The Economic Development, Technology and City Light Committee.
It is January 26, 2022 at 9.32 a.m.
I am Sarah Nelson, chair of the committee, and I would like to introduce the committee clerk and my aide, Kate Nolan.
Will the clerk please call the roll?
Thank you, Council Member.
Herbold?
Juarez?
Here.
Present.
Strauss.
Present.
Nelson.
Here.
We're present.
All right, thank you.
We'll now move on to approval of the agenda.
We've got three Seattle City Light items, and after public comment, I'll make some remarks before getting into those items.
If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.
All right, seeing none.
Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.
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The public comment period is now open, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.
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And so, just a second, let me pull this closer.
Our first speaker is Alexander Lomas, followed by David Haynes.
So, Alexander, please.
Welcome.
Alexander, are you there?
Okay, let's move on to the next speaker, David Haynes.
All right, neither of these participants or these speakers who have signed up are here, so we will move on.
Okay, so, Before we get into today's business items, I would like to just touch on some of the things that I'm looking forward to covering in this committee and what I want to accomplish.
So as the first small business owner on city council in over a decade, you can bet I'm 100% committed to helping small businesses survive the pandemic and just to make it easier to start and grow a business in Seattle.
Because it's not just about the entrepreneurs, it's also about jobs and preserving the nodes of our community, the fabric of our neighborhoods.
So I'll be working closely with OED, that is the Office of Economic Development, to support and expand their services and programs.
And I'll put a plug in right here that OED needs more resources.
My job is to seek ways the city can do even more to strengthen our business community and achieve an equitable recovery.
So some of my efforts will be going beyond the confines of OEB's work plan.
Some of my top priorities in the realm of economic development include downtown and neighborhood business district revitalization.
So since day one, my staff and I have been working here at City Hall.
Being downtown every day really does drive home the devastation wrought by the pandemic.
The closed venues, the boarded up windows.
I was really disappointed to find out that the Arctic Room is closed.
It used to be a favorite haunt of staffers back in the day.
Collins is also closed.
So we as a city have to focus on doing everything we possibly can to create the conditions for businesses and arts organizations to, well, first of all, to locate here, to choose Seattle as their home, but also for existing businesses to bring their employees back downtown.
And it also means making downtown more welcoming for visitors and also more livable for the residents because we are a neighborhood down here.
So bottom line, our region and the city's general fund depends on a healthy downtown.
And I'll put the same focus on neighborhood business districts because that's where quality of life is.
People need to be able to work and play and, I don't know, recreate close to where they live.
So that's going to be a main focus.
And I've mentioned this before in other public arenas, but a top priority for me is also reducing the displacement of BIPOC-owned small businesses.
No surprise that lack of access to capital is a huge challenge for entrepreneurs, but especially in neighborhoods like the CD and the Rainier Valley and the CID that are undergoing rapid gentrification.
So, all right.
Technology.
I want to clarify for the viewing public that the technology in the title of this committee name is, in this committee title is, that refers to the work of Seattle IT, the R Information Technology Department.
They're the folks in charge of the Seattle Channel.
Thank you.
my favorite, and also policy initiatives like digital equity and all the software and hardware that keeps our website going and keeps employees' computers connected, et cetera.
So that is going to be a big focus of my committee.
And then let's move on to City Light.
Now, Seattle is lucky to have a private, I mean, a publicly owned utility.
City Light generates a lot of legislation to keep the lights on.
So my goal is to make sure that that legislation flows through my committee efficiently and also that I provide the critical essential oversight to protect our rate payers and our very important critical infrastructure.
It's been noted, and I've said that I am an environmentalist at heart, and I believe that a lot of the important work to reach our climate protection goals will happen in utilities, like City Light.
And so I am particularly interested in working with and supporting utilities' investments in electrification.
and some of its newer work, which I'll get into a little bit later in the meeting.
So that is a nutshell, in a very small nutshell.
I could have gone on, I cut massive parts here, but that is the work that we'll be doing in this committee.
It's a brand new committee, this combination of departments.
And so I wanted you to know what we'll be focusing on.
