Policy Dec 10 2025

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Unknown: Good evening everyone and welcome to the policy committee and special board meeting of December 10th

SPEAKER_13: 2025 this room is equipped with a safety alarm if the alarm sounds please leave in an orderly manner via the exits to the

SPEAKER_13: Lobby or behind the dais?

SPEAKER_13: Assemble in front of the building and wait to hear the all-clear announcement from the security before reentering

Unknown: This meeting is being recorded and can be accessed on smud's website

SPEAKER_13: Please remember to unmute your microphone when speaking in order that our virtual attendees may hear the microphone will display a green indicator

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SPEAKER_13: Please fill out a speaker's form

SPEAKER_13: Located on the table outside the room and hand it to smud security staff

Unknown: members of the public attending this meeting virtually who wish to provide verbal comments during the committee meeting may do so by using the

SPEAKER_13: Raise hand feature in zoom or pressing star 9 while dialed into the telephone toll-free number at the time

SPEAKER_13: The public comment is called technical support staff will enable the audio for you when your name is announced during the public comment period

Unknown: You may also submit written comments by emailing them to pub

SPEAKER_13: public comment at smud org

Unknown: Written comments will not be read into the record but will be provided to the board

SPEAKER_13: Electronically and placed into the record of the meeting if received within two hours after the meeting ends

Unknown: Chiefly go off sir. Would you please conduct the roll call?

Unknown: Dr. Kurz

Unknown: Dr. Herbert you chair Sam born here all committee members are present also present our directors rose Bowie Thompson and president fishman

Unknown: Thank you very much

Unknown: So before we start their first item

SPEAKER_13: I'm gonna just let a few people know I've already talked to a few of you who have filled out the speakers forms

SPEAKER_13: That we are going to limit the comments for the information contained to the monitoring report of which we're discussing

SPEAKER_13: Which focuses on smud's activities in 2024?

Unknown: Comments related to the Coyote Creek project should be addressed during the general

SPEAKER_13: General public comment period for the items that are not on the agenda

Unknown: So thank you for your your help with that

Unknown: So agenda item number one on tonight's agenda is to discuss the monitoring report for strategic directive 7 environmental leadership and

Unknown: tonight's in row now we're gonna have our

SPEAKER_13: Our staff Emily bikini who is going to the interim director of safety and environmental and real estate services give the presentation

SPEAKER_13: So welcome again Emily great

Unknown: Good evening. Thank you director Sanborn

SPEAKER_05: My name is Emily bikini and I'm the interim

SPEAKER_05: Director of the safety environmental and real estate services team and I'm here to share with you tonight

SPEAKER_05: How smud has committed how smud's actions in 2024 demonstrate our compliance with SD 7 environmental leadership

Unknown: This slide shows our environmental leadership language. It's been pretty consistent for the past several years

SPEAKER_05: But in 2024 we did add a phrase under part a enhancing region regional biodiversity

SPEAKER_05: And I'll spend a slide talking specifically about some work. We've done in that space later in my presentation

Unknown: This slide shows our greenhouse gas emissions in

SPEAKER_05: 2024 our

SPEAKER_05: Emissions were one point six nine two million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. That's just over

SPEAKER_05: 113,000 metric tons compared to 2023

SPEAKER_05: fluctuations in total emissions very year to year primarily due to our hydroelectricity production and

SPEAKER_05: changes in customer demand

Unknown: Brian swan will speak more to our 2024 emissions during his SD 9 presentation later this evening in

SPEAKER_05: 2023 we started sharing through on our website smud org our

SPEAKER_05: Quarterly generation and estimated greenhouse gas emissions for our thermal power plants and power purchased from our kalpine Sutter plant

Unknown: That data 2024 data is shown on the right the planned and actual greenhouse gas emissions from our thermal generation

SPEAKER_05: Reflect total emissions needed to serve smud customer energy needs and market sales to support California and our neighboring states

