City Council - workshop

behind the rate increases I'm proposing and understand what the implications are going forward if you don't raise those rates.

Actually look like they're probably okay, but.

Big, but here over the next several years. And is proposing some rate changes. And I think the 1st step of that will start in January of this year, and we'll continue annually probably for the next 5 years. The rate increase they are proposing for January. 1st of 2027. Is 9.8%. And that's a little bit higher than what I had originally anticipated when he did the study. I did a 6%, but they also are eliminating a PCA credit. You're getting that adds another 3.8% to the rate increase. That is the primary cause of the deficits from now through 2030. Everything else is fairly stable. You've added sustainable beef, which is a nice customer, steady usage, a good customer to be serving. But again, you have capital projects that are fairly stable. Your O&M internally is fairly stable. That purchase power though, you just can't absorb that kind of increase. It's 75% of your cost. And it's going up 9% next year, 6% a year, the next 3, 4 years. It it's the reason I'm proposing the rate increases. So, any any questions on that. Okay, I hear understands that. So. As I looked at the rates or my. Originally, I was anticipating the 6% rate increase and. Talking to staff, we decided a 6% rate increase made sense for the electric system. With the 9.8% increase, I looked at it again and I decided in talking to staff and in the interest of stable rates and phasing in rate changes and not surprising customers, we're gonna stick with the 6%. I know that's significant, but it helps at least tread water as NPPD starts to raise their rates. And I'm expecting that this is going to be the first of a series of rate increases. But they will primarily track what is doing. So if next year they say no rate increase, I don't think you would need 1, but I think the future ones will need. You're gonna have to track what they're doing just because it's such a large component of what you pay. I'm proposing that every rate class, based on the cost of service, I can raise the rates for every rate class about that 6% amount. What I've done for every rate class except residential is raise all the components 6%. So the customer, the demand, the energy all go up 6%. On the residential rate class, I'm proposing a little bit different. It's still a 6% overall rate increase. I'm increasing the customer charge, the customer charge, the monthly fee you pay for service. That's going to go up $2 a month, which is around 10% of an increase. But the energy rate increase will be lower than 6%, and it's going to be about, I think it's 4% is the number. So the reason I'm suggesting that is looking at the cost of service, what it costs you to serve a customer that doesn't use any electricity. Think about somebody like a snowbird. They shut their power off for whatever reason. They shut off their water, shut everything off. You still got to read their meter and you still got to send them a bill and you still have equipment sitting there that you have to pay for. And it costs quite a bit more than what you're currently charging. It costs close to $30 a month for all of that equipment and for the billing and for all the work you do to serve that customer. So I'm proposing that $2 a month increase to help bring that number a little closer to what the amount needs to be. That is the only component that's going, the only rates that's getting a little different than the 6%. So, but it's overall revenue will go up 6% for the class. So any questions on that? Yes, sir.

So if we're looking at a 9% increase of 27 and 6% the next three or four years, why don't we increase our rate 7% and keep it stable for the next five years? Eight, seven and a half percent.

Seven and a half percent now, and then.

Here's offset 6%, but it's going to go up

Well, you'd collect a little more money in the 1st year how we'd have to make up that 9%.

And like you said that report is what our costs are.

Right? And I, I do think that the 6%. Isn't is adequate for next year and, you know, again, I would add to for for for fiscal year 27. You're only going to have 9 months of an increase of that 9%. So you're going to have. a lower amount that's actually going to get through your budget. You have three months that are still at this year's rate, and then nine months at the higher rate. And I think you had enough surpluses and enough margin built into your cost, into your revenues and expenses in your current budget and your projected budget. I don't think you need the extra percent and a half at this point. And I'm comfortable with the financial results. I'm comfortable with your cash reserves. You have a pretty healthy balance sheet. You have plenty of cash on your balance sheet. And I'm comfortable that 6% will work this year. And I think even next year, if they stick with the 6%, you're going to be okay next year as well.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Yes, sir.

Walk me through the $30 a month, how you came to that number of costs to just have it.

