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Good morning.

The Sustainability City Light and Arts and Culture Committee meeting will come to order.

It is 9.32 a.m.

December 5th, 2025. I'm Alexis Mercedes Rink, chair of the committee.

will the committee clerk please call the roll and let the record reflect that council member Juarez is excused.

Council member Lynn.

Here.

Council member Saka.

Council member Strauss.

Here.

Chair Rink.

Present.

Chair, there are three members present.

Thank you.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Good morning, colleagues.

Today is our final Sustainability City Light and Arts and Culture Committee meeting of 2025, but also a very special one, as it is also Councilmember Lynn's first one with us.

So welcome, Councilmember.

I look forward to tackling issues with you in 2026. And in that same spirit, we are just over a year out from the bomb cyclone that slammed our region in 2024, leaving to people dead from fallen trees and causing mass power outages for over 600,000 people across 11 Washington counties.

I want to commend City Light for your dutiful response and hard work throughout that incredibly challenging outage that affected thousands of our neighbors.

And then also note that the Trump administration has twice denied Washington State's $34 million emergency declaration to FEMA for damages and repair without explanation.

and as an update, this decision remains under appeal filed by the governor's office.

On a lighter note, today's committee has appointments to our Green New Deal Oversight Board, our Museum Development Authority, the Cultural Space Agency, and City Light Review Panel, followed by a briefing and discussion with City Light on infrastructure stability and reliability.

I am particularly interested in hearing what the connection between our utility infrastructure and outages are, as I know my office and I imagine a number of our offices have heard from constituents on this topic over the past year.

And with that, we will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda or within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up for today?

Currently we have zero in-person and zero remote speakers.

Okay, considering there are no registered speakers, we will proceed to our items of business for today.

So we will move on to committee business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Item one, appointment 03349, appointment of Fatima Kaba as a member of Green New Deal Oversight Board to a term to April 30th, 2028 for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Fabulous, thank you.

And giving our colleague from Office of Sustainability and Environment a moment to settle in, and once you're ready, if you could please introduce yourself for the record before speaking.

Oh, and let the record reflect that Councilmember Saka has joined us.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Jasmine Fred Giacomo.

I am the Interim Climate and Environmental Justice Associate at the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

And as you mentioned, I will be introducing a Green New Deal Oversight Board appointment today.

And unfortunately, Fatima is not able to be here due to the fact that it's the last week of classes.

So she is here in spirit, and I will read her bio.

Fatima Caba is a youth organizer, community advocate, and longtime member of the Rainier Beach Action Coalition, where she has been involved in environmental justice, youth leadership, and civic engagement work for over six years.

Born and raised in Seattle with Gambian roots, Fatima is deeply passionate about creating spaces where young people of color feel seen, supported, and empowered.

Her work centers around equity, healing, and shifting systems to better serve historically underrepresented communities, especially in South Seattle.

She is excited to bring community voice and lived experience to the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

Her appointment will be for an environmental justice organization representative seat.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any questions from the office?

No?

Then I think we will keep it short.

Thank you for being here today and sharing a bit about this appointee.

If there are no further questions, I move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointment 03348. Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of appointment 03348. Any final comments?

All right, will the clerk please call the roll on committee recommendation to confirm the appointment?

Council member Lynn?

Aye.

Council member Saka?

Aye.

Council member Strauss?

Aye.

Chair Rink?

Yes.

Chair, there are four in favor, zero opposed, with zero abstentions.

Thank you, the motion carries and the committee recommendation that the appointment will be confirmed and will be sent to the December 16th full city council meeting.

Thank you again for being here.

Thank you again.

With that, we're gonna move right along.

Will the committee clerk please read items two through seven into the record?

Items two through seven appointments, 03350, 03352, 03349, 03353, 00351, 00354. Appointments and reappointments as members of the Museum Development Authority for Stephanie Ellis Smith, Robert Coplin, Douglas E. Norenberg, Rosita I. Romero, Robert Strong, and Raymond Thomas Jones for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you and thank you all for being here.

Once you get settled in, please introduce yourself for the record before speaking.

Good morning, Chair Rink and Councilmember Strauss, Councilmember Lynn, and Councilmember Saka.

Thank you for your time this morning.

My name is Cindy Bolton.

I'm the Chief Financial Officer for the Seattle Art Museum and the Staff Lead for the Museum Development Authority.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Ivy Bakeman, and I'm the Finance and Development Assistant at the Seattle Art Museum.

Good morning, Council.

I am Raymond Thymus-Jones, in consideration.

for membership to the MDA Council.

Wonderful.

Please proceed with the presentation of the appointees.

Thank you.

We have a number of reappointments that are being caught up in this meeting.

We're very thankful to get them done before the end of the year.

I've prepared comments for the reappointments, and we'll be representing those five folks.

And then Dr. Tymus Jones has joined us this morning.

He has our new appointment, and he will be sharing some remarks as well.

I'm just gonna roll through, but if you have any questions on any of them, please stop me.

Chair Rink, do we wanna go appointment by, do you need to read the appointments into the record one by one?

No, the clerk has already walked through, so please feel free to just keep it content focused.

We'd love to hear about the reappointments.

Thank you.

The first reappointment is Stephanie Ellis Smith.

She's the CEO and founder of Phila Engaged Giving, a philanthropic advisory firm founded in 2017 that works with donors who are ready to activate their assets for social change.

As an advisor and social impact specialist, she aims to build a world where philanthropy is a nurturing and equity-centered practice that connects wealth to the people and communities who need it the most.

Stephanie is also the founder and former executive director of the Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas, an organization that presents and produces lectures, readings, and performing arts events rooted in African-American culture.

She's a leader with nearly 30 years of experience in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, and has served as a nonprofit CEO, a social enterprise COO, foundation trustee, business owner, and board member, and community activist.

Stephanie has served on numerous boards and commissions including the Washington State Arts Commission appointed by Governor Gary Locke, the Seattle Arts Commission appointed by Mayor Greg Nichols, and the Central Waterfront Committee appointed by Mayor Ed Murray.

She's also received numerous awards including Puget Sound Business Journal's 40 Under 40 and Seattle Weekly's Best Expander of Cultural Boundaries.

Stephanie's work at the intersection of philanthropy, equity and social impact is wonderfully aligned with Sam's core values and we are richer for having our perspective on the MDA.

Next up is Robert D. Kaplan, or as I know him, Bob Kaplan, who is also a longtime SAM trustee.

He is a UW grad with a BA in political science and a JD from the law school.

Prior to retiring in his legal practice, Bob worked on cases involving small business, charitable organizations, artists, and authors, and was recognized by the American Bar Association for his pro bono work.

He has served on numerous boards of non-profit and community organizations that focus on healthcare for underserved community and the arts.

With his wife, Margaret Levy, Bob is a passionate collector of Australian Aboriginal art, which they have generously shared with Sam for several important exhibitions, including Ancestral Modern, honoring 50 years of Papunya Tula painting and Yerkela, Art from Australia's Top End.

The next reappointment is for Doug Norberg.

Doug is also a longtime SAM trustee, also since 2003. He's an original partner and retired vice chairman and president of Wright, Rundstad & Company, a leading developer in the Pacific Northwest.

Doug was also the founder and director of Northwestern Trust and Commerce Bank.

He has also supported the building of Benaroya Hall and was the former president of ACT Theatre.

I'll add personally that Doug's real estate and banking experience has been invaluable on the MDA Council given the unique real estate structure that the museum has and the original issuance of municipal bonds to finance the expansion of the downtown museum in 2007 and then the two subsequent refinancing of those bonds.

Rosita Romero has served on the MDA Council as a mayoral appointee since 2007. She's worked in education, teaching art to preschool and elementary grade school children with a background in the Montessori pedagogy and art therapy and earned a Master of Education from the University of Washington.

Rosita also owned and directed an art gallery in Seattle for 15 years and was appointed by the governor to two terms with the Commission for Washington State Arts.

She is also the co-founder of Viva La Musica Club, Mujeres of the Northwest, and Latinos Unidos por los Niños.

She has been a dedicated Sam docent, also a docent at the Seattle Conservatory and the Seattle Chinese Gardens.

She has also been active in Ikebana International and the Senkei School of Ikebana, the Puget Sound Mycological Society, and Washington State Orchid Society.

And then the last reappointment on the agenda today is for Robert Strong.

He's also a longtime SAM trustee and as board treasurer, helped to shepherd Sam through the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent bankruptcy of Washington Mutual, which was the co-developer of the block where the downtown museum is, along with the now or former Russell Investment Center.

Bob Strong is a retired financial advisor, previously financial advisor and director of the Strong Group, part of the Robert W. Baird Company.

His employment has also included senior vice president at McAdams Wright Reagan, vice president at Reagan McKenzie, and vice president of investments at Blythe Eastman Dillon Payne Weber.

