Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee Meeting Transcript – 03/27/2019 Title: City of Austin Description: 24/7 Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 3/27/2019 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 3/27/2019 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [1:33:29 PM] >> Tovo: Good afternoon, I'm Kathy Kathie. I chair the Austin energy oversight committee. It is 1:33 and we will get started as soon as we have a quorum. [1:36:11 PM] >> Tovo: Okay. Thank you so much. Sorry for the delay. We now have a quorum and I would like to call this meeting to order of the Austin energy utility oversight committee. We are going to start by approving the minutes, if there's a motion to do so. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? Councilmember kitchen moves approval. Mayor pro tem Garza seconds it. All those in favor? And that is unanimous on the dais with a variety of councilmembers off the dais. Councilmembers alter, Renteria, Flannigan and Casar. Next up are skins citizens communications. If somebody could tell us the first one, please. Sorry, I'm a little -- mine is not up. Mr. Robbins, welcome. You have three minutes. And just as a point of explanation, I know there are several speakers here who may want to speak about the item regarding energy efficiency and that is posted for discussion, so if you're speaking on that item specifically and would prefer to speak later, that's available to you as well. Mr. Robbins. Ready? One, two, three, go. Council, I'm Paul Robbins. I'm an environmental activist and consumer advocate. At your last committee meeting I heard three strategies suggested to increase rooftop solar energy in Austin. I agree with two of them. I think the third is impractical. First, creating a financing program for solar energy is a good idea. Second, dividing the [1:38:11 PM] benefits of a essentialized rooftop system in a tenant-oriented building known as fractionalization is also a good idea. I think these two ideas or strategies going to take longer than some people would like to implement, but both strategies have merit. I cannot at this time support the idea of duplicating the solar host program that is occurring in San Antonio. I looked hard at the numbers and it would appear at first glance that this would cost about four times what Austin's current residential solar programs are costing. If your goal is to give a tenant or low income household a rate break then why would give them the rate break which would be a small percentage of the overall cost of duplicating this San Antonio program. Also consider that the federal solar tax credits are going to dwindle next year and you may need that money that you might want to put in a higher cost program to compensate in order to keep current participation levels what they are. I also want to comment about the many expectations some people might have for programs that help lower income people to lower their energy bills. I actually have a history going back decades of advocating for such programs programs, but I would caution council not to confuse this mission with the mission of other efficiency programs that [1:40:11 PM] serve count's mission of dealing with global warming. Past a point there is not overlap. I think you should fund social programs with the customer assistance program money and by all appearances you are currently running a surplus of millions of dollars in cap. I urge you to find ways to spend this money effectively -- [buzzer sounds] -- Instead of refunding it. >> Tovo: Thank you, Mr. Robbins. Next up is Mr. Strand. Chris strand. You have three minutes. And then our last citizens communication speaker will be Gus Pena. >> Good afternoon, councilmembers. My name is Chris strand and I've been in the air conditioning and weatherization business for the past 40 years. I worked with the city to establish the energy conservation department back in the early '80s. My companies have installed air conditioning and weatherization in thousands of single-family and multi-family homes. I've been appointed by council to several city task forces in that regard. I'm proud of my work as a member of the low income consumer advisory task force in 2014. Several thoughts came to mind after watching last month's committee meeting. First, it's difficult to get multi-family housing to retrofit their properties. We were in that business for awhile, but gave up because not only was there a lack of interest by management companies, despite great incentives by Austin energy, but also finding qualifying measures were harder and harder to find. Second, customer acquisition is not Austin energy's main job. They're a utility, not a marketing company. They need to concentrate on incentives, contractor acquisition and quality control. It attorneys me when contractors complain about the enforcement of guidelines. As a contractor I want the highest quality possible so that everyone is competing on an equal footing. [1:42:13 PM] Third, Austin energy has fantastic incentives. Office the management company that was requesting an exemption last month was really motivated to improve their properties, I don't want go with 80% funding. 80% is amazing. I own some apartments housing low and moderate income families in Michigan and I would jump at 80%. Fourth, I worry about exceptions on to what the task force approved. It is a very sliply slope to grant exemptions. We clearly stated that multi-family which receive free weatherization would be defined where at least 30% of the units receive housing choice so much vouch easy as part of the payment. Or where customers qualify for the customer assistanceprogram. The council accepted our advice, we should not make exceptions based on convenience. And then remember the mission of the multi-family program and other conservation programs. It is to lower all ratepayers' bills by stopping power plants and to improve carbon emissions. Some multi-family retrofit projects may not be effective at either. A recognize that council as a separate, but important mission to help the poor on utility bills. Thought should be given to transferring free unused, weatherization program funds into the customer assistance program because of the potential to provide higher societal benefits. Thank you for your time and I appreciate your service. Thank you. >> Tovo: Thank you, Mr. Strand. Mr. Pena? I actually don't see Mr. Pena. All right. So that concludes citizens communication. As we discussed last time we ran out of time last time for item 6, the discussion of low income weatherization and solar programs, which was an item that mayor pro tem Garza had requested be on the agenda. So as I committed last time we'll start with that one and have our council discussion and then move on to the rest of the agenda items. I think that I would just encourage councilmembers if there are particular topics that you want to see [1:44:13 PM] discussed if you would let me know about that and make sure that those end up on the agenda and that that becomes kind of the priority of what we talk about here. So I know we had a presentation last time and we ran out of time for the actual discussion part, so I'll recognize you to lead us from here. >> Garza: So I don't have anything prepared, but -- and I know that this was of interest to councilmember Casar as well and he's not able to be here, but I think the gentleman's comments are appropriate in that -- as he pointed out, Austin energy is a utility and not a marketing company. It could also be said that apartment management people are in the business of managing apartments and not trying to navigate rebates and how to partner with the city. So I didn't know what the where we would be and if it's an ifc that comes out of here and if it's something that is being sponsored and what everybody's thoughts on it are. I think it should be a discussion. The gentlemen said that it was a requirement that each apartment, multi- family had to meet, but I've heard -- I've heard from people on the task force that said that while they passed all the recommendations unanimously, there was discussion about how these multi-family apartments are qualified for this. And I do believe there needs to be more discretion and flexibility. While he said that he would be willing to accept an 80% rebate, I don't know who -- I don't know in the unanimous of the waters at -- in bluff springs, if they were in a position because my understanding is they get approached by someone saying let us retrofit -- let us weatherize this. It's not going to cost you anything. Let us do it. I guess it's on the [1:46:14 PM] contractor to decide whether they're just going to take 80, but I could see if a multi-family unit is checking all the boxes, but it doesn't fit perfectly within what Austin energy has required, me need some more discretion to allow flexibility in that program. And I don't know what that looks like. I'm happy to hear y'all's thoughts. >> Tovo: Thank you. Thanks for framing that and reminding us of the conversation. I should say we also have six people who have signed up to speak. So unless anyone else