Good evening. Tonight is Wednesday, January 12th. It is 5.30 p.m. And this is our regular monthly meeting of the Board of Electric Commissioners for Burlington Electric Department. And first on the agenda is the agenda itself. And wondering if all commissioners have seen it. Have any suggested edits or if there are any updates that we should be aware of from you Darren. No. Okay. And next up on the agenda we have the minutes of the December 8th 2021 meeting. And so this is again just if you see substantive or content related edits that should be identified. But if you see any typos or anything just shoot an email to the clerk. Not hearing any edits or changes. Move to accept as presented. Second. All in favor. Commissioner Shagman. Aye. Commissioner Herndon. Aye. Commissioner Modi. Aye. Commissioner Stebbins. Aye. I'll ask Commissioner Whitaker but I'm not sure she's on yet. She's not. Thank you. Okay. Thank you Laurie. And next we have the public forum for viewers. Please know you're always welcome to join us on our monthly meeting as well as to reach out to the staff via phone or email. And I do understand that we have some members of the community here with us. So welcome and thank you for joining us. Cheryl you're the only one I can see with a name and a face so if you'd like to kick off please do. Okay. Thank you so very much. I really appreciate this opportunity. My name is Cheryl Green. I'm a resident of Burlington Co housing on East Avenue and we are a 32 unit housing development that owns 5,000 square feet of interior common space as well as we live on four acres. So I was here as it turns out a year ago almost exactly January 13th and so I think probably most of you will we're here and we'll remember the conversation that we had together and we continue to be in a dilemma a year later. And so there was a lot of great enthusiasm and support around some ideas that we were looking at but I just feel like I want to give you a little bit of a background and let you know what's currently going on. So about two years ago we installed as a community two level two juice box pro 32 chargers and we chose to get the commercial version and get the full software package. So individually we plug our cars in and we can look at the software and we can bill ourselves and we pay the community back because this all runs off the house meter. So we worked out that we would charge ourselves 17 cents a kilowatt hour. So I've been doing work with Brian Riley off and on over the last couple of years and he's really he's been a great help in the car charging adventure. And there've been some great incentives that you've bought for all of us who have or that you've put out that for all of us who bought electric cars or hybrids and that's been really wonderful. And we've also as a community watched as residential owners and work sites have benefited in terms of the Burlington Electric Department electric rate reduction incentives. So the dilemma is there are no incentives for electric car charging using common or as you call them house meters. So for example, a significant amount of our charging does happen during off peak hours and that's all visible on our software and BED has had a link to that. But there's been no incentives coming from you about that. So we also are on the SG small general billing plan which means that we need to stay under 3000 kilowatt hours every month and we are really good at doing that except for three months of the year. We also have 116 plus or minus solar panels owned in common. And so we sell you that electricity and that helps to offset our 3000. Anyway, it's been a great arrangement except for the three winter months. And so we have gone over this year, the billing period ending in December 21st, we're at 3108. And as of today, we've used 2663 kilowatt hours and we still have nine days to go in this billing period. So we'll go over this year and the record has shown the last two years we've gone on over in the February period. So we've stopped using our car chargers. So here we are doing all the things that you want us to do and all the things that are being celebrated about you and the city of Burlington in terms of incentives and people's capacity, all of the charging options that are available for us around the city. And so here we are the coldest months of the year and we literally have stopped using our car chargers. So we are six fully electric cars and one hybrid here and we are all going offsite to charge now, which is wacky and I'm sure you're the first ones, you would be the first ones to agree with that. So at the meeting a year ago, there was some great discussion and James Gibbons suggested maybe what could happen is that the car charging portion could be separated from the small general billing, at least for those three months when it's, we just calculated over the last year and for several of the months, we have negative kilowatt usage because of our super commitment to solar power. So one, two, three, four months out of the year, we have negative and then several months, we have less than a thousand. So we really are doing it and we are getting hit in this crazy way because of these three months. So anyway, we aren't charging. And back to James Gibbons. So James was suggesting that I mentioned that that there could be that separation in the billing, which would be great, but nothing came of it and nothing really came of anything else until we started really just knocking on the door, your door again and saying, you know what, here we are again and we're in this same really crazy position and this year, it's looking like, oh my goodness, we're gonna go over the brink in February. So right now, Casey Lamott and Jake Nilevich are working on the case as well and that is helpful for sure. And so we're looking at conservation efforts, we also have two net metering groups of solar panels here owned by a few panelists by quite a few of us. So there was some talk in the last few days about could we trade some of that production to help out with our small general account, but apparently that can't quite work. So I'm bringing it to the commission again, just wanting you all to know and also just letting you know that I feel very much like we are a team. Every ounce of work that I've done with Brian Riley and now the work that's being done with Jake and with Casey is all positive and upbeat and really wanting to be able to write this situation. But the reality is we really are in a dilemma and the idea is bring on the electric cars to co-housing. There was a new one that was just purchased in the last, I think, three months and the woman who purchased it is really come on board. I mean, it's so exciting and most of us are 70 and older who own these cars with the exception of two. So, you know, I mean, we're doing it and just wanting to really put it on the record again a year later that we are really looking for some incentives from you to lower our charging rates and we deserve that. We're doing everything right. So, there it is. Thank you, Cheryl. I see some others. I don't know if the others feel like Cheryl sort of covered the basis. But I, Don or Gary, did you want to say something? I would like to say something. We would certainly like incentives for using electric cars and charging at our site but also bumping that 3,000 up the net power that we're using, the total usage minus the production that we provide. It would be nice if it was no longer 3,000 kilowatts but four or 5,000. We need some more room there. Not just for the electric cars but we're just, well, for example, we put in ERVs and while they don't use a lot of power, they are adding to our usage. And that's very important because it's making our common space a lot safer given the pandemic. So, I just want to mention that but I also want to let you know that we're not standing still. We're doing other things as well. With the extraordinary help from Brian and other members of the team. So, a number of us have bought heat pumps using the incentives that have come from Brian to Electric. And now what we're trying to do is our heat, essential heating we have, which is from natural gas, heats 30 of our 32 units. So, this year we have five units that are volunteer to use their heat pumps for their heating and cut off the heat coming from the central heating system. And Burlington Co-Housing as a community we have agreed to reimburse those folks for whatever electric power that they purchased in order to run their heat pumps. So, that's an experiment and we're providing data back to Burlington Electric. And we have different devices that keeps track of actually how much electricity our heat pumps are using. Burlington Electric is going to on their own and look through the data and see what they come up with. And it'll be a chance to verify whether that's successful. But we're constantly looking. So, in addition to that, which we hope is gonna show that the heat pumps will be close to the cost of the natural gas. So, we can reduce our use of fossil fuels but do it at a little extra cost, very little extra. That's what we're hoping, but we'll know better. So, this is going to go, this is going from November 1st to April 1st. And so, by that time on the spring we'll know whether we're successful in that. But there are other things we're looking at too. And one of them that Brian is gonna help me with is we know that we can plug our, at least our Nissan Leafs and that's the primary electric car that we have. We all have, we can plug those in for a backup system should we have an extensive outage. So, we're looking into just how that can happen. And there are people in the state who've done this and they're gonna try and help us. So, it'd be interesting to see whether that's possible. And that could also be, not just plugging in but it could also be a way of providing power for the grid when it's really needed. So, we're beginning to explore that as well. So, basically I just want to thank Bert Electric for working with us so intensely as a team. And it's been great, but we're in a position now where we may end up paying another $4,000 extra a year because we can't stay within that limit that the SG RAID table requires of us. So, we hope we can get some help and not do that. So, thank you very much for the time. Thank you, Don. I do remember you all here. I don't know if it was a year ago exactly but I do remember. And I actually came and spoke at Burlington Co-Housing maybe like in 2011 or 12 or so. So, I've met a fair number of you and I know you guys are very, very committed and I super appreciate it. It's rare to see so many efforts from one community center in terms of your energy use, your conservation but just the shared living, all of that. It's really appreciated and it