Welcome to this public meeting for 2023 resurfacing start maintenance project, street maintenance project, and the city of Fort Worth in transportation and public works. My name is Tariq Islam with the project manager of this projects. The Syrian inspector for this project is a Stephen Bernard. And contractor is construction. The construction cost of this project is approximately 1.8 million. The project schedule we anticipate to start on February 13. That is next month and hopefully it should be complete in 7 months. That is in by September. 2023, there are few streets included in this projects in 2 different neighborhood. 1 of the neighborhood has 6 streets showing in the plan with the red. The 6 streets are Bell Place, Burns week street. Climbers Street, Thomas place. Stremont Avenue and wire field street. And there's any 1 more street in different location. You my avenue, the reason we put this streets under the contract because the streets are really bad. There are some simple pictures from the existing condition of those streets. You can see a lot of failures, alligator cracking potholes. And 1 of the main things this street doesn't have any carbon girder for drainage. And some homeowner doesn't have. Driveways as well as you can see in the picture. And also in the intersection. Some car brands are not compliant. The project scope includes definitely the installation of carbon girder. For the whole length of the street will install carbon girder. We'll replace the driveway, which are missing currently. And of course, we'll research the roadway that includes. We'll pulverize the streets will dig out the streets in 11 inch. And put at cement. During pulverization compacted the sub base and put a new 3 inch asphalt on top. And we'll construct or replace the idea. Rams, which are not currently in compliant. And also we will replace the damage sidewalk within the limit of the project. And just to clarify, we will only replace the damage sidewalk. We will not install new sidewalk in this project. There's some pictures from. Another project, which are lately completed. After the completion of this project, it will look like this new asphalt with new carbon girder and driveways. There are another some pictures from the other project. Some idea compliant bram, it's going to be look like this. Some other type of ramps where it is needed during constructions. Some impact will be there in the construction area. It is normal during construction. There will be some equipment on the street. Some limited parking availability will be there and some sounds and dust, but our contractor will. Try to minimize all of the impacts as much as possible. Equipment will not close any driveways so residents will have all the time. Access open to their homes available signs will be there construction signs. Head of time will be notified all the residents will be notified about upcoming. Construction and in any lane closer, we will not close the street. The lane might be closed for on and off. For the constructions and if there's any driveway need to be closed for the construction for temporarily, we will be it will be notified ahead of time so that you can park your car on the side streets or other side of the streets. Which of it is applicable and throughout the construction. Contractor and the city will be in contact with the residents for any kind of. Closer and please make sure you check your door for the door hangers prior to start construction. You was supposed to see door hangers on your door about the scheduling of upcoming construction. Here's my contact information my name and email address with phone number. And I believe that mail you receive in your mail has also my name and contact information. Now the time for questions, please unmute yourself. If you have any questions regarding this project, please go ahead and ask your question. Any question? Yes, can you hear me? Yes, go ahead please. What, what do you envision in terms of the duration of the project? What is your timeline for beginning and ending? Yes, we will start next month, 13th of February. And we'll complete by September this this year. Oh, by September. Okay. And another question too. Yeah, it's specific to my, my location. I don't have any curves, but and over the years, we've had trees that have grown up right on the edge of the street line. So, in terms of scoping out where a curb could go, are there potential that any trees might need to be removed? Yes, if any trees on our way to put the new carbon girder, we will review the type of tree and the condition of the route and also contact our forestry department. They will review if the tree needs to be get out. Yes, we will remove the tree by the permission of the forestry and we'll definitely let the homeowners know before we remove the tree. There's one in particular, there's a very, very large mature tree and it's right on the edge of the asphalt. And also there, to add impromptu curb, as I've done planning over the years, I piled up rocks to minimize erosion and I can get out there and I can move the rocks back obviously so we can create an area to dig out and put a curb in. So the rock I can take care of, but the the trees, you know, or something going to have to be looked at. Oh, yeah, definitely we look at the trees. We have a pay item in the contract for removal of the tree. And definitely we look at the tree if the tree needs to be removed, we will remove it. But as I said, before the removal, we will get in touch with the homeowner. Like you and also without forestry department, they will review. So, yes, if the tree on the on the way of the carbon gutter, it needs to be removed, but we will review it before the removal. Okay, thank you. And also, you can take care of your of your gravel or dart, whatever you have. That's not not not be an issue before anything on your property or anyone's property will get in touch with the homeowners. Yeah, those those rocks are definitely going to have to be moved one way or the other and I put them there so I can't help. I get them out of the way. That's a good dug up the plant trees and bushes. Yeah, that's fine. We'll get in touch with you before we touch anything on your property. Okay, what about improvements that other neighbors have also added? I know that there is 1 neighbor in particular who has put up a favors as a like a retaining wall. And she doesn't have any curves there is that potentially that retaining will have to be moved as well. We as this time, I cannot make any comment on this. We will review if that retaining wall is on the way of the. Carbon, it might need to be removed partially, but as I said, we need to review. I know some of some property has kind of any wall or something like that. Definitely, we will have a review and get involved with the homeowners. What we can do with that retaining wall, but we have the carbon that need to be placed. Otherwise, the street cannot be repaved. I'm, I'm pretty sure that retaining walls right on the curve line because cars park right next to it. So, I'm. It might be back from that, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's on it. Yes, sir, we will definitely look at it. It needs to be removed. We will remove it and make some adjustment to the retaining wall. Whatever is needed. We will do that. Okay, any other questions. I think that's all the questions I have. Okay, so thank you and as I said, you will be notified. Before we start the construction, please look at your door. Receive the door hanger and the contact information of the inspector will be there on the door and if any question, you can also contact me directly. Okay, very good. Well, we are definitely looking forward to the streets have been. I know the cities that come out many, many times having to patch and it's been a routine thing and they've been good about coming out and doing it. But over time, the streets have just gotten to where they, they form potholes, but frequently and Thomas place in particular is a and Tremont as well, because the on ramp for interstate 30s right there at the access road and Tremont. So there's frequently a lot of North South traffic on Tremont and a lot of the people down the southern part of the neighborhood will come up.  So even though these are side streets that aren't shouldn't be primary. They are kind of a main route out of the neighborhood to get on to the freeway. So the streets do get some traffic. Yes, I understand it's been there for a long time on our list, but it could not make in the bond program. Finally, we managed to put those streets in the maintenance program to get it done. Yes, sir, we know about the story of this all these things have been there for a while. Well, I can tell you exactly when they got paved originally because there's a neighbor down the street about 3 blocks south of me. She said that they originally paved the streets. She thinks it was like maybe a 1973 or 4. And she said before that it was a dirt street. And when cars came up and down, it was cost of dust. So the original, the original surface underneath the asphalt and you can see some of it along the curves with the original layer. And some of that dates according to her dates back to the early 70s. Yes, sir, I understand. Yes, definitely this time it will be a good straight wonderful. I'm looking forward to it. Yes, sir. Thank you. Any other question from any other anyone else? All right, if there is no other question, I think we can add you on this meeting. This meeting is being recorded and it will be, as I said, it will be in the city website for later to view. And thank you all for attending this meeting. Thank you and goodbye. Thank you. Thank you.


Wendelmore Jr. has been one of the most underrated prospects through this entire NBA draft process because he's not super flashy, he's not going to fill the stat sheet, he's not super young and he's not really going to be a star player. But he is going to be a super efficient, high impact versatile wing very much like the Raptors have built their young successful roster around. The Duke Jr. is 6'5 with a wild 7' wing span at that height and he's going to be a dependable shooter like he was at Duke. He shot 41% from 3 and 46% on catch and shoot threes. Wendelmore is likely going to be taken in that 25-40 range because he is a high impact player and with the NBA roster depth being filled by these modern versatile long wings he'll definitely be on high demand come draft night.


