City Council - Regular Meeting

There it turned on.

They aren't telling me. Next on turn. Somebody's yelling at me. Heat. Heat. clip on tie. He's got a clip on tie.

Who? He's got a clip on. I have no idea.

Looks nice. Yeah, somebody left it. It's been Andy. My speaker wasn't working. It's still early.

Okay. On that, I'd like to call the study session of April 27th, 2026 uh to order at 6 PM. So, all members are present. So, we'll move right into study session business. And our first item is 2026 water sewer revenue bond update. And uh we'll call on chief financial officer Cassandra Raymond.

Thank you. Good evening everyone. So tonight I will be providing an update on our most recent debt issuance. This was the 2026 water sewer revenue bond for the wastewater treatment facilities bioolids modernization project which you will also hear referred to dayto-day as the drier. It doesn't like you, does it? No, it doesn't. Jeff, could you go to the next slide, please?

Thank you. So, this overall or the project cost on the modernization project is a little over $30 million because this is part of our wastewater treatment facility. The city of Bonnie Lake shares in the capital costs under an interlocal agreement we have. So, the city of Bonnie Lake will be responsible for about 53% of this cost. Puja Sound Energy is doing some work. They'll be responsible for about 2% of the project cost, about $780,000. And then the city of SER is responsible for the remaining 45%. In order to fund that, uh, city council approved ordinance number 2946 back in November of 2025. This provided for the issuance and sale of water sewer revenue bonds in a principal amount not to exceed $14 million and then delegating authority to staff to approve the final terms of those bonds. The issuance team outlined in that ordinance uh consisted of the mayor, our city administrator Jason Wilson, myself, and our deputy city administrator Jeff Stefins. Additionally, because this was a rated bond, and I'll talk about that in a moment, we added to our our city ratings team, our public works director, Mr. Kosa, our deputy public works director and city engineer, Alisa O'Hara, and our city attorney, Miss Marquez. Our underwriter for this project was DA Davidson, was Dave Tragister, who we've worked with on many issues. Bond council was Foster Garvey and for standard and pores we had a ratings team of Caitlyn Curley and Khloe Whale. So as a formal debt issuance this was rated and what that means is standard and pores who is one of our one of the um international ratings firms came in and provided our issuance with essentially what's a credit rating. Um bond issuances are a little bit different. the city itself doesn't get a

rating. The specific bond issue is what's rated. So, if you remember back in 2025, we issued uh utility revenue bonds for our public works operations facility that received a double A rating from standard and pores. We received the same rating for these water sewer revenue bonds. The 2026 issue, this is an investment grade rating. There's no bond insurance required. uh this was an excellent result for the city. When Standard and Pores comes in to do a rating activity on a bond issuance, they're looking at a variety of things. They're studying our financial statements. They're looking at our city council, how proactive we are on rates. They're looking at our the depth of our executive and our management team and our leadership. And they're also because this is utility revenue debt, they take an in-depth look at our entire utility infrastructure in our system. So even though this is specifically sewer revenues that are pledged for this standard and pores came in, they looked at water, sewer, and storm water along with our overall um our overall city operations. And my thanks to the public works department because the information lift on that infrastructure and system information was was quite significant. So very happy to get that double A rating and because of that we were able to really work within the market and get a positive outcome for this issuance. Our maximum aggregate par under the ordinance was 14 million. Uh because we were able to sell at a premium, we actually issued 13 million max par. um but were able to deposit 14 million into our project account. Our final maturity date was no later than 20 years from the issuance date. We kept that at about 19 years. Maximum coupon rate um allowed was 6%. We kept that at 5%. Um our maximum true interest cost under the ordinance was 6% not to exceed. Our true

interest cost for the life of the bonds is 4.067%. the delegation expired under the ordinance um in 2000 actually November of 2026. Uh we had that that delegation expired on the day that we closed which was April the 16th. So we have received those funds already and we are good to go. Next slide please. So the issuance detail our par amount $13 million. We were able to sell at a premium which was about 1.62 62 million um less our underwriter discount. That's the spread that the underwriter takes for managing, coordinating, and selling these bonds. So, our total sources were 14.08 million. Of that, the city received just a little over $14 million. This was wired directly into our local government investment pool account so that we can maximize our um earnings on that while we undertake the construction. $55,000 went to bond council. Again, Foster Garvey acted as bond counsel. This is a very technical um task that they undertake. They're providing our written opinion not only on the tax status of these municipal bonds, but they're also preparing both our preliminary official statement which goes out to potential investors as well well as our final official statement. And then standard and pores, uh you know, we're required to have a rating and that does not come free for that amount of work that they do is a little over $26,000. So with that, I am happy to answer any details. Our next steps, we are under construction. City council approved the construction contract in December. Uh that will be constructed through fall 2025. Finance will have regular reporting responsibilities to um Emma. It's our electronic municipal market access. We will have reporting responsibilities on Emma through the life of these bonds. uh the debt service schedules, we'll update those in our utility rate model, but

it's important to know that the preliminary debt service has already been built into the model. So, we're not expecting to see any impacts from our final debt service um into our utility rates. So, I'm happy to answer questions. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Elers. Hey, thanks, Cassandra. Um I just think I think we were asking about this back in 2025 and we issued it. was um the idea that potentially local people could have an opportunity to buy the bonds. Is that something that is the opportunity passed? Was it was it something that was put out there?

So, we had talked to um our underwriter about that and it's a little bit more cumbersome. Um and I do apologize. I didn't know there was still interest in this issue. So, they are still available on the secondary market, but the initial term has has passed. Got it. Okay. Council member Malcolm. Yeah, thank you. Sure. Cassandra, can you tell me a little bit more about the difference between the uh the coupon rate and interest cost, the delta between what was done and what was issued? Is there a cost avoidance associated with that or do we get do we is it how does that benefit us? Yes.

So, we always want to keep our rates of or the interest rates as low as we can. Uh we did issue at a premium which really is just indicative of of a strong interest. Um I will say that at the time we went to market there was a lot of back and forth. There was a lot of uncertainty in the market. The bond market had been doing this um just based on on activities that were happening internationally. And so there was a lot of question you know some issu some issuers had stuff pending in the pipeline. They delayed some didn't. And we looked at it we said we think we're comfortable where we're at right now. um that we can we have a strong bond rating, we have strong interest and because we were a we had all that we were able to sell at a premium. Selling at a premium essentially is saying that we are selling at a coupon rate a little bit higher than what is currently in the market and then we advertise that over the period. And what that does is it gives us the ability to maximize the amount that we're collecting um at the time of issuance, which is why we're able to issue $13 million a par but deposit $14 million. The true interest cost is really looking at what the yield is from now through the terms of all of the bonds. Um you know, there's a little bit of guesswork in that because we are non-callable out to 10 years and after that there's the ability to call. Um, but when we're looking at our true interest cost, we're rolling all that into one.

Sure. Just give me a minute. Council member Kenna. Yeah, thank you, Cassandra. Um, did the city of Bonny Lake go through a similar process to issue dead and did they get similar terms or how do they handle their portion of um this project? Thank you, Council Member Genna. Uh my understanding is Bonnie Lake have already built this into their rate model, so they're taking their portion of their fund balance. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Looks like you're good. Thank you very much.

All right. Next, I'd like to uh go to item two, YMCA annual update and 2013 service agreement amendment. So, I'll call on city administrator Jason Wilson and Gordon family YMCA executive director Jenna Layman and Charlie. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor Bowman. I'll uh have Jenna and Charlie introduce themselves and then we'll start. Jenna Layman, the executive director of the Gordon Y and I've been at the Y uh our Gordon Y for 11 years and in this role for about past four.

Charlie Davis. I'm the CEO of the YMCA, Pearson Kitsap, but I'm here just to uh listen and take it all in from Jenna. So, before I turn it over to Jenna, just uh for some context, this is your annual update from the YMCA. We do have two services agreements. We'll be talking about those briefly, as well as an amendment to our our 2013 agreement. So, this thing does not want to work tonight very well. Jeff, you're gonna have to advance the slides, please.

All right. So, I'm just going to give you a quick little overview of how the Y is doing right now and then we'll talk about a little bit about where the services agreement is at year to date. Uh, so on the screen you'll see what our average membership is looking like. The Y continues to grow year after year. Um, these numbers were pulled middle of April, so they look different because we went up in the last week. Um, but we're averaging about 2100 members and climbing. Uh we see about 81,000 visits to the Y each month. And that doesn't count folks who are going upstairs to use Olympic Sport and Spy or people who are coming in um maybe a grandparent that's bringing their grandkid and is not currently a member. And we're currently giving out about $41,000 almost $42,000 in scholarships. Scholarships are down at the Y. In last year we averaged it um we planned for about 45,000 and that trickled off. It's down across the Y movement across the United States and so it's something that we're looking into but we have about 11% members on financial assistance monthtomonth and then just to give you a kind of an overview of how the Y compares to uh the community around us. So, we provided this information um to the Pierce County Executive a couple weeks ago when they came for a tour, but uh we're bringing in a lot of folks. So, more than just the folks of Sumar, but we reach all the way out um into Buckley, Enamclaw, all the way out to Graham, uh and then of course Edgewood and Puallup. So, we have a pretty strong membership base, but it's kind of neat to see just where our members are coming when they're coming to the Y. Next slide. Uh, of course we're always more than just a gym. Um, so I just want to highlight some of the extra things we do

besides exercising. We provide the uh all the residents of SAR the quarterly guest pass as they come in. Been working with Carmen to make sure that information gets out there. We have the community shower program allowing folks to come in and shower between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. for no cost. We'll talk about that a little bit more in our services agreement. As you might imagine, our lost and found is a plenty every day. Gallons of garbage cans full of it. Um, so we donate that to Lion's House for Kids so that it makes it way back into our local community. We uh along with uh now Chief McCertie, we ho host Camp Possible for our visually impaired um community members. We are big part of the community toy box and happy to be a part of that. Uh, one thing I'm most proud of though is 252 youth in foster care received free memberships at the Gordon Y in 2025. They get to call that home and even when they switch houses or families, they still get to keep that membership no matter what. Uh, and then we recently judged the um art and STEM fair. Not me. I don't have the skills to do it, but my arts director did. And then we got social groups, knitting and coffee chat. We're currently hosting the a knitting group from the senior center right now while they wait for the remodel. Um and then just other social clubs. Next slide. Programs at the Y. This is what brings our members in. I'm a big advocate that if we can get you connected to a class, we can get you connected to a community and that you'll stay at the Y. Um so these are just our current numbers for the session that we're in. over,200 kids in art and dance. Uh, which was of course one of the main reasons why our Y came to Sumar was a place for the arts. Youth sports, we we will kick off our first games this Saturday at Bill Heath.

