Ann Arbor Energy Commission 5/9/2023

001a camera just as you would be visible during in-person meetings finally mute your microphone when not speaking public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the two public comment opportunities please call one of the following two toll-free numbers 877-853-54 it's me 5247 or 888-788-0099 and enter the meeting ID number 956-8718 seven eight seven zero on your phone this information is also available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city's website on the broadcast of this meeting on ctgn channel 16 and 18t channel number 99 and online at www.a2gov.org backslash watch CTN Joe would you please read the land acknowledgment yep um I acknowledge that the land of the city of Ann Arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe including Odawa Ojibwe and

002bodewadmi and wyand.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 peoples 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 thank you very much we're going to take the roll call now but before we do that just a few comments uh both Joe and I received input that uh several Commissioners won't be joining us tonight commissioner Hart commissioner Cannon um commissioner Kerber and also council member Adina indicated that he's going to be

003coming late both he and council member Briggs attended an incredibly long administrative meeting this afternoon and I just want to acknowledge and make have the rest of you understand how committed our council members are I mean it is amazing how much they do in terms of Public Service just yesterday afternoon we had over an hour meeting looking at new applicants for vacancies that we're going to have on the energy commission and it's just amazing that the work that they do and frankly I appreciate all of your public service but especially theirs so Joe if you would continue with with the roll call that would be great yep um commissioner maycomer not seeing yet um commissioner Levin here for my home in Ann Arbor commissioner mursky here for my home in Ann Arbor commissioner Colvin Garcia

004here Ann Arbor council member Briggs here in Ann Arbor as noted councilmember Adina we'll be running a little late today commissioner McCoy here I'm calling in from State College Pennsylvania commissioner Kerber as noted we'll be unable to make it commissioner overpeck you're Ann Arbor commissioner Smith here Ann Arbor commissioner Cohen unable to make it today um commissioner zitelman here in Ann Arbor commissioner McKenna Aaron Harbor commissioner harp unable to make it and then commissioner Berkowitz here in Ann Arbor chair you got a quorum very good great so uh we have an agenda uh interesting agenda tonight uh is there a motion to approve the agenda edit posted on legistar and a second so Mo so moved by commissioner Calvin Garcia second please uh seconded by commissioner zettleman any comments additions concerns seeing none all those

005in favor of approving the the agenda raise your hand and say aye Opus unanimous or approved unanimously thank you very much um so um we also have minutes um to approve um they are also posted on registrar hopefully people have had a chance to skim through those uh is there a motion to approve the minutes as posted also most not moved by commissioner Calvin Garcia seconded by can I see a hand I'll raise my hand okay also also Commissioners Edelman um any discussion okay all those in favor of the minutes uh please raise your hand and say aye uh everyone now here we are and we have commissioner McCumber joining us now as well and she was in time to vote uh to approve the eight minutes as well so all that was a unanimous

006approval so um public input this is an opportunity the first opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes if you're watching on CTN please call -8788-0099 or 877 -853-5247 and enter the meeting ID 956-87-187876 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and the video feed staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star nine on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet place and mute any background noise so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and your address at the beginning of your comments I don't have

007anyone right now outside of council member radina who I don't believe calls in for public comment welcome councilmember Adina give it another 15 seconds or so but no one right now all right I do not have anyone here okay very good so we'll move on in the agenda and the next point is a discussion on Ann Arbor's Hydro power capabilities and we are fortunate to have public works department head Brian stiglitz with us tonight um thank you very much for joining us Brian and for spending your private time in the evening with us I know you do this often and it's appreciated um I thought I might start with a few introductory comments I sent uh a link to a podcast that I went back and reviewed again and I thought that there was some

008interesting uh summary level statistics about hydropower um this was a volts podcast with hosted by David Roberts um and he had as his guest Jennifer Garson who was head of the Department of Energy's water power Technologies office and I found the following interesting there are 90 000 dams in the United States only 2300 have hydropower generating hydropower so that's uh just a little bit more than two and a half percent um about 1700 there of produce less than 10 megawatts and of the eight thousand eighty seven thousand seven hundred non-powered dumb dams about 600 have the potential of uh generating one megawatt of uh of power um and they represent that would represent 90 of the total of 13 gigawatts of new Hydro um uh Power potential so 13 gigawatts um just to give you

009an idea that's that's pretty significant um DT is building a new power plant and it's uh it's a natural gas power plant and it's um 1100 Watts or one basically one gigawatt so hydropower potential that's unutilized or untapped in the United States is really pretty significant and it's obviously um clean and renewable so uh with that no further Ado um Ryan I'll turn things over to you and then we can also open things up for discussion but I thought you might have a lead-in of your own all right thank you and can you hear me okay we do thank you for the invitation tonight um I indicated Joe that I didn't have a presentation but I do have I I was able to pull together a few slides that maybe I could talk from if

010I'm able to share my screen if that's okay with everybody yep and you should have cable you should have the capability to share I think but let me know if you don't it says host disabled participant screen sharing let me see if I can fix that um okay I promoted you co-host so you okay now we can okay okay are you seeing my slideshow yes we do okay great so um I'll start with this feel free to interrupt with questions this can be as as informal as formal as you would like this is a presentation that we did and put together you can see the date March 2019 so it's um several years ago where I think some of it's relevant and I think a lot of it is on point for maybe some of

011the things that you're interested in hearing about um and I'll use this as talking points and it's not the complete presentation but it's part parts of it that I thought would be relevant for you all today so a little bit of history about the city's dams they were constructed in the early 1900s um our capacity is total between Barton and Superior which are two of the four dams that we operate and maintain along the Huron River those are the two with hydropower we can generate about one and a half megawatts between the two um at their full capacity um obviously that is flow dependent so we're not getting one and a half megawatts um all year round it's you know the flows go up and down um I believe actually we report um we do

012report to the state and I think we do Post our hydropower production so it is on our website so you can see the daily hydropower production um at Barton um and that is there's a variety of reasons for that but anyway that is posted and available if you are interested in seeing what the how that changes throughout the year um one and a half megawatts can power about 500 homes for context and then you can see on the slide um what the associated carbon and offsets would be um based on this production amount so from a financial perspective um if they're producing at one of our targets are for the year so that's not full one and a half megawatts but we we base it based on what the seasonal production rate is based on

013flow in the river we're talking about you know just under a half a million dollars per year in revenue between um the two dams Barton and Superior um when you look at what the operating costs are for Barton and Superior um Barton can be a money maker just barely um I guess a little more than barely and in general Superior is a loser so we we don't break even on Superior um there's a variety of reasons for that that I can go into if you have questions about that these costs reflect the typical average annual operating costs for the facilities so as we need to make Capital Investments um in this infrastructure I'll show you a little about what those costs are you know over time we're we're not breaking even because the revenue doesn't

014really support the investment the capital Investments to operate and maintain the dams um the dams were moved to the general fund in 2006 um so before that they were in the water fund um and that was a conscious decision um that was made a lot of it was around because it was a revenue Source um and but originally being in the water fund obviously Barton provides the impoundment for the city's water supply so um makes sense for that impoundment to be associated with the water system um the the hydro portions of both of these are in the general fund but the cost of operating um the Barton impoundment and the dam is split between hydropower and water the water fund um and that is again because the impoundment serves two purposes it serves one purpose

015to generate the impoundment so we can make hydropower but also serves the purpose of the impoundment for the water supply so while all the revenue goes to the general fund the costs are split between general fund and water Island um the city has a long-term power purchase agreement with DTE for the power generated at both of these facilities and it expires in 2036 so I think it was a 50-year agreement so pretty long term um the costs don't escalate so they are what they are and it's somewhere in the neighborhood of about five and a half cents per kilowatt hour um there are two components of the of the cost but when you roll everything up the that's about what the cost of the city gets for the power um in terms of costs for

016the for operating maintaining the dams we have the you know the structural costs which is the embankments the structural concrete the gates that operate um and then on of course the power generating um equipment so some of these costs are you know the capital costs tend to be you make the investment and it can last a long time but on the power generating equipment in order to keep that running we're making Investments at some frequency depending upon um what the needs are but you're we're rebuilding a lot of the mechanical components on the order of every decade or so so it's a recurring investment in order to maintain the hydropower production piece um this is a little bit outdated um but if you I updated some of it um at the bottom but I just

017wanted to give you an idea of what some of the costs look like as we go through time um you know this was again 2019 presentation and we identified at that point what some of the upcoming costs would be Capital needs um and you know they're highlighted at Barton and Superior and you can see sort of the order of um order of magnitude of what the costs are but then if you look at the bottom and this is you know so most of everything that is identified in 2021 and 22 almost all of that has been completed um but as we look towards the future for Barton and Superior down um you can see there's some big numbers um Barton um and Superior both have some concrete and structural repair needs there's an embankment um

018issues that we have to deal with at Barton what you we what we see is is that Barton and Superior are regulated differently than Argo and Gettys Argo and Gettys are State regulated dams um because of the hydropower production Martin and Superior are regulated by the Federal Energy regular uh Tory commission so it's a completely different requirements um there are some parallels but a lot more of a robust safety program inspection program the cost of operating those two dams are um multiple times the cost of operating the state recreational dams um and that's reflected in some of the capital needs and the things that we need to do in order to maintain and meet the safety requirements obviously in Michigan we have a recent history of a dam failure um so that has really changed

019the whole outlook and the regulatory environment for Dam across the country um and you know we're seeing that in terms of what the cost of operating these facilities are um when we did this analysis in 2018 or 2019 we were looking at the long-term viability of of hydro generation for the city and we looked at the pros and cons um we developed and looked at some different Alternatives I'll share a few of those with you um but we looked at the financial you know portion of the business and is it is it financially sustainable um we also looked at you know the environmental impacts Community impacts things like that and I'll share a little bit about that and they didn't talk a lot about this but I you know I mentioned that um in 2036

020was it when their contract expires um there are some challenges that we will be facing in terms of our the revenue that we get for hydropower production and this is regulated under purple um and there are certain requirements for what we call and what we are as a qf it's a qualified facility under this regulation on what our Revenue potential is and DTE and consumers in Michigan have been challenging um the current requirements on how we are compensated for the power we produce and it's not favorable um we have commented on some of the you know with legal our legal support team on some of the things that are being considered um you we think that this is still a long way out 2036 but the challenge is is that you know we make investments

021in the hydropower and the payback on some of them can be 15 to 20 years so right the Investments we're making now are starting to be in the window of what our anticipated future Revenue needs are so it's a conversation that is timely and we need to be thinking about that as we invest in um hydropower is are we going to have the revenue to support the Investments that we need in the long run um so the financial Outlook is not that Rosy so what are some of the assumptions um you know that we made in this analysis well we look at our historical operations and our historical Capital expenditures and what our you know reinvestment in the infrastructure is mostly on the mechanical equipment side and I'll show you what some of that looks

022like um we forecasted our Capital needs as part of this analysis for the next 30 Years um and our revenues also for the next 30 Years and then when we looked at Superior one of the things we considered was should we take it out as an alternative and we evaluated what the environmental impacts and costs associated with that or so there's sediment is accumulated behind the dam um we you know based on what the the the content of things like heavy metals in there there can be significant costs associated with remediation that we would have to make sure that we were prepared to deal with if we ended up taking out that Dam so the things that we looked at the Alternatives we looked at three Alternatives at Barton and Community Superior this is sort

023of graphically shows you see the the figure on the left which shows the dam with the water flowing over it you know that's keep the dam um it's not xed out the second figure which shows the power lines are if it's X Out it means we're going to decommission or not generate hydropower anymore so the top two options involved not decommissioning hydropower but keeping the dam um and then the second option was well if we just decide to change our mind you know there's obviously a cost of decommissioning and recommissioning but we wanted that evaluation to be completed um so that was alternative to and then the third alternative is just we continue to do what we're doing um and the rehabilitate means we're going to reinvest in the mechanical equipment to make sure that

024we can continue to make Power because we could still operate the dam and not reinvest in hydropower because we can't take the damn out with Barton because it provides the impoundment for our water supply so while Superior there's an alternative we'll look at um to remove the dam completely that is not an option at Barton so the options at all alternatives are keep the damn stop decommissioned power um full dam removal and then rehabilitate which is reinvest in the in the hydropower production portion um this scenario um you know look at in terms of how does this these different options at Superior align with our city planning goals you know if we don't generate hydropower which is option four you know we don't have the same impact on our our carbon footprint greenhouse gas emissions