wants to make comments at this point, why don't we go to the speakers and then come back up for conversation around that. Mr. Pena is our first speaker, but doesn't appear to be here. Mr. Arnt, you're up next. And you will be followed by Tim Kisner. After Tim Kisner is Dana Harmon. >> Chair tovo, this is one of the property managers, do you mind if she speaks ahead of me? She signed up to speak. >> Tovo: That's pine fine. I'll take you first then. >> I'm the property manager of the montopolis apartments and we have applied to participate in the affordable housing rebate program. We have 308 units, low income housing and over 550 tenants. And based on testing it will save my tenants 13% a month off their electric bill, which will make a real difference to them, so I'm excited about the opportunity to apply for the program. And I hope y'all decide to approve us. Thank you. >> Good afternoon, chairman [1:48:14 PM] tovo, vice-chair pool and committee members. My name is Tim Arnt. I served on the low income task force with Chris. Austin energy adopted one of the recommendations that we made and created the low income multi-family program. I currently worked to implement energy efficiency to lower bills. Since the '80s Austin has been the leader in energy efficiency and climate, protection that other cities have followed. It used to be all about helping customers save energy to meet our goals. In recent years it seems like it's become more about the bureaucratic process that results in a rebate denial than motivating customers to make energy efficiency improvements. Evaluating the need of an affordable housing community and telling the customer no is not without cost. In 201930% of the 1.9% million dollars spent in the multi-family program was O and M administrative costs. Here are two examples of applicants that were told no last year. One affordable community was verified with duct leakage of 50%, but was denied because it was built five years earlier under the green building program. The guidelines were changed only to offer duct ceilings to properties that were 10 years old or older. Those residents will be wasting energy for the next five years. Another property was planning a six-million-dollar renovation. Tdhca was supporting the project with a million dollars and each one of you approved the sale of that property. The previous owner had code violations so Austin energy denied the application, both of these affordable housing properties. The electric service territory goes well beyond the city limits. Each is subject to the benefits tariff and multi-family customers pay almost four million dollars into the fund. [1:50:15 PM] The city of Austin code compliance requirements that Austin energy has implemented only affect your constituents, not customers living outside of Austin. We have to get back to how to simplify the process on the front end and evaluate each apartment community building by building for opportunities to save energy. It doesn't make sense to spend thousands of dollars on quality control just to say no and deny a customer. Let's be flexible and figure out how to say yes on the front end and diligent on making sure the job is done right so we receive the energy savings on the back end. There's two rcas that are coming before you tomorrow. One is Lindsey's property. They're going to save 13% on their utility bills. The other is waters at bluff springs. [Buzzer sounds] Together that $340,000 will result in almost a-million- dollars saved for those low income residents living at those properties over the next 10 years. >> Tovo: Thank you, Mr. Arnt. >> I'm available for questions. >> Tovo: I have a couple for you. Does anyone else have any for the speaker? So as I heard the obstacles I heard you tick off for those applications that had been denied was the age, it was five years old, versus the 10 year. >> Yeah. It used to be five years. >> So the couple of examples you gave, one was five years old and that's why it was denied. The other was a property, and I think you mentioned this or others mentioned it last time that had had code violations. Was it just code violations or was it on the repeat offender list? >> Well, it was -- it was on the repeat offender list. The new owner had a six-million-dollar renovation plan because of the way that the properties get on the repeat offender [1:52:16 PM] list and they can't get off, then they wouldn't qualify for any rebates through Austin energy because that's a flat no for any rebates through the rebate program if you're on the repeat offender list. >> Tovo: Okay. I'll ask Austin energy. I think we addressed this last time but I need to be reminded from Austin energy about that particular issue. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Tovo: Okay. Mr. Kisner. And then our last speaker will be Dana Harmon. >> Hi, councilmembers. My name is Tim Kisner. I'm a -- I want to just reiterate or -- not reiterate, but I want to come out and support what the other speakers were saying. There is a -- they're definitely with what Paul Robbins was saying about the community benefit charge and how that could be properly introduced into the community is wonderful and how it could be managed more effectively. Also what Chris strand was talking about with little work that Weis done with his programs, my background was program management, program implementation with Austin energy, recent retiree with the city of Austin, Austin energy, and now I'm doing environmental work and environmental activist work here in the local community. So I do know what Chris strand was saying and I understand the work that he's put out in front of the -- he's done for the city has been exemplary. The program staff of the Austin energy, they've always worked closely with the contracting community and helping them -- helping with green jobs and keeping green jobs alive in Austin. The work that Tim is talking about with affordable housing with the projects that he has, I am in support of that also. I think the work that -- what he's outlined has been tremendous. I think Austin energy is a good opportunity for Austin energy to be more transparent at how they work with the community, how they work with the public stakeholders, how they can work with the different [1:54:18 PM] community groups. And one group that's not here today is Austin apartment association, Austin tenants' council. Those are 24 groups that I think are very viable, it should be brought to the table when conversations are made, when program redesigns are on the -- when they're being implemented or being discussed. Slow up a little bit. Let's get those -- get those proper stakeholders to the table and let's talk and let's figure out a program that's going to work for the whole community. That's all I had for today. I just wanted to provide that. Thank you. >> Tovo: Thank you for being here. Ms. Harmon. >> Good afternoon, council. Thank you very much for having me. My name is Dana Harmon. I'm the executive director of the Texas Austin energy poverty research institute. We're a 501(c)3 non-profit based here in Austin with statewide coverage. The purpose of my visit today is to introduce our organization to talk a little bit about the work that we've been doing with Austin energy as well as other stakeholders both in Austin and across the state. And to help inform some of the decision making regarding some of the low income considerations. We are a collaboration of utilities, energy service providers, affordable housing providers, and social service agencies across the state of Texas working to inspire lasting energy solutions for low income communities. We develop partnerships with this diverse group of stakeholders in order to conduct research, develop and demonstrate innovative models and facilitate sharing of what's working among various stakeholder peer groups across the state of Texas. To remind everyone of the problem and why this topic is so important we define energy poverty as a situation in which the cost of energy needed to maintain a healthy lifestyle creates a significant or economic burden. Research also shows that people faced with high energy burdens make up making trade-offs for basic necessities such as food and [1:56:20 PM] medicine, in order to pay utility bills. Energy providers and housing providers across state are facing challenges in terms of how to design design-build-bid programs to effectively dress those solutions. I'm happy to report that in a recently published study by aceee, the American council for an efficient economy, Austin compares quite favorably with other major metropolitan areas in Texas, including Houston, San Antonio and dfw when it comes to low income energy burdens. Our 2017 energy poverty landscape analysis showed that a complex combination of demographic and contextual factors impact low income consumer behavior, program participation and response to intervention. And these factors are dramatically understudied. This is the gap that our research is trying to fill. We're in the process of building statewide working groups. Some of which Austin energy members are participating in. The first is an energy and housing group which brings energy and housing stakeholders together to look at barriers and look at opportunities for participation and distribute energy resources. Additionally we're forming a low income energy program advancement coalition connecting peer groups across the state, looking at energy efficiency, utility assistance and solar access opportunities. This spring we intend to launch an energy poverty clearinghouse which is an online repository of academic and scholarly articles as well as industry white papers looking at how to address energy poverty both in Texas and across the nation. [Buzzer sounds] In conclusion I would like to make council aware of our work with Austin energy to try to advance reduction in energy burdens and energy equity across the state. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you very much. Thanks for being here. Okay. That's our last speaker. Questions, comments? [1:58:23 PM] I have a couple of questions for staff. I think we discovered some of the ground last time, but if you could talk about why the time period was changed from five years to 10 years and then we can address the code violation issue. >> Debty Kimberly, vice-president of corporate solutions and community communications. We look at properties and the measures that go into these properties. So for most measures that are installed now, and I'll use led's, other measures, they have a 10-year life. It would not make economic sense to remove a measure before the end of its economic life. Back when you had different lighting standards it did make sense to go in and do lighting. So for example, right now if we have a property that is only looking for a lighting retrofit and it's five years old, we can do that lighting retrofit. But going in and replacing other measures before they get to the end of their life is not cost effective and frankly because of recent changes in the energy code those properties are already built to very highly efficient standards. I also want to make sure that council understands that in the case after property where 50% duct leakage was reported -- now, this was awhile back and I'm relying on my memory, but my recollection is the property owner would not allow us on the property to verify the duct leakage. So how could we do our job if in fact the property owner wouldn't allow us to do that? Our programs need to be auditable, they need to be consistent, they need to be equitably applied. >> Tovo: In the case that in that particular example, and I understand you're doing it from memory, but is there -- if it had duct leakage, would you agree that there might be some benefit to doing -- to doing [2:00:24 PM] the energy efficiency work though it did fall outside of the 10-year time frame? >> We would just need to be able to go in and assess that, which is why we have inspectors that go out and work with the property owners. It's why we go out at least quarterly and meet with the Austin apartment association. It's why we work with the Austin tenants' council and all Saturdays of other communities. So yes, but the property owner, as I said last month, is the one that makes a determination as to whether they will or he they won't participate in our program. Some property owners only want to know what the energy usage is on their property so they can post the ecad or the energy conservation and disclosure requirements which are required per council ordinance for properties within the city of Austin. So yes, if we could verify it, but if a property owner says no, Austin energy, we don't want you on our property, we can't go in and verify that. So I think that sounds reasonable. I guess what we've heard is sort of a call for more balancing of these measures against one another. That if it falls outside of the five years -- outside of the 10 years, but has some other compelling factors that it be allowed to participate. The other example was a property that had code violations, was on the repeat offender program, but was about to undergo some pretty significant renovations. So what is -- is there room within your current policy guidelines or program guidelines to allow for those kinds of balancing? And if not, what do you need from us in terms of policy direction to provide you with that so that we can bring bits to those tenants in situations that may fall slightly outside the program guidelines, but are still going to be impactful? >> So let me say one thing and I'll be a bit passionate about this. I've been doing this for 25 years and safety is number [2:02:26 PM] one. So if there is a code violation, any code violation or repeated code violations that can present a safety issue for our employees or for the residents of that property, you should not be weather rising that property, you should be clearing the code violation. And we do work with other city departments in trying to facilitate that happening. We had a property within the last year where it slipped by us and one of the members of council had a very good staff person that called it to our attention, this property is on the repeat offender's list. This property should not be eligible for the rebate. And so we went back to that owner, it was a new owner, much like the one that you just heard about, and we waited until the code violations had been cleared and then we went in and weatherized the property. But you can't do things, for example, where there is the possibility of combustion, and we've had this happen before where we've had gas leaks. We're not going to go in and weatherize a property where there are gas leaks. We work with our partners at Texas gas to fix that. I don't believe, chair tovo, that we need any more guidance. If you look at our website you look at everything Austin energy is doing in a very effective way. I would echo what Chris strand said and I hold him in high regard. Once you start saying we'll trade off this or we'll do that differently or it's not 20%, it will be 15% or all you need is one housing voucher at a property to qualify for 100% rebate, that is not equitable. And that would understandably, I think, be subject to an audit for good reason. So that's my concern. >> Tovo: I think those are legitimate concerns. [2:04:27 PM] I don't really hear anyone advocating, though, that weatherization should be done on properties that are unsafe or pose potential gas leaks. As I understood the example it was that they be eligible because they're undergoing a major renovation on the property. So if I'm understanding you properly their appearance on a repeat offender list doesn't disqualify them forever, it just disqualifies them until it's a safe property. >> That's right. Until it is cleared, and we want to make sure it's cleared. That's all. And that's why we have other city departments that we work with on that. >> >> Tovo: Okay. Mayor pro tem Garza. >> Garza: I appreciate your perspective, but we have heard anecdotal stories of -- or facts or whatever the right word is for that. That there needs to be flexibility. And so while I understand that you feel that there's enough information in there, there just -- there needs to be flexibility in the program. I also don't think anyone here is saying if there's one housing voucher because what Mr. Strand said is he would have accepted -- I thought he said he owns affordable housing projects and he would have accepted 80%. >> Yes, he did. >> Garza: That's a very specific scenario. Again, my understanding is that these are apartment plexes where they are approached and said hey, we can do this and it's not going to cost you anything. And if we don't have contractors out there willing to do it for 80, then they're not going to do it. And if it's meeting -- it's kind of a letter of the law, spirit of the law thing. The spirit was to provide this benefit to low income [2:06:28 PM] areas and not to low income multi-family apartment complexes. And not every single one of those fits in the formula that Austin energy has right now. There are other ones that don't fit within that. The waters is one of those. And I think initially from what I remember, and this is last month, Austin energy was asking specific questions of that property manager. She wasn't -- I don't remember the entire story, but that's an example where we did provide the flexibility. It's on the agenda for Thursday. We're providing the rebate that they should be getting because while they didn't follow -- they didn't check every box that Austin energy has, this will provide a savings to the families that are living there. Around it's not even just -- it's -- there's benefits on the more affordable utility rates for the end user as well as for the environment as well as for our grid when we're in summer and we're not wanting to have rolling blackouts or whatever because there's so much pressure on the grid because we have apartment complexes that aren't weatherized. So it's just -- I guess if -- if you're not willing to provide some suggestions on how we change it, then we'll just have the discussion amongst ourselves. >> Here's what I want to do to try to help. And councilmember Casar is not here today and I know he's ever bit as passionate about this as all of you are, and frankly, as personally as I am. So what we have done at councilmember Casar's request, and I'm happy to provide it to all of you, we have in aggregate weatherized 82,000 apartment units in the city of Austin, and I say that with pride for my staff. 