Introduction of Ordinance Amending Alameda Municipal Code Chapter XIX, Section 19-4 (Underground Utility Districts) to Approve the Redesigned Underground Utility District Policy.  (Alameda Municipal Power)
But with regard to temporary measures, I wanted to I'm prepared to make a motion, but I wanted to just check in with the vice mayor. Was there a modification? You're talking about a modification of the language so this could come back for the second reading? And was there language from what Mr. Mchunu stated that you wanted to have incorporated? And before I answer that question there, and I was wondering if. We can have an explanation of the the next step of the process, because Mr. McConnell mentioned prior to a use permit being granted at the at the planning level that use permit. In order to get that the noise issue is may be gated at that point. Is that correct? And the placement and maintenance responsibilities for the hall out may be placed at that at that point, is that correct? So the two issues were the noise issues and the placement of all that. I was just getting it from my notes. So I guess what we're trying to figure out here is how we can put the planning board and put conditions on the use permit here. I don't see any planners out here who can help us out. But we would hope that we could put some conditions. I mean, we do conditions on developments all the time. But frankly, to answer that off the top of my head, I really can't give you a firm answer. That's certainly what we intend to do. And I appreciate this. Will listen to the readers. We a staff, if they're willing to accept something like that. But, I mean, it's a matter of how we would design those conditions. So go ahead. I'm just going to address quickly. This project had Environmental Impact Report and an environmental impact statement that represents roughly 500 pages of analysis on issues such as noise. And if you're really curious about noise, those are the documents to reference. This isn't the first time this project has has been analyzed. It's been analyzed extensively in terms of those issues. Truck travel and truck paths to it are all documented in that document. And they follow the city code in terms of where those trucks are allowed to travel on your streets. You have laid that out very specifically about the streets that are allowed and not allowed. The trucks will go on this allowed streets. In terms of whether we're allowed to or whatever the arrangement is, we are more than happy to do an m0u to build a seal haul out money is not the issue. We are spending $50 million and so 80,000 is fine. You drive a hard bargain, but we will spend that 80,000. We provided an email you to the city and with the hopes that it can come to you tonight. But the city had had reservations about that moving forward. If those reservations could be overcome on the city level, we're happy to execute that. But really on our side, we were prepared to do it. If there's any other questions. I'm since I'm already standing up. No, I. This is something I was just going to make a comment about a come I heard from the dais about not wanting to hear any more cavalier attitude from staff about wildlife. And perhaps I missed it, but I'm actually quite impressed with all the discussions and negotiations and preparation of IMO use. It's in process addressing the wildlife. So I, I don't think if anything, I think perhaps it was misinterpreted. I think we're taking this quite seriously. I think. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I do think that the comment made by one of the members of the public that. That stuff just kind of dismissed the idea that said, oh, they can just go to the break, the breakwater. My point was, I kind of agreed with that, that member of the public that said that. So. I think my comment was I'm not taking it back, if that's what you're asking. Oh, I know you're not. I'm not taking mine back either. And I believe at this point we're waiting to hear from staff on. That's so right. So that everyone's aware at this point. We're waiting to hear back from staff in response to members questions. I have, I believe. When I was. Little. If you do that and you have to open up. Excuse me, Madam Mayor. I'm sorry. You know, I have a tremendous amount. Of respect for the public process. This, however, is a business. Meeting that needs to be conducted. Like a business meeting. And Mr. Peterson, walking up to the proscenium and directing everybody how the meeting should proceed. Is frankly inappropriate. The Clerk No. You directed all the way across here. I'm not going to speak with Mr. Peterson. This is the point. This is the point. Madam Mayor, I'm sorry. You two get control of the chamber, please. So. So this. I'm sorry. It's my understand. We're waiting to hear back from staff. We're trying to do that, but it's very difficult to. Make you. Do it. We thank you for your time for a five minute break. So we will be taking. Do we need a motion to do that? No. Okay. We will be taking a five minute break and reserving 10:00 for that clock. Thank you very much. Everyone, if you can, please take your seats. We're going to resume the meeting. Uh. Thank you very much. Appreciate your patience and staff. Will you be responding? Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So in consultation with our potential partners that we'd have. The solution we've arrived. At that we proposed to the Council is. To. Have an memorandum of understanding in writing. That will be in the package for Thursday, this Thursday, and will be given to the Council to vote. On at the time. Of the second reading of this agreement. Therefore, if. The Council is not satisfied with the. Memorandum of Understanding at the time of the second reading, the Council then can vote down the second reading and you don't have a lease with WADA that you don't want. The first reading is tonight, but that doesn't. Render the least effective, least effective upon the second reading. 