serves as a role model. I guess I'll just say hopefully we can try and figure out something. James has just come on. I don't think personally, I don't think we can just give incentives because we're a regulated utility. We respond to both the State of Vermont Public Utility Commission as well as regionally, as well as federally and we do need a program design, a policy structure, a way to say this is why and how this is fair to all Burlingtonians as opposed to like a special incentive for one specific site and I hear the challenge. I mean, it's gonna be a catch 22 that we see again and again I think in the sense that we do want people to be using electric vehicles more but then, you know, if you size your solar array for your heat pump and then you get an EV and then you get a second EV like if the solar's too small and it's December, January, February, there will be a deficit there. So I guess with that, I mean, I'm hopeful that we can figure out something. I'm glad you came back because I did not know it was continuing to, you know, be a challenge although I'm not surprised because I'm not surprised you guys are adding on more, you know, electric vehicle enthusiasts and so I guess I'm not surprised that you're seeing greater usage which means that your solar isn't necessarily offsetting that usage in the winter months but I do want to caution like just in terms of giving incentives like to a, you know, that is we do have to figure out a structure and a framework within which, you know, is it in future co-housing situations could look like this or whatnot but it has to be sort of a, it has to be something that we can present and say this passes, you know, these regulatory criteria and here's how and here's why but I don't know, Darren or James, I don't know if one of you want to jump in because I bet you have been closer to this over the last year than me. Yeah, I mean, I can, well Darren, you can go first if you want, but I can offer an awful lot of color. There's, I think it's some misapprehensions and I think actually maybe Gabrielle, you misspoke a little bit, I want to be clear on this. There's incentives are one thing which we actually do have some flexibility on, rates are a thing we don't have flexibility on. So in most states of the United States, if a municipal utility wanted to change its electric rates, it could do so. In Vermont, we need the approval of the state to do so and there's two different processes in Vermont. One process is to increase rates and we, you guys are probably aware, we filed a request to increase rates in June of last year and that is still in process. That has not, process has not wrapped up yet. The process to alter rate structures is actually even longer. In the rate increase process, we can request an increase and we can begin collecting the money and only if we're found that it wasn't a reasonable request do we have to make adjustments. To change rate structures, we need the approval of the Public Utility Commission in advance before we do it and we can only do it in certain ways. Okay. So just changing the 3000 to 4000 is not really a practical option for us under the structure that Vermont regulation uses. We were able to change as of July 1st, we received approval to change our electric vehicle rates because it was done in a very limited way and we did change the SG and LG rates to make the change that I suggested. So charging under our electric vehicle charging rate is no longer used for the calculation of the 3000 kilowatt hour cutover. Okay. Now that required changes. We had to address internal billing questions, how we monitor the 3000 kilowatt hour cutover. You know, that isn't a simple change. It sounds like a simple change but it is not a simple billing change. But we did put that in place and that was approved by the state on effect July 1st. The second part of our problem though is that your chargers do not, we cannot see into your chargers right now in the way we need to to build the rate. And my staff has been working with NL consistently. They were on the phone with them yesterday even before this, before you announced that you were gonna be here tonight to talk to them about that. There's two different types of data your chargers show. Your data, your chargers show session data and that session is based on a start and stop time. And that does not line up with our rate structure at all. The chargers do record the type of data we need for the billing but NLX has never made that available to anybody. So when you talk about Casey, Casey's on my team and he's the one trying to get that data from NLX. The rate structure has been approved. We just need to make sure that we can get the data from your chargers to actually put you on the EV rate. At this point it is purely a data problem from the chargers that you guys have in place and the data we need to build the rate that was approved. But there's no process, there's no state process needed anymore. Once we're sure we can address that data and again they've said, NLX said they should be able to provide us some data. They also offered us by the way a custom programming option which for $10,000 they would have let us access the data a different way and we haven't chosen for obvious reasons to follow the $10,000 option yet. But again, we are actively trying to get that data and we've made the changes that I spoke about already to our rate structures. James, can I ask a question? Or maybe Cheryl wants to ask something. Yeah, first of all, James I really say thank you. I had no idea about any of this including that as of July 1st, which is a long time ago that that went through that separation when she was suggested a year ago that you were able to follow through with that in six months and have it accomplished. Which is great. And it's wonderful to hear how, I knew that you were in touch with NLX. I had been told that. And it sounds like Casey is really on that job right now. Is there anything that I can say? Casey and Freddie and my team are both working on that. It's the weather, I'm sorry, go ahead. Is there anything that I can do? I mean, I'm in touch with NLX and I'm familiar with the tech team and is there any nudging or? I can tell you what we're looking for. And I'm certainly happy to share the email that I have with the status. I can send that back to you guys. What we need is we need interval data. The process for us is we need the data that says this much charging happened in this hour, not by session. Session does not line up with our rates. It's gotta be by the hour of use, okay. Okay, it does tell that on the software. When it's initiated, that's when the charging starts. So you can see what time of the day. No, we need to know that for our ending 8 p.m., this much was used. Our ending nine, this much was used. Our ending 10, this much was used. That's interval data. So that's what we need. That's what you need? Correct. And I'm happy to put that in an email so you don't have to try to write it down and get it exactly right. I'm happy to do that. Thank you. And we've been trying fairly consistently. There was a bad documentation I understand it on their API that made it challenging. Their API wasn't written to provide billing data like some of the other chargers do provide the interval data in a way we can digest, they don't. They've offered to maybe provide it to us in a side form, if you will, but that provides some billing challenges for integration because we're not getting it in the way we get the data from everybody else. I think we would work around that. If we can get the interval data from them, we will try to make it usable so that you can go on the rate if we get it in any form. But we have not yet been able to get it in any form. And then after we get the interval data, it doesn't take very long to do it, but we need to validate it.  And we've done that for all of the other chargers that we have used in our EV rates. So we basically validate the data, say, look, it is accurate enough for billing purposes. We will then take that data in. So again, I'm happy to put together an email of what we're having trouble getting. And that is the thing we need to put you on the rate. But we don't need to do any other rate changes. We've already made those rate adjustments. And the SG rate now reads that consumption under an electric vehicle charging rate will not be used for determination of the 3,000 kilowatt hour cutover. It's fabulous. But we haven't been able to get the data for you guys. So who have you successfully worked with besides ChargePoint? ChargePoint, well, Packetized Energy had a charger, but Packetized Energy has recently sold their company and they sold it in such a way that it's unclear if we're gonna be able to continue using their chargers. And I think there's one other, but I don't remember the name off the top of my head. I'm really off. So I mean, if you changed to one of those chargers, which are expensive, I mean, they're very expensive, right? You know, that would solve the problem too, but I'm assuming you don't want to invest in all new charging infrastructure to get on the rate. So we're trying to- No, we've already spent $4,000. Oh, I know. So we're trying to get the data from NLX is what we've been doing. And we've been treating it as, we have to get the data from NLX because using another charger isn't a viable option for you, but it has been challenging. And my staff has been spending a reasonable amount of time on this, you know, but it's not, it's the same problem we're gonna have with Coal Climate Heat Pumps, which is the ability to meter individual loads inside of an overall load and apply rates to them is not being done very often in very many places. We're one of the few places to do what's called an end-use rate, which is a rate for EV charging that is separate and distinct from what you pay for the rest of your use. And we're taking that out of your other usage and billing it differently. That's not very common nationally even at this point. And so again, we need to be, and obviously we can deploy metering on really almost anything, but that's not cheap either, right? For us to deploy utility grade metering. So we've tried to use the hardware. And in this case, the hardware that we use is the chargers. But, you know, we designed our rate and we check individual hard chargers to make sure they will work with our rate. And yours was not one that we ever had worked with. NLX, yeah. NLX. So James, I believe that we are able with our charger to set sort of only charges between certain times like 10 p.m. at night and noon. So that no matter what we do, that's the only time it would charge. But it sounds like that's not enough. You still wanna know how much power is used each hour. Is that correct? The way the rate