Transcript

0:07:23All right, folks. We're going to get started here in a second. We're just waiting on a couple more participants to sit down. Do we know who's tracking these two people and where they are and whe >> is on the way. Okay. >> Three. There's one, two, three more. >> But I guess I'll go ahead and guess what? >> Where's my g? It's I mean it's 603. All right, folks. We're going to go ahead and get started. So, if we can uh have your please take your seat if you're participating. I'm going to have to gabble. Hello everybody. If we can quiet down, please. All right. Well, good evening everyone. Uh, my name is Aaron Brockett. I'm the mayor of the city of Boulder and I'm just here to welcome everybody. Uh, we're really excited to have you here for this unique evening. It's going to be an exciting and enlightening discussion. So, I just have a couple things to go over before I hand it over to our facilitator, Josie.

0:10:52So, um, welcome to our community and council forum. We're so glad that you're all here this evening. And I see some familiar faces and some new faces, which is a great combination. But I'm going to read our public participation guidelines here. So public participation during this community and council forum will align with the city of Boulder's vision for productive atmospheres. Specifically, the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations. This vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff and city council members, as well as democracy for people of all ages, identities, lived experiences, and political perspectives. So, the following are examples of rules of decorum found in the Boulder Revised Code and other guidelines that support this vision. These will be upheld during the meeting. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person. An obscenity, racial epithets, and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited. So, I will now hand the mic over to our facilitator, Josie Plout from CSU's Institute for the Built Environment.

0:12:04Josie, take it away. >> Thank you, Mayor Brockett. Good evening, everyone. I'm Josie Plout. I will be facilitating this evening. I'm co-director at the Institute for the Built Environment. We're based at Colorado State University. I know I'm in Boulder. It's going to be okay. Um and uh before we get into intros around the table, I'd like to share a little bit more. Uh as as the mayor was speaking to, this this structure that we're engaging in tonight was born out of the public meetings project. Um, it's in partnership with the National Civic League for Democracy Innovation, and they conducted a civic infrastructure scan here in Boulder to learn more about public meetings in our community and then publish the report this spring with recommendations. And this forum is one of those several recommendations that the city has decided to move forward with.

0:13:04It's a way to increase opportunities for meaningful engagement with the community, helping to change the dynamics and allow deeper reflection, conversation, and dialogue between members of council and members of the community. We're intentionally holding this meeting four months before when city council will consider a final roadmap for improving power reliability and resilience. So, your input is being given early when there is still room to make a difference and really shape the future of how the community responds. Um, at your seats, each of you at the table will find a printed packet. It's been emailed to you in advance, and then you will also find worksheets where you can capture any thoughts that you want to make sure that are heard and that staff and council are able to consider. I think it's important to say that no matter how long we stay here this evening, it will never feel like enough time and we are committed to running this meeting on time and getting us out um about 9:00. So um the packets and the worksheets are a way for you to add additional thoughts for um for consideration and we'll be taking those in along with the notes and the capture from the rest of the meeting. Um, council members, you all have your own packets and on those we're hoping that

0:14:24you'll use them to record what you're hearing from the community as well as use those notes to uh report back at the end of our breakout sessions. Everyone will uh also find a notepad for taking additional notes if you would like that. So hopefully you all feel that you have the resources you need. Um, our agenda for this evening, we're going to begin with a staff presentation. We'll do a round of clarifying questions. During those clarifying questions, that is a time to seek clarification and not necessarily to speak your opinions or uh make statements at that time. That's what the small breakout conversations are for. So, um we'll try to hold true to that and then we'll go into small group discussions. There are several breakout rooms around the building. Um you will be accompanied by staff um facilitators and notetakers as well as a mix of council and community members in those breakout conversations. Uh there also discussion guides for those. Um and then we'll come back. There will be a report out. Council will report back what they heard and then we'll do another round of dialogue. um really focusing on what else council hopes to understand from the community members in order for them to feel like they've been really informed um as they move forward.

0:15:43Um so as a reminder um well let's see so let's um let me look here. So we uh I wanted to say that this session with the full group is being livereamed for members of the public to observe. So, we do have some members of the public who are joining us virtually in addition to those who are in the audience in person this evening. Um, let's go ahead and do brief introductions around the table. Include your name, your pronouns if you'd like, and your role or community organization. So, please keep uh those initial introductions brief and you'll have additional time for introductions when you're in your small breakouts. Also, you'll need to share the mics around the table as there uh is not one for everyone, but they are placed around the room for you to share. So, um with that, good evening. Can you hear me? Okay.

0:16:40Good evening. Carolyn Elim. I'm a senior manager with the uh city of Boulder in our climate initiatives department. She her and my role here is the staff to support this this conversation. So thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Bolakual. I am one of the community connectors in city of Boulder for last uh three years and have been a proud resident of city of Boulder for last 12 years. Thank you. >> Tina Marquis and I've been on Boulder City Council for almost three years. >> This I'm Bob Carmichael. I came over the hill in 1965 getting recruited by the University of Colorado and I'm still here and I learned to climb in Elorado Springs. >> Nick Phillips. I've lived in Boulder for five years now. >> Carl Lawrence. I moved to Boulder in 78 and I deal with energy efficiency for both mobile and uh stationary sources.

0:17:55>> Hi, it's Trey and I moved here 12 years ago to teach and then I'm currently a small business owner and a co-founder at a food startup. So in that capacity, >> I'm Steve Whitaker. I moved here in 1973 and I'm retired and I do volunteer work with uh renewable energy groups. >> Hello, I'm Ryan Shuhard. My pronouns are he, him. I'm a member of the Boulder City Council. >> Hi everyone, my name is Gabe Monroy. I've been in Boulder since 2001. Uh resident of Mapleton Hill. I'm the chief technology officer for a company called Workday. uh employ about uh 20,000 people globally and 500 in Boulder and happen to work in the infrastructure space. So excited to explore that. >> Hi everybody. I'm Rob Kaplan. I'm coming up on my first year in for city council.

0:18:57>> Andrew Markley lived here for 10 years. I live in uh north central Boulder. >> Hi there. Nicole Spear. she her pronouns and I'm a member of city council. >> Chad Molter, he him. I'm the executive director of Harvest of Hope Pantry. >> Hi, I'm Paul Coleman. I'm a retired computer programmer and I'm on the board of 350 Colorado. >> Hi everyone. Craig Tower, a Boulder resident and also work with the Center for People with Disabilities here in Boulder. Hi, I'm Julie Zaniser and I live in South Boulder and I've been in Boulder in Boulder County for 50 years, but I see I've been meet bought by beat by Bob over there. Um, I've been working as a clean energy advocate volunteer for a long time. >> Hi, uh, Andrew McKenna. I, uh, currently work at the Boulder Airport. Um, but I formerly ran a solar electric company here in Boulder County for uh for several years. Been in Boulder for about 30 years.

0:20:11>> Hi, Mary Pedigrew. Uh, I'm a graphic designer by uh trade, but happily have been working on a project called uh the Mapleton Home Association Community Energy uh resilience project. Um, thanks to a grant from Oscar Hello, my name is Eric Scase. I'm chief engineer of radio 1190 on the CU campus. And together with KGNU, we are faced every day with a question of how we keep our studios, radio transmitters, and internet stream on the air when there is no electric power and through other community emergencies so we can get you the information you need to be safe. Hi, I'm Tara Winer and I am Mayor Prom and I'm very excited to learn from all these incredibly incredible community members. >> Good evening. I'm August Elliott. He him and I'm the co-founder of the Neighborhood Village Project, a program that works on the civic and social infrastructure side of resilience.

0:21:22Hello, my name is Rebecca Gidad Facto. Um, I'm the project manager of CPT, community preparedness training and I also work with Mary on the MHA resiliency hub that we've been doing this year. >> Hi there, uh, members of council and community. My name is Jonathan Cohen. He and I'm honored to serve as a director of the climate initiatives department here at the city of Boulder. >> Good evening everyone. I'm Chris Meschuk. I serve as the deputy city manager for the city of Boulder. >> Still Erin Brockett, still the mayor of the city of Boulder. Uh, first I want to compliment you all on your use and sharing of the microphones. If that does anything to set the tone for the evening, I think we're in in good shape. >> Tisha. >> And Taiisha, uh, would you like a chance to introduce yourself?

0:22:16>> Yes. Thank you so much. Uh, good evening everybody. My name is Taiisha Adams. I serve on Boulder City Council. Had dental surgery yesterday and unfortunately I'm not able to make it in, but excited and grateful for all of you and looking forward to hearing the conversation tonight. Thank you. >> Thank you, Taiisha. In addition, we have two representatives from Excel here. Uh, Emma and Nick, if you'd like to raise your hands or identify yourselves. Thank you. um they are here at the request of council and they are here to learn and listen to our conversation and with our conversation tonight. Um again our topic for the community council forum is power reliability and resilience as you listen to the staff presentation. Feel free to use those notepads that I mentioned to capture questions as they come up and we'll address as many of your questions as possible before we move into the small breakouts. We may not be able to get to every question. Uh again, that's where you can bring those uh ideas into your small breakout groups if they don't get answered in the larger session. With that, I'll turn it over to Carolyn Elimch.

