001e good evening everyone it's currently 603 and my name is Claire McKenna I'm the chair of the in aror energy commission and as chair and calling this meeting to order I'm participating today from an Arbor Michigan uh welcome to the March installment of the uh 2024 electronic meeting of the energy commission we'll conduct this meeting uh like inperson meetings so Commissioners during roll call please indicate your location and please remain on camera just as you would during in-person meetings and please mute as well public comment will be via telephone only tonight to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call one of the following to toll-free numbers 87 7 853 5247 orle 8788 0099 or enter the meeting ID number 956 8718 7876 on your phone this information is also available on the
002published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 and AT&T channel 99 and online of course at a2gov.org /watch CN Joe would you please read us the land acknowledgement yep and just letting you all know I'm calling in I'm at a conference in Rochester Minnesota I have semi- spotty Wi-Fi and there is entirely possible there's background noise so apologies for any technical difficulties or for that um for the land acknowledgement I acknowledge that the land the city of an arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of anash shab including Odawa oju and badmi and W peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous
003peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thanks so much Joe and can you please uh call the rooll yep like I said I'm uh just state where you were at as you were calling in um commissioner berwitz president from my home in an arbor council member Briggs here in an arbor commissioner koven Garcia present from Ann arber commissioner Hans see in um Vice chair harp president from my home in an arbor uh commissioner 11 here uh Anan Harbor chair McKenna resident Harbor commissioner mki here
004from my home in an Harbor uh commissioner overpeck not seeing as mentioned council member de will be unable to make it and mentioned commissioner cender will be a little late and commissioner Smith will also be on aable to make it tonight um commissioner zlan my con is kind of spotty gotta see you didn't here though so all right uh Cher you got a quum back to you okay thanks so we'll move to approval of the agenda tonight uh do I have a motion to approve the agenda as posted Vice chair harp and second and commissioner mki thank you um please raise your hand if you want to propose any changes on tonight we have some nice uh discussion points lined up for us okay seeing No Hands raised all those in favor of approving proving
005the agenda is posted U please raise your hand and say I I okay seeing um a unanimous vote the agenda is approved and so we'll move to approval of the minutes uh is there a motion to approve the minutes as posted a second Vice chair harp and um commissioner kovin Garcia thank you so much um any changes tonight uh proposed changes to the minutes on flick okay seeing No Hands raised all those in favor of approving the minutes tonight is posted um please raise your hand and say I I I okay and another unanimous outcome and so the minutes are approved tonight that means we will advance to public input um this is the first opportunity for the public to speak for up to three minutes if you're watching on CTN as mentioned earlier please
006call 78899 or 87 7 853 5247 with the meeting ID 956 8718 7876 this m information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and the video feed on CTN um City staff will select callers that have raised their hand and using the last three digits of your phone number to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star n on your phone and you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and when you're doing so please move to a quiet area and mute any background sounds and please again state your name and address at the beginning of your comments Joe do we have anyone on the line do um we're gonna have caller ending in 228 hello can you hear me yes we can awesome
007hi everyone my name is Greg Woodring I'm the president of an arbor for Public Power and I live at 1012 West Cross I'm just calling in to say that we were very excited to see last night that the uh proposed budget for 2024 includes uh a million dollars side for a phase two feasibility study uh we and an arbor for Public Power uh fully support what we interpret to be the intention behind the uh staff recommendations which is to move forward with the seu uh and then continue to pursue the meu in parallel uh the seu is fantastic means for us to kickart a municipal utility with a us to expand the amount of solar IND distribute generation within the city of Ann Arbor while we are going through the process of acquiring DTS assets
008and so we're very supportive of this um path forward and we hope that we can uh be a asset to the city in uh bringing this Vision to fruition and we hope that uh as we move forward we'll go forward with that vision in mind that well we are continue to investigate uh municipalization and going through the various hurdles of it that will to try to pursue uh 100% Renewable Power through the seu uh as quickly as we can so thank you very much um and I look forward to a good discussion tonight thank you thank you um we also have caller ending in 245 hello can you hear me yes we can uh hello my name is Kathleen Murphy and I live at 3:15 Linda Vista Street in an arbor and I'm um speaking
009tonight as did Greg wooding for an arbor for Public Power which is Seeking a municipal electric utility or an meu to replace DTE and um we want to see the seu and the meu the sustainable energy utility and the municipal electric utility move forward in parallel and that means that um we like the language in the resolution supporting the advancement of the anab sustainable energy utility could uh to be inclusive of a mun or M Municipal electric utility in the future um so thus I'm asking that the language be included in the resolution you're putting forward tonight thank you very much thank you um I have no further callers okay thanks so now we'll move to a discussion of uh the resolution that was pointed to in um the last couple of notices from the
010public that we had um I think we'll we'll bring Missy up to uh to discuss staff recommendations and um I'd love to hear Missy thanks for joining us I'm so excited to hear what you have to say tonight and I know that will be fruitful discussion so go ahead and take the floor thanks chair McKenna and thanks everyone for allowing me to join you tonight uh little frazzled left my computer at the office so like running in hot uh apologies and I also want to do a special thanks to commissioner mki because he sent some great questions in advance which helps me also think about framing so thanks so much for that so what we uh wanted to bring forward for you today was one to make sure that you knew about staff's recommendations that
011came out of our energy options report and I'm happy to go back uh a little bit and talk about what that was how we got there where we are today just to kind of level set and ground because I recognize not everyone is living this every minute of the day okay and then uh one of the recommendations we're asking for the energy commission to consider a resolution in support of if you indeed as a body are in support of so we could bring that forward to city council for their consideration good to keep going chair McKenna okay yeah go ahead excellent uh so as folks probably recollect we have a very ambitious goal of 100% renewable electricity powering our entire community community and that is part of a20 it's part of our uh 2030 plan
012and strategy but it also was actually adopted by Council separately so it's even more kind of reinforced as a goal that we're aspiring towards and so in the Arc of my time at the city we've done many analyses to figure out how exactly does that look that's that's pretty that's pretty aggressive and uh staff had come up with some recommendations and some Pathways and it became time to also bring in some industry experts to help us chart path for what that could look like evaluating multiple different options so that report was commissioned oh gosh I don't have a sense of time anymore after the pandemic but two years ago uh about and uh they it was Five Lakes Energy with a team of folks won that award and last fall they shared a draft report
013with us looking at multiple different options and Pathways now they really were only focusing on that one goal 100% renewable energy right that that is the charge that we have from city council right now that is the goal and objective now there are pros and cons of lots of different approaches that we could consider so they they looked at the different options through the lens of our energy criteria and princip principles which this body helped adopt and and move forward to city council for formal city-wide adoption so they evaluated lots of different Pathways they did some economic analyses of those Pathways and in the end they came out with a a series of analyses and I would say soft recommendations uh their job wasn't necessarily to to recommend a path forward but it was to