82,000 apartment units. And my staff has gone through and sorted by [2:08:28 PM] district, including outside the city of Austin, all of the properties that have been weatherized under what has been a pilot proof of concept program which has only been up in the last two years after the committee recommended it. So we've been running it for two years. And using the guidelines they set forth which include looking at 14 different sources by which you can certify that a property is low income. Not one, 14 different sources. That to me is flexibility. We have also sorted out by district every property that's been authorized under the 80 or 90 percent program which preceded that. And then we've sorted out all of the properties that haven't been weatherized and we've mapped them and we've initiated within the last two weeks site visits and outreach to manufactured housing communities located in those districts in which you have manufactured housing. And I am willing to go out and drive around with you or with a member of my staff. I don't know how much more transparent we can be. We share your goals. We share your concerns. We have as Austin and as Dana just said, the second lowest average residential bill in the entire state of Texas for our residential customers. And the customers on the capital metro discount -- on the cap discount program on average get about a 20-dollar a month discount for all city services, about $70 a month. So it's significant. So I'm happy to make that binder that we gave councilmember Casar or I send him the information on Sunday, make that available to all of you. So look at your own districts and maybe what we can do is meet with your offices because I do believe we're doing everything we can, but we're always looking at how we can improve. I just want to make sure it passed the test of being [2:10:29 PM] auditable and safe in terms of good work practices. That's all I'm looking for. >> Garza: Sure. We want to make sure you're meeting all those standards as well. But I'll look to the chair. If you have any suggestions, I'm happy to sponsor an afc that -- ifc that create a working group that looks at this again. My understanding is that at the committee level they preferred more flexibility, but that's not what came out of -- in the end. So I think it's okay to have that discussion again and see what we can do. And you're saying that you have a binder of all the stuff that has been weatherized. >> Has been weatherized under both programs, both the low income and the regular program, as well as those that have not been weatherized. And keep in mind some of those properties have been weatherized multiple times. There's one more thing that's really important and that's just quality control. All right? We have 250 contractors that we partner with on our programs, 250 contractors. So I guess I would pose the question respectfully, if we were hearing from a lot of those contractors, I'd be concerned. We're not, we're not. We meet with our contractors on a regular basis. They're appreciative of our programs. [Phone ringing]. We're not hearing the complaints but from a couple couple. >> Tovo: So I think there are some pieces of information that would be helpful. I think the binder you talked about would be and I think generally as a sort of a good practice since we're all on the Austin energy oversight if there's that volume of work presented to one councilmember, I think it would be useful for all of us to have it. Not everybody may want a binder, but perhaps sending out a link -- >> Trust me, it's a lot easier to read in the [2:12:29 PM] binder. >> Tovo: Certainly that's my preference, but it varies office to office. But I suggest that you do provide that to each of us. I would be interested in seeing a list of -- or some data on how many apartment complexes have applied and have been turned down with some explanation for what the reasons were. And I think that will give -- I think that might provide us with some direction for where there needs to be more flexibility, where we can do that. >> I think that's a great suggestion. >> Tovo: I know the task forces have done some great work and I don't know we need to reconvene them as much as look back and reflect on their recommendations and then reflect on it in practice and then figure out what the changes might be. And I'm happy to work on that with you, mayor pro tem Garza, if that seems like a reasonable way to proceed and we can maybe talk about it. >> If you'd like to do that we can talk about it or for the next meeting. We would be happy to get you that information. >> Tovo: I understand it will take you some time to compile, but I think it would be good to have it in advance. That way if we have some recommendations we can bring them to the next council meeting, the next oversight meeting. Any other suggestions or ideas on this front? >> Garza: If I can just add, I guess that doesn't capture the example that happened with waters, waters at bluff spring, is that they didn't meet the standards, but there was another layer that they were required to file with irs that allowed them to meet that standard. So I could see if I'm an apartment manager and I go -- and I decide I wonder if we qualify, I know we have more than 30% of our residents receiving housing vouchers. I know we have this and this. Let me go look at the information. They look at the information and say oh, we don't qualify and they never apply. Soio, it's good to see who has been rejected, but we have no way of knowing who hasn't applied because they look at the requirements and they don't qualify according to those requirements. >> So just for the record [2:14:32 PM] all we did was to ask for an alternative form of ascertain or means by which we can ascertain that the property was in fact and was going to remain so. We asked that of the manager, my staff had repeated discussions with the property manager. And when we got the ascertain that they were via another means we immediately moved that forward at 100% rebate. To me that's being flexible. We just needed something on paper that demonstrated that. And once we got that we were fine. >> Garza: But that wasn't -- >> I know what you're saying. >> Garza: There was a lot of back and forth. I took several meetings on this issue. My staff took several phone calls. It wasn't just waiting to hear back. There was a lot of back and forth. And if there was that flexibility, I shouldn't have had to have been having called calls and my staff committed to meetings and calling Austin energy and asking questions. I have a different perspective. >> I appreciate your different perspective. >> And I guess it's the hope that -- I think to mayor pro tem's point there may be properties that are not applying if the requirements for tenants appear to be terribly rigid. On so is there an opportunity to put some language on there suggesting that -- it's been a little bit since I've looked at the actual language of the requirements, but maybe that's a situation that you can address immediately by just adding a caveat that for properties that believe they qualify, but would need to provide different documentation, please be in touch. >> And we have something similar to that and we're certainly happy to continue to refine that. One of the things that Ms. Harmon referred to was the work that we are doing with tepri and haca to create a consolidated list of affordable properties that meet all of these various criteria. [2:16:33 PM] So again, it's a third-party that makes that determination because I'm not the expert, my staff isn't the expert. So you get a third-party to make that determination and your good. We know that there are probably more properties out there, but there are various sources to gather that information. So that's all that we're doing. We're working with haca, working with tepri, we're working with other city departments to create that consolidated list. >> Tovo: I think that will be very helpful. In terms of addressing the concern that properties may not -- >> Chair tovo, one of our concerns was, and I know this happened in the past. When we looked at a quality after we paid a rebate, one of the residents was a cap customer, but we could find no other cap customers or no other way to determine that that property was indeed a low income or affordable housing property. So there again we have to be able to withstand the public scrutiny in terms of how we spend the monies that we collect from our customers. And as I said, 80%, and Chris said it better than I, 80% is very generous. 