is written, we need to verify that no charging occurred during the off peak period, on peak period. So, you know, a charge point charger can be set that way too, but we have seen people override those settings and then charge during the on peak period. Those are not usually absolute settings. Those can be overridden. So again, what we do is we actually go out to the charger, we pull the interval data for the month, the billing period. We look and see if during any of the intervals that were designed as on peak periods, there was any charging use. If there was, you don't get a credit for the month because we had the risk of seeing a peak. So the rate is designed so that if all usage is off peak, you get the credit. There's no penalty, right? And I did, by the way, make the SG rate such that, you know, this was a bit of a finesse on BED's part. I won't say my part, but BED's part, which is that, let's say you didn't get the credit one month, okay? That 3,000 kilowatt hours would count for LG. But if the next month you got the credit, it wouldn't. And it would interrupt the three consecutive months if any one of the three, you were not on peak at all. So it's designed to make that as flexible as it could be. So there's two things at issue here, it sounds like to me, that we're very interested. One is the car charging time is taken out of the 3,000, right? And the other is... Well, the car charging time doesn't count towards the 3,000 or the car charging use doesn't count towards the 3,000. Okay, so that's huge, right? And then there's also the question about the individual, the race, which would be to us as individual residents, because we pay back to the community that house meter use that we've each used. And we can... The charging rate that you would be charged for the consumption of the chargers is essentially, it's almost exactly the same as the residential, it's a little over eight cents a kilowatt hour. So it is a significantly discounted rate. And as soon as we get interval usage, we can put you on that rate and you can start paying the reduced rate. And that has to be, and that's only during off peak hours, right? And if during any time in the months that is violated, then we're back up to the equivalent of 17 cents, is that right? For that month, because of the way the power market... For the month, okay, great. It's not, that is not a permanent penalty. That is just, we did it as all carrot.  And if you don't succeed in being all off peak, you pay what you would have otherwise paid. Okay. But in any case, James, it won't affect that 3,000 piece. No, no, that's not true. If you charge on peak, and there was no consumption under the EV rate to discount. So that's why I said, the 3,000 kilowatt hours is a three consecutive months. So you have to fail three months in a row, not one month. I see. As long as any one of those three months, you had used all your charging off peak, right? Then you would knock that month down and interrupt that three month consecutive months. Okay, so say some piece of the charging falls in the on peak. Is it just that piece that applies against the whole thing? The whole thing will. Because, again, this is about how the power markets work. Now, can you find out after the fact that one of those on peak hours was important after the month occurs? We don't know before the month occurs what hours gonna matter for transmission. But we, when we get to this point, we should be using our charger, the software for the chargers to restrict our charging. And maybe we don't go exactly 10 o'clock. It might be 1030 to 11 in the morning. So we have a cushion there. Sure. And then we should be okay, I would hope. As long as no one overrides it, you should be fine. And I do believe, I think we also have a parameter for really minor incidental use, and I mean really minor, because when you plug sometimes in, it interacts with the charger. And so what we want to make sure was that the rate is saying if you charge during one peak hours, not if there's a one watt ping from the car or something like that. So we had written the original tariff to say, if it's greater than zero, you don't get the credit. And then we realized that it was possible to have these tiny little things that we weren't trying to get. So we modified our logic on that. So, and would you, James, send us the document that tells us all these details? Yeah, so it sounds like what I would be providing you is the data we need from NLX and then the tariff language for the SG and the tariff that would apply for the charging use is the three things you would want. Is that correct? I believe that's correct, yeah. So that includes the email to NLX. And I will definitely call them tomorrow and have a follow-up conversation or a side-by-side conversation. And obviously you all are in charge of that, but I want them to know that we know and that we're really watching closely and it's our expectation that they have the capacity to do this with you. Now, again, one of the things, the reason I mentioned that this is not common nationally may be that what you're getting from us in their world is an esoteric request, but it's not something that other chargers have not been able to deal with, they have been. Okay, and has that been said to them? I don't know, to be fair. I have not been the one in direct contact. It's either in Freddie or Casey that have been talking directly with NLX in the last six months. Yeah, I think the thing is, Sheryl and Dawn is many of these, many of these like metering structures and various applications, they're designed for slightly different goals or slightly different rate structures. And so what ends up happening to James's point, if that particular type of charger is typically used in a place that doesn't have like Burlington electrics rate structure, then they might be like, we haven't designed this for that. On the other hand, maybe it's a workaround or whatnot, but... The good news is we believe that your chargers do have the interval data. Some do not. Some of them, the chargers, we simply would not be able to use under our rate. We think the data is there, but they are not in the habit of providing it to anybody. Okay. And if it comes from the customer, hopefully that'll be a more direct follow-up. Right, and we have, and I've been the person who's mostly been in touch with them, but some really now two-year connections with them. Yeah. And individuals that I can speak to that we have an established rapport with each other. So I will definitely do that when I get your information, James, tomorrow and... I'll do that tomorrow morning.  We did make the rate change. Yeah. And my team has been trying to get the data out of NLX. Okay. And I knew you were working with them, but I didn't realize the rate changed that that's... That part was already checked off as of July 1st. Okay. Thank you so very, very much. I mean, I feel like we really are on a team together and that's a brilliant feeling. Well, you said it. You're trying to do everything we ask you to do. We're trying to make it work, but we do have... We are a bit hamstrung sometimes by the state processes that can slow us down a bit. We can't always do exactly what we would like to do. Okay. But thank you for coming back and bringing this again and just so that we could have this conversation. And maybe in a couple of weeks or so, Cheryl, if you wanted to shoot us an email, I'd be, you know, instead of waiting for a year and then being like, oh my gosh, this is how many thousands of dollars, you know, let's keep an eye on this a little bit more closely so that you have a better sense of, you know, what the BED team is working on and what the challenges may be as we continue this conversation with MLX. I am gonna say also though, at some point, I mean, assuming that this all works, at some point, if you guys are really successful, you might need more solar. So I just, at some point. Be aware that the cold climate heat pumps could push you over the 3,000 as well. And we are aware of the need to try to figure out how to do the same thing for cold climate heat pumps that we're doing for EVs, but we haven't solved that technical hurdle yet. Yeah. Well, of course the heat pumps we're using are in individual resonance, so we do have some on the house meter, but that's not what we're trying to do. Right. We're just doing it in the resonance right now. Well, thank you. If you guys can, you know, keep me looped in, I'm happy to, you know, keep helpful. However, that can be helpful just so you guys have a clear communication, but. Thank you, Gabriel. And I do have your email. I looked back and we did have a communication after the meeting a year ago. So thank you, that's a great idea. And as you know, we're in touch with Brian and now Jake and also Casey, so it's all good. And thanks for all that you guys do there. Yeah, we're mostly having fun. Keep healthy. And you're welcome to stay with us or if you'd like to go have dinner, we will not have any offense if you choose to sign off. Thank you. I'm going to go have dinner. Thanks. Good call. Thanks so much to you both for joining us. And thanks, James, to your team as well. I am looking at the rest of the names here and they do not look like members of the public. Lori, is that accurate? That is accurate. All right. And Paul Alexander, nobody else in the room with you. Otherwise, I have a mask on. I would say that I'm a member of the public. Can you hear me? I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm still here. Welcome. Thank you. And I would say that I am here largely to hear the update on street lighting policy from Andy Ellison. I don't know how the agenda is set up if there is room for discussion from the public within that parameter or I should speak my piece now. If you want to, I mean, I personally am aware. I've heard from several folks in the neighborhood, but I don't know that other commissioners are. So if you want to give a brief sort of synopsis because it was sort of my request amongst others to have this policy update. So if you want to give a brief overview of why we're having this, that might help set the stage for when Andy gives his presentation. Well, I can only give you the reason why I'm here. I can't speak to why others are here or Andy's here this evening. I will say that I have spoken to Andy about the lighting in the South End and he has been gracious and very forthright and actually came out and walked the neighborhood with me, the South End between Flynn and Home, Pine and Charburn. He and Anas came out and walked the neighborhood with me, which I thought that was really incredible. However, I still find that I am trying to live with the amount of lighting that has come into the neighborhood in the past couple of years. And it's a lot. It's a lot. And I've been told I will get used to it and that as a longtime resident of the neighborhood that to go from underlit to up to a certain standard can feel like a lot. I just took a walk this evening and I live on the corner of Richardson and Lyman and Richardson has just been reworked. If you count the light on Flynn Ave, we have 18 lights now on Richardson between Flynn and Home, 18 fixtures. It's bright. It's a lot of light. But I think to myself, well, at least it's not Ferguson. Ferguson is unbelievably bright to my opinion. Again, I lived here when there was one light per block and one per intersection. So I discounted from the two blocks of Ferguson Avenue from Richardson to Shelburne. Just two blocks has 14 fixtures. 