that meeting
was that many of the edits that we got back from Rocky Mountain
Power addressed an issue that I needed some input
from the municipal attorneys on, and that
is that those edits really kind of addressed
the nature of the agency itself and its relationship
with the communities.
What role does the agency play going forward?
Where, when and how can the agency stand in on behalf
of the communities?
And so I really needed some of their expertise
to address those issues.
And I thought we had a really good conversation about it.
And I'm awaiting some edits from the municipal attorneys
on the red line that I sort of circulated internally.
And so I anticipate having some comments back sometime
next week where I can then turn a draft back over
to Rocky Mountain Power and we can stay within that the sort
of schedule that Christopher outlined in providing edits
to the various communities.
And do we have any questions on the utility agreement
as it stands and what the process has been?
This is Kayla.
I was a little slow on the last topic.
The boundaries.
Could I just ask a question about that?
Oh, sure.
So if we have this federal properties within the boundary
and they might be interested in participating,
do you think it would be useful to initiate contact with them
about the program now or wait?
I would do that now to the extent that, you know,
you have somebody who wants to participate.
I would do that as soon as you can.
And the reason I say that is the sooner we can have folks who
were there some question raising the issue, I think the quicker
we can get an answer about whether they
are able to participate or not.
And as I understand it, this is well outside
of my area of expertise.
As I understand it, whether that customer is going
to be able to participate will turn
on a question of what effect the ordinance has on that property.
And that is an area that is well,
I say, well outside of my area of expertise,
but I think it can get on the right desk sooner if we raise
the issue now, rather than waiting until either they don't
get a notice or they do get a notice and want to participate
but are told they can't or something.
So so my recommendation to you and to anybody else that
knows of those types of customers
is let's address it with them now.
And then we can try to get that answer as to that customer
sooner rather than later.
Great Thank you.
Yeah, sure.
And just to this issue could come up
in front of the commission during the course
of the commission's docket on the application.
My strong suspicion is that the commission is not
going to want to weigh in on those issues with respect
to each and every instance of a community that
has federal property or state property.
Because, as Christopher was mentioning,
the rules are different within each community
and on each subject matter is just not
going to be something, in my view,
that the commission is going to want to address.
But to the extent that we can address it on a addressed
those specific instances when we know that they arise,
the sooner we can get answers with respect
to those customers.
So that would be my preference.
Any other questions about the boundaries,
or the utility agreement?
Looks like no.
I was also asked to appear and kind of discuss
what the commission proceedings will be like
once the application is filed.
It's something I'm happy to do.
There's some bit of guesswork into what
that schedule will be like.
I noticed we have one member of the Division of
public utilities on Bob Davis.
Hi, Bob.
As Bob will tell you, the schedules
for commission dockets are kind of a negotiated issue
at the outset of each docket, unless there is
some commission rule or statute that
requires a specific schedule.
So here's generally speaking, what I expect the response
to the application to look like in the commission proceedings
to look like once the application is filed,
I expect the commission to file a public notice,
giving notice to the general public
of the filing of the application and setting
a scheduling conference.
That's scheduling conference that notice
will go out within a couple of days of the filing.
The scheduling conference will probably
be set for a week or two later.
And the idea is that for all parties that
want to be associated with the docket,
for all parties that want to have input into the docket,
they should come to the scheduling conference
to address the schedule.
Typically what happens is we all generally
know who the parties are that will
be interested for our purposes.
We know it will be Rocky Mountain Power.
We know it will be the division in the office,
in each of the communities that intend to participate
or that are currently eligible communities and the agency.
There may be others that want to participate as well.
I expect there will be in the lead
up to that scheduling conference.
That will probably be an email discussion
about what the proper schedule will look like.
I anticipate that what that will do
is that the company probably will file testimony
in connection with this application,
testimony that supports commission
approval of the application.
Then what the schedule will do is identify deadlines
for other parties to file testimony in response
to the application and in response
to the company's testimony and support.
That deadline will be anywhere from a few weeks away
to a couple of months away, kind of depending on how much time
everybody feels like they need.
And then there's going to be two other rounds of testimony.
