VERO BEACH UTILITIES COMMISSION MINUTES Tuesday, January 20, 2015 9:00 a.m. City Hall, Council Chambers, Vero Beach, Florida PRESENT: Chairman, Herb Whittall; Vice Chairman, Jack Shupe; Members: Richard McDermott, Jr., Alternate Member #1 George Baczynski, and Alternate Member #2 William Teston Also Present: City Manager, James O Connor; Public Works and Engineering Director, Monte Falls and Senior Administrative Assistant, Rita Hawkins Excused Absence: Robert Blumstein Unexcused Absences: Scott Stradley and Bob Russell 1. CALL TO ORDER Today s meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A) December 16, 2014 Mr. Whittall asked if on page 3 under item B, in the fourth line, if it should read the contractor for the optimization study and not the optimization study itself was going to the City Council on January 6, 2015. Mr. James O Connor, City Manager, stated that they are still negotiating the term and the conditions of the scope of work on the optimization study. Mr. Whittall said then it should read that the contractor is going before the City Council. Mr. O Connor replied that is correct. Mr. Teston made a motion to approve the minutes from the December 16, 2014 Utilities Commission meeting with the one correction made. Mr. Baczynski seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. 3. PUBLIC COMMENT None 4. NEW BUSINESS A) Update/Analysis of Power Supply Options vs. Existing OUC Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) Attorney Schef Wright Mr. Whittall announced that Attorney Schef Wright was unable to attend today s meeting, so this item will not be discussed. 1 01/20/15 Utilities Commission
B) Draft Request for Proposals (RFP) Stormwater Utility Study Mr. Monte Falls, Public Works and Engineering Director, explained that the City Council asked the Public Works Department to look at the possibility of forming a Stormwater Utility to make the stormwater system into an Enterprise Fund. They drafted a Request for Proposal (RFP), which was presented to the Utilities Commission for review. He briefly went over the RFP and explained what they were looking for in order to provide a Stormwater Utility study. He said they are asking for help in establishing the rates. He explained that the Utility would look at the types of properties and they would be asked for the pros and cons of the billing and collection methods. They will also be asking for exemptions and credits. He said right now, schools and nonprofit organizations do not pay property tax, so no revenue is generated from them for a stormwater service. If it was a Stormwater Utility there would be a way to have them participate and pay for the stormwater service they receive. If the property was developed in the last 20-years it will have an onsite stormwater management system and they would receive a partial credit, because they have taken care of some of their stormwater management. Mr. Whittall asked if the main exits in the City have sediment basins. Mr. Falls explained that the City started with the worst areas first and they took care of the ones that service the largest water sheds. They are about 37 percent done and now they will focus on the smaller ones. He explained that the City came up with a very innovative concept to use a product called Flexi Pave and they may even be the first municipality in the Country to use it. Flexi-Pave is a porous asphalt product that can be used to capture debris from stormwater at the inlets instead of letting it go down the inlet and capturing it in the baffle boxes. The Flexi-Pave product fits over the inlet opening which allows the water to go through, but it traps all the debris. When the street sweeper cleans the roads he will be able to pick up all of the debris. Mr. Whittall asked if this product works will all the drains and streets eventually have this design, and how will it be paid for. Mr. Falls said that it would be their ultimate goal to do them all. He explained that work is funded in two (2) ways. If it is a large capital project the money comes from the onecent sales tax. For normal operations and maintenance projects they receive a portion of the ad valorem assessments. Mr. Shupe said that on page 13 in section 4-2 it states that the City staff will review the proposals. He asked whether it should be more specific as to the actual people. Mr. Falls said that the Selection Committee would appreciate the expertise of the Utilities Commission and asked if they could get a volunteer to work with them. He explained that in the proposal it is not important to list the name of the person, but just state that it will be composed of people from the City. Mr. Baczynski asked if there is a high volume of water will it be allowed to overflow right into the pipe like normal to keep the streets from flooding. 2 01/20/15 Utilities Commission
Mr. Falls replied yes. He explained that any contaminates are normally captured in the first flush of rainfall, so in a heavy rain the overflow that bypasses the structure will be cleaner. Mr. Baczynski announced that he would like to volunteer to work on the Committee for the RFP. Mr. McDermott asked who pays for the stormwater processing today. Mr. Falls explained that the normal operation and maintenance is imbedded in the ad valorem taxes and capital projects are paid from the one-cent sales tax and matching grant funds. Mr. McDermott said that this process looks like they are going to try to make additional revenue over and above the expenses. Mr. Falls said that if the City could fill the need for this project then it would free up capital funds that are currently being spent on stormwater and catch up on where they are deficient, which is street maintenance. Mr. McDermott asked what analysis has been done to feel certain they can make money doing this. Mr. Falls explained that in the RFP study they will request some reassurance that they will be able to collect that amount of money. Once they have this information their intent is to bring it back again to the Utility and Finance Commissions. Mr. McDermott said they will probably get some pushback from some of the nonprofit groups that are not currently paying taxes. Mr. Falls said they are going to have to educate everyone to let them know they need to do their part to help clean up the Lagoon. Mr. McDermott said that his interpretation after reading the report was that it was more about making money than the motivation of cleaning the water. Mr. Falls assured him that as they move forward the motivation will be about clean water. C) Status of the Electric System Study Mr. O Connor reported that they have created a draft of the Scope of Work for Power Services, who was selected as the vendor to do the electric system study. The Scope of Work will help them determine what they want to be reviewed by Power Services so they can make recommendations on how the optimization can be effective for the City. After they do the scope of work their recommendation will be brought back to the Utility 3 01/20/15 Utilities Commission