I've prepared some questions, the panelists know what they are in advance, and if time permits, you know, I'll be looking, this is a small enough room where you can just signal me and we can get other questions from the audience. And so with those rules in mind, let's engage our panelists and hear from them. And the first question I have, and then I'm going to ask Ralph to start off and we'll just go down the line. And then I'll mix it up a little bit as we go along that the last time PG&E filed for bankruptcy, and the four of us were all around in this business at that time in different respective roles. Last time this happened, it took the better part of four years to adjudicate and have an approved plan by both the bankruptcy court and the CPUC. So I'm going to throw this question to Ralph first, as I said. Will PG&E bankruptcy too take us long, or will it take less time or longer and maybe some of your reasons why? Go ahead. Ralph. Normally at the outset of a Stanford forum, one particularly gratified to be one organized by my friend Jim and Susan Sweeney, I try to curry favor with the audience by pointing out that I was the first male faculty spouse in the history of the Stanford Law School, which is true. But I'm not going to do that today because I think that my presence here is better explained as all of us experienced the first PG&E bankruptcy in 2001. This one is importantly different in some respects, and I think what I want to underscore in responding to Gary's question, how long will it take, is that that's going to depend in part on the folks in this room and people like them. And we have a shared interest in trying to get PG&E out of this as quickly as possible. Let me give you a couple of reasons for that. One is captured by the San Francisco Chronicle headline of this morning, which says, PG&E strikes deal on fires, and it's a story, you've all heard this, the billion dollars that's desperately needed by the communities that have been devastated by wildfires. But what the article doesn't make clear, and I hope it's clear in this room, is not one dime of those funds gets dispersed until PG&E is out of bankruptcy. Right now, PG&E doesn't have a billion dollars or any capacity to act in its role as part of the solution on compensation, or as its critical role as a clean energy partner for California. So that's part of the interest in getting it out, getting out of this quickly. And one of the big obstacles to getting out of this quickly, and I'll close my opening response on this, but I think we'll be coming back to it, has to do with, Gary was kindly quoting from an article I wrote in Western Energy Institute's magazine called California's uniquely dysfunctional system of wildfire liability rules. That came up for those of you who were at the panel this morning with Maggie and Michael, this came up. So if you weren't, the system we've got now is one in which California utilities own an entire wildfire, and are responsible for all of the damages associated with it. If their equipment contributed materially to the ignition or the spreading of the fire, and that is true regardless of fault, regardless of the reasonableness of the utilities conduct, this is called strict liability. You automatically own the entire wildfire if your equipment was involved in starting it or making it worse. No other state has that doctrine. California doesn't have that doctrine for its flood control districts. If you're in a flood control district and you're responsible for managing water in an area of California and there's a flood, you're not automatically owning the flood, there's a determination of whether you acted reasonably, whether you were in fact negligent. Why can't we have that rule for our utilities? This is not just a PG&E issue. This is an issue for all of our utilities. But if we don't fix this, if we don't fix this dysfunctional system of automatic liability, it will be hard for any of our utilities to remain financially viable as we move into an era where wildfire risk continues to grow. There's a whole lot we can do to minimize it, to reduce it. And that's probably the most important thing for us to talk about in the most important lesson of the PG&E bankruptcy. But as long as we stay with these uniquely dysfunctional rules, even if PG&E comes out of bankruptcy now, it's at risk of slipping back at the next bad wildfire excursion. And every other utility in California, publicly owned and privately owned, faces the same risk. So when Michael Wara said to you this morning, for those of you who are in the room, and we are all grateful to him for his service on the 901 Commission, but he said, I don't think the legislature's going to do anything to change this doctrine. He needs to be wrong about that, and we need to help make sure he is. We'll come back to that, I hope, before our hour's up. Mike Florio. Yes. I'm very hopeful, I wouldn't say confident, but hopeful that this bankruptcy is going to be resolved more expeditiously. And just why I think that's more than a naive hope is the 2001 bankruptcy was really a battle between PG&E and the state, particularly the Public Utilities Commission, was characterized as an attempted regulatory jailbreak by PG&E, and that was the underlying tension, was between the state regulators and the company, and I don't really see that in the same way here, that for the most part, PG&E and the state want the same things, they want to control, eliminate wildfire risk, which is going to be a huge challenge, they want the utility to be financially viable, and importantly, they all want to be able to continue to pursue the state's aggressive climate goals, and all of those things are in jeopardy as long as this bankruptcy continues. So in a very real sense, I think it is just about the money this time, whereas the first PG&E bankruptcy was about who's in charge. I guess you could say over 15 years or 20 PG&E has conceded that the states in charge were better or worse, so I think it is going to go more quickly, I think there's a lot of pressure, I don't know that we're going to get legislation by July 12th as the governor would like, and I think all of us would like, we may get some legislation that then has to be changed later on, because part of the complexity of this is there are a number of groups within the bankruptcy proceeding that are developing their own plans for how to resolve it, all of those plans require some kind of legislation, and generally speaking, they require different legislation depending on which version of the plan ends up prevailing, so it may be that the legislature can take some initial action, they'll probably have to come back and revisit that, and there is a tricky issue of coordinating between necessary legislation and necessary bankruptcy court approval, but I think the motivation is there on all sides to get it done, and it is just about the money. So let me just ask you to elaborate, it might be very briefly, but the other parties that you alluded to include bondholders and shareholders, I mean do you think they're anxious to get this done quickly? I mean I know they want their money, get it, but in terms of all the other things you just mentioned, they don't need legislation do they? To the extent that the plans would require some kind of wildfire fund or would require, say, you know, the DWR bonds from the energy crisis are due to be paid off in the next few years, and a number of the plans would essentially replace that roughly half-cent-a-kilowatt-hour bond charge with new bonds that would contribute to a wildfire fund. That would require legislation. You know, I think that would be in essence a rate payer contribution. I think if it were a direct rate impact, the PUC would have to approve it, and the legislature doesn't trust the PUC enough to let them do pretty much anything on this without their oversight. So I think regardless of what the plan ultimately is, it's probably going to require at least PUC and probably legislative acceptance. It doesn't sound like the speed of sound just quite yet. Going to you, Frank, and your material involved with a client of yours in these bankruptcy proceedings. So what do you think? Is this going to be a quick shot to the bar or are we going to get it over? I think this is a tough one. I want to say I hope Mike Florio is correct, but I don't think he is. I think this is a much harder problem to solve than the 2001 bankruptcy. The 2001 bankruptcy had to do with PG&E's, and all three of the investor-owned utilities had very, very high power procurement costs because of the wholesale market, runaway confiscatory prices that were being charged by Enron and these other operators. So it was a finite problem. PG&E had a large lump sum of money it needed to recover. There was an elegant solution put into place, but it still took four years to do it, which was the DWR bond charge. Then PG&E and the other utilities were deputized to go out and then become the procurers of energy going forward. It was a good solution for a company that was essentially financially solvent at the time. It just had this one problem. An elephant had to be passed through the snake. The elephant was passed through in the form of the bond charge. The elephant was these excessively high power costs in the wholesale market, and there were two parts of how we solved that, and I want to take credit for one of those two parts. One part was the bond charge. We financed the debt and we paid off the debt and we were paying it.   The other thing we did, and it was my job as the general counsel at the Public Utilities Commission, was to pursue claims against those bad actors who robbed California. We got back, during my tenure at the commission, we got back $5 billion of what I used to call stolen money from these aggressive wholesale marketers in the wholesale market. That was the solution we put into place, a bond charge and aggressive litigation and settlement of claims against the bad guys. This time around, I think it's a much more difficult problem, because it is liability. It results from wildfires. It's a larger lump sum for one thing. It's a much bigger number to solve, and it's a more difficult problem in the sense that PG&E, notwithstanding what Ralph said about the inverse condemnation doctrine and strict liability and so forth, PG&E is at fault from some of these wildfires. It appears all but certain that PG&E is not an innocent actor, is not free of negligence. The PG&E certainly appears with the campfire in paradise. PG&E's facilities are at fault, and so it's a bigger, more difficult, more morally challenging problem to solve. So I hope, Mike Florejo is right, that we can work it through and that it somehow just becomes about the money. But it's not really. There's a moral component to this that makes it more difficult, and the sheer magnitude of the liabilities that PG&E faces makes it also much more challenging, I think, to solve. So I'd love to see it resolved. It's a serious problem for California. The insolvency and the financial, the hit that all the utility companies are taking from the investment community is a very, very serious challenge for California. We do need to solve this. There is an alignment of interests, I think, as Mike says, among the stakeholders. So there's reasons, perhaps, to be optimistic. But I just find this to be a very difficult problem to solve, a very, very difficult problem. So I'm not as optimistic, perhaps, as Mike is, that we can do this in a short time and come up with the solution that preserves the integrity of the utility companies, takes care of the victims, the wildfires, and moves us on beyond. I just see this as a very difficult situation. Okay. Follow on comment, anyone? Okay. Okay. And folks in the audience, just show your hands if you have a question that you want to pose to our panelists. I'll get you in here somehow. At least there has been at least one media story I've read claiming that the wildfire liability that sparked PG Nees decision to seek bankruptcy protection was, quote, California's first climate change caused emergency. Do you