025it decreases our energy renewable energy portfolio so those are both negatives obviously um if we take the dam out and return to its normal State there are ecosystem benefits associated with that um there may be a recreational opportunities that are benefits and some other things that we've identified here and then obviously if we rehabilitate we have the benefit of continuing to um help this meet our renewable energy goals for the community so that would be in the option the third option or what we call option six here so I just wanted to give you an idea of what some of the infrastructure looks like because this is big stuff and it's not easy to operate and maintain and the expertise is requires a lot of specialty equipment this is um what the Hydro Power Equipment

026looks like um at um Barton and it's big you know heavy mechanical equipment it's very complicated we used to have teams who could work on this but the maintaining the expertise to work on this type of equipment which is specialty is real has been difficult to maintain and as we've had people retire we've just decided we can't continue to reinvest in having our staff have the expertise because um we just don't have the the resources to commit so we're now Contracting out when we have to do heavy rebuilds of this equipment um here's a picture of the turbine um at one of the dams and you know it's really really difficult to get down and work on this stuff so the rigging and everything is really complicated when we did our last rebuild of Barton

027I mean it took the better part of the year to do the work um with the contract expert who this is what they do so this isn't simple simple work um one of the challenges that we have too and why Superior is particularly problematic is because Barton is a vertical turbine the um Superior one is installed on a 45 degree angle so it's a very unique installation and it's extremely difficult to maintain there's not many of these so the expertise there the rigging is really difficult because things don't come out vertically so you're having to um do special um setup in order to remove the turbine and access some of the things that you need to access down inside the turbine shaft so very difficult equipment to operate and maintain so this provides sort of

028a high level summary of the options green would be a good thing you know red is bad and we we looked at the six different options three of Barton and three Superior um we you know looked at the impact on the ecosystem Recreation education stewardship greenhouse gas and renewable energy so this just provides sort of an overview summary of the options that were considered um and how they ranked against each other qualitatively and you also can see at the top the net present value of what the costs associated with these are you can see they're all negative I wouldn't get hung up on these numbers because the cost of things have increased pretty substantially so it's actually not the the costs are going to be sort of a fair bit more than these now if

029we redid this analysis but you can see at the time even you know the net present value for each of these alternatives are all in the negative million so it's costing the city the revenue that we're getting from the Hydro power will not cover the cost that we need to continue to operate on these facilities into the future so um what were the recommendations that came out of this then is at Barton that it makes sense to continue to generate power um because they're the well the cost of operating the dam will be in the long run um a negative the the hydropower helps subsidize so even it's not a it's not a break even for the complete damn maintenance and operation but it is provide some Financial benefit and it covers the cost of

030reinvesting in the mechanical equipment so that makes sense um if the perpa comes up with a like a not a favorable ruling in terms of what our Revenue potential is we should we would need to redo that analysis but for the time being that seems like the recommendation is to continue to invest in hydropower and the opportunity to reassess this before our next major overhaul which we do about every 10 years so we're probably now maybe it's seven eight seven seven years away from the next one so before we did that we would want to evaluate return on investment um hydropower it's Superior um you know we'll continue to generate power because we've already made the investment and we might as well realize the benefits of the mechanical the equipment um but probably from a

031financial perspective it will not make sense to reinvest in the long run in maintaining hydropower unless there were other goals established by the city but from a financial perspective it doesn't have a return um on investment um removing the dam would be a pretty transformative alternative um but very difficult to come up with the costs um to cover we would have to probably get resources from some other source because you know we're talking about in the tens of millions of dollars um and again this is operated by the general fund so the general fund doesn't have resources to take a dam out so we would need to if we thought this was a valuable like something that we would want to consider we need to really explore what types of Revenue sources or financial sources

032we could come up with to deal with that um so at this point we weren't recommending moving forward with that option so I think yep that was my last slide and I will stop sharing it sounds like someone's okay so that was my presentation hopefully that was what you were looking for thanks Brian Brian could you for everybody who maybe doesn't know that well Ann Arbor actually has four dams correct yes we have did you go from Upstream to Downstream and name all of them and I correct me if I'm wrong I think Superior is the furthest Downstream correct this is actually within the city limits no but to amp the city of Ann Arbor owns it is that it somehow yes interesting so why don't you start upstream and then go down because I

033think there's the two other dams that you haven't mentioned are well I'll let you mention yeah so Barton is the furthest Upstream that's the one the impoundment for the water supply um when we procured these the city was interested in in getting having ownership of the dams um I think it was in the 1960s primarily because of the impoundment for the water supply and it was sort of like buy one get bit three free um I would love to give those other three back but what can you do um the next one Downstream is Argo which is very one point looked at um removing Argo um it has been identified by you know the state has a list of dams considered to return to their natural and habitat and that's one there was uh I

034think there might have been a referendum in the city and pretty strong rowing Community Lobby and there that wasn't going to move forward the community wanted to keep our go for recreational purposes the next one is um Gettys Dam which is down um and provides basically the impoundment for yellow Park so that also has some pretty substantial recreational benefits for the community and then um the last one is superior and that's down by the um what is it Saint Joe's property um from Superior Township yep right right okay so with that background um I'd like to open things up for questions comments uh will make this very freewheeling so Noah go ahead uh yes uh first of all thanks for the presentation um I didn't hear you uh speak to like flooding concerns at all

035I know that's kind of controversial whether dams are actually helpful or not for managing flooding but given potential changes with more extreme weather is there any benefit to keeping some of these dams for that reason so our dams are permitted we operate run of whip River um which means we have whatever comes we have to pass so we don't retain um water and they know the purpose of them there may be some ancillary benefits associated with dealing with um storm events and controlling flooding but in general they're just passing the water that's coming at them and we're obligated to operate them that way the purpose of them is not flood control gotcha so that wouldn't really factor in as an additional reason to keep them in I guess um one kind of like technical maybe

036silly question um if I'm looking at bartendam and I see all the gates are opened um that's water that's not going through the turbines is any water going through the turbines at that point so how it's set up is the first water goes through the turbine okay so what the turbine takes as much water as it can and then once it's tapped out then the gates open so there it's all um automated and it's based on level so when the water hits a certain again all the water goes through the turbine and then um as the pond level increases above a certain set point because the turbine isn't able to handle all the flow the first set of gates open and then the next set of gates open and the next set of gates open

037so they open in sequence um there's also there's a sequence in terms of what they open also so it's not they don't open individually all the way so you could see all the gates open but that doesn't mean the dam is at capacity because you'll have a set of gates open a little bit and then they all open a little bit and they all open more so there's there's a program that dictates the sequencing of how the gates operate but they are secondary to the turbines okay and one more comment sort of question um there is a dam that was taken out uh in Dexter if people might be aware of and you can kind of see the recreation benefit the benefits that they got was they got more land because you have a narrower

038stream as opposed to a pond or a lake so every sketched down at all with that might look like at all or is that way down the line we we did not go to that extent so but yes I mean the if you did take out the dam whichever Dam it was I mean we were only looking at Superior you are gonna you're gonna get additional land between um Frontage for properties down there yes we and we would anticipate that there would be not positive feedback from the landowners along that stretch and that they would be opposed others Alex so I think you were saying a lot of the information that you had was from a few years ago I'm wondering if um the financials for like these Investments and stuff were seem any more

039favorable with some of the IRA revisions that were passed like the renewable energy production tax credits and the investment tax credits and uh I think the energy infrastructure reinvestment program right does that make it like more favorable substantially or minimally um I don't I'm not really capable of answering that I mean I would say that there's probably a little some things that are favorable and some things that are less favorable so that would be a you know work that we would have to renew and take a look at what options there are there are um there is financing opportunities for renewable energy types of things that are available now that weren't back then so I would say that that would be some things that are favorable but there are also um you know what we're

040seeing is the cost of making these Investments is also greater so that's a challenge and you have to look at what the long-term you know Revenue potential is of hydropower and who's going to buy it and that's not as favorable an outcome in terms of what the future looks like it's going to hold so there's sort of a lot of variables out there and I I would agree it probably could be renewed but I don't think I'd be surprised if the outcomes of what we came up with them would be substantially different okay and then I just had like one other question thank you um is in 2010 there was a study on like hydropower feasibility and Investments and bringing back hydropower to like the other two dams that no longer produce hydropower and back

041then like 13 years ago Gettys seemed favorable and kind of like they would produce a lot of power in a way more than Argo you know I'm wondering if there's any more like more recent data on you know the options for what to do with Gettys like has there been investigations into like options for returning hydropower to Gettys there's nothing that we've done since that time and um I think that the I think the outcome of the study was that there wasn't a financial it didn't have a return on investment um so from a financial Outlook it wouldn't be an investment that the city would be able to recoup its expenses on thank you commissioner McCoy yeah this is perhaps a silly one and not an energy one but it popped into my brain so

042I'm curious um if the dams the presence of the dams have like a positive or negative um influence on the flow of water when there's like spills I feel like pretty frequently the last couple years there's been various sewage or chemical spills or overflows and so I'm I'm curious if there's any influence either direction from the dams you know in moving water as from um that's a good question it I would say I haven't given a whole lot of thought to that but off the top of my head I would say it depends which is not probably the answer that it's it's a vague answer but the reason is is because it sort of depends on what's spilled so you know there are benefits of having you know we pull off of the bottom so

043having the the impoundment and if it's if it's a hydrocarbon or something that's floating on the surface it's possible that things can pass over us um in terms of the drinking water's perspective so there may be some benefits there um so I think it really depends on that the empowerments also slow down the flow in the river tremendously so um that provides us time which has been was pretty advantageous when we were dealing with the chromium spill um over the last summer um so you know when we were looking at travel time you know once it hit Barton we might have had a week before it would get to our impound the intake so depending on what the flow in the river is obviously there's a variable there that's pretty important but so the impoundments

044do provide some benefit from that perspective in terms of slowing down but then if depending upon what it is things can can settle and if you have things settle then and they're they like to attach to particles in the sediment now you can have this sort of continual source that continually sort of leeches and feeds so it really depends on what the properties are of the contaminants you're dealing with how it that it could work favorably or not favorably not sure if that answered your question or not yeah thank you council member Briggs yeah thanks fascinating I'm probably gonna go back and watch this again because I feel like I should probably remember this a little bit more fully um but I uh I wanted to talk just a little bit more get a little

045bit more insight on the superior um Dam which sort of you're suggesting is maybe not worth reinvesting in but it is also outside of the city limits and so um and there's extensive costs to returning it removing the dam if we wanted to do that um but there's also of course ongoing costs too maintaining it structurally and perpetuity I guess um and removing it um which would have some environmental benefits obviously what would be met with some sounds like extensive consternation by residents nearby I'm just curious how much this scenario has been have there I'm actually I'm not sure exactly what my question is here um except for that this sounds like this is a tricky situation for us at some point down further down the road um in terms of which scenario really is

046um um has the most benefits ultimately even you know considering things that are not Financial in nature um to the city so I'm curious how much of that scenario planning or discussions with the township I guess maybe that's a question how much discussion should the township have happened around the scenario and if there's any more feedback you want to prevent Cloud so when we completed the study in 2019 you know we we shared this with the city Administration and the time the decision was this is good information to have um what we're going to shelve it for now and like not take action um and so at that you know that's sort of where it sat we didn't do a whole lot more engagement um and really what we thought was is what the the

047key decision-making points are not in front of us yet so the next big investment is the time when we need to say all right are we making this are we not and we have to look at these other values and how do we make this decision and I would anticipate that that probably would be a decision that went to the council to say you know is this um you know do you want to invest in something that we are not going to have a return on investment for because it's meeting other goals that the community has um so we haven't reached that decision Point yet so we you know we have the data but so we decided we're in the short term we're going to continue to do what we do because we might as