Bob Strong's civic engagements include treasurer of the Seattle Art Museum, chair of our finance committee, chair of the investment committee, and member of the board of directors of Rainier Scholars.

I will kick this off and then pass the mic to you, Dr. Timus Jones.

Dr. Raymond Timus Jones is the newest appointee to the MDA Council.

This will be his first term.

You can see his wonderfully extensive and impressive CV in his pack.

He has a long career in the arts, both as an artist and musician himself, and then has distinguished himself in several prominent dean positions.

So, thank you, Dr. Timus Jones.

Thank you so much, and good morning to all of you.

I am delighted to present myself in consideration to be a member of the Museum Development Authority Council.

and until 2024, when I retired, I had spent 34 of my 41 years in arts leadership and higher education arts executive positions at five institutions, University of Northern Iowa, the Ohio University, University of Utah, and Cornish College of the Arts being my final institution where I served as president.

In these positions, I was responsible for budgets, academic integrity of our curriculum, faculty development, and development, fundraising.

I feel that my positions give me great opportunities to present and provide contributions to the MDA going forward as a member.

I appreciate your consideration.

Since moving to Seattle in 2018, I've served on the board of King FM 98, Pilchuck Arts School, and I look forward to bringing those experiences to the council.

Thank you for your consideration.

Wonderful, thank you for today's presentation and refreshing us on the amazing folks we've had serving on the Museum Development Authority, but also thank you again, Dr. Tymus Jones for being before committee today as we consider your appointment to the board.

And with that, colleagues, questions?

Councilmember Strauss?

Thank you, Chair.

Dr. Thomas-Jones, pleasure.

Reading your CV, for the record, it's only 15 pages.

And I feel like we could probably speak for hours, but I won't use our communal time together in that way.

I've noticed that you've been able to work across the country, whether it was in Buffalo or the Midwest and Salt Lake and here in Seattle in a number of different ways, both in administration but also practitioner of the arts.

And so if you could provide us just a high level, best practices, things to avoid in both administration of these types of agencies, and then from an artistic perspective, what are the things that we need to know and do here in Seattle that you've seen across the nation?

things that are going well across the nation that we should do better and things that we should avoid here that you've seen as pitfalls elsewhere.

I didn't speak to this, but during my time here, I've worked on a committee for culture.

I think the city of Seattle does extraordinary job with its Arts and Culture Committee and the Arts Commission.

Having broad representation of the citizens of the city.

I've not found that anywhere else to the degree I've found that intentionality here in Seattle.

So from that perspective, I think that is a major, major plus for arts and artists to want to be a part of this community.

One of the things that would be a added plus for the arts community here is, you probably have heard this, but housing for artists so that there is no need for them to consider moving elsewhere but rather remain here in this community that they love and cherish in terms of the broad opportunities.

So from that perspective, that is one of the things that I would consider to proffer.

In terms of an artist, personally, The opportunities are myriad in this city.

I was a singer.

I stopped actually singing when I moved here to become president of Cornish.

In all of my other positions, I remained active as a concert artist, but found that the responsibilities of Cornish were prohibitive in terms of trying to run the school and take time out to continue my own artistic development.

I haven't gotten back to it, to be truthful with you, since I retired, but I plan to.

Good, good, good, good.

Well, thank you very much, and thank you for your volunteer service to this commission.

Thank you very much for your...

Colleagues, additional questions?

Well similarly, I also wanted to remark on a 15 page CV is quite impressive and just reading through it made me particularly excited to know that the Museum Development Authority will be having your expertise as a part of it.

And I'm also very glad to hear that you will be taking up performing again hopefully in the near future.

Thank you.

And just one question for you today, just thinking about the importance of the Seattle Art Museum as a cultural institution in our downtown.

What do you see as the challenges facing the institution and the opportunities there, and what's giving you hope or excitement about serving on the Museum Development Authority?

For any arts organization, and especially in this day and time, it's the idea of sufficient financial support both of the city government as well as its community.

And that would be, that would remain as a major challenge in order to continue the remarkable programming that we have at SAM.

and the opportunities to present arts and culture of myriad communities within the boundaries of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.

It is the challenge of having adequate funding to be able to continue a robust program.

Thank you, thank you for that.

And thank you for your willingness to serve on the Development Authority Board.

Again, looking at your experience, you've already been a valued community member serving this city, so I wanna thank you for that and your willingness to serve.

Thank you.

And with that, colleagues, if there are no additional questions, I will move us along.

I move that the committee recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Any final comments?

Will the committee clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments.

Council member Lin.

Aye.

Council member Saka.

Aye.

Council member Strauss.

Aye.

Chair Rink.

Yes.

Chair, there are four in favor and zero opposed.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the appointments be confirmed will be sent to the December 16th full city council meeting.

Thank you all again for being here today.

Thank you.

Now will the committee clerk please read items 8 through 15 into the record.

Items 8 through 15, appointments 03379, 03380, 03381, 03385, 00332, 00386, 00383, and 00384. Appointments and reappointments as members of the Cultural Space Agency for Leslie Bain, Aaron Nathaniel Carr, M. Angela Kostania, So sorry about the names, by the way.

I promise I rehearsed.

Nick Rowan and Obaha Stephens Terry for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you for that.

Thank you, committee clerk.

And welcome, Director Kayyem.

Thank you for being before committee today.

Please introduce yourself for the record.

Yes, thank you, Chair Rink.

My name is Gulgun Kayyem.

I am the director of the Office of Arts and Culture for the city.

Wonderful.

Please proceed.

I am not making this presentation.

I believe Michael Peterson of the Cultural Space Agency should be on the call to make the presentation.

Wonderful.

And I see him on the Zoom.

Good morning.

Thank you for allowing me to be here.

My name is Michael Peterson.

I am the operator making today's presentation.

As stated, we will be appointing numerous community members and reappointing others as well.

I do believe that we have Leslie Bain on the Zoom who will be able to share for themselves.

And I believe we also have Erin Carr on as well as Afua Koyote.

So I will speak on behalf of the others currently not present.

Naima Clark is being appointed today as a governing council member.

She has extensive community experience and is the CEO of Nourishing Roots, fighting food injustice.

And so we are so privileged to have her as part of the governing council here with Cultural Space Agency.

Nick Ronan has extensive arts and culture experience and has been a great addition to the GC as well.

And Obadiah Stephens Terry, another community leader who has continued to fight social injustice and racial inequities that have permeated the city and we're so grateful to have these other folks as part as the governing council and at this point in time I'd like to pass it to Leslie, Aaron and Afua to be able to speak on their own behalf today.

Thank you, and I believe Leslie, you are able to come off mute.

I believe you've been promoted as a panelist, so feel free to speak when you're ready.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks so much for having us here.

I'm very excited to be part of the Governing Council, if so approved.

I'm an architect, founder of Framework Cultural Placemaking.

I've been involved since 2013. working with Matthew Richter in the Office of Arts and Culture on the foundational thinking and documents for the Cultural Space Agency.

I worked with him on the CAP report, the 30 ideas for creation, activation, and preservation of cultural space, which this was one of those 30 ideas.

The report on setting up the build art space equitably program and structure for stability, which was the basis for setting up CSA.

These documents are on the city's website.

I've been active with build art space equitably since the beginning, been part of the curriculum development committee from the first cohort.

I believe strongly in this mission and the values of CSA and its importance to the city.

So thank you for consideration.

Thank you, Leslie.

I also see Afua is on the line as a panelist.

Afua?

Yes, good morning, Council.

My name is Afua Kuyate.

I am born and raised in the central area.

I've spent the last 50 years building a ministry of African-American music, song, and dance.

Currently, we're celebrating our 40th anniversary this year, and this is my second term on the Governing Council.

I currently sit as the Vice President.

And let's see, my first term was July 15, 2021. And I'm very excited about coming into a second term.

And my priority really is around commitment and being a voice for community.

And thank you for being here this morning.

And I also see Aaron Carr is on the line as well.

If you want to come off mute and share a little bit.

Hello, good morning.

Good morning.

Hi, my name is Aaron Carr.

I use they and pronouns.

I'm grateful to be here with you all today.

Yeah, I am originally from Detroit, Michigan, but I've been here working in community in Seattle for about 10 years now.

I started off working alongside Seattle Public Schools and academic and behavioral interventions.

In that time, I did a lot of cool stuff, even working with the the district overall and co-designing the first youth advisory council and facilitating that process and since then I've kind of gotten into that role as a consultant in community designing a lot of different processes where we really bring community members into the fold and ensure that their voices are amplified.

I've done that work with the City of Seattle, with the Human Resources Department in creating curriculum.

And I also am excited to be continuing to do that work here with the Cultural Space Agency of ensuring that the artists of this community, their voices are heard and that we have culturally responsive and culturally significant programming and work that really represents and supports the needs of our current artists.