30 days after. But the second reading is when you authorize it and then the 30 days happens, but you can't do is have the have the second vote and then undo it on that. Well, we. Don't want to go down that road. So our proposal. Is. Either vote it up or down tonight. If you vote it up and it goes to a second reading. Then at the time of the second reading at the March 17th meeting. You will have an MRU in front of you that deals with the question of the hall layout putting money into. Escrow to pay for the hall out. All of those. Items would be in writing, and that's how we propose to solve the dilemma that we find ourselves in tonight. I have a follow up question to the attorney. Does that mean that this is not a substantive change? That is correct, because what you're voting on is the lease itself. And what you're adding on on the second read is basically a conditional document that we've already referenced that's been a promise which has given some trouble to certain of the council members that it's not a firm enough commitment. And what we're suggesting is that staff, both of WETA and the city work very hard and get the actual document that you're looking for in place. So that Condition two going forward with the lease would actually be satisfied for you before you would do the second vote. So you're not modifying the actual ordinance of the lease approval, you just have the document in front of you. And then you choose. If you don't like that. Document, then you choose not to vote. The lease. And the the NYU language does not have to be contained in the original reading of the lease to still satisfy the public's right to notice. The well. The public will get the type of an M.O. you is required to come to the Council for an approval. And that's how we're setting this up. It will get its 12 day advance notice for council to take action. And what we're suggesting is that council will be able to look at that, decide if it's adequate to what you are looking for. What we're hearing from you here tonight, if you if you believe it is and you vote to approve that, then I assume you would be willing to go forward on the second reading, which is just confirming then the approval of the lease, because you have satisfied that your concerns, if instead the memo you that we bring forward does not do that, then you have the opportunity to just not do the second reading because you haven't had that issue satisfied. But we're not building in the hall out issue into the lease itself, so we're not making any kind of substantial change to the lease itself. That's clear. Any other member questions or comments? Just to be clear, that's mayor M.O.. You went. Should it be approved at the next council meeting will be a binding contract between Leda and the city of Alameda. That is what our intent is, that it doesn't. Need a second reading on its own. No, the MOTU does not. The reason we have a first and second reading for the lease is because again, our charter requires that we do leases pursuant to ordinance and so an ordinance requires two readings, an introduction and then an actual adoption. The two readings but regular contracts, agreements, what have you only require one vote. And so the IMO you which is a separate document related but a separate document only requires one vote. Thank you. And, Madam Mayor, that satisfies my concerns. I, I want to see the jobs here. I want to see our marine related industry expanded. I want to protect the environment. Same time we had has mentioned and was in the staff report that they are of the same mind. And I think I appreciate staff. I seen this of very intensely in the last 10 minutes. So I'm ready to move forward on the first reading and anticipate getting the ammo used so we can make sure that, you know, the public has a chance to look at it and we all are comfortable that it satisfies the concern . Our second plus was that emotion. I thought we had emotion before, but it's just your emotion now, Vice Mayor, is that emotion that. We didn't have before. We didn't. Know. So where are you planning to is that did you want to frame emotion? I confirm emotion around. That's up to. You. I mean, your emotion. Is here. The emotion is that we approved the first hearing of the lease as written. With the condition that a memorandum of understanding will accompany the second reading. And it will be reviewed and disposition at that time. In our second. Although some favorable comments. Yes. I just want to say to the members who are here tonight and to the watching public, I think this is exactly the example of staff really putting the grist to the wheel, so to speak, and making and working things out. The residents raise concerns and as proof, you know, we care about the environment and we care about moving forward with the economic development. So tonight, it's a good night. You know, everyone, we should feel happy about this. I support it. And remember, it is all right. All those in favor I oppose. I oppose. The vote passes 4 to 1 and I oppose. First of all, I believe that this should have been included in the first reading. I'm not satisfied that a separate and we're coming back separately actually satisfies the intent of the law that in regards to the first reading and the second reading. And then also I have the concerns that were stated that I in regards to an environmental review on this issue, having experts brought in, it's not just putting up some floating dock that there's actually a special specialist that spending time analyzing this. I'm concerned