And before we move on, I do want to take a moment to to acknowledge what a lot of our committees have been hearing, to acknowledge the escalating crime that small businesses are experiencing.
Public safety is a core foundation of our recovery.
And my office is getting a lot of calls and emails from small business owners and representatives of neighborhood business districts just expressing frustration and anger and frankly desperation at what they see as a total breakdown of the social contract when it comes to public safety.
So in one email, and this went out to all council members, the director of the University District Partnership wrote to us, and I'll just quote.
He says, our community is under attack from a recent massive surge in break-ins, vandalism, and highly visible disturbances and life-threatening behavior.
And he goes on to say, in the last few weeks alone, over 20 businesses have had their windows bashed in, shot, melted, and removed altogether during a string of events ranging from repeated act of rage to coordinated theft rings.
So that's an example.
And another person who reached out to our office, Renee Erickson, who owns several fabulous restaurants, wrote in to to talk about what's happening to her restaurant on Lake Union, Westford.
And she basically says, we are basically begging the city to show that they do prioritize the well-being and safety of our staff and guests along North North Lake Way.
The problem is getting worse every day.
Nothing is changing and our concerns are being unanswered.
These are examples that, and I'm hearing from businesses, Columbia City, West Seattle, all over the city, and all kinds of different businesses.
The people contacting my office are basically feeling abandoned by their city leaders.
I'm not trying to put anybody on the spot, but as chair of economic development, I feel a duty to give voice to them, these businesses, And at our next committee meeting, we will likely have a panel of business leaders and owners just to talk about their stories and maybe come with some solutions that we can implement right now, some actions, not solutions, but some actions.
Because of course, this is a huge, complicated, very complicated And I know that we're not going to arrest our way out of this issue or, and I'm not calling for a cop in front of every shop, but we have to do something because these small businesses need help.
And I honestly don't know what that looks like.
Frankly, I'll just, I'll lay it out there.
But for right now, I just want to say to them that I hear you and I'm here to be your advocate.
and work collaboratively.
And this is the key thing, work collaboratively with my colleagues under the leadership of our president, Council Member Juarez, to really put our heads together and work on some sustainable solution to this public safety crisis.
Because we can't just simply, we just can't not do anything.
And most of all, we can't lose these jobs and these businesses and these gathering places in our community.
So I just wanted to say that.
And now we can move on to the items of our business.
Oh, and I recognize that Council Member Herbold has just joined the committee.
So thank you very much.
All right, item one.
Will the clerk please read item one into the record?
Item 1, Council Bill 120260, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department, authorizing the department to accept as sole owner of fiber cable and associated facilities previously shared with the University of Washington.
Briefing, discussion, and possible vote.
All right.
Hello.
Will the presenters for this item please introduce yourselves?
Good morning, Council Member Nelson, Chair Nelson, and good morning, Council President Juarez, and members of the committee, and Eric, and others.
Thanks so much for having us here.
We have three items for you this morning.
And I'm just going to go ahead and, I think, follow your lead.
And just thank you for having us and let the individual members who are presenting on each of the items introduce themselves.
I think that'll be less confusing.
Before I do that, though, I want to say one thing.
Thank you very much for your comments.
Councilmember Nelson, so I live downtown.
I live at second and pike and what you just described is my daily reality and And I try very hard to keep my Business as a citizen of Seattle separate from my work as an official of Seattle, but it's very encouraging here to hear you speak Directly to the problems that we are dealing with so thanks very much for that, so I'm going to turn it over to my colleague Mike Haynes Are you up Mike?
I think this is Claire.
All right, Claire.
Take it away, Claire.
OK.
And I think Chris was going to bring the slides up.
Yeah.
Thank you to Chris Tantico.
Maura Brugger, who usually is our AV expert, is actually very excitedly, she is at her son is graduating from basic training right now, probably today or tomorrow.
So she is gone.
And Chris Tantico is stepping in for her.
So thank you, Chris.
Okay, can you please go to the second slide?
Thank you.
I'm Claire Lloyd.
I manage the substation and telecommunications engineering team for Seattle City Light.