100% is tremendously generous. But. >> Tovo: I think we're all in -- >> We want to get to as many properties as possible and we want to increase our savings because this is about affordability and the affordability equation has to sides. When you're spending 100% of the monies we collect to rebate a property, that's putting some measure on our prices. So we're just trying to balance it out. >> Tovo: Great. And then the other thing that I -- we are still getting quarterly reports, is that correct? >> You never receive quarterly reports. You used to receive semi-annual reports and it was called the rental rebate -- we called it the rental rebate study and this was to determine whether or if there was a correlation between property owners receiving a rebate and increasing their rents. And for five years we did the study and when we last [2:18:34 PM] did the study last January the cover letter to the study said because we've had five years of being able to demonstrate no correlation between our rebates and rents. In fact, they're a function of market forces, this will be the last report. So we have not done any more reports and we don't plan to do anymore because after five years of devoting staff time and effort to proving what was something we couldn't prove, we have discontinued that practice. >> Tovo: I wondered why we hadn't received any in awhile. I must have missed that memo that they were discontinuing. I want to point out that that was in with respect to a council resolution with no end date in mind. So I would just a raise that to the attention of our city manager that if we've initiated a process of continued analysis and it's going to stop, I think that probably needs to be some level of conversation. So anyway, as the sponsor of that original resolution I will take a look back at the memo and see if I agree with the satisfaction assertion that it's best not to move forward with that. Any other questions on this subject? And because that memo and that resolution, I think we've talked about it a little bit in here, but there was concern -- I had concern and others in the community shared it that when we shifted from a 100% rebate to 80 there was then -- there were then going to be investments made by the property owner and that those might be passed along in the rent. So in federal programs and in some others they actually have a stipulation in there that the rents can't increase for a certain period of time after those kinds of investments are made. Because they're getting outside funding and that was a program I wanted to have. I wanted to have that stipulation. We didn't have the votes on council to do that, we had the votes on council to study it. So I think that still should be an issue that we monitor in some fashion, whether or not the semi-annual reports are the best way to do it. [2:20:35 PM] >> >> Harper-madison:, if I may, this has been riveting and very informative and we're just getting caught up. I wonder if it might be helpful for us to get more in the way of background about the program, where we started, how we landed here. What are current issues, et cetera. So I'd love to be able to meet with you guys just to get brought up to speed. >> We'd love to meet with you. Happy to do that. >> Ellis: I would second that. That would be helpful to see all that background to how we got to where we are today. >> Sure. I would be happy to do that. >> Thanks. >> Tovo: Anything else on this topic? All right. So we can go back to the order of the agenda as it is laid out. Thank you so much, Ms. Kimberly. Thank you so much for your work and that program. Our general manager's report? >> Good afternoon, committee chair, vice-chair and committee members. I'm Jackie Sargent, the vice-president of Austin energy. Today in addition to my very brief report you will receive a report from pecan street CEO and a customer service update on utility payment options from Elaine, our vice-president of customer account management. There's also an addendum item that you've previously -- just got finished discussing on the weatherization programs. Today my report includes a couple of items that are actually going to be on tomorrow council agenda. If you remember at your February meeting I mentioned an upcoming power purchase agreement and after additional negotiations we're coming forward with an agreement for up to 20 years instead of 15 with gulf coast wind to purchase up to 170 megawatts of wind power from the facility in the ercot south zone. The estimated cost of this is $12 million per year for a total estimated amount of $240 million. This action will get us clogger to achieving the [2:22:37 PM] renewable energy goals and the council approved the resource generation and climate protection plan. Based on the market projections that we have, this agreement should have a beneficial affect on the power supply adjustment. This item was unanimously recommended by the electric utility commission at this month's earlier meeting. The next item is a seven year lease in an amount not to he'd $1.36 million with realty partners with the utilities and shopping center in south Austin shown on this map. This item is part of the city's effort to strategically locate customer centers to better serve utility customers. The city currently owns two utility service centers, one that's located near highway 183 and owe less Ohlen road. The property in consideration is established in an established shopping center and is pictured as you can see on this map. We are seeking a retail location near bus stops and adjacent to free parking to maximize convenience for all of our customers. Leasing space with these characteristics is more feasible than purchasing or constructing a facility and this lease provides an ideal location to meet the needs of the utility customers located in south Austin. And this lease was identified by the city of Austin's office of real estate and we worked with them in partnership to identify the property. So that's all I have for today and I'll pause and ask if there's any questions before turning it over to Ms. Russo. >> Tovo: Thank you so much. Questions for our general manager? Okay. Ms. Russo? >> Hi, good afternoon. Thank you so much for having me. I'm Suzanne Russo, the CEO [2:24:38 PM] of pecan street inc. We are a -- just waiting for the text to come up. We're an Austin based resource company based on clean water and water conservation. We were founded about 10 years ago. And that came out of a stakeholder driven process initiated by our founder Brewster Mccracken when he was a city council meeting in how we can show leadership and sustainability to really . Figure out what is a smart grid. What does that look like for a community? How do we make that roadmap? And then be able to build upon Austin energy's commitment to affordability and clean energy to carry out some really innovative demonstration projects that would help move the needle on getting more clean energy on to our grid in a way that is affordable and smart. At the heart of what we do are our volunteer participants. We have about a thousand households around the country. Majority of them are here in Austin, that have volunteered with us to let us come into their home, instrument it with a bunch of different sensors. That tells us how they use energy and water. And that points to opportunities to optimize resource use to reduce emissions coming off of the grid and to help save people money. Essentially we turn these people and these homes into this, anon-ized eye resolution data about resource use in the residential sector. We make this data available for free to university researchers around the world. We currently have about 2500 researchers in more than 60 countries that are using this data. So the impact of what the residents of the city of Austin and all of the leadership within the city are providing on these topics is pretty phenomenal. Beer having a lot of influence on discussions around technology development, market development and policy development around the world. So a phi years ago because this -- few years ago because this process has been successful and research [2:26:40 PM] consortiums on topics of energy, our partners asked us to extend this model into water conservation and transportation electrification. And we've been really fortunate to be able to partner now with Austin water utility and capital metro in addition to Austin energy in this research. But our driving goal is to try to reduce emissions that come from our households. And so what we mean by that are the emissions that come from power use in our homes as well as miss that derive from our personal transportation. And that adds up to about 33% of our nation's total greenhouse gas emissions and that's a pretty big chunk. But it's really hard to figure out what are the solutions that work at scale in the residential sector because think about all the people in our country and all of our households and how diverse that is. So what are the solutions that are going to be effective and affordable and that we can get enough buy-in from the different industry partners and public policy stakeholders that we need to really accelerate progress in this space. It's quick -- I mean, it's hard and it's probably one of the reasons that pecan street remain unique in what we do around the country. But the other reason we remain unique is because of the support that