048well get the full life out of the Investments we've already made and that was the decision was made at the time and it was pretty clear that removing Superior would have been a really big step and we the administrator wasn't willing to to bring that up and and say we're going to begin to explore this any more fully um just because of the financial implications were pretty huge and and probably we don't even really know the full extent we we sort of did a bat more of a back of the envelope as opposed to really studying what the cost of dam removal is okay thank you I appreciate that commissioner Colin Garcia I have I have two questions um the first um I'm I think I missed at the beginning of your presentation um where

049you may have um given us information about what it costs the utility to purchase hydropower and if it's if it's something that's of benefit to them because of it whether it's you know like lower lower cost for them like what incentivizes the a utility so what in 2036 when the contract ends you know like what is the concern about about finding another buyer and then my second question is with regards to the um to the technology the turbine technology you know what would be what would be an advantage or a disadvantage of just when the technology comes to its end of life installing something new a new and different technology in the dams uh new um energy production types of turbines okay so your first question is on the financial side um so you're you're

050pushing my memory of purpa and how it works but I'm gonna do my best to remember um but the the issue that DTE so you know they're obligated to buy this from us right now we make the power they have to buy it there's no so that's part of what the and that's the the sort of the purpose of purpa is is that you have these small generating you know utilities and we don't have the market we don't have the distribution Network so but we're providing this valuable product um so they're obligated to take it and bring put it into their grid and distribute it but what they're pushing back on is what what is the appropriate price for that and what we look at is is that they should you know we have a

051certain cost of investing in doing in in making hydropower so shouldn't the cost that we be compensated reflect our cost of operation and putting this into the grid um they are saying no what their costs should be the cost that they should be is if they wanted to buy this or make this power themselves what could they get it for and they're so it's sort of their opportunity cost on the market of getting this additional power and it's a lot cheaper than what it takes to run the hydropower um you know plant that was built in like the 1970s right so it's completely the cards are the deck is stacked against us um and we've been saying like that's not fair we shouldn't be having to be held to that different metric well that's what

052is in front of the you know that's what purple oversees and the um Public Service what is it who Who oversee that that's what's in front of them right now right yeah yeah exactly thank you so I think that that sort of answered your first question in terms of you know reinvesting in new technology I'm not you know I'm not completely um conversant in what The Cutting Edge technology is for but I don't think it's changed a tremendous amount um you know you're talking about there's probably some efficiencies in terms of there's different turbine designs so you may be able to get like a few extra percent um but we're not talking about like transformational amounts and the cost of gutting and putting in new is huge so to be able to just rehabilitate what

053you have again I don't I think that the because we did look at that um when we were like are there efficiencies that we could gain by we didn't think about replacing it but by you know replacing components with um things that have less friction and things like that and the the percent increases were minimal like it was in the couple single digits so you know again when we looked at this and we were doing our last overhaul it wasn't didn't have a return on investment so we didn't we didn't pursue it but you know with Hydro power you're limited like your power production is based on the elevation drop which is pretty much fixed right um your flow and then the efficiencies of the mechanical equipment so you sort of only you can only

054get so much out of each of those components um the other thing I'll just share I guess while you're well because of that question is is what we're seeing too with you know climate change if that's what we want to call it um but you know in the summertime we're seeing flows in the river seasonally now that are a lot lower so we have significant amounts of times where we're really almost not able to generate any power um because the river flows are so low so you know you it's not like you can get maximum production um 12 months a year or even nine months a year so when we're making those Investments you're trying to maximize your return on investment in like these short windows of time when we have sufficient flow in the

055Huron in order to make all the power that we need to make it seems to me like like there are I apologize for my video it seems to me like there are opportunities at maybe like the federal level to um increase research for hydropower and maybe I mean like you know retrofitting new technology in existing like spaces that are that are higher efficiency that can accommodate a a broader variety of flow levels so just a thought of mine but thank you so much for answering these questions Brian I'm going to throw out some questions some maybe intended more for stimulating thinking down the line than necessarily for a response right now first of all I'd like to weigh in as a somewhat informed layperson as far as replacing the technology and upgrading the turbines my

056understanding is the same as Brian's um it's not like um the hydropower generation is like an internal combustion engine which has an inherently low um essentially energy conversion efficiency and you can you know make huge steps um you know turbines and Motors inherently have very very high efficiencies like 80 90 percent so it's not like you're going from 20 to 30 and 30 to 60 and you know you're getting doubling of efficiencies by going to a new technology you're getting as Brian said you know a few percentage points here and there so I I don't know that that's a huge a huge opportunity unfortunately um one of the questions that um so I'm going to Rattle off a couple of them maybe hopefully there's click answers you talked about the um contract with DTE goes

057to 2036. um as far as I understand dams are also re-licensed um by I guess I don't know some federal agency do you know if the re-licensing is tied to the contract with DTE if there is a different um set of deadlines that are either before or after that so we are license exempt so we don't have a license and that was done intentionally at the time when we were commissioning the hydro because they were trying to incentivize um Hydro production at the time so we didn't have to go through all the hurdles associated with the licensed hydropower so we're we're compliant with all of the rules that all hydropower needs to do but we are licensed exempt and so we don't need a real license okay so these are these questions are not necessarily

058an ecological order um we're going to be updating the comprehensive plan and I'm just going to throw a hint out there maybe also to our council members that maybe the dams and what we do with the dams and what that might mean in terms of free-flowing and not free-flowing and what that means in terms of land use and things like that maybe that should be a small element of the comprehensive plan I'm just going to throw that out there as an idea obviously if some of the dams are decommissioned like Argo or Superior or whatever then that might although Superior wouldn't uh wouldn't be in the anniversity limits but that's just throwing that idea out there I'm wondering if um if Ann Arbor were to um have a municipal electric utility um whether it's an

059seu or some other form if there's any value um that the seu might see in generating higher power um and I mean this is probably a long way down the road but it may be something to think about I mean it is a very um resilient kind of uh Source I mean if you have a power outage or something like that it could you know that could Supply a resilience Center or something like that um I mean that's not the only alternative to doing that with other storage methods coming online but it might might be of something that's of interest to a municipal utility so it's more a statement than a question um the other question um that I had is Alan Creek is basically in a pipe and I'm wondering if Hydro power could

060be generated by water flowing through uh Allen Creek it may not be a whole lot um but it's already contained and maybe there's an opportunity there I sort of Doubt we'd want to do anything that the other Creek sheds because otherwise there's probably negative ecological impacts but we already have that in with Allen Creek I'm wondering if anybody's ever had that idea before whether it's looked and been looked into we haven't specifically looked at Allen Creek but we have looked at in pipe hydro and that is something that we're an area that is is a little newer um so there may be opportunities there the challenge with you know when you're looking at something like that is um you know where where who's going to get the power so are we going to be just

061putting it into the grid which has challenges in terms of you know again we're not getting a favorable rate yeah um so it's when we've looked at things like that in the past it's can we utilize the power at a city facility where we can where we can offset our power costs which is a lot more lucrative than paying DTE like a third of what we would be paying for it if we had to buy it from them exactly um so and when you look at something like Allen Creek where you have lots of flow for a very very short period of time and then address that is that conducive or not so um it could be explored we have not explored it in detail um but um you know if that's it's something that

062we could could be looked at right right yeah my son did some very small Hydro projects um when on farms in Australia actually and um so it's it's done it can be done very small scale feel again that might be something that's of interest to the seu although because the intermittency maybe it's not of that much value um and then the last idea that I had which is probably not realistic given the run of the river operating conditions that the that we have is you know essentially with pumped Hydro you have you know a a bank where you could uh um behind the dam where you could let the dam essentially uh let's say um fill up at night an extra foot or something like that and then generate at a higher rate during the

063daytime when there's higher higher energy demand and that Energy Service might have a better return than just a constant flow um so I mean that's a little bit off the wall but maybe it's something to look into at some point if especially if we're going to be retaining those yeah we're not we're not able to do that under our current permit operating conditions but we haven't I have not really explored is this something that could be entertained or not it would be a question we need to ask and what my guess is is that that would put when you when we were licensed exempt it's probably going to open up a lot of environmental impact things and things that we'd have to study um associated with that so but it's not a deal breaker it's

064something possibly that could be looked at but I have not looked into it okay good those were my questions uh does anybody have any additional uh ideas um councilmember breaks I don't apparently does um with the cat um but I just wanted to respond quickly to the concept of the comment around the comprehensive plan um well I think it's sort of interesting there's a lot of things that I think we want to do with our comprehensive planning process um we tend to not be uh at least I don't believe the scope of it this time around is to be very site specific and so it's unlikely to go into the details actually in any part of our community around um how we might use or re um reuse and reimagine certain spaces um but um

065sort of I think addressing sort of bigger issues that may more impact our ordinances and how we update sort of our our land use plan that way but um there may be opportunities during that process certainly to provide feedback to it and get the discussion started and otherwise any others Brian thanks again so much that was very informative I think as as usual um when you dig in deeper things get more and more complicated so it's good to be exposed to to those levels of complication that we probably didn't necessarily think about before so um I think with that um you're welcome to um uh leave the meeting our next point is maybe something of interest um so next on the agenda is a discussion of the ninth circuit um Parts decision relative to uh

066Berkeley California's um ban on natural gas and what I thought I might do is um provide a little bit of background for Commissioners who maybe haven't been following all the details as well as maybe listeners who are not aware of the situation so first of all I'll start with the local situation um as of now um three commissions the environmental energy and renters commission all past resolutions um you're familiar with that resolution because we passed it um and that's all within the last month dealing with um natural gas and uh connections for new construction um I think everybody's familiar with those uh two resolve Clauses in the case of the environmental commission they actually split those up and they voted on them separately with two different vote totals um one was ten to four um

067for the first resolution and the other was 14 to zero on the second so the first resolution resolve Clause I should say uh related to um asking the city administrator to work with city planning to draft and pass uh a uh an ordinance Banning natural gas connections with extremely limited connections for all new construction and then the second uh resolve Clause asked the city administrator and the sanding Planning Commission to draft and pass a number of um to look at a number of measures that the city um and uh could basically Implement that would incentivize all electric construction as well as we added some additional um qualifiers in there um making it also sustainable healthy reliable and affordable um and the situation in Berkeley is Berkeley passed uh a a ban and we're going to

068hear from Noah in a second more about that um the repeal is certainly relevant um to the first resolved Clause uh of the resolution that we passed um just some additional background information it's noteworthy that there are a hundred and four jurisdictions in the United States that have passed zero emission building ordinances so this is not just a handful or 10 or 20 or 30 there are a hundred of these um those are tracked by an entity called the building decarbon Coalition and they have a website and it includes information on each of the ordinances by project type occupancy and scope um in light of all this two weeks ago some of you may have seen this covered uh in uh M live um after well excuse me first of all I was going to

069talk about the City council's action but before that actually even after the Berkeley uh uh decision by this uh the court of appeals um New York State agreed to a budget deal which also includes a ban on new natural gas connections and a state of New York spokesperson stated that the ban will not include any provisions for municipalities to opt out of the requirement so that's interesting that in spite of a federal court coming to a ruling the state of California is planning on going ahead with its own uh ban and then in light of everything that has happened um last Monday city council unanimously approved what I say last Monday that's not yesterday that's a week ago um unanimously approved a resolution calling on City attorney to provide as soon as possible a public

070legal opinion regarding the ninth circuits uh decision in the uh case in Berkeley which is called the restaurant California Restaurant Association versus the city of Berkeley um and the resolution includes uh several whereas Clauses that I think are are relevant first of all it says whereas advisory commissions to city council such as the energy commission renters commission and the environmental commission have passed or are considering resolutions requesting Council to investigate achieving eight to zero goals through a zoning ordinance that imposes restriction on fossil gas Connections in new developments for major remodels another whereas Clause States whereas city council approved resolution R23 uh 101 directing the city administrator to negotiate a new or amended gas franchise debt to the fullest extent possible is aligned with the city's a20 polls and then the third I think important

071whereas Clause is whereas city council is currently prioritizing negotiations of the city's gas franchise in order to reduce fossil gas consumption and achieve the a20 goals it then says um oh where's the result Clause um yeah basically the resolve is what I mentioned that the City attorney is to provide as soon as possible a legal opinion regarding the decision so um with all of that um I think it's uh fortunate that we have as a fellow energy commissioner um Noah Levine who is an attorney uh and before um actually um city council passed their resolution last week um Wayne Apple Yard former chair of the energy commission suggested that I reach out to Noah and ask him if he'd be willing to take a look at the situation in Berkeley and present that to the

