Seattle City Council Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers Rights Committee 2/21/19

Good morning.

Okay, there we go.

Thank you for holding with us as we dealt with technical difficulties.

Good morning, everyone.

It is Thursday, February 21st, 2019. The Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee will come to order.

It is 9.33.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the committee, joined by my vice chair, Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you so much for being here, and good morning to you.

Today we have two items on the agenda, and we're really trying to save as much time as possible for our friends from the review panel who've been diligently working over the last, I would say, six to eight months, hard to try to bring us forward an interim report on rate design changes.

So the majority of our conversation today will be about their initial report, and we'll get a chance to ask them questions, talk about the direction in which we're headed, and to get feedback from others.

The second thing that we're going to talk about is the possibility of the sale of Seattle City Lights property on the North Passage, LLC.

I want to be super clear before we start with our public comment this morning.

You know, last year, you will remember, Council Member Juarez, that we spent a lot of time talking about how important it was to preserve our funds, I'm sorry, our resources, our property, our public property, any surplus property, and make sure that we're evaluating whether or not we can use those properties for housing, because housing and homelessness is the crisis of the city.

As we bring forward legislation in this committee, one of the most important things we want to do is make sure that it's been run through the legislation we passed last year.

Last year, we said that any surplus property should first be evaluated to see if we can build affordable housing, and if we can, we should retain that property.

We should build affordable housing, and we should make sure that the lowest income, middle income folks are able to get in the door, and that we help those who are nonprofit developers get access to funds to build if they need so as well.

With the property that we're talking about today on the North Passage, there are City Light lines that run over it.

So it's already been evaluated, as I hear from our City Light team.

There is not the possibility of building affordable housing on that lot.

And in fact, when we talk about this property a little bit more, we'll be talking about the conversations Seattle City Light has had with the Office of Housing.

One of the priorities that we put in the legislation last year was that if a property is going to be sold, that we retain the vast majority, around 80% of the funds to go into the Office of Housing so that any sale actually does benefit our efforts to try to get affordable housing.

So I want to let folks know I've done the double checking, the due diligence to make sure that this rubric has been walked through.

And I want to make sure that as any legislation comes to our committee, or any committee for that matter, because it now not just applies to Seattle City Light, that was our first piece of legislation, that it applies to all properties across the city.

Excited to hear more about that.

Thank you.

Thank you chair for the memo that you sent out this morning Addressing that issue on the strip of land that we're going to discuss today.

So absolutely.

You're welcome I would love for us to start with public comment if we could there's a few folks in the audience and I think we'll start with the Known face Alex Zimmerman.

You have two minutes to speak to items that appear on today's agenda.

I

Ziggy, Ziggy, Ziggy Heil, my lovely Fuhrer.

Yes, Zig Heil.

My name is Alexander.

I want to speak about agenda, about rate.

Fifty percentage people in Seattle, totally poor.

We pay too much.

Amazon, for example, last year make $80 billion only profit.

Profit, $80 billion.

Why we need pay for Amazon?

Why?

Because we have fascism in this city.

When you, together with government, and corporations suck blood and money from us and make life miserable.

How we can fix this?

I, a businessman for all my life, and a business consultant, and I talked a thousand times here for many years.

It's only one way for stopping what is we're doing right now, this criminality.

What is you, together with government, executive branch, and department doing for last few years?

It's a nightmare.

It's exactly.

Only one way is an open public conversation, because by definition, you all work for people, for me or for them.

You understand what I'm talking about?

It's never happened.

So for many years, I think we can fix this problem very easy.

When we open Bertha room in City Hall, it's downstairs, one time per week for open conversation for all day.

So people can come and talk to every Department, every consul, every boss in the city, so we can speak, we have a Q&A.

It's fix it all problem, but you don't doing this.

Why?

You consul must get up.

When you go for election, promise doing this.

So right now, one half year, you never open mouth about doing open bathroom, but you promise us.

So you are liar, and a crook, and potential criminal, because you lie under oath, because you right now make an oath here.

Right now I speak to everybody in Seattle, stand up.

We need clean this dirty department.

Give us money back.

Thank you very much.

The next person that we have to speak is James, or sorry, Dimas.

Dr. Chun, I'm so sorry.

Could you please introduce yourself so that we have your name appropriately on the record?

And we have you signed up for item one, so this is regarding the public hearing on the property, is that correct?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much.

My name is Damester Ronzon.

I'm one of the individuals that's having one of the difficulties with affordable housing in the city of Seattle.

One of the main concerns I have going forward is the effective use of, whether it's the funds or the property itself, and the efficacy of those items.

I have some very big difficulties with the office of housing and how they're using properties how those outline uses have been addressed I've tried to Contact yourself in your office as well as the office of miss want to no avail hoping to get something You know addressed in the near future.

It's happened since the end of middle to end of January I've come in twice to try and talk with several of your offices.

I've left messages I've tried to get in contact people and I was put in contact with somebody as a a representative for the Office of Housing with the City Council that has never really addressed my emails, my calls.

So going forward, I wonder what kind of efficient use of these properties and these funds would continue forward.

Whether there is these items being addressed adequately if the people are being heard regarding some of these issues.

and the agency that would be responsible for taking care of some of these things.

Sadly, I had hoped to address some other issues, but today it seems you're on a focused agenda, but I wanted to hopefully get in contact with you here today to say I would love to talk about potential other issues that are associated with these matters.

The Office of Housing, I don't think it's really kind of addressing, they're already, you know, purpose funds are adequately handling some of the items that they're in control of, specifically levies and other, you know, housing projects that aren't really being made use of effectively.

money that they're getting, the properties that they're handling, and specifically the bunkhouse that's effectively owned by Washington Housing Equity Alliance and California Community Services, managed by SHARE.

There are a lot of ongoing issues, I know, and I'm fully aware that you're, Ms. Mosqueda, that you have started an audit on some of these situations, but trying to get a hold of your office to adequately have these things heard on the record is extremely difficult.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I would ask for you to leave your contact information since we don't have it all here on the sign-up sheet, and we will follow up with you.

This is the biggest priority that we'll be working on in 2019. As you know, last year, we sort of set the parameters.

This year, we're working on the administration and finance plan that helps guide how dollars will be used, not just at Office of Housing, but for our city in general as it relates to housing and affordable housing, permanent housing options.

So if you could leave your contact information, we will follow up with you and can I ask you what neighborhood you live in in Seattle?

Okay, great great we'll also work with the council member that has That district as well to make sure that we get some follow-up and so we'll follow up with you.

Thank you very much, sir Great.

And that concludes our public comment specific to the item of the sale of the public property.

Is there anybody else here who would like to talk about the North Passage?

Okay.

You know, at this time, I think I'll also take public comment as it relates to the other item on our agenda, which relates to the interim report from the review panel.

And the next person I have signed up is Joni Bosch.

Welcome, Joni.

Thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Johnny Bosch.

I'm with the Northwest Energy Coalition.

As you know, the coalition is an alliance of about 100 organizations that have been working on renewables, energy efficiency, fish and wildlife protection in relation to energy generation facilities and low-income programs.

We've been working with this process for a couple of years.

We want to thank the staff for their openness to be willing to work with us and listen to our concerns.

And we have submitted before some of our concerns and some advice we gave to you all about what kind of principles to follow.

So today I just want to underline two major principles as you enter into the next phase of this discussion.

One is it really deals with the components of the bill in a sense and how the customers see what's going with all the work the staff's been doing.

One, we'd really encourage that the customer charge, that's the minimum charge that it takes to get the power, in essence, what the customer has to pay for their bill, should really just be based on only those costs that are directly related to the individual customer.

The meter, the meter reading, the line drop.

to the residents and billing costs.

And the costs related to lines, wires, transformers, substations, all that sort of stuff, we would like to see kept in the volumetric part of the bill.

And what you'll hear today are all sorts of options on how those two pieces will be handled, particularly the volumetric part.

You know, who pays how much, and whether it's a tiered structure, time of use, or whatever.

We would want to encourage you to continue to think about energy efficiency because it's been extremely effective under your current tiered process.

We would want you to still promote distributed energy generation, which could be discouraged if there's individual charges put on individual solar customers.

We'd want to avoid penalizing the frugal and the poor and actually inadvertently reward the wasteful if you did something like a single charge for all energy.

And we would hope that you would be able to expand weatherization assistance programs.

Seattle has always been a leader in those and is looked at around the state as someone who does an outstanding program.

We really see this as an unequaled opportunity when you're looking at this residential rate restructuring.

to grasp this transition that's before you to the inevitable new energy world.

I mean, it's coming no matter what.

And right now, what we have sort of is a top-down system.

You're going to have a multifocus system.

And this is your chance to help the city move into that new world and take advantage of all the opportunities out there.

I can submit this electronically later.

I left my extra copies at the office, so thank you.

Johnny, thank you so much.

Can I ask you a quick question?

Have you had the chance then to review the interim report and this is based on the feedback that you've seen?

Right.

We've been attending as many as we can of the review panel.

We've been reading the materials.

We've met with staff.

Staff's been very open and very supportive of talking with participants in the process.

And so we'd like to thank them for that too.

Excellent.

Very open process.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

We look forward to working with you.

And I have somebody coming out here to follow up with you as well.

Alex, yes, you're next.

Alex, your time starts right now.

Thank you very much, because you always confuse me.

I'm so sorry.

Go ahead and start, please.

Yeah, I'm an old stupid man, so forgive me.

Sieg Heil, my Fuhrer.

My name Alex Zimmerman.

So I once spoken about this plus territory.

What is we want move to?

Housing for poor people.

It's a smart idea.

Imagination.

Yeah.

Fantasy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, where is this flying?

Around, yeah, around fantasy in this room.

We need 250,000 apartment right now, 250,000 apartment.

It's number one.

And number two, what is absolutely critical, when we can speak about this openly without limitation.

You have a privilege for somebody right now who speak more than for two minute, but always guide me.

I have nine trespasses for 930 days.

So what does this mean?

This mean everything what is we talking is a pure BS.

This will be BS forever.

This is exactly what is I see.

I live in the city for 33 years.

Years, and I never see one on this console in my life.

Same about government employee.

No one for 30 years, and I touch this government every day, sometimes five times per day, like today, for example.

It's only one way for stopping this, it's because you are us employee.