Seattle City Light is requesting authorization to accept memorandum of agreement allowing the University of Washington to abandon ownership of shared fiber cable 160. This cable, along with physical plant conduit and hand holes, were jointly installed by Seattle City Light and the University of Washington in 1990. At the time, University of Washington needed communications to its temporary Bothell campus.
Seattle City Light uses the cable to transport communications to Seattle's Bothell substation and the Skagit generation plants.
This path is critical for operations and is used to control the substation generation facilities.
It transports phone, radio, television, control, and data communications traffic.
Seattle City Light replaced the cable in 2019. Next slide, please.
The previously shared underground cable runs from Seattle, the intersection of Northeast 145th Street and 37th Avenue Northeast to Bothell, the intersection of 228th Street Southeast and 29th Drive Southeast.
In the original agreement, Seattle City Light owned 48 strands of the fiber and the University of Washington owned 96 strands of the fiber within the 144-strand fiber cable.
The MOA acknowledges Seattle City Light's ownership of the full capacity of the new 144-strand cable.
Next slide, please.
The original cable was installed in 1990, and in 2015, it was determined the cable was degraded and in need of replacement.
Prior to replacing the cable, Seattle City Lightning asked the University of Washington if they would like to participate in the project.
We received an email from their representative confirming their intent to abandon their interest.
University of Washington no longer occupied the temporary campus.
At the time, there were only two fiber cables, an aerial fiber cable, fiber cable 157, and this underground fiber cable, which is fiber cable 160, serving the Seattle City Light Network to Bothell substation and our generation sites.
If one cable was cut or damaged, data traffic would automatically reroute.
The redundant fiber cable 157 was and still is intermittently being taken out of service because of the city of Bothell and city of Kenmore's beautification projects.
And that left this cable as the only reliable route prior to the signal quality degrading.
This prompted the urgent need to replace the cable.
Design was completed in 2017 and installation occurred in 2018 and was finalized in January 2019. The fiber replacement cost was $1.3 million.
The project was funded in our capital program, YD9307, which addresses fiber installation and replacement needs.
This request to sign the agreement with UW recognizing Seattle City Light as the sole owner of the cable does not require additional funds.
Thank you for your time, and do you have any questions?
Eric, do you have any comments to add?
Oh, no.
Thank you for asking.
Eric McConaghy, the Council of Central Staff.
I think the presentation was great.
Thank you very much.
And this is sometimes what we call sort of ministerial.
Definitely a decision that needs to come to Council because it involves something that can be sort of owned or has a property interest and that sort of thing.
And so it's appropriate to be here, but I have no issues to raise or additional comments.
Thanks for asking.
All right.
Anybody, anything, questions from colleagues?
Okay, seeing none, I move that the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 120260. Is there a second?
Second.
It's been moved and seconded, and to recommend passage of the bill.
Are there any further comments?
Nope.
OK.
Thank you.
Will the clerk call the roll on the committee recommendation that the bill pass?
Herbold.
Yes.
Juarez.
Aye.
Sawant.
Yes.
Strauss.
Yes.
Nelson.
Yes.
Five in favor, none opposed.
All right, the motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be forwarded to the City Council on February 1st, 2022 for final consideration.
Okay, moving on.
Will the clerk please read item two into the record?
Council Bill 120259, an ordinance relating to the city Light Department, authorizing and directing the General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of City Light to execute an interlocal agreement with the Kalispell Tribe of Indians.
Briefing discussion and possible vote.
All right, this legislation renews the funding mechanism between the City of Seattle and the Kalispell Tribe for development of a skilled and viable workforce.
within the tribe and local community.
So are there any new presenters that need to be introduced?
And if so, please introduce yourself and take it away.
Thank you, Councilmember.
Thank you, Committee.
This is Mike Haynes.
I'm the Assistant General Manager for Seattle City Light with responsibilities for all of our generation sites.
And so I'm very pleased to bring this renewed legislation back for your attention this morning.
And Chris, go ahead and queue up the presentation when you get a chance.
So the background here is we own and operate the Bounder Dam in Northeast Washington State on the Pend Oreille River.