014inform our path forward uh just a few weeks ago they finalized their recommendations and I want to be transparent nothing substantive in the report changed it was formatting I caught some typos but they needed to get it Final in design so if you go to a website today you're going to see the final version of that report the analysis is not different what is though is when we wrote Our RFP we asked to understand Pathways to achieve 100% renewable electricity and we had some sub questions and their report didn't answer all of the sub questions things like the best way to do demand management programs or estimates for things like undergrounding and so when they were finalizing the report I had them do an addendum to make sure they hit all of the requirements of
015the RFP that's also on the website that's a shorter document where you can take a look a part of that analysis was also costing out what a phase 2 study would look like what they thought a reliability study would look like if we were to investigate in that and a best guess estimate of what legal costs would look like if we were to pursue formal municipalization so you'll see numbers in there uh it is also where the million dollars estimate came from about the cost of the study because we had them do industry research on what it would actually take to do a phase two study which is as you heard the callers talk about uh this kind of interest and and the administrator is considering it is not in the budget yet because his
016budget isn't done but he is like that is in the ecosystem system of what's being considered a phase two is really an appraisal right it's an offer that you have to be prepared to make to buy set assets so it's a very very specific type of assessment that has to happen so all of this is to say this report comes out and the report uh finds that there may be many reasons to pursue formal municipalization and a taking through conation of DT's assets but it is unlikely to hit our 2030 goal and given that doesn't mean you close that door but means if your 2030 goal is the only policy objective you have which it is you need to lean into other strategies immediately and those other strategies don't close again future options you want
017to leave doors open but if if that's what you're aiming for you got to act now and so they recommend that we uh lean into the sustainable energy utility they recommend that we pursue a virtual power purchase agreement possibly some wrecks and we start as soon as possible because we anything that we do to be new and additional and it takes time right to site to build to construct to bring to Market so we got that report in late fall and then staff obviously uh were processing we then got the models about two months later so just want to pause for a second let you know we all got the report at the same time you got the report I got it about 24 hours before you at the report but we we got that
018simultaneously the models though took much longer and they're very complex and so it took us a lot of time to walk through those models to be trained on them to understand the assumptions in those models and they were even uh complex enough y'all I may not be the smartest person in the entire world but I don't run a utility either and I needed help right to to figure out exactly how valid some of the assumptions were like the cost of resilience the value of resilience on the system what are other utilities doing right now to price a battery how are they using it for demand management purposes these are really important industry defining questions that are happening right now and people are seeking answer on so Brian steglitz and I made the decision to hire
019a third party that actually works with utilities doing ratemaking to test the model and they are actively doing that right now we got some preliminary uh discussions with them last week showing they they think the model is sound there's some tweaking that's going to happen the reason I'm sharing that is because the model for this sustainable energy utility in particular was an economic model because we knew the technology was possible right but we needed to know that the economics worked and what we have found out from all of these analyses and again we'll share the final report from strategen is the firm that we're working with as soon as we get it about the like an external validation of this model is not going to surprise any of you solar works solar will come in
020cheaper per unit of production than what people pay today that makes complete and total sense because solar has a Payback right it it's it if you don't have solar we talk about it might take 11 years or 13 years but the asset is warrantied for 25 however at the scale we'd be talking about we're talking about a 30-year asset with the maintenance that we'd be doing in the performance so that works what we're trying to understand is what's the price of a battery and how do you provide the holistic value associated with that so that's what we're trying to uncover right now and that's where I can't tell you that it inherently is cheaper than what you pay today because what you pay today doesn't have resilience associated with it right so there's an additional
021price and that's what we're trying to unpack at the moment so this is more than you probably wanted and I'm happy to go into as much depth as folks are interested the point of this is after doing all of these analyses Brian and I sat down with a group of stakeholders and we we thought through what does this mean what are we going to recommend right we need to take action somewhere and what do we see as the space and so what you've got before you in your packet is a memo that we prepared for Milton and co-developed with him that he then sent to city council for their consideration just as kind of an FYI and that memo explicitly recommends three actions it recommends that we put the sustainable energy utility forward to a
022vote of the people and I'm going to pause I don't actually think nor does anyone think that's required but we want to do it and here's a few reasons why one I think it's good practice this is a big policy decision and we should know that the public wants us to move that forward at least From staff's perspective number two if someone hated this perhaps a utility they will try to Sue and if you have the vote of the people it's clearly allowed so I still think we'd win I'm not a lawyer I can tell you many people everyone thinks that we would win but it could slow it down and we don't want to go slow we don't have time to go slow so get the work done on the front end so you
023can go fast right the third it gives us a chance to do really deep education and Outreach to understand what appetite for the SE looks like let me remind you the proposed sustainable energy utility is optional right you don't have to be a participant in it so it's an optin that renewable generation system that is why staff are recommending Bring It Forward give us the time to really engage stakeholders and understand it also will help us with a a roll out if we know we have high demand and we're talking about unveiling in the first year 50 megawatts that's a really different project than five megawatts right it helps us figure out how to price it how to scale it up the kind of contracts we need to have so we're recommending one we go
024to a vote of the people we are recommending continuing to pursue grant funding to help with the second phase of the seu which is the interconnectivity right neighbors connected to the same system sharing power uh that is not what we've modeled so far in detail and the analyses I've told you about so we continue to work with we we have a team uh we actually met today folks like Schneider Electric University of Michigan we've got peacon Street we've got really great folks who are helping us design the system to grow to what we we know as phase two it's not really micro grids but that's the term people are most familiar with uh a micro grid feeds back to the grid these wouldn't and and so it's we haven't come up with a cute name
025if anyone has a cute name please let us know we're trying to figure out how we Define this distinctly so reviewers aren't confused so that's uh proposal number two and then proposal three is that we actually put out an RFP to start getting bids to build brand new Renewables in Michigan that would be for the city of an arbor and we would contract through the mechanism that we have which is a virtual power purchase agreement uh does not preclude eventually being a power purchase agreement if we do become an meu but it is what we can only legally do today in that vehicle those are our formal recommendations and in a minute uh you'll see a resolution before you to consider the first which is supporting going to a vote of the people to to