I was actually in the CSA-based program myself and graduated and then kind of moved into supporting in some of the curriculum design and just really enjoy being on the advisory, on the governing council and ensuring that folks, you know, continue to get what their needs are and get those needs met.

Thank you for having me here.

Thank you for being here, Erin.

And just double checking, are there any other appointees or reappointees online before I turn it back to the room?

I don't see any, so I'm going to move us to Director Kayyem.

I know you're here in your capacity as a appointee for today rather than director, so I'll turn it to you.

Yes, thank you, Chair.

My role on the Cultural Space Agency, if approved, will be as the Mayor's appointee ex officio, so a non-voting member.

I'll be joining also the Executive Committee as a way for us to reinforce the connection between the city and the Cultural Space Agency.

As you may be familiar, the Cultural Space Agency began as a program within the Office of Arts and Culture, then became a PDA led by community and staff in the Office of Arts and Culture.

And we have had an informal relationship since, so meeting quite regularly for check-ins with the Cultural Space Agency staff.

And now we felt it was time to formalize that relationship a little bit more and join in order to reinforce and provide some support.

Fabulous.

Thank you, Director Kayyem.

Colleagues, any questions for our appointees for today?

Councilmember Strauss.

No questions today, just a gratitude for your volunteer service to our city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

If there are any other questions for my colleagues, I'm happy to at least ask one since our appointees have come before us today.

For you all, what are you excited about with the Cultural Space Agency in the next year?

What are you hoping to contribute and what do you see as the future?

Happy to whoever wants to take a stab at it first.

Afu, you go ahead.

Okay, thank you, Leslie.

I'm really excited about expansion.

You know, we've had to pivot just recently.

And so we're back down to our reconstructuring and just making things work for how we can expand.

So I'm really excited about the work that needs to happen right now toward expansion.

I'm excited about Agogun being a part of our constituency.

So that right there is a workhorse that I'm excited about.

Thank you.

Yeah, I totally agree with that.

I think I would say capacity building is what I'm excited about and getting stronger and really providing a very needed service for communities that have otherwise difficulty getting the cultural space that really makes our city the kind of place that everybody wants to live and be involved in.

Yeah, I'm excited about the continuation and the building on the success of the BASE program.

Just knowing so many young artists and emerging community leaders who are currently in that program and knowing that they'll be a part of our constituency and part of our community soon and offer up their expertise is really exciting to me.

Thank you.

Yeah, I believe in the mission of the Cultural Space Agency, not just because our office was very much a part of it, but it's much needed in the community.

And I'm looking forward to helping the Cultural Space Agency build their leadership capacity.

That's one thing that needs to be addressed and really focus in on that mission.

Fabulous, well I'd like to thank all of you for your time this morning and for your passion for creating more cultural space in our city.

So thank you for your willingness to serve and looking forward to putting these appointments through.

And if there are no further questions, I move that the committee recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Any final comments?

Wonderful.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to confirm the appointments?

Council member Lin?

Yes.

Council member Saka?

Aye.

Council member Strauss?

Aye.

And chair Rink?

Yes.

Chair, there are four in favor, zero opposed.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the appointments be confirmed will be sent to the December 16th full city council meeting.

Thank you all for your time this morning and happy holidays.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Might be too early to say happy holidays.

Oh, well.

Will the committee clerk please read item 16 through 18 into the record?

Items 16 through 18, appointments, 03361, 03360, 03359, appointments and reappointments as members of the City Light Review Panel for Leo L. Lam, Toyin Olo, and Gina Christina Sima.

Thank you.

And I see our presenters are already at the table.

So once you're settled in, please take a moment to introduce yourselves for the record.

Good morning, Chair, Inc. and Council Members.

My name is Bridget Molina, Seattle City Light Council Legislation Coordinator.

Good morning.

My name is Angela Bertrand.

I'm the Manager of Strategic Planning and Organizational Performance at Seattle City Light.

Good morning, Council Members.

My name is Gina Christina Sima, and I'm under consideration for appointment to the review panel.

And Don Lindell should be- Perfect, thank you.

We'll work on moving over General Manager Lindell, and I am seeing a hand from Council Member Strauss.

Just a reminder, here at City Council, you have to speak directly into the microphone very close, so please move those microphones closer to you so that you don't have to move around.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

In addition to being our historian, he's also our audio tech.

And I also forget sometimes, so it's-

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

And I am seeing General Manager Lindell on the line.

If you wanna come off mute and introduce yourself for the record.

Thank you, Chair Rink.

My name is Dawn Lindell and I am the General Manager and CEO for Seattle City Light.

Today's items reflect our continued focus on accountability, responsible stewardship of public assets, and strengthening long-term reliability for the customers we serve.

And our first item is the review panel appointments.

So for this item, you will hear from our amazing strategic planning and performance manager, Angela Bertrand, along with our wonderful review panel members, our chair Leo Lamb joining virtually and Gina Christina Sima attending in person.

The action before you includes the reappointment of two current members and the appointment of one new member supporting continuity in the panel's independent oversight of our strategic plan and our rate path.

We are so grateful for the contributions of all of our review panel members.

So with that I will hand it off to Angela.

Thank you, Dawn.

As she said, I'm here today to seek the reappointment of Leo Lam and Toyin Oluo to the review panel as well as the initial appointment of Gina-Christina Sima.

The review panel was established in 2010 by ordinance.

Their role is to review and assess our biennial strategic plan and the accompanying rate path.

to provide an opinion on both when the plan is submitted to the Mayor's Office and the City Council for approval.

The review panel is made up of nine members representing CityLake customers and partners.

As you can see, each panel member has a role.

Five of these positions are assigned by the Mayor.

Four are assigned by City Council.

All nine are confirmed by City Council.

Today we're asking for the reappointment of two members and the appointment of one new member.

First, we have Mr. Toyinoluwo, who was not able to join us today.

He is the finance manager and controller at Nucor Steel, the Seattle Steel Division, overseeing operations for one of Seattle City Light's largest industrial customers, contributing $29 million in electricity payments in 2023 and employing 300 people locally.

With a strong background in financial management, Dwayne has successfully implemented cost savings initiatives such as demand response programs, demonstrating both fiscal responsibility and a commitment to sustainability.

His expertise and perspective as an industrial customer continue to bring valuable insight to the panel's work.

Dwayne is honored to serve a second term as the industrial customer representative, position six, on the Seattle City Light review panel.

Next, we have Mr. Leo Lamb who joins us virtually today.

He has been a Seattle resident for over 20 years and a former electrical engineering faculty member at the University of Washington.

He brings deep expertise in sustainability, engineering, product design, consulting, and business development.

He has a strong record of leading organizations through strategic planning and complex initiatives that drive innovation, performance, and growth.

with a passion for advancing clean energy and equity.

Mr. Lam is honored to continue serving his third term as a member of the City Light Review Panel.

If Leo is online, I was going to offer him a chance to add any comments.

Thank you for that.

I am seeing, I'm not seeing, Mr. Lam on the line, unfortunately.

So maybe he'll join us as we're maybe chatting a bit with Gina during this process.

But any closing remarks?

I have one last person to add.

We have Ms. Gina Christina Sima here with us today seeking her initial appointment.

She brings extensive experience in e-commerce and business strategy and managed a 190 million portfolio at Amazon, helping thousands of small and medium-sized businesses grow through brand development and support.

Her background in consulting and financial analysis has strengthened her skills in strategy, collaboration, and problem solving with a genuine interest in sustainability and community engagement.

Gina is eager to contribute her expertise and perspective as the at-large customer representative, position eight, on the Seattle City Light review panel.

Gina, Christina, would you like to add anything?

Yes.

Thank you so much for the consideration.

I really look forward to contributing as much strategic planning and operational rigor to the work ahead for the Seattle City Light review panel.

Thank you.

These are strong candidates that I am excited to continue working with and present for appointment and reappointment.

Any questions?

Thank you for the presentation today.

Colleagues, any questions?

Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you.

I know that, Gina, maybe you do actually work in an area that is analyzing how much electricity we're going to need to run all of the web-based services for all of the products.

I know that I'm seeing here the e-commerce category manager, brand accelerator, et cetera.

You're in the mix there.

What do we need to be thinking about as we transition?

And this leads into the next presentation actually.

What do we need to be thinking about as we transition into a more electric energy dependent society?

What does that look like from the inside of Amazon to you?

You can move that microphone as close to you as you want.

I'll try my best.

That's a very big question.

As pertains to Seattle City Light and the work that we're doing there, I think Dawn will speak to this as well.

We're really looking at modernizing our electrical grid.

That's the number one priority.

And then, as I alluded to earlier, adding as much operational rigor to the wonderful work that Seattle City Light is already doing.

in order to amplify the results of that work over time.

Of course, there's a lot of other things to be considered, and I am kind of already becoming a squeaky wheel on the review panel to be asking some of those questions with thinking ahead in terms of, you know, we have data centers that will be maybe adding to the electrical grid.