Absolutely. So when I do a cost of service analysis, I look at... the cost pretty much of every class of asset you have on your system. I look at the wires, I look at the transformers, I look at the meter, the service that goes in there, your meter readers, your customer accounting and billing system, all those, you have to have a minimum level of investment to be able to serve every one of your customers. So I'm including a part of every single wire in town because every single wire is being used at at least a minimum, maybe not the full cost of it, but the minimum length that you need to serve every single customer. And the largest component of that is your distribution system. You have miles and miles of wires. You have customers sometimes that are at the end of a quarter mile or half mile distribution line. And when I look at the cost of what those lines are, how much it costs to take care of them, the operation maintenance is somewhere between. 20 to 30% of your distribution system. If you sold no energy, you would still have that cost if you just had wires running in every house. And that's the largest component of is that distribution system again, get my system or the meter reading system. Excuse me that. You have to send out bills, you know, 75 cents for a stamp that gets split between the utilities. All those costs add up and that's where that 30 dollars ends up coming from.

So you take the total expenses of the municipality divided by the customer base and that's 30 dollars.

It's not the total. It's a, it's a portion of it. It's probably 25, 20 to 25, 25%. Yes. The rest of it goes into that energy charge of the demand charge for the larger customers. Yes, sir. How much.

When you're looking at this, I guess I got two questions. First, how much certainty do you see with the three-year scope with NPPD? And then second, are cities like in our size range, are they doing much with payment systems to incent customers to electronic billing and to electronic payment? Are you seeing any communities do a differential of charging on that?

I will say on the first, I can't necessarily speak for the reliability of NPPD investments. I've worked with NPPD for 35 years. I trust their analysis. I trust that they're analyzing where their position is. They're not going to fabricate something. They're going to tell you the truth based on their analysis. And those are always subject to change. You know, we've seen a pretty significant increase in the cost of new generation. You know, they have this Prince and road station that. It's going to come in a fair amount above what they originally projected. Uh, I, I trust their numbers. Um, but at the same time, there's, you know, there's going to be uncertainty. There's uncertainty in all these numbers. If I knew what MPBD's rates were going to be 30 years or five years from now with absolute certainty, I'd probably use that strategy to estimate the value of other things like stocks. But again, I trust that they are looking at the numbers they have and they're using their best efforts to give you an accurate assessment of where their rates are going. On the other question, it was on AMI or meter reading and accounting and Um, you know, there's kind of a, there tends to be a threshold and I think you're certainly above that threshold where you start to see people encouraging. Customers to use either electronic billing email billing to avoid paper billing. You know, I have a house in a small subdivision in Colorado that has its own water system. I haven't received paper bills from them in the 15 years. That's something that's important to them. But again, you have to have the systems, you have to have customer acceptance. I see there's like an age block where they don't want an electronic bill. They don't want to get that by email. So I would defer to your staff as to where that appropriate level is. I've known Don for 30 years and I I trust that I trust her judgment when it comes to understanding your customer base and what the right thing to do is. I do think I will say this too. I know a lot of cities where. They sell customers to come in and paying cash. or even a check. And I think anything you can do, though, to encourage electronic payments is, you know, what it costs to manage a check or manage cash is pretty significant. So, you know, most of my clients, you know, have eliminated credit card surcharges on their utility bills because they know that it's cheaper to process that than to process a paper check. So, all right, that answer your question? The only other thing I want to add on the array design is you have a billing class for electric vehicle charging. We added that last time. You have, I think, three customers on that class. And it's a special class, basically said, look, they're going to pay 100% of the cost of what it takes you to run the wires to them, the transformer. And the rate we charged them was an energy-only rate. It didn't include a demand component. The demand component is based on the highest hourly usage in a month. So as we looked at this, we added a small demand charge to that rate class that recognizes if they set a really high peak and then one hour and they don't use it the rest of the month, they're going to pay for that hour the whole month. I looked at that. I think it's important that those customers have somewhat of a demand charge on their billing. So all right. Any questions on that? Utility, I mean, EV charging rates are one of the most difficult things to deal with because sometimes they only get used five hours a month. Other times they get used, you know, Two hundred hours a month, and there's just so much variability based on the time of year. And I just, I don't like setting those rates, uh, residential bill increase. So this takes into account the two dollars a month that I mentioned earlier plus the energy rate increase. Typical bill will go to would go up five dollars and eighty one cents per month. If you adopt the rate schedules in the report. I looked at your neighbors. You're right in the middle of them. I think your rates look pretty competitive. I think you're above Hastings. You're below... I'm sorry. You're better than... Then NPPDs and Dawson's rates. I think Lexington was a little lower. Hastings is a little lower. I fully expect, I live near Lexington. I do most of my business in Lexington. I know the city manager really well. I expect their rates are going to probably change with the recent changes they've had over there. So everybody else on this list buys their power from NPPD. Everybody else is going to be in the same position you are in terms of what's going on next year and have to make a decision as to how they account for it. There it is. Yeah, Hastings, Lexington, a little bit below you, but Dawson and MPPD, you've got definitely. And I, again, fully expect those rates to all go up next year.