14 very, very bright fixtures. So that's what I'm trying to reconcile myself with. This is my neighborhood. I've lived here a long time. I walk my dog at night. It just doesn't seem like the best use of limited resources. And I know that Lyman has gone the docket. Perhaps Scarf is on the docket. And so this lighting just keeps on coming. And I know I'm just one voice, but it seems excessive to me. And I just wanted to share that, but I do want to put out that Andy and Ennis and others BED have been very receptive. I'm not questioning their work. I'm questioning the standard that we're trying to bring the city up to. It seems excessive to me. And I thank you very much for your time. And I look forward to hearing Andy's update on the lighting. Thank you. We can't hear you Gabriel. Thank you. I've been talking away by myself. Thank you Gary. And thanks for saying that you were present and that you were there because I saw you initially and then you disappeared amongst the little circles to the right. I'm going to ask General Manager Springer and the other commissioners whether or not folks are okay if we shift agenda item number 7 to now just so that Gary doesn't I mean Gary you're always welcome to sit through the commissioner corner and the general manager update and the financials. But my you know my guess is it might be better for your evening if we shifted that around. Is there any reason from the commissioners or or from Darren or the team at BED that that doesn't make sense. No I think it's a good idea. Yeah this is Bob Herrington. I support that that agenda shift. We have had a discussion some years ago about the dark sky issue and lighting levels. That's kind of gone dormant and so I'm actually personally happy to see it coming back. So with that then Andy and Muneer thanks for coming on. If you want to see this off we're going to shift over and place agenda item number 7 in between agenda items number 3 and 4. And with that I'll let you guys take it away. Thank you Gabrielle and thank you everyone. I do appreciate your comments Gary. So I was asked to provide really a refresher on our street lighting policy just to get everyone up to speed on what the policy is what it's about where it came from and kind of give you some background information. So rather than read through the document which would be very dry and boring for everyone I put together a PowerPoint with some highlights of everything and I plan to go through that. So let me just get my screen set up here. All right and let me know if that shows up. Okay great. So I'll just start out with just some overview remarks about the purpose and of the street lighting policy and some of the responsibilities driven by it. At a very basic level BED has been given the responsibility of lighting the accepted streets of Burlington and that was given that responsibility was given to us by the City Council. This policy was first adopted by the Electric Commission in 2014 and it's had several updates over the years one in 2017 and another in 2020. And as far as when we implement the policy or follow it both BED and the city refer to the policy when we're installing what we consider our standard street lighting poles and fixtures and also making decisions about the location of decorative poles and fixtures and any banners that are attached to streetlight poles. Overall in the policy energy efficiency is a high priority and BED is aware of Dark Sky Goals as a component of lighting policy. So continuing getting into some of the standards that we follow. The big one here street lighting in Burlington is designed to conform to the IES Illuminating Engineering Society which is a lighting industry group. We conform to their recommendations for lighting levels as defined in their roadway lighting design handbook RP08 and as we design our projects we refer to the current addition. So what we do is the fixtures are modeled using a road template and light levels on the street and sidewalk are evaluated. And the goal of the evaluation is to choose a fixture that's energy efficient and provides adequate lighting on the street and sidewalk while minimizing the spill beyond the sidewalk. So to dive into the whole concept of IES recommended lighting levels they're actually it's not a one size fits all levels so we don't light for example Shelburne Street to the same level as we would light us you know less busy residential street like Richardson or Ferguson. They're not designed to the same light levels. There's three different classifications of streets. There's major which is the highest collector and local and those designations are actually provided to us by DPW. Just to give you some quick examples of what what would fall under these categories major would be ones like Shelburne Street Battery Street the lower section of Pine Street from Maine to Queen City Park. Then in the middle the collector streets examples of those would be like Bank Street or Cherry Street or in the South End specifically like Locust Street Birchcliff Parkway or Home Avenue. And then the local streets are basically all the others. So this the smaller streets like I mentioned are not necessarily smaller but more residential streets would fall under local. And then to make it even more confusing for everyone. Sorry there's even more classifications. So the lighting levels are also driven by the expected pedestrian what's they refer to as pedestrian conflict. So that's at a very basic level the number of pedestrians that one would expect to see at various times of the night. And there's three categories for that high medium and low. I'm not aware of us using high for anything in Burlington. I think a previous study had shown that even the downtown area met the criteria for medium. So for specifically for residential streets typically it's considered low or medium I'm sorry low. Sorry I yeah there's actually low is further categorized. So again I'm sorry if I'm confusing anyone. You have the high medium and low pedestrian conflict. The low pedestrian conflict is further broken out based on the number of the metric they use is dwellings per acre. So there's like rural which is Burlington generally would not fall under. Low density residential which is two or fewer dwellings per acre and then medium density which is 2 to 6 per acre. So bottom line is for the residential streets it's either low low or low medium for the pedestrian. So I'm sorry if that was confusing. It's there's a lot of language in the the standards that we're following. So to continue as far as the fixtures that we use they meet the following criteria. Obviously LED for for energy efficiency. They're also rated with the backlight uplight and glare or bug system which was something that the IES initiated to reduce the stray lighting that escapes from a fixture. One of the older terminology used for this was cut off. So the idea is that the light is all directed down and not up into the sky. The other consideration is the color temperature. So we specify a color temperature of 3000 Kelvin or lower. What that means is it's a warmer white color. I believe initially when we first started using LED we were using a slightly higher color temperature of 4000 K which that light is a little bit more stark white almost bluish and there's been studies that show that that's not ideal to put it simply. So we have changed that to 3000 K.  So as far as our standard street lighting system the way that we select that is it's designed to be the least cost option based on current technology. So the standard system uses what are known as Cobra head fixtures. So there's some pictures of those on the top of the slide just of what they look like. It's kind of like your standard street light fixture. We first try to put them on existing poles and then if that's not enough for the lighting study for what it shows we need for light levels we'll install new wooden or fiberglass poles. And then we also have the ability to use other poles like DPW traffic poles if coordination will allow us to avoid installing more poles. And then on streets where we have aerial service we'll feed the street lights with aerial and underground where we're underground. So now as far as decorative lighting planning and zoning designates the decorative lighting districts and what they call a banner districts where we have banners on the light poles. So with the advice of planning and zoning BED selects the decorative lighting poles and fixtures. And they're typically in gateway or commercial areas so some of the areas where we have them right now are Main Street a good portion of Upper Main Street and Downtown also Riverside Avenue and St. Paul Street which was recently the section that was recently redone. For banner districts they're installed according to the manufacturer's recommendations and we install and maintain them. City issues a waiver of liability for the banners. Obviously anytime you attach something to a pole it's going to increase the loading on it so we're concerned about making sure the banners not going to adversely affect the pole. And then as far as decorative systems any cost above the standard system for both equipment and maintenance is borne by the city. And then the city also pays the incremental cost of the decorative poles and fixtures in advance of the project and in compliance with our street lighting tariff. All right so shifting gears a little bit here. Getting into the process that we follow. So BED maintains a street lighting capital plan. So what that has is a list of streets where lighting is going to be upgraded or new lights will be installed to meet the IES lighting level recommendations. The list is driven by projects specified by BED also city and state projects and also customer requests. And in general if a fixture fails on a street that doesn't currently meet lighting recommendations we fix it I'm sorry the fixture is replaced with an equivalent LED fixture. And then excuse me this next item kind of explains why we ended up having a project on