026see if there is appetite for the seu in addition we do present other considerations for Council I want to sort of go with reiterating something I've said a few times already the only policy direction that we have is 100% renewable energy by 2030 right if Council finds other reasons and objectives to pursue traditional municipalization then we recommend steps to take that but because we do not believe formal municipalization is possible with 100% renewable energy by 2030 we are not providing a recommendation on it right so we are staying silent on that particular element again because the policy objectiv staff have been asked to implement is 100% renewable electric by great so if you read this memo in the other considerations you will see the ask of if we decide for other reasons many other reasons
027that we want to pursue municipalization we say we think they need to be staggered I think it would be very confusing to go to a vote of the people on two utilities right so let's start with an optional supplemental let's get it and see if there's even appetite for that and if there is we can be doing a phase two study and we can be talking about kind of rolling and growing that into something else like a full municipalization effort and we walk through kind of other steps there so I'm going to stop because I see John's hand and I see blank faces on the screen which means you're confused so John thank you process-wise is it okay that uh I I ask a question right now yeah let's let's move into it at least
028for my benefit and I forgotten admittedly what uh resolution was it that Council passed explicitly calling for 100% renewable energy by 2030 the 82 plan see if I can find it in the background John pardon me I'll see if I can find it in the background because the a20 plan um as was mentioned in my memo assumes CCA and it would and and the Assumption on the timeline is that 100% renewable energy would be achieved through CCA by 20 the end of 2027 and so I know that there's the guidelines and principles that were passed was it in that resolution or was there a separate other resolution calling for 100% renewable energy by 2030 yeah let me see if I can pull it up but let me take you you opened a lot of really
029good points for clarification so I I it may take me a minute I may have to come back because I'll do that behind the scenes a20 the the seven strategies of a20 one of them is powering the entire Community with 100% renewable energy and if you've heard me talk about that the strategies are are like the pillars they're the sort of unmovable parts of the plan whereas the actions change and evolve so one it's clearly an a20 and it been adopted as formal policy in that space and I'll see the other one in a second the other thing I wanted to name is U thank you for naming CCA Community solar landfill solar those are projects that are still in a20 and we're still working on right so just because we would pursue a sustainable
030energy utility uh or if we pursue formal municipalization does not mean we're not doing those other things uh I've I've talked about this before one of the concerns I have around traditional municipalization is transferability to other places if we do CCA and we get that passed it's it's fixed for the state right I'm not going to let that go but we also are very very serious in our office about hitting our 2030 goals so that means we have contingencies like we're working on four or five things which some of them won't work right we're going to lose some of those we may have some duplication or options for how we achieve if we're successful in a few of the other irons but I just wanted to reiterate CCA isn't dead we've got a draft of
031the legislation we're just waiting on the Strategic moment for one of our representatives to introduce it I I applaud that approach so that's the ramble kind of backstory I do want to name a question I saw from commissioner mki was uh in November as you probably know I hope you know the state the governor signed very aggressive energy legislation right so now our utilities are required to hit 50% Renewables in the electric grid by 2030 and 100% by 2040 that is wonderful however five lakes contract was done so the report does not mirror that finding what we did do is a a kind of quick post Hawk uh analysis with them and an seu is still going to be relevant and and I just wanted to name for many reasons one we still have a
032gap that has to get closed so if we were just thinking about renewable energy that that's an important play also we know from surveying that we did that the pain points for our residents are reliability and resilience and so even getting 100% Renewables onto the big Electric System isn't going to solve for reliability and resilience whereas the seu can actually help solve for that in in our local community so I I think it's it's a great moment to be doing this work and you're right like we may actually overproduce Renewables but I would rather be on that side and leaning into the resilience reliability function as opposed to on the the back side I want to share a couple of things um I totally agree with that I actually think that the state legislation makes
033the seu more powerful I mean certainly like so much more can be done if the Gap is smaller in that way um meaning you know just half of the energy by 2030 and also being in a position to have invested at this point um in the kind of infrastructure which is quite Cutting Edge I wanted to ask Miss ask a question about um you know FK order 2222 and like and just talk a little bit about framing some of the um federal regulations that will be coming out that will kind of enable this um but I also just wanted to share a point of process um for the commission and for folks listening so this is going to be in terms of the resolution and what we're considering here here today um this will be
034our first review of it so you know we're hearing about it everyone received it in advance of course but you know it's it's nice to have the discussion here together um so any questions that you may not get answered tonight um we can continue in contact with OSI and um and and and uh talk more about it and and kind of get those questions answered and we'll have another review on on our next meeting on 49 um and at that point we can um make a decision on on whether or not to move it forward that's kind of where we stand in the discussion today and so for folks who are um you know have tons of questions um and you know can't even formulate them or something like that um just just know rest
035assured that there's um more time to review this um I'm going to ask a couple of questions and then we can keep things going yeah so um Missy can you share a little bit about um I guess I'll I'll tie it to this uh kind of concept of interconnectivity that you mentioned for the phase two plan of the seu the idea that it's not exactly a micro grid but um there are going to be uh let's say um resources like solar and batteries um you know within people's homes that can be connected to each other of course that has implications like good implications for resiliency um my question is uh how are you thinking about um with your Consultants kind of like planning for the future like how are some of these future uh Federal
036Regulations um that um govern like wholesale sales of electricity like will be created through this um this plan um you know maybe leaving out some of the like overly technical things just like how are you conceiving of thinking about um future planning knowing that this space is so Cutting Edge and that um really in a lot of ways I I see this as anticipating um the implementation of some upcoming um big news um kind of for um for distributed energy resources or you know renewable energy resources in this country so just share a little bit about that yeah thanks for the question I think it's worthwhile to kind of reframe that a sustainable energy utility would be supplemental which means it's not the load serving entity and by not being the load serving entity we
037are not tied barred to the federal regulations that are coming out that you're referencing and so that's actually one of the benefits uh in terms of the design of the seu now it could grow and if it did grow into full you know traditional municipalization through condemnation it would it would have to be in compliance right now though the design elements that that's from an seu perspective of deploying deer and storage and let me also say it's not just those two we would want authorization to do geothermal for heating and cooling explicit if we're going to go to a vote of the people we're going to ask for everything the utility could possibly do so we're going to ask for electric uh we're going to ask for heating and cooling through uh thermal and all
038of this has to be you know carbon neutral sources we're going to ask for authorization to do efficiency work so we can offer those kinds of programs as well as onv financing so we sidestep the question but if you want to tell everyone what it is the regulations that's great I know enough about them to mess it up yeah yeah um I mean I'm also a student of this um but I'll say that uh it's like H I'm actually in a energy Law class right now so just imagine me over at the law school like what am I doing here um everyone knows I'm not a lawyer but but um yeah so Fork order 2222 was just passed recently um and uh F who's going to remember what it stands for federal ener electricity regul
039Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Energy Regulatory committee okay so they make the rules for how the utilities um operate and ultimately um uh kind of operate wholesale sales of electricity and especially Interstate sales of electricity and um so this new order allows for U the aggregation or like the packaging right like combining multiple smaller resources of the kinds of um distributed energy resources like solar and batteries that we're talking about here um and while normally um these kinds of resources let's say would come down to the level of someone with solar on their house right now the kind of rules that that govern that are ultimately our utilities rules so and that that's governed by the state so the the utility or the state sets the rules and the and the utility has to um this
040is the Michigan Public Service Commission can can say h how much of a portion of um the overall load is allowed to be accommodated with with solar and so that actually limits what individual homeowners let's say can do uh with solar but if we think about what Fork order 2222 does it allows for the wholesale for the bundling of these distributed resources to onto the wholesale Market market so it actually Sid steps the specific state laws which a lot of folks think actually limit the amount of of solar we can have in our homes and businesses um and so it's really promising in the sense that um you know if you could have larger entities and they could be these um you know let's say solar companies or developers that that are kind of you
041guys are proposing to perhaps work with um and uh and and you know an arbor itself could could package these resources all across the city and and sell them into the wholesale Market um with should actually be a really great way to um you know uh extend the uh the buildability of them like it makes give makes them have a better price overall so it kind of lower lowers the cost of energy sorry I'm rambling a little bit but I'm trying to piece it all together um so it lowers the cost of these of these systems across the board which is really uh going to be a benefit to an arbor um but the kind of catch right now is that Michigan um the state of Michigan doesn't have to comply quite yet so it's
042kind of like a five-year timeline let's say before the state of Michigan would have to comply with this uh Federal rule um so there's this kind of gray area where you know the rules have to be written for how that kind of um operation is going to work and so um I I was kind of seeing like this this interconnectivity in phase two as like a way to kind of um work with the kind of future promise of those coming regulations so that that's what I had in mind um sorry if I've just broken my own rules of jargoning I always try to say let's not jargon too much but I would offer that as we've excuse me most of our fundraising as I mentioned is focused on phase two because phase one works without
043it and and honestly the IRA the direct pay provision meaning governments are now eligible for the 30% rebate is gamechanging for these kinds of Economics right it it just helps that pencil even more but we have been in conversations with folks like the regional transmission entity for phase two to say can we Leap Frog and just feed into the transmission system now it's unlikely that we would aggregate at a high enough level to really be competitive in that space but with the FK order that's where that has come into beginning conversations to think about let me be clear think about we're not yet there like having those we're starting that even sounds way too more robust we know the people to talk to and we've had coffee with them so that's about as far as
044we've got cool yeah commiss mki uh another question read relateded to that does that then enable an aror potentially to Sid step what we would be able to do under CCA be because we be allowed to aggregate TBD well only for the utility I think what because otherwise individuals would have to contribute I need to investigate more I like the way that you're thinking though and becoming a utility and an seu is a municipal utility gives us different Vantage in the landscape than if we tried to do it individual residents kind of bidding into the system as a single ENT I need to investigate a generally I agree I I think that that there is uh the opportunity for more leeway from what again I consider a pretty restrictive State policy on what's allowed um
045for distributed solar yeah commissioner Zan yeah I want to say uh thank you Missy and the rest of staff for working on this um I did want to clarify a little bit the timeline you were talking about for pursuing an seu and a potential phase two feasibility study for municipalization is could you clarify the timeline on that are we like staggering are we trying to do like the seu first and then phase two study or can we do a phase two study while pursuing an seu yeah thanks for the question so let's focus on one and then we'll add the other one in because I think right now we we need to pull them apart it's very confusing uh to to talk about that you you all might be capable of holding that but my
046neighbor isn't right like this is this is a lot to to think through so on the seu side our recommendation is to go to a vote of the people in November because it's a presidential year because we'll have high turnout because we'll have greater representation and so that's the the resolution that's before you today to do that if it's authorized we we go right instantly uh to the point where I have reserved in my budget a staff position that I'm not going to fill so that if the voters do vote for this I can put it towards having someone come in and help support the seu implementation right and if it fails then I get my staff person back and we move on right but I think I want I want to make sure we
047could support it if it goes in terms of the municipalization study as you saw in the memo staff are saying agnostic on that particular topic given the policy agenda so uh what needs to happen is we have to identify funding and that is the conversation that's happening right now as the administrator is working on his budget and you heard someone recommend or mentioned last night there was a a council work session in which more more ideas were presented than are fundable right so the administrator has to take all of that and Council has to kind of weigh in and figure out what EX exactly is going to move forward that will be presented the administrator's budget in the second meeting in April at that point that's his recommendation of what he he thinks we should
048be investing in Council will then consider that and they will vot vote in in May to adopt the budget so I can't do anything until there's money to do a thing right so I have to wait for the next several months and see what happens if funding is allocated and committed for the phase two we would launch I would do an RFP so I wouldn't wait for an seu I would go with a phase two but it's a different process right because it requires funding upfront to do a study versus going to a vote of the people they're they're just they're different sequencing did so the answer is yes they can happen together but not today right like I need I need a time period to get authorization yeah that makes sense thank you yeah
049and also candidly a phase to study will take time it will take time right like and you want it to uh I I mentioned this before but I'm just going to lean into it a phase two study is truly about costing right and if you have read the financial report or the the technical analysis from Five Lakes you'll understand that there are two different variables that go into the price of our system a phase two study can only help answer one of them and that is the value of the assets right so think poles wires substations Transformers uh we actually recommend not buying some of the equipment because it serves more than just the city of an arbor and so if we bought it we'd have to buy a replacement for DTE why would I
050give them the new equipment we would buy the new equipment right and like keep it ourselves let them have the old equipment so we we'd have to get a refined and the the phase two would be a refinement of the value of those assets boots on the ground looking at everything right because that's what you say judge will pay for but that's only one piece the second piece is the value of the franchise what we're taking what they're they're losing by not being able to serve us anymore you will perhaps recollect our franchise has been ruled repeatedly by the courts as in perpetuity no one has ever litigated an imp perpetuity franchise some people will point to a case that that they didn't finish there is no judgment there is no idea what the cost