And uh we're excited to to show off all of our soccer skills. Swim lessons there. We're going to hit 200. It's going to happen. We're so close to it. Homeschool PE is new since uh CO and we have 143 kids registered to homeschool PE which is amazing and it's created its own community. Uh and then of course group fitness and water exercise uh being about 8,000 visits per month. So staying busy and then teen late night which is so important to this community and to our school. So it's uh kids grades 6 through 12. They come to the Y free of charge from 5:30 to 9:30 and have a productive place to hang out and stay out of trouble. We see about 83 kids. Now that spring is coming, that number typically will bump up as spring as sports wrap up and there's nice weather, they're come hang out at the Y. So, we served over 2,000 kids in 2025 and we are on track to surpass that this year. And um they're just they do all kinds of things. The the biggest thing right now is the library um the band book club with Pierce County Library and they come in and support a reading group and do all book clubs and uh we did boxings with badges with um Officer Anderson and now we have a health coach filling in to support that as well. Next slide. Coming up soon we have our dance recital. Um I think some of you probably have attended or a part of it. Lots of tutus, lots of glitter. 455 dancers are gonna dance in Bonnie Lake uh at the performing arts center in June. It's a magical time. There is nothing cuter than a little ballerina who is just up there to smile and do nothing else. Um and then summer day camp comes. We are on track to have about 225 kids a week for summer day camp Monday through

Friday and then about another 50 on midweek. So, uh, folks need childcare in the summer and we are one of the best places to get it. So, next slide. All right. So, a little bit of history on our services agreement. Um, Jason and I were not in our roles um when this agreement and I don't think many of you were here either. Uh, and so we have done the best to navigate it. Our original agreement um was to supplement the $5 million donation that we received for the land that our Y sits on today. And we that original term was supposed to be 10 years, but COVID happened and we pushed pause for two years as the Y was shut down for over six months of that and then it took some time for us to get our feet under. So, thanks to the incredible support of council at the time and leadership, we were able to push pause. Um, and so that's the one we're going to talk about here in a minute. We had another agreement in 2019 that was for the field just to the north of our um property that uh we now run soccer and all of our sports on. Um that was about a $700,000 land donation. We fulfilled that original term. again took a little break for COVID, but that ended um last year, end of 2024. And um so we completed that agreement, but we still are left with this original agreement um which is hard to attach dollar amounts to. So if we go to the next slide, this is the original agreement um and it was all with wonderful intentions. uh we had the community access that quarterly guest pass that I spoke about. Carmen's been an incredible partner and Joe in trying to how do we get the message out about this quarterly guest pass and

folks know about it. They just don't take it up. Um 2023 was of course the best year but we were in a lot of extreme heat and we were a cooling center for several days in the summer. Um so that helped. Teen late night of course we continue to operate as it's so important to us and financial assistance is a staple of the Y so that's not going anywhere program financial assistance yes we offer that it's kind of hard to put uh a there is a number that's attached to it but what it it's just very varied and so it's hard to kind of tie it down the meeting rooms um council's met for a study session there a couple times lots of different community groups uh use our meeting rooms, our annual swim lessons. Um it was originally kind of aimed towards with along with the school district, but that is a difficult thing to fulfill. They don't have extra time in their day to bust them to the Y. So, we've been tracking the how many summer residents are in swim lessons. Um the non-member rates if they were renting spaces continue to happen. Same with the daily guest fees. Parks and wreck, we work closely with them. We share all kinds of information. And then uh dedicated art space and having that um we have displayed some art in there. We judge the ones. But as you can see, these are all kind of hard to tie like numerical value to them. Uh and so when we had the 2019 I think is that can you go to the next slide? Aha. Okay. When we did the 2019 agreement, Jason and I were both present. Uh we wanted to do something that was easy to track and served what the community has become today. And so we looked at the three-month vouchers that had been part of our agreement this

whole time, but not tracked. The shower program, uh we provide towels and um shampoo, soap, and all that anytime somebody comes in. And then uh we also uh managed Bill Heath in terms of scheduling and receiving payment. And so this was the 2019 agreement. And that we what we're proposing today is that we carry those services over because this is really what's serving the community right now. These 649 families who are down on their luck or just struggling to get by. We want to give them a home at the Y. the seniors who we know are struggling with isolation and not having um people to talk to, we need to have them at the Y. We need to have them around people. And so, as you can see, the um total for value in um 2025 was 144,000. Uh we're on track to surpass that in 2026. And we just feel like this serves our community a little bit better.

Thanks, Jenna. And just to remind council, the 2019 agreement was fulfilled in December of 2024 and the Y generously continue to provide those services that were in the 2019 agreement all through last year and through today. So the amendment that'll be before council in a couple weeks reflects that they continued providing those services all through 25 and 26 and they'll continue to provide them through September of 27. It also has some provisions in there that hey once 27 comes around we're we agree to sit down and talk because uh we value the partnership and may not be a financial partnership but there's still a partnership that needs to continue. and we just celebrated 10 years. We're almost going on 11 now of being in this community and I think it's been I get to brag because my peers do not have the same relationships with their city or with their school district that we have today and we just have appreciated the ongoing partnership and the ongoing conversation about how we serve our community and how we modify it as we go because what's important is that we take care of our people right here and right now. So, do you have anything to say?

Yeah, I think do I first that this

uh the real the reason I did come not just to root her on. Um is just to say thank you formally. Um I think Jason and Jenna captured that the the tone of this relationship is unlike any other between a city and a YMCA. We have we're in a lot of communities. This is the the model that we like to celebrate because it is collaborative and we're looking to do things that are clear about the the community itself and I think it works great. It's unfortunate we do want to build those fields Jace. Um we had you know the co really did knock us for a loop and the cost of everything has gone up but we did put grass fields in. We put an irrigation system in. one of our board members donated the money for us to do that. But we really do want fields with lights um just as we had written it up and that's the plan and hopefully we'll be able to get on that cuz that'll be a real jewel for the community too. So I just really it is a fantastic we we love it. We're grateful for all that you do for us too.

Thank you. So, any questions here from the council? All right, Council Member Hawksteader.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you for presentation. You may see me. I'm a regular there and my daughter takes the ballet classes, the rock climbing. That's another one she enjoys. I guess my question is I'm I'm one of those old-timers. I remember sitting in here when we're trying to get the Y here and seeing the arts commission in the vanguard of pushing for that. um and hearing, hey, we don't know if this community can support it. We don't know if you have the heads or the households. And then we see these numbers and you know, the way the community has grown and and and the job the Y has done, that's been a testament to how it's grown. Um my question is is we're seeing the numbers go up. Is there a capacity as far as it comes to the Y? Um because you guys are serving the community, but you also operate, you got to pay your bills. And I and uh and I I only ask this because I have a number of people in the community that says they've tried to get their kids into classes. you got to be online at 7 am and if you get on at 7:02 your kid is not it's turned away not available to get into class right so I guess what I'm trying to say is there's a lot of families in town and we're servicing so many people at what point does the tipping kind of tip over to you start turning away a lot of kids in a lot of programs

great question our daily struggle conversation um well our building was built for 24,000. The square footage uh and all the program space is built that way. What we try to do is each month increase a little by little, but staffing of course is our number one challenge. Um we currently have just over 300 staff pushing 400 as we start to bring on our summer staff. Um, but we're always needing more. And so the the quickest we can hire and recruit, the quicker we can offer up more spots. But it is a conversation we have regularly is what is the capacity? Because I also am a firm believer that we can bring all 24,000, but then it's the quality. You know, you don't want your daughter in a dance class of 25 and not getting the attention that they deserve. Um, so and I'm not sure that we have a a capacity number, but it is something we have to keep a pulse on as we go.

Yeah, it's a great uh problem to have um when people want to come to your Y. I do hope, you know, I know that we add classes and that we try to use the schedule. Like you said though, it's staff driven. Um, I remember when I worked at Cororum, we had 25,000 and we were adding Saturday and Sunday classes and um spreading it out. So, cuz parking is a kind of limits you too. So, um I I don't know if we're at capacity at Gordon, but there's a lot of people and I think they like seeing their friends. I hope. Um I always tell people I'd rather eat at a restaurant where there's people there rather than empty. But

we're going to keep working on it though. Deputy Mayor Alers.

Yeah, I just want to just uh echo back. We appreciate your partnership. It's been it's a great to have the YMCA in the community and I think it's it's a blessing to most everyone in the area. The question I would have would be um you talked a little bit about the field and the lights is something that's coming up and I think this is mostly looking backwards and kind of seeing how we're doing and and um do you have anything to share about uh things that you're that you guys would like support from the community or things that you're looking forward to coming forward in the next couple years? We could you know capacity is a good good one to talk about but you mentioned that. So just any other uh any other updates or things upcoming? Yeah, I think you know as we look towards the fields we'll have to look at funding and funding is always our uh opportunity I should say. So uh we'll look to community partners to help fund that field. Uh continuing we also have to continue to raise money for scholarships. We we give out far more than we raise uh and so wanting to make sure that we can continue to uh finish or fill out those vouchers. Um, and I just I think it's just what how do we continue to fill the need of the community? So, adapting to what that is. So, I want to continue to hear back from the community on on what the need is or where we can maybe fill a gap.

Yeah, I think that's well said. Good. Council member Evers. Thank you, Jenna. This is exciting stuff. You might recognize me. I come there once a month for a a Rotary board meeting. So I think we pass each other maybe. Yeah. And um anyway, this is my first uh YMCA debrief. I guess we keep hearing about partnership and I guess I'm a little soul. Is there any financial um as far as a partnership that we're involved with or is it just supporting him or

So the city donated um the land originally for the for the building and then we also donated the land that the North Field is on and in exchange for that the YMCA provides services back and that's what we're uh amending that agreement today. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Thank you all three of you. Just in closing, this will be on the May 18th regular council meeting for your consideration. Thank you. Amendment. All right. Thank you.

Okay. Item number three, battery energy storage systems ordinance 2.0. Now, this is a joint presentation. I'd like to call on associate planner Croissand Walker and uh Director Ryan Wendish as well as other local agencies. Uh, I will ask the council to hold questions until the end of each one of the three segments and then at that point I'll ask if there are any questions.

Thank you. Probably a new battery. This probably needed a new battery for a long time. Probably the battery. That's funny. I was passing. It was great.

Good evening, council. My name is Croanda Walker. I'm an associate planner here with the city of Sar. And I'm Ryan Windish. I'm Ryan Windish, the community and economic development. Good evening. I'm Ryan Windish. I'm the community and economic development director. And I'm going to turn it over to Cres. I do want to make a note that this is Cresandanda's last day with the city of Sar and she was gracious enough to do this presentation uh because she is the battery energy storage system expert at the city and uh I'm sorry to see her go. Uh so anyway, over to you, Miss Walker.

Thank you. Uh staff really spent some time putting together this joint stakeholder information presentation. There's a lot of new council members in front of us today and we have been spending a lot of time doing research and working through our zoning code to really address this new land use type and understand where this needs coming from. So today we'll be talking a little bit about how we got here, what we've learned, and where we're going to be going next. The meeting agenda uh will commence with a presentation from Puget Sound Energy and I will be inviting up Christine Naan and Anne Marshall. They can introduce themselves and their titles. They'll be sharing information on the state's clean energy goals. Then staff will provide you the background information on our first ordinance around battery energy storage systems, what we're calling best ordinance 1.0. I'll provide you project review on a best uh project including the timeline and details around uh that specific project as well as invite our East Pierce Fire and Rescue uh fire chief and personnel I believe Kevin Stabinfeld and uh John Parkinson. So, I'll be inviting them up later to help discuss their review and uh approach to the emergency planning and fire response. After that portion of the meeting, I will be inviting individuals up from the energy facility sighting evaluation council. I'll have Lisa McClean and Amy Hawkamire providing us an overview of the state's review process on battery energy storage systems and other large energy facility

uh projects in our state. And then staff will finish off with just where we're going to be headed with best ordinance 2.0 and next steps for you to be aware of. So right now I'd like to invite Christine Naan and Ann Marshall please join us. This is my work. Is it on now?

Okay. Hello, mayor, members of the council. My name is Christine Naan and I am the local government affairs manager for Puget Sand Energy and my colleague.