Next slide, Chris.
And by virtue of that, we have an operating license with the FDRC that was just renewed back in 2014. The adjacencies of the Boundary Dam and our licensed development out there in North Ponderosa County are adjacent and overlap the tribal lands for the Kalispell Tribe of Indians in that region.
And like Council Member Nelson mentioned, this is an update of previous agreements that some of you participated in back in 2016. And I think it shares our desire and the tribes desire to move workforce development within the North County in particular, creating opportunities for the community, for the tribes, and eventually to build a construction and skilled trades workforce in the region that hopefully City Light and the tribe and other businesses will benefit from.
And we're one of several local participants that are participating in the Cowspell Career Training Center.
Like the PUD and others in the area are also contributing to this.
So next slide.
So this legislation, like I said, is an ongoing legislation to renew an agreement that expired last year.
Total value of our contributions for the five-year agreement is about $213,000.
I think I mentioned that this is a benefit to the community, to the workforce development, particularly skilled trades, construction trades, and high school counseling, career development for high school kids.
And it is extended benefit to not just tribe, but also the community.
So that's one of the great things about the way Kalispell operates their partnerships in the region.
And then just as a part of our operating license for the Boundary Hydro project, we do have many far and wide relationships with the tribe and that extend not only from our project, but the tributary to the Ponderay River.
Lots of resource enhancements, lots of development work that we've done as part of our licensed work.
The tribe has been a great partner for us throughout the current license from 2014 and even many years prior to that.
Next slide, Chris.
And just a few metrics that we do get reporting from the tribe and Glenn Nenema and others, who is the chair, just to make sure that we're seeing progress, we're seeing benefits to the community.
We ask that they share some of their results with us on an annual basis.
So you can see here some of the great things that have come out of just the last year.
Seven pre-apprentices have completed their 7,000-hour program.
Some have gained full-time employment in skilled trades.
And then you can see also the partnership with the AGC and City Light and Group Health Foundation graduated five high school students to the Head Start program in the construction trades this last summer.
Students are working at their Northern Quest operation through their Cal's Bell Metal Products group, which is the precursor to their KCTC.
So anyway, that's the background.
That's the nexus to why City Light, why it's important to us, but also important to the community.
And we look forward to answering any questions.
Thank you.
Eric, do you have anything that you would like to add and I also would like to open it up to questions.
I don't have anything to add.
Thanks very much for the presentation.
Other than to say that the previous agreement was before the council in 2016 and was approved then.
This is a renewal of that agreement and that's it.
I think that wraps it up for me.
Thank you very much.
I'm happy to take note of anything if you want me to follow up on something as usual from the committee, but otherwise I will just.
All right, well, thank you.
Workforce development is a priority for me and I'm glad that we as a city are able to contribute to the tribe and community adjacent to this city facility.
So I fully support this piece of legislation, and I move that the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 120259. Is there a second?
Second.
Second.
Thank you.
It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.
I assume that there are no more comments, so will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that the bill pass.
Herbold.
Yes.
Juarez.
Aye.
Thorne.
Yes.
Strauss.
Yes.
Nelson.
Aye.
Five in favor, none opposed.
The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be forwarded to the city council for final consideration.
Now we'll move on to the last item on the agenda.
Will the clerk please read item three, into the record.
Resolution 32040, a resolution relating to the City Light Department affirming the City Light Department's Clean Energy Implementation Plan as required under Washington State's Clean Energy Transformation Act.
Briefing, discussion, and possible vote.
All right, so this item reinforces what I said in my previous remarks about City Light being a department where a lot of our work to reduce carbon emissions as the city takes place.
And I'm excited to be chair at the launch of its first Clean Energy Implementation Plan, which is a requirement under the Clean Energy Transformation Act adopted into law in 2019. So with that, are there any new presenters, Josh?
Oh yeah, I was just going to introduce you to Josh Walter, who is an awesome member of our staff and right now is kind of single handedly keeping a lot of balls in the air.
So it's not just around Cedar, he is just doing a ton and we've got a lot happening in this in this area that we will be talking with you about in the coming year.
So Josh, go for it.