By MPPD, do you mean like at Kearney, for example?

Kearney or Ogallala, where they are the retail provider. But MPPD retail is a wholesale customer that buys their power just like you buy your power from MPPD. Thank you. So these are the conclusions. I'm not going to repeat them, but again, I think that it's the key thing is that 6% to make sure that you're not losing ground next year. With that rate change any questions on the electric utility. Yes, sir.

Um, I realize this is probably outside of your. Wheelhouse, but do you know why and people what's driving the cost of the rate increase?

Um, I don't know if. If 1 of them I have, I know what I think the answer is, but I think it'd probably be better to hear from lane from when they were here last year talking about rates.

It's mainly the new generation they're building over the next few years. So they have to put on enough to bond over the long term.

There's a lot of what's driving their rates and what are they doing for the new generation?

They have a mix of different generation. I don't remember all what all they are. And if you remember, we also want about 8 years with no rate increases from them as well. So.

But, I mean, looking at the numbers here, at a 9% the first year and 60% after that, in five years, you basically add 50%, 46% to your cost. That's significant.

And I know even with that, Nebraska still sits in the bottom 15% of...

electricity costs nationwide so they're still working to keep us lower but yeah it is it is significant but it is we're still much lower than a lot of the nation i mean it's good to hear but it still hurts and i i may even have that presentation my fingertips i remember scanning it when they were here with that i'll try to find and send over to brad i'm sure we have it but i recall that wage inflation was part of it production and the cost of equipment just through the roof. I mean, I recall there would be a specific piece of equipment that were double, triple, quadruple.

Which is what we've seen as well, which is what we have to do as well.

I remember the Transformers talks we were having, you know, basically after COVID.