Unknown: our

SPEAKER_05: examples of how smud conducts its business fairs

SPEAKER_05: Sustainably include our work with the Sacramento tree foundation in 2024 through our partnership. They distributed

SPEAKER_05: 11,000 363 trees as part of their Sacramento shade program serving over 2,500 customers

SPEAKER_05: 4136 trees were planted in under resourced communities

Unknown: Our warehouse team had a remarkable year with their investment recovery and sustainable solutions program

SPEAKER_05: Generating over 1 million dollars from recycled materials and diverting 980 tons from the landfill

Unknown: Our warehouse material specialists saved over

SPEAKER_05: $580,000 specifically by implementing a circular economy model where they redeploy

SPEAKER_05: Reuse or repurpose and recycle the tools and equipment that they received back from folks in the field

Unknown: We also returned to our manufacturers

SPEAKER_05: 309 wood reels and we started receiving those back

SPEAKER_05: reschooled we received 79 of those back in 2024 with new wire and

Unknown: Then additionally we were able to reuse or recycle a little over 1600 wood pallets instead of sending those to the landfill

Unknown: In late 2024 we received our incidental take permit for our operation and maintenance habitat conservation plan

Unknown: This plan reflects our commitment to responsible environmental stewardship by actively protecting habitat for seven federally listed species

Unknown: while balancing service and reliability for our customers

SPEAKER_05: environmental services staff obtained

SPEAKER_05: Mitigation credits to offset impacts and protect habitat for the Valley Elderberry Longhorn beetle and the giant garter snake

Unknown: We also acquired or allocated mitigation credits at our smud nature preserve mitigation bank

Unknown: For the vernal pull fairy shrimp vernal pull tadpole shrimp in California tiger salamander

Unknown: As it relates to electric equipment or I'm sorry equipment electrification smud has been able to

SPEAKER_05: Replace 96% of its gas and diesel powered equipment with equivalent

SPEAKER_05: Electric or battery powered tools by researching market availability and capitalizing on technological improvements

SPEAKER_05: Emily when you say equipment is that excluding our our mobile equipment vehicles? That's like

SPEAKER_18: Handheld stuff. These are like hand tools exactly. Although it does include that last slide showed

Unknown: We did have a little so this is off-road all off-road

Unknown: All off-road, can you just send me a note?

SPEAKER_18: Sure, just defining what that is. Okay, we'll do

Unknown: Well, it's basically non transportation right we're not we're not talking about our our

SPEAKER_05: trucks or

SPEAKER_05: Equipment like that, but I do want to say how impressive that is because I don't know of any other major

SPEAKER_13: community organization that has

SPEAKER_13: Basically gone all electrification on all their equipment whether it's a chainsaw or you know

SPEAKER_13: The air quality and from those two-stroke engines is pretty it's very impactful. So thank you

SPEAKER_06: Just a quick question

SPEAKER_06: Along those lines the the mowers the grass mowers. Are they also electric?

Unknown: I'll have to check double check on that. I I'm not sure where those

Unknown: Ended up

Unknown: All right in the enhancing regional biodiversity space

SPEAKER_05: I want to point out a couple of the pollinator projects that we had the opportunity to work on in 2024 at our orangevale substation

SPEAKER_05: We received a pollinator program grant from the rights of way as habitat working group

Unknown: Which allowed us to install the second phase of the native plant pollinator garden along the southern portion of the entrance to the substation

Unknown: Smud's carpentry shop designed and installed unique benches and borders along with multi

SPEAKER_05: Lingle signage this garden is a test site for us. We've installed a thick layer of the mulch

Unknown: That comes from our vegetation management activities to help eliminate the need for additional watering and our partners on that project

SPEAKER_05: included the Sacramento Native Plant Society

SPEAKER_05: home growers for social justice and the city of citrus Heights and we also had additional outreach to the Mitchell Park Homeowners Association