about the noise, the hours of operation. And I think that there should also be simulation sharing that with the community. And I, I think it's actually very important that the size of the building itself, as well as all of the additional docks, be clearly shown and depicted in a manner that's clear to the public before we proceed. Madam Chair, may I ask a question of staff? It's usually not appropriate, but I'm not sure what you're going to be asking. This question is on the process of the use permit and the planning process for actually building what the lease now and what the lease will have will include public input and planning board decision on the size, shape and scope of the building and will deal with issues of noise and put mitigations and additional restraints on if demonstrated there needed will allow the public to weigh in. So there's a whole process in front of this. Is that correct? Yes, you are correct. They still assuming the lease is approved finally and it is effective, then we will have to go through our process of the design review and getting approvals from the planning board, which is all public process and all of the things that you mentioned. Vice Mayor Matarese would be part of that. And if the Planning Board's decision doesn't satisfy one member of this body, that member within ten days of the decision can call it for review. Is that also correct? That is correct. So I think there's a it's not trust us, it's subject to scrutiny by the council, subject to scrutiny by the planning board, and it's subject to scrutiny by the public. So actually, I think comments like that need to be made prior to the vote. So moving on to item six be. Introduction of ordinance amending Alameda Municipal Code Chapter 19, Section 19 for underground utility districts to approve the redesigned underground utility district policy. Mr. Steiger. Good evening, Mayor Spencer and members of the. Elmira City Council. I'm Glenn Steiger. I'm general manager of Alameda Municipal Power. And we're before you here tonight to introduce the redesigned Underground Utility District Program, which has been in place since 1984, but which was suspended in 2012 for the express purpose of redesign based on certain concerns that were raised at that time. And with that introduction, I'd like to turn this presentation over to our Assistant General Manager of Engineering Operations, Doug Drager, who will walk you through the redesign program. Thank you, Mr. Drager. Thank you, General Manager Steiger. Mayor Spencer, members of the council, appreciate your time tonight. I want to run through a short presentation, introduce you to the background of the U. D program. Talk about the proposed changes, as Mr. Steiger indicated in the redraft. I talk about quickly about some next steps, and of course, to answer any questions. The first thing I do want to do is publicly thank members of the public who served on our stakeholder committees throughout the entire process, some of which are here tonight. I'd also like to thank Lori Cusick of Public Works, who is my liaison with Public Works and was a great assistance. Also my peers, Robert or Veda and Rebecca Irwin and Gary Spirit, who helped develop this program. And then, of course, Bob Hein and Mr. Steiger, the department heads of public works and and AMP, respectively, who acted as the sponsors for this program. As General Manager Steiger mentioned, this program began in 1984. It was a beautification program for the city. Ordinance was written to convert through underground districts that were decided by designated by the city council to convert from overhead to underground facilities that involved all overhead facilities, those regulated by the CPC as well as AMP, which is regulated by our Public Utilities Board and ultimately by the council. A fund was set up to collect 2% of the AMP electric revenue and that fund was set up exclusively as a reserve to fund this undergrounding program. To date, about 50% of the island is underground. That's a combination of underground that was installed as underground and new developments as the electrical system was built up. We also have completed 25 yards to date, which accounts to about 433 customers. In about 2011, when we started working on District 31, which is the Webster Crossing, we really reached a consensus with our public and staff that there was existing problems with the current process that had not really had any kind of major changes since 1984. One of the biggest concerns was district prioritization. There really wasn't a process in place for understanding why one district got funded over another. The public and staff had considerable concerns over the public participation, and then there was a substantial interest in the cost of conversion for property owners, especially during the time we were just coming out of a recession. And actually a lot of people weren't even out of the recession by that point in time. So staff made a recommendation and council accepted that in 2012 we would redraft the program in order to reflect some of the conditions and concerns that the public and the staff had. There are four main considerations that we that we wanted to address. The first was the prioritization. At the time, there were 16 different criteria that denoted the prioritization of of you. Some of them didn't even have an objective ness to them at all, and there really was no historical backing as to where they came from. So so we needed to really focus on how how districts were prioritized and chosen. We also wanted to take a look at not only the including the public in the process of the redrafting of the program, but then how the public would play a part in in implementing the program. We also wanted to take a look at the financial