You post to be report to us, not listen to us, report to us.

This mean you post to behalf Q&A every month, everybody, without exception.

And Berta Room very good place for this because it's for free.

One day per week you open this and everybody will be happy.

You don't doing this and you, Consul Gonzalez, you are

I'm going to ask that you not allow him to impugn our other council members at this time.

Mr. Zimmerman, you can speak to what's on the agenda, but you will not impugn our colleagues.

This is not what public comment is for.

If you do it again, I'm going to ask that you be released.

Your time is up.

Your time is up.

You need to leave.

Now.

Just for clarification, we actually need 305,000 affordable units in the region.

All right.

Does anybody else like to speak on any of the items that appear on today's agenda?

Wonderful.

I want to thank my incredible colleague, Council Member Juarez, for getting us kicked off here today.

And we will go ahead and start with item one.

Item one on this agenda is the sale of the North Passage lot, Council Bill 119462. And Farideh, if you could read that into the record, please.

Council Bill 119462, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department declaring certain real property surplus to the needs of the city, authorizing the sale of a portion of City Light Department real property to North Passage, LLC, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you so much, and I am not sure if your microphone is on so if City Light could give us our I'm sorry if If Seattle Channel needs us to read that into the record again, maybe they can ping us and just let us know We are on agenda item 1 welcome to the table everyone if we could just have you go through and introduce yourself for the record And then we'll get started I'm Greg Sansil which the real estate services manager for Seattle City Light great.

I Lynn Best, environmental officer for Seattle City Light.

And I just want to say Greg is our new real estate manager, and this is his first time at the council.

Well, welcome.

Welcome.

Are you just the manager for just City Light?

Just City Light, correct.

And he was a great hire, I might add.

We've had an opportunity to work with him a bunch on the Sound Transit Bellevue, and he's a huge difference in the conversation.

So I'm Deborah Smith, and I'm the general manager CEO of Seattle City Light.

Hi, good morning.

I'm Eric McConaughey, and I'm the Council Central Staff.

Great.

Thank you.

I should say that clearly, I'm one of the members of the Council Central Staff.

I'm not the entire staff.

I think that came out wrong.

Anyway, I work for you, and here I am.

Well, we're excited to have you.

Thank you.

Hey, Eric.

How's it going?

Welcome to your new position.

And Farideh, do you want to introduce yourself?

We're also going to be joined at the table by Erin House.

She is new to our staff, who is working on City Light for us as well.

And she'll be working on housing.

And this is a great tie-in, all these topics related to each other.

So thank you guys for getting us kicked off today.

Would you like to start?

Yeah, I'm just going to say, like, two things.

And one is I really appreciated the testimony today about affordable housing and the importance of helping folks find affordable places to live and so this property is really kind of outside of that and I know staff is going to talk about that and I appreciated your comments about due diligence and understanding why this property but I do want to just you know reiterate and I think you and I have spoken and we will be bringing forward And I think we're going to have two properties very soon where we will be making those available for affordable housing, for 100% affordable housing.

And so we've taken that commitment very seriously, and we've been looking at our substation properties.

And so we'll be back soon.

And we're excited about it, actually, because we've been also thinking about other ways we might help and assist, after you and I spoke, how we might help and assist further.

So that's all I really want to say.

to handle this conversation.

Thank you both.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Eric, anything from you before we get started?

No, thank you.

Other than just to say that as you as you talked about earlier council member that last year you led the way with other council members on some resolutions that had to do with the disposition of surplus properties and that's ongoing.

One of those resolutions had to do with city property in general and the other more in particular for city light properties and that's the context that we all are working in right now.

Excellent, thank you.

Well, let's walk through this piece of property on the north passage.

Okay, so could we have the first slide, please?

Okay.

Does the arrow work?

So this is a pretty unique piece of property.

This site is part of City Light's transmission and distribution corridor serving the university substation.

So it's a part of our right-of-way.

It's not a surplus property in the usual sense.

The state of Washington transferred this ownership to us in 1961. And it was left over from their construction of I-5.

And the property already had a commercial building on it.

So then Greg is going to tell you a little bit about what's in this current ordinance.

So this ordinance looks to sell the property to an organization called North Passage LLC, which owns the adjoining property to the west, which houses the larger building that encroaches into the SCL right-of-way.

Part of the sale includes an easement to retain SEL's operation of the distribution and transmission lines through that corridor, while giving the ground rights for the building to continue to exist.

You want the picture yet, right?

Yeah.

We'll do a picture.

Yeah, the picture will explain a lot of these words.

Yeah, so looking at the aerial here, you can see the building encroaches into that.

The red area is the portion we are proposing to sell, and the blue portion is the property of the West.

So are they currently paying us rent for that property that they're sitting on?

Correct.

And we're zoomed in a little bit here, but if you look at the last page of the summary and fiscal note, I'm wondering how close this is to the Dunlumber site that we've also talked about.

Yes, just only by a few blocks so correct correct, okay?

Map challenged, okay, so so we're looking that's going north right this is on the top right yeah, okay?

It's west of i-5 just where the ship canal bridge is and between the Montlake Cut and Lake Union.

Down by the pizza place?

Correct.

See?

Other side of the freeway.

Yeah, that's what I was going to ask.

OK, see?

If you just would have said that, I would have known immediately.

Got it.

I'm map challenged as well.

I just need to know where the Kentucky Fried Chicken and the 7-Eleven is.

And then I say, oh, OK.

Don't do the north, northeast stuff, because that will not work with me.

Even though I'm Native American and people think I know that stuff, I don't.

Okay, just kidding.

Okay, go ahead.

You can see our transmission lines on this map pretty clearly too.

Go directly over even a portion of the building.

And how many feet wide are we talking about here?

It's approximately 30 feet wide.

It varies between 30 and 28 feet as you go through the corridor.

This is in the ordinance.

So Northwest Passage LLC, it's actually Northwest Passage LLC, is interested in purchasing the property to perfect their title for their building.

It also helps us clean up the encroachment issues within our corridor, which is one of the efforts we're undertaking.

And so fair market value?

Fair market value is based on our appraised approach for the property.

It includes the reservation of our easement for SCL.

And how recently was that appraisal done?

It was just recently updated prior to submitting this to council.

Say that again, I'm sorry.

Prior to submitting this for review, it was reviewed and updated.

OK, great.

And we have one, if you want to go, we have a couple more slides coming after the map.

There we go.

So additional considerations for that particular property is that they are under the transmission lines.

Under the current building code, you can't build buildings under our transmission lines.

for safety reasons.

Also, the area is zoned industrial buffer, which is a transition between residential and industrial uses.

And it's also within the shoreline management zone.

Any other additional comments?

No, unless you have questions.

Okay, great.

Any questions at the table?

Okay, so I want to reiterate, we're talking about a parcel of property that is 30 feet wide, that has Seattle City Light wires that run above it, and already has an existing building that's on it, so the opportunity for building housing on this very narrow slice of land is not possible.

That's correct and also we we fire code does not allow us to put residential buildings under the lines.

That's right.

Okay, and If you'd like maybe we could save this for the next discussion But I know that there's ongoing conversations per our legislation last year to ensure that the vast majority of the funds do go into the office of housing we're talking about 220,000 here Not a ton of money, but have there been conversations about where the sale dollars will ultimately end up?

Just to clarify, the 80% amount that was in the council's resolution last year has to do with city property in general, not the city light property was in that resolution set aside because of the rules around the disposition of city light property.

That's right.

Thank you for the clarification there.

Do you mind just elaborating on that for a quick second due to the rate payer requirements?

You said the magic words that I was going to say.

Because of the rules that City Light has to abide by in terms of making rate payers whole for property that the utility runs, there were two resolutions.

One that dealt with city property in general, but that resolution set aside City Light properties and said it doesn't mean this because of the rules around the sale of surplus property for City Light.

And then another resolution did talk about sort of addressing the changes of the state.

with regard to the disposition of City Light or other sort of utility property that could be used for affordable housing.

And that's the other resolution that you alluded to this morning, Council Member.

I do want to clarify, though, we have a memo that also articulates the fact that we think that there's the possibility of making rate payers whole potentially at existing price at the time of purchase, some creative ways to ensure that if there was a non-profit developer that was interested in building affordable housing, then maybe there would be some creative ways to look at how we make that affordable.

In this case, this is a private company.

This is not a property that can't be used for housing.

So I think that this does not apply to that same standard that we had set.

Okay, any additional comments or questions?

Okay, great.

So what I'm gonna do, Council Member Juarez, is I'm gonna ask for your indulgence.

And if you don't have any objections, I'd like the council rules to be suspended to allow for the committee to vote on the recommended council bill in front of us 119462 on the same day as the public hearing that was held.

Seeing no objection.

No objection.

The council rules will be suspended to allow for the committee to vote on the recommended council bill 119462 on the same day as the public hearing was held.

Here we go.

I move the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 119462, authorizing the sale of a portion of Seattle City Lights Department real property to North Passage LLC.

Second.

Any further comments?

Seeing none.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

Great.

We got through that.

Thank you so much.

And I appreciate your due diligence to walk through all those important conditions for us.

We'll see you again.

Thank you.

And thank you for staying at the table, General Manager.

We are excited to have you.

And as we get prepared for this, if the folks who are here to talk about the rate design could please join us at the table, that'd be great.

And Fadi, could you read into the record for us item number two?

Agenda item number two, Seattle City Light rate design for briefing and discussion.

Great.

It's clipping along here, Madam Chair.

Clipping along.

Who are the swimmers?

Johnny.

Johnny.

Let's see if Johnny wants to join us.

Johnny Bush.

Did you want to join us as well?

Would you like to join us as well?

Okay, you're good?

Okay.

So first, let me just say, before we do introductions, thank you again.

I know our incredible rate design, I'm sorry, our review panel members, our volunteer, you all have full-time jobs, and thank you for the tour that we got at Nucor the other day.

That was really great.

would love to have other folks who haven't been there join us again because it's really incredible the way in which you're both conserving energy and creating good living wage jobs, appreciate that.

So in addition to the work that you do in your day jobs, we know that this has been a huge add onto your plate and it's such incredibly important work that you're doing.

We know that we're making up for lost time.

You of the review panel have asked for this to be reviewed in the past and we now are asking you to do this and a pretty accelerated time frame.