agree with that statement? And if so, why or why not? It is more complicated than that, obviously. I think we started to get into this this morning when Michael Warren made the point that climate change is increasing the likelihood of catastrophic wildfires in California. There's no question about that. There are other contributing factors. There is the rush toward the fire, the phrase that was used this morning, the land use changes that are putting more and more people at risk. There are issues in terms of how we have been constructing buildings historically and how we've been operating in electric infrastructure and all of those together made for just recall how how both unexpected and catastrophic 2017 and 2018 were because the following is true. You can add up all of the damages from all the wildfires from 2000 to 2016 over 16 years, get a substantial number. In 2017, the damages for that one year alone exceed those of the previous 16 years combined. And then in 2018, the damages are bigger than 2017. The campfire of 2018 that destroyed paradise destroyed more structures than the great Chicago fire of 1871. In terms of we have had wildfires in California since time immemorial, but this level of property destruction is unprecedented. Climate change is contributing to it. And there are a whole host of things we need to do in response. They have to do with land use. They have to do with construction practice. They have to do with forest management. But I want to come back to and resist some. We can't get away from the man made contribution to this. PG&E is in bankruptcy today not because of any of those things, not even because of the magnitude of the campfire. It's in bankruptcy because the minute the campfire happened and the minute it was clear that PG&E equipment was involved and respectfully, Frank, nobody knows whether there was fault involved or negligence. We just don't know. And part of the reason why we don't know is there's no reason to find out under the existing legal system. It doesn't matter whether PG&E was negligent. It doesn't matter whether PG&E behaved unreasonably. We need to change. And now I want to spend 60 seconds explaining how both how easy this is and how bizarre the situation is. Some people act as if this doctrine were graven in stone. We're part of California's, you know, back with the 49ers. Somehow this got into the Constitution so we're stuck with it. Here's what the Constitution of the State of California said. This is the provision that has been construed to mean that utilities own wildfires. Private property may be taken or damaged for a public use only when just compensation is paid to the owner. Now that provision or something like it is in every state constitution in the United States. We are the only one that has construed it to mean that investor owned utilities have strict liability for wildfire damage. And that happened about 10 years ago by a lower court in California. It's never even been reviewed or confirmed by the Supreme Court. So the straightforward thing that the legislature could do in a piece of legislation, roughly one paragraph in length is to say that California is going to follow the same rule as the rest of the country going to apply the same doctrine as it does to flood control districts in evaluating utility liability for wildfire damage. And if we did that, it would help avoid these automatic PG&E hadn't really, I think the three of us will agree on this, but let me put it out there and make sure. PG&E had no choice about declaring bankruptcy. PG&E was about to run out of money. PG&E had no access to credit or capital because the entire world knew that PG&E owned that wildfire, the minute that we knew that its equipment had been involved in starting it or making it worse. And if we don't change that, we will be back in this situation. However, effectively we manage everything else. We're at unacceptable risk of being back in this situation again for all of our electric utilities. And if you believe that the electric systems are an important part of the clean energy transition, a point that's been made over and over again, the one thing all of the debaters agreed on in the high speed rail debate was the importance of electricity in moving California to a clean energy future. That is at risk because of this dysfunction, this unique dysfunction, it's easy to fix. It requires a legislature that is hearing from a diverse constituency and not just those with a proprietary interest in maintaining this uniquely dysfunctional system. And there are a lot of those people here in this room. So on my follow-up question might be, is that message being heard by folks in the legislature or their advisors in Europe? In my opinion right now it's not for a couple of reasons. I mean certainly being heard for those of you who have been listening, you've been hearing it from me. What they're not hearing it from, the most important constituency they are not hearing from is consumer advocates. And there's a great one here to my left. It is beyond understanding me, why would consumer advocates not complain about a system that automatically loads the full weight of wildfire damage, which we know will be escalating in the future on captive electricity users. They're a whole host of able and eloquent consumer advocates in Sacramento and I am daring to hope that they're going to figure this out before too much. Well let's find out. Florio what do you think? Well just to be clear. Good time to bury your former colleagues. I absolutely agree with Ralph that this is a crazy interpretation that needs to be fixed. I think in some ways and it's not just turn it's you know. I didn't mention anybody. Yeah I know. It's the oil companies, it's the ag consumers. Everybody is lined up saying this is PG&E's fault. It's not the customer's fault. PG&E should pay. Which reminds me a little bit of the posture we took during the energy crisis which was well the utilities made this deal with stranded cost recovery and frozen rates and they've got to live with it. Right. And you know too late I think I back then came to the realization that you know there was a bigger problem than just the AB-1890 electric restructuring deal that had turned sour on the utilities that and Frank very well summarized that. And I think that utility consumer advocates are locked in a mentality of it's us versus the utility when here there's a much bigger problem. You know if the cost doesn't fall on the utility in the first instance we don't have to fight it over at the PUC over whether it's rate payers or shareholders. And in fact the money is so big it can't be either and survive it. So and I think you know what you've got on the other side are insurance companies and trial lawyers who are usually at each other's throats but are united in this and what I saw last summer was those folks with their publicity campaign very effectively preempt almost capture the consumer advocate argument by saying don't bail out the utilities by changing this law. When in fact you know it would probably be utility customers that were bailed out to a large extent if the necessary change were made but you've got well organized well funded interests that benefit from this current system and there the people who are harmed by it are diffuse and unorganized and fighting with each other. Doesn't sound too good. Now back to my original question and I'll if you wouldn't mind would this would you agree that this is California's first climate change caused emergency or not? To a large extent I would agree and that goes back to my time on the PUC about two years into my tenure there I was I was assigned to take over the wildfire safety proceeding. The commission has had an open proceeding on this topic ever since the San Diego fire. I was going to ask is it because of the San Diego? Yeah and you know it's been really a constant series of revisions to the rules and what where the case was when I took it over is the commission had just imposed a new set of rules for elevated requirements for what were called high fire threat districts and this was after the San Diego fires you're looking at the Santa Ana winds in Southern California. Could you specify like what are we talking about requirements regarding infrastructure poles? Yeah infrastructure inspections and clearances all of those kinds of things that are part of general order I forget the number and the the dilemma that the commission faced was how to define the area where these heightened requirements because they're costly I mean it's not a free lunch it costs a lot of money to harden infrastructure even I mean the the communications utilities are also implicated by this because they share the poles well they're they're not cost-based regulated anymore so they don't want to spend a nickel on their share of the problem because it comes out of their bottom line they can't necessarily pass it through so it was a very contentious proceeding and everyone said well okay we should have stricter standards in high fire threat areas what's a high fire threat area well everybody kind of knows but uh so they took a map from Cal Fire the Cal Fire said this map is not useful for the purpose you're intending to use it but use it anyway the commission said well it's the only map we've got there we go there's an answer and what the commission did was work with Cal Fire to commission what was essentially original scientific research looking at wind speeds humidity precipitation all of these factors that go into wildfire risk is that we want to hire the best experts and draw these maps that will tell us what are the places where the high fire threat exists now this was a long and expensive undertaking and long and expensive are you square it when you're talking about the PUC but one of the things that I asked at the time was well we're all talking about southern california what about northern california oh now I was under the assumption this map covered both well it it did but the thinking somebody cut it in half well it was only applied to southern california thank you first instance based on the map that wasn't suitable for the purpose but the question was asked well what about northern california okay and the response from the gathered experts was well this isn't really a northern california problem now windy enough yeah the high winds in northern california happened in the winter when it's raining so yeah you get storm damage and stuff but wildfire that's santa anna winds in in la and san diego well fast forward two or three years of this research and the results come back showing 44 percent of the state is a high fire threat area not san diego orange in los angeles counties but everywhere and this was kind of a shock to the system and you say well why will you look at the mid teens the decade that we're just coming to the end of we had the what was it four five-year drought yeah that drought killed a lot of trees in the northern california for us if the drought didn't get them they were weakened and the bark beetles got them and we have had a monumental die-off of trees in sort of the seara foothills areas areas like napa and sonoma and on up into humboldt uh places that i used to drive through 10 years ago and all you would see were trees for as far as you could see in any direction now they're big patches of brown in the middle of all of that where the trees have died that has incredibly heightened the fire risk so i don't know that i would say climate change with a with a capital c but certainly the drought and the beetle infestation and all of these things accumulated certainly in some part driven by climate change we now have tens of millions of dead trees in our forests that are just sitting there waiting for a spark utility lines have caused fires to start with some regularity throughout history the difference is it used to be a fire would start and it would get put out almost immediately didn't spread that fast today that you've got an environment where the fire is going to spread naturally you add high wind to it and you get these conflagrations that are are