we do enjoy from the city of Austin and particularly from Austin energy. Debbie Kimberly is one of our board members as well as councilmember Flannigan has recently joined our board as well, though he hasn't been able to attend a meeting yet. We hope he will be able to ensure that the work we undertake does continue to align with the city's sustainability goals and that we're providing a lot of useful support in that direction. So I wanted primarily to talk about a few of our current research projects. One of them is a project you all are very familiar with, the Austin shines program, which seeks to understand how can we continue to reduce the cost of distributed energy resources across all building sectors, commercial, residential, industrial, as well as utility scale, by optimizing and aggregating those resources to create new markets and provide new value propositions. Pecan street is partnering with Austin energy to carry [2:28:40 PM] out the residential portion of this study. We've been able to work with a number of the volunteer households that are already participating in our research programs in the Mueller community to build upon the investments that they've made in rooftop solar and some of them in electric vehicles to put into place some really new innovative programs that leverage all the latest advantagesments and sensors to ensure that private investments and Austin energy's investments in distributed energy resources which include energy storage and rooftop solar provide maximum value to the entire system. So continuing to drive affordability for all customers as well as reducing emissions across our grid. And more recently the department of energy added a little bit more money to this project because it's been going so well and we've been able to add in a new technology component, which is vehicle to grid. This launched a couple of months ago. It's a really exciting program. It's Texas first grid connected vehicle to grid testing center. It's here in our lab this the Mueller neighborhood. And what we're able to do here is begin to look at how can utilities use electric vehicles in the same way that they would use what we call stationary energy storage. So like the Tesla battery systems that we hear a lot about, that are really expensive, but would provide a lot of benefit to actually helping us be able to do even more with renewable energy. They would bridge that gap between what sealer can provide for the grid and demand when people want to use power. But people are making a lot of investments in electric vehicles. Obviously it has a battery in it so one of the big questions for the past decade has been is can we use the electric vehicles in the same way we want to use the energy storage systems to provide more support to the grid so that we can use more clean energy and less dirty energy, what are called dirty energy and so this is the first time in Texas that we're actually looking at this. In partnership with a utility, Austin energy is using this electric vehicle in the same way they're [2:30:42 PM] using the electric storage systems. We're providing power to the back the grid in this car and it's one of the first projects in the country. It's gotten a lot of media attention and again it's because of the amazing partnership and research opportunities that we're provided here in Austin that people can't really get anywhere else. Another project that we're doing and this one is in partnership with cap metro, is also a department of energy funded research program where we're looking to figure out how can we solve the first and last mile transit gap with clean Austin energy solutions -- clean energy resolutions. You all are able aware of what that last mile transit gap means, but it's generally the disconnect between how far somebody would have to walk from where they're trying to start a trip or end their trip and public transit. And generally anything over a quarter of a mile is considered unwalkable and that's considered a first or last mile transit gap, which is one of the biggest drivers that we're trying to overcome broadly in urban planning to help get people more on to public transit. So over this project, which we've been running for about 18 months now, we launched about six of these electric shuttle vehicles. These are small shuttles. They told six people and they're all electric. And three neighborhoods here in Austin tested out different models for how this service could be run, how much it would cost, do people like it? How do wet get morpheme to use the service and if they get to shuttles do they actually take public transit from there? Does this kind of a solution actually get people on to our public transit services in Austin, reducing traffic emissions as well as traffic congestion here. It's been a really, really exciting project and again it's one of the first of its kind in the country. We are in the middle of doing our analysis. We ended the last route, which was in the Mueller neighborhood, about a month ago. And we're going to have some really exciting results come out in probably August that we'd love to share with the city councilmembers. But we do have an initial results report as well that I'm happy to share with anybody that's interested. [2:32:42 PM] It's on linked through our website. But it's another example of the innovation and openness that we have in Austin with our different government agencies and how that's driving a lot of public sector private with this research which is really moving the needle on making our communities more liveable, on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and generally making our lives more affordable. The final research example I wanted to share with you today is one that really illustrates the power of the data that we collect and that we provide to university researchers around the world. This was a study put out by some faculty at Carnegie Mellon university a few months ago where we sucked in some of the data from our residential energy database and they tied that to some of Austin's smart city data about traffic congestion and were able to develop some predictive algorithms that showed you could look at the percent of time households show people awake after midnight. And pretty accurately predict the time that you will have peak traffic congestion tomorrow morning F we all know that when we wake up in the morning we can sometimes change our driving habits or the time of day that we're going to leave to get to work, wherever we're going, and as a community have the result of reducing traffic congestion overall, which again saves a lot of emissions and also increases our quality of life. So this is just one of the examples of the over 120 peer reviewed publications that have been produced with pecan street's data sets and I think it's also cool because it brings in another city of Austin dataset that's publicly available to really drive forward smart low cost, easily implementable solutions. And a little bit about where we're looking. I took over as pecan street CEO in March. I was formerly the coo for about eight years under Brewster Mccracken and prior to that was in New York City. And we received a grant this past year in 2018 from the Alfred P Sloan foundation, one of the biggest private foundations in our country, for pecan street to take our [2:34:43 PM] neighborhood based research model into New York and California to try to inform the market and policy development that's taking place in those states with actual data about opportunities in the residential sector for more innovation and clean energy as well as to carry out real analysis about how proposed policies would actually impact households. One example of a thing that happened that helped drive the Sloan foundation to help replicate the program in those two states states is California implemented a rule that was intended to incentivize energy storage and residential properties by requiring that utilities provide a payment back for households that did have energy storage. That they bought energy coming off those battery systems from the homes. Of course, with the intention of getting more energies to our systems and the households with the thought that we would reduce emissions. Be able to utilize the clean energy on the grid in California because they curtail about 40% of their pv every year or in the past year. But that actually had the result of increasing emissions because people charged their batteries when power was cheapest which is when the power was derived at coal power plants and they sold it when it was most expensive. If they had our data they would know when rooftop systems were producing rooftop system in that state and how the ability to charge boundaries and discharge them based on when the power would be available from the home would have impacted prices. This is an example of a postcard that we mailed out to a bunch of households in Oakland to get them to sign up with us. It's been very successful. We have all of our households recruited in new York and California. Part of the work that we're doing in New York is to help pecan street overcome our research