What does that look like?

What does that mean?

so these are all questions that we're thinking through and I'm sure you'll hear more about it through the work to come ahead.

Thank you and please do be that squeaky wheel because there's a lot of things that City Light is doing really well and there's many things that the agency needs to improve upon I think that's everyone's shaking their heads we all know this right and so Much like in, I believe it was 2017 or 2018, the SDOT Move Seattle Levy Oversight Board had blown the whistle on we weren't in line to meet our objectives of that levy.

If that oversight panel had not done that, we would not have been able to recalibrate and meet our objectives of that levy.

So in the same way, I ask you to be that squeaky wheel and do good work on behalf of all City Light customers.

Thank you for your volunteer service.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any additional questions for our appointee today?

All right.

I don't have any questions for today.

Actually, Councilmember Strauss was aligned with me in this and also want to voice my appreciation for the squeaky wheels of the world, especially when it comes to the issues that matter and affect thousands of residents.

So thank you for your willingness to serve.

I've been so impressed with the level of expertise that is a part of the City Light Review Panel.

I'm so excited to re-appoint as well the other individuals that are a part of this and thank you for your willingness to serve on this body.

I look forward to working with you.

Well, colleagues, if there are no final questions, I will move that the committee recommend the confirmation of the appointments.

Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Any final comments?

Will the committee clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments?

Council member Lin?

Yes.

Council member Saka?

Aye.

Council member Strauss.

Chair Rink.

Yes.

There are four in favor, zero opposed.

The motion carries in the committee recommendation that the appointments be confirmed will be sent to the December 16th full city council meeting.

Thank you again for being here this morning.

Will the committee clerk please read item 19 into the record.

Item 19 presentation on infrastructure and reliability for briefing and discussion.

And as our colleagues with City Light make their way up to the committee table, colleagues, I'll remind us this was the big, exciting presentation I mentioned during briefing earlier this week.

We all, I believe, have gotten requests, questions when it comes to outages that do happen in our city.

This is a real opportunity to hear directly from City Light about how they understand our current infrastructure, and systems at hand.

So thank you all for being here today for this presentation.

Please take a moment to introduce yourself for the record.

Hi, again, Bridget Molina, Council Legislation Coordinator for City Light.

Hi, good morning.

Hina Arai, Senior Policy and Strategy Manager.

Good morning, Council.

Andy Strong.

I'm the Engineering, Environmental, and Project Delivery Officer for City Light.

And good morning.

I am Dawn Lindell, the General Manager and CEO for Seattle City Light.

So our second and final item this morning is the Infrastructure Investments and Long-Term Reliability Briefing.

For this item, you will hear from Hina Urai, Senior Policy and Strategy Manager, and again from Andrew Strong.

This presentation outlines the condition of the City Light-owned electric grid, current reliability trends and the long-term investments required to improve our reliability and support Seattle's growth and increased electrification.

It highlights both the challenges ahead and the opportunity to build a more resilient and future-ready grid.

With that, I will invite Hina to begin the presentation.

Actually, I'll go ahead and start, Don.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to update you on City Light's plan around our strategic maintenance for long-term reliability.

This goes over the next 10 years.

Over the next decade, we will face a significant journey as we need to address historically underfunded and deferred maintenance, elevate our reliability standards, and meet the accelerating demand for electrification across both residential and commercial sectors, as has been discussed before.

If you were to ask whether these evolving resource needs will lead to rate adjustments beyond current projections, the answer is yes.

We're actively evaluating what that looks like, but with that context, we'd like to walk you through some of our reliability numbers, key projects, and the resources required to support them.

Slide two, please.

Just to ground us all, conventional power system really encompasses the following phases.

It's power generated from a hydroelectric resource, solar or wind.

Hydro is obviously something that we own and maintain.

at a high duration, at a high rate.

And then we have wind and solar assets through PPAs or power purchase agreements.

Substation transformer steps up voltage for transmission.

Transmission lines carry electricity over long distances.

Neighborhood substation transformer step down voltage to a distribution voltage.

and then transformers on poles step down electricity before entering residences or commercial sectors and again a service line for residents.

These are systems that Seattle City Light owned and maintained and as we get into some of the asset data information, we'll break it down into those sectors.

It is important to realize that as our existing green energy resources reach capacity, we might be looking at nuclear and geothermal resources in the future.

Slide three, please.

Thank you, Brigid.

Good morning again.

So if the table on the screen, I'm going to just explain the X and Y axis.

The X axis lists our underground assets identified by UG and overhead assets identified by OH.

And the Y axis lists the number of times they are identified as the cause of the outages.

This chart displays the unplanned outages caused specifically by equipment failure over March 2024 to February 2025 time period.

Please keep in mind that outages from external factors such as storms, falling trees, or vehicle-slash-pole collisions are excluded.

As you can see by a large margin, the top three outage drivers are tied to our underground system.

For example, you'll see the top contributor is primary cable, the underground primary cable, the underground transformer, and the underground arrestor.

Within these, direct buried cable is the most problematic.

We'll cover this specific asset in more detail later in the presentation.

The takeaway we'd like you to have from this slide is that our infrastructure is aging and has been significantly under-invested in since the 2001 Enron-related energy crisis, when City Light was forced to reduce maintenance crews and O&M budgets.

That investment gap continues to persist, and as such, meeting our reliability goals will require renewed and sustained investment, both in infrastructure and resources.

Next slide, please.

This second chart captures our reliability metrics over the last four years, so it's directly related to the slide I just shared.

which is what's contributing to our how we reliably serve our customers.

The x-axis lists the years and the y-axis both on the right and left list the number of minutes.

I would like to first start by explaining the purple line all the way at the bottom and make my way up.

The purple line represents the frequency of our outages and the purple triangle identifies our target.

Similarly, the orange line represents the average duration of our outages and the orange triangle represents where we want to be.

And finally, the blue line represents the duration of time for a customer who is experiencing an outage.

And again, the blue triangle is what our target is.

As you can see, there's a clear and growing gap between where Seattle City Light is today and where we need to be.

And that gap is getting wider faster because of the aging assets I discussed in the last slide.

Reliability is one of the most direct ways customers experience their utility.

You both started by sharing how you've heard from your constituents frequently on these outages.

When reliability slips, it affects daily life, economic activity, and public trust.

and if we don't act soon, outages will only become more frequent and more costly.

We have a clear long-term goal to be in the top 25% of Northwest utilities within the next 10 years, and we have a plan to get there, focused strategic investments that will reverse this trend and strengthen system performance, which Andy will share now.

Thank you.

Next slide, please.

So each of our asset systems get an overall grade The condition rating scale used for our systems go from one to five.

One means that our assets are essentially new or less than 20% of their life cycle, while five is a critical or near failure score requiring replacement or some means of remediation within the next two years.

Put simply, the smaller the number, the better for overall infrastructure health.

It's important to realize that although an average number may seem to give some confidence, it doesn't mean that there aren't immediate needs to repair some infrastructure within, and I'll highlight those.

So our generation asset score is 2.8.

The good news is that we've invested and rebuilt most of our hydro units, and these are in good health as are our major systems like large transformers and substations on our sites.

That said, we still must invest in medium to low voltage electrical systems and replacing control components at our hydroelectric sites.

This budget is largely accounted for already.

Large upcoming projects not fully accounted for include our Skagit re-licensing agreement.

Including any tribal off-license agreements, this could include a commitment of up to $4 billion over the life of a new license, which we hope to be 50 years.

Work would include immediate fish passage projects, tribal facilities, a small hydro project, and others.

Outside of the relicensing component, there are two large civil projects currently not funded.

At our boundary dam facility, we must demolish and rebuild a large four-bay bridge and associated intake structure and armor the four-bay itself.

At the gorge dam, there is a seismically deficient superstructure that requires modifications.

These are both rated as fours, which means they should be done within the next seven years.

As the price of power, especially green power, continue to increase around peak demand times, the utility might find it advantageous to invest in a pump storage project at a Ross Hydro site.

For the purposes of this presentation, this work is not counted in our overall dollar figure that we'll give at the end, our budget figure.

Next slide, please.

Our transmission towers, despite their age, are largely in good shape, and our cables are adequate.

What we need to invest in the future is our small components, and here's an example.

This is a cable hanger, but you can see that the attachment bolt is roughly 80% worn through.

This is indicative of a lot of our system and involves more detailed work throughout our 660 miles of transmission.

The reason why this is relevant is that City Light has a wildfire risk reduction strategy born out of necessity as a response to California fires caused by transmission line failures.

From 2019 through 2023, the California Public Utilities Commission approved the three largest utilities in California, collecting $27 billion in wildfire prevention insurance costs from ratepayers.

the costs are projected to keep rising.