not part of our historical experience at least in northern california so it's it's a very bad situation and you know it's something that you know there just aren't easy solutions saying before we even had the wine country fires governor brown asked the puc to approve biomass energy con contracts where the plants that exist and have you know come off their old perpa contracts could burn wood waste from the forest sell the electricity to the utilities and help get rid of the problem we approved some of those contracts but it's really a drop in the bucket and it's essentially too expensive to harvest that would get it out of the forest truck it to the plants and burn it you know it's it's not an economical way of producing electricity but you know to his credit you know governor moonbeam saw this coming but the other response that was was too little and i understand that the number of bio plants i should call them biomass plants has been reduced or yes decline they've been ongoing as this this effort kind of gave them a temporary boost but you know the utilities haven't been really all that eager to contract for 10 or 12 cent power when they can get it much cheaper that's true that's an interesting question we might come to and let me go to you frank is this a climate cause emergency i was going to quickly say that i think we just heard from commissioner florio that he's responsible for the trouble that well i i was trying to figure out the failure of the commissioner he had the shot 10 years ago he failed and now we're living with the consequences but now we know we only look at the utilities are strictly liable i think the answer is yes i think it is climate change related i'm thinking about an interview i read with Pedro Pizarro the CEO of southern california edison's parent company and he said we're all all of us the utility companies are just one wildfire away from insolvency so pgne happened to be the one that was hit this past fall but it could happen today tomorrow next week for san diego gas and electric or southern california edison so i don't think there's any denying that the scale of the problem the scale of the damages that results from these periodic fires is much worse than we have seen historically some of that may be related to land use policies and that we're building in places we shouldn't be building and so forth but undeniably some of it is due to changes in the climate the drought then let me ask you a follow-on question also speaking with Pedro as i do often suppose calfire comes out and says and i i'll forget the name of the fire that's particularly important just the letter w but forget it what if edison ends up marching into bankruptcy give me your vision of the political landscape that ensues over the next couple months if that happens frank maybe maybe that's the catalyst that that causes everybody to say okay no we really have to get serious about rouse legislation we have to get serious about a victims fund and so forth so what you're saying right there is we don't have enough of a serious situation to really make a big change maybe that we the serious situation that we have i wouldn't understate it is focused on northern california right now the southern california is one file one wildfire away from the problem but they are not experiencing the problem right now so the perhaps i'm not that tuned into sacramental but perhaps the political motivation to solve this would be stronger if you had a catastrophe in southern california clearly it would and the other the other problem if you want to call that pg&e has managed the bankruptcy compared to last time they've managed it much better this time it's possible that dan richard shift in position has something to do with it although i would for a moment draw that he won't take credit dan dan will remember that in the at the beginning of the pg&e bankruptcy in 2001 one of the things that happens the creditors basically went and tried to grab all of the clean energy investments because pacific gas and electric company and they were momentarily successful all the renewable energy all the energy efficiency all the low-income services all that was frozen pg&e then when and this is where credit is due went in with nrdc and got those funds unfrozen relatively quickly and the bankruptcy judge who was the bankruptcy judge then who is the bankruptcy judge now this time around preemptively kept all of that going so pg&e has not yet there if you ask people over the last six months what catastrophic harm have you experienced as a result of pg&e's bankruptcy my guess is most customers haven't noticed it the moment where you start to notice it is when things like this happen and there is an urgently needed settlement involving claimants who are universally sympathized with and you suddenly realize those people can't get paid until we fix this and there are a whole host of other people like that there are a whole host of renewable energy contract holders who are worried about whether they're going to continue to get paid and there is going forward the need for a mobilized aggressively innovative electric sector that is very much at risk if we don't fix this so i hope between pg&e and between all of the other utilities in the state coming forward and saying this is about us too we can generate that urgency particularly if their customer groups join them in saying that and i think they will and now you've got some hands coming up okay but gary can i quickly add on that topic pg&e on its first day of bankruptcy filed a motion threatening to reject all of its power or any number of its power purchase agreements that it has for renewable energy and for resource adequacy and that is a it's a byproduct of this bankruptcy that really deserves to be mentioned and i am involved in that on behalf of one of the largest renewable energy companies that's in contract with pg&e but it's it's one aspect of bankruptcy in bankruptcy law the enterprise that's reorganizing in bankruptcy has the ability to quote reject its executory contracts for example if i'm if i own a chain of stores i may want to reject some of the leases that i have to close some of my stores get rid of those lease obligations pg&e on its first day of bankruptcy has threatened and has been making steps ever since then since january to be able to reject its power purchase agreements and those are the agreements upon which california has built huge amounts of renewable and conventional energy sources over the past 12 to 15 years and if they get abrogated what will happen and if they get abrogated well already just by virtue of the threat the the the credit ratings of those counterparties have already been degraded and if they proceed with rejection they will go into bankruptcy the renewable energy projects will go bankrupt the projects will not necessarily the projects well anyway it's a project finance right yes yes so it's a big problem for the existing people but it's also a very big problem for our ability to build more of this kind of resource california has very aggressive goals for increasing our level of greenhouse gas free electrical resources and that entire initiative is a threat now because of the PG&E bankruptcy and this threat to the existing battery of power purchase agreements it's a big aspect that deserves mention hold off dan i want i think mike wants to add did you want to add something on uh well i i totally agree with frank i think if the contracts are rejected they don't just disappear they become unsecured claims in the bankruptcy right so in a sense i'm not sure who wins in that scenario because the problem now is no one yeah PG&E has no has current obligations that exceed their resources you've got these contracts that run out 15 20 years in the future and yes they're above market but if you abrogate those contracts you bring all of that forward and it becomes a current liability in the bankruptcy so it really makes things worse it's less money for all the other unsecured current comments but dan you had a comment and then i'm going to go to the back of the room oh you don't have to go to the back room i was talking about a person with their hand i thought they wanted us to use the microphone oh yeah i got in trouble with that yeah some of us some of us follow the rules so two things first of all on that last point yeah the any any contracts that are rejected get thrown into the mix and they become unsecured creditors which means politically that PG&E's taken payments right now are not part of the bankruptcy because they're just pass-throughs and they throw them into the bankruptcy proceeding competing against claims from wildfire victims which doesn't strike me as a very smart thing to do yeah so but on the other hand PG&E may want to create headroom because they know that other costs are coming and i think that i'm also following closely the issue that frank raised which is you already had the topaz solar facility downgraded to junk clearway is a big renewable producer has already reported that this is putting real financial pressure on them excellent is i think i read this in a publication yeah you might have read it recently yeah but anyway the main thing i wanted to say was that as we were talking here uh somebody sent me an email that the governor just announced a wildfire uh plan like an hour ago and i haven't fully read it because i was listening closely to what was going on here but apparently what he's proposed is a what will ultimately be a 24 billion dollar fund with about half of it coming from the rate payers through the continuation of the uh the current the dedicated rate component that's on the on the bills from the last energy crisis due to roll off next year so they do that the other half would come from the utilities and they'd have access to tap into this fund to pay off futures future claims future claims it doesn't address it still leaves it to PG&E to come up with the money for the 2017-2018 wildfire so that's still 15-20 billion and they only get to tap into this new fund if they pass the PUC prudent management manager standard right so um it'll be very interesting to see how wall street reacts to this because i think at least from the outside the PUC hasn't fully fleshed out that prudent manager standard the governor's climate advisor will be addressing this group as the final item on the agenda today and i suspect she'll have a few things to say about this probably anyway i just want to point out that that was that was going on and after this panel of noted experts i'll sit down and read it more closely yeah and then we'll have a special panel just can i just a quick word if i can about the prudent prudent standard um i used to work at the federal energy regulatory commission the standard there is that the utility is presumed to be prudent and if a challenger wants to question the prudence of the utility then the challenger bears the burden of coming forward with some evidence in california the rule has been the opposite until now the public utilities commission rule is that the utility bears the burden in the first instance to prove that it was prudent it's the opposite of the federal rule and i understand i understand from a distance here that the governor's proposal is essentially to adopt that federal rule as california's rule where the utility would get the presumption of prudence subject to being rebutted by the challenger wasn't san die a girl yes the federal government allowed them to recoup professor wario chic is nodding his head yeah it's a good illustration how those two standards can be implied before you get up there i i want to make sure i think i have a question the yes please yes please because if you don't i have to yell at you just want to follow up on a couple things um on the uh furk issue of furk has started concurrent jurisdiction over the ability of the bank of cc court to reject or pgd to reject the contract so i think the bankruptcy judge ruled that furk didn't have that jurisdiction but i think they're going to appeal it to the ninth circuit so i was curious if frank had a view on how that