So thank you for your work.

And you heard it from members of the community today in their public testimony saying thank you for all of the time and work you put into this and for your transparent and inclusive process.

That's great to hear.

So before we start, just wanted to give folks a chance to introduce themselves and if you would like to start.

Gail Labanara.

Great.

I'm Pat Jablonski, current chair of the review panel.

Debra Smith, CEO general manager of Seattle City Light.

I think your button might not be on.

Still, Libereca City Light Strategic Planning.

Carsten Kroff, I'm the rates manager for City Light.

Excellent, great, wonderful.

Well, thank you guys for all of your work.

We know that you have been working very hard and I want to say thanks for keeping on track.

We know that this is, you know, mid-end of February.

We also recognize we are asking you to come back with a final report later this summer, and it sounds like you guys are very much on track with meeting those goals.

So thank you for this interim report, and I'll let you kick us off, and we may have some questions.

Great, thank you.

So, first of all, Mia Culpa, a million eyes looked at this report, and you're gracious to say this summer, but actually it's April 1, not August 1, so we'll be back soon.

Oh, that's great.

I'll see you very soon.

Yes.

So I apologize for that.

And that was a housekeeping.

The other that I could call it housekeeping, but it's perhaps one of the most important things.

I just need to do a shout out and thank the whole review panel, really.

Because as you said, this was a lot of work.

And it's been, for me as a new person, it's been fun, but it's been challenging.

And it's been a great way to get to know the review panel.

It's work that you've been really engaged in.

So these are our chairs, and I really, really appreciate both of you especially.

But I want to mention the other members of the review panel who aren't here today just so that the public appreciates Sarah Patton and Thomas Buchanan.

David Allen, Leon Garnett, John Putz, and then, of course, our chairs here.

And I would also note that we do have several vacancies, and I know you're considering that, as is the mayor's office, and we're anxious and excited to move forward with a fuller complement hopefully very soon.

So that's that.

I want to also mention staff.

So Lee and Karsten are both here, thank goodness, so that I'm not here by myself, because some of the heavy hitters who really together with Lee and Karsten were working on this before I joined the utility, Robert Cromwell, Kirstie Granger, and Paul Lashober, they're all on much-needed vacations.

So maybe they're watching on TV.

I'm going to guess no, but they'll probably watch the rerun, don't you think?

And then Kathleen Wingers, who has been providing all the admin support and taking care of the group, she's done a fantastic job.

Eric and Greg Scheuring, of course, from the mayor's office, and Eric, who's really come up to speed really quickly, Eric, and we really like working with you, yeah.

It was a lot, but you've asked good questions right from the beginning.

And then, also, really, thanks to Johnny and WAC, because Johnny really has been to almost every meeting.

North we've appreciated as staff the opportunity to really have I guess open collaborative sometimes conversations where we don't agree but it's been really helpful and we the comments that come into the room have been helpful and staff we've also been We've learned a lot by working with them offline.

So thank you for that.

So I was just this morning Saw this Series got sent back out by a call an organization called utility dive and I thought I would just read a quote here but so they're doing a trend line, which is really a series of articles and it's about utility business model reform and And that's what really this is about.

So rate redesign is really about utility business model reform.

And so I thought this was great.

They said, what will rates look like for the utility of the future?

Regulators, industry, and others are working to modernize the grid and keep utilities viable without putting a financial strain on customers.

From subscription style rates to time of use alternatives, many regulators are pushing ahead to drive down peak energy use and maintain a reliable, resilient grid.

The answer, as many experts have told Utility Dive, is a combination of rate making and investing.

This is the part I really like.

There is no silver bullet, more of a golden buckshot to take on this challenge.

So I think, does that resonate for you guys?

You know, as we've been making sausage through this process, it definitely feels like a golden buckshot.

And I want to note that Utility Dive is an organization that talks about both investor-owned utilities like with Puget Sound Energy, as well as public utilities or municipals like Seattle City Light.

And so in this sense, you are the regulators.

So the city council is the regulators who's responsible for setting rates.

And so that's a message to you as much as anyone.

It's a hard place to be, and Johnny mentioned that.

So I'm going to just make a few comments up front, and I'm going to just make sure that we're on the same page with respect to, well, what is rate design and what is the work that we're trying to accomplish here together?

So rate design is a term used to describe the structures used by electric utilities to collect revenues from their customers.

Rates can be designed using any combination of charges, be it fixed, volumetric, consumption-based, peaking, which is demand, and that's a form of rate structure that we often use for larger commercial and industrial customers.

Those are the most common categories today in traditional rate making used to collect revenues.

So, Seattle's growing, and as we all know, that puts a strain on us.

We're serving more and more customers, but our customers are using less and less electricity, which is a good thing, as Johnny pointed out.

We've been very invested in and very focused on encouraging our customers, financially and otherwise, to use carefully, conserve resources, and help us manage the need for new resources in the future.

I can tell you that was real hard in the last few weeks with this Seattle freeze.

I don't think my heater's been on that long for that long of a time.

Council Member Juarez had a quick question.

Deborah, I had a quick question.

You rattled off the variables or the factors for rate design.

They're not in the PowerPoint.

Can you, at some point, just kind of get those to us?

I think it's in the memo, but I will make sure that it's not.

Okay.

Okay?

And I will, we did put together, and I don't recall whether we provided the rate 101 piece to the council more.

Do you know whether we did?

So we have another piece that I'll make sure you get, Council Member Juarez, which is really helpful because it kind of steps through at a pretty high level what's rate design and it was something we put together for the mayor's office as well.

We'll make sure you have that.

Because what we've known from this committee before in discussions when they're looking at potential rate hikes, either in the public or the private sector, people always want to know up front what are the factors that you look at in making a determination.

So if I just, if you could just tell me where, that's all I just need to know and for the viewing public.

I know you rattled them off real quickly, but.

Well, what I said was, so and the distinction is, so rates are a combination of, and this is, I guess this is what we're, the point I'm trying to make.

So when we look at rates, there's this piece around revenue requirement.

which is how much money do we need to collect?

And then there's how do we collect the revenue?

And so when we look at, particularly when we talk about affordability and things like that, those are both super important because obviously what you want to do is you want to manage the revenue requirement.

That's where, when you set the budget and you, you know, there was a requirement that we pull back.

That's part of that whole, let's manage the revenue requirement.

And then once you settle on that number, how are you going to collect it and collecting it in ways that are equitable and fair?

And so when you look at traditional rate design, it's, there's fixed charges.

There's volumetric charges that get collected per KWH, in our case, per kilowatt hour sold.

And then there's peaking charges, which are demand.

So it's, you know, in theory, and this is what Johnny referred to in her testimony, there are certain costs that are fixed to the customer based on the cost of getting power into that home.

And there's, I will just acknowledge that there's disagreement often on what goes into that bucket.

And that's what some of the conversations we've been having with the staff and Johnny is around what goes in that bucket.

The per KWH charge, that includes our power costs, but other costs as well.

And then the demand charge is really around how do you meet need at the time of day when consumption is the highest.

Demand charges or peak consumption is what drives the need for new resources traditionally.

So those are kind of the areas.

So when you get down to the rate design, how do you collect those, it's generally an interplay between those three factors.

What's interesting today is that there's a whole lot of discussion about new rate strategies, new ways of recovering those.

everything from subscription style rates where, you know, Netflix, you know, electricity as Netflix or Amazon Prime.

I mean, that's seriously something that's being considered a lot.

One that we are certainly talking a lot about and we'll talk about a little later is time of use pricing.

So right now, City light collects with a relatively low fixed charge and then we have what's called tiered rates and tiered rates were a and are a Rate design strategy that is is it's designed to encourage folks to conserve It means that you get a fixed set.

I think in our case.

It's in the summer It's 300 kwh and in the winter.

I want to say it's 480 so it's it's in there and And so you get that first block at a relatively low rate, and then you use more, you pay more.

Time of use rates does the same thing, but it vacillates based on when you use the energy versus what time of year or how much you use.

So growing consumption, declining puts pressures on us because it means that the general revenue, the revenue we collect in that volumetric charge is dropping.

rate design is a huge policy issue for us because it will impact the way we are able to gracefully become that utility of the future.

So during the council adoption process for the 2019 to 24 strategic plan, you included in resolution a provision requesting that the new GM, who hadn't been chosen yet, and the review panel, address this issue and recommend changes to rate design.

So that was all very long.

Appreciate the opportunity to share some basics, but this group hasn't been working on revenue requirement.

This group has only been working on rate design at this point.

And so that's one of the things we wanted to make sure that you know.

And so without looking at revenue requirement, rate design is a zero sum game.

So if I take away, if I change my structure so I collect less revenue from one customer group, by definition, if my revenue requirement hasn't changed, I'm going to need to collect more from another.

And so that's a tension.

And when we look at different tools available to us, we are always thinking of that tension and we are always thinking of it from a social and equitable perspective.

How do we do that in ways that are fair, that have customers paying for the appropriate costs of providing the service?

So a few questions.

One is we know that in the strategic plan, we did ask City Light to consider overspends on capital projects and operating ways in which we could be more efficient.

And I know that that's an ongoing conversation that you are leading within City Light.

But in theory, the revenue requirement question is going to be answered through those conversations around ways in which we can be more efficient in operations and construction and maintenance.

Putting that aside, you still feel like you have strong directive to focus on the rate design absent this conversation being concluded on revenue requirement as instructed through the strategic plan?

Yes, absolutely.

They are equally important, and they are separate processes.

So the revenue requirement piece, and we've had some preliminary conversations on that as well, or not preliminary, Paula and Kirstie and I, but we're really, we'll be working taking that up through the budget process and through the capital planning process, and there's initiatives in our strategic plan that deal specifically with that.

And then this piece is around the revenue design, or the rate design piece.

And just for the record, maybe I'll read into the record the requirements listed in Resolution 31819 that outline what we had asked the Seattle City Light Review Panel and General Manager to consider.

We asked you to make recommendations and consultation with key community partners who were kind enough to send us a letter in July of 2017. It sounds like you've been heavily engaged in that process.

To do an update to the rate design, which may include but not be limited to coincident peak inclining block rate, voluntary time of use, more progressive rate blocks for residential rates, rate block for small and medium general service customers, and or other options to create greater stability while promoting conservation, distributed energy resources, and revenue stability for Seattle City Light.