051of that franchise is we use different methodologies to give a range of what they could be but that will be uncertain the only way that number is defined is when the judge tells us what it is okay so I just want to be clear a phase two study is not going to come in and say the system is worth X it's going to say the system is worth X to Y with that uncertainty variable being the value of the franchise the value of the taking of those assets so I'm just naming everyone's going to be stupid frustrated when the study comes back out and it doesn't give us an actual number we're all going to be frustrated and I think that's really important and I need if this is where we lean in we need
052to name that we need to talk about that and make sure because otherwise candidly otherwise it looks like bad governance you spend a million dollars for a study that can't give you an actual number but it is giving us a number just for a portion of what we'd have to move forward with and then if uh after the study if it were deemed you had some um in the memo um we'd want to go to a vote of the people go to a right but if it were deemed to to lower cost it also says in the memo that is staff's recommendation not to if if what we find is it is almost impossible to have an meu and not have cheaper rates staff are not recommending at that point moving forward there could be
053other reasons again council could do it but we are not going to lean into energy poverty you know like I I just can't do that to to uh have folks pay more yes correct um but what I wanted to say there was uh once you have the value of the the physical infrastructure and the range for the taking at that point that combination of what you know and the uncertainty will be the cost that will have to be paid um to buy the system that's right which will then yeah still and so we would at that point the proposal from staff is if we get to that point and we see we see light right and we want want to go for whatever whatever the reason is it's more affordable it aligns with where the
054public wants to it doesn't matter we want to go to a vote of the people just like we want to go with the seu to make sure the public wants to pursue this right at that point because that's saying you agree to making an offer of X and starting the litig the litigation process that's our recommendation that's really really helpful I don't know if I've really heard it broken down quite like that before so thank you for doing that um does anyone else have questions yes AER harp thank you that this is great um and thank you for the presentation and the discussion um just thinking just as a small point in thinking about the resolution language itself I I it's it's an open question in my mind about whether or not it's useful to
055include the community um survey um results in that in that in some of one of the whereas Clauses for example in terms of um uh resilience and reliability in that as well um and cost which were all three identified as sort of some of the priorities um and secondly just I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what then the next steps or the process might be for um for bringing this to a vote and sort of what the ballot language how how you might get to the ballot language and sort of what those educ educational materials might consist of for example you just pointed out distinguishing between seu and meu is going to be a a piece of that and and a big piece as well so sort of clarifying those
056distinctions might be I'm just sort of wondering about how we get there yeah great question so the the process almost it is very likely that staff will bring a resolution to council to consider this right uh because it's a staff recommendation your guest is Charming and I love your guest uh so we will start working on ballot language that reflects some like a descriptor of what the seu is and the authorization what is it we need to be authorized to do right it's uh I'm I'm don't take these words because I need to we need to do the work but it's not just create it's own operate maintain right like there are very specific words when you're creating a utility that have to be very intentionally defined you have to follow the rules for ballot
057language and timing so that process uh will happen it will give authorization to do but not requirement to do right so it allows us to start it but doesn't mean we have to offer it to everyone right however we need to phase this that's an operational question that has to be determined so we would be working on the ballot language uh assuming that goes to council and well if they kill it they say no we're done right like that's I'm I'm moving on to read debates or whatever else is next in the list uh but if if it were to move forward I have already started thinking about what a Community Education campaign looks like as soon as it gets put forward and and passes Council if it does there's no activism there's no lobbying
058it is facts right and so my job becomes making sure people know the facts I would want everyone that's audacious but I would want 90% of the people walking into Vote or voting at home to have information about what this is so they can make an informed Choice whatever that choice is I just want informed voters so we would execute on a strategy we would develop a strategy and we would execute on that strategy to make sure voters had information about what this is and what this is not we would not I I mean I don't think there's any utility at at this moment in leaning into it's not an meu or it's this right because it could be many things like it's just what this is right this is a supplemental utility focused on
059providing 100% renewable energy and resilience features that is optional right an optin service are we authorized to create that and execute Renewable Energy Systems geothermal systems Etc something like that and we would be coming back to you all right with that strategy and asking for your help and getting the word out again very factual like this is what it is this is what it is not thank you all right other questions before we thank Missy for her [Music] time yeah commissioner resc you go ahead uh there's one other point in the memo that you brought up um but I don't know if it's going to be addressed in the resolution and in the activities over the next couple of months and that is um there's it's something to the effect that uh begin the process
060to enter into vppa to fill the Gap to allow the city to achieve the 100% renewable energy goals set by Council um would that be um covered in the resolution or in the ballot um language and um I have a immediate a follow-up question after you address that yeah it certainly wouldn't be in the ballot language because the ballot is only authorizing creation of of the utility it could be in the resolution though if if this body collectively said we want to lean into the three recommendations absolutely I picked the first because from our standpoint it's really time sensitive right that if we're going to go in November I need to start doing education yesterday and so knowing if this body supports that helps me do a work plan uh but if you also support
061the idea of putting an RFP out to get new Renewables and getting those bids I would certainly welcome it but it is it is distinct enough in my mind because the city would pay for it as opposed to the voters authorizing creation of the utility one is just like a contract mechanism that the city undertakes um the other the other point is I um I guess more a point than a question although you can address it respond to it as if it was a question um and that is uh in my memo that you mentioned earlier and I only copied uh um staff and um commissioner or chair McKenna and and uh Vice chair harp um and that was um the report the that um we've been all referencing um later in the report talks
062about the cost of vppa and wxs and I want to make sure that I understand it correctly um and not only me but others um and it gives three scenarios uh and the cost of those in Alone um could range between 10 and 15.5 million and my understanding is those don't go away in 2031 or two or three or whatever so they go on and there's no indication of what the cost of those might be and I also recognize that the Gap if you will that they're making up is um elastic call it that depending on um how um the the legislation is is implemented and how quickly the utilities meet the targets that are um met in those um um in the in in the legislation it also will depend to some degree on
063whether or not the city Meats Targets in the a20 plan so the one could be faster the other could be slower Etc um from from that point of view it seems to me I'm just speaking out loud now that everybody respond to it including you Missy is that it makes sense that we include something in the resolution about um um vppa about Rex about um um virtual power um reduction um what is it called um aggregation I guess it is um or agreements I it's it seems to me all of those really should be studied um because the cost implications are really significant and as you say this is not something that you just say okay we're going to do it and you buy them you know next week so um I'll just leave that