would play out and then follow up question on the uh the pba contracts i think the pc has taken the position for the power purchase contracts that the pc would um use as important to maintain those in in place because of the renewable energy goals of california so i was curious if mike has a view if the uh if there was a plan put forward apart of the pgd bankruptcy that required pdc sign off you know how the pcc would view view that so those are the questions so you want frank to go first and then sure that'd be great yeah it was two weeks ago today that judge montal in the bank of cc court ruled that the federal energy regulatory commission has no role in deciding whether these contracts get rejected the big and that'll be subject to an appeal to the ninth circuit united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit um and i don't have a prediction except that say that's an unresolved area of the law but the question on a lot of our minds is well what about the role of the public utilities commission in reviewing these if pgne wants to reject contracts remember all of these contracts that pgne has were approved by the public utilities commission through a public process and they were found to be just and reasonable and appropriate for customers to pay for uh is pgne obligated to come to the public utilities commission let alone FERC before it can move ahead with rejection of these contracts we don't know um on march the fifth the my successor the general counsel the public utilities commission testified at a senate hearing in sacramento and she said unequivocally yes the public utilities commission would have the power of the jurisdiction to review any rejections before they could become effective but judge montal is ruling two weeks ago appears to be very sweeping in its scope and he essentially says no regulatory agency of any kind can question what i the bankruptcy court decide should be rejected so uh these are these are very hot questions right now emanating from the bankruptcy case that pgne follows and not just pgne i mean there there are similar bankruptcies in other parts of the country first energy in ohio i think dyna g but the first energy one is the one that was appealed to i think the fifth sixth circuit yeah six it was just argued or will be argued this month yeah somebody else will get to the supreme court before pgne does i think well i think what they'll do is they'll have both cases come emerge if they come up with different answers but go ahead to the question that was posed regarding the puc as if you were still there yeah i i'm skeptical that the puc has the authority to i mean if FERC doesn't have it i don't see how the puc has it but you see this is why you don't want your utilities in bankruptcy if you want your state to maintain control if you want state authority state legislature state regulators to matter and this to me gary the one point we haven't talked about at all but i just want to make sure it's on the table this is another reason why you shouldn't automatically necessarily want the electric utility bill to be the place where all wildfire claims go because if you're going to be if you're going to insist on that if you think that's a good rule then every utility is going to be one big wildfire away from bankruptcy and that is going to cripple their ability to be clean energy partners going forward we ought to be thinking about whether there is some sharing here that's appropriate florida involves the state of florida when there's a catastrophic hurricane there are insurance contributions that are imaginable there are contributions from folks who are living in wildfire risk areas that mike warris commission addressed this issue at some length and i think mike i'm fairly stating the conclusion that you thought that the responsibility should be more widely shared and not simply automatically default to the utilities so we have a question yeah thank you introduce yourself if you know jeremy platt many years in the electric power research before research institute before i retired i'm questioning maybe ralph did it could you revisit the cost number you talked about there is a x dollars of bankruptcy cost i guess the 2001 oh was so we were like mike was referring to my question yeah go that was that cost yeah and how does that compare to whatever cost you're talking about this collection of wildfires right now and related to that is is there an additional tsunami of punitive damages that could somehow add to these costs or is that just not part of the story i don't know so i'm curious about how big punitive damages are not part of this story because they're not allowed under the inverse condemnation system that kill it that's the only part of it i guess i could qualify it we endorse i'm not sure i endorse it i don't think we should get rid of punitive damages but in terms of the transaction costs of bankruptcy are ludicrously high although they're much less than wildfire costs i think mike you estimated four hundred million dollars from the 2001 bank that's lawyers fees that's insane this is a this is a small secular priesthood that operates at ludicrous multiples of normal rates what do you think the bill will be this time if you this time it'll be a lot more than four hundred million dollars unless unless we get it through quickly i mean that's another reason to get it's a little billion right but the total cost of now the wildfire claims just pending against pg&e at the my pg&e has estimated to be a 30 billion dollars michael warra told us this morning that a credible one-day catastrophe going forward in the bay area could be 35 billion dollars within a 24 hour period so yes that gives you some sense the magnitudes of liability here exceed what any individual utility could plausibly be expected to bear and it underscores the need for what the governor has just put forward which is some kind of a mechanism for anticipating these costs and preparing for them the one quarrel i would have with the proposal that dan richards kindly read us off his cell phone is that evidently this proposal once again assumes that all the costs will be paid through utility bills and i don't think that's a complete solution okay so i would add to that too that there's a certain absurdity in all of or an element of randomness that if you're in the campfire area and the fire can be traced to a pg&e facility all of a sudden the sky opens up a billion dollars money on you if you're damaged by the tubs fire in calistoga that blew all the way over to santa rosa and it turns out pg&e was not at fault you know you you're not involved you get nothing i mean you get your own insurance but if you're uninsured so you know our people who are damaged by a lightning induced fire less worthy than those who are damaged by a utility started fire no but they're they're shooting at the insulators trust me yeah yeah um oh i want oh i just remembered the fire in southern california was woosy fire but we're running a little bit short on time so let me go with my third question here and let each of you um have a chance let me start uh the session here with uh florio and then go to frank and then uh finish um with ralph which is uh give me your your vision of um you know what pg&e will look like post bankruptcy and if you want to expand upon that and talk about all utilities in california especially the investor owned utilities in california please do so well the honest answer is i don't have a clue because every idea under the sun is floating around but let me put forward something that i think would be a constructive and politically feasible solution uh one of the things that you know i think people are aware of the rapid growth of of community choice aggregation around the state and in the commission proceeding that was looking at the future of p of pg&e i believe a number of the cca's came in and said their future should be as a wires only utility just get them out of the commodity business and san diego gas and electric recently changed its historical position and said yeah that we agree with that we'd like to get out of providing the electrons and we'll just be the poles and wires company i think that you know the politicians are going to insist on some kind of pound of flesh from pg&e and you know it's as the price of whatever small b or capital b bailout happens here i think it's a great opportunity for them to pound their chests and say we got pg&e out of the commodity business they're just going to be a poles and wires company when it may be a better corporate strategy in the long run for pg&e as well and there's a lot of work to be done on our distribution systems we've got grid modernization that's kind of hitting pause because we have to deal with the wildfire stuff there's a concept of a distribution system operator kind of like the iso is for transmission to have an entity that is focused solely on managing distribution systems and interfacing with the iso that has not really it was discussed a lot in the new york rev but hasn't gone that far and you know i think there's a lot to be said for that as well so i think there's a a potential resolution here that looks to the public like yeah we really hammered pg&e and really it's just putting them in a a more forward-looking role for the future as as an aggregator of distributed resources and a manager of a two-way rather than one way so frank your vision of the world post bankruptcy should we live so long i guess i don't share the view that it's a good idea to take the utilities out of the procurement business the utilities are sophisticated large capable counter parties in dealing with the enrons of the world the big wholesale power sellers you need sophistication you need some oomph you need to be able to hold your own and to take that function away from the utilities have generally done a pretty good job in that area and to take that responsibility away from them and just and then disperse it among small unsophisticated not credit worthy community choice aggregators with all due respect to me that seems like a catastrophically bad idea because i have dealt with those wholesale sellers and i know what they're like they are really sophisticated they are very aggressive and very capable and if you're not a grown-up and able to go toe to toe with them they will clean your clock they clean california's clock in 2000 2001 and they'll do it again and so i am i'm a skeptic now i'm offering you my point of view i think it is reasonably likely that that is the direction we're going it seems the utilities are quite happy to get rid of that function quite happy throw me in that briar patch i don't want to do it i never like doing it i don't make any profit at it so go ahead and turn that over to somebody else but a centralized procurement entity run by the state of california or community choice aggregators the utilities are happy to throw us away um and i think it's maybe it is likely to happen but i think it's a bad idea i think we need we need to keep the utilities uh involved in that aspect of our power business in order to to do it right okay Ralph a billion dollar flows right one and then what happens well i use the last word part jen jen pepper is sitting up front i was the head of finance of clean energy there is no more sophisticated sponsor of this there is no more sophisticated or adept procurement i will stipulate uh than that one so i will differ with frank at least as to the particulars on that but but look where i want to be on this is i think the one essential thing i predict that pgd will come out as and this is the this is the upside uh is renewed in its commitment to be california's essential clean energy partner and this is the note on which i am happy to close i when i started 40 years ago in rdc i walked in the door and in the small and cramped conference room of nrdc small and cramped office the entire pgd senior leadership was gathered and they were being deposed by aggressive nrdc lawyers uh in the in the course of a case that went all the way onto the u.s supreme court where nrdc won and pgd lost and i assumed i would spend the rest of my career gloriously defeating pgne officers and managers uh what came to pass instead is the pgne to i hope the gratification of everyone here and certainly to mine uh became the nation's largest energy efficiency investor nation's largest renewable energy investor uh the strongest proponent for climate action in the u.s congress the essential force behind first on towards nigger and then jerry browns most aggressive climate initiatives that is the side of the company i would like remembered here after a day of fairly harsh treatment uh and that's the side i want to see come back stronger than ever when the bankruptcy is over okay join me in putting our hands together and thanking our panelists for coming here today