072energy commission and we received that or I received that from Noah and then somewhat belatedly but I reached out then to Joe to include it on today's agenda so I'm hoping that Noah's analysis helps inform not only us but also potentially the city attorney's evaluation and so I'm going to turn it over to Noah and I think Noah has a couple of slides that he's going to present and then make some comments and then we'll open it up for discussion okay thanks for that uh helpful introduction John I will attempt to share my screen here foreign are you seeing the PowerPoint presentation yep okay cool um there we are great yep uh I think I yeah you're good now even bigger maybe okay I don't know if that's bigger but anyway okay cool cool um

073and yeah uh thanks again John for the introduction uh I will say that this is a bit of a quick um study that I did on this but I I do think it is instructive but um the document that I that was first posted on legislite um it might have a few typos but in any case I I do also have to point out before I get started uh a quick legal disclaimer that applies to the presentation it also applies to the document if you had originally looked at the document it wasn't on there but I did have a legal disclaimer very similar to this one added to the document uh that is awesome also on registrar I believe this PowerPoint should be available on registrar but it was uh created very late so some

074of you may not have seen it uh which is totally fine because I will be going through it but just the disclaimer is that this the information uh contained in this presentation is provided for informational purposes only and should be and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter I don't represent uh the city of Ann Arbor and I don't represent the energy commission these are my own opinions all right so try to go through this as quickly as we can but uh us a little case history uh 2019 the city of Berkeley passed their natural gas ban it was called prohibition of natural gas infrastructure new buildings Berkeley Municipal Code chapter 12.8 um a little sort of uh footnote although it is I guess more than a footnote is that in

075California they have a State Building Code which cities can enact as is or they can make amendments to it um essentially this the state building code is a floor and cities and all Studies have the ability to enact stricter standards there is somewhat of a process I believe that the state has to approve it now I just want to be clear that Berkeley did not go through that um I believe they're building code is in chapter 10. uh don't quote me on that but um this is a separate um ordinance that they passed essentially using their police Powers uh so-called police Powers which gives uh cities and states the ability to pass laws for the general uh safety and Welfare of their citizens so with with that they passed this ordinance that said natural gas

076infrastructure shall be prohibited in newly constructed buildings I believe there was a couple minor exceptions which I won't get into here but the key is the definition of what is natural gas infrastructure so what it actually are they prohibiting so they Define natural gas infrastructure as fuel gas piping other than service pipe in our connection with a building structure or within the property lines of premises key part extending from the point of delivery at the gas meter as specified in the California mechanical and plumbing code now here's a little visual that hopefully will explain this a little better so yellow that's the service line coming in from the utility to the meter that's not being regulated the red after the meter then you have the pipes that lead up to your individual appliances this kind

077of looks like a house but it doesn't just apply to homes it's businesses so essentially the Berkeley ordinance prohibits the red piping from the meter to the various Gas Appliances you know here we have typical ones that you might have like water heater furnace and stove so shortly after it was passed California Restaurant Association on behalf of their members filed suit in Federal District Court um they obviously are most concerned with the ability of their restaurants to have natural gas stoves and to be cleared no one's saying that you can't have natural gas stoves and existing structures these are new newly created newly built commercial structures um that they would be prohibiting it from um and so uh California Restaurant Association argued that the Federal Energy policy and conservation act abbreviated Epica preempted the ordinance

078a quick explanation of preemption it's a legal doctrine that allows a higher level of government to limit or even eliminate the power of a lower level of government to regulate a particular subject um this can be done thank you language um excuse me written um okay sorry I'll try to get a little closer I know you okay let me try something that's weird um sorry about that uh I did notice a couple of you were breaking up on me when you were talking I will maybe stop my video I don't know if that'll help but okay so let's go back so I'll go back over that last point is is that better at all John sounds better yes okay hopefully it'll it'll stick I know like a couple of people glitched and I guess maybe

079that was on my end but in any case um hopefully it won't happen everything was fine up until this uh definition of preemption okay gotcha so preemption is a legal doctrine that allows a higher level of government to limit lower levels of government or even eliminate the power of a lower level of government to regulate a particular subject area Um this can either be explicitly stated in the statute but it doesn't necessarily have to be it can be implied by the overall structure of the statute um real quick I mean this probably is obvious to most of you but at the top of our system we have federal laws um quick side note that in addition Federal agency regulations can also Trump uh state laws so but basically you have federal states states can also

080Trump things um that cities want to do by preempting them okay so epca originally passed in 1975. it was a response to the 1973 oil crisis um it has been amended a number of times since then but um originally it was certainly that was the purpose of it was to respond to that and they gave it the full title an act to increase domestic energy supplies and availability to restrain energy demand to prepare for Energy emergency at emergencies and other purposes and the part that is really most relevant here is um the Epica directs it's good directs the department of energy to set Energy Efficiency standards for appliances and it does here's the express preemption language no State regulation concerning Energy Efficiency energy use or water use of such a covered product shall be respect

081shall be effective with respect to that product now at the at the district court level the court looked at this statute and they took kind of a narrow interpretation of it and they they actually upheld it in favor of Berkeley um so they won at the trial court um and the reason that the trial court or the district court in our federal system is what they're referred to um the reason I did this is for two main reasons one is they were giving deference to an area of law historic historically the province of state and Rogue excuse me local regulations so historically states and cities have it's have been considered to have uh the main power in our federal system to regulate for the safety and well-being of citizens now certainly over time as the

082federal government has gotten bigger they've certainly intruded upon this but um this the courts still do give some deference um to making sure that uh these this historic area isn't totally trampled upon and so basically they're looking for something that's that's pretty clearly um stated another another sort of technical thing that's getting a bit in the weeds is they relied on a legal precedent that there's a presumption against preemption um again the idea being that we want to be really clear if we're going to not allow a state or local government to do something um because of preemption and again any finding a fraction should needs to be clearly stated in the statute um so with that background um The District Court look at the ordinance and said it doesn't facially regulate or mandate any

083particular type of product or if sorry if the ordinance does not facially regulate or mandate any particular type of product or Appliance then it's not preempted by ebca and in other words Epco only prevents the direct regulation of of appliances not does not prohibit local laws that might indirectly affect the use of regulated appliances so as we know this case was appealed to the ninth circuit and um they definitely saw things differently um they looked at Epica and they said Epco preemption is broader and that it extends to regulations that address the products themselves and the on strike and excuse me and the on-site infrastructure for their use of natural gas the appeals court decision hinges in large part of its understanding of the term energy use they said energy use is based on consumption

084that happens at the point of use and that this means we measure Energy Products not from where the products roll off the factory floor but from where consumers use the products and so essentially by preventing natural gas appliances from being connected to the infrastructure that's essentially regulating their energy use to a level of zero and um a person language says you're not supposed to be regulating the energy use of these products I would also point out that while the court didn't make a big deal about it they didn't they said that because of this Express uh language they said that that negates the presumption against uh preemption um and so just to be clear the presumption is sort of like a thumb on the scale uh in One Direction or like a presumption of innocence

085in criminal cases it's something it makes it a look like an extra sort of Burden that you have to overcome in when they saw the express language um they relied on precedent um which they said uh meant that there was no longer to be that presumption um they also saw that there was an explicit exception in the preemption section of ebca and they said that was further confirmation that ebca preemption extends to building codes because it provides this exception for a building code that meets seven very specific requirements which if you want to take a look at those they're footnoted in the document on registrar but in essence it says the code must allow for an option for a builder to meet the code requirements using national natural gas products and so they could require

086in return other offsets um if that's the choice that a builder would go to then they would also have to do something else like better insulation more energy if you know extra maybe efficient appliances possibly solar power it you know it'd be up to the municipality to come up with something um I would also point out the ninth circuit also uh rejected similar arguments from the Department of energy itself who filed an amicus brief um quick explanation amicus briefs can be filed by pretty much anyone uh for appeals cases or Supreme Court cases um and I also show in the next two bullets that there were several States and the City of New York as well as environmental nonprofits that also were on the side of Berkeley uh just to give you the lay of

087the land here on the other side you had um some Big Industry groups that were going against Berkeley and also submitted briefs not surprisingly American Gas Association National Association of home builders and National Association of Manufacturers but the the court uh really only spoke to the ones made by Doe technically it was U.S attorneys on behalf of doe um and courts will give this a little more Credence um than others that want to submit Anarchist amicus briefs but and so basic argument was pretty similar by U.S attorneys which said that state and local regulations that impose energy conservation standards or similar performance standards for the efficiency or energy consumption so and I saw those uh epic only prohibits state and local regulations that impose energy conservation standards or similar performance standards for the efficiency or

088energy consumption of certain appliances and as we know the court also rejected this uh again they said prevention's not that narrow and looking at the plane meaning the plain language of the statute that ebca requires a broader interpretation and also added that the ability to use covered products is meaningless if consumers can't access the natural gas available to them within the city of Berkeley uh one other thing I want to point out quickly um there was a concurring opinion um the decision was unanimous but there was a couple of Judges that wanted to also add a concurring opinion which basically they agree with the overall decision but they wanted to add something else they wanted to say basically um it's you know it's not binding but it it is interesting sometimes and in this case

089uh the concurring opinion um in the JoJo Scanlon seemed troubled by the Assumption in the majority opinion um again the majority opinion assumed that the presumption against preemption would be negated by that Express preemption language it in Epica and he goes on to reference the fact that occurring to him he thinks at the Supreme Court level there's conflicting lines of cases that uh it's not really clear to him uh that there's whether there should be a presumption of France in here or not but he ultimately determines that at least looking at the president and the ninth circuit that uh he he is bound to hold that presumption against preemption does not apply to the expression Express preemption provision before us today so again this is kind of reading between the lines but you could infer

090that without this presumption he may have descended from the majority opinion and this is something maybe that other judges would see differently in another circuit um which gets us to the current case status um as according to my knowledge Berkeley hasn't fully decided whether to appeal the case they don't have to they could appeal they could do what's known as an on Bank appeal where the entire ninth circuit instead of three randomly selected judges which is normally what you have the entire nine circuit would rehear the appeal or they could appeal to the Supreme Court um in our federal system you're guaranteed one-ups or neither of these appeals are guaranteed the courts could decline to even hear the appeal essentially um one interesting thing I'm kind of curious if they're going to do is just

091kind of pass a new law that is structured differently possibly doing what other cities in California have done that Berkeley chose not to do which would be amending their building code so I'm I'm very curious to see if that's what they'll do but at this point we don't know okay so getting back to how this might impact Ann Arbor um strictly speaking the ninth circuit's decision does not have binding effect in Ann Arbor so if you look at this little map here you can see the area that the ninth circuit uh has a jurisdiction over on the west side of of our country and some other little territories there clearly not Michigan Michigan is in the sixth circuit uh what's known as the eastern district of Michigan now any other any other lawyer any other

092judge will have to take a look at this case it'll have to be reckoned with um because at this point it's the highest court out there saying making a determination but you know this is what we refer to as persuasive precedent in legal parlance and again uh sixth circuit or any other circuit for that matter outside the ninth circuit they they are allowed to make their own legal determination if they come up with something different it's possible that could be a reason why the Supreme Court might get involved but any case um another thing to point out is the decision uh these decisions are very fact specific so just because a band like Berkeley is a struck down if another band comes along that doesn't look like Berkeley's um that that doesn't necessarily mean that

093this decision will apply to that man um a good attorney will try to if it comes to it you know we'll try to distinguish a different band and say why it's different than Berkeley is and why the ninth circuit decision really isn't even relevant and again just to remind you it's the red areas that Berkeley was Banning so you probably couldn't ban the appliances either but maybe you could come up with something more creative something different than what Berkeley did um so just to go through a couple potential options that we we might still be able to do um even if you know even with this nine circuit decision out there Weighing on us um again it's not binding on the stick circuit so we could potentially pass it's like Berkeley's um Ann Arbor has