I know three years ago you could build a 100-megawatt power plant, like I say, with a combustion turbine, probably for $125 million. Now, it's probably closer to 250Million. I mean, just there's so much demand for that equipment and the labor that puts it in and. That's just reality of the current market. We're in for those services. All right. Any other questions on electric. And there's a great schedule in appendix a of the report. Uh, I know it's not up for discussion tonight. I believe it's going to be on a future agenda. I'll let Tony or lane and talk about that process. The water utility, uh, there's a deficit there about 1.3Million on the water. You don't have in, but what you do have is you have a pretty significant capital improvement project plan, uh, that, you know, your engineers and your staff have worked on to. To determine what it's going to take to maintain your system, the reliability of it, make sure that you're not. You know, fixing main breaks, but you rather be proactive and replacing them before they fail. It's a lot cheaper to do it as part of an organized plan than to have it fail at 3 o'clock in the morning in the middle of summer. That's the largest component of it. And when I say capital improvements, I've also included some debt service for to fund some of those improvements as well. On this 1, it's about a 25% overall rate change over the next 4 years again. It's a 6% just like on electric rate increase annually for the next 4 years. As I looked at the cost of service across all the rate classes, I think you can raise the rates about 6%. I am proposing a slight rate design change, which I'll go through here in a little bit when we get to that. You have a very, you have like 5 energy, 5 water blocks based on usage. They go down the more you use the cheaper they get and it's pretty complex. Um, it's probably not completely reflective across the service. I, I, I tend to see rates for water either be flat for most of the usage or in some places like Colorado, where they try to encourage conservation. You'll see your 1st block of 5 CCF is is. Say, a buck 15, and then your next 1 is 3 bucks. They try to basically encourage you to conserve water. You don't have the water supply issues they do in Colorado, but nonetheless, I don't. I don't think the rate right now is reflective of cost of service. So I'm working over the next few years to flatten it so that the high users are going to pay a little bit more and the lower users are going to pay a little bit less. Uh, for that water usage overall still going to be 6%, but the larger users, and a lot of times those larger users, it's discretionary usage. Uh. You know, somebody who has a 3 acre lot and wants the whole thing to be green year round. You know, they're going to probably use more water and they probably should pay more than than they are right now. That's the that's. It will tend to encourage discretionary usage to be reduced or they pay the bill. So, my plan would be over the next 4 years to implement that. I have 2 steps of that proposed in this year's rate change.

So, yes, sir discretionary use. Okay. It doesn't sound like that's really a reflection of the cost of delivering the water. It's more an attempt to force the public into doing something they may not necessarily want to do.

Well, I will say that, you know, there's part of the component of water usage that. Is doesn't change based on how much customers use, but. You have a water treatment plant that or you have water facilities that cost it takes electricity to run them takes electricity to pump the water out. If your usage gets too high in the summer and the peak hour, you may need to add additional pumping or a water tower. Those are the kinds of improvements that start to happen. When that usage that discretionary usage, that marginal cost during those high usage periods is the highest cost water you have. Yeah, you may have the capacity now. But as you creep up, you may not. And it may drive that next well or that next improvement that you need to install. And so that's generally why, when I talk about discretionary usage, I'm not saying don't use it. I'm saying that pay something closer to cost of service. Because I don't think that that unit of water over the long term is any cheaper than the first unit of water. In fact, I think it's probably, over time, as your load grows or usage grows, it's probably more expensive.

More expensive to use more water than less water per unit?

It's more expensive if that usage occurs, like, in a summer period when your usage is high, when your wells are producing, you know, very close to their maximum usage level. Again, maybe not right now, maybe not in that particular hour, but five years from now, as your system grows, that usage might end up costing you more money. Again, I don't think it's less. I will say I do not think it's less. Because you've got the customer charge that you've recovered, your cost of billing and the cost of pipe. It's hard for me to say that. I can't say it. I can't say it. that that unit is less expensive. I just can't.

So I'll chime in. Yes, sir. My own opinion, because I thought about water more than I think I've ever thought about just because the public is so focused on it recently. I'll be honest. I'm surprised that we're tiered away from the more water you use, the less you pay per unit. I would much rather see us moving towards at least a flat base, you know what I mean? And I'm not worried, I'm not concerned about my lifetime, but you start talking about my children's children's lifetime, you know, they look back and what idiots we could look like at that point, you know what I mean? So any kind of water conservation is not a bad idea.

And I'm not suggesting that you go to a situation where that second block is higher than the first block. I definitely don't support that, I think. But certainly the declining... And certainly when you decline to where the last block is 70% of what the first block is, that's where you start. And those are going to be very, very large users who can drive you to need an improvement. Or to build a drill another well, or additional treatment.

Yeah. And when you're using that much water, water conservation and doing things smartly, if the, if it saves the cost starts to make sense, you know what I mean? So no, I'm with you on that.

Well, I mean, I know we're not talking data centers here, but you look at.

Oh, we're talking data centers.