SPEAKER_05: We were also able to partner with the El Dorado Hills Community Service District on an ambitious bicycle park

Unknown: That will include a pollinator garden within a portion of our transmission line easement

SPEAKER_05: Smud staff from multiple departments provided feedback to support the design and long-term success of the garden a

SPEAKER_05: large group of smud cares volunteers were able to assist with the installation of the first phase of native plant

SPEAKER_05: planting in October of 2024

SPEAKER_05: In our sustainable community space our shine awards program

SPEAKER_05: invests in local collaboration and partnerships by supporting our historically under resourced

SPEAKER_05: nonprofit partners that execute inclusive and equitable projects in their communities in

SPEAKER_05: 2024 84 organizations submitted applications and we were able to award over

SPEAKER_05: $500,000 to fund 29 projects

SPEAKER_05: Additionally in 2024 smud partnered with the Volunteers of America

SPEAKER_05: To provide services to unhoused population around our infrastructure sites

SPEAKER_05: Often crews will find unhoused campers and unsafe situations

SPEAKER_05: Now instead of calling security we're able to reach out to the volunteers of America social workers to connect the person

SPEAKER_05: with additional resources

SPEAKER_05: and and provide education on

SPEAKER_05: safety

SPEAKER_05: And that completes my presentation for this evening happy to take any other questions

SPEAKER_05: Thank you, Emily the board members have any questions, of course

SPEAKER_05: Thank you chair

SPEAKER_06: Well, one thing that I want to say is that

Unknown: I really appreciate how your team is looking at biodiversity

SPEAKER_06: you know

SPEAKER_06: That's

SPEAKER_06: You know, um, that's that's the bigger picture. That's what we want to embrace

SPEAKER_06: And so I I really want to acknowledge that and I hope that can

SPEAKER_06: continue

SPEAKER_06: the other thing that

SPEAKER_06: I am wondering about

SPEAKER_06: is our

SPEAKER_06: pollinator

SPEAKER_06: Gardens like do you all have?

Unknown: Um

SPEAKER_06: Plans to expand that might we someday see you know

SPEAKER_06: You know install your own pollinator garden. Here's a kit from smud like we do with the trees

SPEAKER_06: Um, I just I just am wondering where we're going with that. Maybe that's a great question

SPEAKER_05: It is still a fairly young program

SPEAKER_05: And right now we're looking for opportunities to take advantage of projects that have

SPEAKER_05: Work in this in a similar area where we can just kind of add on the pollinator

SPEAKER_05: garden work

SPEAKER_05: but we are looking for opportunities to expand that and

SPEAKER_05: We'll continue to keep the board updated on those those efforts. Well, thank you to you and your team. Thank you

Unknown: So that was like the citrus heights project where we were doing a bike path anyway

SPEAKER_13: So we added the pollinator garden exactly so we should be looking with our partners if we hear about any projects along our our

SPEAKER_13: Transmission lines maybe possibly bringing it to your attention. Absolutely. It could be something we could work on. Okay. Thank you. Yes, director

Unknown: Emily i'm just wondering if we do any benchmarking against other utilities

SPEAKER_03: Of similar size and scope just to smud to see where we are. Are we looking at how we're doing compared to our peers?

SPEAKER_05: In in what area specifically director specific for the environmental

SPEAKER_03: Stuff that we're doing

SPEAKER_03: The specifically the mitigation not not not the stuff that we sort of have to do the stuff that we go beyond

SPEAKER_03: The requirements sure we do do a variety of benchmarking in in different ways

SPEAKER_05: in the carbon

SPEAKER_05: Emissions space we do disclose to the carbon cdp which used to stand for the carbon disclosure project and that allows us to benchmark against

SPEAKER_05: Organizations not just utilities but organizations around the world

SPEAKER_05: We have partnerships within epri

SPEAKER_05: Where we we do some additional benchmarking in the environmental space