There will be rebuttal testimony and then rebuttal
testimony in each round response to the testimony in the round
before it.
And then the commission will set as part of the scheduling
conference, we'll set a hearing several months out, giving time
for all of that testimony to occur
and for parties to conduct discovery, et cetera.
One other item that I expect in to address in that scheduling
conference is sometimes in dockets before the commission,
we will have what are called technical conferences where
if there's an issue or a set of issues on which it would be
useful for everybody to just get together
in the same room, either virtually or in person
or some mix of the both with the folks from the commission,
with the commissioners themselves to address part
of an application we hold what's we schedule what's
called a technical conference.
It really is one of the few times
where you have the opportunity to address
the commission directly.
I anticipate that we will have one
or more technical conferences in this case.
Just that's just my view of how this thing is going to go
just because it is so new.
So I would anticipate that we have
one or two technical conferences where we
can go over to the commission.
My guess is there will be a phone line for people to call
in and the company or the communities
or a combination of the two will be
asked to give a presentation about some aspect
of the application.
There will be any of the stakeholders
that, who want to participate in the docket
and the commissioners, one or more of the commissioners
might attend that as well.
So there can be this sort of opportunity for everybody
to get on the same page.
I think it does facilitate better
questions during the docket.
And if people have questions, sometimes
it's more general questions.
You can get past that point in a technical conference
where people can start asking more
specific questions later on.
I think it's a really good way for us
to advance the ball on getting people to understand what
the application is all about and kind
of where disputes might arise.
So I would anticipate that those would be included
as part of the schedule.
Each of the communities, just to make this clear,
as is a part of the act and is a part of the.
Mission rules.
Each of the communities is automatically made a party
to the docket, and each of the communities
will be expected to respond to discovery requests
as part of that docket, if there are any discovery.
I imagine that most of those discovery requests are already
will be directed at the agency, and the agency will then
Dole them out to the parties.
But I guess that's up to the party who is seeking discovery.
In any event, I wanted to put that on everybody's radar
so that they're not surprised if during the course
of the commission proceedings there is some discovery
aimed at the communities.
My guess is that most of the discovery
will be aimed at the utility because they are
the party with most of the information and also the party
that is filing the application.
So that's my expectation.
But there may be some question about participation
in some community or something.
Then that's sort of what I expect.
I can't really give you a great kind
of expectation about what the schedule is going to look like.
Other than that, that's kind of how the process will go.
Obviously, on behalf of the communities,
we're going to be seeking a hearing
date, an end date to that proceeding as early as we can.
But we do want to make sure that we give all
of the other parties, the division, the office,
other stakeholders, enough time to adequately review the
application and respond to it.
So my guess is they're going to want a fair bit of time
to do that.
So so that's something that will work out
once the application is filed.
And with that, I'll open it up to any questions,
if folks have any, about the commission process
or if anybody has thought of questions about the utility
agreement in the interim.
Thank you very much, Phil, for that.
Briefing on matter, Kaitlyn.
Thank you.
So there's a public hearing as well, right,
when just anyone can comment.
Is that correct?
There often are public comment periods
either identified in the schedule
or there can be a public hearing.
Typically, we only see public hearings
where people can come in to the commission
and make some statement.
Those are something we often see in rape cases.
We we could set one here.
If there's an interest in having the public come in and address
the commission directly, rather than through representatives
of the communities or the agency or whomever,
we could ask the commission to include a public hearing.
I don't know that the commission would on its own
set one in this proceeding.
If there's an interest in having that, I'm sure we could ask.
OK my concern that led to the question
was that I was more interested in whether or not
the agency and our representatives
would be prepared to respond to public input
if it was negative.
So if there's not a public hearing component,
I'd be inclined to think that was for the best.
Well, as because the communities each individually in the agency
will be parties, we would have an opportunity
to respond to whatever is placed before the Commission.
In those public hearings.
For instance, each of those parties
could attend the public hearing and respond if there's
something that's kind of depending on the format,
but we'll be there throughout to address whatever issues are
raised, whether by a party to the proceeding
or by the general public.
As I said, kind of going back, unless there's
some request for a public hearing
or some desire by the commission to hear
directly from the public on this,
I don't expect there to be one.