064for your comment and anybody else that wants to comment on that thanks I really appreciate that especially because our approach is not to close any door and so if the commission were to say uh as a body we support exploring all of these things and finding the best kind of most economical to round out that that actually would be delightful uh if that's something that you're collectively interested in the other thing we know is the best way to understand pricing is to put something out and actually get real projects the energy Market has I mean the swings in the last two years have been astronomical you know really low pricing to a Department of Commerce investigation and doubling of pricing we're now seeing things sort of fall but supply chain issues are still a problem
065with certain types of equipment labor has fundamentally changed in terms of the price of Labor and so it's just such a volatile Market Market that I think the way I viewed those numbers for five lakes were here's kind of an estimate you need to go to the market and see what it can build the other thing I would say is in another area of our work as you've heard us talk about before is we intervene in cases all the time and one of the things we were successful in in an intervention was getting agreement that if Ann Arbor wanted to DT would have to build 400 megawatts of Renewables in Michigan for us and I would want to see if competitive bid what I mean by that is I'd want to go and have the
066whole Marketplace bid and DT also bid but if DT was the Builder and we stayed and we didn't do full municipalization what I kind of love about that particular scenario if that's the future we go is I can phase it down and it rolls into their other portfolio right so it's an arbor until they get to the 50% match well I need less right and the seu is chipping away but they still need it so it goes into their IRP into their foundational generation right so we're sort of not only helping ourselves hit a goal we're helping the entire system transition to more Renewables in the fact that's the plus where we say DTE plus plus SCU plus vppa it's what what might be DTE do in terms of its plus right yeah it's a
067y'all if there was an easy way to do this it would have been done that's all I'll say that's cool commissioner 11 uh yeah thanks uh for bringing up this discussion um just kind of thinking out loud I don't have my thoughts fully formed on this but as as I understand it we're not required to do this vote is that right yeah that's right this was a point of of a lot of conversation amongst us we we see the benefit of a vote and because it's a really big policy decision I think From staff's perspective we want to make sure the public is is interested in it okay yeah and and I and I get that and I guess my concern is if we ultimately want to do another vote for full municipalization and even
068if we don't do that um there's been a lot of talk of full municipalization I'm concerned that we're going to I mean yes we're going to do Outreach we're going to explain what we're doing but I do have a lot of concerned that voters are going to go and they're not necessarily going to know what they're voting for that there might be confusion as to whether they say they want to maybe they think if we do this then we can't do F mization and I know that's not the case and we all know that you know we're gonna continue on two tracks I just I do have a concern that it's going to create confusion and may be counterproductive to do this vote um and and it is an optional thing we're not requiring anybody
069to get their power through the sciu I mean it is it's certainly a big investment and I just wonder if that's something that is better left for us to advise and Council to do a vote on then I mean day yeah still kind of you know going back and forth but anyway right and this body will have to decide I will tell you Steph are not going to change our recommendation that let's roleplay worst case scenario well it's not even wor a scenario that DT hates it we form it we don't go to vote of the people they don't like it they take us to court and now we're we're spending years just proving of course we could do this right you have a vote of the people it is clear you have authorization that's
070thrown out right so it doesn't stop us it doesn't delay us or slow the process right and from my advantage we got to go right like I I got to start implementing something and so if the public wants it let's run moreover if we do authorize a phase two study that is going to take time so we are not asking people I mean I hope to God we are not asking people to do two utilities on the same ballot that's that's a terrible scenario I think everything fails in that scenario right that's just confusing so our recommendation is you go this November ask for the seu and if the phase two stud is ongoing you let that play out and then we go to the voters with whatever comes out of it if it's you
071from staff's Advantage if it proves that it could be more economical take it to the voters then then you have actual utility that's already been started if it passes and we say we want to grow this into right like I think you can make a narrative that's pretty clean again to me a terrible scenario is you're trying to put two utilities on the ballot and people like I don't know what this is that scares me commissioner Ken Garcia do you have a question yes thank you what a great discussion um and um my I have two questions they're very targeted um and uh the first one is just following up on uh commissioner loven's question and your response Missy um uh it it I I'm clearly missed this but what's the assum there's an assumption
072here here that a popular vote accepting and and um uh affirming the creation of an seu somehow legally has it so that the utility cannot cannot counter it how does that work that's my first question okay you can clearly tell the lights went out at City Hall uh so I think your question was why that counters or gives authorization to a vote yeah so it is very well established in Michigan law over and over and over and over and over and up and down and sideways that a vote of the people authorizing creation of a utility is a that is all you need to create a utility right and so because this is a supplemental it's not a total taking we're we don't think it's needed right it's opt in we're not taking over but
073if someone came and said you can't do that a vote of the people well yes we can the Constitution it's been reaffirmed in the court of course we can the people told us we can you have no standing so it removes even if we would win it we would lose time in a fight if someone wanted to fight us and we don't want to lose time so our approach is do more on the front end to go faster on the back end okay all right that makes sense to me my other question um has to do with the vpppa and am I incorrect to assume that the amount of uh new renewable energy that would be uh you know um not before contracted but um um bid for is the amount to offset only the
074city's electric usage like the city's Municipal electric usage no it would be the whole community so it would be we would assume the fif this is where the fif the state policy really matters if they're going to hit 50% electric by 2030 and we assume that we're going to hit 20% through the the SE that means we're at 70% so we've got a 30% Delta so we would commission 30% for the whole Community whatever that is with a phase down as other things grow in the system so no it's not just for municipal operations we no Garcia we're ripping this Band-Aid we're ripping it how would that like how would that feed in I mean it would come in through D through our through the DTE Grid or how does that work good question so
075because it's a virtual power purchase agreement it goes into the grid wherever it exists right and so it just feeds in and the electrons go wherever they're demanded they don't get piped directly to an arbor uh they they just feed DT's Grid or whoever owns the Grid at that time and we get all of the credit for it though because it's all our generation it's just not necessarily flowing well nothing is flowing into City Hall at the moment uh but it's not flowing into necessarily our homes and businesses okay so it's basically like we're like earmarking the the city would be earmarking its consumption of electricity as being sourced through this that's right and it's not a wreck in that same standpoint because we created it right like it was built for us it is
076ours in that sense and if we ever did fully municipes then it becomes a power purchase agreement then it gets shipped to us although honestly it's the exact same mechanisms because it's not like the electrons just stay on the lines they go where they're needed right but it's when we become the load serving entity we get to claim that that that's part of our load that feeds into the system okay all right thank you that was it yeah just because we're geeking out on where the power where the generation would be um is it in would you propose to produce it in Michigan or in the myo the the regional transmission area I love this so I thought a lot about it and our energy criteria and principles help guide how we would site this