So depending upon the utility, these costs make up anywhere to 10 to 24% of total revenue requirements.

PG&E alone has had to pay a settlement of $13.5 billion to victims of 2017 and 2018 wildfires that were caused by transmission failures.

This utility cannot find itself in the same situation.

Also of note, with increased electrification driven by the market, the Port of Seattle, potential for multiple new data centers, a University of Washington expansion, the utilities will have to invest increased capacity in new transmission infrastructure.

Next slide, please.

The substation asset score is 3.24 and alone represents the worst score in our system.

The good news, major transformers and major control systems at the heart of any substations are mostly in good condition.

However, asset management is forecasting a sharp increase in necessary CIP replacement funding over the next 10 years.

This is a function that many of Seattle City Light's substations are about the same age, and their common long-lived assets are becoming due replacement at the same time.

So these are smaller components like circuit breakers, switches, arrestors, surge arrestors, capacitors, and things of that nature.

that have a huge impact when it comes to reliability.

We must accelerate this work by three times what we are presently doing.

It's also important to know that with the need for additional capacity, we will have to build new substation infrastructure.

The Port of Seattle alone, with its drive toward electrification, will create somewhere between 300 and 400 megawatts of new additional load along Seattle's waterfront.

Our systems are currently approaching capacity there now.

and we are currently planning for what a new substation will look like and where it will be located.

A cost of just a substation of this capacity is anywhere from 400 to 700 million dollars depending upon a number of factors.

It's important to realize too that depending upon the speed of transition of large vehicles to electrification, there is a chance that a second substation will need to be built on the south side of our service territory in order to handle that additional load.

It's important to know that I'm also not counting this cost in the 10-year projections at this point.

In the next 10 years we anticipate having to install large battery systems as we see increased volatility in our transmission systems that serve our territory.

Next slide please.

Distribution asset condition system scores.

So Seattle City Light has two types of distribution.

We have a looped radio system that serves most of our service territory and a network system that serves our downtown and University of Washington areas.

Our network score is 2.3.

Our network represents a very well adhered to maintenance program and has proven over the years to be resilient and reliable.

Our loop radio system is scored at 3.1.

By a significant margin, as Hina's already pointed out, the top three failures in our loop radio systems are associated with our underground systems which serve the majority of our service territory.

Of those, it's our direct buried cable infrastructure that is most troublesome and is in fact largely driving our increased unreliability.

A direct buried cable doesn't require expensive duct bank infrastructure.

A duct bank is a series of conduit buried within concrete that new or replacement cable can easily be slid in and out of.

The direct buried cable installations method used by City Light in the late 70s and 80s was a lower cost option used by City Light and several other utilities in the Northwest around the same duration.

Neighborhoods that didn't want unsightly overhead lines formed local improvement districts or lids to fund the installation of this work.

Direct buried cable is evenly distributed over most of our residential territory, and it's especially prevalent along view properties.

There are approximately 330 miles of direct buried cable that we will have to replace, and because of its rapidly deteriorating infrastructure at this point, this must be done over the next 10 years.

It's important to understand that this could represent a replacement program requiring as much as $2 billion alone over the next 10 years.

Slide 9, please.

While we are having to rebuild new or replace major existing infrastructure, we are also having to support major programs with partners outside of our systems.

These include programs like Centrio or formerly Seattle Steam.

They are looking at a potential for 125 additional megawatts for their electrification to replace natural gas boilers.

Sound Transit 3 and WSDOT on their 520 systems represent projects that will require City Light to replace major portions of our infrastructure and also add capacity.

King County Metrobus electrification represents about 75 megawatts worth of electric bus charging infrastructure.

The University of Washington is looking at a campus expansion and the replacement of their central plant away from natural gas and toward electrification.

There is an interest from at least five developers to locate new data centers within City Light Service territory.

It's unknown at this point what this represents for total capacity, but it would be significant.

As mentioned before, Port of Seattle has an interest in as much as 400 megawatts of electrification along the waterfront.

Building electrification program, or BEPS, represents City Light's ability to partner with qualifying infrastructure owners and developers to create the necessary infrastructure for carbon compliance.

And then finally, certainly not last and certainly not least, EV chargers.

City Light must either directly install or partner to install over 11,000 chargers over the next five years.

It's important to understand that affecting City Light's ability to support these programs and accurately predict capital costs are several global factors caused by uncertain tariffs, worldwide shortages, Several global, sorry, regional conflicts and others.

How this affects us is by a material timeline.

So large transformers and switchgears that just a few years ago used to take anywhere from a year and a half to two years to get, now take three to six years.

Cost escalations due to material uncertainty, explosive electrification across the country, regional conflicts and uncertain tariffs again are driven up material costs far greater than regular inflation.

and then human resources to meet these tasks for the future.

City Light does not have the number of engineers, project managers, field crews, contract specialists or others that will be necessary to meet the challenges.

So not counting the needs to purchase additional energy resources or the transmission necessary to transport that.

and not counting the roughly $4 billion that we quoted earlier for the 50-year license at Skagit or the possibility of a Ross pump plant, City Light is looking at roughly $3.4 billion of additional investment over the next 10 years to safeguard our facilities and to improve our service reliability to meet our goals to benefit our customer owners.

Any questions at this time?

Thank you for the presentation.

Colleagues, questions?

Councilmember Strauss.

All right.

Chair, if other folks have questions, I could take two hours on this.

Let's run back through these slides.

If we want to go back to lifespan, and I don't have my copy up right now, but back to one of those first two slides.

Let me pull up my copy of this presentation to help us navigate.

There it is.

Let's go to slide two, if you would.

Slide two.

Thank you so much.

You ran through a lot of really dense information quickly, and there's no other way around that.

Breaking this down a little bit more here, in the conventional power system, when we're looking at our own system, you shared that much of our infrastructure's starting to age out.

When we're looking at the transmission towers What is a typical lifespan of that infrastructure?

I'm just going to go through each of these.

I'm going to skip generation and just go into transmission, distribution, and then transforming.

Yeah, certainly.

So the bulk of our 660 miles, roughly, of transmission is in our Skagit infrastructure.

The majority of those towers were put up in the 30s and 40s.

We did an assessment of their health two to three years ago, and the towers are actually in great shape.

There's minor repairs to do, but that budget is within our system at this point.

Again, where we need to concentrate is more on the smaller systems, going through and making sure that we don't risk failure, sorry, we don't risk transmission lines falling from these towers.

because of our hangers and insulators.

So that's what's driving our future work.

So within the transmission, the towers that are 100 years old are fine, but the hangers that are maybe 50 years old are not.

Correct.

So what is the lifespan of the components then?

I guess what I'm looking for is what is the lifespan that you would expect upon installation of the infrastructure that is there today?

Yeah, certainly.

So hangers and insulators, typically, 50 years.

So we're at life cycle.

Because they were most recently updated in the 1970s.

Yes, there was residual work that was done in the 70s, yes.

Just another point in case that infrastructure 100 years ago was built better than 50 years ago.

In a way.

If we want to move then into the substations, I don't know that you missed it.

So as I'm just following the transmission, we generate in Skagit, we have the transmission lines that get us down to Bothell.

Once we get to Bothell, what is the lifespan of the infrastructure, both the transformers and any other pieces of infrastructure that you have there?

A lot of utilities use transformers differently than we do.

Typically in the industry you look at 30 to 40 years for transformers.

We oversize our transformers for longevity.

We typically get 60 years from our large distribution transformers.

We have 62 of them, so that means we replace one to two of them a year.

We find that that's an adequate program for now.

And how have we kept up on that?

Have we been keeping up on that?

Yes.

Now, it is important to know that As our nameplate capacity increases dramatically in the next few years, you're going to see those transformers undergo more substantial wear.

And so our trend of every 60 years might eventually become every 40 years as we use our equipment harder.

And so essentially what I'm hearing is that we buy transformers that are larger than our need, and so we are not operating them at their peak.

which creates less wear and tear, meaning that we don't have to replace them as often.

That's just for transmission, not distribution.

Is that correct?

Correct.

And so from Bothell, we send the power down into whether it's the one up on 105th or a few other substations.

Is that where it then becomes distribution?

We're moving from number three.

We talked about number four that is in I guess number two is Bothell, maybe these are a little mixed up, but once we get back into the city, is that number four?

Yes, yes, that represents Broad, Denny, any of the other major substations that we have.

And so at Broad, Denny, the one up on 105th, at those substations, correct me if I'm wrong, we are both with transformers that are for transmission to get to another substation and then we also have transformers for distribution, is that correct?

Correct.

And so in the same sense with Bothell we were just talking, we have transformers for transmission that are rated way above our use and therefore we don't have as many problems.

But then once we're, let's move into distribution, What's the scenario there?

We're downgrading the electricity from transmission level into distribution level, and then do we have to transform the energy once more, or is that the only...

Our distribution in our network is 13.8 kilovolt.