0:23:33I'll uh I'll jump in here real quick uh just with a another quick uh thank you and welcome uh from everyone on behalf of our city manager Nuria Rivera Vanomide who is unfortunately under the weather uh today. Um but to all of our community members that are participating, thank you. uh these council community forums are a really uh unique format of being able to bring uh a diverse set of perspectives around a table with uh your time, your energy and your expertise. So just grateful for uh everyone who is here to participate in this conversation. And with that and now I'll I don't know where Carolyn moved to. Oh, there she is back there. Okay, Carolyn, I'll send it over to you. >> Great. Thank you. and thanks for everybody's patience as we return to a full table format here in council chambers for the first time in several years. So appreciate it. Um so again I'm Carolyn Elim. I'm a senior manager here at the city of Boulder and I am the project manager for council's um 2026 council priority project for power reliability and resilience. And and I just want to extend my appreciation um to those of you who joined us this evening but also to the many community members who have really helped frame our

0:24:41work this year. Um, you know, I I think this has been just a tremendous learning opportunity for us. We've learned so much from people's lived experiences with these outages and and we're looking forward to carry that forward. We'll talk a lot about that today. Before I really dive into the presentation though, I I want to take a moment and and really acknowledge I know many people um are experiencing very um poor power reliability, frequent outages, and they've been particularly bad for the for the last two months. And so I just want to acknowledge um that if you're feeling like it's getting worse, um certainly that's that's what we're seeing. This doesn't mean that there's not work underway to try and improve that and things take time and we're paying attention to, but I I just want to be clear. We know that there's a situation that needs to be addressed and and that is a top priority for our staff. Um we're working closely with our team at Excel and I just really want to acknowledge that because I know we've had some very substantial outages especially um since the the latter part of August.

0:25:43Um that really is the the impetus behind uh this this project that council set as a priority for this year is really to get a handle on the situation, the condition of our our grid, the work that Excel has planned um both to mitigate wildfire risk as well as improve our overall reliability and and build out for our future. Um so that's really the goal. We certainly are seeing an aging infrastructure uh that's starting to to show signs of wear and tear and and unreliability that needs to be addressed. Um and we're also seeing as climate changes, you know, our risks are even greater um because our extreme weather is becoming more extreme. Um and so we we need to make sure our grid is resilient for our future. And again, uh, we've also seen in the last, uh, three years since April of 2024, the introduction of mitigations against wildfire risk called public safety power shut offs or or enhanced safety settings or wildfire safety operations that have been contributing to many of our reliability issues or some of the most substantial outages in our community, although these are not the only source. Um, but part of this is also, you know, the reason to shut off the power is because the the grid can pose a threat in high wind conditions.

0:26:57And so part of our work is to work with Excel to harden that system so those um need to shut the system off becomes less and less over time. Again, um I think it's helpful to see the numbers. Um we shared this with council uh in August. These are five-year trends. Average trends, they're averages. I I just want to acknowledge that, you know, averages don't convey the full experience. We know there's community members, you know, that average frequency is, you know, verging towards two and a half, but we have people who have experienced two outages, three outages a month, 12 outages a year. Um, so just want to name that. Uh, the important part here is that we're we're tracking these trends. We're tracking this data and we're certainly seeing evidence in in the real numbers of what you're experiencing.

0:27:44So with that, we launched our project this year. This is just a slide we've shown in the past. Um again, this is a one-year project for council, understanding that as a staff team, we've been working in partnership with Excel for years. So this is really building on the work we had, but bringing the power of council um to to elevate the conversation and and really support us as we move this work forward. So this priority was set at the beginning of the year. We've been doing a lot of data collection and analysis over the summer. um we did a lot of community engagement and that's what we're going to speak with you tonight. And so we're basically here wrapping up um this year's focused community engagement effort with the goal that this fall we'll put together uh the future roadmap. This will be uh a draft that culminates our work this year and then serves as kind of the guidepost for our next council um coming next year um to further refine and develop work priorities from. Um, I do want to say, you know, our engagement doesn't stop with this. This is just our engagement for this year's project. We know that many of these strategies require further development and further engagement. So, just want to have that framing. This

0:28:51isn't the last time we'll be talking about this for sure. Uh, so we've come up with this concept for a road map that sets out kind of uh different phases and then I'll talk about the goals, but this is how we're intended to convey this information. So, kind of near-term, you know, what are we doing today? What are some near-term, short-term wins? Where can we have success um based on the information we have today, the resources we have today, but also laying out this longer um term pathway where we continue to develop, we continue to take on some of these um higher resource intensive solutions. And I I do want to say I think um and this has been a theme throughout it's not our role here to um alleviate Excel's responsibility to our community to deliver reliable power.

0:29:37It's really how to understand how to work in partnership with them um to improve the condition as well as understand where there's still going to be gaps due to our changing climate and and growing needs and reliance on electricity. So as you look as I talk about some of the strategies, please keep that in mind. I mean we still have a strong expectation and I know Excel believes that as well um that we need to address the issues at hand. Uh one of the things uh as you break out into groups um you'll be talking about is we've come up with conceptual timebased goals um to track progress against. Um so we presented these uh really around growing our our in your turn growing our network of community resilience hubs or community resilience solutions while you know by 2030 restoring reliability to what we've come to expect historically and then moving towards a longerterm goal of a further and deeper enhancement of that reliability and ensuring that it's equitably shared across the community.

0:30:38And again, this has been a a deep uh public input process where we've taken input from the community, from city council. We've looked at funding realities, what can be accomplished, and that's really what's being synthesized into the road map itself. Again, just to summarize the engagement, um, and I think we've shared this with council and and our community members tonight, um, some of the the results of our engagement. So, I just have a high level in this in this stack. Um, but we have held a number of listening sessions. We've done two community surveys, one broadly for the community and one for our business community. Um, we've held events at the at the chamber. Um, we've leaned on some of our our partners, some of whom are here today to learn from their their own engagement with the community around these topics.

0:31:23So, we've attended um some of their trainings and sessions. Um, and then we've also just benefited from one-on-one conversations, which is not really shown on this slide, but I've had the pleasure of talking to many in our community and learned so much and really value that. Um, we we tabled at the farmers market. We s tabled at a Primos Park event. So, um, we'll talk a little bit about how we gather that input. Um, certainly there's general themes. Uh, you know, I think to keep in mind, people who tend to engage or respond are are usually impacted um by the thing we're asking about. So certainly have stronger feelings, but you know, we we saw a high degree of dissatisfaction with power reliability. Not a surprise. Um particular frustration among our food service industry, understanding how um disruptive this has been to businesses, restaurants, um as well as loss of food.

0:32:13Uh we've certainly seen particular impacts on frontline community members or community members with medical needs um who've lost medications or or been disrupted. Um, and so I mean certainly all of that has been very important. Um, and and really summarizes I think what we were expecting to hear from the community as well. Um, you know, we've we certainly heard we need some solutions for affordability, safety, and preparedness. Uh, we need to think about tailoring. There's not a one-sizefits-all to meet the community needs. Um, and and really understanding the specific needs of different members of our community. And there is a lot of interest in in enhancing our resilience. This is an example of of one of the the tableabling um things we took around to the community. Um so we have a map of the 2025 outage data from Excel and we've highlighted areas where we've seen some of this disruption and we asked community members to identify themselves and share um some of their personal experiences based on on what they're seeing on the map and what they are experienc. you know, here's a here's a couple of examples of the frequency with people self-identifying areas. And so that's some of the input we've taken into our analysis as well as um the engagement results.

0:33:32I think as we highlight um some of the themes we heard, you know, elevating community led resilience, right? The government's not always the best position to to support community during these types of events. there's um you know letting community and providing the resources to them to to really stand up solutions that best meet their needs is certainly something we heard a resounding theme around. Um we certainly heard that most community members are are unlikely to to look to the government facility as their sheltering location during just a normal course of outage. So that's different than something like a disaster. Um but they're first and foremost, you know, going to go to a family or a friend or somewhere they're very familiar with. um that they visit frequently. Now, in some cases that could be something like a library, but certainly what we heard is like it needs to be familiar. It needs to be trusted. They need to know the um that the resources they they're looking for are going to be available in there.

0:34:27Um there's definitely interest in in building up our own resilience through distributed energy systems um to increase redundancy and and support reliability. There's a lot of community members seeking residential backup solutions that we're hearing as well as businesses looking for backup solutions um and strong interest in increased advocacy to ensure um again Excel is is delivering reliable service to our community. So with that I'm going to spend a little time on this and I know there'll probably be questions. Um so we summarized all of this into a set of strategies and um shared those with you but I'll talk about each of these to try and provide a little bit more color. I think in your packets um for our panel members um we did provide a summary sheet um so definitely uh helpful to look back to that as we talk about this.