Great.
Thank you.
Appreciate the introduction, Debra.
And I'll wait for Chris to start the slide deck.
Great.
So good morning, Council Members and Chair Nelson.
Again, my name is Josh Walter.
I manage our Regional Affairs and Wholesale Contracts team at City Light.
Next slide, please.
I'll start by setting the stage of our current resource portfolio and emissions characteristics or categories of those resources.
As you can see here, we have an energy supply mix of more than 90% carbon-free resources being used to help supply our energy needs for our customers.
We've been carbon free for nearly two decades and have been a net zero carbon neutral utility since 2005, thanks to the leadership of city council and the city for recognizing and showing a commitment to becoming carbon-free.
On average, as mentioned, we are 90% carbon-free and we do not own or contract on any long-term basis any emitting resource.
There are some elements or items that we need to keep track of associated with emissions, specifically the idea of unspecified resources.
Those are largely done to meet our balancing needs on a near term basis, but there's no long term emitting resources in our resource portfolio.
As in addition to our current resource mix, we're also planning on bringing on new renewable resources in the near term, in the near future, one starting in 2024, most likely, and additional resources in the 2026-2027 timeframe.
Next slide.
So, as it relates to the current presentation and the request to approve our CDIP, this is an element associated with CEDA that was passed in 2019, setting certain benchmarks for the utility to, or for all utilities in Washington State to clean up their energy mix starting in 2025. and ending or starting 100% renewable or non-emitting resources in 2045. Those benchmarks or those time elements of actions are in 2025, utilities must eliminate all coal-fired electric generation owned or procured or purchased on a long-term basis.
In 2030, utilities must be carbon neutral with 80% of their resource mix coming from renewables or non-emitting resources.
And then in 2045, utilities will be required to show that they're meeting 100% of their energy needs through renewable or non-emitting resources.
Next slide.
So some of the other CEDA provisions are that in addition to creating the plan to show utilities how to meet these targets, utilities, we must seek approval from our governing body.
adopt and file an approved CEIP every four years demonstrating progress towards meeting the goals stated earlier, you know, for 80% by 2030, 100% by 2045. Upon approval, this will be filed with the Washington State Department of Commerce and posted on our website.
Additionally, utilities must also ensure equitable distribution of energy and non-energy benefits as we collectively transition to clean energy for not only just, not only the utility Seattle, but for all utilities in Washington State.
Next slide.
So since we're already above the initial target of 80% carbon free on a resource basis, our first CEIP largely focuses on clean energy equity, energy efficiency, and demand response.
That being said, the plan and our IRP, or our integrated resource plan, identifies the need to invest in new renewables, as stated earlier, Planned to be brought on for a renewable plus program in 2024 and an additional resource or resources needed in the 2026, 2027 timeframe.
A portfolio of action is identified in our Clean Energy Equity Plan, which is attached to the legislative packet.
But a highlight of some of the categories or themes associated with the actions are affordability and affordability projects and programs, reliability projects, energy efficiency projects and programs, Renewable procurement, again, as as stated earlier, including the renewable plus program.
And transportation, electrification programs and projects.
Next next slide please.
So.
In addition to the portfolio of action, the CEIP and the CEEP, the Clean Energy Equity Plan, focuses on City Light's values, including being a customer-focused utility and equitable connection to our customers and communities.
Uh, per per seat on per regulation, we must consider long and short term public health and environmental benefits, um, reduction of costs and risks and energy security and resiliency.
Excuse me for a second.
The Clean Energy Equity Plan is and will continue to be an integral part of the overall CEIP to guide the utility's integration of equity into its planning programs and projects.
Next slide, please.
Okay, so as part of the development of CETA's CEIP and CEEP, the utility conducted a clean energy future survey to gauge customers' concerns and understandings of the issues pertaining to clean energy.
This was an incredibly helpful tool in helping inform the utility of the most important aspects of implementing City Light's clean energy goals currently, current, and in the future.
The response was statistically significant and included responses from a wide variety of customer categories at a high confidence level as seen in this slide here.
Next slide, please.