Hi, my name is Ann Marshall and I am a distributed energy resources commercial acquisition manager at PSSE. I'll go to the next slide and this is our presentation on our clean energy transformation plan. Um, and I'll share just a little bit about PSSE. Um, we're Puget Sound Energy, also known as PSSE. Um, we are the state's largest and oldest utility. We are a regulated gas and electric utility serving approximately 1.7 million customers in 10 counties in Western Washington. Um PSSE is going through the most significant transformation in our 150year history as we strive to meet the state's um most well it is probably the most ambitious energy laws in the nation. Um our core core mission is to deliver safe, reliable and affordable energy services to our customers under all conditions. So these are the pillars really that we um follow. These are the the state's climate policies. Um the most notable are the climate commitment act which is the cap vest and the um clean energy transformation act which is CEDA and that was passed in 2019. Um and there are other bills that we are following also the clean buildings act as you all also follow. Um and these are the um clean energy transformation act milestones. Um we right now have already hit our first milestone which is we are now a coal free um we are coal-free um utility. We have removed 750 megawatts of capacity of coal fired resources from our system. Um the next milestone is that by 2030 we have to be carbon neutral as um we have

to have a carbon neutral electric supply and by 2045 we must be 100% clean. And a little about battery battery energy storage systems. Um, also known as BESS and BES. We at the utility call them BES. Um, battery battery energy storage systems allow us to get the most value for from existing renewables and offset the need to build additional generation resources that are used only at high times of need. And we estimate approximately 1,500 megawws of storage by 2030. Um megawws is hard to understand, but one megawatt powers about we would say um anywhere from like 400 to 900 homes. So it is it is a lot that they can provide that storage for. Um and we're also exploring a mix of PSSE and developer owned agreements for battery storage projects. So to talk a little bit about um distributed energy resources or deers as we call them deers are energy resources that are on the edge of the grid or on the distribution system. So that could be like rooftop solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles and other smart appliances like a smart thermostat for example. And customer adoption of all this technology is growing rapidly and this technology promotes two-way flows of energy. So rather than PSSE just sending electricity to customers that use it to turn on their lights, now energy is also coming back to PSSE from these customers, solar panels and batteries. And this really creates an opportunity for utilities and customers to partner on meeting these ambitious um clean energy targets. PSC envisions its role in this new landscape as the conductor. So this means empowering customer choice and

flexibility while also enhancing control and automation of our grid to achieve our our targets. So to talk specifically about distributed batteries, um Christine um hit a bunch of these points about why we're deploying distributed batteries, the main three reasons are peak load management. We can store energy in batteries to be used during the highest the times of highest demand, which is often the times when the energy on the market's the most expensive. So, they can help save save um money as well. They can also defer infrastructure upgrades for specific areas that have capacity needs. They help with renewable energy integration by storing excess solar and wind for later use, which supports the the CEDA targets that um Christine laid out. Distributed batteries uniquely can support community resiliency as well. Uh micro grids can island to provide backup power to multiple customers when there are grid outages and then distributed batteries at individual customer sites provide those customers backup power when there's an outage on the grid. PSC has two mechanisms for deploying distributed batteries right now. The first is the distributed solar and storage request for proposal or the DSS RFP. And um those RFPs solicit front of the meter solar and storage projects that can be up to six megawws. And um front of the meter means that it's connected directly to PSC's distribution system, not associated with an individual customer. These projects can be either developer or PSSE owned. And we have two sections. one systemwide and those are really designed to help manage the system peaks. But we also have a targeted substation section that's um to help

bring more capacity at specific substations and we have active solicitations for that in other areas of Pierce County. Our second um means of deploying distributed batteries is the flex battery program and that's where residential customers can enroll their battery in the flex battery program. they'll receive an incentive from PSC to do so and then PSSE in turn can dispatch the battery when there are um periods of highest demand. And we're always exploring and developing new offerings so that more customers can can benefit from batteries as well. And this slide um just really shows the progress that we're making. Um since 2019, um we've acquired 22 long-term clean energy resources totaling to 4,000 megawatts of energy. Um and achieving these goals is truly a balance. It's to keep our electric and gas system strong and dependable while investing in cleaner energy resources. Um and a lot of the questions that we get every day are really why are we doing this work? Why are we investing in all these resources? And it's truly just the the demand, the growth and the electrification of pretty much everything really moving forward. Um it's all really due to state policies and we ourselves are having to ensure that we are maintaining our system to be reliable for our customers. And as you can see in this graph, we have wind, we have solar. Um right in the middle right after 2027 we have greenwater best which is the large utility scale battery that is going into the city of Sar. So city of Sar is really um right in the middle of achieving our clean energy goals and we have that system coming on um online

here next year hopefully. So um yeah we do looking ahead have much more that we're hoping to acquire. We are looking at really all resources. That's not just batteries. It's solar. It's wind. And it's really a lot of what Ann mentioned, those micro grids that really collectively bring a lot of power to um our um to the grid. Yep. And oh, any questions? Back in the slide. All right. Did you guys have questions on this

to wait? No, let's go ahead and ask their questions. Hang on here a second. Council member Malcolm, um, thank you very much for your presentation. Just a a couple of questions around um, so as a as these battery storage units are filled up, you know, during the day or whatnot, are they constantly drawn down at off- peak hours? Is that part of the cycling that happens or is it only reserved for emergency situations?

I can answer that. Yeah, it depends on what the use of the battery is, but the most typical application is like a daily cycle where they'll charge up at night and then discharge when um during the times of highest demand. Um however like a micro grid for example that's specifically designed to um provide backup power might reserve you know 50% of its power at all times or some percentage of its powers to be prepared for unexpected outages.

And so then distribution that happens I know that you know PSC is serving both residential and commercial interests. How does that triage happen when something happens like we have you know I wouldn't say disaster but we have a need to draw on that. How does how does BSC sit down and prioritize who gets what, when, where, how?

I mean, just like our t it it would be treated like a typical outage. It's really um when when we have a big storm roll through. It really depends on where that region is hit. And we really our crews are dispatched to go down sort of a a system or a line, but it would be no different than what our typical um uh what we do regularly on a daily basis.

So the best system I'm sorry, this last question or last follow on this. So the best system that's currently being designed and built in our community is going to be part of a larger distribution outside of our community. It's not really here to benefit this region or area. It's here to benefit the whole grid. It's it it's for for really everybody and for the city of Sar. Um we it it will be connected I believe the transmission line will be connected to our uh White River substation. Um and it is really for capacity purposes for that specific battery. All right. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Alers. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate your presentations. It's good to see you again, Christine. Good to see you.

Um and um good to meet you. So, I think a couple questions I had. So, as a government affairs uh representative for PSSE, one of the things I heard you say is that you're kind of adjusting to the new mandates and and laws that are coming through. What I haven't heard and I'm really curious about is are you communicating back to the legislature any concerns about adverse effects? I think a lot of these policies are going to create costs. They're obviously putting a lot of stress on PSSE. There's some concerns about like everything becoming more electric and then getting rid of a coal plant. like are you guys pushing back and giving them feedback or are you just kind of adjusting to what they do and trying to like make it work cuz I guess I would hope that you're providing some logical responses but I I haven't heard that. Yeah, I mean we we are really doing the best we can but it is a um as much as for us we are also learning at the same time but we are providing all of that feedback really back to the state to let them know this is not not the easiest uh endeavor. So yes, absolutely.

Okay. And do you guys have any data? I think last time you were here I asked for some data and I don't know if I got it but just like as far as like with adding a lot of electric vehicles removing a coal power plant I just feel like we look at the city budget we look at like hey our costs are going here our revenues are coming here and there's usually a place where they cross. Are you guys do you guys have data that's like showing like what you're anticipating the demand of electricity to be compared to what the availability is obviously you're creating some infrastructure because of that. Is that publicly available? I think we can get that data. Um I mean honestly it is we I mean if you can see by our projections we are needing so much more than what is available right now for our customers and that's just because of the projections that we're seeing in growth. Um but we can definitely see what we can get for you.

Okay. And then for customers, I think do you think that I know that we're having like I think that next year you guys have published your rate increases I believe for electricity and it was I think double digits next year and then followed by close to 5%. So I think it was 20 something 20 to 5 to 30% increases in the next three years for electricity. Is that sound about right? I I don't know the exact percentage off the top of my head. We did file for a rate increase in 2024 which was a 2-year rate increase and then we did file for another this year. And it is mostly because we have aging infrastructure. We truly need to make investments for upgrades and improvements to our system. And we are also like I mentioned we are in an acquisition phase for generation as well.

Okay. And then I think um I think on the third question I have is just like I'm we went to the AWC conference. Really great getting to see all the different cities and different areas in Washington state and um several of those uh different different cities are looking at nuclear as an option. I know that I feel like efficiency wise in my opinion that's a better option but it looks like PSSE is looking at limited to wind solar and battery energy. Um is there a reason why Peterson Energy is not considering like I think this SMR was the the term right? I think maybe you're familiar with that. So we we have made um investments in uh SMR. We have in I believe the Tri Cities. Um we really are limited to what is considered CEDA compliant. So all of the non-emitting generation has to be compliant under state law. But we are also making investments um and other alternatives as well.

Okay. And then just one follow-up question. I'm sorry. I'm I'm going to finish up. But I think the question I had was my concern is um if state law leads us to a point where we're having brownouts and having shortages of power is I mean I guess it feels like you're in a awkward spot. You're supposed to provide electricity to people who need it and at reasonable prices and then you're mandated to do something that is actually going to make it impossible to do. So I'm just trying to figure out how do you guys juggle that? Um the idea like are you gonna end up I mean it sounds like what I'm hearing is we're moving in a direction we're following state mandates at the expense of customers is what we're moving towards potentially I'm not trying to be like a fear thing but it sounds like the state mandates are priority number one. Customers are going to have to adjust.

Well we're I mean we are really truly doing the best we can and as I mentioned it really is going to be a a a balance. we have to really all work together in order for it to be workable in the future but we are as of now we are hitting our seed targets. Um we are moving towards that direction but it is you know at the same time we are like understanding affordability is a huge concern for everybody but it really is something that a lot of the jurisdictions we are working with are also experiencing is everybody is really needing to make adjustments in order to move forward. So, we're doing our best. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, Council Member Wittley. Hi. Um, so I just I wanted to clarify um and I'm kind of piggybacking on um uh some of the others here. So, uh your the best system is not specifically for Sumar residents. Correct. The large utility scale is going to be um it is for capacity for the entire system.

Okay. So it's it covers all of all of any of the counties that you guys deem fit. Okay. Um over the next three years um every PSSE resident is looking at I think it's 33% increase um in electricity. So why does your system bring value to us? Because if we're going to have to keep paying out, I'm just curious why your system brings value to us.

So this the system itself is supposed to support the entire grid. And as you can see cohesively, we will have a system where we have more wind, we have more solar, but we will have other parts of generation also all supporting each other. Yeah. Um, and that's what we are hoping to achieve. The alternative really is to put up more poles and wires. If we can't successfully put up these projects, then it's going to be more transmission. And transmission right now, the cost of transmission is about 2 to 3 million per mile. So if that's if it's not really putting up these non-emitting resources, we're looking at it will truly be more expensive to put up more transmission and transmission right now to get a new transmission line up is we are looking at 10 to 15 years which will not solve our problem of demand right now to

bring transmission up. Yeah. I'm just thinking of you know we've got we've got you know seniors who are on fixed live income. We've got, you know, people who are choosing between food and rent. So, how does your system in the big picture of increase for um you know, our overall bills, how does your system bring value to our community?

Yeah. And we do I understanding the affordability piece, we do have several programs. We have a PSSE build discount rate program. We have programs that are able to assist with um utility bills. So that if that is ever the case that you you know talk to a constituent that's having those issues, I please reach out to me and please share. We do have programs that can assist with some of those issues. What does PSC do to bring awareness to that to the senior centers or to you know the YMCA even or to any of those families that are looking for help?

Yeah. So we, you know, what I do on government affairs is I really work with the city and council and mayors and you know that's information that I can share out but we also do have another leg of our group that's really community based and they work with nonprofits and they also share out the the information. Um we like the loanome programs build discount rate and anything that can really assist our nonprofits we do share that out with them. Okay, I think that's it. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Alers,

I did have a couple follow-ups. Um I think one of the questions I had was we didn't nobody asked about safety. So as far as like the bees um and some of these other alternative things is and and I guess in that's more specific, but then in addition like in regards to safety um you know the if some people can't like I think we talked about affordability, but I think safety is is a question I guess. Can you just comment on the safety of of some of the the new types of battery systems? Yeah, we and we I think we'll leave the safety piece to our um first responders and which they'll be up soon.

Okay. And then the other question I had was um with the costs going up, how is PSSE handling that from I mean as a as a for-profit business. Um obviously everyone else is feeling a big squeeze in their their cost of electricity. Is is PSSE doing anything to are they lowering their margins or they how do they deal with the fact that you know as a for-profit it comes across like hey we're when people pay more for their bills they usually come and say hey these big corporations are making a lot of money on this uh how would you respond to that that

so we're we're a regulated utility we cannot just build and charge whatever we want so this rate case gets filed through the state and the state will make the decision whether or not we can even charge the rate case we filed um they will make that decision. So we cannot do you know we're we can't just charge what we want. Um it'll go to the state and we are reg regulated utility as mentioned. Thank you. Thank you council member Kenna.