obligations as to what kind of cost sharing fit with with the modern times and then implementation in understanding the different city roles. It really breaks it down into three parts. The policy is what's in front of you tonight that's reflected in the ordinance. The master plan and the and the scorecard are two of the of the behind the scenes or the implementation tools of the process and would be things that would would be would change over time as as eventualities came up. But the policy would be something that's it's an overarching guidance. It would have city approval. It obviously is memorialized in it and in a ordinance. And we want to come back and review it every five years. And that's an improvement from the old process. We want to at least take a look at it every five years. So let's take a look at the program from from kind of a 30,000 foot level and go through the each of the each of the steps. It starts with the district nominating board. The intent of the district nominating board is to involve the public with with city members to really denote to taking a look at the overall map of of where you these could be positioned within the city work with applying the criteria that that have been introduced. And I'll go over I'll touch on a little bit in more detail, apply those criteria to the different parts of the island in order to get a some kind of recommendation for areas where you Udi's would would best fit and would rise to the top of the prioritization. And in doing so each, each of the foods in order to fulfill the program for general public interest and benefit. And the counterpart is rule 28. If you've heard about it on the CPU side or the regulated side, each of the foods would have to meet one of the three criteria listed there. And the reason for that is, is under the CPC Rule 20, a, any CPC regulated utility such as AT&T or Comcast would need to have one of these criteria present in the UD in order to be able to participate. Well, they could participate, however, they get funding for it, so they would need that. Otherwise they're not going to cough up their own money for it. We wanted to address that to other you. You did the two other underground situations within the policy. However, they haven't fit within the program in the past and that is of general public interest, but primarily of local benefit. These would be you, you, these are underground districts that don't meet any of the CPC criteria. And so they wouldn't be in the general public, they would would be in the general public interest. We would want them underground, but it would be primarily for a local benefit, such as a developer who wanted to underground. This could still be incorporated into the program. However, the fees and costs would be paid by the developer, by those citizens who wanted to do that, and then areas of insufficient general or local public benefit. It fits with Rule 20 C on the CPC side, those who continue, they would sit outside the program and they would continue to be funded by the private party. Who benefited from that? So the CPAC criteria this came this was derived out of a series of stakeholder meetings with the public. It was actually a public stakeholders who put together these criteria. They also found that they wanted them. Oops, sorry, it's not on the slide. They wanted them waited. So the tier ones would we have with the scorecard that I alluded to earlier, it would provide an objective score around the criteria. The tier ones would obviously be weighted a little bit more heavily. Their tier twos would be weighted down from that. This would allow a prioritization, an objective prioritization that would give us a sense for what what you would rise to a higher level than others. And it's it's information and allows us to prioritize them. The program is generally wants we generally are the stakeholders generally wanted to favor island entryways and heavily traveled road. The reason for this is the reasoning is is that that would derive the most general public benefit for the citizens of Alameda that they contribute to this. The second is a holdover from the old program is the Technical Advisory Committee. Back in the day that was headed by public works in about 1990, AMP took over the leadership in the in the nineties, AMP took over the leadership. AMP would continue to be the project leader. This is the step where we really define the exact boundaries of of the recommended UDS that come from the DMB. So we would want to the TAC would want to find what between one and four UDS that rise to the highest level on the criteria define the define the exact boundaries so that everyone the public knows specifically the UDS that we're discussing because the next step of that is to take it to a town hall meeting. The town hall meeting is to expose the citizens within those districts that are being considered as well as anyone who has any other interest of exactly what the boundaries are going to be and any issues and conditions relevant to to the UD process. That's followed up by a district selection survey, and that serves two purposes. The first is to catch anybody who didn't come to the town hall meeting, who might be in one of the UDS and in provides them with the same information and the same Q&A that they happened at the town hall meeting will be dispensed with the district selection survey. The second is to gauge interest from those people who are in the foods, to give us to give us to ultimately be able to make a recommendation to you council on some kind of basis of feedback for how they feel about the issues or recommendations or the issues about you you do, and the boundaries, etc.. I'm sorry, before you continue. Our protocol requires that by 1030 that we'll need four votes to consider remaining items. We still have item 60, 66 E and nine A and it's 1030, approximately 1030. The Council would do. Want to discuss. Are there so much do you think, that you want to go forward with all of these items tonight and you want to have any items that we don't necessarily have to go forward with tonight? And the comment. Is. Still. 