0:35:14All of those are in that sheet with some narrative but I'll provide a little bit more color as I can. Um so we talked a little bit of our regulatory and legislative advocacy. This is part of the work we do today. Um the city uh participates in in proceedings at the public utilities commission to advocate for funding and solutions. Um we also work at the legislature on things. So like for example um we got quality of service rulemaking requirements into a bill last session um to really support setting greater accountability um for service delivery. We have a franchise with Excel and Excel has other agreements that buy in and so making sure that they're living up to expectations. Not suggesting that they aren't but I'm just saying that that is a tool available that we will continue to monitor and look at. Um we work together to coordinate undergrounding projects and upgrades and I'll talk a little bit more about some of those projects and what they look like in a minute. Um our forestry team and our open space teams work quite closely with Excel um to plan for for how to manage our our vegetation around power lines to prevent you this is really centered around wildfire risk but also in town around reliability. We know that um as

0:36:23our urban trees become more and more stressed, we're we're more prone to trees actually failing, collapsing on power lines. That's been some of our longest outages and most impactful outages have come from that effect. Um we offer navigational advising support to residents and businesses um through our partnership with Boulder County. Um we'll um continue to do that with providing resilience solutions. Um we've we've done several projects are working with our hubs we selected right now. And then obviously continued coordination with our office of disaster management with which is our shared office with Boulder County. So these strategies are are ones that like I said are part of our core work plan today. Um these are the things we would continue to do and and these apply then to the rest of the strategies and in all scenarios and we would anticipate these are kind of the baseline of where we're starting with and we're thinking about what we build upon that to move forward.

0:37:16So again, as we talk about like what we're doing just to bring a little bit more colors that run along Highway 36 up towards Lions, um undergrounding a power line that serves our wastewater plant and then also undergrounding to our south along Highway 93 and the Marshall Road. Um so again, large projects that are are in flight right now. Um and just continuing to work on those and identify additional projects. uh we heard some things around uh power um for cellular and internet service. I think we heard one of our panel members mention that as well. Um while we don't regulate that, we certainly um will continue to advocate and work with um through our office of disaster management as well to advocate for that. Um and certainly like I said continue to work with Excel to accelerate investments.

0:38:04So, I'm going to drive next into the the strategies which are the core of of what we want you to talk about this evening and really help us refine um and and start to prioritize. This is this is your key um for the next slide just to help you understand how we've organized these. Um so, we sorted them from things that are you know we're saying low um resource in incremental resource investment. I don't want to represent that as they're currently low resource investments but low incremental resource investments. So the kind of things that you know with just a little bit more things that we can maybe prioritize within existing work plans or or some prioritization we might be able to move forward going all the way to ones that would be really um resource intensive.

0:38:50So, for example, um if there's a strategy to underground every power line in in the Boulder community, you know, our cost estimates put that at hundreds of millions of dollars. And so, we need to have a conversation with the community about like how does that happen? How does that get funded? Um what's the tools? So, that's a that's something that would require a lot more development. So, that's how to read what what's going to come up on the next slide. Um so, this these are the the strategies that we've identified. we've b um bundled them into kind of some themes. So the first one on the left is um enhanced preparedness. Um so this is really how we are better prepared and able to navigate outages when they occur. Um supporting community-led resilience. So this is building more resilience into the community through localized solutions. Taking a deeper look at investing in local infrastructure um going all the way to the full improvement of infrastructure.

0:39:45So talking about some you know large capital um investments. So that's the left to the right here. So I will talk about each. Uh so one of the things we heard um through this survey is is a lot of people haven't signed up for emergency alerts and this includes our our business community in particular. Um so working through our navigational resources with Boulder County as well as additional outreach to augment what our office of disaster management is already doing. The goal here would be to drive more enrollments in emergency alerts. Um and also um you'll see one here around supporting businesses with preparedness. So this is like helping to develop outage plans. A lot of people who are successful navigating outages have thought about, you know, where where's my flashlight? What's where do I go if I know the outage is going to be this long? Like walking through that. We talked to businesses um about like what do you do? How do you move food into the freezer? Um and just trying to replicate that knowledge. So these are some of the strategies you see here. Um as well as again um supporting our community leaders who have been doing preparedness training within the community. Moving to the support communityled resilience.

0:41:03It's continuing our we have a pilot right now around community resilience hubs. there's an opportunity to expand that pilot more broadly. Um there's also opportunity to think about how we support more individual adoption of of battery solutions and battery backups. So thinking about whether that's rebates for residents or businesses or some type of financing program, whether that's zero interest loans or things that we could do to make them more accessible. Um there's also, you know, deeper work that we could do um with frontline communities and through neighborhood resilience efforts. So supporting neighborhood groups to do deeper engagement with the communities going to the invest in local energy systems. You know, I think there's certainly been interest. We've been a leader in the adoption of batteries, but continuing to drive that and find solutions on how we can support community that way. Um you're going to see the next one and which says you know create a public utility and I want to clarify um for those of you who are are reading municipalization in this moment um this is a different idea that's been brought forward by the community it's not taking over our utility system from Excel but rather thinking about how the um bonding power and the financing ability and the delivery ability of of a public utility can be used to help

0:42:25deliver some of these solutions. Right? So there's a model in Ann Arbor right now where where the local governments formed a utility and they're installing battery and solar systems for residents and businesses and then it's paid back as a utility cost. So it's just a novel form of of financing. Um so there's interest in that. Obviously I've just described standing up an enterprise and in the local government. So again this is why it's kind of on this higher lift more development side. Um, but also just wanted to say we we don't currently have the resume municipalization on here. Um, that's not what that one means in this in the moment. So, I just wanted to clarify that for those of you who may have seen that. Um, but similarly, that kind of model or other models could be used to to help establish more micro grids. Um, I know council had some discussion with Excel in August about how can we do more resilience through micro grids. So, this could be a deeper exploration of that. And then all the way to the right hand side um you know we t I talked about the undergrounding.

0:43:26I won't go back on that. You know right now when um we have outages we do deploy backup generators to the impacted intersections but those aren't permanent um backup systems. And so you know there there could be um investment in that. Again it would be a pretty big financial lift but it's certainly an option that's available. Uh and also while many of our city facilities are equipped to take a backup generator like our rec centers like if we needed to during disaster, we don't have permanent backups at those facilities. So that's something else that could be explored. So hopefully and and we're ready to answer some questions about these um if you have some more, but hopefully that gives you a little bit better um sense of what we meant um by the strategies that were lift listed.

0:44:08And then just to wrap this up um time timeline again, we're here today with the forum. We're going to use this as final input into the draft roadmap that we will publish at the end of the year to really culminate the work um with our council this year. Um we're calling that draft because we you know it'll continue to be iterated and refined as we carry it forward and really start to talk about work plan um implica implications. We do plan to come back to council in early 2027 um to engage in that conversation. Um so that's the next steps. So with that, it's clarifying questions time. >> Thank you, Carolyn. Uh so the community and council are invited to ask clarifying questions at this time. Please raise your hand. Uh I can begin a queue so you don't have to keep your hand raised. Um we can get, you know, four or five of you in the queue and then work through that and go from there. One second. Hold on. Hold on. Not quite yet. Um, so just remember at this time that we're creating space to make sure you have a good understanding of the options. You may want to focus specifically, not you're welcome to ask about anything you have questions on.

0:45:19Uh, but I will direct you to your slide packets. Um, and the main topic for conversation this evening is on slide 28. Um, again, you're welcome to ask about anything you like, but that's a particularly helpful slide. Uh I'll also remind you all that this is not a time to share opinions or reactions. That is what we'll be doing in the small breakout groups and then we'll have report backs from those as well. Um and then uh please continue to share the microphones among yourselves so that everyone is able to um to to have a chance to speak and we uh won't be able to hear you online unless you have a mic. So if you can do that um then we can uh begin the queue. Okay, Paul, Eric, um, great. Uh, Tina, and Nick, we'll, uh, start there and and go from there. So, Paul, please.

0:46:22>> Oh, thank you. Um, I'd like some clarification on the dollar signs. Um, you may not be able to put actually numbers on there, but you could maybe tell us what's within the city budget. How many dollar signs, >> a dollar amount, but something that as we look at the existing 2027 budget, there's um work plan items in there that support it that with modest adjustment, we we could potentially implement. the ones on the other side we have not quantified the dollar amounts that would require I mean like if if those were priorities then the next work plan item would be to start to do the research to quantify what the financial need would be for those items right so we looked at the cost of undergrounding like eight years ago like that would have to be updated if that were a solution um so then within the within the existing budget um uh we've not quantified everything that we're doing across the city that fits into those kind of core buckets. You know, it's work our department does.

0:47:28It's work our office of disaster management does our work our communications and engagement team do. Um there's there's things within utilities and parks. So, we've not pulled that together specific to the power, reliability, and resilience work, but that's certainly something we could do and and certainly I think would bring forward to council um when we come back to them in part because I think we're looking for feedback before really doing that lift to make sure we're honing in on on the biggest priorities. So, I'm taking it that $1 sign, those items are already in being taken care of in the budget. But if we go over $1 sign, then it would be an addition to our current budget. this slide is is what's um currently documented in our 2027 budget and work plan. So that the work that's contained on this slide. So these these are the things that are already built within our existing budget and we have work plan items associated with these would be this set would be incremental to that but we've taken a little bit of an assessment of like how hard of a lift would it be to potentially prioritize these by um either I mean I think we have some grant opportunities. So, for example, on the community resilience hubs, we're anticipating a a funding opportunity

0:49:06through Excel um where we could seek additional dollars. So, it's not necessarily that we have to find other dollars within the city budget, but we can potentially find other financial resources. So, I think our goal was to to see what the flavor is in terms of of how council and the community are are really feeling about these priorities and then and we would add more color in terms of like how they could be accomplished um as we continue to develop them. uh thank you. Uh two quick questions. One is could you explain what a community resilience hub is and whether there are any at the moment? And then the second question is do you have any kind of uh definition for resilience or reliability for the grid that you're trying to achieve, how you would measure that.