Richardson Street and in that neighborhood if BED is designing a system rebuild or upgrade project in conjunction with that will evaluate the lighting levels and we bring the street up to IES recommendations if it doesn't meet them currently. And this may include replacing existing fixtures on poles or adding new poles and fixtures. So in the interest of efficiencies if we're doing a project in an area we'll look at the lighting and see if any upgrades are needed while we're doing like a system rebuild project like rebuilding a line or putting lines underground things like that. So to continue if a customer contacts us with a concern regarding street lighting levels either excessive or insufficient BED investigates by performing a lighting study and if we find it's below the IES recommendations we add it to our capital plan and we implement the upgrades as our budget allows. If we find that the lighting already meets the recommendations we inform the customer that the lighting is adequate and meets the recommendations and we take no further action. If it finds that the lighting level could actually be reduced and still meet the recommendations by maybe lowering the output of the fixtures or anything like that we would add the project to the capital plan and implement it again as our budget allows us to. So that was my summary of the policy itself. So we can move on if there's any questions or if anyone from BED wants to add anything that I didn't cover. Thank you Andy and I'm going to propose that you stop screen sharing so we can see each other. Absolutely. Or as much as you can see of me. And commissioners do you have I have some questioners questions but commissioners any questions from you at first. Well this is Bob in a way I don't have the questions now because I think this could be complicated pretty fast. I actually have not followed what has happened with the IES recommendations over time since we looked into it some time ago. And I'm also reminded of an incident we were informed about in our discussions way back when Shelburne cut out some very large number of street lights. They didn't just use smaller bulbs they took them down. The implication being that the recommendations don't necessarily become standards everywhere. All of that's out there if we really want to get into this. That's all I'll say for now but this is a recurring issue. I'd also like to know if this continues Mr. Kauser specific complaint. Is it just light in his windows or is it light everywhere etc.  And I'm not sure what what what fixtures they have out there or not but she just kind of generally complained to me about so I don't know if that's worth anything but you know if it's a different color temperature what's what's going on there but she's complaining about Shore Road new lights or whatever that's worth. Robert thank you thank you Scott and Robert or Bob really sorry you know if I recall correctly back in like 2014 what we kept balancing was considerations of safety as compared to you know the night sky and not having light pollution. And I guess my question to Bob's point about if Shelburne you know takes some of down some of them down my question is what you know across the nation these are the recommendations are they mostly followed or they not followed Paul Alexander came on and you're our risk person so I have a feeling that's why you came on. Yeah that that's sort of my question. I mean I I personally you know I bought my house in 2008 and it's got the most miserable bright light right outside of it and it's it's you know but but we bought it and so it's not like a change for us would I love it to be less. Sure. On the other hand it is it is the street that I chose and it's where I live so it's it's a little different when as compared to when there is a change for someone who's lived in a community for a while. But yeah I believe that was sort of the balancing act that we kept discussing was safety and and public safety as compared to over-illuminating. And I mean I would also add the liability too for the city. Sure I'd also tell you though that we did look into a number of studies about highways and driving mostly which basically said that light intensity was nothing only criterion for safety glare dark versus light etc so it wasn't so simple naturally. Yeah as just more light means better. Paul did you want to weigh in and you're on mute. You're still on mute Paul. Yes. In my 28th year this has come up several times so yeah from a risk management perspective I do have concerns. The Gabriela you said or Chair Stubbins you mentioned the balancing act and that's exactly what it is. If you get on the IES website which are standards it their opening sentence says their role is to develop lighting standards for the benefit of the public. So what does that mean is it aesthetics is the energy efficiency is it reliability one thing is certainly safety. So when we have issues where a pedestrians hit or someone's hit at a crossing or there's been someone from the public or UVM student whether it's Burlington police or the attorneys that representing those clients will always inquire to us about the lighting standards were at the time of the accident was it up to specs and so on. So there is absolutely a safety factor that needs to be balanced against all these other things. These are recommendations as long as we're the insurance is OK as long as we're in those specs but with the risk comes reward and so we make changes to those lighting standards even if they're within the IES standards which might be fine just know that they may be called into question legally if we have an event. So I guess that's my quick summary on that and we've had some significant claims without getting into details since I've been here that lighting was an issue. We made some substantial payments from our insurance companies on those claims because of lighting. I recall we had a law student from Vermont law look into some of this and there is some term about the sovereignty of the city or something like that. It actually gets the city off the hook on some of these things. Sovereign immunity Bob I think is what you're referencing and that may be an issue. We've run this by legal several times but typically sovereign immunity will deal with potholes and those kind of things but lighting as long as we're again we're meeting those IES standards what someone thinks is too bright someone's going to think it's too dark and so on. So there's just there are some competing factors. This is one piece of it. Generally I agree with you but there was one specific case in which there was a problem up around that awful roundabout area on St. Paul which is now being worked on when I think sovereign immunity was was energized and and he'll sway. The one and the big payment that the city did pay had to do with a swinging gate and some other issues not just lighting. Well aware of that claim. So yeah you're right there are several factors. Okay okay. Can I chime in here for just a sec. Sure Gary. Thank you. You know when I hear people talk about liability then I know that pretty much the conversation's over and I'm looking at what Andy was just talking about and thinking about the streets in my neighborhood. Again I go back to Ferguson. I don't live on Ferguson but I certainly walk my dog there a lot and it's part of my neighborhood and I would think using the criteria that Andy mentioned that that would be considered a local street with a pedestrian level of low. I wouldn't think it's a major or a collector street. It's it's a local I would think. And I'm thinking we've added so much lighting there. Again there's there are 14 fixtures in two blocks and I understand I hear everything that you're saying about liability here but I just I'm not sure that this is really what I want to see for every local street in the city eventually because of liability. And if you walk that street you'll see what I'm talking about. Richardson is not great. It's pretty darn bright and I understand I'm one voice here but if you walk these streets especially Upper Richard Upper Ferguson it really doesn't seem like this is really the goal that we want to have for every local street in the city. And I'm wondering too if we've gone back to some of these projects and double check some of the lighting standards you know taking foot candle measurements and seeing have we in fact exceeded these standards. And if we haven't then there it is. But that would be my my request. Thank you.  I mean is there a follow-up where one looks at what you know what the final result is from from the upgraded projects and to Gary's point. Honestly I think we've done that in the past a long time ago and right now I think the engineering staff just rely on the design and the design calculation final numbers that from the software they use. Understanding that budget and staff resources are always limited maybe that is something that we can look into and see if there is sort of a an area or a section that we could see you know to see if there is complete you know conformance with the standards or whether or not the standards are resulting in a different in a different result. Commissioner is there any thoughts from you all on this. Well I'll say one more thing remember the term is recommendation if we make it our standard that's our doing but not the IES's. And second I just as they say more research is needed. I have a sense which I can't justify without research that this kind of thing is being brought up lots of places around the country. And it would be good to know some of that if this discussion got more serious. I mean I think I agree with Bob it's I think we need to do some more research right now and figure out what's going on outside Burlington outside Vermont you know even the IES then we should probably get in touch with them to see if they have anything more specific any you know for residential streets that will allow us to lower the lighting level or not. And then obviously we still need to get in touch with our the city attorney regarding the big questions. Do you follow the standard or not. And I recall we I mean we can start looking at those questions but at some point probably we need to reconvene the the lighting committee Bethany. Yeah no I just I feel like I wasn't prepared for this you know and made that on me but it is a big it is a big question that requires us to balance a lot of things and with a lot of pretty serious implications for folks. And then also yeah like a policy is one thing but then the implementation can be real you know mean real things. So yeah I guess that's where I'm coming from. I recognize the I guess I under-appreciated the importance of it when I was looking through the packet. So I don't know maybe it's something that