SPEAKER_05: So so we do a fair amount of that

SPEAKER_05: But i'm not sure if that answers your question is that okay

Unknown: Thank you, and I think we've won the jd powers

SPEAKER_13: Award for sustainability the most sustainable utility. I think twice in a row already. That's correct

SPEAKER_13: And it does include all of these sorts of extra things. So

SPEAKER_13: And they do thank you the metrics against other utilities across the country if I understood it correctly

Unknown: Yes, director, um her thank you

Unknown: You know i'm wondering kind of along the lines of what director fishman was saying

SPEAKER_06: Is there any way to quantify?

Unknown: Um how we're contributing to the biodiversity

SPEAKER_06: of

SPEAKER_06: Sacramento county

Unknown: I mean to measure it like, you know, we we install solar panels and we talk about the energy

SPEAKER_06: It generates and how many home, you know homes it serves

SPEAKER_06: But i'm just wondering

SPEAKER_06: And I don't know maybe there is in a way. It just seems like we do so much

SPEAKER_06: Uh in a

SPEAKER_06: Biodiversity manner that we ought to be able to quantify it

Unknown: That is something we could take a look at I know we own or have um, such a small control a land use control

SPEAKER_05: relative to sacramento county that it's

Unknown: our work is important, but it's

Unknown: It's not substantial I wouldn't say relative to all of of sacramento county

SPEAKER_05: There are a lot of other land uses a lot of other agencies that have control over those land uses

SPEAKER_05: That that we couldn't have influence on

Unknown: Thank you

SPEAKER_18: So I have a number of different comments, um, some are good some are gonna annoy you I hope we face that

SPEAKER_18: um

SPEAKER_18: The first thing I wanted to mention the the orangevale substation. I had the opportunity a couple of days before thanksgiving

SPEAKER_18: to go out with our staff

SPEAKER_18: For me they were working for me. It was mostly a tour

SPEAKER_18: They were busy planting

SPEAKER_18: um things but it was just um

SPEAKER_18: It was a beautiful location and I was impressed that the whole veg management team has been going out there

SPEAKER_18: On a regular basis and seeing the real commitment

SPEAKER_18: Um to that parcel and it was it was beautiful the plants were growing. Um,

SPEAKER_18: They put up like bat boxes and owl boxes

SPEAKER_18: And you have these lovely

SPEAKER_18: Benches that were made up from some of the redwood trees that we had to have taken down as well

SPEAKER_18: So I just wanted to point that I definitely appreciate

SPEAKER_18: Um the commitment in the organization to the pollinator work

SPEAKER_18: um

SPEAKER_18: Overall with this report. I think I find this report a little bit just lacking in its depth in this breadth and and

SPEAKER_18: I'm here

SPEAKER_18: All year long and so I see like there's a lot that we're doing and we get them in the individual ports

SPEAKER_18: uh, and so like transportation electrification would be one where we did a whole presentation on it, but it's

SPEAKER_18: A sentence in this and so I would love potentially next year to see a little bit longer

SPEAKER_18: Uh and more thorough report covering some of the other topics

SPEAKER_18: as well, um

SPEAKER_18: One of them i'll ask you just to touch on a little bit

SPEAKER_18: Is just to talk a little bit more about the biodiversity and um the nature-based carbon solution plans that we have for

SPEAKER_18: In the studies that we have coming up in the next year or two

Unknown: Okay, um, there was a robust presentation about a month ago on the work that we're doing and with the nature-based carbon

SPEAKER_05: Carbon solutions and biodiversity

SPEAKER_05: Studies, um, I understand that the results from those studies will be available

SPEAKER_05: Mid-year next year and so we'll be able to report back on with the

SPEAKER_05: The board on that document or on that report

Unknown: um

Unknown: You would like to hear somewhere about some of the other biodiversity work that we're doing

Unknown: I think the carbon-based solution is what I was really thinking about. Okay, um