0:50:02>> Great. Thank you. And you reminded me of a slide I meant to put in here. So I appreciate that question. Um I'll start with the first one. Uh so there's diff there's different meaning behind community resilience hub. I think that's one of the things we very much heard but they are locations that meet needs or services um during a an outage or a disaster that and they they have different flavors and you asked you know do we have some so of course we have some um there are locations that are able to sustain outage. Um, I think part of our goal, we did a um grant opportunity and a pilot and asked um community members to submit their ideas of what they believe a community resilience hub is and and how they would serve our community. And we got 20 applications and and they were all different. Um, and I think that's really the the flavor and importance here is, you know, we need to work with community to understand their needs and to work with those who can provide those services to see how they can serve and and and at that together. We're fortunate to have um Chad here this evening. They're one of our selected um community resilience hub grant recipients at Harvest of Hope. Um, but

0:51:14there's also, you know, thinking about places like the animal shelter and and churches and and they all serve different populations and different needs. And I think that's the the biggest theme we heard. Um, reliability and resilience, right? So, my definition of reliability is that the power is there when you expect it and when you need it. Resilience is our ability to navigate when we lose that and to recover from it um fa uh quickly and successfully. Oh, and how are we going to measure that? Well, reliability is the easier one obviously um because it's a measure of you know outages and and how successful we are in hardening the infrastructure. uh resilience is is one that I think as we navigate our resilience hubs and and seek to understand I think we plan to flesh that out like but it's really more about again we don't it's not a one-sizefits-all solution and so I think that's that's part of our our journey and and why this project will continue beyond this year.

0:52:20>> Thank you Tina. I just had a quick question on the um backup power for traffic signals. Currently with the mobile backup, how quickly do we get those in place during an outage? They roll in pretty quickly, but we're obviously going to be, you know, 5 10 minutes depending on on how long it takes us to be alerted to the outage. But like we had one on um Tuesday that impacted a pretty major intersection and um I pretty sure the team had multiple intersections repowered in in under 30 minutes or so. Um and certainly like during the plan outages like the PSPS event um we pre-staged generators um and and kept a lot of those major intersections going. There's a lot of intersections though. So, I mean, I think that that's why we've relied on on mo mobile generators um because it is it is a little bit challenging to back up, but there's certainly opportunity to think about key intersections is what we've heard.

0:53:29>> Nick, >> this is fantastic context. Really appreciate it. Um, quick question about the the prices and I know it's kind of high level and illustrative, but are we thinking just about upfront costs or ongoing costs and savings? Um, so for instance with undergrounding very expensive upfront but long-term savings in terms of operating and and maintenance costs. Is that part of the picture and analysis? >> So yes, it is. I mean, it's not what these dollar signs were intended to represent. Um, but yes, absolutely. And we've certainly done quite a bit of analysis on the financial impacts of our outages. And that would certainly be part of further development of these as we you know because again I think like we said you know to to advance some of these higher lift ones there's a lot more work to be done with the community to really better quantify those benefits. Um and so part of this is like we the dollars also mean more development needed in addition to like actual cash flow. Um it's really more the lift um that that would be necessary to advance them and then to figure out whether we go forward. And I think we we designed this in as you know if some of these are are arising then we would lay

0:54:39out work plans to advance the projects with go no-go decisions at a future date with council. So there would be a whole council process that would further inform them. But to be clear um we are definitely tracking the the financial harms of these outages. >> Okay Matt I saw your hand but before we jump to that uh let's see how many more. So, Gabe and then Nicole, Andrew. All right. And we'll we should have We're going fairly quickly, so um Ryan, I'll add you, too. Go ahead. Great. >> Appreciate that. So, I'm not going to ask Excel because they're not here to speak tonight. So, I'm going to answer in my opinion. Um, you know, I I think this is the the reason we I certainly believe Excel wants to deliver reliable power. I certainly believe that um there needs to be more emphasis placed on solving these solutions and we need to work with Excel to ensure that that's happening which is why we're participating in in rulem um for quality of service. We're engaged with the public utilities commission as staff right now starting to set the foundation of that rule making. Um so I think there will be expectation and measurement of this. I agree with you that a lot of this is dependent, but I think part of

0:56:22our project here is also to figure out where they're not going to be successful and think about how we solve for that. Like I wouldn't have backup power um for street lights because I believe we don't we shouldn't need it. But we also understand that there's no perfect grid, right? That's also a reality. Um things can happen, things can fail. And so part of this is what have we learned from our recent experience about where our vulnerabilities are and how do we solve for that while we're also ensuring Excel is is remedying the current situation with the grid >> for online. We need the mics. Thank you. >> I can shout really loud. They could hear me through the walls. Um so my followup really is is there then maybe two tracks of goals? those are within fully our capability to achieve and those that maybe are dependent upon that partnership. And so that way we have reasonable expectations with community about setting goals that can be achieved versus others that maybe can't.

0:57:24>> So I work in the climate initiatives department and we will tell you we don't set goals based on what we think we can achieve. We set goals based on what we need to achieve and then and then they serve as our guiding star for where we need to go. and we're we um often surprise ourselves that what we thought was impossible is achievable. >> Thank you, Gabe. >> Uh yeah, thanks and uh thanks council for hosting this gathering. It's awesome. Uh Matt, I think my question was similar in your direction. If you pull up that list of uh priorities, you I think for me the challenge here is it's a bit hard to prioritize in a vacuum and you know my expectation is that our partners at Excel have a plan and that there's a credible plan around you know what they're going to be doing to help with the power grid in Boulder.

0:58:09And so what I'd love to understand is have they actually shared a plan with the city? And to me, a credible plan would mean work streams, specific feeders, timelines, impact on SLA, that sort of thing. Has that been shared? Because otherwise, I'm finding it hard to just think through like where we would put our bets. >> So, my answer is yes, we're working on continuously building that out because I want to say, you know, we we have a really solid plan around the wildfire mitigation work. Um, some of our more recent outages have uncovered newer, more systemic issues that we're now working on developing that same level of of fidelity around and I think, you know, we'll be able to share a little bit more um with Excel in the coming months around that remedy. It's certainly our expectation to get to that point. And is that something that we're waiting for Excel to sort of provide us or are we because it seems to me like kind of to Matt's point there's two parallel tracks going here. We're trying to do some stuff at the city level, which makes sense, right? We got to control our destiny, but we're also at the behest of a supplier here. And so I'm just curious, how do we view those two tracks as converging or maybe not?

0:59:25And what's the timeline for that? >> Can you clarify kind of converging for me? >> I I I I guess what I'm what I'm trying to say is sort of to the point you you were making around street lights, right? If Excel is going to be prioritizing street light backup power, which I have no idea what what's in that plan, then that would not be an area where we would vote to put dollars as a as a as a group. And I think that would make sense, right? We're we want to do this with our partners. And so I guess for me it comes back to like what is the plan like from the Excel side because without that I just don't know how to judge this. >> Yeah, thank you for that. Now now I'm I'm tracking. So I appreciate that. I think one of our requests um for your discussions this evening is is really to envision achievement of that at least that um 2030 goal which is to to return to a comparable level of reliability um that that we had historically. So kind of that historical experience um and just to build in the learnings um that we've achieved with our recent um unreliability because it's illustrative of vulnerabilities that that we still have as a community. So I we're not

1:00:40solving for I would ask you not to solve for what we're experiencing today, but to learn from what we're experiencing today and thinking about what positions us more towards that 2035 goal of of being really more resilient as our climate changes. So that would be my request as as kind of guidance as you go into the breakouts. Um it's it's my expectation we will get back to that at least historical condition with our utility. All right, Andrew. >> Yeah, thanks. Um, I have a few questions. Um, first of all, uh, regarding the resilience hubs. Um, talk about locations that meet needs um, during certain events. Um, can those locations be cityowned facilities? Um, first of all, and secondly is like you talk about the events, but what kind of events are we actually talking about?

1:01:33Are we talking about power outages that are that we've experienced or more like disaster scenarios um like the 2013 floods? Um and then just a couple other was you also talk about high priority areas and critical infrastructure and I just thought I'd sort of better understand what how those are being u decided. >> Yes. So one of the strategies here is um you know integrate backup power into and into city buildings and expand backup for critical infrastructure. So certainly I I think on the table is building out more of our city facilities to serve as these hubs. So I think that's something we're we're looking to hear from you um in your breakout sessions whether you know that that feels like a good priority like where it would rank. So that's certainly on the the table here. Um and and I apologize your second question, can you repeat it for me? I'm sorry.

