A RESOLUTION related to the City Light Department; adopting a 2023-2028 Strategic Plan Update for the City Light Department and endorsing the associated six-year rate path.
A report of the Economic Development, Technology and City Write Committee Agenda Item one. Resolution 32056. A resolution related to the city write department adopting in 2023 through 2028 strategic plan update for the satellite department and endorsing the associated six year rate path. The committee recommends the council bill be passed. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Councilmember Nelson, the floor is yours. COSAT Nelson. One moment. Please. Okay. Item number one. So if you can hear me first, I'd like to give some background. Resolution 32056 would adopt the City Lights 2023 to 2028 strategic plan and endorsed the associated rate path. But by background, I went to explain that the disruption of the pandemic in 2020 interrupted the expected update of City Lights Strategic Plan in rate path. In recognition of the economics due to the COVID 19 pandemic. The executive did not transmit and council did not take up rate setting legislation during 2020. In 2021, Council approved rates for 2021 and 2022, and they were effective in April of 2021. So in differing from regular practice, City Light proposed in council adopted a five year, not a six year strategic plan for 2022 to 2026. So now in 2022, City Light has proposed a 2023 to 2028 strategic plan starting there, the the normal two year cycle of planning and rate path determination and rate change adoption and because only one year has passed since the adoption of the previous plan. City Light characterizes the 2023 to 2028 plan as an update rather than a wholly new plan. So what we have before us has been approved by the review panel and unanimously passed out of committee last Wednesday. HSA and Wilson. Are there any comments or questions regarding this or Councilmember Nelson? Casper Peterson. Thank you. Council president. The resolution approved last year Resolution 32007. Scheduled electricity rates to increase by 3.8% in 2023 and by another 3.8% in 2024. But City Lights resolution before us today is asking the council to increase their rates by a higher amount, 4.5% in 2023 and another 4.5% in 2024. I appreciate all the hard work she does. I appreciate the thoughtful rationale for the utilities proposal, consistent with my comments on substantive changes and rate increases that I have communicated to my constituents. Though I'll be voting no on today's resolution. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Peterson, is there any other comments customers want? Thank you. Guns have proven worse as I've done previous years. I will be voting yes on this legislation approving Seattle City Life Strategic Plan. It accurately analyzes what resources city will need to continue its important work. However, as I've said in previous years, also, I would not agree that working people who are now facing punishing inflation should be asked to pay any rate increases. Instead, Seattle should be increasing the rates on big business. For that reason, while I'm voting yes on the strategic plan, I intend to vote no on rate increase legislation as long as it continues to put the burden of those rate increases on working people. Thank you. If your customers want this or any other comments or concerns. All right. I have some closing comments. I was just going to do that comes from Nelson. So why don't you go ahead and have a closing comments before we go to a vote? Well, I do want to acknowledge Councilmember Peterson's historic knowledge. I really appreciate that you have that perspective coming into this year's vote. It's true. We're talking about a 0.7% increase from what was anticipated to be the 2023 rate increase to what is actually proposed in this plan. And I just wanted to explain a little bit about what's behind that. So City Late developed the average rate for 2023 by including inflationary costs from 2021 in 2022 that were not included in city lights, operations and maintenance budget for those years. And in addition to that, the the inflationary adjustment from 2022 to 2023 is a significant driver. So, you know, right now, the the inflation is anticipated is the current projection is I believe it's C 7.8. And when that last plan was adopted, the projection was 5.1. So that is a significant driver. And also it's noted in the report and I want to make clear that the people watching this know that City Light makes plain that the annual increases of the proposed rate path fall short of anticipated inflation in cost going forward. So they are absorbing some of the the higher than usual inflationary costs. And in the past two years, just for an example, some of those cost increases when it comes to city lights cause steel, aluminum and copper increased 70 to 80%, conduit 33%. So that those are the sorts of things that they're grappling with. And two councilmembers once point many people lost their jobs and it is but city light didn't turn off people's did not close accounts in they are currently operating under $44.7 million in arrearages. So I acknowledge that I acknowledge Councilmember Peterson's concern, but I, I ask for my colleagues support of this plan. I think that what's most important is really what's going on in the pocketbooks of of Seattleites and actually the city late reports that actual rates in 2023 to 2024 will be slightly lower at 11.4 cents per kilowatt hour compared to the anticipated 11.4 $0.09 per kilowatt hours. So actually, it's lower than anticipated, and this is because of the lower than anticipated Bonneville Power Administration