Hi, my name is Tyler Chaldea, I'm the Irrigation Agronomist at the Wilson Research Extension Center and we're changing things up a little bit this year. This is the new field day for 2020, I guess, in front of the camera. I guess what I'm here to talk about today is just give you an update of the Neston Valley project since this is going to be video. I'm sure if you're watching this, you maybe have never been to Neston. Neston Valley Research Site was first started in 2005. It started in 2005, purchased in 2003. I've been there since 2008, so this will be my 13th summer at the station. And basically we've came a long ways in 13 years as far as the research we've done, the staff, the crew. Currently there's three of us down there, full time staff, myself and two irrigation specialists, Justin Jacobs and Adriana Turnquist. Our primary focus is irrigation. We do a lot with variety trial testing. We also do a number of things with irrigation management practices. A lot of disease management because we've came to have an under the irrigation, we're getting more and more disease down there. And so the plant pathologist, Dr. Audrey Kalyle from the center, she's got a number of trials. We do a lot of collaboration with other scientists across the state. Pathologists from NDSU on campus and also Carrington. In those 13 years, like I say, I've the one that's been there 13 and people have came and gone. It's been a great 13 years to say the least. One of the primary, some of the projects that we've worked on since I've started is water use efficiency. Managing our water, we manager the amount of fertilizer we put on, the amount of seed we put in the ground, we manage the chemicals we put on the crops. So why are we not managing the amount of water we put on? How can we be more efficient with that and possibly minimize reduced inputs? And so this year we've changed it up. We've included soybeans and corn in this water use project. Primarily in the past, if you're familiar with nesting, you would have seen potatoes and barley. Potato acres, there's only one grower in the area. Barley acres have declined and we thought we had enough research with that. So we thought, let's try two other crops that are really taking hold here in the area. And so that'll be some preliminary data this year. We've also, I've been working on a project since I started a tillage project, where we're looking at the three tillage practices, conventional, minimal till and no-till, under irrigation. I grew up on an irrigated farm just 30 minutes from Williston. And we tilled the soil till it was black every fall. We continued, everybody in the valley does. And we started this project in 2008. So 2009 was the first year that it deals with corn, soybeans and barley in rotation and the three tillages. And over the years we've found that at least minimal tillage is as good as conventional tillage. And a couple of the crops, the no-till has done just as well as all three other two. And so why are we tilling these soils? Just trying to answer some questions. And it's kind of interesting now at home, my dad's 100% no-till under irrigation on flood irrigation. So he's converted to it just based off what we've seen here at Nesson. And there's been a number of other acres that have. The one thing that I'm finding now and well, dealing with it yesterday down there was I was out walking, and the crew was too, walking sugar beet fields with hose in our hand trying to get rid of rounder resistant weeds. So now that we're going to more no-till practices, we're really struggling with some weed management. And so that's going to be new research in the coming future. How do we manage these weeds? That's the number one thing I see in the no-till. I mean the conventional till, we always got rid of them because we worked the fields and we got rid of the weeds. Now that we are no-tilling and these herbicides getting resistance, how are we going to manage these weeds? So that's a big project going forward. We've got I know at Nesson rounder resistant Kosha. We've got rounder resistant Maristail. We've got rounder resistant Hawksbeard when it gets to a certain stage. So we're really starting to see some weed issues. So that'll be research upcoming and that's just things that have kind of developed in the last couple years. So kind of excited, well excited, but trying to figure out what, how we can take care of some of these issues. I guess other projects and I think the next speaker or there'll be a speaker talking about some of his projects from Nesson. So I'll let him kind of talk about those. But this year it's been kind of a crazy year. Like I say this is field day now. I mean standing in front of a camera and it's kind of discouraging because you put a lot of effort into these projects and stuff and it's always fun to show them off and have people come and you can talk and the interaction that is one thing that interacting with farmers and producers is always fun. Finding out their problems, getting input from them on what they would like to see done over the years. There's been a number of the projects that we've done at Nesson that have been just based off of farmers' interest. And that's what this project is about trying to answer their questions. Yesterday I actually had a farmer show up while I was working on a linear and I want to talk about herbicides and we just sat and visited about weeds and the issues and stuff that he's seeing and what we're seeing 45 minutes we sat there and talked sitting along the linear. So the interactions with farmers that's the part that I enjoy. I guess to just sit and write a paper that's never been my strong suit as far as just a publication. I want like you look around and what's going to benefit these producers. And that's the primary focus of mine. The vision of the Nesson project is how we can help irrigated producers. I know we've been working on the water use efficiency for can we increase acreage of irrigated production. As everybody's experience in western North go to this year I don't not sure about the eastern part of the state. We're dry. We're extremely dry. And the irrigation is what's going to produce this year. This is dry land field here. You can tell I mean they're going to be a crop but it's not going to be is it going to have any return to the farmer's pocket. I mean that's where the water being able to flip a switch or flood the field is pretty important. And so if there's ever any questions concerns anybody watching this once has any ideas for projects for the Nesson Valley Research Site you can find me on the Williston Research Extension Center web page. Phone numbers there, email address. Always willing to look into projects visit with people. Do it again. I'd rather see myself fail down there so somebody else doesn't. I guess I don't have questions in the video so that's kind of nice. Let's go around. Thank you.


You know this video is made for the teacher who supports the move of bringing our students to become guided independent learners. It is also for learners who would like to claim the space and the responsibilities of a guided independent learner who sees oneself as an innovative researcher and co-creator of new knowledge contributing to the enhancement and transformation of higher education in our country. You know there is that resolve to face our situation and make the most out of things and this time of pandemic and beyond. Coming forward, guided independent learning for continuity enhancement and transformation of higher education in the Philippines, claiming the responsibilities of a guided independent learner. That's what we want for our students, for them to claim these responsibilities. Most of us know that the Philippines has ranked one of the top ten in the world risk index of most disaster prone countries in the world. So every year our country experiences all forms of disasters such as typhoons, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions with numerous emergencies due to armed conflict. So we suspend our classes most of the time. This time COVID-19 pandemic is different. It's still ongoing experience that it has overwhelmingly disrupted our way of life and is now challenging our educational institutions to go beyond our set ways of doing things. Its effects will still be felt for quite some time and it will even change really fine and we can figure how we teach, learn and discover new knowledge, how we do our research, how we move our ideas and how we engage our learners and teachers. Technology mediated and technology enhanced learning and teaching is what we're looking at right now to go into flexible and remote learning and teaching. So this is now such an important thing for us. We're talking about exponential growth. The web as a single operating system, telepathic web or a symbionic web. So web 5.0 this generation, we talk of it being an intelligent web. And it has been growing so fast. And in Industrial Revolution concept it came out in the Industrial Revolution 4.0 where artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, quantum computing, 3D printing, Internet of Things and the list goes on. And into this generation of Industrial Revolution 5.0 while we're talking about still looking into technology and in the education environment certainly we are looking at technology mediated and technology enhanced lifelong learning even prior COVID-19. So what were the qualities of this environment? Well, diverse time and place, project based, field experience, data interpretation, changing concepts of exams, digital repositories, talk about MOOCs and then who we are, massive open online courses and open educational resources being shared. The culture of sharing has become so strong. And we talk of flexible, flipped, blended learning and student ownership certainly and lifelong learning in general. So this concept of technology mediated, technology enhanced learning and teaching was considered as a disruption to the traditional phase to phase learning and teaching. Now the same concept that we considered as disruption is now the same concept that we're looking at to have connectivity and interactivity and ubiquity. So it's a technology mediated and technology enhanced learning and teaching concept that we are now looking at to have our continuity, our enhancement and transformation of higher education now that we have this pandemic with us. So we are looking at the same things. But of course people are really resisting it still because of many things. There's a long list of their objections like lack of equity, increase of digital divide, low digital literacy, stop in a drop in enrollment, lack of academic freedom, setting aside of Filipino cultural identity, transfer of students from private schools to public schools, closing down on some private schools due to lack of operating funds. And our parents are not financially prepared, teachers also are not prepared to do the shift and higher education institutions are not prepared. So there's that lack of connectivity changes in research methodologies and no access to laboratories and difficulties in OJT. So we understand that but we don't have any more reason not to go this way, why? Because of the lap-downs, the face-to-face learning and the teaching, it's all banned for how long we don't know. So this term came in 1973 and that was the