can we is a reason why we have to decide tonight. Can we maybe not do a whole bunch of things. But yeah there's I don't I mean there's no this was just a discussion item and it actually came up because a few of us have heard from a you know a not just one or two but but a you know a number of South End Burlington residents. Partially probably because I live here and I'm also a state rep so my name is somewhat out there so it's reasonably easy to reach out to me which is maybe why I might have heard of it more than some others on the committee. No I think I think really what this is and not that it helps the immediate concerns that some of the residents are having but I think you know if if I remember correctly and I know I know Andy you mentioned that we went through this in 2017 but maybe just because it was my first time I really remember the 2014 discussion and that's a while ago. And so you know Moonier if if you can put it on your to-do list to start to look at you know to reach out find out you know what what IES is may or may not have in terms of resources in terms of other places and and also you know the city attorney I think that would be helpful. And I'd also just say perhaps not just what are your thoughts but also some statistics from from the city attorney and obviously I'm not asking for all of this by tomorrow. You know this is this is an additional ask and request but we want to we want to go about this thoughtfully. So from the city attorney I mean an attorney is by definition typically a little careful and a little risk adverse so perhaps more than just feedback but okay if we look at this number of cases and this is what we've seen that would help inform I think whatever wherever this conversation goes for commission members. Bethany I wouldn't this is Jim I'd just like to say I mean the concerns I have is definitely safety and liability especially safety. I know where I'm living here in New North and whenever a light is out they're calling to get it replaced. You know and get it fixed so it's definitely a big issue and I understand you know about the brightness of the lights and stuff but we really have to look at the safety especially what's going on in our country these days so those are my two concerns that I would definitely want to make sure that we are looking at those and the regulations and making sure we are within the range where we need to be. Thanks Jim yeah Darren. Yeah if I could just jump in for a minute. First I want to appreciate the comments that we've heard not just tonight but from other experiences with folks who have been impacted in a way that they feel is not helpful from the street lighting. We've heard from them. We our team has engaged with them extensively. We haven't always been able to deliver a solution that that meets what they're hoping for but we've tried to engage heavily and will continue to do so. I've taken a look myself at some of the materials from some of the prior reviews. I would definitely advise that we include Bill Ellis as our longstanding BED attorney who has the PUC and regulatory experience along with the city attorney's office in anything we look at because Bill is aware of a number of important precedents here and why things ended up the way they did. And I also know that Munir and Andy and our team are are kind of currently reviewing everything within the IES standards to look at what flexibility we may have if we're able to do things in any way different to try to address some of the concerns. We're certainly interested in looking at that while staying within a standard that will protect folks in a safety sense and also protect the city and BED from a liability sense. So it's really balancing those factors has been discussed. But I did want the commission to know that our team is proactively looking into that and hoping to share some some additional thoughts in the near future. Yeah that's definitely I think that would be very helpful particularly if Munir and Andy you're both reviewing right now at this point. What is a reasonable timing for this review and sort of follow-up and next steps. Andy that's me trying to not say like you must do it like yesterday that that's me asking you what what isn't way too far off but what feels you know reasonable. It's really committing one of Andy engineering staff to do some more research and a lot of research really. So I'm going to leave it up to Andy. I don't want to make commitment on this behalf. Andy if you don't want to decide on this spot do you want to let us know via email in the next couple of days after you've given some thought to current staff resources. That might be a safe way to handle it rather than giving you something off the cuff. I don't want to overextend myself but I also don't want to you know fall short either so. Okay that'd be great if you can follow up. And you know Munir I don't think I was on the lighting task force but to your point it might make sense to revisit that. Maybe that could be something you could also add in. Andy is like when was the last task force meeting. How did they you know land at this level. And Bob your your circle keeps beeping a blue. Would you like to say something. Well I was just sitting here calmly I thought. I do have a lot of notes from some of that material back when. I'll check that as well. And if I'm just going by memory Bob I recall. I believe you were on the committee or I'm wrong in my memory. Yes I was. Hey it was eight years ago so I will see what my notes tell me. Okay Gary I don't know if you want to see any last closing words otherwise I you know we do hear you and we are going to be looking into this with more depth. I just want to say thank you. I appreciate allowing one person with a very limited you know part of this whole lighting situation as I'm just one part of the voice here and I'm obviously looking at things more from an aesthetic standpoint than I am from a liability standpoint. But I do appreciate you all allowing me to speak in this forum and good luck balancing all these needs. Thanks Gary and thank you for joining. And for the record just like I said to Burlington Co. Housing it probably wouldn't spend this much time if it was just you but there are others. So just in terms of you know hearing from the community it does make a difference because BED does serve the community but we do have to balance those oftentimes you know competing goals. But thank you for coming Gary. And thank you Munir and Andy for adding another item. It does sound a little fortuitous though because it does sound as though you guys were just beginning to update and review the standards as it was. So hopefully it's not hopefully it can kind of dovetail with some work that you're currently doing. So unless the commissioners have anything else to add I'm going to suggest we now go to our 545 item the commissioner corner corner. Anything folks want to say. I'll set. And so we'll move on to the general manager update. This is an oral update. Okay thank you. A few items to cover tonight. The first is we do have new directors starting with us next week for finance and for IT. Yes we're very excited. And I know the commission's been following our work in recruitment in those areas. So maybe I'll I'll see if Emily Stebbins Wheelock maybe when we go to the financial update would like to just briefly let you know about some of those hires herself. And I'll move on to a couple other items in the interim. Obviously we're continuing to meet remotely that's now city guideline that we do that. Appreciation to Paul Alexander for being in person at 585 this evening. We've been doing a lot of work to try to ensure that our folks can stay safe and healthy as we see the Omicron spike in the community and in the state. One of the things we've done is we've ordered regular shipments of KN95 masks for our stock rooms at McNeil and Pine Street. We've been able to get a large volume of those in with appreciation of the Center for Safety team Jeff Turner and others who have been working on that. We've been distributing those to employees who are on site. I picked up a few today when I was in and they're great and we'll be keeping them on hand as as we continue to address the Omicron spike. City Council meetings are remote for the time being as well. So we'll obviously keep the commission posted but we're taking more protective posture at the moment than we were maybe a few months back when caseloads were lower and we didn't have as much disruption. Obviously we're trying to make sure our folks can stay safe and healthy our customers can stay safe and healthy and that we have continuity of operations for McNeil and Generation and for 585 Pine. In terms of the revenue bond we are starting work now given the resolution that you all passed and that the City Council then subsequently passed we're able to get reimbursement now for work that takes place under the revenue bond. Emily will cover a little bit more of the process to go and issue the revenue bond during the financials updates but we are going to make a concerted effort to document the revenue bond projects that are happening. Try to take photos and share highlights and updates through a variety of media that we have our email list our front porch forum our social media our North Avenue News column and elsewhere our podcast and make sure that the community is aware of how we're putting those resources to work upgrading the grid and our systems. We also anticipate later this month having a official announcement around our new 2022 incentives. So that'll be coming in the next couple of weeks. We are making some changes to boost certain programs. We are offering some new programs so we're very excited about all of that that's made possible in part by the revenue bond and in part by our continued efforts with the green stimulus and the net zero energy initiatives. So more to come on that in the next couple of weeks but I wanted the commission to be aware because it'll happen prior to our next meeting and I'll provide a full update in the subsequent GM report on those incentives. Moving to district energy we have a couple of meetings coming up with UVM and UVM medical in the next week or so. We are looking to wrap up the Phase 3 work in the next few months and we are hopeful in February that we'll have a better sense of where the federal budget process is going to be when the continuing resolution that's currently funding the government I believe is set to expire in February and the omnibus appropriations legislation which includes the district energy funding from Senator Leahy we're hopeful that that will move forward and we'll be able to have some certainty regarding that piece of it as well. So work continues on district energy will keep the commission