Hi Christina and an uh two questions. Maybe I'll just piggyback on Deputy Mayor Elver's um and council member Wily's questions about costs and rates for consumers in terms um correct me if I'm wrong in understanding this. In terms of what consumers will see, the way these should work is during um high times of demand, we have this builtup energy that can then be distributed um to meet consumers need during those points. And it should be the system should be more reliable. Um, so consumers will see benefits from those two perspectives potentially also uh saving some costs for consumers probably not to the same extent we're talking about with rate increases that may may be approved but that's how the system should work in theory with best right

yes it's for it's truly for reliability um and it's to be a more stable uh grid um we are typically a utility that where users are typically in the winter, you know, when it's the coldest months. That's usually when our system is really um at capacity, but with, you know, the weather changes and climate impacts, we are truly becoming an allseason utility where we really are starting to hit capacity even in the summer months because we are beginning to see so many people plug in, you know, AC and all types of fans. um and it's really beginning to strain our grid. So, we are beginning to be really all around um versus a a utility that typically sees a lot of usage in the um winter.

Sure. And I last question I think is more about the location of BES here in Sumar. Zerup. Um, I believe I know a little bit of this answer, but I'd like a little more clarification on why Sumar is so well positioned for Bess and um, why our community versus others in the region.

Yeah. And it's and it's really not just Sumar. Um, it is I mentioned this transmission is very expensive. It's about 2 to three million per mile to build transmission. Um we are and we are not allowed like I mentioned to just charge what we want or build what we want. Um we are trying to site um all of our non-emitting resources near existing infrastructure. So that is why typically they are going to be built near substations, near our current infrastructure in order to maximize um what we already have because our plan is we we can't build new um it's going to be much more expensive. And so that's why they're typically cited near substations and existing infrastructure. As of right now, that is what we're we're doing and we are trying to work with jurisdictions um to maximize that.

Sure. So your your options are are limited in where you can very very very limited. They can't go everywhere and it's not going to go in one place. All of it. Sure. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, Tippy. Mayor Alers, I think it's my last one. Uh so I think one of the questions that when we do garbage and dispos other types of utilities often uh a bigger user of that of that uh of the power would be charged different rates higher rates sometimes. Um so I guess I'm you hear a lot in the news about AI and some of the like how much it takes like significant resources from the power grid and there's other users like that that I'm assuming and then we have residential users who are just trying to keep the lights on and keep their water warm. Um, can you do you guys have rate models where you say, "Hey, there's a there's a customer who's like a significant user who's actually do they pay different rates to cover some of the additional costs that they're covering?" Because like I said, the city does that. Other utilities do that. I'm assuming do you guys have a rate model where some like company that uses 10 times the amount of power as a normal user pays a different uh rate. Um the what I do know is that we um we have a new um director level position for um determining the large load strategy. So I don't think that those tariffs and rates exist today, but we that's something that's being developed um now.

It's definitely being discussed. Okay. I'd love to learn about it. If you guys have anything on it, we'd love because I think that'd be interesting because I think there are going to be people that are just using basic resources and like senior citizens or people that just need power on and if they're being hurt by some new technology that is like using gobs of power that uh hurts it just seems like that it'd be nice to have some equity there. Thank you.

Um I'm going to ask a question. Okay. So irrelevant of the fact that the state needs to approve of rate increases, have you guys done a study to understand what the uh your profit margin reduction would be if you didn't put these in and you had to add pulls. I believe there is an answer to that question. I'll have to get back to you, mayor, on that. Okay, that would be great. And then if these weren't put in, is there enough power available for this town? You can get back to me on that.

Yeah, let me get very specific. Yes, I will get back to you, mayor. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you. All right. Anyone else have questions? All right. Thank you. Oh, we got Oh. Oh, boy. It went green. Council member Hawksteader. Thank you, Mayor. I was there's going to be a safety portion of the presentation. Okay, I'll hold it till then. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you guys. Mr. Windish, what's next?

Uh what's next is a presentation on where we're at or where we where we've come from. Uh thank PSSE for kind of giving us the big picture. Why uh state law just built up there's there's demand for obviously electricity. Uh the city of Sumar has a BES under construction and Cresand is going to give us the background on that project and BES 1.0.

Thank you, Ryan. And in the middle of this staff presentation, I'll be inviting up our fire representatives that have been patiently waiting um to help us discuss a little bit around their fire review and just kind of what they're seeing in the industry. Um we'll be able to ask questions on that slide regarding any safety questions and um just around best in general. I'll begin with a timeline on the project background for the best project that we're talking about in Sumar. So, building on PSC's overview of their regional energy needs, how does that translate here in Sumar, we heard a little bit about the location near the White River substation. Uh back in 2021, PSC posted an RFP looking for these new energy projects and that did begin a lot of inquiry from different developers. One specific developer, the Bright Knight team, submitted a pre-application to the city in August of 2022. At the time, we did not have any way to really understand this use, this land use other than it being a major utility. It was connected to the substation. It was located in an existing utility corridor. It was determined to be a major utility use. Then it began between 2022 and 23. The best project site continued on with their site selection and staff commenced with ongoing research into the potential impacts and just understanding this land use type. It wasn't until February 2024 that the applicants would be submitting a SEIPA and a CUP for their major utility.

That began the public engagement on the best project. In March of 2024, the city noticed the applications that were submitted um and ultimately held a public hearing on that best project in July of 2024. So I'll talk a little bit more about the specific best project that was submitted. The zoning that the proposed best and substation is located in our light industrial zone M1. Major utility is an outright permitted use in the industrial zones. So, we've got again electric uh substations, sewer plants, uh sewer processing plants as a major utility. These are all outright permitted and um located here along East Valley Highway. The site itself that was selected was an existing vehicle storage approximately 8 acres in size. The again location was relatively close to the White River substation. This particular site also falls on the east side of the railroads and a pretty good distance away from the river there. So, it it was the closest that they could get without involving um steep slopes and land landslide uh hazard areas that run along up to the White River substation there. The PSSE did indicate this um substation as being critical, but what we ended up learning was that it is the end point um from connecting all the way across eastern Washington. So, as we understand

the best project that's being developed is intended to provide capacity based on the megawatts that they're able to construct on the site is a 200 megawatt over 800 megawatt hour system. they're able to provide that capacity support for the substation which would and will benefit Sumar in and if we do experience um sudden you know electric changes and brownouts and whatnot. Um but overall it does intend to provide that capacity as they mentioned. Um, as a part of this project, they're constructing um a transmission line. So, that also falls through an existing uh power pole line or transmission line corridor there. So, that uh will be I'm not sure where they're at in the current permitting and uh site development stage of things. I believe the site itself on East Valley Highway is undergoing fill and grade. So they're they're moving dirt out there and they're looking to um to construct um this project to meet the conditions that were applied under SEPHA and as well as the conditional use permit um the hearing examiner approved permit there. So there were 10 specific conditions that the best project um needed to adhere to and they had submitted any of the required and um requested plans and studies um before uh staff was able to complete their review and and issue their permit. So um I'll invite our fire folks up here. um they were very integral to our review of the sepha at the time the best project was submitted. Um a few of their

recommendations did include increasing fire hydrants on site and they were assisting us in our emergency management planning. Um can you please take a moment to introduce yourselves? Good evening council. I'm John Parkinson, fire chief of East Pierce Fire and Rescue. Uh good evening. Kevin Stenfeld, deputy chief with East Fire Rescue.

And so we will just talk through uh briefly our role um and kind of what we've done to date and our interactions with city and with PSSE on the project. Um I will just kind of cut to the chase of of some of the underlying questions that came up briefly just on the safety factor. Um and and what I do want to say, you know, if you look at it from the fire department's perspective of where we're we're applying risk and trying to evaluate across the district or any fire department would of things that are considered the highest risk and things that are considered the lowest risk. So, so maybe a single family residence or a house being at the low end of that and a railway running through town being at the high end of that, meaning what carries the most risk and then kind of everything in between. So, just for the city of Sar, I mentioned the railway, high risk. A lot of a lot of uh material comes through town every day, comes across multiple road crossings, uh over the road trucking comes up and down 410, comes up and down 167, a river, a pipeline that comes through uh some of the service area that we cover. So, uh my point isn't that every that there's no risk. My point is the risk is relative when it comes to our perspective as far as our concern. Um if we felt strongly different if you were saying hey we want to put Burlington Northern running through town right now um we might have a different you know a different approach of saying that is a it's a large risk but um you know that is a risk that we already deal with and so we we train on something like that we receive uh information from Burlington Northern we train our personnel we adjust our response protocol based on that. So, so the same concept applies to something like this. Um, we we gather information from the manufacturer, we work with the city, um, work on improvements that we can to the site. From there, we train our personnel. We adjust our response plan so that we can mitigate the the issue at hand. So, with that, I'll pass it over to Deputy Chief Stavenfeld to answer or to talk through

kind of our process at East Pierce, and then if there's any questions we can answer, happy to do so. I've actually got a slide for you guys later. Is that all right? Sure. I've wanted to kind of keep it best project specific. Um, but thank you for providing us kind of like a background on hazards in general.

Um, one of those conditions did include requiring your approval on a few of those fire safety and management plans specific to this project and also just your the fire district's participation in our best ordinance draft review um was was critical as well. So, I'll go over those in a minute and then I'll pass it back to um our fire chiefs here. For this best project, there was uh significant public engagement beyond what was required for code. Um again, once those applications for the best project were submitted, uh notice of applications on SEPHA and the conditional use permit, um each were issued a notice of application. The city ended up uh providing properties within a thousand foot distance from the entire project site, including the site on East Valley Highway East as well as through that transmission line corridor. They all received a posted uh postcard. Taylor,

could you bounce back to the air photo real quick? Sorry. Go ahead.

I had her come back to the the air photo. So you can see the best substation there outlined in red and the transmission line that kind of yellow orangeish line that takes you up to the substation and then you can see all the rooftops clustered around there. Uh most of them a lot of them in Lakeland Hills development but in terms of notice I mean we noticed those folks up on the hill. Uh so for these open houses, they did an open house, they did uh they came to the community summit, they did an on-site open house, came to a So there was like three different outreaches that the project proponents did to help get the word out that they're coming to town and and to educate people on what a battery injury storage system is. Uh and so, you know, they made they made they made a lot of effort to go above and beyond. I wanted to point out in terms of notice Yeah, specifically the project information night. There was a ma a separate mailed notice separate than the notice of applications and the uh notice of decisions that were issued. Um we also individually mailed out these uh community information night. We had uh East Pierce Fire and Rescue in attendance as well as PSSE and the best project uh representatives, Bright Knight, provided um just a lot of information as to what technology they were intending to use, how they intended to keep it safe, and just providing uh just a lot of information for the project itself. And we held two public hearings on this project. the hearing examiner uh public hearing on the conditional use permit portion of the project as well as our code required public hearings um with the planning commission um for our zoning code text amendment where we were looking at officially adding battery energy storage system facilities

to our code. So there was a little bit of an overlap with the best project timeline and our best ordinance. And this slide just demonstrates um when staff really picked up and um did internalize internal reviews on the project sea which also uh began the zoning code text amendment uh review. Therefore, the city did apply for that application to address utility scale best and to also write uh our zoning code to um maintain a level of utility scale. Um, at the time we were getting a lot of inquiries for a lot more smaller scales in a lot more different places and we weren't quite ready to deal with our commercial zones um or uh seeing much more of them pop up in other areas on across the river in our industrial zone. So we um decided to meet with our planning commission on our zoning code text amendment approach in April of 2024. Meanwhile, the project did receive a hearing examiner decision on their CUP at the end of August. Um, the city continued on after meeting with the planning commission to issue our SEIPA decision on our best ordinance 1.0 0 followed by the public hearing with the planning commission on that particular ordinance between um October 2024 and November 2024 where council ultimately um did adopt the best ordinance uh which is number 2899. Um, prior to council's adoption, we did uh sought a we met with our CD committee where uh council