No, I'm not talking data centers, but you look at where those data centers like to site and they're going to, you know, when they have a decision that, hey, if I'm only going to spend 80 cents a thousand gallons on water, I'm not putting a closed loop system in. I'm just going to run it through and dump it into the river.

Buy the water rights and off we go.

And I'm not, but you know, people respond to price signals. And if that price signal is, hey, put a closed loop cooling system in or do something else to conserve water to keep you from having to drill a well or build additional treatment, then do it. I mean, that's, and that saves the rest of your customers in the long term, not having to pay for that additional investment.

And I will say we're very cognizant of our peers. And when we look at our peers, some of them have a flat structure. Some of them have the declining like us, less have declining than they used to. And some have the ascending scale. So, I mean, we're kind of right in the middle there. And so it's looking at all that. So we don't at the same time want to make it so we're not competitive for businesses that are wanting to come in either. So it's all taken into account.

So I'm just stating my opinion. I would rather see the us ending at the very least go to a flat rate. I was in Scottsbluff fairly recently and they're worried about shutting off pivots down there because the aquifer is getting so low. And that same aquifer underneath them is the same one on us. I mean, it's all connected, you know, so there's concerns out there.

I just completed a rate study in Hastings, and they're under an order from the NRD that they're under to come up with conservation. And what they decided their conservation measure was is an inclining block rate structure. So if you get above 30 CCF in a month as a residential customer, you're paying about two and a half times what that first five CCF cost. And that's, again, that's that direction they decided to go. And again, they're under conservation orders. They're They don't have to show action, but they have to show the results. They have to show that they're taking action, though, and that's what they chose.

Well, I think it might have misunderstood what you were saying. I think I understood that if I used more water, I'm going to pay more per unit than if I.

No, no, no, no. Yeah, it's this rate will still be a declining rate, but it's going to be flatter. It's going to be flatter.

Are you going to provide us with some options of what we can do?

I have a proposed structure that I went through with staff over the last several weeks. I don't have it with, I think it's in the report, though. And staff feels fairly comfortable that it's moving in the right direction. It's not going to be, I'll say, punitive to the largest users. I mean, they will see a larger increase in the overall 6%. But it's not going to be like 60%. 1 of the concerns I had that if we do on straight to flat rate, you know, sustainable beef, for example, their bill might have gone up 50%. And that's not I don't think that's a. That's not I'm not going to say sustainable. That's not a good idea. That's not a good idea with your largest customer, but over time, that rate will start to creep up for them.

So, John, I don't want to cut you off, but you only got 25 minutes.

All right. You guys are very competitive on water rates. 6% 6%. proposed rates are in the in the book in the in the rate book wastewater um it's the same i could have taken the way the water one and copied it it's about capital improvements it's about making sure you have a reliable system making sure that you're replacing mains that need to be replaced and that you have a reliable that you're not causing problems this one's a little worse I mean, this 1 is 9% rate increase for the next 4 years. Um, looking across all the rate classes, I'm suggesting that those increases be implemented the same fashion.

I will point out the council when we look at just sewer rates, we're very low on the low scale with all of our peers and even cities in the area. So even with these will still be very competitive.

Yeah. I think if you look at this particular analysis, you look at that 1st column, which is going to be your typical. Residential usage, I mean, unless unless you have 12 people living in the house, you are on the lower end of this and and I will tell you, I know, um, grand islands are going up about 6% a year for the next 8 or 9 years. So you're on the lower end on the wastewater rates. But again, I think it's important, though, looking at the capital improvement plan that you stay ahead of those things. And as I looked at the plan, they all seem like reasonable things. But your folks have made the assessment. Those improvements need to be made. And this will help avoid, again, potential future issues. And one of the things you don't want to get in a situation is where you're not taking care of that system and starting to cause backups and start to cause other things. You just want to make sure that's reliable. Yes, sir.

So looking at your data there, we're on a descending scale also on wastewater.

No, no.

So how do we open 5,000 to 10,000 and it only increases 15 instead of 25?