60, 60, 69. Oh, yes. And then go back to closed session after. Yes. Vice Mayor, I will ask if I can or my council referral. To a future agenda. This is going to be late, late, late. I want to. Thank you. I appreciate that, vice mayor. Are there any other of these agenda items that we don't necessarily need to proceed with at this point? Staff. Just cause we have feedback from you or any council members. Well, I think with the vice mayor's gracious accommodation, I would move that. We go past that we consider additional items after 1030. Okay. So I'd like to start a response, if there are any, that they don't think we need to proceed with this evening. That we don't need to correct. It could come down that I. Would potentially look at is succeed, but I would defer that to Mr. Nguyen. And I would just also want to make sure that we're not then overloading another agenda because we, you know, want to keep doing this to ourselves. Well, actually, we don't all keep doing this to ourselves. I don't prepare the agenda. Or as I know, you don't prepare the agenda. This gets handled. This gets brought to us. Yeah. Thank you very much. We could defer six C or just. Delay or smarter parking. Meters. Uh. That. Okay. Do we think that one would even take that much time? A council. I prefer. Just keep it. But. All right. So we have a motion on the table. Second, all those in favor. I propose I oppose the votes 4 to 1 to pass. I oppose because I think it's inappropriate, as we had an earlier speaker this evening, say that we're not really public when we're having such late meetings. I think we're going to have an agenda building problem. So you may continue. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Spencer. The next step of the process is after receiving the district selection survey. Feedback is for the TAC to bring between one and three yard recommendations to City Council for approval. City Council then at that point will make a determination and and ultimately by resolution, put the districts, choose the districts. At that point, a single master contractor will be used to coordinate and install all the electrical sub panels and do and do all the work. Again, that was another recommendation that came from from our stakeholder process. In light of the cost sharing program for areas of general public interest in benefit, which has been this program since 1984 , the general master contractor. And the intent of the program is to cover underground laterals from back of sidewalk. Obviously the distribution in the street, but the back of sidewalk to people's meter meter on their property. The conversion of the panel is also included in the program. What is not included is if a resident decides that at that point in time they want to convert to a larger panel, such as going from 100 AMP panel to a 200 AMP panel, the duty fund would not fund that. Also, telecommunications under the CPC ruling will pay for the first 100 feet in Alameda. That applies for almost every service that's out there. Most customers will not have an out-of-pocket expense in the conversion. That's the intent of the program. However, there and when I say most, I mean we're hoping 99.9%. There's probably two different situations where people may have costs. They may choose to have a path from the service point, a back, a sidewalk to some point on their house. That AMP does not agree to and believes that it's an excess above, above and beyond. I think what would be normal and agreed upon and we don't believe that the fund or the rest of the customers should pay for that, for that excess. But we do find that we understand that not all paths will be an exact straight line if people have encumbrances in their yards. We can work that out. And that's why the policy does allow for AMP to approve any anything that's that's out of the ordinary. However, if things are extremely out of the ordinary, we believe that customers should pick up that extreme expense. Also, there will be a few services that might be over 100 feet in which they will have some cost to the telecom company, although we anticipate it to be very, very small. And will it really be a case by case basis? Again, as I mentioned, four areas of general public interest, but they do not meet a CPC criterion in public benefit. Those would be funded 100% by the applicant or applicants. We ask only a few things from from business owners and their responsibility. We do want them to be involved in the process. We do want them to come to the town hall meeting. We do want them to provide survey responses. Although we do have a master contractor, we understand that some people want to hire their own and we want to allow that. However, the reimbursement costs will be based on on a determined square foot costs so that, again, the fund or everyone's general money isn't paying for someone's excessive costs for what they want to do. So as long as they stay within that standard rate is determined by the master contractor, the fund will reimburse them for those costs to cost share as appropriate. There was some concern that came out of the process in Alameda. The resident owns their underground service from the point of service, which is behind the sidewalk to the meter panel. There was concern by some residents that they didn't want to take on that risk of having an underground service. So AMP will set up a maintenance fund. It'll be funded through a