SPEAKER_18: And this and then this more just the board the board members when we look at the language of the sd7

SPEAKER_18: Right, and we spent some time last year going through and we expanded the biodiversity

SPEAKER_18: um

Unknown: I think we need to really

SPEAKER_18: Make sure that we're meeting the objectives of this sd

SPEAKER_18: I definitely think there might be opportunities to edit it to strengthen some language in our commitment

SPEAKER_18: And so I would throw that out there

SPEAKER_18: Um, if there's any if there's any other interests, um, maybe we maybe we like appoint a committee

SPEAKER_18: Um to do a little deeper dive with staff and go through this in more detail because we're not necessarily seeing

SPEAKER_18: The outcomes that we would like to see

SPEAKER_18: from this language and

SPEAKER_18: Um, so that's just my personal this has been on my mind

Unknown: Is that something? Um

Unknown: Director rosa you'd like to work on

SPEAKER_13: with the staff then

SPEAKER_13: Uh are going over with me and then we can propose something

Unknown: I'd be happy to volunteer to do that unless okay i'm gonna be happy to also not do it

SPEAKER_18: What's

SPEAKER_13: Well, you brought it up so

SPEAKER_13: Okay, because we did just add that that language pretty recently I think on the biodiversity

SPEAKER_13: And so maybe it would be helpful

SPEAKER_13: On some of the specific things that we say in the policy that we have slides directly related to those words

SPEAKER_13: So that's very clear. These are the things that we're doing to address what the board asked for in the policy

Unknown: um, because things like for me that didn't

SPEAKER_13: I I've always asked about is like things like birds

SPEAKER_13: How many birds are we taking out with those windmill blades and what are we doing to compensate for that?

SPEAKER_13: And I know we do a lot so maybe you can speak to that a little bit so people know we're we're working on those things

SPEAKER_05: Sure, uh specific to our win our wind projects we do have

SPEAKER_05: Permits in place um to address and mitigate any impacts to special status birds particularly golden and bald eagles

Unknown: um

Unknown: We do regular monitoring to see if um, if birds are being injured or killed by those activities

SPEAKER_05: And then we do have a retrofit program in place where we work to

SPEAKER_05: update the

SPEAKER_05: infrastructure in our poles to minimize

SPEAKER_05: Those types of injuries or deaths

SPEAKER_05: Within our service territory and isn't it a blade that kind of makes noise or something so they can

Unknown: There's some way they could see it or hear it

Unknown: So they're not as likely to strike the blade

Unknown: I don't believe that we've um started implementing any of those measures, but there there have been times where we've also

SPEAKER_05: Shut down the wind turbines in areas where we know that they have a history of

SPEAKER_05: having

Unknown: Bird strikes, especially during certain times of year when there's a lot of migration moving through

Unknown: Okay, and the corporate based solutions presentation. That's something that was amazing

Unknown: So we're doing a lot of work in that so people know who are here and interested in these issues

Unknown: Um, we're basically going to come up with a map of where in this county

SPEAKER_13: We're going to have the best opportunities to do carbon sequestration in the soil naturally and then how would we?

Unknown: Approach that the most cost effective way. So that's a really interesting and a powerful study

SPEAKER_13: Um one of the first of its kind I believe so we hope to really lead in that in that area, too

SPEAKER_13: Um, we also added native shrubs to the tree foundation contract. That was from recently

SPEAKER_13: That was just a this year thing not from 2024

SPEAKER_13: But we're very pleased about that and then I just want to thank the staff again on the recent recycling what you're doing to

SPEAKER_13: require those giant

SPEAKER_13: spools to be

SPEAKER_13: rewound with the wire

Unknown: When I first saw how heavy those spools are what a waste to just use them once

SPEAKER_13: So it's so nice that they're getting reused and repurposed and going back and forth and the wood pallets, too

SPEAKER_13: That's a lot a lot of energy and and wood. So

SPEAKER_13: um

SPEAKER_13: So it sounds like a more robust

SPEAKER_13: maybe aligning with some of the words next year and and

SPEAKER_13: You can tell we care a lot about this. The board has always cared a lot about this

SPEAKER_13: So thank you very much. Emily. Is there anything else from the board before I go to comments? Okay

SPEAKER_13: So I think rosie yakuob from sack 350. Did you want to go on this one or do you want to wait till the end then?