The outcomes of the survey are found here, where 94% of the respondents to the survey were concerned about climate change, and 80% of the customers were not aware of City Light's carbon neutrality, or has a 90% clean energy portfolio currently, or to begin with.
There were, you know, the highlighted the most important elements were seen here.
in green and the greatest concerns in the orange box, or the, yeah, orange box, I guess.
So the concerns being bill increases, negative impacts of clean energy technology, and risk to reliability.
There were, based on the demographics or the customer classifications, renters and low income, respondents had slightly different responses.
Those being bill increases negative impact to clean tech and construction impacts.
And the Hispanic Latino response had in their top three bill increases construction impacts and negative impacts from from clean tech.
Next slide, please.
As it results, as CEDA is being only one component to the toolbox in achieving the utility in the city's goals and plans, the CEIP is wholly consistent with our ongoing and upcoming strategic plan, race and social justice initiatives, the Green New Deal, and the various enlisted additional regulatory requirements from both the state and the city level.
Next slide.
And to wrap things up, there's certain upcoming issues and items that are not specifically addressed in the current CEIP, but have already been identified for future inclusion, but have been identified for future inclusion in the next CEIP.
And again, this is something that we will continue to come back to Council on on a rolling four-year basis to show what our plans are and the the progress towards achieving the goals as set out in the CEIP.
So examples of the future considerations that could, should, and most likely will be included in the next iteration of the CEIP include greenhouse gas offset inventory and emissions considerations, the new Bonneville Power Administration contract, which is the current contract is set to expire in 2028. So we are currently starting to develop and think about a future Bonneville contract, even today, seven years in advance of the expiration of that contract.
Resource adequacy above and beyond what is currently being considered in the integrated resource plan and the expansion of regional energy markets that Will only help in the coordination between Western utilities on a planning and operational basis, which will.
move and go above and beyond the successes of the Western energy balance market that we've been participating in for the last year and a half or so.
So that concludes my presentation.
I appreciate the opportunity to present, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Okay.
Eric, any additional comments?
Just an observation that when plans like this from City Light come to council, I think that they're, in my opinion, a great window into the sweep and scope of the utility and all the activities and all the folks that are doing the work.
It gives a sense of magnitude.
I'm always a little sort of wowed by it.
And so I just appreciate the presentation.
There's a lot to cover there.
And then another sort of comment, in my opinion, City Light quite often is in the forefront, if not 100% of the time, of these issues statewide.
And so new state law that constrains or directs utilities, I have observed that City Light is often running in that direction already.
And I think that in this case, that that's also exhibited, that a lot of the things the state is looking for, City Light has been moving in that direction for some time, and consistent with the city of Seattle in general.
just some observations.
And with that, unless I can help out with something else, I'll just fade into the background here.
Yeah.
Okay.
Anybody, do any of my colleagues have any questions or comments?
Well, I have some.
So one thing that caught my attention on attachment one, of the plan, it says, and this is on the, it's linked on the agenda.
On page three, it says, a changing resource mix and new loads from decarbonization across transportation, buildings, and industries will require City Light to expand beyond hydropower resources.
So that caught my attention because I'm a fan of what's sometimes called biopower that takes, that takes solid waste, food scraps, things like that, and converts it into methane that can then be converted into electricity.
And why might I be a big fan of that?
And it's because brewers make a lot of spent grain, the sludge that comes out of the brewing process.
And so, for example, My brewery made about 10,000 pounds a day.
And every brewer has a relationship with a farmer that comes and gets the spent grain and trucks it out of the city for livestock or whatever else.
So that's inefficient, lots of emissions, and I've been promoting this technology for a long time.
We had a pilot project that did just that very small amount of our spent grain to just prove that the technology works.
And since then, I think that's being employed at a hospital.
I think that Microsoft has one of these anaerobic digesters on site.
So I don't know.
I'm just wondering if by other resources, if you're at all looking at something like that you know, whether or not you are, what other resources are you talking about?
Wind, solar, I mean, tides, what?
I would say yes, it's an all of the above approach.
did an all renewable resource request for proposals as it relates to the Renewable Plus program.