monthly contribution by those who choose to be involved in it. It will be very small. The amount would be very small. And if there is an act, if their service does fail for any reason other than third party malice, basically a third party digging into it if if it fails for any other reason ample come out and and it will be repaired under the maintenance costs. So it takes away that risk. So in summary, the redesign really captures, I think, the the design of what we wanted to capture it. We do have what we believe to be a fairly solid objective scorecard. We will be if if you do approve the policy, we'll be working with stakeholder groups to make the last final additions to that and making sure that it's a very solid, objective scorecard for prioritizing districts. I think it's a much more transparent process because it's quantifiable scorecard. It's and we also are going to do it in the public arena. We have every intent to publish everything that we do within the stakeholder meetings. And then ultimately as the DMB and the TAC move along, we plan to publish all of that as well on the UDD website and we believe that we have a better process for gathering public input than we had before and that the plan proposes, promotes or creates a maintenance fund. This was presented at a town hall meeting back in late November, in November and in it passed it was a robust meeting was held a robust meeting with a lot of questions and the policy that's before you with just some very minor tweaks by the PCB and December eight policy. That's before you was robustly supported by everyone at the town hall meeting back in November. Next steps, disregard the revise the ordinance. You can consider this the first reading of the ordinance unless unless there's other direction we would if the policy is approved tonight, we would AMP would need to revise their rules and regulations that are based on the on the old program. And then we are already in the process of program initiation and gathering the team, but we would want to put that in high gear. The intent is to try and get the D and B together by early summer, no later than August. Try to get you dudes in front of you, hopefully before the Christmas break or not soon after so that we can get going on the master contractor. That RFP is going to take some work, but we want to get that done because hopefully we can get a shovel in the ground in late spring or maybe early summer of next year. With that, I'm all yours. Any clarifying questions? I've got my. Member, ASHCROFT. Thank you, Mayor Spencer. And thank you for that presentation. And by the way, for all of you who put it together, that was a really great staff report, really interesting to read. I think this is a great project. And my only question, by the way, there was no shortage of acronyms in that presentation, although I think I followed most of them. But so the D and B is the district nomination board, and I'm looking at exhibit one. I'm on page three, and it talks about how the district nomination board A, D and B is responsible for the initial nomination of proposed districts. I mean, you've done a great job on public outreach already with these town halls and, you know, hearing from from stakeholders. But it wasn't clear to me from reading this material how will you notify the public and solicit public interest in serving on the DMB? Because I would imagine you want see geographical representation around the city or whatever your criteria are. So how will people who might be, who might be interested, who haven't stayed up till 1042 listen to this presentation. I know about that. Our intent is to publish it as widely as possible. So the ULI program and all supporting documents are on the UDD site at Alameda Municipal Power. We have a quite a public. Stakeholder group that is that has an email that set up in our email blast. And so that information around where we are in the process and what's coming up would be sent out on that. And we would also be partnering with with the City Hall and publication around. The city website. Yes. Absolutely. And what about local publications like print publications? Absolutely. Our intent our intent is to publish it to garner as much support as possible. We're hoping to have to ask people to wait until the next one. Right. If they've already served. Yeah. Yeah. We do have a speaker on this of clarifying questions. My question. Yes. Member Brody. I think you met a mayor back on this, this DMB, the three people. How are they all one. How are they going to be selected? I mean, is that something AMP selects or the council selects or the mayor appoints? And two are what are the qualifications to serve on this board? The qualifications is that you need to be a customer of of amp that can be both a landowner or an actual meter a meter customer. Beyond that, we're not restricting it. The selection process is we haven't we haven't 100% written it out, but it would be something where we would solicit interest and and in some kind of application, it wouldn't be too involved. How we would go about ultimately deciding what what person it may be, again, bringing together a stakeholder group. We don't want to put a lot of restrictions because we want everyone, but we will have to limit it. Otherwise it becomes an unwieldy committee. Okay. Thank you. Then let's take our public speaker, Travis Wilson. Again. I've been through this for the last four years and I wanted to come and I wanted to say that. I like this policy and I think that you should pass it. I think the process has worked out pretty well. And I know you have a lot of people who want to be underground, and I think this is the best policy you're going to get. And Doug is the dedicated guy, and he has really brought a lot of this