Unknown: The next item it said one and two so you want just two

Unknown: Or the okay

SPEAKER_13: Right, so we'll put that at the end. Perfect

Unknown: Okay, and then I have one from david wright on agenda item one and before you came in I did say that coyote creek issues will be

SPEAKER_13: Taken at the public comment period at the end because that really wasn't part of this

SPEAKER_13: Discussion on what happened in 2024. So if you'd like to talk about it

Unknown: Uh, we can do it at the public comment period at the end

Unknown: Otherwise, please come to microphone

Unknown: Okay

SPEAKER_15: David wright

SPEAKER_15: Just speaking for myself

SPEAKER_15: I did find the this report a little bit myopic

SPEAKER_15: Focused on sort of the window dressing and not on the core functions of smud

SPEAKER_15: right, uh, where's the discussion of the millions of

SPEAKER_15: tons

SPEAKER_15: of co2 emitted

Unknown: um

Unknown: and uh

Unknown: The fact that one thing you could do as a leader

Unknown: Uh in the environmental field is to say we're not going to

SPEAKER_15: Blame other people for the emissions that we're putting into the atmosphere even if we're sending the power out to them

SPEAKER_15: Right the emissions go into the atmosphere

Unknown: anyway

Unknown: Right if if we're truly going to be zero carbon, let's be honest about it and put that in our report

SPEAKER_15: We're burning millions of tons of

SPEAKER_15: carbon

SPEAKER_15: that uh

Unknown: And we we have to be report that and likewise, you know, we're talking about pollinators we're talking about

SPEAKER_15: Um carbon sequestration in natural systems coyote creek

Unknown: Um, there's a place where there are lots of pollinator benefits if you don't

SPEAKER_15: Don't rate it and turn it into a field of uh, solar panels. I'm all for solar panels, but not there

SPEAKER_15: Thanks

SPEAKER_13: Thank you, um

Unknown: And I think we have one more comment sean worth and I can't read your group of felicia

SPEAKER_14: Oh eco

SPEAKER_14: Contrasting okay, you have to you have to come to the microphone. Is it about this item or no? Should we put it at the end?

SPEAKER_13: Okay, well this this agenda item is for 2024 environmental monitoring of what we did in 2024

Unknown: The vote on coyote creek that we originally did was years ago. So we'll take that up with the public comment at the end

SPEAKER_13: Please thank you so much. Appreciate it

Unknown: um, okay

Unknown: And I think all the rest are for the public comment so I will hold those

Unknown: So, thank you. I think we got a lot of good feedback today. Oh, i'm sorry. Yeah, we do have one

SPEAKER_13: We do have one online online comment. I'm sorry, you're welcome to speak. Um, if you're online go ahead

Unknown: Hello, can you hear us

Unknown: Was it chris something I saw uh, yeah, it's about coyote creek seems put me at the end

SPEAKER_13: Okay, very good. Thank you

Unknown: Okay

SPEAKER_13: So we'll move on to agenda item number two which is to discuss the monitoring report for strategic directive nine resource planning

Unknown: And this will be presented by brian swan our director of resource planning and settlements

SPEAKER_13: And we'll go ahead and turn it over to you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Chair. Sanborn. Um, good evening border directors

SPEAKER_20: I'm here tonight to present the highlights of

SPEAKER_20: sc9 resource planning

SPEAKER_20: Resource planning is um, the sc9 resource planning objectives a very far reaching objective for the organization