Most of the resources that, or the developers that responded, responded with wind or solar resources.
So that's the, you know, that's as a matter of scale, the kind of the largest, type of projects that we're seeing be developed.
But as it relates to the idea behind methane or biofuels as a potential source, we do have a small landfill gas project that we are an offtaker of.
And as a part of our I-937 compliance requirements.
We also purchase the wrecks from dairy digesters that are doing exactly what you're talking about, right?
So we're not necessarily an energy offtaker for the dairy digesters, but we do purchase on a regular basis the renewable energy credits of the type of projects that you're talking about to help with our I-937 compliance.
So it is not for the sake of us not not interested in those types of technologies.
I would say at this point, one element is an element of scale.
If they are developing and a part of the resource mix or a part of an option, that is wholly a part of what we would evaluate in making a selection of what that resource would be.
I see Debra has a comment as well.
I just wanted to add that as Josh indicated in the presentation, we are the Renewable Plus product that Josh has mentioned was very specific and it was approved by a former committee.
So we would be happy to give you some background on that, Council Member Nelson, if you'd like.
But that was really around a very specific request from some of our largest customers.
So we issued an RFP to see what might be out there.
to meet their need for additivity, which is to directly fund the development of renewable resources that might not otherwise be developed.
So set that aside.
We are also going into and we are in the process of completing our integrated resource plan.
And that's where we will look more holistically at what our projected loads are, what our resource needs are, and what that hole might be.
And then we will look at how we might fill that hole.
So we know preliminarily, for instance, that we are going to need new resource in the 26-27 timeframe.
What that new resource looks like and what that may be, that's part of what we will talk about.
And the IRP process has a lot of public involvement as well where we talk to community and find out what folks are interested in because we really want that any resource acquisition that we do to be consistent with the values of our community.
So there will be lots of opportunity for us to talk to you about the IRP as we move through that process over the next year.
And Josh, do you have any sense of when we might first be coming to council with the update?
I don't, I want to say mid to second, third quarter.
I've got August in my head.
I'm thinking August, September.
I've got, that's where I think we're at.
So, but so council member, we will have lots of chance to talk about that.
Well, Council Member Strauss, I see a biodigester in District 6, you know, taking all the spent grain from the Ballard Beer District and plugging it into the grid.
Sounds simple, right?
Anyway.
And council member Nelson, I've been involved in spoken with the folks over at impact about their bio digester.
Michael has got some really great ideas.
And this is another one of the things that I'd love to see is we reactivate the Leary triangle with food trucks, skate parks, dog parks, whatever the community wants.
I think that this is another really great idea of how we can link all of that spent yeast and
in the ballard brewery district and be able to produce some energy but uh we'd love to follow city lights lead don't want to overpower the substation that's right there right all right um and so one final comment that i have is um electrification this is all through your uh your your presentation and well in your report and um you know So we've got our electric fleet city, but more and more people are switching to electric cars.
And I do know that City Light has installed electric charging stations in places that might not be served by, that aren't served by the private sector.
But I always wonder, so if you have one of these, where do you go to plug it in?
I will be working, I don't know when it's going to come forward, but I'll be having a piece of legislation to enable private electric vehicle charging stations to locate on private property, just to expand our network of charging stations across the city.
Because City Light can't do it alone.
Those are expensive, not just to install, but to maintain, et cetera.
So just a note on that.
Okay.
Are there any other comments?
Council Member, I would say we do have a small team.
So as you begin to think about that before you introduce legislation, we would love to chat with you about it because we have been really kind of, and I think I mentioned this to you, kind of pivoting our strategy exactly the way you're talking about it.
As the private sector has stepped up and really shown interest, and there's a lot of interest in the Seattle area.
We have focused a lot of our effort on making it easy to cite private charging infrastructure in the places where the private sector wants to do that, or for the for profit sector wants to do that.
And then making our role as we put in publicly owned charging stations, doing that in places where that are less attractive to the private sector so that we can ensure from an equity perspective that everyone has access to easy charging for their electric vehicles as we continue to move down that path.
So.
We've made some changes in our standards.
We've done some other things.