time the economy was down and the whole world crumbling economy, Volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous and today back to Volca. The fear factor coming from the COVID-19 pandemic and also from the fact that we're going to use technology mutated and technology enhanced learning and teaching which is something new. So but our university is very much resolved to move forward. We are now mapping where we are going, knowing our identity as a university, as a national university and our university is supposed to lead into this. And for us, faculty and researchers, that's where we're going with all this and with the end in mind and the view that we are mindfully developing learners with the 21st century competencies. More so now at this time of the pandemic. Our learners need to be creative, critical thinkers, problem solvers, based on empirical data, innovative researchers, have good communication skills, respectful of cultures, possessed with deep love for our nation and advocates of lifelong learning. So at this time, our academics are engaged in the reflexive mode and intent to be reviewing how we can develop and look and review our curriculum design, course design, use and production of content and resources, delivery modes and assessment and the student and faculty support the technical and administrative services that would support our faculty and students. So realizing that though the focus is on looking intently on the delivery mode, all other elements are, you know, however affected and require adjustments and appreciation of the paradigm shift would depend upon the resources, administrators, point of view and teachers and students and parents and all other stakeholders. There must be a resolve to do this. In our present situation, we're going through reimagining of the management of all these elements. So you have to come in with a review of the curriculum and see the requirements per course, whether it's outcome space and competency based and then you have to match this in the course design and the development of content, use and production and also showing the course requirements and the activities and also the schedule. And the same is true for when it comes to student support, there has to be a stronger student support and faculty support administratively. When you talk about the delivery mode here, there can be printed that can be picked up or put in USB and then you can have some video recordings also in USB and online and offline. In terms of assessment, you may put folio exercises and some activities and exams and probably a lot of reflection and synthesis papers, research papers, project reports and so on. Remote learning and teaching for flexibility means being learner centered and that means really being concerned about the situation of the students. Some students will have access to the internet with high satisfactory connectivity and have available devices and gadgets like computers, desktops or laptops or tablets or mobile phones and high to satisfactory digital literacy may opt for online learning and can really reach LMS, the learning management systems of our university and can be comfortable in using remote technology. However, there will be students with minimal to no access to the internet with low to poor connectivity and have minimal to no available devices and gadgets and probably occasionally used to mobile phones and also would have low digital literacy and therefore they would be more comfortable with having offline or non-digital technology. So it is important to use various means of digital and non-digital technology as delivery modes are observed and therefore we do have to make sure that we have options for everyone and no one is left behind. So in terms of guidelines for quality assurance and all levels, first we always hear outcomes based on learner centered writing for learner engagement and we talk about our course guides being written for our learners, our course materials, course content must be produced with what is important is with independent learners in mind. That is most important. So this is what we are encouraging now. So we have a lot of self-assessment questions, maybe just wrap around the, wrap around the chapters of books, e-books, text books written in modules and so on and requirements must encourage transparency, accountability and fairness as learners and faculty are co-creators of academic texts and knowledge strengthening the higher levels, the higher levels of learning. So things would be research based requirements. So you have research papers, synthesis papers, inflection papers, project based requirements and a lot of reporting documentation and asynchronous learning online, offline platform is the substance of inclusivity, accessibility, ubiquity and flexibility of pace and time. So I would rather go asynchronous. So continuous learning however will probably happen and hopefully it's a little optional so for it to be used to facilitate the learning of course but it will be used by asking learners what they do not understand in the course materials and activities like that and collaboration but not to lecture anymore because that will be basically recorded and the course design, course guide and course resources must help students become independent learners. So there has to be clear guidelines on what open educational resources are also intellectual property rights or IPR plagiarism and it's important that we update the students all the time on this and also really make sure that the teaching component there's a lot of reporting on what is happening. And the faculty is really doing a lot of work here, faculty is the course designer, facilitator for learning and must be fully supported by your peer administration. So aside from of course our students should have 100% support as well. And when we talk about the faculty, the faculty will have to curate and produce course materials and resources, OERs and identify experts in the field so that they can match now with the kind of content that they're coming out with. Learner centered writing for the course guide and a lot of self-assessment questions and activity driven activities that are turned into exercises and requirements for strengthening of the learner engagement because the learner has to be engaged with content and the learner-learner interaction will be there and the learner-teacher interaction will be there and the learner community interaction will be there as well. So moving forward, we're coming up with a course pack. The course pack contains the following, detailed course guide, learning resources per study unit, study guide per study unit, activity guides and assignment guides. For the learners who are watching and viewing now, your faculty has designed your courses by making use of resources online, connecting you with the experts through journal articles, written texts, learning objects, instructional videos, webinars, PowerPoint, with voice, documentaries and images. Going Synchronous would also mean using social media and maybe designed to use your LMS for Synchronous learning, though it is very clear when and where you would be having the Synchronous session, so it's good to record the event and engage in discussion. And for a Synchronous learning, you will be told where to access it, but it will be available anytime. Going a Synchronous means uploading to the virtual platform the course resources like having a pre-recorded slides with narration, video lectures and the distribution of this would be file share, virtual classroom like LMS, in the case of UP Gouvlet by the Google classroom and video sharing app, social media, OERs and other online productions. And remember it can be accessed anytime. And in line with connecting you to experts, we have a TVUP, which is the Internet Television Network of the University of the Philippines. It's meant to be shared to all and there are hundreds and hundreds of titles that is quite ready for you. TVUP is the Internet Television Network of the University of the Philippines system. It is a resource center for sharing, featuring national scientists, national artists, scholars, researchers, documentaries, award-winning short films and many more. Let's view this video clip that will tell us something about TVUP. IUP TV, popularly known as TVUP, is the Internet Television Network of the University of the Philippines, organized as a multimedia production, digital open educational resource repository and publication system. Delivering well-researched and creatively produced academic content and works for information and educational purposes. TVUP on demand and the open educational resource OER Digital Repository, webcast worldwide. TVUP daily programming on the web and TVUP co-productions in the social sciences, arts and culture and the sciences. The platform, Kalosugan ay Karapatan, Financial Sense, Musica, Documentaries, The Filipino, like LingPilicula, Science Elevators, Risk Reduction and Management, Kultura Sinning Atibapa, Batas at Bayan, Gender Talks, UP Talks, Usapang Pilicula, UP Chronicles, NOAA Updates. TVUP is a testament to the University of the Philippines character as the national university, a teaching, research, public service and global regional university, shared freely with all state universities and colleges, private higher education institutions, other training institutions and the general public. At this point I want to tell you something about paradigms of learning. So these are the educational theories of learning. It is a worldview and there are many types and let's talk about them. So the first is behaviorism. It is a view in which behavior can be explained by external factors and behavioral conditions and according to this perspective only the observable behavior should be considered. Cognition, emotions and moods are too far subjective. So cognitivism is the next one and it is a learning theory developed by Jean Piaget in which a child develops cognition pathways in understanding the physical responses to experiences and this theory students learn most effectively through reading text and lecture instruction and the next one is constructivism. It is the idea that people are responsible in creating their own understanding of the world, linking new information to these experiences and the process of linking new information to these experiences. People use these experiences and new information to construct their own meaning. The next is humanism and here it emphasizes the value and agency of human beings individually and collectively. The meaning of the term humanism has fluctuated according to the successive intellectual movements and so that's what you have in terms of focusing on the individual as the subject and asserts that learning is a natural process. And the fifth, this is connectivism. It is relatively a new learning theory developed and based upon the idea that people process information by forming connections. This theory has developed with a digital and technology age which goes quite well with the paradigm shift of learning and teaching, the remote modality that we are going into now where you can get connected to the experts as course resources. So let's go back to the course pack. This course pack has a course structure so you can either structure, if you are the faculty, you are the teacher, you can structure it as modules under each particular unit or you can structure it as retaining just the topics and going as weeks then this would be the focus. The course structure is based on the syllabus and syllabus is your general guide to a course and what will be expected of the learner of you in the course. Generally it will include course policies, rules and regulations required, required text and a schedule of assignments. Like in this case of film 199 research and film, I start to introduce myself and I welcome everybody to film 199 research in film class and it can be a short kamstahan or a longer type of welcoming our students. To be a guided independent learner means familiarizing yourself with each course that you take, know the intended learning