094the same sort of ability to pass benefits uh for public health and safety um again we would have to reckon with the ninth circuit decision and there is another little wrinkle um in Michigan we might have to deal with State preemption by the Michigan building code um the bill the Michigan building code does not have an Express preemption Clause but to my knowledge it's never been challenged and no city has ever attempted to really um pass something that would run counter to the building code um that they're possible that there is that that has happened but not to my knowledge um so with these these two arguments that that does uh probably give this option A a bigger a bigger risk um of being struck down just because there's these these two hurdles um that

095we have to overcome it it's not to say that we couldn't do it but that's just um two things we'd have to consider um and I know as John has mentioned and as most of us are aware one one thing that we've come closest to doing is using Ann Arbor's zoning Authority too bad natural gas use um this of course is different than Berkeley's ordinance uh which used the city's inherent police powers now again I don't I can't find all right I'm not aware of a case that uh did something like this and it's a bit unclear how a court would interpret a zoning regulation with respect to epca um certainly an argument can be made that a zoning regulation bang natural gas use would also be preempted because it kind of does a similar

096thing to what Berkeley was doing um but again um you know it all depends what zoning regulation we come up with um on the other hand a Berkeley has been specifically banned the national gas piping which seems pretty directly tied to the Appliance um a zoning regulation potentially could be structured in a way that would seem further removed from a regulation on the gas appliances themselves and while Africa does mention zoning uh sorry building code regulations it doesn't specifically say anything to my knowledge about zoning regulations so um that being said um the exception to preemption inepca might be another way to go it might not get us exactly what we want um and possibly we could do this you know as a general ordinance as I already kind of explained through our cities uh

097police Powers um that's one way to do it I'm uh another thing would be a zoning regulation that complies with the building code exception spelled out um it it does specifically say building codes and not zoning but again this is just an idea um and since zoning regulations are usually something that come into play in new and approval for new projects um maybe this is something we could do again it's a bit of a spitballing brainstorm and would certainly require further research but that is certainly something that could be looked into again it's not going to be a total ban on natural gas connections because to meet the exception it can't be it has to be some sort of Regulation that favors that could favor all extra developments but still leaving Hope in some way

098to comply uh with the regulation to still allow natural gas uh we could hopefully accomplish something creative here um some sort of offsets that um would give us some benefits even if natural gas is installed um and hopefully maybe we could even structure something that maybe not right away but maybe over time developers see okay this is actually easier to just do it all electric and maybe it's cheaper so that is another possibility lastly we get to Natural Gas Distribution franchising this is something that admittedly I've looked at the least but it was pointed out um and I got this idea from the nine circuits opinion itself so I will say um let's see so it was in response to another argument in defense of the ordinance so uh Berkeley this is the Court's language

099Berkeley finally contends that preemption here would mean that the city must affirmatively make natural gas available everywhere interjecting this argument the court stated that our holding doesn't touch on whether the city has any obligation to maintain or expand the availability of a utilities delivery of gas to meters uh in one of the other concurring opinions by Judge Baker he also wrote that nor is there any indication from its text or structure that Epica speaks to the distribution of natural gas if a state or local government terminates exhaust existing gas utility service or to declines to extend such service Epco likely has no application again this is going to require further research but uh there may be there may be something here that we can do um especially since our natural gas franchise is being uh

100negotiated for renewal all right uh last slide so some final thoughts and recent development which I can go through quickly because uh John did uh point this out as well so any natural gas man in my opinion is going to face opposite opposition probably in the form of a lawsuit um there's just way too powerful interests with too strong of a sign Financial incentive to try and stop such bands but I mean I don't think you know I don't see that as a reason necessarily um to not do it um the ninth circuits decision also is not the last word I'm not sure gas fans and Epica preemption as well um there's certainly going to be more court cases more challenges uh this could end up at the Supreme Court depending on what other circuits

101do um and so we you know we could we could wait around we could maybe get greater certainty in but I mean it could be years before we have that kind of certainty and I don't really think you know we've declared a climate emergency so clearly uh you know the time is of the evidence you know we can't really afford to wait years to do nothing now as John John already mentioned uh I believe it was the May 1st anniversary council meeting that that resolution asking the City attorney to provide an analysis of the ninth circuit opinion um in relation to Ann Arbor um and I certainly applaud city council for doing this um I you know what I've seen over the years is that I don't see as much collaboration as I would like

102to see with the city attorney's office and this this is I think is one example where a more collaborative approach with the city attorney's office will be warranted um I mean this of course assumes that city council is supportive of limiting future natural gas hookups in some way um so I would really recommend that going forward we getting the city attorney's office and office of sustainability working together to come up with a resolution that they both think will give us the best chance to succeed now we do have to be careful with giving City attorneys advice out uh we have to keep it confidential but the uh the attorney client privilege I do not think would be broken as they say uh by including Missy Stoltz or John mursky um you know I've I've seen

103this in corporate settings um not not personally but observed it you know a lot of Corporations have attorneys that work hand in hand with uh business people from the beginning of a project to the end to help you know answer the potential legal questions that come up and and vet things and so I really think that that type of approach just coming up listening and then sending it to the city's attorney's office waiting two months and then they come back and say sorry you can't do that I would rather have them in from the beginning and as I said a more collaborative approach I think would be the best way to go I will stop sharing my screen and uh strategy video again here thank you Noah I'd like to open things up for discussion

104questions uh commissioner McKenna thank you so much no that was so informative thank you for sharing all of that um one thing I didn't hear you mentioned was uh state law preemption um where are you so I can speak to you yeah um because I believe that the state law and the state building code right like regulates the use uh enter both Energy Efficiency and also the the kind of supply of utility services so wondering your take on that and then I also wanted to share that yeah I totally agree with you in terms of working with the city attorney's office and it just based on what you outline for us of course you're a lawyer but it makes me feel like um it's really the structuring um kind of the language of what gets

105ultimately uh you know considered for passing within the city government is um is all about that language and that's that's kind of like what's going to make or break it um so thanks for sharing all that uh yes thanks I I did go I did mention it quickly but it's possible you you missed it and I didn't give a full analysis of it um in full disclosure this there was so many discussions between me and John earlier about looking at um State preemption um specifically when we were considering the zoning regulation um I believe it was a Home Builders Association wrote a letter basically arguing why we were preempted from doing it and I I did take a look at that and certainly you're right that is something that we're gonna have to contend with

106um a zoning regulation might be a way to possibly avoid preemption and I will say that um uh from uh a commenter that comes to our meetings he has gotten in touch with the original people that one of the original drafters of the building code who according to him that was not their intent to preempt uh locals look cities from you know doing their own thing now quite frankly um I haven't looked at the legislative history to tell you what it says but the Assumption I think has been that it does preempt um but again I don't think anyone has really ever challenged whether or not the building code does print it there certainly isn't um very expressed language doing so um I do think there is some language that says that yes cities can't

107essentially make their own building codes so we would but that's not what Berkeley did either like like I said they they they could have done it through their building code but they didn't so again um it's something that is going to be a dual a dual threat is State preemption and federal preemption commission Peck I mean I think my connection is strange since I'm in my office but um what about using a tax structure hmm um yeah yeah I mean you're saying like what are we taxing I guess I have a hundred dollars a nano liter of natural gas oh I see what you're saying um yeah I I I really don't know I'd have to look into what the taxing uh Authority that the city has is it I it it might be possible

108as far as I know it's very very restrictive in Michigan but it's again something to look at I think it's not you know a bad idea a council member Briggs yeah um I just want to say thank you to Noah for um putting together this presentation and going into it it's really helpful to to go through the the facts of the case and understand how it is you know similar and different from um what we what we've been contemplating but certainly as you're writing this is certainly guidance that everybody's looking at right now which is um to the point that um Council was very aware that this is a point of interest um to multiple Commissions in the city that commissions have as you saw in the whereas Clauses of that resolution um it's it's

109very unusual for the city attorney's office to provide a public opinion on an issue we have confidential information for a reason um but because there is so much interest in this both amongst our advisory commissions and amongst the community at large um we wanted to make sure that we provided some um some guidance from some some thoughts from our city attorney's office um on this matter so um that will be something I'm sure that folks will be interested to see if it's coming out but um recognizing that um there will be things that our city attorney's office will not be saying because they they need to be kept confidential as well because that's guidance that's provided but I do want to um just say a little bit about how the city attorney's office works in

110the city um which is obviously it's an advice it advises Council and it also advises the organization as a whole so there is there is that collaboration that is happening or um between staff and the city attorney's office quite frequently in terms of those conversations um the free flow of ideas and you know and we also have um we've brought in specialized staff as well for for certain OSI related issues that we're able to to work with as well but um so you know Dr Stoltz for example one would be something of this this nature would be um a part of those those internal um confidential briefings as well so um in terms of how far out those that that information can go that's that's obviously um they serve a certain purpose in the organization

111um so we have to be be careful about that but um I'm happy to provide more information or I'm sure Travis will be happy to speak to you know kind of have that the role or the functioning of the the attorney Administration yeah uh thanks for uh clarifying that uh collaboration exists and um something else I was gonna say that slipped out of my hand but anyway chime in here and say that uh I hadn't seen Nova slides before he presented them tonight um and um the suggestion that I'd be involved is maybe something that uh Noah thought maybe came up in in email exchanges or conversations but it wasn't something that I specifically um recommended or asked for and I I can imagine it would be unlikely that someone like me would be involved

112um just because I'm sure and I will be chair anyhow uh after this meeting and there's probably people in the city's orbit I'll call it that way that are better qualified to interact with the city attorney and with staff than than I am um but I think that's maybe the general thrust is to to bring in multiple inputs maybe even from the University of Michigan there may be legal experts there that uh would be um uh willing to provide either pro bono or you know a fee service on on Consulting on this matter I think that's maybe the the more broader with a broader funnel yeah that's correct and you're uh okay uh you're right um you know you do have to be careful about how big a sphere that you expand that to but

113and it is a little bit unclear but certainly um it is greater that the client as defined in the client attorney privilege is greater than just city council it does it certainly extend to senior staff members um arguably it could extend the City commissioners too but we don't have city of Ann Arbor emails which does complicate things yeah and you're right I mean it's so definitely senior staffer um are included on in the relevant um conversations on certain topic areas um because that is it's critical that they also um have that guidance and advice as well um you know I guess I would just like to speak that to the point that um you know we are we're definitely as needed on different issues um you you will see for different issues that the city

114um is facing whether it's Gelman or you know different OSI we we bring in um we will um contract Professional Services with Specialists um in certain legal areas when we need that for certain different types of cases that we may not have that inside expertise on so that's something that the city um has a has a history of doing and certainly um will continue doing you know we'll continue to do moving forward and we certainly do within OSI issues as well so um it's important we um you know this is a highly functioning Professional Organization and so um we'd look at each of these issues um recognizing that um just like in Berkeley there's there's a lot of different entities that are paying attention to these issues and we need to make sure that we

115are operating in a way that is um you know fulfilling the policy goals and the the values of our community and also um being responsible stewards of our of our tax dollars council member Edina thanks um and I'll just briefly follow up a little bit on the uh mostly because I know that this is not unique to this body and some of the other commissions that I work with I know that there are a lot of times where Commissioners in particular would like to have kind of more access to Legal staff and and legal advice and those types of things and um I want to acknowledge and this is not specific obviously to John or to any of the other chairs that we would work with but in any of these circumstances a lot of

116the times that we have this privilege as I know so many of you know is because we're talking about potential litigation that the city might be engaged in and the more people who have access to that information the more chance there is that one person could break that trust um and and if that happens we're suddenly broadcasting our potential you know legal case our legal position out to those who might sue us who are those who are watching a commission meeting or um and so keeping that sphere really really close particularly on things like this where we are working with an issue that's working its way through the courts and we're um we're paying attention and we're learning and we're also developing our own legal strategies to move forward it's really important to keep that

117that Circle pretty close other comments or questions I'm going to weigh in with a few thoughts of my own um first of all I wanted to go out a little bit so that we look at the resolution that we passed at least with both resolved Clauses and look at this issue a little bit more holistically um so what we've been dealing with specifically is the first resolve Clause related to a ban or what we also indicated would be one with potentially limited exceptions and I think maybe that's something that also be considered um when I'm crafting something if we were to take that route and hopefully the city's attorney would would consider that so maybe there are ways of and apparently Berkeley may have done this as well but that's something obviously to look at