We've been working with Volkswagen, with Chargepoint, with Tesla, with a variety of the private sector.
So we would love to chat with you and can get you actually a briefing with someone who knows a whole lot more about it than I do, which will be good.
So thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
OK, well, moving on, I move that the committee recommends adoption of Resolution 32040. Is there a second?
Second.
All right, it has been moved and seconded to recommend adoption of the resolution.
Any further comments?
Going once, twice?
All right, seeing no more hands, will the clerk call the roll on the committee recommendation that the resolution be adopted?
Herbold?
Yes.
Juarez?
Aye.
Salih.
Yes.
Strauss.
Yes.
Nelson.
Aye.
Five in favor, none opposed.
All right.
The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the resolution be adopted will be forwarded to the city council for final consideration.
Okay.
Well, folks, thanks very much.
Take care.
Yeah, we've reached the end, and this concludes the January 26th meeting of the Economic Development, Technology, and City Light Committee.
Thank you all very much.
Oh, oh, wait, wait, wait, don't.
We're done.
Lisa Herbold.
I think the meeting's over.
Council Member Herbold.
Are we still recording?
Award-winning Seattle Channel is still recording.
Oh, wow, how about that?
We are still on.
Thank you, Madam President, for assisting in trying to get the attention.
I'm sorry, but thank you for giving me a moment to say a couple words.
It wasn't clear at the top of your introductory remarks if there was an opportunity to sort of chime in on the public safety angle, really.
appreciate your remarks and wanted to put a quick plug in for an effort that we just very, very lightly touched on in the council briefing session.
on the state legislative agenda.
I think I highlighted bills related to gun violence and catalytic converter theft and we just barely touched on another bill that I think the public might like to know about and if they're not already involved in working on.
Perhaps that's something that OIR can help us engage with the retail business owners to lift their voices in Olympia.
There are two bills to address organized retail theft, which is obviously a growing problem, not just here, but in cities across the nation.
organized crime groups are now involved in retail theft.
They can very easily and anonymously sell stolen goods online.
These online platforms give lawbreakers access to shoppers that they might not otherwise reach and allow them to sell the merchandise directly.
There's also e-fencing.
That's when There's somebody online who buys stolen goods on purpose for the purpose of reselling later.
And then there are dedicated websites that offer customers the opportunity to exchange stolen goods for cash.
All of this online activity is really driving a lot of the unlawful organized stop lifting that our businesses are seeing here in Seattle and in cities throughout the country.
And so House Bill 1614 establishes a number of requirements for these online marketplaces.
And many of the requirements are requirements that thieves are not going to want to participate in.
And if the online marketplaces do not comply with the requirements, the individuals cannot participate online with selling the goods.
So again, that's House Bill 1614. um agree with you council member nelson chair nelson uh this isn't a solution to the problem but it is one small action that we can uh work um on on behalf of our small business owners and and and major retailers as well that are also suffering um and would love to uh work with you on perhaps connecting with oir to maybe create some sort of a joint letter or something like that
Thank you very much, Council Member Herbold.
I did hear your comments on that, on the catalytic converter bill, and I really appreciated that.
And you also, I think, mentioned something else having to do with copper wire under bridges, so in city facilities.
So I do appreciate your attention to that.
And so let's, I don't know, if OIR is tracking 1614, but we can check back with them.
There's also something that I heard about from PCC Community Markets.
It's House Bill 1656, which it's a bill that would basically enable businesses, grocery stores, but whatever else, to more easily apprehend people that are really doing blatant shoplifting.
We heard it.
There was a story in the Seattle Times about downtown target or something.
So I appreciate your attention and it's going to take working together and like I said a huge and complex issue.
So and I also want to note that Council Member Strauss is meeting with the restaurant and hospitality sector in people of that sector in District 6. I know that that you're plugged into what's going on there and I think that Council Member Peterson is going to be touring, actually, the U District to see what that letter brings up.
So I think that it's positive that this is getting attention.
And I appreciate your grace in hearing me bring it up.
All right.
Anything else?
OK.
This meeting is adjourned.
Thank you.
Recording stopped.