And then in addition, while you consider these approaches, the review panel should recognize that significant increases in fixed or flat charges that reduce the commodity price signal are counter to the city's goals of increasing energy efficiency as well as have disparate financial impacts on low and moderate income households and will be strongly disfavored by city council as part of a final ordinance.

and that this report will come back with your recommendations for our consideration by April 1st.

Thank you for that correction.

I was giving you two extra points.

So that we could potentially consider the recommendations and legislative action to be implemented and updated into the strategic plan.

by July of this year.

So that just for reference, and we'll make sure that this gets into a memo the next time folks come around for the final report so we can see what it is that we asked for, what is your recommending, and sort of what are the next steps.

Right.

Okay.

And these folks were thinking, August, I don't have that many more months to go.

So they're relieved about that.

So this briefing, correct.

That's all correct.

And this briefing is on the rate design project specifically and we're looking for feedback on the initial report.

And so that's what we hope to come away from today.

Make sure that we're on the right path and that we're answering the questions that you wanted answered as we move into the final stages of this work.

So I'm going to turn it over to Patrick now.

And there we go.

Gail, you should provide color commentary as we go.

Please do.

Just look at my face.

And thank you, Chair Mosqueda, Councilmember Juarez, for your time.

And this is a really important issue.

Thank you for volunteering.

appreciate it.

And the panel certainly appreciates the attention that this has gotten.

So up here is sort of the timeline, our work plan.

And as you can see, we've been busy, as has been acknowledged.

We've met 10 times over the last six or seven months and really have kind of dug in and focused on the issue.

The summer was really spent scoping the project and really developing the work plan, as well as planning our outreach, which is a very major component of the work plan.

Thank you, Deborah.

In October, we held two stakeholder meetings that we'll talk in a little bit more detail in a few slides.

November was about synthesizing the input from stakeholders and then we started to focus on this initial or interim report that we're reviewing today.

And so for the month of February, we have some additional outreach both to residential customers as well as another touch point for many of the same folks that we heard from in October.

And then as was mentioned, we have the final report that we should be wrapping up in our March 16th meeting.

Next slide, please.

So really we broke our initial report into four components.

I'm going to speak to two of them and then turn it over to Deborah.

First, our public outreach results.

Second, we'll talk through a comparative study that was part of the request from council that took a look at other utilities.

Talk through some draft policy goals for revised rate design that we're going to call ends.

And the how we get there, what we're terming as means.

What other utilities did you look at?

So, good question.

The report is in, the full report is in the appendix of the initial report as far as which ones.

I can kind of characterize, you know, what's IOUs versus public ones.

Just briefly, to step in, the report covered eight large municipal electric utilities, four large investor-owned utilities in the Pacific Northwest, and three other municipal utilities that have adopted innovative rate designs.

That's to sort of characterize the...

These are the same ones that we've used for comparative analysis before, aren't they?

I don't know the answer to that, but I can get the answer for you.

Because I remember before the studies that we've done, we keep comparing utilities that are similar to what we do in the City of Seattle.

We don't have to go in the weeds on that.

They are meant to be comparable to Seattle City Light.

That's true.

Yeah.

Well, we have a quick pause.

I just want to welcome Councilmember Bagshaw.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Very good to see you.

Yeah.

Nice to see you, Councilmember.

Thank you very much.

Okay, so moving on.

First, Our stakeholder engagement, and we had, as I mentioned, two stakeholder meetings in October, and we also provided the opportunity for feedback for folks to provide feedback in writing.

The participants reflected sort of a wide range of groups, and you can see who we've received feedback from in those October stakeholder meetings on the right of the slide.

We each participant in the process had plenty of time to share their thoughts.

And then really in a conversational format, the review panel asked questions and really got in depth on this, which is, as you're going to hear sort of repetitively, this is a very complex issue.

The feedback in, you know, one thing that the panel noticed that the feedback did include some conflicting requests as Deborah had termed on the rate design side.

It's somewhat of a zero sum game.

And so that was certainly reflected in the feedback that we heard.

For example, one customer noted that city lights demand charges were low compared to the other utilities.

and suggested they be higher.

And then we've heard from others that thought demand charges were too high and could present a potential barrier to things like electrifying fleets and buses.

So it certainly highlights the challenging policy balancing act that's inherited in rate design.

The stakeholder input was incredibly helpful to the panel in both helping us understand the different perspectives as well as a little bit of an education in what potential options are out there.

We did note in the response to the stakeholder input, there was a low response from residential customers.

We in this month we sort of have a process to make up for that and hopefully hopefully hear from those folks as well And that that is ongoing.

I think we've had two of three of our focus groups Can talk a little bit more about what that process is for reaching out to residential customers, especially the lower-income folks We have conducted three focus groups We have had two

residential customer focus groups, and the third is Spanish-speaking customers that was held last night.

And that was a really good opportunity.

We struggled with the concept of putting a survey together, but the issue was so complex we thought anything we wrote would be difficult for your average residential customer to respond to, which is why we opted to engage an organization to help us bring people in and have a good long conversation about rate design concepts and principles and priorities.

And those results will be available in early March and will be included in the final report or will inform the final report.

Great.

And how did you do outreach to encourage folks to come to that?

For our strategic plan, if you recall, we did a quite extensive outreach customer survey.

During that survey, we asked customers to indicate if they would be interested and willing to participate in subsequent efforts.

So we went back to those, the marketing firm that we engaged went back to those customers and asked them to participate.

And then the last question on this is, do you have any more of these focus groups coming up that we might be able to audit?

Not audit in the official sense, but that I might be able to sit in on so I could learn as well?

Well, they're concluded for now, but as you know, our strategic plan initiative with regard to rate design will continue to do further residential customer outreach.

So certainly, I audited one Tuesday night, and it was fascinating to listen to customers talk about the utility.

Yeah, I bet.

I would love to attend.

I know some of my colleagues might as well.

So if you could let us know, we may be interested in sitting in on that.

Absolutely.

Debra, you're like, I'm not going to sit with that.

I don't know about that.

It's like when you tried to take me hiking.

I wasn't doing that either, so.

Thank you for the invite.

You're welcome.

I'm sure Councilor Bagshaw would like to, though.

I would like to go on a team with you.

Right.

Thank you for that.

I saw your face.

They are recorded, however.

Oh, OK.

Could you send us that?

And the Spanish-speaking one, too, might be of interest.

Yeah, we can get you that video.

Thank you.

Next slide, please.

Sorry.

So part two of the four items that are covered in the initial report has to do with the comparative utility study.

We sort of briefly went over this a few moments ago, but conducted by a third party that was somewhat of an expert in rate design, Cuthbert Consulting.

They're called Cutthroat Consulting?

Cuthbert.

Oh.

Somebody needs to get on brand.

I told you this is a messy process.

You know yesterday I was out sick and so my ears are a little plugged up still.

My apologies.

That is funny.

So as was mentioned, surveyed eight large municipals, four investor-owned utilities in the Pacific Northwest, and then three other municipal utilities that were specifically identified because I think one of the asks from council was that we take a look at innovative sort of rate designs.

And so we specifically identified three, then incorporated them into the comparative utility study.

And, you know, many of the themes out there were very consistent with what we've heard from at our October stakeholder sessions.

You know, lots of stuff around utilities leveraging new technologies like advanced metering and offering a little bit more sophisticated rate designs that vary by time of day.

also the incorporation of industrial rates for large customers, or I'm sorry, interruptible rates for large customers that help with things like grid congestion.

So I don't want to interrupt your flow.

I'm very interested in what some of these alternatives are.

I know over the years that we have spoken about what can residents and residential customers do to help lower their bills.

And you've just hit on a couple of things, whether they're tied in with the solar on their roofs, whether that really has an impact around here, the notion that they could use off-cycle.

Say that again?

Time of use.

And so if you can focus a little bit on that today and just help us understand because on this council, I know that you all know this, that we've had one or two council members who really believe that the residential rates are too high, industrial rates are too low.

So I'd like to hear what residential users could do to actually help themselves lower their rates.

Thank you.

And I'll likely turn it over to Debra who can articulate it a little bit better.

But the full comparative utility study is in an appendix in this report, as well as our, we sort of attempted to summarize and put things in buckets.

And that's also contained in the report.

Good.

Feel free to continue your presentation if you can just put a bookmark in that question when you come back to it.

OK.

Thanks.

And also there was some discussion with utilities or some examples of utilities doing things like innovative pilot rate programs such as, like you had mentioned, for electric vehicles, critical price, a really high price for a short period of time to manage system peaks, and some of the very things that you were just speaking about.

And as I mentioned, that's contained within this report.

All right, so it's back to me.

So one of the things when I joined the group, and the group had done a lot of this work, I think my first meeting was the second public input session.

So a lot of the work had already been done.

But I came in.

You know, so we started talking about this concept of means and ends, because I think as a policy board, and Council Member Baxter, you got here a little late, I spoke earlier about how investor-owned utilities obviously have regulators, you know, generally in Olympia, in Washington State, and you are the regulators, the council is the regulator.

for this publicly owned municipal utility.

And so we are, you know, policies, as we go through this really kind of arduous work around thinking about policies, which are not, many of them are in direct conflict with one another.

should have longer lives.

So the policy directives, I believe, should guide and support rate design today, but rate design is changing very, very rapidly.

And so what we want is we want policy direction that describes the ends that we're trying to achieve.

and prioritizes those ends, quite frankly, because, again, some of them are in conflict.

And then the means will change.

And that is particularly true for us because, as Patrick just noted on the previous slide, you don't need to go back, but technology is a huge enabler for different rate structures.

And City Light is poised to have that kind of enabling technology.

But we don't have it yet.

So if we go through this whole effort and we focus on the means versus the ends, the means will change.

And once AMI is fully functional and we have the second phase of integration and the three phase meters in, we will have the ability to do things that, quite frankly, we can't do today.

So we want to focus on And those are the policy objectives.

Deborah, can I stop you for a minute?

I want to go back to the sentence that you said, because we've heard this one from the former director as well.

When you say technology is a huge enabler, you mean as a means to an end to have more efficiencies and make more money and provide more, I'm not sure.

Now, in this case, what I'm talking about is a couple of different things, and one of them gets directly at Council Member Bagshaw's question.