divide that we've identified with diversity and equity in our research data sets. One of our objectives for this year is to do more in the area of bridging clean power with affordable power. And to that end we've implemented a memorandum of undersginta with Dana [2:36:45 PM] Harmon's energy, so that we can solve energy poverty and the affordability gap with clean energy solutions and also try to bring more affordability and equity to energy innovation that's happening in the renewable space. And as I mentioned, the dataset that we've created at pecan street, which is now the world's largest energy research database is used around the world,, but it is pretty homogenous and the demographics of the households that are represented. And we want to make sure that we are representing fully the households that can benefit from more affordable power and clean power, which is everybody. We don't want to have just a slice of life that is influencing those conversations and that technology development. And we also want to make sure that the benefits of more clean energy are felt equitably in our communities and one way that we're doing that is we'll be working with the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles, which is traditionally a disenfranchised community, very low income income, but this they received a grant from the state of California this year to implement climate change mitigation procedures. A portion which of is going to go to fund solar on very low income single-family households. So 50 of the households will be participating with us in the research study. We're going to collect data on how the homes are using energy and water, how the solar generation on the rooftop aligns to their own personal household energy demand, also how it affects their energy bill and how that aggregates up to provide more benefits to the utility because it is going to be a very dense concentration of solar in one neighborhood. We're going to do more as well here in Austin and hopefully around the state in our data collection efforts to get more representative households participating wuss. And also to do a better job of inspiring and enabling innovation that serves different communities in our country. And I'm happy to answer any questions now or in the future and we're happy to update the council offices in your district or more broadly. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about what we're doing. >> Tovo: Thank you very much. >> Renteria: Chair, I have a question. [2:38:46 PM] It just sounds like an exciting job you have. >> It's a lot of fun. >> Renteria: This is some great programs that y'all do. If I wanted to get in touch with you, where are y'all located at? >> We have a lab that also is our office space in the Mueller neighborhood. >> Renteria: And what is your phone number over there? >> It's 512 512-782-5113. >> Renteria: This is something that I love because I love electricity and I've worked with it a lot. And this is -- this sounds like a very exciting program and project that y'all are doing, especially with the last -- first and last mile. I'm also -- I also serve as a trustee on capital metro. So I really want to go and see that research that y'all are doing down there and I would really love to go by there. >> That would be great. That would be great. We'd love to come and brief you and also we host tours at our lab on a very regular basis and would love to have anybody come out or send your staff out to take a look at our lab. It's really interesting technology development happening there. Yeah. It's fun. We'd love to hear from you. >> Renteria: Thank you. >> Thank you again. >> Tovo: Thank you. Any other questions or comments? We appreciate you being here. Thank you. And we appreciate the work you're doing. Thank you. Okay. Our last item is number 5 -- second to last item, pen ultimate item, customer service update on customer service payment options. >> I'm history to give you -- I'm here give you Austin update on the payment options. We come here a couple of times a year to talk about collaboration and customer service updates. And I want to hone in on the [2:40:47 PM] efforts on improving pay channels for our customers when they make payments on their city of Austin utility bills. And as a reminder, Austin energies collects and provides customer service for all the utilities listed at the top of the slide. So I know you've seen this slide before. This is just a brief overview of customer care operations. We have what we call the back office and the front office. The front office is everything that's customer facing so it's our 311 center, our utility contact center and customer services management, which is customer -- detail customer issues and customer since Tess, other customer facing programs. Then we have the most exciting part, customer assistance management, the back office. This is everything tied to the customer's utility billing account, from field services and meter reading to quality management. And in the middle we have billing services management where we handle payments, collectionsing, bill production and those types of activities. More specifically we have some numbers around this. On an annual basis for the combined . City of Austin utility bill we generate over five million bills on an annual basis. That encompasses about 475,000 customer account and it could be water, electricity or a combination of both. We bill and collect about two billion dollars in annual utility revenue. So within billing services management we have the -- as I mentioned bill production and support, payment processing and managing accounts receivable, which is our collections. So with all those activities going on,. One. Measures that we use to how successful we are and how engage and and satisfied our customers are is the jd power metric. And this looks at a variety of measures for the customer experience. Everything from power quality and reliability to customer service. One of those measures is that billing and payment measure. And you'll see specifically the four kind of items that are tied to that key index [2:42:49 PM] factor for jd powers. Today we'll talk about two of those. Ease of paying your bill and the variety of methods to pay your bill. This is our current payment structure, and this is my last slide. Again, very quick presentation. But this is our current payment channel structure. And I've been to a couple of conferences over the last year where a lot of utilities nationwide are doing things like closing walk-in centers or previously closed them and now they're reopening them. Or there have been a lot of utilities who are totally moving away from accepting cash. Like they're only accepting some sort of electronic payments. And Austin energy and the city of Austin utilities does not promote that. We're trying to promote as many pay channels to our customers as possible. We give a wide variety of methods to pay. You will see up there at the top the auto pay, that's kind of your set it and forget it where customers have a recurring payment, all the way around if you go clockwise to in-person payments and things like our mail dropbox and wire payments. Those are the types of payments where customers can either come visit with us in person, they can drop off a payment, send it through their bank wire or they go to one of our third-party pay stations at a retail center like H.E.B. And then down towards the bottom in kind of the blue are things that are more electronic methods. So that would be quick payments. So customers can go online and -- or on tonight and make a quick payment. They can go to our city of Austin utilities portal and make a payment there. Or they can make a payment through their own checking or savings account through their bank, they can set up the payments that way. So you can see we're trying to expand, get as many authorized pay channels as possible. And I say authorized because in today's world scammers have always existed. We've had experience over the years with folks who try to get customers to make payments and they're not making a payment to us. But they've become more -- I [2:44:51 PM] think with technology more educated in the last few years and so we have a lot of scammers or situations where people will pretend to be the utility. And it's not just us, it's happening to utilities across the nation and across the globe. So we're part of a consortium of nationwide utiliesit in the owe united utilities against scams, so uuas. And we're working together to develop communications and really get the word out to our customers about hey, here's the good ways to make a payment. If you make a payment through one of these multitude of channels it will get to us, get posted to your account and you won't have any issues. You know, we're educating customers we don't accept Bitcoin. We will never call you and tell you you will be disconnected within an hour and those types of things. We're partnering with them to again get that education out. And then while at the same time offering as many pay channels as possible, educating customers on what the authorized pay channels