SPEAKER_20: It touches each one of our executives areas their staffs are involved in

SPEAKER_20: Present are providing the progress that we're presenting here tonight

SPEAKER_20: So I do want to thank all the staff teams out there that have worked so hard

SPEAKER_20: In 2024 to provide this progress update here

Unknown: Now as we heard in sd7 our emissions to meet retail sales, uh, we're about

SPEAKER_20: 1.69

SPEAKER_20: million metric tons

Unknown: And in sd9 what we like to do is describe why that was either higher or lower for the year than maybe what we had planned

SPEAKER_20: And

Unknown: In 2024 our loads were materially higher. We had um, our loads were about 4 higher for the year

SPEAKER_20: That's about 400 000 megawatt hours of additional demand that we had not planned for

Unknown: That was primarily weather driven

SPEAKER_20: Um cooling degree days we had 11 increase relative to normal. And so that increased air conditioning load for for the summer 2024

Unknown: Our hydro is down about 10

SPEAKER_20: And we had lower than expected wind generation by about 8

Unknown: All total between these areas is about 300 000 metric tons of additional estimated emissions

SPEAKER_20: Due to again higher demand and lower hydro and renewable generation

Unknown: When that happens

Unknown: higher demand lower variable energy resources the one

SPEAKER_20: resource you have in those instances is natural gas or unspecified purchases from the market

SPEAKER_20: Either of those come with additional carbon emissions associated. So had these things kind of gone to plan

SPEAKER_20: We would have been just under 1.4 million metric tons for the year

SPEAKER_20: Albeit again sd7 emissions are actual emissions to meet retail sales were 1.69

SPEAKER_20: Volume metric tons. I want to make that clear

Unknown: Now highlights for the year, um, we continue to develop the future pipeline of resources

SPEAKER_20: To decarbonize our energy supply. We met rps goals and we continue exploring

SPEAKER_20: emerging technology

Unknown: We supported the growth of clean distributed energy resources by our customers

SPEAKER_20: We saw about a 12 growth in that area

SPEAKER_20: And our incentives and programs

SPEAKER_20: Um in the way of electrification reduced ghg emissions

SPEAKER_20: The increase there is about 23 percent year over year

SPEAKER_20: again moving

SPEAKER_20: fossil fuel vehicles and fossil fuel use in homes over to

SPEAKER_20: our electricity

Unknown: Last but not least here our community impact plan continued to reach out into under resource communities

SPEAKER_20: really providing

SPEAKER_20: The the the means necessary to also come along in the the clean energy transition

Unknown: As we go through this slide deck here, we'll we'll dig a bit deeper into each one of these topics

Unknown: Now first let's take a look at how we did with regards to expanding our clean utility scale project pipeline

Unknown: First

SPEAKER_20: We met the 2024 44 rps standard a statutory requirement by the state of california

Unknown: And we're well on our way to meeting the 52 standard by

SPEAKER_20: 2027 and well into the 60 standard by 2030 and we know as part of our zero carbon plan. We want to do much more

Unknown: And the list below kind of gives us a an indication of the progress to date

Unknown: And since the minting of the zero carbon plan in 2021 we've either brought online or added

SPEAKER_20: about 1700 megawatts of resource

Unknown: that is

SPEAKER_20: 170 percent

SPEAKER_20: Compared to what we had done the previous two decades and half the amount of time, right? So

Unknown: Really speaks to the amount of progress going on in this area and i'm sure

Unknown: Uh board of directors all kind of feel that right you're seeing john. Olson show up

SPEAKER_20: Seems like every month right with the new project. So

Unknown: A couple projects to point out here salano four came online a number of the board members were at the ribbon cutting for that project

SPEAKER_20: that project repowered phase one

SPEAKER_20: Increasing generation at that for that phase by about 10 times

SPEAKER_20: So went from 30 000 megawatt hours to about 300 000 megawatt hours using using latest wind technology