outcomes, the learning activities to link you to the course resources and the course requirements and assessment. So what are the intended learning outcomes? Well intended learning outcomes are usually specific, measurable and realistic and learner centered. Are we saying that the course objectives are the same as the learning outcomes? Yes, yes it is, but it's usually written with active verbs at the start because it tells us what should learners know and be able to do after taking this particular course. For film 199, so what are the intended learning outcomes? So these are the outcomes and it starts with active verb identify, it's telling you as a learner you have to identify and perform. The procedures of writing a film research proposal describe the frameworks that can be used for conducting research in film and apply theories, concepts and frameworks in writing a research proposal in film and perform the protocols of conducting research in film. So for this particular course I turned it into a modular course structure and put the units 1, 2, 3 and 4 as the objectives and so therefore they are the learning outcomes. And under that I have modules 1, 2, 3, up to 11. And so I turned them into modules so 1, 2, 11 and each one of these would be a learning outcome. It says there it has an active verb at the start so you will know what to do, understand your roles as a guided independent learner and also the importance of research in today's digital times. So it says here module 2 review short film genres, three critical examples of short films, identify analysis parts of a thesis proposal because that's what you're supposed to do in this course to come up with your thesis proposal and so it goes on up to module 11. So going back to this diagram to familiarize yourself with each course that you take, you look now on the second element which is learning activities. So what does learning activities mean? That means that how will learners learn. So this is the plan, the plan of the learning experience for you as a learner so your teacher has designed this for you, the teacher has identified the experts and then what you're supposed to do with it and it's given the activities and it is matched for you to come out with learning on the written text, textbooks, readers, journals, podcast, video lectures and so on. So in this part what is important is that you read, you view all these course materials that will help you understand how to write a film research proposal. So let's look at this briefly so you have in module 3 critical short films and are these resources that you have to go through before doing your activities. Module 6 as you can see so design and treatment methods and procedures and visual references and it goes on module 7 talks about planning and then module 8 analysis of film theories and so on up to unit 4 and then it's already guidelines of really writing out the whole paper and eventually presenting the final paper first of course you have to do your final writing for this thesis proposal. So you have matching learning activities for the course resources that are given you in the learning activities it tells you what to do, attend introduction to the course class lecture and activity too after viewing the webinar and so on, do some reflection on it and it gives you also other activities and then it tells you to attend again another Zoom meeting and you have activity 5 for viewing all the short films and then a three-page paper containing the critique of the following, one narrative short film, one short documentary etc and this goes on activities from 1 to I think it's going to be 14 activities all in all so like this one is the activity 9 which gives you details here that your activity 10 would be guidelines on open educational resources and intellectual property rights IPR and also a discussion on etiquette and plagiarism and the Privacy Act up to activity 14 which is already a submission of the final film thesis proposal then the last two aspects of the course which would be the course requirements and assessment so here you have the would be course requirements and assessment and then it answers the question how will learning be measured since we know that we are outcomes-based this will now be put in a rubric and if the requirements are research-based, project-based requirements then your faculty has reconfigured that and will tell you how you are being assessed the course requirements are really explained in the activities that were given you and even the schedules are here and you will be assessed by looking at the work that you have done so summing up the course requirements you will be seeing it here as you can see the percentage of weight is given you as part of the assessment so there you have it that's the course fact but you know as faculty what as teachers what we really want you to be we want you to be a guided independent learner always stay connected and always be engaged what is important is for you to have this high self motivation and good time management you have to seek collaboration and yes you have to become innovative researchers and connect with more experts and do the surfing the search is important and because you have to bear in mind that you are co-creator of new knowledge so the teachers and the learners become co-creators of new knowledge so learn more from this crisis that we're having now you have to be resilient let's be more resilient and we have to push for that caring for others that is very important more important tips what we want to tell you is that create that sense of rhythm and balance in your study habits during this COVID-19 times what should you do well get dressed in your normal university clothes for your learning sessions what else create in your home a workplace that is similar to your favorite study venue establish a routine and set the time of the day or night for your studies without distractions from friends family television radio and other gadgets but be familiar with your gadget that you're using for your learning so another thing do not rush take a break take a walk outside exercise relax to add energy and focus and one thing you should also use your alarm clocks calendars and create a matrix for all your courses to remind you of deadlines and due dates of your learning activities so what is also important is collaboration and networking this is good for project work so stay in touch with your teachers classmates colleagues experts the field of study so ask questions in search for answers eradicate that fear of being connected through technology so take away that fear factor uh COVID-19 pandemic have take precautions yes always be safe but not to really fear it and then you will freeze and do not fear technology mediated education help out in taking away that volatile and certain and complex and ambiguous situation be more in control of the technology mediated and technology enhanced learning and teaching yes break that fear factor what is important is you mount that fear and be able to now mold that use that technology and use it proficiently what is important is read the course guide read and view the course content participate in the learning activities understand the parameters for assessment and fulfill and submit course requirements and here you will see that research and learning and teaching becomes one and that you now are co-creators of knowledge be familiar with technology mediated and technology enhance learning and teaching this is very important to become a guided independent learner for continuity enhancement and transformation of higher education in the Philippines we will be breaking new grounds here and we see multimedia research we're going to research e-methodologies e-pedagogies e-pedagogies emotalities so you can see that all these concepts will come together and we'll be trying to solve the issues that were brought up earlier that's why there is resistance but I think we're really breaking new grounds here so let's break new grounds here be a guided independent learner thank you and always stay well


The crypto market is moving sideways on the first day of the last month of the year, but Polkadot, DOT, shows a completely different picture, increasing by 4% to $5.40. Polkadot cumulatively gained 24% in the last 30 days, a feat achieved due to the developments within the network including the strategic partnership to advance real-world assets, RWA's adoption on-chain. After a few weeks of consolidating and searching for higher support, Polkadot broke above the first descending trend line at $5.33. The momentum extended the rally to $5.51, but the stalled shortly after. Drawing a trend line to connect the latest highs in November's top at $5.87, shines a light on the growing resistance which could compel more traders to close their long positions and lock in the gains. On the bright side, Polkadot could bounce off the first trend line and make a stronger approach to the next resistance zone between $5.80 and $6. The 50-day exponential moving average, EMA, red, holding slightly below the trend line may help to mitigate the downside but it is too early to rule out a possible drop to $5. A short-term bearish outlook is building based on the moving average convergence divergence, MAC-ED indicator. The sell signal will manifest with the blue MAC-D crossing below the red signal line. It is worth mentioning that an extended correction is unlikely considering the generally bullish crypto market. Besides, investors are looking forward to a Santa rally likely before or after Christmas. Historical data shows that the crypto market has a higher tendency to rally in December and January than lose traction. That said, a successful retest of the first trend line support which coincides with the 50 EMA could boost DOT's recovery to $6, a move likely to eventually push for highs above $10. The Web3 Foundation known for supporting the development of the Polkadot ecosystem has announced the intention to tokenize a section of its treasury into real-world assets, RWAs, in collaboration with Centrifuge, a platform for advancing on-chain finance. According to a blog post published by Centrifuge, the Web3 Foundation will kickstart this process with an investment worth $1 million. This decision comes as part of the organization's mission to support the development of Web3 projects. With this collaboration between Centrifuge and Web3 Foundation, the stage is set for significant growth and innovation for real-world assets using Polkadot's infrastructure and technology, Lukas Vogelsang, co-founder of Centrifuge, said.  It is projected that the sector will be worth $16 trillion by 2030 and Polkadot is likely to be a significant player. In early November 2023, British Bank HSBC also announced its latest blockchain endeavor in partnership with a Ripple-owned firm Metico to service institutional clients with demand for real-world assets hosted on a blockchain. According to the Boston Consulting Group, the total size of illiquid asset tokenization globally is expected to hit the $16 trillion mark by 2030 given that a large chunk of the world's wealth today is locked in illiquid assets. The daily RSI line rises with the ongoing recovery to surpass the 14-day SMA and the halfway line. With the momentum indicator approaching the overbought boundary, the bullish scale remains stronger. With the altcoins ready to skyrocket and end 2023 at a stellar level, the DOT price exits the bearish road and takes the bullish highway. With the ongoing breakout rally and bullish preparations to prolong the uptrend, Polkadot's price may soon reach $1.08 if it manages to surpass the $7.02 level. For cautious traders, the breakout of the $6.10 resistance level will signal an entry opportunity. If the DOT price overcomes the $5.50 supply zone, the altcoin price may shoot higher to $6. On the opposite end, a downtrend will challenge the 200D EMA or the $5 mark. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe to support the channel and never miss any update. How high do you think DOT's price will go? Share your thoughts in the comments.