So one of the reasons for going, why utilities are going and adopting advanced metering infrastructure, which is AMI, advanced meters is because it gives significantly more choice to customers in terms of rate design and how they use electricity.

It gives them a lot more information, and it allows us to offer options.

So I think one of the things that we heard from the focus groups that you'll hear in the second phase is, and I'm going to get at this one, is customers like choice.

And I think, you know, Johnny mentioned that.

In the future, utilities who have kind of, you know, right now we have one residential rate.

And it changes by time of year ever so slightly.

But that's it.

Customers want choices that allow them to do the things you're talking about, that allow them to consume in different ways, to manage their homes and their families' consumption patterns, to save money, if that's their highest priority, or perhaps to So the point is, as customers have different things that they value, and so choice enables them to do those things.

And we are not quite there yet.

So that's the point here.

So technology will enable that.

Now, I think, Councilmember Juarez, I think where you're going with that is technology will also enable us to take to better utilize our long position.

So we talk about being long on power because we have more power.

We have more generating and long-term contract power than we use most of the time.

Not all the time.

So, you know, because we have risk management guidelines that require us to close and manage that risk, we've been out in the market during this cold period of time buying power on a regular basis.

But most of the time we are a net seller of power.

And so the technology that we use with our customers, AMI, and the way we design rates to incent a time of use, the times that our customers use electricity.

On the flip side, the technology that we are putting in place, for instance, that will allow us to participate in the energy imbalance market, the Western energy imbalance market, another subject that we'll be bringing to you shortly, will allow us to reduce over time the revenue requirement.

So that gets back, now we've gone full circle and we're back to the very beginning, but that is, so it is on both sides of the equation.

When you say that we don't have the technology yet, it's really waiting or anticipating the AMI full implementation?

Yes.

Okay, so when is the anticipated completion of the AMI project and how soon will we be able to leverage that technology?

Right.

So we are, as you know, we have completed the mass installation of the AMI meters and we are moving into the installation of the three phase meters.

We are also going back through, we are at the point where when you did the mass deployment, I always use the example of I showed up at Councilmember Bagshaw's house and she had a roast in the oven.

She said, no, I can't take a power outage right now, so we moved on.

I mean, that's literally how you do it.

And so then you have a process of going back through.

And some of those people are people that we really need to work with because they may choose to opt out.

Very few of our customers have opted out.

And others, it's just a question of there's an access issue or it wasn't convenient.

So we're doing those two things.

We're in that piece, we're beginning the three phase, and then we're doing the implementation of the second phase integration software.

So what we've done so far allows us to use the AMI data for the meters that are installed for billing purposes, but we need an additional level of software to allow us to do complex things.

One of them is the customer portal project.

And we chose a customer portal vendor in December, and we are just about done negotiating the contract with that vendor.

And then that process will begin.

And that's a joint venture between City Light and Seattle Public Utilities.

And one of the things that product will do is it will allow customers to go online and choose.

I mean, we will basically, they will be able to take historical data and it will allow us to put multiple rate programs or multiple rate designs in and the customer can run their information and see what they would be paying using different rate plans.

And that was a critical piece of the project and that's a critical piece to get to where you're talking about.

I can look at when I use power and what would my bill look like under A, B, or C rate design.

I think following up on Councilmember Misquita's question, let's say that my condo has now been retrofitted with the advanced metering.

When would I have access to that information and when could I begin making those choices?

Not certain.

Again, the portal, the bulk of the portal availability should be in, I would say, by the end of this calendar year.

That's the goal.

But you won't have access to rate design choices until we develop those.

And I think what we've been proposing right now is that, and I'm jumping to the end here, but that's okay, that we would do some pilots, which we will come back and talk to you about, probably not April 1, but as part of our rate design project that we're working on over the summer, that we would develop some pilots that we could implement as soon as the 1st of 2020, but that it would be 2021. Is that correct, Carson?

You wanna jump in on this?

No, 2021 would be when we would have price options.

Right.

So that's what we're looking at.

I'd like to definitely come back to that timeline that's being suggested before we leave here.

But I do want to talk a little bit about the red flag I see when we talk about online options and creating plans that consumers can choose from.

So I'm just going to put this out there as an analogy and ask the review panel to consider this as you think through various options when you come back.

You know, having sat on the health insurance exchange board as one of eight members of that board, being the person that was there to represent consumers, consumer and working families, a lot of times people said health care is going to be more affordable because people will be able to have choices.

You're going to be able to go to this portal.

You're going to be able to choose your plan that meets your needs.

And for a lot of working families, it's just very confusing.

And so when I hear there's going to be various options, you can see how much you'd pay under these various designs.

You can make choices about when you would be able to use energy or not.

Just thinking about how that played out in the healthcare world when we had the exchange portal and everyone thought that you would just go online and pick the plan that met your working family needs.

It was very, very confusing.

And I don't think that a lot of consumers, especially moderate and low-income consumers, have the time and the capacity to compare plans without a very complex online calculator to help them, without an actual individual to help them.

And we spend a lot of time telling folks people are, you know, they really need somebody to help them walk them through those options.

I just put that out there as a red flag.

As I hear you'll go online, you'll be able to make these decisions based on the rates that pop up.

It did not work like that in the real world.

So I don't presume that is what you're talking about, but that's how it is.

I heard it, and that was my experience with the online exchange.

And people end up making decisions basically based on the bottom line without knowing sort of the consequences, right?

Are there additional penalties if you use it at this time or that time?

So it's different plans.

I understand health insurance is very different than the rate plans you're talking about here.

But from the consumer's experience, I'd ask you to think about that experience as well.

And I think that is an excellent point.

I think one thing is that the online portal does provide an online calculator, so that is one of the differences.

And it does have access to your actual usage in the past, which is different because in the exchange we were working hard to, in many cases, move folks who had not been insured before.

And so in this case, there would be historical data that shows how our product has been used in the past.

But ultimately, you're absolutely right.

And the other thing is that most, and I know we've had conversations with Nancy Hirsch and others about this, even the most aggressive utilities are offering opt-out plans.

there's always the option of having kind of the vanilla pricing model that we have today.

We're not talking about taking that away from customers.

So we're talking about giving additional choices and customers who, and there will certainly be resources available for people who want to talk through what their options are, but people who don't want to will have the opportunity to opt out and stay where they are.

Thank you.

I looked at page six, Patrick, when you mentioned, so I saw the eight large municipalities, the four and the three, and then also the things that you looked at for specific rate design concepts.

So thank you.

I should have looked at that.

I apologize.

I wanted to ask you a question when you talked about when consumers have choices like, let's just take someone like me.

And when we get the AMI completely online, right?

We're not completely online yet.

So does that mean, just for people watching and following up on Chairwoman Mosqueda, so does this mean that just like someone like me could look at my bill, let's say two years from now, we're all online, and say, I only want to use this many kilowatts in my home.

for efficiency and for the environment and to reduce my carbon footprint and all that great stuff.

Would there be a way for Seattle City Light to give me a warning when I've reached what I deem a particular threshold that I don't want to go over?

Because I have to say right now with City Light, I'm just going to brag about myself.

You know how you get that thing in the mail that tells you where you're rated.

Guess who is in the top 10 for the last five years?

My kids actually say they come to the house with a miner's lamp.

I don't let anything on, I unplug stuff, because I get very competitive with my neighbors.

I'm like number nine now.

I don't know who number 10 is, but I'm going to find them.

Or number eight.

So my point is, will there come a time where we can actually do that?

I don't want to over promise and then under deliver, but I can tell you that the portal has app.

There are apps that will work with it.

And depending on the rate choices that we provide, yes, I mean, that's what we talk about.

And, you know, there's a lot of flexibility.

That's part of where I get into means and ends.

So the means are evolving, and the portal will evolve with the specific rate strategies.

But it does have an app.

You, and this again, this speaks to you.

This probably speaks to what Councilwoman Bagshaw was asking.

You know, I have an app.

I can look at this, and I can see what my consumption looks like.

It'll be fairly real-time.

Customers will have, customers, the app, or the, once this process is complete, we will have 15 minute data for residential customers and five minute data for commercial and industrial customers.

So it will really allow people who want to take the time, but it also won't be hard to look at.

I mean, it'll be pretty easy to, I mean, it's designed to send signals to customers.

Can I have unplugged everything but the fish tank, just so you know?

What?

And my cable.

Yeah, good, good.

Could you talk about the language issues that will...

Yeah, it will deal with all the languages.

Okay, I'm excited that you're considering all these options.

Can I cover ends and means quickly?

Yes, please.

I do want to give you an example, though, because I feel like this is still analogous to what we hear a lot in the health insurance world, which is customers have to have skin in the game.

They have to know how much some of these, you know, things are when they go to the emergency room from unnecessary treatment or If they're going to the doctor too frequently, I don't know.

This is sort of the analogy that I hear all the time.

Got to have some skin in the game.

So in a way, we're trying to make it more transparent so people understand the energy costs that they're spending, how much that could impact their pocketbook, but also how well or not well they're doing with getting to energy efficiency goals.

I know you're going to talk about some options and models for our lowest-income consumers, but I think a really important reminder is we've got 52% of Seattle residents who are renters.

And as a renter myself, I'm really lucky.

I have a great apartment.

It was built in 1902, though, and it has single-pane windows.

In that first phrase that came along with all the wind, because the snow was piling up against the window, I literally had ice on the inside of our window, ice that you could feel on the inside of the window that was two inches tall and about a quarter inch thick.

And I say that because in order to keep our little apartment warm in those two week period, we had to have the heat on around the clock.

If we were to have turned it off and then come home and turned it back on, it would have taken hours to warm up.

So I want us to think about how we apply this concept of skin in the game and incentives and transparency with the data, especially for folks who don't have the ability to do better weatherization for their homes and who don't have the ability to really turn the heat off when they're not there and then turn it back on and have an energy efficient home that will warm up quickly.

I'm lucky, right?

I'm very lucky to have a good living wage job and my husband as well.

But we, I think our apartment is an example of if people were trying to save some money, they would be living with ice on the inside of their window during that storm period.

So that's, yeah, I mean, and I don't have the answers.

What I can say is, again, and then Johnny will probably be glaring at the back of my head right now, but I think some of the things you're raising are actually reasons why there's a, It's just gonna change, I don't know.