118is is how how limiting it is versus uh you know if it's it's a little bit looser then maybe it provides the the latitude that allows us to um pass um legal review at uh um at whatever level is uh finally going to make a decision just wanted to throw that idea out secondly what I wanted to mention is um well I actually have a question there's there's this idea of home rule and Noah what what does that mean in a case like this and does it apply to the city and what rights does it give to the city or or you know in a case like this is that at all applicable uh I have heard people throw this around um that that we have we're what's known as a home rule state and

119yeah I believe that mostly applies to Regional or to local zoning laws that we have the ability to do that it's not regionally done um I suppose I I apologize I'm not sure if it applies to other things so much but I would say that um at least I I think oftentimes that can apply to building codes too but if that was the case I think that's negated by the state building code for the most part um so maybe yes there still is this background principle of home rule but there's been other stuff that's layered on top of that over the years that really has stripped a lot of that home rule away and I think mostly what exists now is our our zoning authority to make um zoning decisions that aren't done regionally but

120again I'm a little bit uncertain about that okay okay well maybe it's something again that cities attorneys uh the city attorney's office would uh would look at in terms of its applicability in this case what I wanted to do is focus at least a little bit on the second resolve clause and contrast it to the resolution passed by Council last Monday so um the second resolved Clause is something that I would encourage Council to consider it's not even mentioned in the resolution that it passed on the Berkeley case um but I'd like to pass on that I sent a list of seven different possible ways we talked about measures that could incentivize all electric construction I sent her and encouraged her to share them with anyone she wanted including other planning Commissioners as well as

121Brett Leonard um they ranged from everything from a moratorium and cities often declare moratoriums when they're trying to settle something out so that might be a strategy that the city could take there are jurisdictions in Washington County that have uh past the moratoriums and even extended those um and that might be something to look at uh there was the idea that uh commissioner Peck brought up about taxes another way of looking at is fees we provide we we charge a number of different fees um maybe there's a way of doing that so like I said there's there's um seven or eight different things um that uh I think and just even looking at those might set off a brainstorming session with people within City staff that might come up with other ideas so I really

122want uh to emphasize that we shouldn't um neglect that and the other thing and then uh then I'll recognize you uh council member Briggs is I'm I'm personally very concerned with the idea that the franchise is going to solve our problems um so first of all the franchise uh runs through 2027 that doesn't mean that the franchise agreement couldn't be reached before that um and that would um preempt the existing potentially the existing franchise but remember the franchise um only governs um how gas is going to be delivered and how there might be a transition and I think first of all we have to recognize at least I'll speak for myself I'm not certain that DTE is going to be um particularly interested in advancing Ann Arbor's interests um that means it might drag its

123seat in the negotiations um it may not be a good faith actor um in in how it deals with the city so it it probably does not benefit um from reaching any kind of new franchise agreement that meets the conditions of a20 I mean DTE came out in writing and said that they are opposed to the Natural Gas Provisions um in the a20 plan so it's pretty clear that they they are not uh interested in in accommodating Ann Arbor's interest the other thing is that even if we had a fantastic new franchise agreement um that doesn't the whole time between now and when that is signed uh as we've seen with essentially one approval per month of new natural gas construction uh construction um those potentially are going to continue to be approved certainly by

124right construction I mean we the city cannot do anything with buy right and once those are are installed or once those are built those natural gas supplied assets are going to continue to burn natural gas for many many years and the kinds of things that our solutions for getting away from natural gas like um geothermal or Wastewater geothermal or moving to biogas or using hydrogen or a mix of hydrogen these kinds of things are not going to be introduced at the flip of a switch so even if we have a wonderful new franchise agreement it's very unlikely that we're going to be significantly reducing the flow of natural gas for many many years and so I'm I'm really concerned with the the one whereas clause in the resolution uh that is passed by Council and

125then also um Shannon shared a Shannon Gib Randall Planning Commission share shared an email exchange that she had with Brett Leonard where Brett said to her let's see if I have it here in front of me um he wrote um no in and she well Shannon wrote This Way um I got an email from John mursky about timing for natural gas ban any news for me on that front I am enthusiastic to work on the carrots and sticks approach that I brought up a few weeks ago if the band seems infeasible um for a long time frame and then Brett responded no as the city council has directed staff to pursue pursue a new or amended gas franchise I think that makes sense for the Planning Commission to weight that outcome in the incentive-based approach

126would be difficult to implement currently in the context of other work priorities EC EG tc1 or uh zoning premiums or other ordinance changes and the upcoming upcoming comprehensive plan so the concern that I have is that we are putting our eggs in one basket potentially with a natural gas franchise and in the meantime we're continuing to have new construction that is going to be natural gas connected and burning natural gas for a long long time so I just wanted to express those publicly those are my my thoughts I'm I know that they're shared by others and I hope that the city actually in light of uh Noah's presentation looks at the first resolve clause and the possible approaches there that would differ from Berkeley look at also what it could do in terms of measures

127to incentivize all all electric construction um and and not just um consider the natural gas franchise I think it should be doing all three personally so that's my input and council member Ricks yeah thanks um I guess I wanted to provide an update that um we are in the midst of developing a resolution around the incentives the second resolved Clause around the incentives and um obviously this is budget season right now our next meeting for city council is a big one in terms of adopting cities budget not to say that this is not an important topic but that is the focus of of staff and Council right now um but I would anticipate that um we are likely to be seeing that that resolution go to council um in in early June um so uh

128that that is on um staff's radar um it's in on the radar excellent news attorney's office um and and um multiple council members are are working on that so um that's an update there um I would also like to note that that that conversation um obviously everything that that we do is as council members and staff members and and commission members really is is open to foia and it's it's public information and that's how I operate in terms of everything that goes out as well um but that may not have been um you know that email communication between uh um staff member and Planning Commission and a Planning Commission member might have been um sort of a point of discussion for within Planning Commission at that point in time so I guess I would be

129be cautious about um you know reading those types of emails over um and kind of in this setting I'm not sure it's just for your information I asked Shannon if I could um read it in this setting she contacted Brett and Brett fed back that I could okay yes and I also shared the information about the resolution that was passed last last Monday so thank you thank you for saying that that that's helpful I'm glad that you did that um so anyway we we are working on this um and um you know I at least from my perspective and I I think from all the colleagues that I have spoken to um city has passed I'm an emergency um we recognize that we have adopted 20 30 climate neutrality goals um and we have a

130staff and a city attorney's office that is recognizes that this is a priority for not only for our community through our adopted plans but also through Council and so we have a lot of energy and resources directed on this issue and we're trying to to move forward in a way that we believe is is the most productive for this moment in time and that does not mean that the decisions that the approach that gets made today um will be our approach for the indefinite future um but that um especially when we're beginning negotiations we are certainly going to do our part to begin those negotiations in good faith does anybody else have anything that they want to share okay and we will close that agenda item and then go on to commission business and that

131means specifically election of officers as I mentioned in our last meeting our bylaws limit officers from serving more than three years in their individual office uh that applies to both Carlene and me um I as chair and Carlene as Vice chair and so um what we want to do tonight is um elect a new chair and elect a new Vice chair um I think it's also appropriate that we uh review the liaison to the environmental commission that's not officially an office that's governed by the bylaws but I think it's something that makes sense that we review one more time uh or at least on an annual basis I should say uh and so what I thought we would do then first is um open up nominations for chair of the commission um we'll take nominations

132uh you can nominate someone else you can nominate yourself uh and so I'd like to open uh the floor for nominations for chair of the commission and by the way um the um after the election the new officers will assume their roles as of June 1st do we have any nominations commissioner Macomber and traditional radina First maybe our council member redeem and then Commissioner of a congress uh thank you um I nominate uh Carlene Colvin Garcia per chair and can I nominate somebody for a vice chair as well why don't we do one at a time okay okay um Carlene um do you accept the nomination thank you so much commissioner McCumber I really appreciate that and I am going to decline your nomination thank you though uh councilmember adino I was going to ask

133if anyone had previously expressed any interest to you um leading into this meeting um and if not we might have an awkward round of people declining nominations um that being said I'm going to put someone on the spot because I'd already indicated to him that I thought he might be a good chair and so he can decline us if he's going to but I'm I'm going to nominate commissioner Berkowitz I don't know if I can nominate actually I'm going to suggest that someone should nominate you're you're a voting member of the commission so I would assume that you can uh thank you councilman for Regina I'm definitely interested but candidly um I'm at a really interesting point in my life uh personally and professionally and that was not the perfect time for me to step

134into this role I also feel a little bit new on this commission I'm still kind of learning the ropes and the Cadence and um some of the Roberts rules and behind the scenes things so I would just like a little bit more time but I am interested in the future thank you though we won't we won't let you forget that or we won't forget that I should say um I I understand so um I have not been partied any discussions um with any Commissioners uh so I I I can't shed any light I understand that there was a conversation between um Joe and one commissioner and I don't know what that led to or any specifics and I don't think we want to talk about that here um so but I just wanted to share

135that um at least from my perspectives there hasn't been any discussions um Carlene and I had a brief discussion um about ourselves um and you know anybody is is able to change their mind um I don't know if anybody else had approached um Joe or Carlene but um I'd continue to like to take nominations if anybody else is interested in stepping forward laminate um Alex Commissioners are you uh interested I I think I'm gonna respectfully decline I appreciate the thought thank you so I'm gonna I'm gonna nominate someone and that individual should feel free also to um speak their piece uh I'm gonna nominate uh commissioner Smith Charisse are you interested at all in in serving uh thank you very much for the the nomination I am also going to respectfully decline the chair position

136uh that said I would you know maybe interested in the the vice chair position um so good to know uh councilman verdina yeah I think that leaves Commissioners McKenna and overpeck right of people not leaving the commission so so if neither of you raised your hand we're just going to keep going so I I will nominate uh commissioner McKenna all right everyone had a great time for me personally and um yeah I just I just don't think I can take on the role uh silence is golden or in this case maybe not so golden we really do need somebody to step up um and I I've a member of another group now where I serve as as uh the the vice or the co-lead um and I have to say that you know Carlene and

137I have collaborated a lot and um I think if two people step forward um then you can split duties um you know I talked in the last meeting about the things that I do that doesn't mean you have to do all of those things and that doesn't mean that the chair has to assume all of those duties you can split them up um in terms of uh preparing for meetings as I mentioned yesterday uh five of us met to consider new commission applicants I did some Preparatory work as chair that doesn't mean that the chair has to do that that means the chair could delegate those things or or just simply reach out an agreement with the co-chair to do that so I would encourage um people to think about stepping forward in light of

138that um and uh commissioner McCumber you want to ask us to that too hopefully um so I have a an orthodox idea um John would you consider accepting a nomination as Vice chair and um uh if John accepted nomination as a vice chair would you consider a nomination reconsider a nomination for chair I'll let Cherise answer first foreign probably have to respectfully decline um unless you know kind of roles and responsibilities perhaps look a little bit different I heard the you know term co-chair if there was you know some you know flexibility there I may reconsider but again just want to be mindful of um you know how much I take on at this time again just personally professionally and what makes the most sense for me but absolutely interested in you know kind of

139supporting the the commission uh the best that I came commissioner McKenna yeah I just wanted to hear a little bit more about the timeline like uh given the stalemate that we seem to have um I mean I I totally I think all of us are um kind of in a tough spot um I don't know so yeah what what happens from here um I mean knowing that we can't spend you know another 45 five minutes in this place Point uh looks like uh council member Adina has a great idea that he's excited to share with us I I don't know that if it's that it's a great idea I just wanted to kind of build on what John has already said which is that you know on on top of the fact that um you

140know I would say that that John is of all the chairs that I work with on my commission is probably one of the the kind of the most engaged and leading uh the commission and and puts probably the most time in I would say um and it's clear that he's really really passionate about this but he does really I would say go over and above in terms of the work that he puts in um and so uh I will and with that I wanted to acknowledge I don't believe John is immediately leaving the commission right and so John is not leaving Carlene is not immediately leaving Erica and I are still here um and and Joe continues to be a great support person and so I hope that no one feels that they have to