Our residential loop radial is 26 kV.

and then when it hits our overhead or smaller underground transformers that gets distributed as a residential or commercial voltage, 480 or 120 volts.

There are other voltages depending upon the customers, but that covers the majority of our system.

Let's play that game one more time, just because that was a lot of numbers.

So we transmit at 230 kV, is that correct?

That's actually our transmission system.

So our transmission is 230 kV or 115 kV.

We have two different transmission voltages.

I would assume that that increases our cost because everything is not consistent.

Is that generally correct?

Ideally, we'd want to transmit at our higher voltage, 230 kV.

But if you remember our old history, we were a result of taking over a number of other utilities over time.

And so some of that legacy still resides in our system.

So as this presentation is also describing, because we have taken or annexed other utilities that had different systems that maybe had even different update operations and maintenance schedules, we are at a point where we have to update everything to become consistent across our utility.

Is that essentially what I'm hearing?

That is true, yes.

So I'm gonna remember, I'm a simple person at the end of the day and at the beginning of the day and right now, which is so we transmit from Skagit at 2.30, we get to Bothell, we keep it at 2.30 till we get to Broad.

Is that all correct?

That is correct.

And then from once we're at Broad, we drop it down to 13.8 or do we drop it to 26?

ROD covers both network and radial, so both.

Okay, so the 13.8 is network?

13.8 is network.

And then to get into the radial systems, that's 26. Correct.

And then to get into your house, that's 480 or 120 volts.

Typically 120, yes.

So when I'm looking at number five, that's the 13.8?

Correct.

And then when we're looking at number six, that's 26.

Well, six is the transformers on pole step down electricity before entering the residence.

So that goes from 26 to 120 volts.

So number seven would be the 120 volts.

Number seven is just a short line between the overhead transformer and the house.

Okay, remember I'm a simple person here.

You've given me a simple picture, so I'm just, what I'm getting at here, so let's talk about the network.

We heard about transmission being generally okay because of how we've run that project.

At the network level, the 13.8 kV, What are the transformers there?

Did we also purchase above the specs that we needed to use and we're using it at a lower rate and creating more longevity?

What's the lifespan for the transformers at the 13 point?

We do.

Those are smaller underground transformers and they are in a more difficult environment than our large transformers.

So typically we'd assume 30 years.

And we have a healthy replacement program for that for our network systems.

And is the network distribution consistent across the entire utility?

Or are we also seeing a difference between the utilities that we've annexed?

So that is consistent.

And again, it's important to realize that the network system is concentrated on downtown Seattle and the University of Washington.

So we have two network systems.

And those are consistent across downtown and UW?

Correct.

Great.

So now we'll jump into the radial, which I'm guessing has some of the larger amounts of problems.

Is the radial distribution consistent across the entire utility?

And when I say that, I know that we provide Lake Forest Park electricity, parts of unincorporated King County.

so it's outside it, just the city boundaries.

Is this all consistent or do we need to upgrade?

It is.

It's all consistent at 26 KV.

Okay.

And within there, what is the lifespan of the infrastructure of those transformers?

Transformers themselves, overhead transformers are roughly 30 years.

We are starting to be much more progressive in changing those out at an accelerated rate.

more because of expanding capacity than life cycle conditions.

And then to get from the 26 down to the 120, maybe this is where we're having some conversation difficulties.

I thought to get down to 120 was the overhead transformer that we're seeing identified as number six.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

It's important to realize too that there are some underground transformers that are also doing the equivalent of the majority of the overhead.

So where there is direct buried cable systems, for example, those are underground transformers doing the same work as what number six is showing you.

We'll get into direct underground cable and buried underground cable in just a minute.

So now I'm going to bring it back out of the theoretical and into the real.

A number of years ago, residents in Ballard reached out regarding repeated power outages and we were talking I think one almost every month for some period of time.

It was way above the levels of It was probably what moved some of the data in one of the slides here, really pushing that envelope.

When we had those discussions, you were sharing that that infrastructure was at the end of its lifespan or nearly there.

It had most recently been replaced in the 1970s.

So these are the underground transformers.

Is it also buried cable in that area?

That wasn't direct buried cable.

That was all in Duck Bank.

and the issue that we found was that the infrastructure was failing because it was not only at the end of its lifespan, it had gotten to the peak level of its usage.

So rather than running it at a lower level to increase the lifespan, it really got ramped up.

To get to the point in the conversation where we said, a whole swath of infrastructure needs to be replaced.

City Light was replacing it one by one, piece by piece, trying to fix the problem with a cost efficiency, best cost efficiency possible.

But through that, what I noticed is that when one thing was fixed, it would just push the wear and tear to another part of the system, breaking it down.

that's when you came in and replaced all of the infrastructure to bring it all up to the same grade.

We have still had a power outage since then, but I won't bring that up now.

I guess I already did.

Just to say, using that experience on Market Street and Ballard, how many parts of our city are in that same position or about to be in that same position?

A significant number.

When we do talk, so that scenario's a good scenario, but I'd like to bring it back to the direct buried cable, because that really represents the worst of our system.

It is 330 miles.

That's substantial.

It does represent a number of your districts for council overall, because again, it's prevalent in the residential areas.

I know several of you have gotten some letters from constituents that are quite upset, and rightfully so, about unreliability in certain areas, a large number of outages.

That is representative of our future in the next 10 years if we don't take care of this system now.

So this is urgent.

You know, Hina talked earlier about our goals.

If we don't invest again over the next 10 years, the charts that you see are going to trend radically upward, and we can't have that.

Councilmember Strauss, I want to allow you to continue your questioning, but I want to recognize General Manager Lindell online with her hand raised.

If she wants to chime in on anything we've been discussing here before you continue.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

And I'm sorry to not be at the table.

I was on vacation this week, but I'm jumping in at the meeting remotely.

So I think it may be helpful to just, you know, I think we were looking at what is the length of life at each component?

I really think that's what Council Member Strauss was.

was focusing in on.

And I think that 40 years for distribution equipment is standard.

We did do some injecting about in that 15 to 20 year range to try to lengthen the life of these assets.

And that has worked for a time, but now we're at 60 years plus, and we've been replacing about five miles a year.

a little less than that little less than five miles a year so with 330 miles we will have cable that's over a hundred years old even 150 years old by the time we get to it if we continue at the current pace and so it may help just to to frame this up in that in that perspective if we look at slide number four on this slide we can really see the impact to customers so the target is either at where our comparable utilities are at or even slightly worse than comparable utilities and we are not hitting our targets.

So we are bringing the average for large public power utilities down with our increasingly concerning reliability issues.

And these are really impactful to our customers.

We've had customers stuck in an elevator for six hours.

We've had customers out for 30 out of 36 hours where we just have these repeated and cascading component failures that Council Member Strauss was referencing.

And so what we really do need to do is we need to really focus on not being the cause of our own outages.

A little over 40% of our outages in an area full of trees and wildlife are caused by us, and we would not expect to see that.

Underground is actually generally much more reliable than overhead.

but underground when it's 60 years old is not more reliable.

It is not reliable and we've got to get after that and the associated components that are connected to it.

I love Council Member Strauss' question around how many of our neighborhoods many of them.

If you think of our downtown network as kind of a big circle, that part of our grid gets an A+.

I'm gonna knock on wood as I say this, but it's extremely rare for us to have an outage downtown.

But if we move outside and into the neighborhoods, we are seeing literally thousands with an S of customers out weekly.

and again with 40% of that laying on the deferred maintenance.

So we have gotten every bit of life out of these components.

I mean, we have maximized the investment that people 40, 50 and 60 years ago made in this grid.

And it's just now time for us to do that investment.

So then we'll have a investment on that distribution grid to live off of going forward.

So I hope that's helpful.

Thank you, Director.

That was helpful.

just to state and make it really real.

Those cascading component failures in Ballard had set up an elderly individual in a situation where they were going to be hospitalized because they were not able to have their oxygen machine plugged in for over 24 hours.

It was only because we were able to bring a battery to her that she wasn't taken to the hospital.

And when we think about that, what additional cost to our society is incurred, right?

We've got Medic 1 rolling out, we've got that person taking up hospital resources, et cetera.

But I'll come back to the direct buried cable with one last question about the, and these might be going through component by component.

For the transformers at that radial distribution, are we on pace with those repairs or are we behind pace?

We're coming up to speed on that.

I talked about a more aggressive replacement schedule that we have going on.

So yes, we're getting up to speed on that.

We're being much more aggressive and much more proactive about replacing our transformers, our smaller transformers.

I'm just going to jump in.

Isn't it fair to say, though, there is a broad range, right?

You and I have talked about that.

So we have some transformers that are on a pace and have been replaced, but we also have transformers that are not on pace, that are too old and that need to be replaced.

And that's why Andy is referencing that we need to step it up.

