HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN 01.26.2010 CC-WMinutes of the Meeting of the Governing Bod
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The City Council of the City of Georgetown, Texas, met in Regular Session on the above date with Mayor
George Garver presiding.
Council Present:
Keith Brainard, Gabe Sansing, Dale Ross, Ben
Oliver, Pat Berryman, Bill Sattler, Patty Eason
Council Absent:
All Council Present.
Staff resent:
Paul E. Brandenburg, City Manager; Mark Sokolow, City Attorney; Jessica Hamilton, City Secretary;
Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer; Jim Briggs, Assistant City Manager for Utility Operations; Ken
Arnold, Energy Services Director; Laurie Brewer, Assistant Finance Director; Thomas R. Benz, Systems
Engineering Manager; Kathy Ragsdale, Utility Office Manager; Robert Fite, Fire Chief; Keith Hutchinson,
Public Information Officer; Brent Schachrel, Police Chief; Elizabeth Cook, Community Development
Director;
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A Presentation to Council related
to Energy Efficiency/Conservation
and
efforts to
implement future enhancements
-- Ken Arnold, Energy Services
Director and Jim Briggs,
Assistant
City
Manager
for Utility
Operations
With a Powerpoint Presentation, Briggs gave a presentation on energy efficiency to the City Council. He said
that lighting by itself consumes 25% of each generation resource. He said the City's Codes relative to energy
started in 1996 with the Good Cents Standards for energy efficiency on homes. He said this was primarily
identified for residential energy usage. He spoke about the current Ordinances relating to energy efficiency. He
showed Council a graph demonstrating comparisons of annual energy use between typical homes, energy star
homes and high efficiency homes. He said conservation reduces the need for future and more expensive energy
uses. He showed the City Council a pie chart of national energy consumption statistics. He said cooling and
heating takes up the highest percentage of the consumption. He outlined the energy efficiency and renewable
programs currently in place at the City. He named a few of those programs and said the City has energy audits
through energy depot, a buyback program for residential solar as well as State Energy Conservation Office
(SECO) rebates and federal IRS tax credits. He described how these programs work. He said the City's utility is
in transition and conservation efforts will eventually stay local so the City will be able to retain 100% of the
benefits. He spoke about the current Texas Residential Energy Efficiency Incentives and Programs currently in
place, including Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), Utility Rebate program, Personal Exemption and
Production Incentives. He said more information on these programs is available on the State Energy
Conservation website. He the City's website offers a program called Energy Depot, which is a questionnaire that
will provide current utility customers with a comprehensive energy assessment.
Arnold described Energy Depot and how it is used. He showed Council the full energy profile and noted it is very
extensive. He showed Council a graph of the Georgetown Utility System (GUS) Energy Consumer Profile for his
own home. He described what the resulting graph shows and the type of information Energy Depot provides for
citizens. He said Energy Depot gives citizens advice on what they can do to reduce their energy consumption.
Briggs spoke about new program considerations for energy efficiency. He said, in terms of lighting, flourescent
City Council Workshop Minutes/January 26, 2010
Page 1 of 3 Pages
lighting provides quick benefits and savings. He provided Council with statistics on CFLs (Compact Flourescent
Lighting) and LEDs. He showed Council Energy Star numbers relative to cost savings and return on investment
for Energy Star products. He spoke about modifications and considerations for the budget regarding this energy
conservation issue. He spoke about possible programs that would benefit the budget including LEEDS
(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Development) certification and development, commercial solar
development and a possible buyback program, commercial distributed generation for peak shaving, residential
renewable energy options, appliance rebates, insulation rebates, HVAC rebates and lighting retrofits. He said
these are all proven programs that Council may want to evaluate. He said those programs could be considered
for the 2010-2011 budget.
Briggs showed Council a photo of the solar project at the TLCC. He also showed Council the local CARTS
facility which includes a wind turbine. He showed Council an example of residential solar installation. Mayor
asked about the solar installation and Arnold spoke about how it works. Mayor asked and Briggs said the City
has not come up with any payback numbers for this residential system. Brainard asked and Briggs said those
solar panels cost about $35,000 - $40,000. Brainard asked and Briggs confirmed the PACE program is the
program the legislature approved. Brainard asked and Briggs said he is not sure if Austin has adopted the
program or not. Brainard asked and Briggs explained the PACE program to the City Council. Berryman asked
and Arnold said it took him 20 minutes to do his Energy Depot assessment online. Arnold noted, if someone did
their assessment for the first time, it would take about an hour at most. There was much discussion. Mayor said
it may be good for staff to study these programs and come back to Council with specific and viable energy
conservation options.
B Workshop Discussion and possible action regarding the upcoming 2010/11 Annual Budget process, strategic
planning process and related Budget Calendar -- Laurie Brewer, Assistant Finance Director and Micki Rundell,
Chief Financial Officer
With a Powerpoint presentation, Brandenburg and Finance staff reviewed the 2010/11 Budget process and
priorities. He said staff is trying to be more strategic with this budget in terms of what Council wants as the
City's priorities. He noted staff would also like the link the Council's priorities to the goals of the 2030 plan. He
noted the citizen survey is also running parallel to this process. He said the City will be having another
challenging budget process this year and noted staff wants to know if Council's priorities are the same as last
year or if they want the priorities to change.