141be as um you know there there will be a significant support system in the five of us in place to help make sure that there is a smooth transition and that whoever steps into this role can step into it comfortably um and that may mean that there's kind of a ramping up period where there is a support network around you kind of helping you to build towards that especially as some of these you know other professional or personal things that are going on build out so I don't want you to feel like you're going to step in on day one and everyone else is going to disappear um we will all still be here to support kind of your development as a leader of this body agreed uh commissioner McCoy and then councilmember Briggs yeah

142I'm curious um with what like Claire said is if this has to be votan tonight I think there's also a handful of people who aren't here from my understanding I'm I'm not well there are a few people that aren't here but actually um commissioner Kerber is not here and he's stepping down and commissioner uh Kendall Conan is also not here she's stepping down let's see about this and he said he's not interested at this time okay okay and then perhaps perhaps not for I mean we didn't get to the environmental commission uh liaison but I just wanted to note that I know in the past um like the person who decided to do that was like relatively new so um if if there ends up not being someone here interested I think you know we

143haven't had someone I think for a while so uh we could also offer that up to it sounds like there's going to be a lot of new people soon so I think that's also an option perhaps not for chair and vice chair but um the third option so if it doesn't have to be decided tonight that would be quite something if we uh the mayor nominated someone Council approved them and we anointed them cheer all in the matter of one month councilmember Grace yeah um I just wanted to make sure I formally uh we called on everybody around the screen so commissioner overpack I don't know if you uh uh would consider um stepping into the the chair rule or not thank you councilwoman Briggs I am sorely tempted but I'm also um I just

144don't have the bandwidth I have got a job that is keeping them on my toes um and Ember stop laughing um and I uh I just can't add more to my plate you have some amazing opportunities occurring here at the University of Michigan and I want to be able to do my job and take advantage of them thanks thanks though thankfully I understand commissioner Levin we haven't tagged you yet either any any thoughts or anything you want to share with with the rest of the commission to as far as stepping forward uh yeah I mean I guess I'm kind of in a similar thinking of other people I also I think I have to look at to how many how much longer my commission goes till not that I couldn't potentially renew it I'm not

145sure if I'm going to do that but I actually don't I think I have maybe a year do you know Jeff I was just going to say that regardless of anyone's term length technically the the officer positions are all one-year terms regardless and you know it continues each year so even if you only have one year that is fine either way I don't know off top of my head what your term is but both for you and for everyone else you know you're not committing to serve as chair for three years at this point in time you can certainly choose you know if you know test it out for a year if after a year like that's way too much work it's fully acceptable to step back at that time so exactly just noting that

146for in case anyone's you know concerned about length of term and all that yep and no I know for sure you're you're you have at least one more year I I don't remember if it's one or two I think it's it's either one or two okay yeah thanks so just as a really quick recap we have obviously the meetings that the chair and vice chair uh preside over with uh mostly the chair so far with John but you can actually split it as well between both roles um and with the support of Joe and a participation from from all of us as far as the scripts the setting of the running of the meeting um so John has created these really great structures for like how to run the reading and scripts that's something that

147we can also provide for the incoming chair um so there are templates for for the entire role for you to for you to um utilize if you if you don't want to create them for yourself from scratch the other thing is there is a monthly meeting that's 30 minutes where we decide on upcoming topics uh for the meetings based on availability of speakers based on interest from the commission and then at the at the beginning of of the year we have a meeting that we decide on um and you are you've answered surveys from from us requesting you know topics so we go over the entire list and then we decide what we're going to be um covering and And discussing for the the first leg of the year and then we we do that

148like quarterly and uh so it's it's very it's very contained times that we meet and uh so it's not that overwhelming yeah and just in case it wasn't you know clear who does what and all that stuff like everything that gets uploaded to legendstar everything that gets uploaded and put through that system like that's on the staff liaison not a thing that the chair has to worry about um or vice chair or anything like that so a lot of those you know um administrative processes go through um on my end so yeah and and I don't have to say this but I will say this Joe is doing an excellent job as liaison um that uh there were there were issues in the past with things getting posted registrar and things like that I mean

149I Joe has been really really uh great and consistent um I mean you you can see for yourself registrar is almost always up to date um and if there were for example late materials like today with Noah's presentation that's simply because um this was a late request of actually presenting in this forum and so and he wanted a particular slide deck so this is no no reflection whatsoever on JoJo's doing a great job and he's a great partner for both Carlene and me um it sounds like um we have a stalemate um and I don't want to just uh wait out somebody um tonight that that's really not fair what I would uh encourage uh people to do is think about this uh we will be bringing on some new members but I don't think

150it's fair to ask them um to do that um maybe there are some people that Talk Amongst you about uh this you feel free to talk to me and Carlene uh councilmember Briggs and councilmember Adina as well as to Joe um I just would say that uh maybe we leave this for right now um is anybody have any objections to that okay so is everyone kind of close I mean if they would really want to have like a partner instead of like you know Chair by share maybe two co-chairs anybody who's kind of close everyone's got their poker faces on oh come on I can see Claire you're kind of interested in same in you Cherise yes a little and so Alex you too I can tell I think I just want a little bit

151more like personal time to consider it given my just my my program and everything I have going on in my life understood totally understand uh did you want to share anything you had your hand there for a second yeah I mean the longer this goes on to say okay or like do it but if we wanted to wait till the next meeting that might be helpful to me to figure out some decisions that I will be making in my personal and professional life in the next couple weeks yeah yeah okay why don't we do that I mean I I think um we've heard from everybody there's a significant reluctance and that's not going to change by having uh another five minute wait or whatever so I think everybody's sleeping over it people having an opportunity

152to talk to each other that makes a lot more sense um what about um environmental commission liaison um does anybody um have an interest in doing that um I mean why don't we have to go through formal nominations um is there anybody that's that's interested in in stepping up and taking that on I mean I I I'll I'll volunteer to do it again it's something that I enjoy um but uh we've had situations in the past there was a period where um I think it was Edie um Juno that uh served in that role for roughly roughly 18 months um before she moved away from the city um and if anybody wants to step forward now that would be great I think you'd learn a lot from the opportunity um again it's relatively little commitment

153there's a meeting once a month and what you do beyond that is up to you just like almost any other volunteer role there's no you're not really taking on any chair kind of rules um commissioner Levin I mean certainly I will I'll let you do it John but I was gonna say I I would be interested if no one else other than you wants to do it uh okay good um commissioner um Smith yeah I don't know if this is the right time to bring this up but you know perhaps as a future agenda item um if we may consider kind of the overlap in our work with the Planning Commission as well as the Transportation Commission and think about whether or not it makes sense to have a liaison there as well that's something

154to consider so why why don't we do the following why don't we table everything no and I can talk um I I have no problem um in handing things over to you Noah and then you could punt back to me if you're you know that that doesn't work out why don't you and I talk and we handle all this then in next month's meeting um I think uh I don't know how we work around the bylaws but we'll just uh simply say that I'll I'll chair the next meeting my wife may not be too pleased with that but uh that's that's okay and uh hopefully we'll have a better discussion and a few people step forward so uh commissioner Levin and then councilmember um radina and then um commissioner Peck yeah just another real quick

155suggestion again I I don't know if the bylaws allow this but maybe we could have some sort of caretaker Arrangement where where there's like a rotating every month somebody else does it until we get a permanent person just a suggestion I don't know if that's possible but okay something we can talk about maybe I don't know Joe you may have to talk to someone in the attorney's office um about this I mean they've been ones that have um written and updated and interpreted the bylaws up until now um council member Dina thanks and maybe I should defer to Joe but because I was like I was actually going to suggest also if anybody has you know questions or ideas if you know Commissioners McKenna and Smith if you guys both decide you're kind of interested

156and maybe we'd be interested in a co-chair position or something like that um you know that would probably also require an amendment to bylaws and so um but if that's something that you're interested in maybe have a conversation with Joe ahead of time and that way we could come prepared for that possibility as well at the next meeting um so Joe I'm I'm maybe offering you up as if anybody has questions or wants to maybe express interest to reach out to you yeah obviously the time commitment of the chair is not in the meetings because whether you're chair or not you're in the meeting just as long as everybody else um so as Carlene said um that kind of work is uh pretty much per script um and then it depends then on what you

157do outside the meeting uh and that's going to depend on each one of you individually commissioner Peck and then Joe yeah I just wanted to say John thank you so much for being a such a good chair I think he just intimidated us all by being so thorough and and dedicated and inspirational um but I also have a solution and that is uh you do a name change I wish I could I'll run that by my wife too and see what she says well thanks for the compliment I appreciate that Joe I hope you have another idea that's better better even than that one you know yeah clearly uh no I don't necessarily have a solution um but I think just in terms of like Logistics because of the way um you know bios work

158terms work all that kind of thing because you know technically your you know your terms do run through you know the end of May um so that you know that that at least gives us you know enough time to you know under that to kind of set up the next month's agenda kind of a deal um so you know we will at least be able to handle that and I think you know first first thing on the agenda will be um you know the elections that we would kind of formally move um to that um obviously like in the meeting you know whoever's ends up stepping up and being elected two chairs not gonna be required to then run that full meeting because you will have no notice um like we can handle that on

159our ends we'll figure out some some solution for that um yeah I will I'll just reach out to make sure to see what kind of things we have on the clerk's office um again just looking directly at the bylaws as of right now um again officers shall be elected for one-year terms um so any you know it gives some stuff on like when the votes and stuff should take place um you know if if we're looking at other sort of solutions it would require an amendment to the bylaws which are things that you know can be done it's just again another another possibility there um so those are kind of where we're at on that end um again just offering up my you know myself all of us more than happy to talk to anyone

160um you know at literally any time um you know we can go through kind of what are the you know what are the requirements what are some of the you know responsibilities things like that um as well as talk through you know time commitments obviously everyone has so many things going on um and these are all valid reasons um to you know not be interested at this point in time um but more than happy to just kind of talk through any of that to see like you know if there's those concerns if you know what uh where we can work around with those concerns kind of find out um you know what what kind of options could potentially work so have you do that all you know I think everyone else has offered up that

161as well um so please reach out to us in this time as we all reflect and I'm going to say this with a little bit of just um but this is to the nominating committee um when we nominate candidates maybe we need to think that we need to nominate people like me that are retired and and have all kinds of free time that are willing to step forward to serve as chair because if we nominate all these really super Dynamic people that have families and have jobs and are getting their phds they have other priorities than someone like I do so maybe that's something to think about going forward council member Briggs that's a good point um but I I just wanted to make sure that I said um thank you to you John and

162to Carlene um really your leadership on this commission has been incredible um both of you and I know that um you will spend an incredible amount of time on both on subcommittees and an organization of of the agendas and research and um you know it is it's um it's apparent obviously in terms of how people see the rules um stepping into them um and it's been apparent in terms of the outcomes of the commission as well um but I think you know you've you've both done an outstanding job and um really really appreciate your service to the commission and for those who are contemplating you know what's coming next um as Travis said please reach out to me to Travis to Joe and we're happy to talk through it with you obviously both traps and

163I serve on a number of different commissions and so you know we see how the role plays out in in a variety of different different places um you know the so happy to have to talk through what your concerns are and you know what your interests are too because um you know this is hopefully something that you know is is enjoyable for everybody so thank you it is it is a pleasure to serve it's um it's obviously some work but it's also a pleasure and uh so yeah consider that as well okay so we're gonna move on because otherwise we're going to be here all night uh Energy report and then news um uh from each one of the uh Commissioners and from the council members will do it in that order yes give me

164one second I think something happened with Trish who dropped and I okay creating them okay um yeah reports on OSI side um so one just because we we talked about it uh both at the last meeting and this one um just wanting to note that the city is going to be hosting a couple listening sessions for folks to share their ideas about uh the sustainable heating franchise uh here uh in in what that could mean in Ann Arbor uh there'll be uh currently scheduled meetings are uh May 11th at 6 pm and May 16th also at 6 p.m um you can register on our our website uh those those will resume um also the uh we'll be looking at additional opportunities to provide uh feedback outside of those those are just ones scheduled at the