1:02:35>> Is is defining what the events that we're talking about. >> Thank you. The the events um in in the context of this evening, I I think we're we're focused on loss of power. That loss of power um can come from different forms, whether it's a proactive shut off, a failure of equipment, or some disruption from an emergency. Um, but we're not seeking to like solve for um like these are not necessarily the strategies that get it. Um, like we're not saying like here's the flood event that we're planning for. Um, so we're thinking about this more um dispersed experience across the community is maybe the helpful context here. understanding that what we build through this also provides resilience towards those deeper level disaster events. But um in the context of this scope, I think it's really around the loss of power is the the thing that we're we're focusing in on or or how to ensure that we're not losing power.

1:03:45All right, Bob. >> I uh would have to say that page 29 of a PowerPoint presentation is very, very disappointing to me. I'm sitting here looking over the hill in Elorado and I'm seeing an environment that is under absolute strain and we're going into fire season. the Marshall fire December 30th, 2021. And there's no mention of taking Excel to the exit because I my hands raised in that direction. You got $900 million worth of revenue leaving the state, a $16 million CEO, and I'm wondering if my house is going to burn down on April 8th of of 2026 with a goat trail fire. I you can do these powerpoints, but there's a sense of urgency with the patience, the patient, and its nature. And I'm asking for us to really redress that because we're out onethird of the way through this tonight and I I fear for what we're doing if we're thinking 2035.

1:05:09That's it. Sorry. >> Thank you. Um so we're going to transition. Oh, I'm sorry. >> Yeah, we Yeah. Yep. Go ahead. Sorry. >> Thanks. I had a question, Caroline, on this the slide with the um the power outages uh historical the couple of graphs. Thanks. Um so my here's my question. How much of of the increase in outages is related to wind and wildfire management versus other stuff? And just the maybe the anecdotal question is I've heard people say it's it feels like we're experiencing outages now when there's there's no wind. There's not a red flag. There's nothing going on related to wildfire. So could you just speak speak to that? Thanks. >> Yeah, I'll I'll I'll kind of share the journey I think we've been on since since 2024 because the answer is it's all of those things um that are are constituting this. Um the most dramatic impact is the public safety power shut offs in terms of you know how many people were impacted and the duration of those outages. So certainly the duration graph on your left um is heavily driven um by those public safety power shut offs that began in 2024 in the interest of wildfire safety. Now, you know, the one we had in March of this year impacted far fewer people and was far

1:06:40shorter, and that's really reflective of a lot of the mitigation work that's taken place since 2024 to to today. And so those PS events kind of declined. The December event was also um you know, much of the outage and duration was not the PSPS, but rather the damage caused by the winds. Um and so it underlies the data and it's very difficult to unpack from it. Um because we did take heavy damage to infrastructure particularly in North Boulder. Then parts of our community particularly in in late 2024 and 2025 experienced the impacts of these heightened safety settings. Um and so those were in play for much of the summer of 2024 and and much of 2025 throughout the year. And I I describe those wildfire safety settings, you know, that will shut the system off on fault as kind of the early detection system that started to identify underlying failure of our our system, right? So it would trip off because there was a fault um and it was in heightened settings. We're now seeing um that we have underground cable failures and other things starting. So it's no single thing that's contributing to it.

1:07:56Um, so each requires a little bit different um, tactic, but certainly I think 2026 is is going to look worse. Um, and it's going to be less about wildfire and more about um, more equipment failure. >> Council member Spear, >> thank you. Um, I have two questions and I know we're short on time, so maybe the first one just short. I just want to clarify um the conversation we're having tonight around the the road map that we're preparing that really informs the advocacy with Excel, right? I mean, part of the reason that wildfire is moving faster is because you all in climate initiatives have been using a lot of your time to advocate for that. And I just want to clarify that it's not that we're sort of inventing >> correct >> pie in the sky ideas tonight. This is really going to direct work. even even if we don't have funds available, it's the case that it will still direct the advocacy that you all are doing. Is that right?

1:08:51>> Yeah, that is absolutely absolutely correct. And and certainly we've seen that with the roughly half a billion dollars in wildfire mitigation investment Excel is making right now in our area. >> Yep. Thank you. Um and then my other one was just around social vulnerability. Um we've been thinking about this more in our disaster planning, the flood and storm water master plan. Great example of that. I'm just wondering how that kind of fits in with the road map here as we're thinking about it. I feel like I want to ask Darren. No, I mean I think I think you named a very important point and I I think that's one of the reasons we wanted to bring like these groups together to really also have that conversation. So, um it's we're certainly seeing that disparity and yet it's so critical to to keep our community connected and able to to respond. So, I I appreciate the question. I don't have a deeper answer tonight, but it's a really important topic.

1:09:47>> Okay, last question. Council member Kaplan. >> Thank you. I promise it'll be quick. Um, for the permanent uh backup power for street lights and then integrating backup power into uh future investments. some of I know there's some technology out there for batteries, but um what are are we looking at uh fuels that don't necessarily add to our carbon neutral goals of 2050? >> Um yeah, no, absolutely. So, battery backup is is a is a robust solution. Um you know, I think as we've like designed new buildings, they they have the capability to add a battery system to them. Um I I'd have to ask I believe like that is a consideration for Alpine Boston like it's got a location where it could be. It's just whether we make that additional capital investment um in that technology and all else to say you know we certainly I want to make sure you know we do allow you know fuelbased you know fossil fuel based backup generation in our commercial areas and we have it for our buildings understanding that you know the hours of operation are are dimminimous relatively so while we try and seek better cleaner solutions the benefit of batteries though is that they serve benefit benefit beyond outage. And so that's really why we're preferentially um pushing towards those

1:11:13because they they actually help the grid in other instances. They save people money. Um you know, so I think that's the investment we've been prioritizing. Um understanding that um I think all of those are on the table. Great. Um thank you all. I know there are more questions. I apologize. we do need to move into the small breakout conversation. So, please carry those questions forward um into those into those breakout rooms. Um we're going to have four groups facilitated by staff. Uh there will be a a facilitator in each group as well as community participants, council members, and noteakers. Um we'll have approximately five community participants and two council members and a facilitator or notetaker in each group. Um and then we will uh we have some discussion prompts for you. Actually, could we go back one slide?

1:12:12Thank you. Um so we'd like you uh again, you don't have to follow this script explicitly, but uh the first question is, are there any revisions to the goals? This is in your packet on slide 32. Um and that's referencing slide 16. So that first question is referencing slide 16. The second question is referencing slide 28. >> Uh, no. Does >> Oh, so >> on your Oh, you don't have those. I apologize. Um, okay. So, thank you for flagging that. Um, so perhaps we should go back to slide 16 in the presentation and um, we'll make sure that at least a handful of folks get pictures of that. >> Um, if I myself Darren Wagner, she her with the city of Boulder. I just want to point out that the packets that you each have the goals in there and they also have the strategies that you'll be considering tonight as well. So those are the key pieces that you need to refer to tonight.

1:13:26Okay. So, you have that um apologies for the oversight there uh on the logistics of that, but you have those in your packets. Um so, the questions here are um to review the broader goals. Um and what refinements would you suggest and most importantly why? Same for the strategies. What refinements to the strategies would you suggest and why? And then of the potential strategies that have been identified um or one that you craft on your own, what are your top three? So if you have three to choose from, where would you suggest or direct staff and council to focus their energy over the coming uh months and years as they're planning and implementing the power reliability plan? Um when you return from your conversations, council will report back on what they heard and then um and then we'll uh go back into uh a little bit of open dialogue for the group to round out. So um on the this slide you can see where you go. Um this is also on your name tag and on your uh placket. So that'll show you which room to go in. uh we'll have staff members identify themselves as to which room they are leading and then you can follow them into um into that breakout space and we will have about 50 minutes in

1:14:50those conversations. I want to encourage you as will the room facilitators to make sure that there is room for everyone's voice in those conversations. Um we'll go round robin style and and make sure that each person has an opportunity to speak. Um, am I missing anything? Okay, let's begin. Um, started. >> I know there were a couple folks who may have needed to step away. Um, but welcome back. Uh the next aspect of this meeting is that we're going to hear a report back on the themes from the breakout rooms and we're going to invite one council member from each group to provide an overall report back um and then you can check with your co-consil member um if they have something to add. We ask that you keep your summary to something like uh 3 to five minutes. Um, and then, uh, share back, you know, your key discussion themes, any aha moments that you may have had, and also what your takeaways were for your highest priority strategies that you heard from from the community. So, let's start with um well, you you all can volunteer yourselves.

2:16:28>> Just call us. >> Do you want me to go on? Okay. >> Um, >> I'll call on Aaron. >> Apparently, I should call on Aaron. So, >> I was specifically trying not to volunteer and I was just incredibly unsuccessful in that. All right. Well, so, uh, so here's what we had and we didn't try to get to any consensus. So, I'm going to just mention some of the key points that individuals brought up. Um, so on prompt number one about evaluating the goals, um, one person noted that they really felt, um, that there was a missing goal of local control of our electricity and not having Excel be our power provider. They also mentioned the need for um change at the legislature, state legislature to enable uh public power ownership or um filling that community choice energy, which I don't have time to go into what that is, but you can look it up. Um so there was a note that power outages affect lower income communities much harder and in particular um the losses of food and medicine are very hard to bounce back from from power outages and so compensation is really an important thing for that. And then there was a note with we had a lot of talk about the resilient hubs in the various prompts.