There's a lot of people who are seriously looking at, for some of the reasons you just mentioned, subscription-based services for certain types of customers where it truly is a fixed, perhaps fixed percentage of income that is being paid for electricity and I don't have to worry about it and I get a signal on my app which goes to my watch telling me that I'm going to run out of data, per se.

The issues that you're raising are all the issues that are being talked about right now.

So they are the right issues.

And I will say that I read a lot of stuff about this, but honestly, the healthcare marketplace, those are real, experiences that color the work that folks are doing looking at rate design.

So it's a challenging area that's rapidly changing.

Well, thank you for validating my healthcare analogy.

I feel better about that now.

But similar to healthcare, right, we need heat in order to live.

And so this is not exactly an easy process to talk about affixing a dollar amount to this commodity.

That's quite essential for living.

So there's another comparison.

I do want to remind us though that in the resolution it does, we did signal that the review panel should recognize that significant increases in fixed or flat charges that reduce commodity price signal are counter to the city's goals of increasing energy efficiency and as well as have a disparate impact on low and moderate income households.

So I know it's part of the plethora of the items that you're considering.

I want to signal that it is concerning though for me just from having heard about what happens in other municipalities that have used a What's it called a fixed rate like that where you pay a subscription every month?

Yeah, we're not and when I want to be clear I mean again, this is what I'm saying in terms of change.

We're not gonna We're not going to be coming forward to you proposing that we do a fixed price subscription.

I mean, and, you know, rate stabilization may or, you know, it's possible that we will be looking at a small increase in the fixed charge because, again, one of the things that we worry about all the time, and this is, This is hard.

I mean, this is really hard stuff because we have, and remember, I should point out that looking at the utility discount program was out of the scope of this project, and there is a separate process that is in play looking at the UDP.

So we've worked hard to stay clear of that, even while we think So I don't want to talk all the time in every discussion about the impacts of the discussions and the decisions and the recommendations we might make on limited income customers.

But, you know, there are lots of great things about unit pricing or about consumption-based pricing.

customers who are receiving a percentage discount, then in fact, there is a do loop.

It does raise the amount that the UDP customers are paying because you are collecting less, you are selling fewer units, so your unit, if you're collecting your revenue in your units, your unit pricing is going up, and then those very customers that you're trying to help are seeing their prices go up as well.

So, again, I'm not saying that we have an answer to that.

I'm just saying that we're very aware of the the challenge of the equation.

So quickly, on ends, and this is a great example of it, because the other thing your resolution talked a lot specifically calls out the conservation ethic, which is very, very strong and embedded in this community, but interestingly, doesn't talk about electrification or deep decarbonization.

And that is also a high priority for the city of Seattle, and it's something that we've talked about quite a bit at the group.

The ends are these things that we think rate design should promote.

So they are more the policy statements.

So they're kind of the foundational concepts that have been a part, many of them have been a part of City Light's rate design for many, many years, like rate sufficiency or revenue sufficiency, I should say, certainly energy efficiency.

and stability, predictability, and even transparency.

The way we pass on, for instance, bountiful power costs is a measure of transparency.

We want customers to understand how those costs affect them.

Some of these goals have been revised or added or to intentionally align with the city's priorities.

And they reflect kind of the changing world that we live in with respect to energy efficiency, our views on carbon, and what we hear from our customers.

You know, cost-based is one that, because of declining revenues, cost challenges, and customers changing how they use or generate, you know, distributed energy resources, rooftop solar, et cetera, which is, you know, critical.

Cost-based is being critical for our rate design elements to align with our cost of providing service.

So we have to, you know, as we're working on this revenue requirement, on the one hand, We have to have rates that align with that on the other.

That's the only way we can ultimately keep our utility rates stable and help customers make good energy choices.

Decarbonization, that aligns with Seattle's Climate Action Plan.

Electric rates that encourage conserving electricity, investment in efficient technology like heat pumps and LEDs, reduce fossil fuel use by choosing electricity to power cars, heaters, those all contribute.

So sometimes what we think about is our rate structure as we incent less use from existing resources, though we think that we want to encourage people because we have a carbon-free resource.

We have abundant carbon-free resource in this.

We are so fortunate to have that.

So we, on the other hand, we want to incent, and I don't think, Johnny or Nancy would disagree with that.

We want to incent customers to electrify because it is an abundant resource and quite frankly because electrification will help stabilize the utilities revenue stream even while we continue to incent smart use of that resource.

So it's a challenge.

So sometimes overtly those two tug at each other.

And, you know, as a community, we're going to have to continue.

And we've talked about it a lot.

There isn't any, it's not a, go back to my analogy, there's no silver bullet.

It's a lot of buckshot.

So how do we do both?

Thank you.

Affordability, electricity, as you very eloquently pointed out, is a public service.

And it's an essential service.

So we need rates that make our service accessible to everyone.

And then I've already talked about customer choice.

We want to be able to meet our customer owner's needs.

And that's residential customers, which has really kind of been the focus.

But it's also people, you know, I mean, Patrick and I have had great conversations about everything from interruptible rates to distributed energy rates.

We don't want to disincent people who choose to invest in rooftop solar.

Quite the contrary, we think that's an important part of our energy future as a community.

And so we need rates that allow for choice and don't penalize people and let people figure out their own ways.

I mean, one of my things I think, I don't know if it made it into the memo or not, but, you know, my kind of unofficial vision is that, you know, our goal is to help our customers use, you know, make energy choices, use energy in whatever way they choose.

Because that's the future.

And if we aren't doing that, someone else will.

It's that simple.

So that's, those are my, those are the ends.

And then, you know, touching briefly on the means, which are, these are, this is the area where I think things are really evolving.

You know, I do think there's a fair consensus that time of use rates is going to make a lot of sense for Citi.

Let you guys agree in the discussions?

And I think that's true in the conversations that we've had with the customers we've heard from and even back with NWAC.

So time abuse rates are a tool that allow us to help our customers.

It puts a lot of control in customers' hands.

And usually time of use rates are talked about in terms of, like, if we were living in California or Nevada, it's about time and location.

For us, it's less about location, but what we know is that, again, our abundant carbon free resource has a value in a in the Northwest and beyond as states and cities grapple with how to reduce their carbon footprint.

And so that resource has more or less value at certain times of the day.

And one of the things that us participating in the energy and balance market will do is it will allow us to make better use of that abundant long position in our resource.

And so using our rate structure with customers to help move consumption so that we can be selling more power at the times of day when the market values it higher will be of direct benefit to our customers.

So that's the way we think of it, and that's why we think time of use rates will be really valuable.

Going back to that same article I read to you this morning, or as we opened, I thought this was in 2007 so this supports what you were saying in 2017 there were 84 pending or decided utility proposals for higher customer charges Though only six were fully approved.

This is largely with PUCs.

So with state regulators and they said There were 51 utility proposals of 24 decided only two utilities got the full increase they asked for.

Those rejected utility proposals for customer charges suggest regulators expect something better.

Rates based on time and location attributes could be the something better.

That's kind of the idea.

There was, I lost it, but it's a huge percentage of customers of IOUs.

I think it was 50% of investor-owned utilities are offering some form of time of use pricing.

And overall, when you look at all utilities, it's running around 15 to 17%.

So it's really the way things are moving for a lot of people, because it's a good balance.

So we want rates that support electrification, that's a means that we know, and that's around It's certainly around personal use of electric vehicles, but in this community, it's really around transit.

It's around electrification.

It aligns well with the mayor's priority on electrification.

And so we don't, I don't want to leave you with the impression, we don't have an idea what that means today.

We just know that as we're thinking about means, that's a primary area that we need to think about.

And so pilot programs, we're looking at, you know, we're working on what we could do with an interruptible rate potentially with Bonneville's help.

We'll be looking and we're having some very preliminary conversations whether there's a way we can partner with a metro as they are piloting electric buses?

Is there a way that we could pilot or learn about our own rate structure?

Generally, when I talk about pilots, by the way, just so I don't leave you with a wrong impression, I think about revenue neutral pilots.

So you take, at this point, you look at a small group of people.

you run people through some alternative structure and there's an agreement at the end that you're able to neutralize the revenue impact.

So it's not something, it's more around learning.

Can I ask a quick question?

This is totally down the road you're talking about.

You don't have the answers today.

But let's take Metro's buses and if they could do nighttime charging.

Are there batteries sufficient, like they could charge them at 1 a.m.

and have them available for the next 24 hours?

How do we do that?

Yeah, I don't know, but that's what we're talking about.

So those are the kinds of things we were talking about.

So how do you, because obviously, you know, you've got demand issues, and so there's an incentive on their part to minimize that.

So maybe there's a way to do time of use instead of demand prevents us from experiencing peaks at wrong times of day and allows them to get their needs met.

So that's the kind of thing that we're talking about.

They're looking at charging stations at different locations if they need it.

Yeah.

Okay.

The fast charge, the intermediate fast charge, right.

Question on a back of the envelope estimate.

So when we were listening to the state of the city and I heard every new building we'll have, I thought we were going to say childcare.

You're right.

And so when we heard electric vehicle charging, is there a back of the envelope estimate of how much that would impact?

I don't have any idea how much those charging portals use in terms of cars.

Obviously we want to reduce car emissions or carbon emissions in the air and that helps.

But do we have an idea of how much energy that uses?

No, we don't yet.

And we're just starting those conversations.

So I mean, I think that We'll be working with the mayor's office to understand fully the goals and the timing.

And I know, I believe that Jessica Finn-Colvin is kind of in lead on that.

And so we'll be working with her.

Wonderful.

The last one on there, again, we'll come back and talk to you in detail about any pilot programs that we seek to offer, but we are looking at how we could potentially learn about how we bundle rates with energy efficiency for qualified customers.

And so this gets at the thing around location, so we know that there are I think I've mentioned this before, we know that there are places where, to your point, where housing stock is not as efficient, because consumption is higher than a typical customer uses, and we know there are places where that absolutely aligns with household income.

And so the notion is, could we do a pilot where we go in and we explore, could we come in ahead of time and do all the energy efficiency we can, make the home as efficient as possible, and then on a zero sum game, explore what would a fixed price contract look like for that customer group.

So that's the kind of thing that we'll be looking at.