stuff into this policy. And I think that although there are not details like that, I think that they're going to develop in the in this structure. And I think it's really kind of well put together. And I want to use the rest of my time to tell you a little story. Four years ago, I was sitting with a bunch of other people in District 31 and some of you remember this. That was our it was our I was I was one of those guys. It was our questions and and confusion and dissatisfaction that inspired me to redo this policy. We really believed that the majority of our district would want to to be exempt from undergrounding. We really thought that most people didn't want to do it in our particular district, but we didn't know if that mattered. We didn't know if we could change our fate. And we we tried to ask and we couldn't find out. And we read city ordinances. The language is actually the ordinance itself is actually pretty similar to what you see in this new plan. A lot of questions have been answered in this new plan. And I'm hitting the one that hasn't if you haven't seen where I'm going with that, you know, we knew the city could require undergrounding in certain cases, but we didn't know if those cases applied to us. And we just. Asked, can. Our district opt out? Can we say as a group we're going to opt out? No straight answer, no. No documentation, nothing written. We could consult. So the plan gets an overhaul. A couple of years later, I go to the the stakeholder meeting that Doug mentioned. I was I was one of those. I asked again, can a district opt out? It was not something that made it into the criteria. So, again, no, no information. And I go to pub a few months ago when this policy has come in and I ask him, I was that guy again. I asked him, you know what? What if this plan is better? But some people are surly. And what if you get a group of of a district where the residents don't want to dig? And they were very accommodating and they took it very seriously. And they got lawyers involved. And. Like Doug has written in your packet, the lawyer said that there would be too many legal issues involved with measuring residents opinion, and so they they too many legal issues involved in acting on that. And so they weren't going to do it. Which, by the way. Side note, that's a hell of a thing to say. I think it's legally complicated to ask the residents what they want. So. So we're not going to do it. I hope that we have better public input channels than that. And and that they reach more people than those who could show up to the town hall. Hopefully there's a middle ground some way we can measure the opinion of a group of people and take it seriously. But that's not my point. And it's not AMP's job to deal with that. And tonight, my request is, please change that. Please be clear. Talk among yourselves. But say something. Please be clear whether a district that doesn't want to be underground did. And whether they have a recourse to be exempt. They can follow the due process. But but, you know, we ask and everyone says if it happens, we'll ask council. And it happened four years ago and it came to council and we redid the whole plan, but we still don't have an answer. And because this is designed to speed up the process, I'm saying maybe you could get something on the record tonight that people can use to know whether they can decide as a district to opt out or not. Thank you. Otherwise, I really. There's been tremendous progress here. So thank you. Thank you. And we have we do have another speaker now, Rosalinda Fortuna, Kaveh. Good evening. I'll be quick. I'm a property owner close to Webster Street. And I was concerned with. The neighborhood. It's very close. Webster Street is very close to single family homes. A lot of these owners cannot. Hey, for, you know, all these improvements that they have to do. And I don't see how in I don't know how the telecommunications companies will pay for the first 100 feet, which is. Very expensive to do because I've done sewer laterals and I know how expensive those are. So it's pretty similar to doing a sewer lateral from what I see, because the majority of a sewer lateral expense is the labor in digging up the soil. And that's why now we have the sewers being done without digging it up. And you have other ways of replacing sewers because it's just way too expensive. So I'd like to find out how, you know, these telecommunication companies intend to do the first 100 feet, which would be wonderful, and pay pay for all of this expense for us homeowners and property owners. I, I don't think that's realistic, but I'd like to find out how they're going to do that without raising everyone's bills to an. It just. I just don't know how that would happen, but I just know that, uh, it's very expensive to maintain your property. And I'd like to be a part of trying to keep. The property owners informed because we always get hit with a lot of expenses and it's it's either through bonds or whatever. And, you know, there's there's only so much that property owners can do. Thank you. Thank you. We have no further speakers on that item. Member questions or comments? And Brody. I actually want to thank you for the presentations very thorough. And I neglected to mention that earlier when I asked my question. I'm actually going to make a motion to move approval of the ordinance. Amending Limiting Municipal Code Chapter Roman Numeral Exec Section 19 Dash four to approve the redesigned utility or underground utility district policy. I'll second if you have any member comments. I have some comments and questions. I think if we can address the questions raised by Ms.. Fortuna, that would be great. I think one of the things that we want to definitely try to be clear about is that.