members um did express the desire uh to initiate a moratorum and they were advised um our staff staff advised council then that a moratorum was only really a temporary uh solution and only beneficial if we did not have a way forward. forward with our code. So that was what was advised at the time, but we understood that there was going to be pause and concern with this new land use, which is why staff came back to provide all of the information that they had learned and understood about this land use type um the following year in 2025 after adoption. Um a lot of information on just our background and how we got there. And with that ordinance 289 2899 as I mentioned it was to address large site facilities um facilities that consist of batteries and substations even and transmission lines. So we're really looking at that utility scale sort of land use equivalent to a major utility. um in our code that the council adopted the definition that indicate um that requires a minimum capacity um to be qualified then as a large scale facility. So we put a floor to kind of uh pause any other inquiries at the time. So um 200 megawatts is pretty hard to achieve. Um so um a lot a lot more of the inquiries that we're seeing are between 50 and 100. Um so we still haven't said yes to any of those since this is what our current code allow um is written right now. So again we understand that this particular facility is intended to

supply capacity. Forgot to add that word there but it's essentially um a capacity providing utility scale um best facility. So that's what it's in our current code today. This is the land use that's currently allowed. That same ordinance also adopted zoning regulations maintaining that these best facilities require a conditional use permit and only allowed in our industrial zones. Again, that definition provides the legacy definition to require minimum capacity. Um the code under 1818 does include 10 performance standards which um through our project review we derived to some conclusions regarding decommissioning plans and the financial guarantees. Um so we ended up providing uh performance standards for any future facilities to be um submit a bond and financial guarantees for the decommissioning uh portion. Meaning if that facility were to um decommission and and close out that we would uh be able to bond for the cleanup and restoration of the site. So that's now kind of codified as a performance standard. We also have an emergency management plan requirement which is already required by the fire code, but the most important part of our performance standard is that it's fired uh fire district approved and city approved. So um we need to make sure that we not only meet the code, but we also have um the the correct, you know, director's approval and the fire district's approval on these plans. And finally, the residential protections that were adopted in the in that ordinance prohibited any of these

facilities within a thousand ft of residential zones. And so that is the summary of the best ordinance 1.0 and I'll hand it back to our fire chief here to let us know a little bit more of their role. Thank you. Shift over Kevin.

Yeah, thank you. So uh around the first of the year uh I got involved with this project specifically to review the incident response plan uh that was provided by the vendor selected to uh to build the site. Um you know it it basically pretty standard that's pretty standard for a lot of the different utilities and and things that we have running through the district is they provide a instant response plan to us. um you know, we hope we don't have to use those, but like chief said, we have a lot of different hazards going through our fire district. Um so that was reviewed. Um we did have some feedback um that we provided to the city. Um the uh uh they were very good about working with the vendor on making those changes specific to like uh one of the changes that we had asked for is like a a weather station that could be remotely monitored in the event there was a fire. Um so we don't have to be up there. We can figure out plume dispersion and things like that. Um, we also just talked through some of the contingencies with hydrant locations. Um, and more specifically, you know, strategy and tactics on how, uh, in the event, uh, if there was a fire, you know, what what tactics and strategies we would take to, uh, mitigate the incident. I will say this is somewhat of an emerging technology. Uh, the fire service can be a little bit behind at times in catching up to what are the best practices. Um but based upon uh the things that I've reviewed um incidents at these sites are are not trending upwards, they're trending downward. Um but uh as far as just um you know pre-inccident planning and training, uh they've been very good about engaging with our training division. Uh we will have on-site training there for our personnel um as

the as the project uh gets closer to completion. um fire response protocols. Once again, we do have that incident response plan. Uh we'll review that. Um and we'll make sure that, you know, the crews that are, uh could potentially respond to that location are aware of of the hazards and mitigation techniques. Uh like I said, uh energy storage systems, it's emerging technology, so strategy and tactics is constantly being developed. Um this is somewhat of a new thing over the last 5 10 years for the fire service. Um and then any post incident um uh requirements

requirements that need to be are are typically handled by uh would be in this case typically handled by PSSE. Um, I did have some questions um as we went through this uh with the vendor and had asked there was a uh a previous um not you know recent there was a a fire at one of these incidents and you know I said can you give me some background on you know what the response protocol was what the fire department's involvement was um and basically the fire department responded um and the uh vendor the utility company got there the fire department left and they mitigated the incident. So, um in these cases, I will say we will not put these fires out. Uh they will burn until they self-extinguish. Um but what what we've learned is uh the technology has gotten a lot better. Um so we're not we're not envisioning uh the the whole storage system um catching on fire. Uh basically it's sections like if you look at these like server racks uh so to speak. Um but uh we're hoping we we don't deal with that. But if if we do have a situation here um we will have training and and we we will be uh prepared to respond.

So we can pause here. Mayor go ahead and ask some questions. Okay. Thank you. So, council questions. Deputy Mayor Elers.

Uh, thank you very much um for for sharing your feedback. I just curious I was looking at the white papers that we had that you provided, there's a little link there on the thing that kind of goes through and it one things I noticed is that uh out of the 70 or 80 incidents it looks like they've had with BESS, they had like about a third of those were where they could identify what the root cause was. And it looks like there's like four different reasons. Design, manufacturing, integration, assembly, and construction, and operation. So, I'm just curious as somebody's building this. Some of this is design of facility, some of it's manufacturing. I'm not sure what that is, but I'm just looking at the white paper. Just curious, is there if you guys were to have this be built, would you guys have to bring somebody in to do an inspection to see if it was designed correctly or would you guys know, how would you how would you guys work through that process? Because I mean, on the ones that are not known, the root cause is not known, obviously. You can't do much about that. But the ones that we have about a third of the the problems that came up were they had those four different items listed on the white papers. And I wasn't sure since it's a new and emerging technology, would you guys say, "Hey, they're doing a lot of these in California. We got an expert. They come up and they they approve the inspection for before you guys sign off on it." How would how would we handle that? And then operations is ongoing. So I guess that would be just would it be yearly? Just curious how that process would look. And

thank you, Deputy Mayor. I'll let the fire uh folks respond in terms of like ongoing training, but in terms of the fire review of these systems before their permit is issued there. We have a fire reviewer. Um we could do third party review to ensure that these best systems are listed to specific laboratory um specs. Um that could also be written into our code. um who does the review and to what we would require um certain uh systems and chemistries and um to be listened to. Um but that's one way is really um review prior to installation and then when they're installed um we may have the opportunity as well to have third party inspectors along with the walkabout with our um fire district um to ensure that what's installed either meets the plans or u matches up with what's indicated in in the hazard mitigation plans. So, it's going to be a coordinated effort, but there is a huge heavy lift on the front end regarding fire review. It's a um fire code reviewer that reviews these installations before they get installed. And and if I could add the one of the 10 requirements that Cresanda mentioned for battery energy storage projects requires a qualified thirdparty inspector to complete a final electrical inspection prior to commencement of operations. So we have a third party opinion coming out doing a review. Uh it's not annual, but it's before they push the button and and start operating. So, it's a fire department in coordination with this with the city on the design. It's mostly since there's a coordinated effort essentially. It's not just like the fire department just

goes out and does it. So, uh so when it comes to and you know and I'll I'll let the city folks answer this after I say it, but when it comes to the the per the uh permitting review and construction reviews and inspections and all that, that is that is the city's that's not the fire departments. Our our role in this is limited to input, you know, by by good partnership with the city of Sar, but we're not the enforcement or permit review process of this. So, that is in-house with the city, separate of the fire department. Okay. So, that that's good to know. I was expecting you guys to Yeah. Yeah. Thank you,

Council Member Wily.

Hello again. Um, so a couple of questions. Number one, um, you said that, um, with the permitting process, you were the fire department, East Pierce, was requiring more hydrants for this. Who's picking up that bill? Is that going is that something the city's paying for? Is that something PSSE is paying for? Where does that come from? If if I just just for clarity, the fire department doesn't have the ability to require what what we asked for. You know, again, out of partnership with all of us was, you know, it's like here's what we would like to see. Same with asking for a weather station or something like that. It's we don't have the ability to require it, but we we can work with the city to say, "Hey, this is what we'd like." And then the city can require it. But

and the cost is borne onto the applicant. Okay. So that's that's all through PSC is they're going to be picking that up if they choose. So it's not mandatory that they add hy hydrants, but it's it's um preferred or or recommended through this partnership process. Yes. And that was a sightspecific request. So based on that particular best project, how they were laying things out, there was only one fire hydrant, I believe, on the road on East Valley Highway. And so they wanted to add they wanted to recommend that that as a requirement of the project that they would and as a condition of the project rather that they would be installing two fire hydrants on site

for their ability to um access and and and respond to any fire event. Okay. Um excuse me for clarification I believe it would be bright night because they are the ones putting it in. It would not be PSC. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. That's good to know. Okay. Um and then um the other thing is um the transmission lines. You had mentioned that they were going to be putting in not just the facility but the transmission lines. Are those above ground or underground? They were proposed above ground. So there was some conditions regarding the poles themselves. Okay. um that particular best project um the applicant Bright Knight did sub um propose also a smaller substation to kind of convert that best energy

adding a connection adding a connection point to connect up to the um substation and then I'll go back to the map just so you get a visual. Yeah, the property lines does cross between city of Sear and Pierce County jurisdiction as well. So, they were required to work with Pierce County and go through their permitting as well for uh that transmission connection. Okay. And I believe I believe there's a transmission line already running that vicinity. Yeah. Yeah. I can I I saw in the in the pictures that there was the above ground. I was just curious if this was going to be an underground or above ground and then you know again um what that that what that looked like. But if it's above ground the system is already kind of in place.

It's a landslide hazard area. So underground would probably not be a bad choice. Yeah. Okay. That's why I asked. Um and then the other question I had was for East Pierce. I know with these um with the battery, they're, you know, ion and lithium battery. I'm not quite sure what they're made out of, but they have chemicals in them. They're active chemicals. Um, does East Pierce have the equipment to be able to even respond to this or is that something you guys are going to have to purchase or build into your budget in order to get equipment in order to respond?

So, I think what deputy chief steen felt said if would be, you know, our role in a fire in an incident like this is likely limited to evacuations. It may be fire extinguishment, probably not, but it's probably evacuations, road closures, working with PD, public works, um any cleanup or anything else like that is it's not that we don't have a hazardous materials team, but this one is probably outside of our

That's thinking long-term safety for your guys. You know, there's, you know, health risks and issues to this um that are involved with being around a site like this. And what I'm thinking is like Palestine Ohio, you know, the mitigation is generations down the road. It's not just temporary. Yeah. And we would see, and again, just drawing a parallel, we would see, if you said the same thing happened on the railway or happened out on the highway, the same thing would likely occur where it's not us doing the the mitigation or the long-term cleanup or anything like that. It's being handed over to whoever the contractor is for that, whoever is running the product through town. Correct. Okay, thank you. That was it.

Thank you, Council Member Kenna. Uh, thank you guys. Um, yeah, piggybacking off of Council Member Wilsy's questions and just keeping it on the kind of the fire and the safety aspect of it. um with the thousand ft kind of uh threshold or standard um without without residential homes being impacted, do you do you foresee based upon your knowledge of these um of fires that can happen, although rare, do you see any concerns from how these fires burn and any potential impacts to those homes that are a thousand feet away? Again, I just want to reiterate, you said that they're very rare.

It would be it would be very dependent on the size of of the fire. Um I I did some research uh recently. Uh so any type of hazardous materials or uh you know different fires. We have like what's called an emergency response guide that basically gives us a uh an initial uh evacuation area. Um, so we work very very conservatively uh with basically establishing a hot area which is like immediately hazard, warm and cold. Um, but it would it would really be dependent on the size of the fire, the weather, um, and all of the other conditions. Um,

yeah, sure. Tough tough question to answer. question. I guess on that same note, and you answered this earlier, but just to clarify, the way if these things do fail or if there is a fire, you're saying they're kind of sectioned off. So, the idea is not to impact the whole system, maybe just a couple of pieces or, you know, section it off kind of that way. Is that what I'm understanding? That is that is what I understand. Yes. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Hawksteader.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you, Chiefs. Uh my question is follow up on the safety because that seems to be kind of an unborn concern throughout the community. I just want to clarify, did I hear right in your presentation that if there was a fire at this facility, it most likely wouldn't be extinguished?