updated regularly on that as we go but we do have some important meetings set up for the near future with UVM and UVM medical. In terms of you know thinking about the budget season we've kicked off budget development work for FY23 as of now. One of the things that we want to be prepared for is to have a permanent low income discounted electric rate option in FY23. Obviously in FY22 funded with ARPA funds from the city we were able to offer a temporary energy assistance program which is offsetting currently the rate increase on customers bills who are qualified for that program. The permanent low income rate would be a broader permanent PUC approved program that would offer some type of a set discount on electric bills for income qualified customers. It's an important part of our ongoing commitment to equity. It's important in the face of all the financial challenges that we know folks are dealing with and something that as we as we likely have more regular and our goal being more moderate rate adjustments in the future this will be an important tool to help protect our low income customers from any any impacts from that. So we'll keep the commission updated there as well but I wanted you to know that we're working on that. James and his team are doing some some work on that as we speak. Last on the list but I do have a few updates that weren't in the report we're excited to have been successful in December applying for a V-Lite grant of approximately 75,000 that will be matched with some existing incentive funds to support car share adding two new Chevy bolts to their fleet. They're continuing to electrify the car share fleet which is great. And one thing that we've been focused on is we've heard from constituents that there is a lack of charging availability in the Old North End. So through this project we're going to be able to put in a car share vehicle in the parking lot near the family room in the Old North End and also a public level two charger that'll be available to residents of that building during the day and then to members of the community in the evening and the weekends I believe. So that'll be some additional charging as well as we'll have a new car share EV with dedicated charging located downtown as well. So that's that's important build out of our charging infrastructure that we're excited about. A couple of things that were not on the list but that I wanted to highlight. One is we have engaged with Synapse again in 2022 to update our roadmap and give us the latest emissions and fossil fuel use data for 2021. Obviously one of the things we'll be looking at is as as the economy reopened at least mostly reopened for much of the year. How did that impact us in terms of emissions. How did our continued you know ongoing uptake with incentives balance some of that out. You know we had a good result last year partly impacted by the reduced driving through the pandemic. So we'll be interested to see how the 2021 numbers look. We hope to have some results there in the spring. In addition wanted to mention that I was anticipating possibly providing an update on the Moran frame project this evening. That wasn't ready but I'll hopefully be coming back to the commission at some point in the near future at a future meeting with update on the Moran frame project and wanted to mention that as of Monday our team in particular Chris Burns and Jen Green did a great job on this has been working with the Department of Permitting and Inspections and our colleagues at PGS on developing the rental weatherization standards. That ordinance has now fully been enacted as of Monday evening. We have the first cohort of buildings that are going to comply which are the 90,000 BTU per square foot per year or or higher buildings. Those are going to go through the compliance process and start getting into queue for weatherization now. And then we have a schedule that's been adopted to move through the various cohorts through the year of 2025 such that once this process is complete all buildings in those affected kind of energy use categories will be weatherized or in the queue to be weatherized. So that's important work. Again it touches on equity for our customers. We know 60 percent of our customers on the residential side are renters and we want to make sure that in addition to incentives we're we're supporting policies that are helping to drive fossil fuel reduction and energy savings for all customers. So we're excited about that work and that that was finalized again on Monday evening. And then lastly I don't know if the Commission has been able to receive these yet. I know we have some for you but I wanted to note that some of us I think myself Andy Elliston and James are wearing the new BED vest here that's the net zero vest with the BED and City of Burlington logos on it. These complement very nicely our traditional vests that are black with the red logo. These are blue with white and green. And we had one for every member of the Commission so hopefully you've either received them or they're on their way. James modeling both the old and new vest for you on your screen. Thanks James. And that was everything I had. So I have one quick question. Well hopefully it's a quick question. I was I heard nationally that the greenhouse gas emissions are up in toward 21 over 20. And the national news was talking about increased use of coal for electricity which we don't have that problem. And then the other one was transportation. So will we be able to know like if there's an increase what sector it's coming from. Absolutely that's one of the benefits of this work is we'll get granular data on transportation and thermal. We know we didn't increase emissions in the electric sector because we continue to be 100 percent renewable. So we're going to miss the national trend in a helpful way on the electric side. But on the thermal and transportation we will have data. The only caveat I have for that is because we do this so quickly after the close of 2021 whereas state data typically lags you know three or four years. In some cases like for transportation miles driven on average we sometimes have to kind of look at state data to figure out what we think Burlington did and we like to use Chittenden County data. So one of the things I've asked Synapse to do is as we go through each of these years to do retrospectives on the prior year with whatever the most available Chittenden County data is so that we may see those numbers have a retrospective and an adjustment to be even more accurate as we go. But the state travel data can sometimes be a reasonable proxy but that's the one caveat in doing this so quickly but otherwise we should have some pretty granular information. Great. You can also ask your consultants to use the cell phone data too maybe. Yeah I'd be glad to mention that. Great. Thank you Darren and thank you for the overview and highlights that were sent out earlier. And thanks to your team. You know everybody's pretty exhausted with COVID and thanks for just marching on and keeping our eyes on the goals and keeping the lights on and the heat pumps working and the EVs going. So unless commissioners have any other comments we will shift to the financials. This is with Emily Stebbins-Wiloch and it looks so exciting. Your two new hires look like powerhouses so that's great. Yes thank you. Very excited to be welcoming Emily Byrne as our finance director next Tuesday. She comes with a lot of great experience in public budgeting and public administration at the state of Vermont. And also Erica Furlund as our new IT director also starting next Tuesday. You know 20 years of experience in networking and system administration and team leadership. Both both very credentialed women and just delighted to be bringing them aboard next week. And then we've also filled two of the three current vacancies in IT one a couple of weeks ago and another one also starting next Tuesday. So the IT team will be close to full strength on Tuesday. Both of those new new hires also very very capable people that were feeling really good about bringing on board. So pleased to be able to report that. I also wanted to thank you so much for your efforts over the last year and a however long this has been that that you've been you know pulling pulling a big huge cart behind you and picking up the big loads. So thank you very much. You certainly have earned the gold star over your time taking care of all this stuff. So a huge thank you. You're here. Thank you commissioners. There's other other horses are hitched to the cart with me believe me. Got a lot of a lot of help pulling along. So thanks. I wanted to give a brief update to the revenue bond schedule as Darren mentioned. I had a kickoff call on last week with the city as well as our advisors and City Bond Council which was very helpful to go over the process for issuance and the timeline. We are targeting issuance for March 31st pricing the bonds a couple of weeks before that. And so we now have a working timeline that's shared among all participants in the process that we'll be working off of. And part of that process we will be bringing to the Commission for recommendation to the Board of Finance and the Council a resolution at your February meeting your next meeting to essentially authorize the Chief Administrative Officer of the City and the General Manager of the Electric Department to issue the bonds. And that resolution will be similar to those that the Commission and Council have adopted for past revenue bond issuances. So you can expect that on your next agenda. And then with that let me page down the page of my PDF. I'll go through the November financial results. Did I share that successfully. Yes OK great thanks. All right so for November we had a net income of 1.063 million that was compared to a budgeted net income of 999,000 so we were just essentially right on budget $64,000 favorable. The sort of variances from budget for November sales to customers was $123,000 less than budget or about 3%. So not a huge variation. Residential again a little higher than budget. Commercial a little lower than budget as we've seen throughout the pandemic. E revenues were also down. November was a rec delivery month. We were slightly favorable on the rec revenues in November compared to budget by 67,000. Moving to the expense side. Power supply expenses were also favorable. A good deal of that due to McNeil producing less than budget that was sort of by design or by choice. What we the plant chose to in coordination with policy and planning to not run as much in November in order to do some maintenance and build up wood supply and preparation for a long winter run which we've been happily doing since December 8th have been continually online and continuing to see