The last thing is, you know, we do see a huge right now, as we're doing all these other things, as we're exploring pilots, we are getting our AMI system fully implemented and integrated so we can do cool stuff in the future.

You made a great point, Councilmember Muscata, there is a lot of education that needs to happen.

The review panel has talked about that a lot.

It is a heady topic.

is an opportunity to begin to educate customers around their consumption, around rate design, around control.

And so that's a piece that we're going to be taking on.

And Patrick talked about the the review work that we did looking at other customers.

And that was one of the most interesting parts was looking at, there's again no silver bullet there, but looking at all the different ways customers were educating or not, right, their customers.

So some have really complex rate design and really complex bills, and others are doing a really good job of using their rate structures and billing to educate and bring customers along.

I already mentioned UDP.

I guess one last thing I want to just mention before I move on is around decoupling so decoupling you know we have the rate stabilization account and decoupling is another we took it we set it aside here because we said well it's not really it's not a rate design it's not a rate program per se but decoupling is a way that we could look at expanding the rate stabilization account and basically what it does is it it holds and it's a It's a tool that's been used by investor-owned utilities for a long time with state regulators, where the cost and effort of doing a rate case is huge.

And so just like our current we currently we pass through Bonneville rate increases a decoupling what it does is it decouples revenues from the conservation ethics so it would make the utility whole if customers continue to use less due to effective use of conservation, it provides for an automatic pass-through so that the revenue is held whole.

And so we've had a lot of conversation about that, but we actually kind of put that aside for the purposes of this discussion because, again, it's not a rate that the customer sees.

It's around how you, as the regulator, might work with us.

Do you want to add anything to that?

Is that a fair way of putting it?

Yeah, no, I think that's a fair way.

It's a trade-off, again, about having customers having stable bills and the utility having stable revenues.

You can't always have the same, so that's something we'll be exploring.

Diving into next steps or discussion questions, because I've got one category I'd like to bring up.

I feel like I've gone too long, so I'm going to be really quick on next steps, because I think we've mostly already spoke about this.

So, you know, we finished the focus groups, and we shared that, and we'll have an initial report and information back to you on that.

Our final report to you is due April 1, and so then I would imagine we'll be coming back in April to talk with you about that and give kind of a final wrap up here.

And then the rate design strategic initiative, which is part of our strategic plan, we'll pick up from there.

In fact, there's a tremendous overlap, and we'll be continuing to work with the review panel on that as we pick up that work and move forward into more of a technical piece.

That'll be happening at the same time that we're starting to look at budget and looking at the strategic plan update, and ultimately looking at the revenue requirement as part of the budget process.

Yeah, Patrick just rolled his eyes.

He's going like, oh, no, really?

It's time again?

Yes, it is.

So that's really after final report work will continue.

So that's where we're at.

So questions?

I got one.

I got one.

So you have talked about UDP and thank you for that.

You know that's a big issue policy-wise here and as well with yourself.

One phrase I haven't heard you use is age-friendly.

And we have our age-friendly action plan that was completed last year.

And the goal of that is not just looking at people who are older, but making whatever we do for our infrastructure available to everyone.

It's easiest if you think about sidewalks.

You think about somebody who's trying to move around our city being able to get off a sidewalk, whether it's somebody in a walker, somebody in a wheelchair, an eight-year-old riding her bike, whatever.

With the idea of age-friendly four-year utility strikes me that we've got some great opportunities for outreach in this community, trying to keep people in their homes.

Because we know seniors want to stay in their homes as long as possible.

Part of it is a rate for the cost of just simple electricity and water, but also understanding how they can use this technology.

That's not to say they're not capable, but that may be new to them.

So I hope that as you're doing this outreach, that you will be very intentional about reaching out to groups and organizations.

Inside the city of Seattle, Irene Stewart and Kathy Knight are heading Age Friendly for Our City.

So you've got resources right there.

We defined ourselves, I think it was 2016, as an age-friendly city.

It's an appellation given.

by the World Health Organization and AARP.

So if I can work with you on this, if you've got any questions, I just think it's important that we keep bringing it up because we talk oftentimes about in this work, you know, residents and businesses.

But if we can just take that next step and say there are people in our city who could really use this extra boost of understanding, it would be great.

No, that, my mom is, she's 83 and she lives in Eugene and she's, we just had a conversation about that this last weekend.

So she was in the workforce and so she learned to use technology but she lives in a fully independent living senior center but most of her friends do not.

They do not, they just don't.

The best they do is manage to look things up on the internet.

She can, so that's a great point.

Good, thank you.

Other questions?

Did you have anything else to add?

No?

Okay.

Is that the end of your presentation, Debra?

That's the end of our presentation.

So I have a few questions.

Council Member Juarez, did you have anything before I jump in?

Nope.

Okay.

As we look at the timeline that you've proposed here, on the bottom of slide nine, I think the initial thought was that we would have a report back and a crunch timeline.

Thank you again.

Because we had hoped to try to implement strategies at the end of 2019 to affect rates in 2020, so could you tell me more about what would need to happen in order to make a 2020 rate change possible versus waiting till 2021?

We just don't have the technology.

I mean quite honestly, I mean if we looked at changes, and these are certainly things we're looking at.

Are the tiered rates appropriate?

Are the tiers appropriate?

Is the fixed charge appropriate?

And those are things we're looking at in conversations we're having.

But we don't have the technology to make any of the design changes.

We can't go to time of use rates with our current technology platform.

That's really the gist of it.

And since we know customers value predictability, and we know there's a huge educational component to prepare customers for more sophisticated rate design, rather than doing something that's, you know, little tiny bites around the edges and then doing something again a year later, it feels like doing the rate redesign or the, excuse me, the bill redesign and beginning the educational process and thinking, really being thoughtful about how we would roll changes out is, will be better for customers, quite honestly.

I mean, we just don't have the, and again, hopefully pushing very hard to do a couple of robust pilots so that when we do move things out, we understand what our customers need and want.

So one of the things that we like to say is, how can we get to yes?

If you don't have the technology right now, but you already have AMI in hand, and you're going through phase three of getting folks online, it didn't sound like there was an ask of us to add any new technology to Seattle City Light or enhance the AMI structure.

What would you need from us in order to get to yes for a rate change in 2020?

Gosh, here's where it's really nice to have only started working here four months ago.

I, you know, I don't think you can.

I mean, I don't think there's a way to get that project complete significantly sooner.

Like, you need the second level integration.

And I, you know, Saad just started three weeks ago.

We haven't even had a chance to really talk about Saad as the new Seattle IT director.

to really talk about, you know, his, he's doing his very initial assessment.

So the project is in the, it's very much happening and it's in the queue, but, you know, it will, yeah, I just, I don't think we can, we can't, we wouldn't have the portal.

I like to always get to yes, council member.

I really do.

I just, I, I, and these guys will tell you, I pushed on the pilots, right?

And originally there was, you know, but I, yeah.

Any of, any of you want to jump in, Lee?

And I think the reason that we had such a short timeline for you all is because we really were hoping for us to be able to work in quarters three and four of 2019 to get something up for 2020. Feedback from you guys about that conversation at the review board?

There's just so much.

I mean, even just bill redesign, adjusting residential block rates, time of use, all of these things need to be vetted completely.

And we haven't even jumped in.

We've just been doing the stakeholders.

We're trying to get down into the weeds.

And once we're in those weeds, it's going to take at least a year or two, I think, to be honest.

So, I would suggest this, and I share Council Member Mesquita's always desire to get to yes, as I know that you do too.

Let's look for some quick wins.

Let's, you know, as you're going through this, give us a timeline.

Tell us what's going to work.

Like you just said, a year or two, you know, we always kind of swallow deeply because some of us come and some of us go, right?

So we're trying to look at what we can count on.

So if some of your quick wins are this is what we could do by the end of 2019, let us know what those are.

Let us know what looks like in 2020. I think that would be valuable.

It would also allow us to be able to be supportive of you in outreach, like just coming back to the age-friendly project.

If you'll work with me on this, we can be real clear about what we're doing and what the schedule can be.

If it's just that amorphous, well, it's going to take us two years to get there, you know, it's like that stab in the heart, like, oh, really?

Everything takes so long.

And I'm sort of reminded of the fact that we had the letter from you all I think at the review panel early 2018 We had the community letter that we received July 2017 so it's not for lack of your trying to make sure that this was part of our work plan at the council for many years, but And I'm trying to think back to previous letters beyond 2017. I wasn't here, but I know that this is something folks are saying they're hungry for and you want to roll it out and do it correctly.

interested in reading more of the details in the report, maybe working with you to get some ideas about what are some of those low-hanging fruit ideas.

I appreciate your work on the UDP, the utility discount program, for folks who need it now.

Again, as a reminder, you guys have done a great job with getting, I think it was, eight times as many people enrolled or something like that in last year or the year compared to the year prior.

But I think we still have three quarters of the people who are eligible who are not enrolled.

So doing some sort of auto enrollment plan I think is a really smart idea.

So I understand that's separate, low hanging fruit ideas until we implement a new system.

But would love to ask for your timeline.

So we see in one of the slides that you are gonna have a What is it, a review discussion of the initial report on the 26th of February, is that correct?

Yeah, are you coming?

I'm going to come, yes.

I thought that, which is great.

I was just going to pop by and say hello and thank you.

That's great.

But I can stay for a little bit longer.

One question for you, would it be helpful for our incredibly large viewing audience of Seattle Channel who watches our exciting energy committee?

Every word.

Yes.

Every word glued to the television.

Would it be of interest to have folks write in with ideas or feedback by the 26th for the review panel's consideration at that time?

What's the process for getting feedback?

I mean, getting feedback is great.

So we're always happy to have feedback.

And again, we're very interested in moving things as quickly as we can.

You know, I think these guys knew it when they sent the letter last summer.

It's a really big task.

It's a heavy lift to do it right.

And I got to tell you, the last thing any of us wants is to roll out a rate redesign that hasn't been done.

And that will throw a customer, that's the healthcare exchange, I'm sorry to say.

So that is not what we wanna do.

We wanna do it really well.

And by the way, I told my husband this morning, I said, oh, by the way, hon, I'll be on TV if you wanna watch.

And he said, what time is that?

I said, I don't know, sometime after 9.30.

He goes, well, I have a call.

I guess I could put it on without volume.