077so we would lean into Michigan if not economically viable you can uh bid into energy Justice communities right places where we'd actually be displacing a dirty fuel source with something that's better and creating good paying local jobs in that space so candidly I would entertain I would even entertain West Virginia if we couldn't hit the first few markers because West Virginia Is So Cal dependent that any new Renewables in there are displacing fossil generation versus Kansas has an astronomical amount of wind you know that's just not that's not the play we'd be making so I'd prefer in michig again but if we could do the criter the energy Criterion principles is how we'd evaluate proposals that come in but then it'll also be evaluated on costs because anyone that's going to be bidding is going
078to be bidding comp depending on how how much it cost them to produce but additionality is not optional right so someone could say like you could just kick X off the system and have all of this that's not that's not the play here right it has to be new and where can we get new that's cost effective and hits as many of the other criteria interesting I see I see okay fascinating we have to have a whole master class on that um if you need help with education let me know we need help with education so this is great uh commissioner mki real quick Missy there's probably half of the people on the commission that weren't around when we passed the principles and Criterion and may not be aware of them you know one one
079as you said is additionality um speed um there's six allog together three and three um can you remind uh Commissioners as well as those listening in what those are yes thank you for the question too and now you're GNA make me pull them up fast yeah okay so additionality is one of the non-optional elements that we have we've got reducing greenhouse gas emissions right that's obviously the framework and then grounded in equity and Justice are the three I think we those are the criteria the principles then then and the principles can be in ttention with each other right so that's part of the reason they're sort of in this other category cost effective right uh location with local and local sort of is a bubble that scales out right like as you go we've got
080speed yeah which matters scalable and transferable so whatever methodology we use we want others to use okay right that's right resilience ah okay good good so help remind me as well thanks and me too okay thank you I think we'll wrap it up there um so yeah we have so much food for thought and like I mentioned we will continue to discuss and uh revisit this again next month um soy sorry the lights turned out I know it was seven um 7 P p.m. on the dot that can happen um let's take a f minute break and then we'll come back and close out okay all right see you guys e all right so while we're waiting for everyone to come back Joe would you like to give us uh an update uh from staff
081again apologies if there's background noise I think there's music playing we can't yeah you're you're totally good Perfect all right um so yeah just just a couple is things um so one just let folks know because I know we talked about a couple times but uh we have an approved contract to Begin work with um stantech on geothermal advisory Services um for contexts for people who weren't um or haven't heard about this before this is going to include work to help um us and some of our partners here in Ann Arbor um first by answering questions regarding like the installation of geothermal um and just kind of being on you know on demand to help answer those questions as they come up for both us our partners um in the permitting process as well as
082conduct a feasibility study on uh District geothermal here in Ann Arbor uh pending the results of that broader feasibility study which we'll again just be kind of looking at overall where could this be possible um they'll they'll go from there and do more in-depth feasibility studies on up to three locations that are deemed viable from that so exciting stuff as we're moving forward and looking at um geothermal here in an arbor um additionally just a general is as always call for solar eyes uh which for those not familiar is our community bulk by solar program um for residents here in an arbor as well as Wasau County uh we have a couple groups that are currently running and a couple that are getting ready to start here in the next um month or so so
083if you are anyone you know is interested in learning more about solar and coming uh together to bulk purchase solar realizing significant Financial savings um feel free to have them contact me at jng a2gov.org or go to a2gov.org solar uh to learn more and join a group um additionally I know this is uh near and dear to many here um but heard the home energy reading disclosure uh has officially gone live as of today um our uh our city of an arbor home energy score assessors have been performing home energy scores uh I started uh last week on some of those that were getting prepared um as well as um continuing throughout this week and from here on out ongoing uh in support of this ordinance so really exciting to see that come to fruition
084and exciting to see all of U all the results that come with it um additionally a couple updates on things to be looking out for um another one that I know we've talked about previously and have um discussed a couple different iterations uh the home energy advisor which again some people might have previously remembered as uh called the um you know energy cge but called the home energy adviser will be launching on April 1st of 2024 so just um you know less than a month again that'll be a program where um people within um can reach out and learn more about um their energy Journey getting an energy assessment and learning how they can help um get on their path to zero to help decarbonize their home helping out with um you know Finding contractors
085getting bids evaluating bids all that kind of stuff as they go throughout their Journey um and lastly just to kind of Mark on your calendar uh be bringing back for our our third annual time uh the home electri home electrification Expo will be taking place on um Friday August 2nd from 5:00 to 8:00 pm at the farmers market um for those who haven't attended that in the past um basically it's a an opportunity for uh folks to come on out meet with contractors installers um across all different um aspects of the home electrification process to learn more get hands-on experience see what stuff looks like as well as just start um you know figuring out again how you can continue throughout your journey or get started on your journey and just get a better sense
086of how all that together so that's all for me fantastic Joe just one question on solar rise is there something like a a deadline or some kind of upcoming date that people should know about or should they just contact you or yep uh we we offer it on a rolling basis um so you know as like I said right now we have we have two scheduled that are coming up um so you know people can hop in there but um you know we're always um consistently adding new groups um as we go okay um so you know if if right now doesn't work for you or you know you you can always join in a group at a you know a later time doesn't mean or you know if you contact right now and be
087like I'm interested but then decide eh not right now you're still on the list you'll get notifications when new groups form um so always feel free to hop in at any point okay great all right so we're going to move to uh report from our working group if they do care to share there could also be no news would be fine I share Heart Mike you want to go ahead sure um so uh our uh work group on uh transitioning from gas buildings uh met in person um in early February uh let's see um our attendees were Larry Schmidt and Ken Garber um so it was a small crew just the four of us um but we had a nice conversation a lot of it centering around the city administrator's recommendations around uh incentives and
088um just kind of some feedback on that um potential ways to improve upon it um you know some questions folks had um and so in particular I think uh one of the next steps you know we were thinking is that maybe it would make it sense to have a conversation about that in this space at some point in the future um but didn't want to get ahead of the process um let's see there was some discussion about benchmarking as well um and you know where the the city stands on that um as kind of an opportunity to build upon as we think about you know electrifying or uh making requirements of buildings or anything of that nature um Vice chair harp uh any other thoughts stuff I'm missing stuff I got wrong no I think
089I mean I think that that about campur yeah the there was the question about the dashboard dashboard inv venturing of of of building and Commercial um uh energy consumption and also um I think it it served as sort of a first first cut to of also trying to identify a variety of of options that were available and and to try to start aligning them um and prioritizing them and having a sense of of what might be potentially put forward next also um as a as a draft say resolution for example so far that's where we're at though sorry yeah great that's that's great thanks for working on that um all right uh updates from the environmental commission commissioner msky can you share with us sure U maybe I'll address what was going to be the