That's in most cases, yeah. Uh we would let it basically uh consume itself. Uh we may apply water to exposures uh which in this case could be vegetation, you know, depending on how close the fire is to vegetation. Um but yeah, these are pretty much uh designed to self-extinguish. So we're not putting a lot of water on them in this case. That's probably a good thing considering that, you know, we don't want a lot of water runoff as close to the river as we are. Um but that was one of the things that I discussed in in u you know at length. Uh and um yeah, the way these are they're designed is um we would only cool exposures if necessary. Uh in the case that uh they do catch on fire, uh yeah, we would let them burn until they self-extinguish.

And so, and number one thing with that as far as if you let those burn is usually the gases that are emitted from that. So that's something that as a fire department and uh that might be harder to contain as far as your number one concern is not letting that fire expand, spread out to the vegetation, all that, but as far as containing the gases, is there any plan with that?

That was kind of one of the reasons that we had asked for that weather station. Um at that point, uh like chief had alluded to, we're probably going to be involved in the uh monitoring and the evacuation piece of that. Uh so the best you know information that we can get right from the site as far as what the weather's doing will dictate um you know evacuations and things like that so we can keep people out of harm's way and out of that uh you know that out of that atmosphere. So the the recommendation on some kind of a weather station sounds like the number one way to to get a hold or mitigate this is evacuation because it's not going to be extinguished and saves the day as far as that go. It's get everybody out and keep them safe. Yeah.

So, it sounds like that weather station's pretty important. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Can I follow up with some clarifications, Mayor? I've got I've got uh Council Member Malcolm. Okay. Go ahead. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. Um, thank you. Um, one of the the bullet points we have here is on pre-inccident planning and training, and I'm assuming this is the only best station in your jurisdiction coming in of this size. and whatnot. I'm just curious what I mean, we've talked a lot about safety and about mitigation and how we're dealing with it. What does your training regimen look like? What's your like right now we do the hard drills in the community to remove people and and get them accustomed to the idea that when they hear this or when someone knocks on your door, this is what you do. Is there something similar that you're imagining for that region, those businesses, potentially those residents near there? So, what would that look like? and what's it look like for your I guess your crew and their training and and and prepping for this since it's kind of new to the the region.

Yeah. Uh that's a great question. I don't have all the answers for you. Uh but I do know uh that the vendor uh had early on engaged with our training division to talk through some of those things. Um in most cases like this, it's going to be more of like site familiarity, you know, and what to do if you know XYZ or happen happens. Um it is a good um it is a good question as far as like the neighboring businesses and community you know residents and things like that. Um but we do I mean organizationally we do a lot of different things for LAR's wildland. Um it wouldn't be hard for us to you know make something more specific to a site like this. Um, but once again to Chief's point, you know, we deal with a lot of different hazards through through, you know, throughout the fire district, uh, railways, interstates, um, buildings that keep getting higher and higher. So, um, but it would we it is something that we could do, um, you know, for those neighborhoods and kind of tailor that to them. Um, it is a possibility. And just going one step further on that, understand the city separately has its own technology for being able to alert a geographical area of the city as does Pierce County separately. So it in saying that we have the ability to target neighborhoods or target areas just for for any incident that we have. Yeah. Only I bring this up because I just I know that incidents with these types of installations are becoming less and less frequent out there, but when they have it, they tend to be fairly spectacular uh when they fail. So, I'm just wanting to make sure that um I don't think it's like a garbage can fire in front of a house. It's a full apartment building fire when these things happen. And just wanting to make sure that we have the type of, you know, planning, training, and safety in mind. And so I just wanted to yeah just put my concern on that and hopefully you know hearing down the road that we are doing

something with that kind of focus.

Okay. Thank you. Uh I just have one comment. So um has in your travels when you've talked with people has there been any talk about uh perhaps being able to um peel the layer back a little bit and talk about containment in terms of proactive? I don't know who would could answer this, but for example, there are buildings in Auburn that if they caught on fire, we better all leave. But what they've done is they've contained it. So the walls come down, it's in a certain area, people can get out and pretty much it'll snuff itself out internally there. So, it made me wonder is there has there been any talk of perhaps are these capable of going underground and could they go in a vault versus above ground where the plume can go? I would just be curious to see if anybody has talked about that.

No. So, I Okay, never mind. She's saying no in the back. I'll wait for her. She's coming up. And I will just say from the fire department's perspective, understand that the system's not an exposed battery. it's encased in in something that's designed to put itself out and contain the fire already. That doesn't mean it's it 100% is perfect, right? But there is already a system in place to to mitigate that. So, okay, thank you. Oh, Deputy Mayor Elers, sorry.

Just a real quick one. So, I don't know if this is normal, so I don't know who I'm directing it to, but um there is a lot of people in concern in the areas like residential folks about the smoke, too. So, I think that was kind of alluded to, but is there any kind of Bloom modeling or something to show like I know when we do get people excited about they're nervous about traffic, we do traffic studies and I'm a I've done a little development so I hate those fees and those uh things studies, but I do feel like this one there's a lot of people concerned. Is there any kind of person that would be like, "Hey, this is what a plume would look like and this is potentially what what area it could it could affect?" And then obviously PSC already notifies people when the power's out. So, I was just curious if that's something that's part of the process.

Yeah, thank you for the question. Um, early staff's early research um did not result in a finding of a plume modeling as we know that this is emerging, but the link that was provided on the fire slide. Um, they are located in Washington, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. um they really look at battery analytics and I know that they'd be a really great resource to kind of reach out to to understand um some of that chemistry, what's being um emitted in the fire itself and um staff can certainly kind of uh reach out to them for perhaps the study around like what really is being exhausted and what they found. They've got enough data now to actually put it all together. And and if I could speak to we heard about the on-site weather station, which is fantastic data to have during an incident because then you know which way the wind's blowing, right? So then of course you can act accordingly. Uh I could I could tell you based on a different project u we learned quite a bit about prevailing winds in Sumar and uh northeast coming out of the southwest are our prevailing winds. Not that those winds don't shift, of course, but that's kind of your So, in in any given day, that's the direction the wind's probably gonna be blowing some.

You good? Yeah. Thank you, Council Member Wy. That's okay. You're on again. Hi. Uh, real quick, um, with in the event that there's an incident and the whole thing happens, um, whose responsibility is it for cleanup? Is that the um bright night? And do we have any redundancies to make sure that they are going to be responsible to returning that land back to usable space? Thank you, Council Member Wily. I threw a bunch of planner words at you. The project will be required to submit a decommissioning plan.

Okay. as well as bonding for the in the event that a ha a hazard happens they need to mitigate. So we'll be collecting a bond from the applicants. Perfect. That's what to ensure we are able to um restore a site and uh it covers the cost for cleanup activities. So perfect. Decommissioning plan is what would detail that information. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that we weren't going to get stuck with the bills. Thank you. Thank you. I think we're ready to move forward.

Yes. Thank you. Um I would like to just follow up on a few of the overall concerns and thank you. You guys are ready to go. Thank you for taking the time to be here tonight.

Um there was a lot of concerns around um just the event of a fire um you know evacuation just concerns around that. Well, as a planner, I will say that projects of this nature are required to submit emergency management plans, incident response plans, which we learned our fire districts responsible for um providing recommendations on. The city's fire code reviewer reviews the plans, but in partnership with our fire district. So, they will be taking a look at those incident response plans, which would detail protocols and how to really deal with an incident. they would spell those out. A hazard mitigation plan is something also separate. State law indicates what needs to be included in a hazard mitigation plan and details include a third party fire response specialist that's not our fire district because we need a specialist that can deal with these types of fires. So, those details are all addressed in these plans. Um, I just wanted you to just know that they can be addressed and we can continue to take a look at when we want to be uh requiring hazard mitigation plans and incident response plans on on projects moving forward. I will pause on this slide before I invite our next guest up. But essentially why we're even coming back to you all post um best project review and after our best 1.0 ordinance that established large utility scale facilities. What we're looking at is addressing our code to potentially allow midscale or smaller scale bets in in some of our commercial zones and in our industrial zones that are essentially accessory

uses that could meet some of PSC's uh interests and needs in terms of front of uh front of meter installations or maybe accommodate an industrial users's interest of having backup up power on their site. Um, this is an example image of a Tesla mega pack. Um, a lot of energy companies out there making all these sorts of cabinets that could be scalable, meaning it could be increased with additional cabinets with more batteries. Um, I wanted this visual to provide council to understand that these could essentially be installed closer than 1,000 ft of residence, but um, locally we would have the opportunity to regulate how much energy if we we desire if we want to limit how much energy would be close to a school for example um or how much storage is is built on site. Um, that's essentially where best ordinance 2.0 can go. Um ultimately we are getting a lot of inquiries for um accessory installations like our industrial warehouse users wanting to do solar and a best backup. Um we should expect residential users that have EVs to install best in their garages um that do not exceed what's allowed per the fire code. So we don't really need to be concerned with that, but just aware that that could be coming online. and then they would be incentivized per PSC's DUR's program being able to sell back the energy just even with an EV battery charger. So there's a lot of use cases of best that we could see and best 2.0 I know the ordinance could take a look at each of these um use cases and appropriately adopt performance standards for um limiting them in

certain sizes, whether that's energy or footprint, aggregate footprint. Um and just being very thoughtful of of when this technology just becomes too large, it's considered utility, how can we further limit that and and protect um the surrounding land uses. So, thank you for letting me get through that. We have a few more um information to share with you because much like uh this many cities and counties being faced with um inquiries from developers and having to scramble with their zoning codes to allow this land use. There is a state process that applicants can self-elect and go through this council to review and approve their project in your town. So, let's invite our folks from the energy facility uh sighting evaluation council. Hi. Thank you.

And and before we begin, please take the time to introduce yourselves and just press that microphone button on the right. Yes. Red is good. Okay. Sorry. You're good. Great. Thank you for having us here tonight. My name is Amy Hoffkcomier. Good job in your first pass on my last name. Uh I am the director of sighting and compliance for FSAC, the Energy Facility Sighting Evaluation Council. Um, and I will Yeah, I'm Lisa Mlan. I'm the legislative and policy manager and tribal liaison for FSE. Probably not going to say anything in the interest of time just in case there's a special question. I'm here.

Good evening, mayor, deputy mayor, council members. My name is Keith Kata and I'm the deputy director of signing compliance. Wonderful to be here. Just press this button when you're ready to switch.