So that makes your point.

So you can't even get your husband to watch.

And then in addition to the items that you had, I think on the previous slide you talked about some of the pilot projects.

I know there was just two bullets mentioned there.

Do you have a supplemental document that talks a little bit more about some of those ideas or when can we engage with you on some of those interim strategies?

Well, I think it would be great to set up maybe even a separate time with you.

Because I know, like, Karsten, are you going to go participate in the NWPPA thing?

Did you see that email come this week?

Try it.

Yeah, so Karsten, for instance, is working with a number on a number.

He's involved in the LPPC, or is it WEI?

Large Public Power Council has a rate redesign group that he's part of.

Northwest Public Power Association is putting together a work group and where utilities who are doing different things are coming together to talk about them.

So we are really trying to lean into and learn from what are the kinds of pilots that other people are having success with.

Again, I think for us, what we can do And what we're interested in doing is probably, you know, maybe three things.

And they haven't been designed yet, so I share them with you, but they haven't, I can't give you specifics.

So one is some sort of pilot that might work with Metro, and Maura's been talking with some folks on that.

So that would be around electrification on the public transportation side.

Another is potentially a time of use pilot for electric vehicle owners.

Again, but our goal is to make this small and constrained so that because we don't have the technology to handle it.

in an effective way.

So maybe we could do a time of use pilot with electric vehicle owners because we can identify them.

And then the third one is the one I mentioned where we're really interested in saying, is there a way we can do something for limited income or you know maybe we do age-friendly I mean but customers where the sweet spot is that we know that their housing stock needs help so we the thought was is that we could come in we could we could put Throw a bunch of energy efficiency at it and really make a permanent change for them that helps them in the long term Try a different very different rate structure with them that keeps them whole and gives them stability and predictability and which would large likely be percentage of income and and it would be based on the same kind of recovery of revenue that the current UDP program does.

And then at the end of it, perhaps we've identified new UDP participants, and the pilot ends, and we've gone into a certain area where we know the income level is perhaps lower, and we wind up where we're able to sign more folks up for the UDP that weren't before.

So those were the three that we've talked about as staff.

So I'm going to try to separate the two conversations, the first being the work that you're all doing on the rate redesign as a whole.

Thank you for all of the work that you've put together so far and really being out there engaged with community to get their feedback both from employers and residential folks to get a better sense of what would be a more equitable structure.

Really appreciate that.

We will get you some feedback by Tuesday the 26th.

That's right, Tuesday, correct?

Okay.

If you could also send us your 101 on rates.

What is it called?

Just rates.

The 101 on rates that you share with the mayor's office, that would be helpful, I think, for our committee and our community as well.

In the second bucket on sort of interim pilot ideas as we ramp up to 2021, if that's truly as fast as we can move to get these rate changes in place, I think it does require a longer conversation.

And I think our committee We'd love to engage with you and the community stakeholders about various pilot projects.

We are in Seattle, I think, leading the way on many pilot projects across various departments.

I don't want us to go down a route of engaging in pilot projects that really don't meet our values and goals as a city.

I'm gonna just signal that I have concerns.

I have concerns with fixed rate, with subscription, flat rate approaches.

And I'm not very interested at this point in engaging in a pilot program that would test something that ultimately I don't think meets our goals or values as a city.

So I think we need to learn a little bit more about that before we engage in that type of pilot.

The second pilot that you mentioned around energy reduction or rate reduction for those who are electric vehicle owners.

Again, I have concerns about that.

One, just because of the sheer amount of energy that could potentially be used for those vehicles.

But two, also, I think more holistically thinking, you know, broader picture, taking a step back, I would be really excited if we actually channeled more of that energy usage into the first pilot you talked about, which was working with Metro and our partners to get an electric fleet up and running.

Maybe even partnering more with our folks at the port, who I know are also interested in electrification of the port there.

Our only deep water, what is it, naturally occurring deep water port, plug for our port.

So can we engage with you on that second bucket just to sort of brainstorm a few more items and maybe we can talk to the review panel as well as we know that you guys are very focused on trying to hit this deadline for mid-year.

We have a lot of work ahead of us.

Before we go down the route of initiating pilot projects to get a better sense of where our community partners, our review panel members and you as the leader of city light want to head.

We're not talking about spending money, Councilmember.

That's why I said they're revenue neutral and they're learning opportunities.

And so, and yes, the port is a big part of our, I mean, we're talking about rate redesign.

We have a whole electrification effort that we're developing because I think I shared last time that for us, innovation as a utility is around electrification going forward.

So we're partnering with the Office of the Waterfront.

We're working hard and we're already thinking about the next phase of waterfront redevelopment and how we can be not just a service provider, but actually get in there and really help our city partners and also the port, et cetera, on how they can make that happen.

And so that's a big part of what we're looking at doing.

Thank you.

And perhaps I used the wrong word.

Instead of revenue, I should have said resources, because our time, our people.

Let's talk some more.

But we feel like it's really important that we begin to learn.

And on the electric vehicle side, really what we're just talking about is time of use.

Because we do know that as electric vehicles, and you asked the question earlier about we have some numbers.

I don't have them off the top of my head from the last time we did our load forecast.

we looked at, it included assumptions around residential electric vehicle adoption.

It's not a huge amount of electricity, but if it happens at the wrong time of day, it can be really problematic from a grid stability perspective.

So time of use rates for electric vehicle owners are really important.

I mean, I can't really overemphasize that because utilities everywhere are grappling with the fact that We need to be able to manage when customers are, well, two things.

One is from a grid stability perspective and from a resource management perspective, we want to manage the time when customers are charging their vehicles so that it's not happening.

So that I don't come home at 5 o'clock and plug my car in.

when I'm also cooking dinner, running the dishwasher, doing laundry.

But the other thing is that a lot of this whole smart grid thing also, there's a very real notion that electric vehicles become batteries that electric utilities can use to help stabilize the grid and actually draw from.

So I just want to be, that is a really important piece.

So let's talk offline and I can get you more information, but, and that's not really about, it's not about helping electric vehicle users save money or use more or less.

It's about helping to shape the load and the timing when it happens.

That's helpful.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Nice job is what Council Member Bragstad said.

Thank you very much.

Very nice job.

Thank you for all of your work.

And this is just the interim report.

Wow.

So we will see you then next Tuesday, and we'll get a chance to say thanks to folks in person.

We're looking forward to having you come.

If anyone else wants to come, that's great, too.

And how many positions do we have open on our three?

And one is a council position, two are mayoral.

OK, we'll get you some folks.

We would really like that.

Yes, and if you're watching TV viewing audience, let us know if you're interested.

And if our co-chairs have ideas, please let us know.

We're very excited and want to help fill that role.

I know it's been open for a while.

Yeah, and I think for us, as we start to bring this work to a close on April 1, like I said, we're going to start into strategic planning again, and we really want a full complement on board when we start that process.

Excellent.

Just to flesh out a little bit, what is the skill set you're looking for?

What is the skill set you're looking for?

A council position is a financial analyst, utility financial analyst position.

Great.

So that's the position that Cal, Cal Shirley had in the past and then he stepped down.

Okay.

Thank you Council Member Juarez.

I know you have to leave early.

Do you want to do a quick PSA on the news that we saw this morning so that folks if they have questions?

Yeah, so actually what Councilmember Mesquite is talking about is that we have had kind of a rash of scams and you know it happens in cycles and I think the theory that we've had right now anyway is that as we've experienced colder winter weather, Customers are feeling more vulnerable and so they are more easily susceptible to a scam and that basically says you know You need to do something or your power will be shut off what really alarmed us and and I have some information I'll leave with you councilmember, but we actually this first we first put this on our blog January 24th, and I actually wound up receiving an email which this is what?

Precipitated it it was a new level where a customer actually had someone show up at their home pretending to be a City Light employee and trying to collect money, which was really scary.

And so when they went to go get, I think it was a family member of their son, the individual ran off, but she got in touch with me and we were really thankful because we found and we contacted the the call center where customers call in, and that was not an isolated incident.

So we've had, it's been about the last month, we've had a lot, a much higher level of people.

So I think we were on the news last night, our public information officer wanted to reiterate that we never contact customer, we never go to your home, We never call you and tell you that you have to pay your bill or ask.

We provide final notices.

We communicate in writing with our customers about if a bill is delinquent.

We are always happy to make payment arrangements with people.

In fact, much of our outreach to customers is around encouraging them to contact us so that they can make a payment arrangement.

You know, particularly in this cold weather, we want customers to have uninterrupted electricity.

So if someone calls you, comes to your home, or in some way implies that, you need to make a payment right now, or your service will be cut off.

That is not City Light.

And I can actually say that, you know, that's really not any of your utilities.

That's not the way utilities roll.

Agree, Maura?

Yeah, it's not a, we're all pretty consistent that that is not what happens.

So let us know if that's happening so that we keep that out in the public awareness, but it is, there is a rash of it right now.

Thank you.

And we shared your tweet as well on our Twitter this morning.

We'll put it on our Facebook.

Encourage other folks to do that as well to get the word out.

Thank you.

And I don't know what the next step is, but after you have gotten information that a scam has been attempted, I hope that we follow up with the prosecuting attorney's office or with the AG because what we do know is that they're keeping an eye on these kind of consumer scams as well.

So what I want to keep that moving.

I don't know but I will find out and I will follow up.

Excellent, because I think that's so critical, and a lot of homes and businesses have cameras now, so it can be used as evidence.

As a former prosecutor, I'm saying let's keep moving on this and not let people...

You see on the news last night, the home that they had put their home on, like, I don't know, it was VRBO or one of those, and they had cameras and the people actually stole their televisions, trashed the house, and it's all on camera.

I mean, good that there's camera, good that there's evidence, and good that we'll take after them and not just sit with our hands folded.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good idea to contact the AG.

That is one of their primary focuses, consumer protection items.

So, I really appreciate it.

I know you guys have been here since 9 a.m.

So, thank you for this incredible presentation.

It's 11.30.

I think we will close this meeting.

Our next meeting will be March 7th at 9.30.

We're still working on the final agenda.

And look forward to meeting with you in the meantime to hear a little bit more how we can be helpful in this process Thank you for all the work you're taking on on behalf of us as consumers of Seattle City Light as well.

We really appreciate it So with that this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you all