Brewer reviewed the agenda for the presentation. She summarized the budget cycle and said the five year
Capital Improvement Plan starts in December or January, a citizen survey is done biannually, the staff obtains
Boards and Commissions input, council priorities are set, policies reviewed, base budgets are prepared,
revenue models are updated/revenues projected and new budget program requests are developed. She said
the Council will review the fiscal and budgetary policy, social service programs, facilities, the CIP and
compensation and benefits. She also spoke about City Manager work sessions with staff including "red line
days." She spoke about Council workshops related to the budget cycle including setting the tax rate, adopting
the 4A and 4B budgets, holding public hearings and then adopting the budget. Polasak gave a brief overview of
the 2030 Comprehensive Plan. He said it is required by the Charter as an ongoing element and program of the
City. He said the plan defines what the citizens feel the community should be in 2030. He said it touches on
four areas including quality of life, quality of growth/sustainable growth, balance transportation/efficient mobility
and effective governance. He said the 2030 Plan is meant to be flexible and provide options. He said staff will
be updating Council on the many elements of the 2030 Plan that need to be updated.
Brewer said the 2030 Plan does not have the specific goals/strategies needed to prepare the budget. She
noted, traditionally, Council provides the direction through priorities using the guiding principles of the 2030
Plan. She said staff expects this will be another difficult budget and noted the Council should expect to have
limited funds. She reviewed the twelve priority areas developed for the budget. She said staff would like for
Council to determine if these twelve priorites are still relevant and added there will be an online survey which will
allow Council to rank the priorities for staff. She said, on February 9, a review of the City's current debt will be
given to the Council. She noted the weighted priority list will be presented at the February 23 Workshop. She
said the citizen survey will be presented on March 9th. She showed Council a summary of the budget process
calendar. She noted, on March 23rd, there will be a review of social service policy, the budget priorities, the
facilities update and initiating the compensation and benefits discussion She said budget adoption has been
scheduled for August 24th.
Sattler asked and Rundell said infrastructure is handled through the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) process.
Rundell said the Council priorities are to be placed on a five year horizon. She reviewed the ranking process for
these priorities. She said she wants to know what each Council member feels is the most important priority and
least important priority. Eason said she would like to keep the same list Council has used in the past, unless
City Council Workshop Minutes/January 26, 2010
Page 2 of 3 Pages
Council sees a drastic change in response from the citizens via the citizen survey. Ross said, just because
those priorities were relevant in the past, does not mean they apply today. Ross asked and Rundell noted, at
this stage, staff wanted to keep the numbers out of it. She noted staff does not want to apply each priority to a
particular portion of the budget. Brandenburg said this would allow staff to pull certain projects that apply to
those priorities according to whether or not funds are available. Ross said his opinion would be to look at the
priorities from an accountant's perspective using the different fund in the budget. Brandenburg said there are
different ways to fund the various priorities and a lot of questions regarding funding particular projects are
included in the citizen survey. He said the survey may push Council one way or the other in terms of their
priorities. Mayor reviewed the presentation and said there is a need for Council to identify the priorities for the
City's budget.
Rundell said, once Council determine the priorities, a survey will be sent to the Council so that they may rank
them. Mayor asked and Rundell agreed Council can add to or take away from the list of the twelve priorities that
were just given to Council. Mayor asked and Rundell said, if Council has any additional priorites they would like
to add or remove from the list, they should notify her or the staff. Brainard asked and Rundell said the online
survey would be used to rank the priorities. Brainard asked about emergency response levels and parks and
recreation priorities. Brainard asked and Rundell said staff did not initially intend to have the results of the
community survey available to the Council before they rank the priorities, but noted it could be a possibility.
Oliver asked and Rundell confirmed, this year, staff is trying to link the Council priorities to the 2030 plan
sections. Rundell said the City staff is trying to look at the implementation of the 2030 Plan as it relates to the
Council priorities. Mayor asked and Rundell agreed that what the City is working on is a strategic plan. Rundell
also noted, just because a priority is ranked at the bottom, doesn't mean it would get funded eventually. Mayor
suggested Council waits until the results of the citizen survey have been provided to them before they fill out the
priority survey. Oliver clarified and said staff would like for Council to create their priorities for the City in terms of
development over five years as a whole and not on a financial basis. Brandenburg clarified and said it seems
that Council would like to wait until they receive the results of the citizen survey before they do their own priority
survey. Mayor said there is an open invitation for any Council members to add items to the priority list, but
Council will not rank priorities until the complete list has been finalized and approved by the full Council.
C Presentation Regarding Project Lab -- Mark Thomas, Economic Development Director
This item was pulled by staff.
Meeting recessed to Executive Session under Sections 551.071, 551.072 and 551.087-- 5:17 p.m.
Meeting reopened and adjourned -- 5:50 p.m,
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 05:50 PM.
Mayor Geode Garver
City Council Workshop Minutes/January 26, 2010
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