So I think it's just It's best to be as straightforward and tell the whole story from worst to best at this point in front of you.

Amen.

Thank you, General Manager.

And just to note, you said you have 330 miles of direct buried cable.

Is that correct?

Yes.

So if you were to stretch that out from here southward, you would arrive at Roseburg, Oregon.

which is nearly, it's just grants passed between Roseburg and California.

And so that's the amount of cable that we have under our streets, making sure that our network works.

CEO Lindell mentioned that it would take us 130 years at our current pace to replace this.

The only thing worse than that were our sidewalk replacement program until the last transportation levy increased the amount of sidewalk money going there.

what is the real cost that we're going to have to look at to replace all of this direct buried cable?

And I would assume that if we're deploying crews to do this, there are places where there is above ground cable that we want to underground as a cost efficiency.

Can you help walk me through this?

Yes.

You mentioned Lake Forest Park earlier.

That is a community with a large number of tree canopy.

That is an example of one neighborhood where we want to go in as part of this overall replacement work and underground those overhead systems.

There are plenty of other areas in Seattle.

Let me jump in here and I might pee you off Lake Forest Park a little bit here.

So are Seattle utility customers paying for Lake Forest Park's upgrades?

No, there's a separate franchise agreement for Lake Forest Park, Shoreline, and other franchise cities.

Okay, thank you.

Sorry, I cut you off.

What is the cost that we're looking at for replacing these 330 miles?

So what we're estimating for our direct buried cable is about $2 billion over 10 years.

roughly $200 million a year.

This will be done through a very large design build program where we'll partner with potentially an international company that has the capacity to be able to do this work.

you know realistically you're looking at 30 to 33 miles a year.

That's an enormous civil infrastructure work.

There's various means that we can use to minimize neighborhood disruption but there's going to be plenty of areas where we're going to have to work with our citizen owners and try to minimize the disturbance to their daily lives, but it is gonna have impact.

And so if we're replacing about 30 to 33 miles per year, that gets us from here to Redmond, if you go along the Burke-Gilman Trail, maybe not across 520. When we're looking at that, you bring me to a point that I was gonna bring up later, it's important for us to be using our own workforce here in our region and increasing our apprenticeship opportunities ahead of, and maybe it is advanced planning with a local company so that they are able to get their apprentices in and along their learning schedule so that when this bow wake of work becomes available for requests for proposal in this area, that we've got locals, that we've got local apprentices, we've got priority hire working for us on these big projects.

That's a statement, not a question.

I'll just move on to...

Well, you're absolutely right, and we've had those discussions with Local 77. In addition to that, there's new technology that we're going to be using, and they're going to be working with us to learn that new technology and eventually take that over.

Thank you.

One last point on this is you mentioned that the problem that we are facing here in this way started in 2001 after the Enron financial scam is what I'll call it.

I don't know what other people call it.

We've heard this come up, this moment in time come up in many different presentations over the course of these few years, whether it was for the amount of money that we're saving back as our rate stabilization fund, there's many different ways that 2001 and the Enron scam hurt us.

In what way did that set us back then and what caused us to not catch up sooner?

Yeah, the Enron Crisis or the Western Energy Crisis, what it's also known as, in order for this utility to survive, O&M funds, maintenance O&M funds in particular were cut, and a certain number of crews were cut as well to be able to survive the scandal.

It's fair to say that that has never been made up in the duration.

That is something that certainly within this 10-year timeframe we'll look to address and bring before the council.

I think it's really important to bring that up because much like in the 2008 recession there are state level departments that have never come back from those cuts.

Here in the budget discussions we were talking about 2008 and our unfortunate decision to lay off SDCI planners and then we had to rehire them quickly and it created a bow wake.

What I'm hearing today is that we had a financial crisis in 2001. We used scarcity mine solutions, austerity measures, and we have never fully recovered 25 years later.

That's not your fault?

but that's a problem that we have to fix here together.

I'll move on to slide number five and really colleagues just interrupt.

I unfortunately geek out with these folks too often.

So just interrupt me at any time.

You're good to continue Council Member Strauss.

Thanks.

All of these things make good sense to me.

There are a few that are left off.

that I think are highly important.

Not only is it, and maybe they fall into other, but the infrastructure that we have within our hydro generation facilities, the technology needs to be upgraded.

The technology of creating, generating and transmitting and using electricity has not changed.

But sometimes things wear out over 100 years.

Is that being planned for in these investment?

It is.

The reason why I didn't mention it is that's largely budgeted and accounted for at this point.

I did mention the need to upgrade our medium and low voltage systems.

These control our spill gates and other dam safety components that we view as critical.

Again, much of that budget is already in place and being planned for now.

If I could jump in there, this actually, thank you, this falls under Mujib Lodi, and so Andy and Mujib may not have quite touched base.

We do have technology debt as well, and in fact, how we manage and distribute energy needs to change.

The rest of the world's especially in the US, how we manage the energy and how we distribute it.

We need to add additional generation, like a lot more rooftop solar, which could help in the summer.

The battery system that Andy Strong has alluded to, which we are looking at for in-home and in-business.

battery storage that our customers can call on if they have an outage, but that we can call on if we have a peak load.

We need to be able to put these electrons into play and that means that we need to have them join the grid through inversion into the right phase.

Electricity runs in three phases, that's why there's three wires.

And while we, you know, back to Ghostbusters, we can say we never went across the phases.

It's not because it makes them stronger, it's because it makes the signal weaker.

The sinusoidal curve gets cancels out when we cross those phases.

So we want to make sure to incorporate that.

And electricity moves at the speed of light.

So we need technology that also moves at that speed that will help us to incorporate that handily.

And and we have the ability to be more efficient, to do more with less with the right technology in place all along our system, with sensors along transmission, with how we utilize the technology in our generation sites, So there's a lot of opportunity there for more efficiency and we will be bringing forward a presentation on our technology needs as well.

So I just wanted to again flavor the conversation with that a little bit more total picture that Andy may not be quite aware of.

Thank you.

Fantastic.

Thank you, General Manager.

That will then, I'll save my questions about, or I guess statements about our, and I don't know the technical term for the building where we are watching all of the grid and the transmission and all that.

the System Operations Center.

System Operations Center feels more like the lunar moon landing than it does an electric vehicle.

And, you know, so I just say that, we'll come back to that, but in the generation, I will highlight for you here and now that it is as critical that we keep the components that keep the energy flowing as it is we keep up to date the parts of our generation facilities that keep our employees housed and healthy.

and so when we come back to the committee, I wanna make sure that I receive updates on the housing updates at Boundary Dam.

I know that the housing in Diablo had to be evacuated after the sourdough fire and we have an opportunity to do full bore replacement of those buildings that probably haven't had updates since the mid or early 80s.

as well as some of the break rooms in those generation facilities.

Walking in there, it feels, and no harm, no foul, it feels like you're walking right back into 1978. There's VHS tape players and all the rest.

All that to be said, we need to make sure that the employees that are part of our city family that are in remote and far-flung parts of our state that might not even have cell service are able to be cared for in the ways that every other city employee are cared for.

So I don't know if that falls into other.

I wanted to bring that up with you today.

So nothing further here.

If we want to move on to transmission investments, please.

Right here I think the biggest flag that I have is the wildfire mitigation as I've been able to meet with PSE and I can't recall the utility in Eastern Washington.

Chelan or Grant County?

That's the one.

Sitting down and speaking with them about their wildland fire mitigation, it's incredible.

We have far fewer miles of transmission than they do.

They have swaths of our entire state, whereas we have a single corridor.

That said, in parts of the state where they are providing transmission, there are not weather data centers because they are so remote and that reduces their insight and ability to be able to correctly shut down or reduce load or go into those wildfire mitigation strategies.

Granted, the eastern side of the state is drier and hotter and more prone to wildfire.

What I will share with you here and now is that those issues are coming here.

We saw that with, was it Lake Cushman fire this summer?

Where it didn't stop burning until it started raining, and that was a July 4th fire, right?

And that's in what some would call a rainforest.

And so if we are here looking at Western Washington, wildly far behind on our wildland fire mitigation.

I bring that up because a company like, and I can't remember what you said, CEO Lindell, Vista, Buena Vista, whoever they are, they've invested millions and millions and millions into their infrastructure and it provides them better insight.

I think they might even be sharing their data with NOAA and others because they've set up such a robust system.

All of that to say, where are we today and where do we need to go?

What's our current situation report on our wildland fire mitigation?

Yeah, we've had a plan filed with the state since 24. Again, it's mostly these small components that we're worried about from a wildfire mitigation.

stepped up and revised our vegetation management program to deal with the number one cause of transmission fires.

But now we need to go through and do the small steps, the critical small infrastructure that it takes to keep those systems out of harm's way.

Thank you.

And is there any plan at this time to set up those data centers for us to be monitoring.