Commission to review. They are trying to make the Scope of Work all-inclusive so that it hits the distribution services, transmission system, and the generation facility. Mr. O Connor said they have been attacking the septic tank issues and now they are focusing on the stormwater. These are two areas affecting the lagoon. The City is just a small section, but they would like to lead the way and show people how it is done. Mr. McDermott said that if they are upfront and they sell it that way then they will get a lot of support. D) Approval of Annual Report Mr. Whittall stated that Mr. Blumstein asked him to pass along a recommendation he would like to make to the annual report. He would like to change the word was to reopen negotiations in the fourth bullet under recommendations. Mr. Whittall suggested that they add a period after the word contracts and leave off the rest. The other Commission members agreed with Mr. Whittall s suggestion. He said that the City has a contract with FPL until 2016, so he does not feel they need to recommend that this year. Mr. Shupe pointed out that the date on the first page should read January 2015. 5. OLD BUSINESS None 6. CHAIRMAN S MATTERS Mr. Whittall said that in the minutes from last month s meeting he sees there was a discussion about education and that they should be educating the public about the utilities. He believes the best education is the broadcasting of these meetings on Channel 13, but how do we educate people who do not care. How do they educate the population on what the City Council is doing and what the Utility Commission is trying to improve. Mr. Shupe said that most people get their news from small sound bites and do not get into the full story. He knows they discussed this before, but he believes an occasional flyer of new information should be included in the utility bills. Mr. O Connor explained that the City contracts out the processing of the utility bills, but they can include stuffers for a cost. He said to the average person their utility bill is just another payment and they do not spend a lot of time analyzing it. A large number of customers do not even realize that their bill includes electric, water, sewer, and garbage, so there is a lot of information on the bill. He would like to find a way to educate people, but there has to be an interest in wanting to know. Mr. Baczynski said that utilities are not something people normally think about unless there is a problem and then they want to know when it will be fixed. He believes they need to take a different approach and make the utilities look positive. He said what 4 01/20/15 Utilities Commission
would the streets look like if there was no street cleaning and what would the garage bins look like if they were not picked up twice a week. People want the service but they don t want to pay for it. Mr. O Connor said that he agrees. He said another point is property taxes. Most people pay their property taxes in their mortgage, so we don t usually hear from the average person about property taxes until the bills go out. It is very difficult to charge a price and show it as positive thing. In the utilities business you don t know what you have consumed until you receive the bill. Mr. Teston asked why are the public meetings only broadcast on one (1) channel, which is Comcast channel 13. If it is intended to be a public service why is it not on AT&T, or Direct TV. Mr. O Connor explained that the City has a Franchise Agreement with Comcast and they reserve the channel. He does not believe they have agreements with the other cable providers. Mr. Teston said that explains why they are unable to reach all of the City s customers. By including flyers in the bills is the only way of getting the information out to 100 percent of their customers. It would be the least expensive and easiest way to alert the customers about meetings and upcoming projects. Mr. O Connor said he wished that more people would visit the City website. Mr. Teston said the utility bill could also list the City website as a source for other information. Mr. O Connor said that when they get to the point where customers can pay their utility bills on line, they will be naturally drawn to the website. Mr. Whittall stated that the City still needs to get the information to the public that online billing is available and how to access it. He said the television channel should also be used within reason, to get the important information to the public. Mr. Baczynski suggested they do a study and search for a consultant who can direct them on how to approach the billing notifications so they get the results they want. Mr. O Connor said he believes there would be a considerable amount of criticism with them hiring a consultant to get the message across. The local government cannot promote issues and ideas, because it is a violation of State law. He believes that the City needs to be creative to figure it out and he feels they have made big strides. The City has enough media covering them, but it is unfortunate that they all have different angles to the same story. Mr. Teston stated that their attempt to communicate with the public has to somehow overcome the negative trust and attitude that people have towards government. 5 01/20/15 Utilities Commission
7. MEMBER S MATTERS None 8. ADJOURNMENT The Commission members agreed to schedule their next meeting for February 10, 2015 at 9:00 a.m. in the City Hall, Council Chambers. Today s meeting adjourned at 9:51 a.m. /rh 6 01/20/15 Utilities Commission