some pretty strong energy prices a bit in December and more so in the first weeks of January so far. So those preparations have been paying off so far which is great. Also contributing to lower power supply expenses were lower Velco transmission expenses and then purchase power was an offsetting unfavorable expense because McNeil production and Winooski one production were under budget. We had to purchase more power than planned. Other operating expense was also favorable by $210,000. Many things kind of flowing into that bucket including labor vacancies for example being one source of savings taxes. Well again as we've talked about continued to be favorable to budget throughout the year. And then coming down to other income this was also unfavorable primarily due to less customer contribution income due to delays or postponements of customer capital projects. So for the year to date actuals we recorded and we are currently standing at a net income of $2.2 million versus budget of $2.7 so we're about half a million off for the year to date. I'll then move down to capital and cash. So you can see capital spending through November continue to track up a little bit. As I may have mentioned last month I think I mentioned this transmission will was budgeted for December so you'll see that in your December results. We will be making only half of the Velco equity investment in December however so this the actual will be kind of half of what we planned. We did that to sort of preserve cash and manage cash for the FY-22 budget so we'll be exercising our option under the Velco owners agreement to defer the rest of that capital investment equity investment excuse me until FY-23 and you'll see that in the FY-23 budget. And then our cash position 11.4 million as of November 30th that compares favorably to budget by about $1.7 million. We did receive our $3 million general obligation bond anticipation note in November that closed and we received that cash. And then here you can see the various credit rating factors 4.53 for the debt service 1.18 this is a 12 month 12 months prior 1.18 and 138 days cash on hand. Happy to take any questions. Listeners. Maybe I'll just add briefly on the ratings factors and the budget overall that I think what you're seeing here is is very much a result that we want to see which is that the adjusted debt ratio is up compared to prior year is an up relative to where we projected it even for the fiscal-22 budget cash on hand is strong. I just want to caution that we are only in November of the actuals that means we have more than half a year still to go. We do see certain headwinds that we will face within the FY-22 budget. We have some potential tailwinds as well as Emily mentioned with McNeil running and some energy price benefits there but I just wanted to add that context briefly. We'll be tracking very very closely as we head into the second half of 22 but also knowing that that flows into the budget for 23 and any rate change that might be necessary in 23. Thanks. Any questions or comments from commissioners. No I'll set. Okay. Thank you again for you know the continual focus. Here comes Bethany. Yeah I just had hopefully a quick question. So we from much to COVID we had a lot of problems with payments in arrears. Is that problem mostly gone away. No. Okay but it's not showing up in the budget. It's in the general manager's report. Yeah so I provide as part of my Center for Innovation report there's a chart I've been putting in every month of the arrearages. We are a little bit from November. And as you can see. Yeah a little bit. The VWRAP the Vermont Emergency Rental Assistance Program you can see has had an effect in October sorry no in November and December I think November arrears went down like more like 3 percent and then in December they were down 2 percent or so I think if I remember this correctly yeah 2.4 percent versus the end of November but they are still running you know the arrears over 60 days are still about a million dollars. So where this is sort of hitting us or like where you would see it is not in revenues because we've booked the revenues we delivered the electricity. We've sent the bill. It's in the cash receipts. So that's kind of where you'll see the impact is in our cash balance and that's why when we were building the FY22 budget making sure that we had a strong ending cash position for FY22 you know was both critical and more difficult because we were starting with that deficit in cash receipts from arrearages. And our plan there as we may have talked about but we do have the 1.3 million in ARPA funds from the city we're continuing to have our our customer care team work with customers to take advantage of the state funds as much as possible. In the spring we'll probably be looking at whether it's time to reinstate disconnect for nonpayment you know because we'll have gone well beyond the PUC moratorium period. We want to get through the winter but probably we will join the other utilities and we'll work in coordination with water to reinstate the disconnect for nonpayment at that time and then we'll use that ARPA funding to try to clear the remaining balance of COVID arrearages as much as possible prior to the end of fiscal 22. So that will be coming. I that's why we're not as concerned about the number still being there because we know we have some support that we can offer to customers prior to having to reinstate the disconnection policy. I think the concern would be if it went from a million to two million for example we wouldn't be able to cover all of that with existing funds. Right right. And if the commissioners are interested with VRAP we've received about $337,000 so far from the state out of and expected $370,000. So there's still about $33,000 out there and that's from 505 applicants. We still have almost another 250 applicants that are in the process and our customer care team is working on them. I don't you know if you do the rough math could you could argue that there might be another $185,000 coming. I don't know if it translates that way. But there's significant more revenue potentially coming our way which certainly helpful to the customers and to Burlington Electric. Thank you. Any other questions Bethany? Good. Okay. Thank you Emily and thanks to the team.  If anyone wants to raise a question or bring something to the table before we sign off now's the time. Quick question from me. How long does it take to put 10 kilowatt hours into a car using a slow charge and a fast charge? 10 kilowatt hours. Yeah. It depends certainly on the car but if you're using a level one like a regular you know regular outlet and you were trying to get 10 kilowatt hours it might take around 6 to 7 hours potentially to get there. I can use an example real-world example. We have a plug-in hybrid Mitsubishi Outlander which has roughly a 12 to 13 kilowatt battery. If you charge it on a regular outlet it takes about eight hours eight and a half sometimes. With a level two charger you can probably get that done in two hours or less. Okay. Well you can imagine when I ask when I hear about a new station going in then I think how many cars can it service and these are the times we're talking about. I think the standard number is 10 kilowatt hours by about 40 miles of driving which is more or less what somebody who drives a fair amount uses. So that'd be a daily dose. And does it say that the daily dose couldn't be gotten for less than about two hours of charging time. Yeah I mean it definitely depends kind of what you're looking to do. What we've heard you know speaking specifically in the old North End what we've heard is that you know folks may not have a garage. They may be parking street parking and there aren't chargers obviously on street parking so they they want a location that's closer by where they can get a charge. Now if you're in that type of situation I just want to mention that in some cases you might really be looking for a fast charger a level three which could charge a full battery electric EV with a 60 or 70 kilowatt battery from 10 percent to 80 percent charge in half an hour for example. And so some folks who might be renters or might be you know parking where they don't have the ability to charge may be relying on those fast chargers. We only have two chargers that are considered fast chargers and they're outdated and that's why the revenue bond plan really is to get some additional fast chargers as well. Right now everything you see around the community for the most part that we have is level two. And we try to locate them in places where you might go and spend an hour or two to be able to get those you know 20 40 you know miles that you might be able to get in that period of time. But if I'm understanding your point correctly I would also argue that that fast chargers are going to be a key part of the equation in the scenario like that. Sure. Okay but fast charger you're still talking about half an hour sort of thing. Half an hour to go from 10 percent to 80 percent which is typically the standard. Most most vehicles that are on a fast charger they slow down the charging rate after 80 percent fairly dramatically such that it doesn't make much sense to to continue at that point. Yep. Okay thank you. Anything else commissioners. Okay well with that it is 7-18 and we will adjourn. Thank you again Brilliantan Electric team for for your work and your steadfast moving forward.  I need a motion and a second. Move to adjourn. Second. Thank you. Commissioner Shagman. Aye. Commissioner Herndon. Aye. Commissioner Moody. Aye. Commissioner Stebbins. Aye. Commissioner Whitaker. Sorry. Aye. Thank you. We adjourn at 7-19. Thank you everybody. Have a good night. Thank you. Have a good night guys. Bye bye.


Hello everyone, Laura Kennington here. I've teamed up with Ellis Brigham to bring you some free workouts to improve your strength and conditioning for the trails. Today's session is all about kettlebells. Kettlebells are one of my favorite ways to train because they are super versatile and they don't take up much space. The other benefit to using kettlebells is that they target the posterior kinetic chain so the back of the body a lot more like your glutes and your hamstrings which are obviously very important for trail running and unlike maybe static machines in the gym you'll find that you have to use your core a lot more to stabilize the movements are a lot more dynamic so you get some bonus core benefits as well and again trail running is obviously often on uneven terrain so all of that bonus core benefits is really really useful. I think that's enough about how much I love kettlebells and the many reasons why I love kettlebells. Let's get cracking!


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