are and providing a variety of ways so that customers with pay, how they want to pay and when they want to pay. And that's my presentation. Are there any questions? >> Tovo: Thank you very much. Any questions on payment options? Feedback you've heard from constituents? Councilmember Ellis? >> Ellis: I've got one. I like this chart about all the ways you can pay and which ones have fees associated with them versus no fees. Are those fees attached only to reimburse things like credit cards may have a service fee or do you have to add any more on top of that? How does that work? >> Credit card payments, there is -- those are processed through a third-party pay vendor, so that's a convenience fee that's added on top of the balance to the customer's bill. That goes to pay the company that's doing the processing for us. With pci compliance data security and some other things it's not the Citi' is realm of expertise. There are a lot of guidelines and a lot of expectations and a lot of risk with being pci compliant and processing your own credit cards. [2:46:51 PM] So very similar to what other utilities do. So we don't have to pass those rights -- pass those in our rates off to our customers. We have a third-party that does it and this assesses a convenience free. I think for a residential customer it's about $2.39 now. It's been going down and down over the years. People can also pay at a third-party pay station at a retail store, like an H.E.B., and those fees are are a dollar, but we also have fee methods to make payments, including checks, cash. >> That is to recoup the costs or is it a third-party cost you have to. >> We do have a contract and hire the third-party vendor. We're not paying them anything. The convenience fee goes from the citizen to that service provider. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Tovo: Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: No, I think I had the same question. So I think you got to the point. Of what I wanted to ask. >> We're so glad and appreciative that you joined us today. Thank you. >> Thank you. Sorry I wasn't here last meeting. I had a little accident. I just wanted to -- this is not directly related to what you were just talking about, but I wanted to just pass on this observation. As the chairman of the electric utility commission I get lots of calls from people when they're not happy with their service, and almost always it's some interaction with the bill paying or our help line. And, you know, that's been the case for the years that I've been involved with the utility. And I just wanted to pass on that in the last six months there's been this kind of really bizarre change in the calls that I've been getting, which is I've actually had people calling and telling me, gee, whiz, I'm getting great service when I call the number now. >> Good. >> And I mean, honestly, [2:48:53 PM] that had never happened to me before. I'm sure it's anecdotal. I don't know if that's reflect understand your statistics at all, but honestly, I was shocked the first time it happened. The second and third time it happened I was really impressed. So I just wanted to pass it that on. Whenever you guys are doing, at least for me it's being reflected in the experience of your customers. >> Thank you. Yes. We recently on boarded a new pay vendor so that may be where some of that comes from. It allows more functionality and more flexibility to the customers and they're very appreciative of it. >> Tovo: Thanks for that feedback. That's really helpful. Other questions or comments? All right. Thank you again. That takes us to number seven, which is to identify items to discuss at future meetings. We have two speakers signed up to address us on this issue. Mr. Pena I still don't see. And Moore mcdunna here? If you would like to address us you have three minutes, please. >> I don't think I'm doing this correctly. I'm really not aware of the protocol, but I just wanted to share something that Chris strand said earlier, if that's okay. With you all. Is that fine? >> Tovo: Yeah. We have a slightly different format for our agenda, so no worries about -- >> I'm sorry. >> Tovo: No. It's just a little different today than it has been and I think we'll use this system going forward, but you're welcome to speak on -- this is actually about items to discuss future meetings. It sounds like maybe you intended to sign up on the first one, but I think that's fine. >> I just want to say Austin energy runs some phenomenal programs, some great programs. Home performance with energy star, the single-family low income weatherization programs. They're well managed, they're organized. They have defined guidelines and they have structure. As a matter of fact, in 2018 [2:50:55 PM] our company was the top performing contractor in the program for the weatherization sis assistance program. We welcome testing, we welcome being stringent and disciplined. I was talking to Chris, I keep hearing the word guidelines, guidelines, guidelines. The multi-family low income program, the contractors were brought into a room together three years ago. Work has been going on for two and a half years. We have repeatedly asked for guidelines, a handbook, technical standards. We just received a draft two weeks ago, maybe three, that's going to be issued to the contractors later on in April. I think you can see the frustration and the sense of confusion because guidelines are being made up as they go. Now, I just want to say a couple of things. These files are being denied after the contractor finds a potential customer, they fill out paperwork and Austin energy inspectors goes to the property, verifies that measures are needed, then the files are turned in to Austin energy where the file is subsequently denied. To a program change. Now, we can talk about five-year and 10 years. It's obviously a property would not be eligible for leds if they have leds or they have cfls. The younger properties they do need duct seal, they need comprehensive duct seal. Case in point that Ms. Kimberly mentioned about a property retreat at bluff springs, I believe is the name, had 49.52% duct [2:52:57 PM] leakage. And it was roughly five years old maybe. And it was denied because it is actually a green building property, a green building rated property. It was denied. The property owners, Austin energy showed up, perhaps unannounced, I don't know, and they were busy, they were going out of town or they had inspections or they welcomed them back, and I don't know what else to say, but Austin energy, it's always been a partnership, tornadic, communication, very effective communication. And I think the transparency issue that Tim Kisner brought up really needs to be visited. [Buzzer sounds] And stakeholders need to be involved. And that's all I really have to say. >> Tovo: Thank you, sir. And you are -- just to clarify, you're Moore mcdunna. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Tovo: We appreciate you being here. All right. Identifying of topics to discuss at further meetings. So we have one that we discussed earlier, which is to continue to revisit -- to come back after receive the information from Austin energy and revisit the low income weatherization requirements with an eye toward any possible recommendations we may have for staff. I would like to add an item for next month as well. In fact, I'd like for there to be an ongoing monthly report and perhaps it could be incorporated into the general manager's report if that's appropriate. It's my understanding, and I guess I would look to our general manager to verify. It's my understanding that the decommissioning of decker may have begun and officially that timeline may have begun officially on Monday of this week. Is that accurate? No? Okay. Well, in any case I would like to get clarification on when that timeline began or when it will begin, but I think it would be appropriate for us to kind of visit each month on that process of transitioning employees and those individual assessments that [2:54:58 PM] are going on with employees and the career training modules, and it's my understanding that Austin energy will be putting that into place. So I would ask that that be added to our Austin energy that we get those monthly updates on what the work is that's going on between Austin energy with regard to employee placement of employees who are currently at decker. Is everybody comfortable with adding that too? To the agenda? Thanks. Other ideas about what we want to cover next month? Councilmember pool? >> Pool: I just wanted to toss that suggestion over to Mr. Virgil of the eec, so if they're kind of interested in following along the fate of our employees out at decker, maybe y'all could get those briefings as well. I'll leave it up to you. >> Yes. We actually -- [inaudible - no mic]. We absolutely get that. If it's on your agenda it usually shows up on our agenda. In addition, though, I think maybe your timeline is a little bit off on that, but we'll get update odd that. -- Updated on that. >> Tovo: Okay. Other items? Okay. Seeing none, we stand adjourned at 2:56. Thank you staff, management, colleagues.