Great. So I could talk about these slides for days but I will try and go faster than that in the interest of time. Um for those of you who are unfamiliar was originally formed in 1970 to provide centralized sighting and permitting for energy facilities. So back when the nuclear facilities were first being proposed. Um we have been administratively housed under other agencies throughout the years. you know, for a period under Department of Commerce, for a period under the Utilities and Transportation Commission. In 2022, we separated from the UTC and became our own agency again. Um, but that's why it seems like we're new, but we've actually been around for quite some time. Uh, there are some facilities that are required to site through FSAC, although very limited technologies, uh, nuclear facilities, uh, specifically fision are required to site through FSAC. um largecale thermal power plants so like the natural gas facilities only those over 350 megawatts and then uh transmission over 500 kilovolts AC so between 115 and 500 they can elect to site through us or through the local jurisdiction over 500 has to sight through us. Um and then there are many other technology types that can elect or opt into our sighting process. So this includes um natural gas pipelines, uh refineries of a certain size, um sustainable aviation fuel, clean energy manufacturing, uh wind, solar storage, um green hydrogen. There's a lot of technologies that could site through us. Typically, uh they go through the local jurisdiction. We see a very small percent of projects in the state. I would say 5% or under. So our application review process uh we

receive an application, we conduct a SEPA review, we have an adjudicative process and we also identify permits that would be required for the facility. Um our council reviews applications that come before us and develops a recommendation through these different pathways for the governor. Um the governor then has the ultimate decision as to whether to approve or deny a project. If the council is making a recommendation to approve a project, that recommendation goes package includes a s a draft site certificate agreement which includes all of the conditions for construction, operation, decommissioning and site restoration. That is one of the unique facets of FSE is that we do oversee our facilities for the life. So through permitting, through construction, operations, decommissioning and site restoration. Um, one of the other facets of FSAC is that we do have the authority to recommend preeemption. So one of the matters that is taken up in our adjudicative process. If there's a conflict between a proposal and local zoning ordinances, the council can consider the matter during the adjudicative process and decide whether or not they would like to recommend that the governor preempt the local land use ordinances. And then the final sort of talking point, if you will, about FSAC is that there is a consolidated direct appeal of the governor's decision. So, if a party wants to appeal, and it could be um interest groups, opposing parties, um the applicant, if anybody wants to appeal the governor's decision, that goes straight to the Supreme Court. So, this is our council structure. We have one chairperson who is appointed by the governor and then we have five other standing council members. And these council members are appointed by the agencies that they represent. So we have

representatives from the department of ecology, department of fish and wildlife, department of commerce, department of natural resources and the utilities and transportation commission. So these are the standing council members that participate in every application review. They also are the standing council members that oversee the operational compliance and decommissioning of all the facilities in front of us. For the purposes of application review only, we have four other optional agencies that may elect to participate in an application review. And this is on a case-byase basis. Every time we receive an application, we notify uh Department of Agriculture, Department of Transportation, Department of Health, and the military department that we've received the application and ask that they either identify a council person for the review of that application or decline. And that's up to them for every project. Um for every project we also have a local appointee um where the optional agencies can decide whether or not they want to appoint a council person and that's you know explicitly optional in our statute. Um statutoily the local government county or city shall appoint a council person. So, um they don't always, but typically we have a a locally appointed council person. When a project is proposed at a port, um that port may also choose to appoint a non- voting council member. And this council is supported by a staff of 10 sighting and SEIPA specialists. Uh we have a 10person uh administrative support division and an additional administrative support team. So we're we're a small group. So here is a map of the facilities that are currently under review for FSE. Uh

we have multiple applications under review which you can see in yellow. Um we have our operational facilities that are noted with the little green drops. Um, and then we have many projects that have either been approved and started construction or have been approved but are not yet starting construction for various reasons. Um, but often to do with their position in the BPAQ or the the interconnect queue or offtaking decisions. It's um often timed associated with when they can connect is when they may start construction. Uh we do have one facility in decommissioning that's uh WNP 1 and 4 um that is the nuclear facilities that were approved again back in the 70s um but were not completely constructed and so that facility has been in the process of decommissioning for some time now.

So I can point out there's one best project.

There's one standalone bus um up in Golden. Sorry I have an itch. Um there are multiple uh wind and solar facilities that have an associated bus. Um we have one standalone best project proposal up in Scadget County called Golden Eye Bus. So um some other highlights that I want to bring your attention to. Um FSAC does not propose facilities. We do not propose locations. We do not propose technologies. We receive applications and this is under you know our statute uh which recognizes need for increasing energy um ensuring energy available through available and reasonable methods and produce minimal adverse effects on the environment. And part of our statute is that the council is required to make a recommendation to the governor within 12 months of an application deemed complete by the director. That's an important phrase because it can take a while to have an application be deemed complete. We often see applications come in that have studies that are in work but not yet complete or um as part of the initial review for the SEPA process, there may be additional questions or additional information that we need to be able to con to make a SEIPA threshold determination for a project. Um, I'm not going to go through this slide in detail because it's a lot and I wasn't joking when I said I could spend days talking about this slide. Um, this is just sort of a visual overview of our application review process. And what I'd like you to take away from this slide is

that those three um information lines going across horizontally are all different um avenues of review that ultimately come together to form the support for the council's recommendation. So we have our permit identification. Um FSE is the issuing authority for permits for a facility. So we issue um if there are any air permits, we issue title fives. We have delegated authority for Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act permits. Uh any basically any permitting, there's a very small subset of permits that we don't issue. Like for example, a wash dot rightway permit, excuse me, would still go through washd, but we develop and issue permits for any facilities that we oversee. We also have the land use and adjudicative process um which is where we evaluate its consistency with land use and then if it there is an inconsistency that's when that gets set for adjudication. We also have a sep process which I believe everybody is at least a little bit familiar with where we evaluate environmental impacts from a project and either issue determination of significance and issue an EIS through that process or a mitigated determination of non-significance and all of that comes together in a final order and a final recommendation that then goes to the governor for approval. Um, we take public comment throughout our entire process. If a comment comes in, we don't ever turn it away. Everything becomes part of the record. But we do, if you look in this slide at the yellow boxes, those are distinct um comment periods where we have uh in meetings to hold comment, we have distinct comment periods for all of those yellow boxes. And then if you look at the pink boxes um because of the language that was

promulgated in 2023 I think um to take public comment every time a council takes an action. All of those pink boxes also have public comment associated with them because we take comment every time the council takes action. So we have quite a bit of public comment throughout our process is sort of the gist of that. So with respect to local government engagement, as I mentioned, we have a locally appointed council member for every project. Um, at the staff level, staff reaches out at the beginning of every application review to coordinate with the planning department to coordinate with utilities to coordinate with fire districts, cont uh conservation districts. Um, we are a state agency and we do not have the staff to have local experts in every county and city's code. And so we have inter agency agreements available to be able to um provide support for local jurisdiction engagement on these projects um for both application review and construction and operational oversight. Um, and it also allows for reimbursement for local jurisdiction time. So, we know everybody, you know, everybody's competing for money for all the things, right? So, if we're asking for your help to review something, um, we can provide reimbursement for that. So, that does alleviate a little bit of the pressure at the local level for that engagement. Um, circling back the recommendation to the governor, the council makes a recommendation to approve or reject an application. Um, does not make the final decision on the project. Um, the recommendation explains all the steps of the deliberative process. that explains the um conclusions from the

adjudication, identifies permits that are necessary, um identifies conclusions from the SEPA process and all of that gets um packaged in a recommendation to the governor and the governor then has 60 days to approve an application, deny the application or remand the recommendation back to the council to consider specific aspects of the council's recommend. recommendation. Um, any application rejected by the governor is a final decision. Um, just circling back to public input pathways. Um, again, we receive comments for any project or just in kind of in general, um, as I'm sure you know, pretty much throughout the length of an application review, um, when we are in a distinct comment period highlighted by those yellow boxes, those will have a specific comment campaign, which is highlighted um, on our website. Uh, we have, you know, an online database to receive comments. We can also receive comments through phone, through email, reaching out to our staff, sort of all the ways. Um, we encourage people who are interested in specific projects to sign up for the project specific mailing list. If people are interested in FSE overall, we have a general mailing list, but um, typically when we have a project in a specific area, that's where people will want to go to learn more about how that project is progressing through its milestones. Um, and then we also have monthly council meetings which are just a monthly um, our operational facilities report their updates to the council and there are ongoing updates for any applications under review. All right, can we take questions here? Any questions here from the council?

Let me get down here. Deputy Mayor Elers, I was uh just thank you Amy for your presentation and for you guys comment. I just was curious um obviously you guys do this more than us looking at that map. You guys have been in the business of looking at these kind of things. And so the city's obviously this is kind of a random oneoff. Um if we were to say, "Hey, we're doing it through our process." And somebody wanted to reach out and get your opinion, would you guys have a process for us to get an opinion on something that we're doing or would it only be if somebody submitted an application?

No. So, I'm going to give a plug. We are really trying to encourage pre-application. Um, as I mentioned, it can take a really long time to make sure we have all the information for a SEPA threshold determination, right? To make sure we have all the studies complete, all the information that we need for a project. Um, and so we've been really encouraging developers to reach out for pre-application. One of the nice things about that is that that does not obligate a developer to then go through our process. So we can work with developers and we can work with local jurisdictions on reviewing application materials and you know are there is there an additional information that would be appropriate? Is there you know questions that maybe we haven't thought of or or anything really um tuning into some of the site specific questions to then develop those application materials. We also um I wouldn't say it happens a ton, but if there are process questions or things of that nature, we're always available.

Okay. I'm just thinking if we were to look at our project and say, "Hey, we're looking at this project. Do you think the site is a good idea?" Even if it didn't go through you, I just think that'd be one interesting to hear from another perspective as all. Well, I think, you know, some of the things that we could do um is identify, you know, what what are the questions that we would ask of a project um that the council may then use to inform its decision. And maybe those are questions that you're already asking, but maybe they're questions that you haven't thought of before. So, it's, you know,

Yes. Thank you. That's that's what I was getting at. There's a lot of questions we've probably never thought of. So, um I guess another question would be um do you can you is there been a lot of changes with there's the mandates that PSSE talked about with the with the energy I'm assuming that has maybe resulted in some changes on your end is do you have any how how are you getting more applications is there more activity with bees specifically or how has that changed your

so I actually haven't seen a ton of changes recently and this is just my perspective right for reference Since I've been with FSE for about 10 years now, um I haven't seen as many changes from state mandates as I have shifts in technologies. Um as the technologies are changing, um approving, shifting, um we're seeing more changes associated with that. We're seeing changes associated with um changes at the federal level. Anytime there's a change federally, we tend to see a ripple effect of that. Um, and then transmission capacity. That's it's impacting a lot of projects right now as to whether or not they decide to move forward or when they decide to move forward. Um, I I would say those are probably the biggest drivers of changes that I've seen in the rec last like five or so years.

Yeah. Thank you. We really appreciate you coming. It's I I am hoping we get your email and and we have the ability to bounce a couple questions off because it seems like a really good resource. Give me a call. I'm maybe looking at staff. You could also call into anformational meeting. I frequently accidentally give my own number instead of our general number because they're one digit off. So, thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Wilsy. Hello. Um, so just checking and I'm trying to understand the process. So, do we hire you or does the like um the uh I'm sorry, Bright is it bright night? Um are they the ones that hiring you or are we the ones that are hiring you?

So, when we receive an application that comes from the developer so it would come from somebody like Bright Knight and they would say I want to build this here and so then we would refu we would review that application and do all the things and then the recommendation would go to the governor. Okay. Um, so you're just you're you're preparing their their presentation to the governor. Yes. So our our process does the the SEIPA review our um again may may adjudicate um and then if there's like storm water permits or I mean we're discussing best today they don't trigger air permits but

things like that we would issue all of that and that all of that goes into a package to the re of the recommendation to the governor and then the governor decides and then if the governor approves a project um we then oversee all the requirements for construction operations uh decommissioning. So um a lot of the questions you guys were asking earlier about safety review and plan review um we sort of take that on per FSE is sort of a one-stop permitting shop. Okay. So then we take on um we review electrical drawings for code compliance, building compliance. Um,

we work with the local fire districts to make sure that um if there's any training or if there's any, you know, anything about the facility can is the facility laid out a way that an emergency vehicle can access the site. So all of those things that typically you all do, we adopt that and it is our preference to do that with you. But if it's an FSE facility, it then falls under FSE jurisdiction. And so then we would actually contract with you to be able to reimburse you for your time reviewing those things in conjunction with us. Can I let me just add something is um yeah the company pays us Yeah.

to do this and it kind of relates to your question is that uh we find that we don't get so many applications because a company will find it cheaper to come to come through you because with us you're buying us for the rest of your life. Yeah. you know, you're paying us for the rest of your lives and they tend to think that's quite expensive. Got so uh Yeah. Yes. We we tend to be the more expensive option. Um and it's not just that we're expensive through permitting because then they all pay they pay for our oversight for the life of the facility. So,

Gotcha. Um yeah, I think that's it. I had a couple other questions that I think are a little bit more on the logistic side and so I don't know if now's a good time or if I should circle back around and let everybody ask the fsec. Um I'm curious about noise pollution. Um yeah, so I'm not sure who's you know what what that looks like um as far as you know um whether or not there is noise pollution, whether or not that you know impacts the people in the community. Um because you know a a quiet hum can be noticed by somebody, right? So I'm just curious what what what that looks like as far as do we have um statistics on what these kinds of um you know facilities create in the environment. I understand that we're putting one tenatively in a woodsy zone which will cut down or mitigate some of that noise pollution. if there's natural consequences to running electricity. My fridge tells me when it's working. I'm just curious. So,

so with with applications, we typically ask for noise modeling. Okay. Um, you know, because best the battery isn't noisy, but the air to cool it can be very noisy. Um and so most often for applications that come in front of us, we ask for noise modeling um at the perimeter of the like at the boundary of the site to know what that noise is expected to be. Okay. Um and typically if it does raise to you know a disturbance the level of a disturbance

um there are different mitigation options you noise walls things like that that can be used. Okay perfect thank you go ahead. Thank you mayor. I just want to take a moment and reframe this conversation a little bit because I think it's important for council to understand

where exactly we are. what is FSEX's role moving forward? So, uh, greenwater is permitted. It's actually under construction right now. Greenwater chose to permit through the city. They could have gone through FSE. They went through the city. That doesn't mean that another largecale utility best could want to locate in Southern 1.0 ordinance and if uh we couldn't reach agreement, they would have the option to go to FSE for for assistance in citing that. The 2.0 that we're moving forward on is a a scale that is not qualified for FSAC. So, I just want to make sure the council understands it's already permitted. It's under construction for greenwater. It's been conditioned. So, a lot of your questions are relevant, but I think they're more relevant to the 2.0 version than the 1.0 version.