And the reason I ask that today is I don't think it's something that is incredibly necessary right now.

but as we move into hotter, drier climates, you know, I remember looking at Mount Rainier as a kid and there were glaciers all through the summer, right?

And there still are, but they're much higher up.

As a kid, the Olympics still had some snow fields on it all through summer.

Today, they look more like California.

Do we have a plan set in place for our ability to set up monitoring stations along our transmission lines?

We don't directly have any physical viewpoints, if that's what you're talking about, like camera systems set up on our transmission systems.

I think it's more important for us again to go through and do the small remedial work.

We are looking at drone capacity to survey our lines on a more regular basis versus the helicopters that we used to utilize.

But we haven't initiated that program at this point.

that also goes with the technology component so what we can do is put sensors because you're exactly right they're not where we can look at local weather but if we have sensors on the line they can tell us ambient temperature and wind and if we know ambient temperature and wind we can then send more electricity through the lines when it is cooler and windy so that that ambient temperature is lower and we can reduce the amount of electricity that goes through those lines when it is when those lines are in a position where they are hotter or where we don't see that wind so there is a again that's a great question around the advancement of technology and the potential that is there Andy mentioned that we've had a wildfire plan since 2014 but that is a plan that we also update I believe annually or maybe it's every other year I think it's every other year and so we're able to make the changes that we need to make in that plan with the improving technology and with the improving mitigation measures that other utilities are finding and investing.

It's a place where the entire utility industry readily shares information because all of us want to mitigate that risk, not just for the dollars.

In fact, the dollars to me are secondary, but for the cost in human lives that can come from those wildfires.

And we want to make sure that we don't contribute to that.

Well said.

And the only other point I'll make is maybe please also collect the humidity if you're putting in those sensors.

With 12 minutes left in this committee, I could talk for two more hours.

So I'll pepper you with my questions the next time we meet.

Back to you, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you council member Strauss for your thoughtful questions.

I certainly learned a lot myself in this and thank you city light team for your thoughtful responses.

This is clearly a tremendously important topic and an urgent one.

Next, I'm going to turn to council member Lynn.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for the detailed presentation.

I do just want to reiterate what Councilmember Strauss was saying in terms of the workforce opportunities here.

It sounds like there is, you know, going to be 10 years of work that would love to make sure that those jobs are going towards local priority hire, towards our youth, you know, for the first time and our Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy.

There's funding for apprenticeship programs.

So when we know that there's gonna be 10 years of steady work coming ahead, we should absolutely be working with our labor partners, but also with our public school partners, with our Department of Education Early Learning to make sure that we're funding those apprenticeship programs.

I'd love to understand a little bit more about this the direct buried cable Program a little bit of the history there sounds like there's 330 miles of direct-buried cable that we're hoping to convert to cable and conduit.

Is that roughly correct?

That is.

And that cable and conduit is easier to kind of maintain and repair over time because you can just sort of swap out the cable easier.

Is that correct?

Exactly right.

And it sounded like, I think, did I hear $2 billion roughly, rough order of magnitude in terms of cost that you were saying?

Is that?

That's correct.

And that's not currently in the budget?

Correct.

And is that mostly on the residential side?

It is.

So that would potentially affect residential rates.

Correct.

OK.

and I'd like to understand a little bit if there's like a map where these were located.

I think you talked a little bit about the history of this where local neighborhoods were paid for undergrounding through local improvement districts.

I did hear in general that undergrounding is more reliable but it sounds like this direct buried was perhaps, I don't know, this is my commentary, perhaps not the best choice.

And so I just want to understand a little bit about the history.

I want to understand if there's some equity issues in terms of certain neighborhoods that were able to pay for this that now we're paying for as a system.

which neighborhoods these are in and what neighborhoods don't have this.

Is this underground, buried underground cable, is this 26 kV?

Is this similar to what we would see in terms of like a distribution line in other neighborhoods?

That is also correct, yes.

Yeah, so could you just talk a little bit about sort of what neighborhoods?

Is there a map?

Are there equity issues that sort of we should be aware of in terms of, you know, some neighborhoods are getting this, other neighborhoods have overground lines?

Yeah, we'd be happy to distribute a map that roughly shows the distribution of our direct buried cable.

And equity is part of our future program.

equity not only of what's existing for our direct varied cable system now, but for future transition of overhead to underground lines.

And I'll just make one more comment.

I heard a little bit of Jim Lindell talk about the importance of distributed energy with solar, with batteries, and I think I heard the term inversion.

I'm not an expert on all of this, but I certainly want to support that work.

I do think in terms of our reliability So anything we can do to further that work, to further solar, neighborhood solar, to further batteries, including kind of consumer level type of work.

Love to learn more about that.

Oh, and then finally one more thing.

In terms of these large customers, whether it's data centers, some of our, I heard the port, those sound like those would be on the commercial side of the ledger, I'm assuming that would not be impacting our residential customers, is that correct?

I mean, in general, how does that type of new capacity, or whether it's the substation work, I think I heard you talk about for the port, I mean, do those customers pay for that?

Is that sort of a different ledger that pays for that type of work?

Yeah, it's complicated, and maybe that's something that we could individually go through with you in the future.

Andy, would you like me to jump in?

Please, General Manager.

Yes, I'd be happy to jump in on that.

We actually have a large load policy that will be coming before City Council in the not-too-distant future.

In that policy, we are looking to in line with state law ensure that the beneficiary pays and so you are exactly right that is we need to make sure that the cost of the system upgrades and the new generation are borne by the new large load and so that those new large loads do not impact our residential rate.

And so as we are working with those organizations to engineer a solution under Andy's fabulous leadership, we are also looking to cost out what system upgrades expense we need for the organization to pay for upfront so that we build to that.

And then from a generation standpoint, and this will be in the future, presentation to the entire Council as well as just to you, sir.

Every megawatt we buy from here on in is going to cost roughly twice or more as much as our beautiful hydropower.

and we are at the point where we've maxed out our hydropower and we need to buy additional generation in order to meet future load.

And so for those loads that are caused by a large power customer we will be asking them to also help support us with the cost of that generation.

So it is something we definitely keep our eye on.

under our CFO, Kirsty Granger.

She and her team ensure that through our cost of service study, we are putting the right rate burden on the right type of customer.

I hope that helps.

Thank you very much.

That certainly addresses my concern, which is, yeah, definitely don't want to see our residential rate customers bearing the burden of some of these large load customers, so thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lin.

Any additional questions at this time before I go into my very few questions?

Because everyone asked mine.

Thank you colleagues for a really robust discussion.

You make my job easy.

I suppose I want to touch on just one point here about where do we go from here?

Because what has been very clearly presented today is we are facing an emerging crisis to our basic infrastructure.

I'd make a note as a personal point of privilege that Even in my own life experiences with energy systems failing, I've seen firsthand the devastating consequences of that.

I know you alluded to the California fires that happened and of course the 85 lives lost due to lack of maintenance to PG&E's electrical system that caused a spark, that caused a fire, that took the took the lives of 85 folks, but also 18,000 structures, but also thinking about in my own upbringing, if anyone is familiar with the San Bruno gas explosion also caused by PG&E, another case of deferred maintenance, essentially causing an explosion that took out 38 homes where eight lives were lost, and I heard the explosion from my house.

So when we're talking about are infrastructure, our electrical systems.

We are talking about lives and livelihood.

Councilmember Strauss pointed out the situation he experienced with a constituent, with power being out, being unable to maintain the medical equipment that they needed for their livelihood.

I've heard similar cases across the city, and I'm also mindful that we are in a climate crisis and our region proceeds to get hotter and colder.

necessitating residents' needs for being able to keep themselves cool with air conditioning and warm with heating.

And so with those points, I want to kind of turn to where do we go from here?

We're talking about the need for $2 billion over the next 10 years to be able to really take up this absolutely critical infrastructure investment and work.

Can you walk us through what's coming ahead, both as it relates to our discussions with rates and also any complementary planning?

I believe, if I'm recalling correctly, we have an integrated resource plan update coming next year.

I might be wrong on that, but anything about our planning and work on infrastructure, but also our broader planning around energy and owned energy generation, how we understand energy demand and so on.

If you could please speak to that.

Yeah, it's important to understand that $2 billion just represents our direct buried cable program.

and I was quoting more in the $3.4 billion range to take into account the other infrastructure and other systems that we have.

This will be addressed in our strategic plan, which will be coming up in quarter one of next year.

We'll highlight the resources and the planning that's necessary to do this work over the next 10 years.

Thank you.

And colleagues, any final questions for our city-like colleagues before we wrap today right on time?

Well, I want to thank everyone for your thoughtful engagement and for the hard work that you're doing.

Thank you for bringing this critical information before Council, and I believe you've certainly given us a lot to think about and excited to take up this work in the next year.

And with that, we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Hearing no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.

It is 11.30 a.m.

Happy holidays, everybody.