165moment and people can also share feedback uh Anytime by emailing franchise feedback a2gov.org so if anyone is interested in learning more and providing feedback there's a couple opportunities there um also putting out because this will happen in advance of our next meeting but a20 week will be happening in the first week of June um for those unfamiliar there's a week full of events uh you know some hosted by OSI some hosted by the various um collaborators um around just kind of all things that's happening around a20 um as well as just all the different sustainably work on in the community uh there's gonna be a lot of different events pretty much one well there is at least one event every day some days of two or three events um so uh keep an eye on

166uh the sustainabilities uh events page um to see what events are happening if you're interested in any of them uh we'd love to see out there um and the last thing I want to note I believe uh many of you have seen But for for those who have not um just recently the city of Ann Arbor we've been selected by the department of energy uh to receive up to uh 588 thousand dollars to design a geothermal heating and cooling system uh we'll be uh designing it uh in Bryant neighborhood on the city south side uh looking at a loop geothermal system that would be paired with efficiency and rooftop solar uh also looking at battery storage and all that to cover at least 75 of the neighborhood's Heating and Cooling load um would also be

167incorporating uh the local school in the area a County Community Mental Health Center and the city's wheeler service center facility all is part of that um so and just to be clear this is a a two-phase grant from the Department of energy the first phase which is what we were awarded for is a design phase so that's what we're getting start we're going through the negotiations and we'll be working on with that all of it is going to be co-designed with residents directly in the neighborhood to make sure everything works for them and then at the conclusion of the first phase doe will look at all the different designs from the different communities they were awarded in Phase One and down select a certain subset of communities uh for dollars to do implement so right

168now just in the design phase and then you know that will last a year and then after that um there's the potential for um implementation dollars on that end so that is what I have for now thanks Joe by the way um I asked Joe to put all of you on the OSI newsletter so hopefully you're receiving that and getting updates um that that way as well uh and so I encourage you to read that and that way you don't have to um we don't have to joke or each and every one of the points that are in the newsletter in this meeting then too um updates from the council members I feel like we've discussed the thing that I would have given you an update on which is the uh requested uh public legal

169memo um so I don't think we need to wade into that again um and then uh just a more General update we are very much in the midst of budget uh so our next uh we have budget uh Amendment deadlines this week and then um next council meeting will be the consideration of amendments in adoption of the budget I have a quick question on that um I'd send an email to the two of you and then I started going through the 400 or whatever pages of the budget and probably made it through 100 or so I did not see a summary of climate millage spending is there is there a summary of that similar to what the city put out prior to um the um vote in November where there was a two-year budget where

170there could be a comparison of what the at least uh pre-voked uh proposal was versus what is actually proposed in the plan I didn't see that like I said if either of you seen that um it's not laid out like that in the budget um in the way it there's not no comparable page that you could go into go to as far as I'm aware in the in in the budget document that would kind of give you that comparison um it's because they kind of get it put into different buckets um in terms of how the you know it's thought of in terms of budgeting terms um certainly that and Joe you may want to speak more to this but um this you know it's uh that is the guiding document um in terms of

171allocations um I realize things are budgeted on a departmental basis and not by the millage basis the the concern that I have is is that the city voted for seven million dollars in additional spending the one line item that I saw was that there's an additional eight and a half heads um for sustainability um and I assume most of that is going to be in OSI but there were a whole lot of other you know specific kinds of commitments I guess you'd say I mean I think that's the way missy also portrayed it in a presentation to the energy commission that uh we the city would most likely not be deviating significantly from that two-year plan um I also saw your question that you submitted council member Briggs and I saw the response um from

172City staff and it just seems to me that it the seven million dollars is just going to be Blended in and Noble no one will have any means of really seeing how the proposed spending is actually being translated into actual spending questions I uh I don't have additional context on like how it fits in with the budget because I don't I'm not I'm not the budget here um but you know one of the things we you know are trying to do is be as transparent as possible like we said we we changed as little as possible on our end from you know again what was put before the voters um and uh you know trying to report out um as best we can you know previously you know we've done our annual reports every year

173on what's kind of happening uh we plan to continue that going forward but based around that uh funding cycle um to you know as as clearly show as we possibly can here's here's where that funding is going um because this was a you know a substantial amount of funding put forth from the community so we want to make sure we are showing where that funding is going um and how it's being implemented good anything else to add from either council members okay uh go ahead councilmember Briggs anything I was just gonna say I mean I think your point around just making sure that there's transparency and clear communication is it's a priority for I think for all of us to make sure that um the community understands how the millage is being spent um and

174you know that's that's certainly a priority um as we go through this and as we have yet after certainly as we have the adopted budget good yeah and and and I will also just add I mean there there are a lot of pieces in here I know that this is the one that that you're probably most interested in given the work on this commission there are a lot of places where you'll see you know a bigger bucket of funds and you won't see like each individual expenditure in the document that we have um and a lot of that is because some of it is being Guided by previously adopted policy and right so right so in this specific example we as Council have already spoken on how those allocations should be made and so beyond

175the the additional staff support that may be funded through millage dollars um to to accomplish some of that work um you know if there are contracts or things like that that need to come forward those will all come through Council and you will see where those dollars are coming from and so you'll see those allocations as they're being made okay thank you I'll give a brief report um on the environmental commission and I wanted to mention one other thing and then we'll open it up to other Commissioners um if they have any news uh very very briefly environmental commission um uh it passed as I mentioned the natural gas resolution that we talked about earlier was split in half um and I mentioned that so I won't need more details the only other thing that

176was I think of significant interest is uh we had a solid waste update um Brian stiglitz um Molly but I'm not going to pronounce his name right majeski um and um Sarah Mason um presented the salad waste uh budget both Financial there were a lot of uh detailed questions that were answered on the finances um as well as some high-level metrics the one good news is that overall trash to landfill is down for the third year in a row and if you look at it on a per capita basis they didn't provide that but it probably even dropped more on a per capita basis so that's a good Trend um the one thing that I wanted to share and I'll keep this brief because it is late but I was going to go into a

177little more detail I read a a blog post today it's called heated and they reported on the record profits of the fossil fuel industry just the top four uh companies um in that like our Chevron Exxon BP and shell they earned in total just in the first quarter over 33 billion dollars in profits and um it was pretty interesting um Exxon for example said um their record-breaking performance was driven by new volumes of crude oil and fuels from the startup of new offshore developments and refining facilities and as the author wrote this is exactly the opposite of ending new fossil fuel developments which the I I um iea says is the only way to stabilize the planet at a relatively safe level of warming and then the other thing that they talked about is that

178also several of these companies are scaling back their pledges to fight the climate crisis BP announced in February that it was backing off its permit its promise to lower emissions by 35 to 40 percent by 20 30 lowering it to 20 to 30 percent Joe also said it would not increase spending on renewable energy this year and Exxon pulled back funding from its much advertised LG biofuel effort so this is just a reminder what we're all seeing on on TV and the media is really contradicted by a lot of the actions of these entities and then they the blog went on and talked about some of the things that what 33 billion dollars could do in world hunger for a year and U.S homelessness for four years fun FEMA's budget for three years by flood

179insurance for every home in the state of Louisiana etc etc etc so this is you can see what what our addiction to fossil fuel is is uh going to and what it's also not doing so I thought I'd share that with you and then open it up for any other comments or news from other Commissioners and if there aren't any then we'll go to public input anybody have anything to share I know it's probably too late so okay seeing guns uh let me get up my my little script here so um this is an opportunity for persons of the public to provide input for up to three minutes if you are watching on CTN please call 888-788 uh uh zero zero nine nine sorry I lost my place there and then 877-853-5247 and enter the

180meeting ID 956-8718-7876 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and the video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hands one by one using the last three digits of your phone number to raise your hand uh please press time star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and then finally please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments um caller ending in one three four thank you Mr Lang and Garber 28 Haverhill Court Cara mursky and vice chair Colvin Garcia have been great in their leadership roles I really thank them both for their many years guiding this commission you've made a huge difference um well thank you um tonight we heard a fantastic legal analysis of

181the Berkeley decision from commissioner Levine and an excellent discussion um I was glad to hear from council member Briggs that there is some kind of resolution in the works to incentivize all electric new construction um I still think we should aggressively pursue an ordinance probably a zoning ordinance that would ban new natural gas connections the gas franchise negotiations absolutely do not substitute for that we need immediate measures in March the city approved 320 gas burning Apartments on Pontiac Trail 78 gas burning town homes on Platte Road last week a 195 unit 180 000 square foot gas burning building on Maiden Lane this month or next something else and on and on so it just can't continue I see the city council resolution incentive package is really welcome um I suspect it'll trigger a whole new

182discussion a few um probably premature comments on this I would be opposed to the public paying developers to install heat pumps as was recently done through the Brownfield plan for the village of Ann Arbor for its 164 for sale units we all have a shared responsibility for addressing climate change including developers and it's really little or no sacrifice on their part except that they have to change the way they do things the building life cycle costs electrification are comparable to gas if not better and any utility operating cost difference can be mostly wiped out with a combination of on-site solar and Energy Efficiency measures along the lines of the 2021 iecc um or passive home standards even better instead of subsidizing developers directly or indirectly instead we should ensure that their Pro forma's incorporate the

183social cost of carbon for example as commissioner overpeck was suggesting um some kind of tax or fee Burlington Vermont earlier this year 30 seconds Burlington passed a carbon pollution impact fee of 150 per metric ton carbon for new construction it was approved in a referendum with 67 percent of the vote that's the sort of thing I hope to see with the stack staff recommendations that will be coming in June thank you for considering my comments thank you thank you for your comments any others uh no further callers okay uh items for the next agenda so as Carlene mentioned Joe and Carlene and I had a call last Monday um where we talked about a number of possibilities um Joe do you want to summarize what we see as being up to happen then we'll take

184other recommendations um we don't have any that are necessarily confirmed but a couple options that we've talked about is potential uh if there's updates on heard um if and potentially an update on the report or the annual report yeah greenhouse gas inventory if we have it in time at this point maybe not super likely um but our annual report um from on a20 generally comes out so we might be able to get something by then right okay other other ideas so heard was another uh that was one of the things that we talked about with Joe that he just mentioned is a possibility also green rental housing program is something that will follow that we've obviously talked about that in this um and the idea is that uh um The Herd resolution the home energy

185rating disclosure would come first um Noah go ahead uh yeah I think I'm gonna email you about this Sean but just wanted to put it out on public record um maybe this is not right yet but maybe at some point I'm curious to hear from DTE about their new time of day uh billing oh yeah how that might be affecting Energies yep okay we'll add that to the list um so just before we adjourn um I wanted to recognize oh um commissioner McKenna oh I just wanted to quickly mention this of the time times time of day right and uh have some initial numbers from a really small case study of 50 homes um that I could share unfortunately it won't be here in June but um I can either share it and have somebody

186else present it or um yeah do it next time we could do it in July or later than that that'd be fine yeah cool so the other the last thing I wanted to do is um recognize the Commissioners that are stepping down um first of all as I mentioned um commissioner um Kettle coonan is stepping down she's a youth commissioner and she's uh I think finished school and gonna be moving away so I want to recognize her for her service um commissioner Kerber um served for three years he's stepping down he couldn't be with us tonight he's in Washington state and he's got family obligations um then we also had um commissioner McCoy uh thank you very much Amber for your service Ember served four years on the commission and I know that you've been

187juggling a lot of things between your PhD studies as well as your role as Geo vice president so thank you for all your service in those regards and then finally I wanted to recognize commissioner McCumber um commissioner McCumber has been on the energy commission for 13 years so that is really amazing that's twice as long as I've been on it and that's just fantastic to think that we have that level of commitment and that level of um at annuity that's been on the commission and that's been very helpful I think to me and all of us and we really appreciate Bridget your's service and thank you very much and thank you again to all four of you um for your service on the commission but especially to you Bridget um thanks very much so did

188you want to say anything I just wanted to say thank you John and thank you to everybody for serving um it's such important work so it's an honor yeah and with that uh thank you all of you for your service again thank you especially to our council members who are probably just about meeting out today um and uh with that it is what time uh I get a see look at my watch 8 58 and I declare this meeting adjourned and I'm going to ask all of you again to sleep over the chair and vice chair position so that we have somebody that leads this group going forward thanks very much and have a great rest of your evening thanks everyone bye-bye