We don't actually have a threshold. I don't think Sorry, that's what you No, I I Yeah,

I take that back. So that's correct though that um it's it's really sort of an eitheror um is they would permit through the local jurisdiction or they would permit through FSAC. Um the way the statute is worded right now um is that if the the local jurisdiction were to deny a project, they could still apply through FSE. If the governor were to deny a project through FSE, they could not then go back through the county because the decision is final. They would have to substantially change the project and basically try again. Um, but for the the optional uh technologies like storage, wind, solar, whatnot, we don't actually have a threshold. So,

but it's going to be it's likely going to be large projects though until Yeah, we typically don't see um small scale projects. We have three small solar sites that are five megawws each, but they apply together as one application. Typically, what we see are the large utility scale. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and call on uh Council Member Malcolm. Just an observation. I mean, just the inverse of of of this is that if somebody comes to the city or the local community for permitting and we deny it, they could go to FPS and get a preeemption and over rule us. That's an avenue. I know it's not used very often, but that's a potential avenue as well.

It is an avenue and there's been language proposed for legislative change in the past to not allow that. Um but that has not come to fruition to this point.

Dad said, "No, let's go talk to mom." Yeah. Okay. Um my question is more about probably a little bigger than what you're looking at, but it's also just something I'm curious about around um as data centers and high energy consumers. A lot of the stuff we're doing for bass and grid resiliency is because we're having giant, you know, I guess data centers and stuff coming in and really stressing our grid. You're seeing it all around the country all the time. I'm wondering if any of this um uh kind of energy facility construction could be synchronous with some of those things. So we have an expectation of there's a data center going in Goldenale that's can we require them to do some sort of solar wind something to offset their impact on the grid and you see any kind of synchronicity like that going on where these things these big sites that are being built

so I can't give you anything with certainty because we don't oversee those but what I hear um is that a lot of those facilities the data centers and and AI and whatnot are considering um developing micro grids largely because there's not transmission capacity, right? So they they they can't connect and get if they wanted something far from them even if a solar site was available, you know, however many miles away, there's not capacity on the grid to get it to the site.

So from what I understand, they're considering developing micro grids. So basically things on site um be potentially behind the meter as it were um to power themselves directly that might be renewables like wind and solar that might they may be considering natural gas or things like that. Be nice to see because I think that would take a lot of the pressure off of grid and not impact residential rates as much you know to kind of help cover the you know infrastructure requirements around that. So it'd be great to see some sort of synchronicity.

Um you know that there the governor convened a working group to study the data centers and because of that a piece of legislation came forward through the legisl legislature last year. This past year didn't get passed but some of the elements got into this tax code and I think it's still a discussion throughout many different states. We're still they're still trying to figure out what to do with it considering considering a citizen as a Yeah. So I think whatever discussion was held in 26 is still going to come back and we're have more discussions in 27. All right. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Alers.

I just following up on your uh comment about the fact that you guys don't have a threshold and then just thinking about best 2.0. So when somebody builds like somebody's like, "Okay, I'm going to put solar in my house and put a little battery there." Is that bes for just a house to have a battery for their is that considered um right and right now Sar doesn't have anything they don't allow it or what where at on that currently

our code doesn't really address um certain things that um kind of exceed like the fire code and what the building code would allow. But there's some small systems like EV batteries that probably could be installed without our zoning code to be changed. But um we're happy to jump to what we're looking at in terms of the different types of BEST as we kind of see how projects could self-elect to FSAC. Um, you know, I'll still have them up here if you want to follow up with questions with them. But right now, um, our code is really silent on like more accessory onsite use or colllocating, um, with existing substations, micro grids, um, things like that.

Okay. Yeah. Our current code only addresses that tier 4 utility scale. And so the the best ordinance 2.0 I know that we keep referring to and then take into consideration tier one, two, and three. Good. Council member Kenna, Jason, right on following on that point. Firstly, um so FSAC would not be uh a part of the best 2.0 that that wouldn't be a layer of that. Is that what I understood? Um my understanding has changed in the last five minutes.

Okay. I thought I heard that too, but I wasn't sure if I lost the thread there. So uh but yes best FSE could weigh in on a a best 2.0 scenario. The question is you know is somebody a resident or a commercial user are they going to go through that process. It's not an easy process. So you know I don't know how likely it is. I'll let them answer that. So we would not oversee something residential. That's not okay. Um, and I'd have to look at our language for the storage.

Um, but but generally it's we we oversee commercial development. Um, anything residential in people's homes, rooftop, solar, like none of that is within our jurisdiction. So yeah, on that point um and please correct me if my um kind of understanding of this process is is not accurate, but um I'm assuming that the governor makes decisions when it goes through FSE and then eventually comes to him or her that um this is a regional or statewide need. There's priorities and interests not that they may not be great for the local community, but we need this for the region or the state. You have to have longer term vision as far as that goes. Is there a possibility that even though maybe residential or smallcale best um at this time is you know too low level would be too much of a tax on your group that there might be some like statewide um code or rule or law that says we do have to allow residential we do have to allow smallcale bests um around without review or anything like that. Is there something there? because I'm just thinking of the governor's priorities and how eventually there may be smaller scale bests needed down the road that you know we wouldn't want to just keep coming to you guys time after time. So um in particular, Representative Dolio does a lot of thinking about this. Uh she's out of the 22nd district and um like last year she had a bill on uh distributed energy resources which where she was basically trying to incentivize uh make um uh encourage these types of processes, right? So I think that that's where it wouldn't necessarily go through us, right? So she let's say she's saying to us, what can you do to improve your operations, the way that you work, be more efficient, right? And then at the same time she's thinking about what can I do to incentivize um you know uh um rooftops solar um what you're talking about with best and I think there was something that was passed not this last

session but session before I have to say I don't really pay that much attention to it since I'm only we're only big scale but I think there was something uh that was passed uh last year um on that but yet she she's always thinking of ideas about how to rec she recognizes that there's a lot of pressure on the east side was basically saying why are you putting all these huge you know wind and stuff and why don't what is why doesn't the west who's using all the energy why didn't they do something and so that was what her the meaning of that bill that she uh got through last year and she's it's it's still a work in progress as you've seen in the newspapers all this the noise about the fact that we don't have enough energy we need we're going to have a brown out so I think that it is top of mind of some of the legislators who are focused on this issue about what can do better. How can we, you know, pressure different sections to do more to get more on the uh grid?

Great. Thank you. Good. Thank you. Anyone else? I would just add for anybody that wants to educate themselves, go to this FSAC website. I've been studying it in great depth and I'm watching new uh opportunities come up on your website. I've seen one where uh the governor it got the remanded. Yes.

Yes. this these guys said, "Hey, these changes need to be made to one of these." And so, yes, it went back and then it was like conditional if these changes were made to the plan. I saw one on there, but there's quite a few on there, and you can go on there. They showed it briefly. You can go on there and see what these areas are doing um to your uh integration, integrated approach. So, uh go to the website. There's a lot of information on it. I would say that. So, a couple other things um that are worth taking a look at. Um both Department of Ecology and FSAC were tasked with doing pro programmatic environmental impact statements.

So um at this point those have been issued and all of the SEAL lead agencies are now required to use those. And so the programmatics that ecology put out are um generally consider them colllocated but they do have information about solar and BES and wind and BES. And so they have a lot of good information um about impacts from best facilities um and I know this was not a question for me. I'm not a chemist. Um but if you put the facilities underground you could make a very large bomb. So I thought that might come up but hey who am I? That's why you were speaking in the peanut gallery.

Yeah. I was I saw you back. It came up um at a project. Somebody suggested we encapsulate it. Um but that's functionally what would happen. So great. So either blow up or breathe it. Those are your two options. Just kidding. Okay. Thank you very much for coming. A lot of insightful information. So we appreciate you guys coming. All right. So, are we back to Croiss and Ryan?

Yeah, one more slide. Yeah, thanks for uh bearing with us through this uh presentation, but it took a lot of coordination as you saw to get all of these people here to spend some time to inform you of their process

and the goals that's kind of driving all of these changes and just how this really could have an impact in our zoning code. So um on the screen you have just what we're proposing um how we're attend attempting to approach best ordinance 2.0 is taking a look at uh breaking out best into four different tiers. Um our next steps in regards to uh best Thank you Amy. um regarding the best zoning code text amendment. Um well, we will be bringing um refining our ordinance 2.0 draft back with the planning commission. Um discussing different scales of best while maintaining safety uh compatibility and just really taking a look at um what fits best in our landscapes and um just other additional conditions that we can also rely on EPSAC. um to assist in in how we can write in certain performance standards that could apply to projects. So, uh expect to see uh a draft ordinance proposing a new chapter in our zoning code that would address all of these facets related to battery energy storage systems um later likely fall of this year because we are uh aiming for a public hearing with the planning commission July and August of this year. Um Amy with FSE was happy to leave some um business cards. So we'll leave that available for council members to grab. And this concludes um our presentation tonight. Thank you, mayor and council members.

Thank you. Thank you. So with those cards though, we're not suggesting that anybody here reach out to them directly. That's that's not the suggestion. I mean that's a no. Use public comment to make on any other I know the staff. I know. I thought you clarify your message. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Can I just say something? Um I know you're going to go there in your report, but I just want to say thank you for everything you've done. It's actually been quite phenomenal to watch you grow over the last two and a half years. You would have been a nervous wreck up here two years ago, right? I mean, you you really have done great. So, we'll miss you. So, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Bowman. All right. on to the city administrator report. Thank you. I'll just add, you know, I told her today she's a she's a trooper. I mean, today's her last day and she's here at 8:30 at night talking about best, holy cow, that is that is some internal fortitude and uh just ethics. She'll definitely be missed and I wish her luck in the future.

Uh so that's all I have to say about that. We'll miss you. Uh for council, just a reminder, there is no regular council meeting next week. We do have our first of two retreats starting at 1:00. Uh the first retreat is at farm 12. So if you have any questions, reach out to me, please. That's Thank you. Thank you. Um council, the agenda setting, any council meeting agenda, the calendar, anybody got any changes? Uh any committee meeting changes? Everybody's good? Yes, Mr. Malcolm. Council member Malcolm,

this is actually for Chris. I was looking at the slide that has the June 5th planning commission discussion. That's a Friday. I don't think that's the day of planning commission, is it? We'll take a look at that. Ryan's got it. She's coming on a Friday night. Okay. So, everybody's good. No changes to anything committee anything Monday. Yes. The next one is where the second one is a holiday in holiday on May 11th.

Okay. Thank you. All right. There is no executive session tonight. Thank you. And uh I will adjourn this meeting at 8:29 p.m.