Because you have a customer charge. Yeah, the customer charge is started. Yeah, there's a fixed dollar per month. So the wastewater has always been flat. Fair enough. Thank you. So, I know I kind of breezed through the wastewater. I was going to pretty much repeat everything I said on water. A little bit larger increase. Um, I think it's a little, there are a lot more improvements that are being contemplated on the wastewater system than on the water system. And it's common across, I mean, you have environmental regulations you have to comply with, you have discharge limits, all these things. None of these rules get any easier to comply with, I've discovered over my career. And you really can't control the geography or the makeup of your customers, but what you can control is how you take care of them, how you invest in your system to make sure you're serving them in a reliable fashion. Again, 9%. The one thing I want to mention on a rate design, I did breeze by this, but I did want to, in talking to staff, we had a lot of discussion about this one, is as it stands right now, there's some wiggle room in how you calculate the customer charges for a trailer park and a campground. And the current practice right now is that staff goes out and counsel them. I don't know how you do it. Twice a year. Twice a year. Well, let's say, let's say you do that in March and October. And I don't know when you do it, but I don't want to go do it on a 100 degree day and I don't want to do it. You know, I don't want to do a 100 degree day when you probably have a lot of folks there that are. Here for the summer traveling or whatever. my recommend and you also have to size that system so that if it's full you can accommodate all of that discharge so it's my recommendation is rather than counting them what are occupied and what are you've designed the system to serve all of those lots so my recommendation is the charge based on the number of lots Or camper parking spots, if whether they're occupied or not, because over time, they're going to be. And especially in the summer, you know, when you have Raskin days, or whatever's going on. It's going to be full and you may not catch the day when it's the campground is completely occupied. So I am recommending, and this is fairly typical of most of my other clients that they don't use occupied lots. They use the number of lots that are actually being in the in the lot. So. that is the only real significant, that's the only significant rate design change on the wastewater. I just wanted to make sure I called that out. So any questions on that?

No, okay.

This is the overall increase of $2.58 this October and another $2.71 next October. The high-strength surcharges you have, I recommend those would increase the same amount. You don't have a lot of customers on that because sustainable is on a separate rate altogether. All right. I know I kind of breezed through this one, but I'm sure you didn't want to hear the same thing I said on water. Any questions on the wastewater? Here's the total increase per month, about $9.78 a month. That's my contact information. Appreciate the chance to be here. My understanding is that this has been oh, water and wastewater. We have 2 year rate schedules, uh, written. So, if you adopt the rates as written in the ordinance. Uh, they would be effective both the steps of that increase would go into effect without further action on electric. It's just the 1 year rate change. Because of the uncertainty about where is that? I think it would be prudent to see what their rate changes next year before you implement a rate change for that 1. so. That's what I understand. It's on the agenda for September 1st. Um. And hopefully I got done in time.

Yeah, you're fine.

We're going to change these rate changes with our cash reserve position and the electric and the. So, with that, the waters that that's going to be eroded by some of this.

That's a great question, Jim. Some of this, as we've talked a little bit, we're going from kind of being a reactive on our water and sewer fixing things as they break to try to be more proactive. We're going to be doing some preventive maintenance. We're going to be doing some main replacement and stuff in the years going forward. So that's all figured into this. And it's figured into trying to keep our cash reserves in each one of those areas. utilities kind of at kind of where they're at a stable rate it'd be using a little bit of that cash reserves short term to get caught up and then hopefully keep those stable at that time but um it's not to completely erode those away completely as they stand

And I'll say looking at that multi-year projection, I didn't see any concerns about minimum cash, your cash going negative or going below. I think for the most part, it stayed above 120 to 180 days throughout those study periods, which I think is reasonable for you.

John? Yes, sir. Go ahead, Ty. Go ahead.

What's your definition of a regular residence in that? Is that like an average or mean or is that a certain profile?

So when I did this calculation, it's looking at all of your residential customers. It's like the dollar increase for all of your residential customers divided by the number of customers. So you're going to have some that are lower, some that are larger. But basically, if you average out every rate increase across the whole system, that's what it would be.