2:17:38And one of the interesting things that was mentioned that uh we could have resilient hubs that are more based on individual homes or even about information about who has uh what infrastructure or um knowledge about where to go in those cases. And also how could we enable more resilience like with bulk purchases of battery backups for um mobile home park residents for example. And I'd also note that while centralized mobility hubs are um an important part of the puzzle that mobile resilience hubs like in trailers would be incredibly useful. And then a couple folks noted that in terms of the goals that 2035 is really far away for that final goal because that goal is basically saying that we have just as good reliability as everybody else on the front range. And so 2035 seems like a very long time to accomplish that.

2:18:27Okay. For for prompt number two, um there are a few things here. Uh there's definitely a thought that we would like more emphasis on preventing outages before they happen rather than just responding to outages. Um making sure that people out in the community know how to enroll in emergency alerts like how can we get those numbers up much higher in terms of participation. Um several people noted the need for better communication from Excel to residents in the case of the public safety power shut offs or um so that was important and u someone mentioned that on uh D2 which is adding permanent power backup power for street lights and traffic signals that it was particularly important to prioritize um where we would do that particularly a note on traffic signals over street lights but then there was some push back that for some folks who feel more vulnerability street lights are also veryant very important and then an really important point that we have to make sure that when we talk about all this funding that that funding is applied for and then given in ways that are equitable and accessible. Finally, on our prompt number three, we did a little bit of dot voting. So, we added some discussion on on this, but I'll make this kind of a numeric exercise. I

2:19:35think you all have your charts in front of you, so I won't read them all, but the ones that got it uh two votes were that A3, B1, B2, and D3. And if anybody gets bingo, just let me know. And then uh the other ones that were mentioned were A1, C1, C2, and D1. And we had some discussion around those, but I'll leave it there with that uh numerical analysis. And that's what I got. 3 minutes 22 seconds. >> Great. Thank you. Um well, Rob, I know you're the one from your team. Um there you are. Um, see I see of new faces. Uh, would you like to report out for your group? >> Um, one of the key takeaways that we had was that some of these things are now and some of these things are um, 2035 and no matter what, they should be all happening uh, congruently together right now. no matter if it's a long-term goal or a short-term goal. Um, for now, um, individual resiliency was key. And we did have a little bit of an aha moment, um, for alerting an opt out versus an optin, um, program.

2:21:01um creating a dashboard where um Boulder has the data and has the metrics to create an incentive um for Excel to see and so that we can have consequences and have conversations um and what are the possibilities for uh reliability and resilience specifically what can Boulder as a city specifically do versus Excel? what what is our role in that? Um, and then we also talked about defining public safety, which I thought was really interesting because you have a PSPs and it's shut off for let's say fire, but then if you just have an outage and it's shut off, that's a clear safety um concern for people that are on medical devices or are on fixed incomes and they lose hundreds of dollars worth of food as well as businesses. Um, the other thing was to have permanent backup power for street lights and for cell towers. I don't know how the FCC factors into that, but if that would be a conversation um right away again for safety um streamlining permitting uh for solar installation and battery backups um for homes and businesses. Um, we also spoke about through that, you know, the generators to be able to use a generator. Um, right now they're limited by the ordinance based on the decibb. And maybe that's um something that we revisit. Um,

2:22:41split D3 into two different parts. Integrating the backup power into future investments in city buildings. Um and then um that's very different from expanding the backup for critical in infrastructure. So we wanted to break that out. Um and you know back to the dashboard just make it easy to understand the data and the metrics not just so that we can go back to um Excel but so that everybody in the community truly understands it. um because it is a bit of a a a tricky topic for people to to understand what's happening and you know where those where those outages are in the city and how they're affected. Um and then we talked about getting Excel to fix the underlying problem of these power shut offs, whether it's a PSPS or anything else versus again, what is the city's role? what can they do? What is our expense? What is our reliability? Um 0% interest loans for some of the uh backup generators or backup batteries or or whatever that looks like. Um I don't believe that we uh in these prompts um discussion prompt number three, we hit a couple key things. Um, A1 got a star, C1 got a star, D2 got a star. There were a couple other stars, but then as we were discussing that, you

2:24:16know, that's when we were saying these things need to be done uh congruently. Um, am I good on time? Okay, bye. >> Thank you, Rob. Um, and then, uh, Tina or Matt, would one of you like to take the lead for your group? Okay. So, um we started with some revisions to the proposed power reliability and resilience goals and the first was to add um to quantify the goals and show um a better outcome as well as the timing. Also, we commented that 2035 is too far out for the sense of urgency that we have now. And we talked about that. Um and so then moving on to the correct strategies, we added a couple of strategies overall. The first was a heavy emphasis on the regulatory framework and the second was municipalization. So we put those as two options additional options for our group. Um and then we um we also added to the hardening strategy not just undergrounding. Uh we to undergrounding we also added hardening expanding that from just undergrounding.

2:25:29And then we um talk generally about uh which should be prioritized and the there's some really great conversation about how we need to meet this moment much faster and work on the large high ticket items first rather than beginning possibly with the incremental. But it was also expressed how important it was to have the battery storage um for an organization that helps vulnerable communities. So um and we also spoke about um oh and then our priorities that we um identified we had three dots or stars for undergrounding and hardening. We had two stars for the community resilience hubs and then just one star for solar storage. Uh the public utility one I think it was C2 and then the backup for the traffic signals. And then we also prioritized um we had a strong advocate for municipalization and then re regulatory changes that include clear penalties and payments from Excel in the case of um power outages. So um and that's it. Matt, do you have anything to add?

2:26:40>> Great. Thank you. And then for our last group, um Nicole or Ryan. All right, I can I can start. Um, so on goals, a lot of themes from what Tina just said. Um, we talked about the at the at the starting point, there's something around knowledge and intelligence and being just being really clear about who are the vulnerable groups and populations both from a human standpoint and from a like a business and economic standpoint that are that are impacted. Um and then secondly something around an economic slashengineering assessment that that gives us a clear understanding of like the modeled path forward so that we're using our money and time well and and doing the most we can with the available money. So that was kind of like a proposed new goal set. Um I I didn't have else much else on goals. Nicole, did you was it >> um the only thing I would add is just we had a lot of conversations around um defining some of the terms within the goals a little bit more. So, uh things like historical averages like time moves so over over what period, right? Those kinds of things. So, that that was that was a lot of it.

2:27:57>> And community what does community resilience mean? Does it mean a certain type of a structure or does it mean a more virtual or general relational kind of a thing in a neighborhood? Um so that that was an interesting point on goals. Okay. So I'll move to to strategies. We spent um a bit of time with some table setting. Um so it was I guess first just sort of acknowledging that it's awkward that we're not the engineers. I think somebody said we're not electrical engineers but maybe actually there were some electrical engineers but most of us were not electrical engineers and we just want the problem solved and so that's it's you know we're sort of looking at these strategies but like I you know I think a lot of us aren't really sure what to do with them or at least I'll say I wasn't um and then we um also this matter that Gabe you talked about this earlier just like how does how does what we do here fit into what Excel does and I I think we ended up accepting the idea that we're not going to worry about that too much. Now, we're just going to assume that it's we're talking about just the work that needs to get done. Um, so we had some

2:28:58discussion about if you look at that table, we should focus on the bigger ticket items or at least that was a few people had sort of pointed to just the biggest impacts. Um, and on the the menu itself, uh, we added a a couple of new ones. um the policy regulatory item and we got a little bit into performance standards and incentives but I think the more the more general point was that yeah this the state regulatory framework legislative framework is important and then related there was another on the other cell we didn't say municipalization but we did talk about bargaining power and we just the idea that um we should make sure that we're facilitating as best we can Excel to have the greatest responsibility for this work we talked about that that could mean policy that could mean um uh other other things. So that was um those are the two things we added. And then if I just look on the um the table itself here, we had a vote for I'll just list the the codes. So A2 uh A3, we had a couple of votes on B1.

2:30:04Um we had two votes on B3. We had two votes on C1. Two votes on C2. a vote on C3, three votes on D1, and then two votes on the um state policy item, and then two votes on the bargaining power item. >> What else, Nicole or others? Okay, thank you. >> Great. Thank you all. Um I know we've been at this for a bit and that it's getting uh a little bit late, but we have one more kind of round of conversation to have before we wrap up this evening. And so we wanted to start by asking if uh council members if you have any questions for the community members while they're here that are going to help you um prioritize and and to provide guidance for staff. So do you have outstanding questions that you'd like to hear a little bit more on in terms of um what you've heard tonight but thinking about moving forward? What else would you like to hear uh so that you feel informed and equipped to provide that guidance?