pass through cost. So that cost that we all that also factors into rates is lower. So anyway, like I say, I ask for consideration of these issues as we as we go forward for a vote today you. To me also I would apologize to quickly to Councilor Nelson for closing remarks. And then I saw Councilor Maceda and Councilmember Strauss had some comments. So, Councilmember Nelson, I'm going to allow Councilmember Strauss and Councilman Rosetta to respond. And if you want to respond again, I will give you that opportunity. Councilor Mosqueda. Thank you, council president. I want to underscore some of the things that are my colleagues have also said today, echoing what Councilmember Salinas said about a more progressive rate structure. That's something that I also worked on in 2018 and 2019 after taking the helm at City Life. I know Councilmember Peterson has raised concerns about the impact on some of the smallest rate payers as well. And he and I had worked on utility discount program and really trying to push and move towards a more automatic enrollment for utility discount programs over the last few years. Much appreciated that Seattle City Life is taking some steps on the utility discount program and moving towards what I hope will be more auto enrollment. But I just wanted to bring up the longstanding desire to see a more progressive rate structure here and underscore some of the points about needing to see that in the future. I also think that as we look to maybe codify some of the things that have made it easier for some of our community members who've been hardest hit by COVID, one of the things that we have done is, for example, waive the design review for affordable housing. But what affordable housing folks have really said to us is they also want to see the utility hookups cost be waived. So I will be voting yes for this strategic plan today. But as we think about, you know, how we strategically plan to address the hardship that has been worsened by COVID, a more progressive rate structure, auto enrollment and utility discount programs, and making sure that we're waiving utility hookups for affordable housing would be policies that I know that there would be shared interest for on this council. With that said, I will be voting yes for this and look forward to those future conversations. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Castro Mosquito. Councilor Strauss. Thank you, Council President. This is. Apologies. I didn't mean to take the last word. After Councilmember. Nelson speaking. It made me think of some questions. Councilmember Nelson, can you help me remember? We did not increase city the scale. City Light did not increase their rates in 2020 and 2021. That is correct. And so I just in the two hardest years that we've seen in many in a long time, city Light did not increase rates at a time that they could have. With that understanding, wouldn't it be true that these rates are less than we could have experienced much higher rate increases? And when we look at if these increases have been spread out over two years, it would be much less than what we're asked to vote on today. Is that correct? I think that is a logical observation. And I have to say that that is partly why I gave that background. And you're just cutting to the chase much better than I did. Thank you. Just wanting to highlight that point. Thank you, young president. Okay, sir. Anyone else? Before I let Councilmember Nelson say anything in closing, in response to the last two comments we had or anything else from you. Councilmember Nelson. Again, I appreciate my colleagues engagement. I want to make sure that the public is aware that we are not voting to increase rates right now. That conversation will begin on August 10th in my committee and continue to the following meeting. We will have a possible vote on September 14th, so there is time for my colleagues to ask city late questions or our central staff can he before that as well. So right now we are we are approving a rate path based on some of these factors that I've just that I've just outlined. And so bottom line is that if inflation is going up faster than we thought, that's driving cost increases. We're not. Those aren't necessarily reflected in the rates that we're endorsing in this rate had we have not increased rates in the under normal schedule. And in fact, the decrease in the amount that we paid Bonneville Power Administration does help reduce those costs. So thank you very much for those last words. Thank you, Councilor Nelson. And Customer Support. And Councilor Petersen, thank you. As I know, you were former chairs of Seattle City Light in which I sat on those committees and we should note that this did pass out of committee 420 with no opposition. So with that, Madam Clerk, can we please call the roll? Councilmember Lewis. Yes. Councilmember Morales Yes. Councilmember Mosquera I. Councilmember Nelson. I. Councilmember Petersen. No. Council members want. Yes. Member Strouse. Yes. Councilmember Herbold? Yes. Council President Waters? Yes. We didn't favor one opposed. Thank you. The resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it. Madam Clerk, can you please affix my signature to the recently passed legislation on my behalf? Moving on on the agenda, item number two. Well, Madam Clerk, will you please read item two into the record? And Councilmember Strauss, the floor. Yours. The Report of the Land Use Committee Council Agenda Item two Council Bill 120313 An ordinance relating to land use and zoning defining the addition of a single development that includes residential uses at a community or technical college located within an urban center.