Okay.

just a simple clarification on the water utility estimates that you did. You had figured a usage of 7,500 gallons, and then on the sewer side, you had it back to 5,000.

Not that that is a very big deal, but... Yeah, the reason for that is that water, there is... What's called consumptive use when you water your lawn, it doesn't go through the sewer. You build your wastewater for sewer based on the winter usage when you're not watering the lot. Whereas the 7500 is going to take into account some of that. Type of consumptive use washing your car, watering your plants that that doesn't get accounted for in the sewer system.

That makes sense.

I just was curious why that's a great question. Great catch on that too.

And the clarification on the electrical rate system. We talked about snowbirds. and let's say they leave in September or October and don't come back to April, they still get charged for their electrical service, don't they?

Yeah, because most of them don't turn it off completely. They still have a little bit of usage. Yes.

All right. So there isn't somebody just shutting it off and then... No.

Very, very few of those. And the electric piece is always the hardest one to get an actual because, you know, some people have gas stoves, some people have electric, some people have electric heat. So electric is a lot harder to pin down. It's a lot easier to kind of find an average on water and sewer than it is on electric. So electric doesn't vary more for people than the water and sewer for the most part.

me in the cap in the water side they said there's capital projects one of the complaints i have is the periodic chlorinations is there anything in the capital planning developers that projected chlorination schedule is that more because of repair and development actually the chlorination is more because the state lowered their thresholds and you know we've if we were still at the same state thresholds on coal total coal form as we were in 2015 we've never we would never had to

But because they lowered that threshold, even though there is no danger to the system, our water is just as clean as it was 20 years ago, but they lowered the threshold of what they're looking for. And it's something we have regular conversations with the state because we don't agree with it. But that's why we're doing it. Because in my opinion, they would like us to have chlorination all the time. And we're doing these things to keep from having to meet that chlorination all the time, as some other cities do.

Think of it as a preemptive chlorination. Yes.

We do it every so often just to keep that coliform count lower than what their standard is.

This is...

you can't do a little all the time because there's a there's a minimum amount that has to be recorded or else it doesn't count if you will so yes i mean we would love in the system not to ever chlorinate the system because i none of us like it but we're trying to do it so we don't have to do it full time you also don't want your bugs to get used to a certain level of chlorine

I would agree 100% without getting us in trouble.

It is a big enough topic that anything we can do to whether it be inserts and bills or

regarding pets than I do people. For sure.

And then people who have a certain... Your pets won't drink for a few days, but people with some medications it messes with too, and we're very aware of that. We're trying to learn as we go to get better as far as being able to let people know more in advance if we can. Sometimes we... are doing it kind of within a few days just because we have to to keep from having to keep coordination going all the time yeah i had a lady contact me and apparently she lost all of her plants because she wasn't aware the chlorination was coming so she was very upset i would have that happen but okay i want to i want to say that by and large

And honestly, I can say I haven't had anybody really complain about it. That's important. I'm so fortunate to have that in our country.

And I would just say that, you know, the people that work for the city, the people that work for our utilities, they're your friends, they're your neighbors. Every one of them is working to do the best they can to provide reliable service to our neighbors, and that's what we're trying to do.

if i could just tack on to what he just said i just and i'm done um i work with a lot of utilities and i will say that it's a pleasure working with this one because the records are in really good shape i think don and her finance team do it when i ask for data i get it i don't get it and we don't keep that and i i think lane and and tony and don and everybody else i'm there's we have eight people in these meetings when we talked about it very professional, very knowledgeable, very well organized. And I think that's a credit to to your to you as a council with the team you've got there. It makes my job a lot easier. And I just want to thank you, thank them for their hard work. And they're as responsible for this study getting done as I am just because they there's so much data needs to be produced. So they just want to add that.

Thanks, John. Last minute questions. thank you john we appreciate your time and your effort and your recommendations this meeting is now adjourned appreciate it council will reconvene in about 15 minutes at 5 30 for the regularly scheduled council meeting