2:31:17All right. And then uh Nicole and then Aaron and then Matt and we can hear from from all of you probably, but let's go ahead um and hear the questions and then we'll open it up to the community for responses. Um and we'll see how that works. Um, and I'm going to try to do this without getting uh into any controversial ballot items or anything. Um, one of the things that came up in our group was really a leaning toward more of the bigger ticket items. And I was talking to Chad who was sharing that that was something that came out of um, his group as well. and and I'm I'm also just observing some of the reaction community is having some some parts in the community are having um to a major infrastructure um ballot item and tax increase and so right money has to come from somewhere and I guess that's my question for community members as thinking about these bigger ticket items it seems like those are things that came up we'd certainly try to find funding in any way we can um and also it may come back to us and and so is this really something that community would just sort of broadly be interested in? Um because I I'm I'm not quite sure I'm not quite

2:32:33sure what to think about where community is at with in infrastructure investments right now. >> Yeah. So piggy back piggybacking on that question from Nicole. So then some things are longer term and very expensive, but we'll be tackling we um this work uh starting next year. And so I'd love to hear from folks what you think our top priorities should be that are attainable in the next one to two years that you'd recommend we really get cracking on. Thanks. >> Great. >> Yeah, mine really centers on the three buckets. What are the priorities that we have sole control over of achieving? What are the buckets that are perhaps regulatory and legislative in nature? And then what are the buckets that rely on Excel to get us to achieve those goals? And really sort of just figuring out how do we prioritize within those three buckets because we put all our priorities in one of those that we don't have agency and to fix, then we're setting ourselves up for maybe some disappointment. So bucketing those seems key. And I'd like to know where are we where where among those priorities those all reside.

2:33:48>> Okay. Are there other questions that the council members would like to put on the floor? >> I two um two of them. So one of them we were kind of Nicole and I and others were discussing this but um the question is something like is there is there more that we could put on the table from a state legislative and regulatory standpoint than is already there? So, this is an active area of work. I don't know that it's the top um like on the executive summary page of our priorities. So, I guess that's kind of the general question is like is there is there more with council's support um you know for for policy advocacy that we could and should be talking about and perhaps that indicates trade-offs. Um and then the second question is we they get back to the original discussion earlier discussion about you know um don't be constrained in who's going to pay for this but I I I would like to talk about h how much of this does Excel take care of versus does a city of Boulder take care of and on the side of the Excel taking care of it part how much of that is is is really new rate based investment or just like financial investment versus how much of it is

2:34:56regulatory improvement ments that create incentives and standards and requirements that upgrade approaches and that sort of a thing. >> So to somewhat oversimplify, one of the main themes that I'm hearing across these questions is how do we go about paying for the major investments? And um so if anyone from the community has some particular thoughts or ideas that you would like to share on that, let's open the floor for those comments. All right. And we'll go Steve and then Atrae. And uh I love by the way Ryan how you're carrying the mic from the base. Um that is actually really helpful because otherwise these can pop out and then not work. So >> great. >> Great. Thank you. with respect to how to pay for it. >> Closer to the bank, >> the way to who owns the problem, who owns the structure, who owns the electrical system, who has hundreds of millions of dollars in profits every year. Why are we ringing our hands about how to solve their problem?

2:36:13We should look to them. and use the legislature to compel them to provide the service that they are legally responsible for providing. >> Thank you, Atrey. >> Same answer. Okay. Um All right, we'll go Nick and then Paul and then uh sorry, was there Yeah, Andrew. >> I I totally agree. Um I think the the one addition I would make there is that it doesn't have to be adversarial. Um yes you know that that we can we can wish for more but Excel would also like to improve reliability. Excel would also like to make capital investments in in our infrastructure because that's how they get a rate of return uh and return even more value to their shareholders. And so I think that getting to Aeron's question about where do we start? What do we do over the next couple of years?

2:37:11It's a force multiplier to work through the regulatory system, through the state legislature, through the public utilities commission in order to create the incentive structure. This came up a lot in our in our group, the incentive structure for Excel to do the things that we need them to do to invest in our infrastructure. And that is something that if we do it in the next couple of years, it'll pay dividends for for decades from now. So that's where I would advocate starting. Paul. >> Yeah, thank you. I agree that uh Excel has the money. Um but I there's other sources. I know that Ann Arbor was investigating the sustainable electric utility and they looked at two things. They got a $5 million grant. So hopefully the city is digging around looking for grants. And then they were looking at a subscription model to pay for the ongoing cost. That's kind of fell by the wayside when they couldn't figure out how to actually overbuild the existing system. So they're just uh using the $5 million to help put solar in storage in people's homes.

2:38:24>> And Andrew, where did Andrew go? There he is. Um, yeah. I mean, I I think that it it probably does have to be adversarial. I I disagree. Um, I, you know, in splitting on two buckets, the the Excel side of things, I mean, Pennsylvania's doing uh some uh work right now to lower their the their utilities uh rate of return uh to something that's more market-based. And I think Colorado can do the same thing. Um and and maybe do that as the the stick where the carrot is improving reliability. So having the city help uh force that through um and along with maybe you know revisiting municipalization as as another potential stick to to get uh uh Excel to to really accelerate this process. And then on the on the other side, the thing the thing that really the city can do, I I think that a lot of the big the the biggest change that can be made doesn't have to be expensive. I it can be uh changing permitting rules for solar. It can be the the low or no cost financing to um to really incentivize community members that want to to improve the resilience to be able to afford it. And uh there's a lot of money there in the community that if just the city helped or or like

2:39:50with bulk bulk buying of materials, if the city can help uh catalyze it, we can make a big change in overall resilience. >> Great. Um okay, Gabe, go ahead, please. >> The base. >> You got that? I picked up from the bottom. I I saw the look in your eyes. as I was grabbing it. Um, so, uh, I I do think there's some things the city can do and, you know, preparedness and, uh, streamline permitting. I think there's a bunch of items there, but my sense is none of those are really going to move the needle. They're really just band-aids on the underlying problem. And so, I go back to, I think, what I'm hearing a lot from this side of the room, which is incentives need to be addressed and and corrected. Um, I worry right now that when Boulder has an outage, it doesn't register at Excel.

2:40:43And I believe that the folks at Excel are doing the best job they can with the resources that they have. I like to believe that they're rational actors in this sort of situation and they are rational to whatever incentive structure that they have. And if you're operating in a world where when Boulder has an outage or a neighborhood in Boulder has continual outages and it doesn't actually change how you are penalized or the rate of penalty isn't enough to actually change your behavior, then we get the result of that, right? And I think that's sort of where we're at. So my recommendation would be we actually as a city take a deep hard look at the issues that are impacting the community tie that back to the specific incentives or lack thereof that we're seeing right now and drive an you know a proposal you know whether that's through the state or what at whatever level to actually change that behavior. I think if we do that to your point it's going to provide dividends over the next few years and then we can start to think about uh other supplemental activities. But I think the big thing I I'd say is I don't want to have us putting a bunch of money in a direction because that's actually

2:41:47going to produce counter incentive. It's actually going to tell Excel that they don't need to invest in Boulder or they need to care about our SLAs's because we're going to go pay for it if they don't get it right. >> So I think that's an interesting transition point. So Matt, you kind of talked about three different kind of buckets and we've hit on uh notions around Excel and regulatory and PC p. Um what about that which is within the purview of the city um and and I you know Gabe I I heard your your argument or your point there. Um and there are things that the city can take agency and action on with a certain degree of immediiacy. Does anyone have uh some thoughts or ideas around what you think the city can or should be focusing its particular efforts on where it does have responsibility uh or agency to to be able to address the situation? Yeah.

2:42:50>> Uh thank you. This is Craig. And this is more this is in reference to Mayor Brockett's question about what can happen quickly. And I think when we're talking about community resilience, that's a perfect place for the city to take the lead on that work and focus on the individuals and the families and the communities that are impacted directly with power outages because regardless of uh the infrastructure changes and uh lowering the frequency of power outages, we're still going to have the threats of wildfires and emergencies and disasters that people need to be prepared for. So in addition to the preparedness, I I voice this in our group. I think it is a mistake to kind of rank these priority ABC and D, but do them in parallel, understanding that there's always going to be a need for enhanced community resilience, emergency preparedness, especially with our most vulnerable communities uh in addition to everything else. So that should always be a priority and I think a perfect place where the city can take the lead and really champion that and they have the the resources and community partners that are you know at the table today ready to support and that's you know a perfect opportunity really you know I think even not everyone not having a definition of community resilience is a

2:44:04good place to start because we've got to all get on the same page with what that means and prioritize our resources and I think we can start that we've already started some of that work, but it's a great opportunity to really kick it into overdrive while we're doing everything else simultaneously. >> Thank you. Anyone? Yeah, Carl. >> So, again, u on Mayor Brockett's uh question, the immediate things that I would see is education. uh that is really focused on the more vulnerable areas of the town, the demographics, because from what I'm learning here is that there's probably it would be nice to have a map of the city showing the areas that tend to fail most because the neighborhood I lived in originally failed quite often over at Table Mesa and where I'm living at now, which is a newer neighborhood, doesn't really have these issues. Um so part of that is the education that we can do to focused on those neighborhoods um and how to deal with it as individuals uh and how to prepare your home for the shortage of electricity. The second item in the would be an incentive.