There always is in connection with rate cases.
I don't know whether that's a statutory rule
or whether it's just practice that the commission has
adopted.
But there's always some sort of public hearing for those,
but very rarely for any other type of docket.
OK Thank you.
Yep I have a question.
This is Emily Quinton.
Phil, you just described, I think obviously
a written components like the application and the testimony
that gets filed and then a couple
of conferences or meetings, the schedule conference
and the technical conference are all
of these both written and meetings in the public realm.
Yes OK.
Thank you.
Yeah so so just to expound on that a little bit,
all of those written filings so that I
identified several deadlines for testimony
in a commission proceeding.
The witnesses who intend to testify at the hearing
will pre file written testimony with the commission,
and then at the hearing they adopt all of that testimony.
It shortens the hearing pretty considerably versus everybody
going and saying all that stuff on the record.
But it also gives an opportunity for folks
to kind of prepare cross-examination questions,
which is usually what you get at a commission hearing.
The witness who has written direct in rebuttal and rebuttal
testimony will get up, adopt all that testimony,
and then they'll be subject to cross-examination or questions
by the commissioners.
All of that is are open to the public.
The commission docket here will be open to the public
and viewable.
They've got a the commission's website will attach all
of the documents that are filed in the case other
than those that are marked as confidential.
So if there are documents or testimony that are identified
as being confidential, those will not
be available to the public if there
is a portion of the hearing or a technical conference
that relies on or discusses that confidential information that
will be closed to the public.
But otherwise, everything here will
be open to the public, which you can go to the commission
website to get or if it's at the hearing
or a technical conference, you can dial in
or I think even the technical conferences
and definitely the hearing there's
the commission has a YouTube channel
where you can just stream it online as it's going on.
One more question, family.
I have another question that's also just kind of a request.
I remember that when the program design committee formed almost
a year and a half ago, there was definitely a period of time
where we just needed to get familiar with the terminology
in this space.
And it feels to me like as we gear up for the program
application to get submitted and then
be in the Public Service Commission process,
there's a new set of terminology.
So I guess my question is, if folks know
of any existing resources guides,
I know, you know, even when you're
on the Utah legislature site, you can find
some definitions of key terms.
If there's something like that exists
for the Utah public service commission, that'd be great.
I also will note that I know there's
a national organization, the regulatory assistance project,
who aims to sort of teach folks about these various processes
that might have some resources.
So I'll poke around that website, too,
but I know a lot of this is new to me and I'm not the only one.
So to the extent that we can share some resources,
that'd be much appreciated.
Thanks Thank you, Emily.
Any other questions for phil?
All right.
Appreciate that very much, Phil.
Thank you very much.
Thank you all.
K board will be moving on to item number
2.4, which is public comment period.
And our procedure and our policy on this
is that the purpose of the public comment
is to allow citizens to address items on the agenda.
Citizens can address the board with a written statement,
or they can come into in person or online,
and they're allowed 2 minutes to address the board.
At the conclusion of that address, we can make a take,
have an action, taken action to provide them an answer or that
or direct them to the appropriate resources for that.
And this applies to all public hearings.
So if you do want to make a comment,
you can give you two minutes to make a comment,
but you can also write a comment to myself or the agency,
and that will be more than happy to address those comments.
So is there anybody in person or online
that would like to make a public comment at this time?
If you're online, just go ahead and just click your mic,
state your name and make the comment.
I see no public comments and no public comments in person here.
So we'll be moving on to item number 2.6 in a board comments.
I just have one comment.
So Thank you very much, Phil, on your work there.
I appreciate that very much.
Committee Leeds, Thank you very much for that.
Samantha has got an action for all of us
to submit our low income plan or approve that.
I appreciate that.
Get on the calendar for your committees, your councils
and in March so we can keep this ball rolling
and get to the application by the end of March.
We have no clothes, vitamins.
So I will look for a motion to adjourn.
So moved.
I suck at the motion of motion from Councilmember Jackson
and second from Councilmember Quinn.
All in favor.
Say, I, I, I, I. I'm almost done.
We are adjourned.
Thank you.