090second Point first and that is the Environmental commission actually at the request of the two Council Liaisons asked uh were asked to weigh was asked to weigh in on the memo that was just um referenced the city administrator's um memo on beneficial electrification that was uh put out in January and that was considered in in the last meeting so I think it definitely would be appropriate for this commission to do so um as to what the timing is what we can probably what the best timing is we can probably get direction from our Council the aison I don't know if there's any um imminent action on that but the environmental uh commission was always already provided that memo and uh spent some time in the last meeting um reviewing that And discussing it um the
091other main issue that we covered in the last meeting was an update from staff on the status of the solid waste Resource Management plan this is a plan that the city puts out um covering five years um the last plan um was to replace a plan that expired at the end of 2017 um it wasn't approved until uh very early in 2020 and um it's running it ran until 20123 so that would 2018 to 2023 um and work has yet to begin on a new plan so we got an update on the status of all the actions basically there's a number of actions that have been implemented there's several that have yet to be worked on and implemented so staff's recommendation is to continue to work on those work on a new plan is unlikely
092to commence until next year um and the last process took almost two and a half years so it'll be interesting to see um how that goes forward um this is a recommendation to our Council the aison that they consider whether that's appropriate or not because we're starting to get um if you will snowballing delays and um since we know that uh circular economy and waste related issues have an impact on climate and energy issues um I have some concern that we're starting to see these delays but that was discussed those points were raised um so um at least now you know the the the council the aison for both both groups are aware of what the situation is and um if anybody wants more information on that you can check legistar or watch the video
093or contact me thank you great thanks for the okay we'll move to our update from Council council member breaks do you have anything to share tonight um I think the it was already referenced in public comment the the budget presentation um and I think that's just a big piece for for anybody interested um this is for folks just so you know this is the biannual um we have a biannual budget so this is the year where we typically don't make huge changes to the to the budget that would be next year and so um but there are a number of things underway um that we need to consider um so there's that um I appreciate um commissioner mki bringing up the um incentives uh memo I think that's something that I'll work with staff to
094have uh brought in the next meeting um there's definitely a desire to try to move um some recommendations forward um with a recogn recognition that they will not be perfect but we should be we can make uh we could we should improve on where we're at um and you know even if we're taking um smaller steps that's better than taking those steps so um I don't want we'll discuss it more maybe next month great sounds like we might have two resolutions to discuss next month okay so we uh are there any more comments on uh on these updates uh okay I not seen any so we'll move to our by the way that wouldn't be necessarily a resolution it's just a discussion of a memo um and give provide feedback to the aison about the
095memo so it's would be one just resolution from what we talked about with the seu and then discussion of the more of a direct feedback okay thanks John yep you're welcome great okay so this is our final comment a final opportunity for public comment and folks may speak for up to three minutes so if you're watching on CTN please call Triple 8 78899 or 877 85352 47 yes commiss Garcia um I was just curious about the resolution um supporting the advancement of the sustainable energy utility is that something that was actually going to be like presented presented to us tonight or just um I I didn't know if that was part of good point uh yeah so I was my plan was I guess kind of what you saw was to talk about the um
096the kind of broader context of what all goes into it and I think ultimately the resolution is is kind of simple u in terms of the resolve Clauses and it kind of follows directly from um the staff um memo recommendations so um that was my plan then we can kind of look at it in more detail I was hoping that folks would kind of review it on their own and and bring comments to the next meeting people keep switching around sorry I was looking at your face um yeah bring comments to the next meeting so that we could um kind of discuss it in more detail there has it been set uh published or sent to us I was just looking at the links on it's it's posted on legistar if you click the link
097it's under the text section it's not in attachment it's in the text okay thank you because I was just there trying to I was trying to get at it but to see it yeah that can get tricky sometimes okay if you don't mind I'll share my screen just so you can see how that works once I get to the correct place sorry two seconds um yeah and just as for in I know L star is not the simplest thing for uh anyone including myself um yeah so either when you come directly like from the agenda or you go on legistar and you look at this section or this this meeting um you know you can go and you can see the resolution here you click on the file um it's the the text is here
098um similarly if you're coming from the um the agenda itself again if you click on the um the link there the file it goes right to this text section where where it is placed so if you weren't able to find it apologies I know legar and all of its links are um again not the simplest um so no worries at all but that that's where you can find it yeah so it might default sorry just to chime in it might default to the history tab as opposed to the text that's what I had seen and I was not clicking on the text so sorry thank you very much great okay any other comments before we move the B comment oh okay yes I thought there might be one go ahead are we taking uh suggestions
099for the next agenda or what was uh oh yeah that's um happening after we do the after I'll wait till then yeah great all right so as I was saying uh please enter the meeting ID once you call the number uh the ID is 956 871-8787 this information is also displayed in the meeting agenda and the video feed and City staff will select callers that have raise their hand using the last three digits of your phone number to electronically raise your hand to speak please press star n on your phone and you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and when doing so please move to a quiet area and mute any background sound so that we may hear you and also state your name and address before you
100begin your comments Joe do we have anyone on the line nope no calls at this time and I think we had enough time there that we are good to move forward okay fantastic all right so items for next agenda commissioner M you have something on your mind uh yes um I was hoping that um either in the next meeting or uh a meeting relatively soon we would be able to get a status update on the what's I guess called wheeler solar Park solar project or the landfill solar project um the city got um $5 million from the state Council appropriated $90,000 to relook at the situation it would be great if we could get just a brief update on that um we don't get need to get an update until the study is done but
101once the study is done it would be great to to hear um what what the status of that might be and the other thing it doesn't have to be AG gendi it could be something that addressed um tonight or in the next meeting um according to Bible we have 15 Commissioners um we've had 13 Commissioners for um well basically since the end of April last year and I brought this up before we have two vacancies and I'm a little surprised they haven't been filled yet that's you know almost 10 or 11 months now that uh those are have been known to be to be vacant and I was wondering what the intention is of the commission leadership and Council the aison that generally look at the applications and decide whether or not to forward uh
102nominations for those openings so you can address that now or in the next meeting that's fine yeah I think I have to get back with the group um I yeah I think that'll be the best way to do it and we can come with a more cohesive plan right any other ideas for items for the next agenda okay great all right well then if we have no more comments uh we'll move to adjournment so it's currently 7:30 p.m. and as chair I declare this meeting adjourned thank you so much for your time tonight and um thank you to everyone who's listening on CN byebye great thanks so much night thanks e