2:45:25um each home that would get uh PV panels and battery backup um increases the reliability within that resilience within that neighborhood and can possibly pay for themselves if there is um I know there's a need for um storage within the grid that XL has to deal with with respect to u uh their rates throughout the day. And so arbitrage is something that was talked about years ago. I don't know if it's still on the subject or it's on the table today with Excel, but that's one way to pay for um batteries within the individual homes. >> Thank you. >> She needs a mic. Oh yeah, >> no, >> no, you need a mic. Um, >> thank you. You know, I'm not a big fan of putting a band-aid on, but in the spirit of the question, you know, and education, maybe a map of high-risk areas can help small businesses make decisions that do I want to sign a five-year lease in this place where which is going to experience so much PSPS or changing maybe the zoning a little bit to, you know, allow for derisking some of those. Um, but again, I say this with a lot of hesitation because it kind of says that we have to get used to PSPS rather than actually not get used to it.

2:47:13But if this is something the city can help, this is also a component of resilience. That's something I can think from very very small business ownership that this is a high-risisk area. Don't put your things here. Thanks Paul. >> Yeah, thank you for your question about what can the city do? What does Excel have to do? It's my understanding the city cannot touch the grid that we can't make changes to the distribution system and that's where the problems are. Um but we can build equity in terms of resilience in private property, homes, businesses, and city facilities. And the money we put into that is not going to excel. It's going to equity that pays off over time for ourselves. Regarding what the city can do, I think that uh a lot of the things that people are asking for here, so maps of high-risisk areas, etc., a lot of those already exist. I think one of the things that we could really lean into is reinventing what we mean by outreach, information, and communication. At this point, it's difficult for a resident to know how to get their hands on the information that they're looking for.

2:48:33And I know that in 2026, that's challenging. No one answers surveys anymore. It's it's difficult to create open communications. Someone in one of your groups earlier mentioned an opt out versus an opt-in. uh notification system. I think that's a really intelligent way. But I think making sure that everyone, especially those in high-risisk areas, actually understand the systems of support as they exist is more important than trying to add more band-aids that may or may not be utilized. >> Yes. I'd um I'd like to turn off the displays for a moment and just get back into something that I'm feeling as a filmmaker and was that person who came over that hill as I introduced myself in 1965. And I know what the air was like. I know what the falls and the autumns were like. And I just want to leave my statement here that the macro sense of the air we breathe, the temperature of this last summer, 60 plus days of bad air. This is all this is not just separate things. These are all part of how we use our energy. We have to get to renewable now. And I we are the solution in this room. And I beg you to think in those terms in the sense that we're not passing this to 2035.

2:50:00I've got four grandchildren and I want to be able to look at them and say that I did everything I could to to change the course. And it means getting off our cell phones and getting away from displays and realizing that we're part of nature. That's what we're dealing with here. That's the big issue here. And if we look at it like that, then we can we can solve this. But it doesn't have to do with a central era power company from 1882 when Edison threw that switch. They're gone and we got to re realize that their time has passed. That's it. >> Thank you. any um additional kind of closing thoughts in terms of uh particularly from our community members that you'd like to leave with council today. >> thanks. And um full disclosure, these are comments from Jim Gilbert who is part of the community energy resilience uh team that uh is working at the Mapleton Home Association. Um he has pointed out um he is a former medical device designer turned his attention to the grid and power and we are grateful.

2:51:27uh he has pointed out that undergrounding is not the beall end all and obviously it's extremely expensive. Um there are all kinds of hardening measures uh that are potentially a lot more coste effective and appropriate um including but not limited to advanced core wires, drones, DLB, uh gets I don't know what those mean but there is an article by Dr. Jasmine Garland at CU. Um, again, I I think fundamentally we because we're working with an investorowned utility who needs to make money off of everything. Um, their priority is to do the most expensive solution. I don't know our I realize our franchise agreement with Excel does not have a lot of hard things. they either meet the goals and our options are to uh take an off-ramp. Is there some room for some leverage with Excel to say you really don't want us to pursue an off-ramp? We'd really prefer not to have to uh obviously maybe not municipalization. I think SEU would be a better uh option because it's adjacent to Excel. it's not in place of Excel but anyway they are not incentivized uh appropriately so I think the PUC work is really important um but again to the extent that council and and uh the city can push Excel to do things that don't always make them the most money I would

2:53:13love to see um the partnership you know if there really are great partnersh let's see some flexibility on their part. Thanks. Thanks, Mary. Dave, >> just for closing remarks, I'd love to offer some perspective from the world of infrastructure space. I I say this as someone who, you know, can empathize with the position of Excel. I run digital infrastructure that requires availability of what we call 49s, 99.99% availability, which means that I can only tolerate 52 outage minutes per year. And you'll be surprised, I don't always live up to that. My teams don't always live up to that. And when that happens, which it does frequently, the one thing I ask for is a plan. I want a plan from my team to fix it. A plan involves work streams, involves timelines, it involves individuals who are accountable, and we have status, we track it, we drive that forward, and we drive for progress. And it doesn't always work out the way we planned originally, but we adapt, and we get there eventually.

2:54:29And I'm sharing that because I feel like that's the job that I'm looking for the city to perform here. We need a plan. When I look at what's being discussed, I don't see a plan to actually fix this. And and I think our community deserves that. We deserve a plan. And by the way, a plan that might involve getting tense. It might involve some tough discussions. And that's okay because this is not an easy issue. But what I worry about is that if we box ourselves into just the things that the city can control, then we're going to wind up just with a bunch of band-aids that don't actually result in a credible plan. So that's my request to council is a credible plan and timeline for actually resolving this. And by the way, the community, myself included, are here here to help. Like we're not just putting all this on you.

2:55:16We want to help. But let's acknowledge what a real plan is and what what isn't. Thanks. >> Thank you. And Trey, >> I think one of the things that I like to point out is 2035 is too long a timeline, but if there is a creative investment right now in fixing the grid or making it durable, then I think the profits roll down roll in for Excel or anyone else later. So I think the the the slide needs to have that. in 2035, you're going to see profits if you put in the capital right now. So, that's my closing thought. >> Great, Carl. >> And um like I said, you know, I've been focused on energy efficiency and I think energy efficiency needs to go hand inand with the issue about the resiliency. The less electricity we use for heating and cooling the homes, the less reliant we are on XL to make sure it is arriving at the homes. So I believe that the city could take a stronger stand on creating energy efficient commercial buildings and residential homes. Um I know we have some of the stronger uh IEC, International Energy Conservation Code.

2:56:42Uh but I think there the part of that that's missing from that is bringing solar into the picture, which really isn't addressed very much in IECC, but I believe we can take a stand to bring more solar in and rely on less purchased electricity. All right, we probably have time for just one or two more. Yeah, please. >> Um, I really appreciate everybody commenting on how we don't want band-aids. And I also want to offer up a band-aid. Um, I think that having access to some of these emergency items, especially solar powered generators, is like an immediate thing that can help a lot of people. And there are a lot of people who cannot afford that. So, I'd love to see the city have contracts with these brands like Blue Eddie or Jackaryi or something that can then distribute it to our community, including undocumented residents, like really make it accessible to people. Um, because we've done that at MHA and I've seen such a huge impact with that. So, yeah, great.

2:57:42Thank you. >> Okay. Um, well, so we're going to round out this meeting. Um, first of all, just a deep heartfelt thank you to each of you, um, including our community members, council, staff. Um, it takes real care to show up and to participate in these conversations and to listen to one another and to help us create a stronger democracy in in this community. And um so thank you all for for your investment and your care that you brought to the conversation this evening. Um as far as next steps are concerned, staff is going to draft a summary. Um if you did take any notes within your worksheets that you would like them to have, please make sure and leave those behind when you when you go. Um and then uh that summary will be shared back out with all of you and with the public.

2:58:48From there, your feedback will be incorporated by the staff members, Carolyn, her team, and and others and presented to city council in February as the city's uh power reliability and resilience roadmap. So, Gabe, it's uh maybe moving in the direction of that plan that you're asking for. Um and then uh from there you know it turns into implementation additional engagement. Um you know these these processes do take time. Uh a big community doesn't turn on a dime in you know typically. So um but that's kind of a bit about what the the next steps look like. Um and the city's commitment is to keep you updated and informed and engaged. So appreciate that. Um before you go, there's one last thing that we would like to ask you to do and that is to complete this brief evaluation. Um this is for both council and community members. So if you could just take two or three minutes before you leave this evening to complete your evaluation.

2:59:59There are also paper evaluations if you would prefer that. Um so let us know how we can continue to strengthen these processes. Um and I can turn it over um mayor if you'd like to say anything in closing or uh deputy city manager. >> Well, I'll just say on behalf of the city of Boulder, thanks so much to all of our community members for joining us here today, taking an evening of your time uh and for your probing questions and excellent ideas. We really appreciate you. Um want to thank city staff for all of their work in getting this set up and making this such a success. And then if we could just recognize Josie for her excellent facilitation. >> Uh I think the mayor said it. So uh just grateful to all of you. Uh Ryan is uh standing up over there with some paper evaluations if you need one. Uh and uh there's some leftover food downstairs too with to-go boxes. So if you need an extra snack, there's some food downstairs, too.