SPEAKER_20: Bigger turbines more efficient that sort of thing

Unknown: I also mentioned the kasuma's power plant retool project

SPEAKER_20: Director power gen josh langan langan presented that project back in april

SPEAKER_20: That project allows this gas plant to be more flexible

SPEAKER_20: Allowing more renewable generation on the grid

SPEAKER_20: Reducing fuel use by an equal amount of about seven million dollars a year in commodity and reducing emissions by about

SPEAKER_20: by about

SPEAKER_20: 100 000 metric tons annually

Unknown: So as we get into 2026 would be good to see how that project contributes to greenhouse gas reductions in the the portfolio

Unknown: Looking forward we have the hatchet ridge wind project shasta county project

SPEAKER_20: existing

SPEAKER_20: Wind out there that we took over in a power purchase agreement

SPEAKER_20: December 31st that joins the portfolio here in a matter of weeks

Unknown: And much more right this list is is pretty extensive again. We've committed to about 1700 megawatts

SPEAKER_20: All told on this list including the sutter carbon capture and sequestration project. That's currently under evaluation

SPEAKER_20: It's about 2500 megawatts here on this list. So a lot of progress in this area

Unknown: Now let's take a look at how our customers expanded clean distributed

SPEAKER_20: Resources at homes and businesses as well as how they participated in our load flex programs

Unknown: On the solar side our customers added about 35 megawatts of distributed solar

SPEAKER_20: Increasing relative to 2023 by about 11 percent and that's been pretty typical the last four to five years

Unknown: On the storage side supported by our storage incentives and programs

SPEAKER_20: We saw this area grow by 81 percent year over year adding about 9.2 megawatts

SPEAKER_20: In that area

SPEAKER_20: That's that's the biggest growth year over year that we've seen in that that area the the portfolio

Unknown: On the customer flexible demand program side of things, of course, these programs are important

SPEAKER_20: They allow us to move load around and maybe away from the very peak hours of the year where prices are high and also

SPEAKER_20: The carbon intensity factor is also high such that we can move demand off of those hours

SPEAKER_20: We can reduce costs but also associated emissions from these programs

Unknown: And here we're talking about my honor my energy optimizer partner and partner plus

SPEAKER_20: our aclm air conditioning load management program peak conserve

SPEAKER_20: as well as our

SPEAKER_20: commercial power direct program

Unknown: So in total here, we we've seen a 32 percent increase year over year

SPEAKER_20: bringing the total

SPEAKER_20: Participation capacity to about 55 megawatts. So a lot of growth in this area

SPEAKER_20: And if we think about it another number of these programs led by rachel long steam here

SPEAKER_20: We're just initiated after the zero carbon plan, right? So it's good to see these things getting off the ground here

Unknown: Now on the electrification side of things our goals here to reduce

SPEAKER_20: about 1 million 365

SPEAKER_20: thousand metric tons of ghg through incentives and programs

SPEAKER_20: to electrify buildings and vehicles in the region

SPEAKER_20: by 2030

Unknown: On the building side of things all electric equivalent all electric homes grew by

SPEAKER_20: approximately 35 percent

SPEAKER_20: year over year bringing total emissions saved to

SPEAKER_20: just under 110 000 metric tons

Unknown: On the transportation side of things, of course, this is very important

SPEAKER_20: It presents a real big opportunity for us to have material impacts on

SPEAKER_20: Local air quality but also greenhouse gas emissions

SPEAKER_20: transportation

Unknown: Emits up to 60 to 70 percent of local emissions here in sacramento

SPEAKER_20: So very big opportunity for us to switch folks from gasoline to clean electricity in these vehicles

SPEAKER_20: EVs grew by about 35 percent as well bringing total EVs at the end of 2024 to just nearly

SPEAKER_20: 62 000 vehicle vehicles

SPEAKER_20: Reducing emissions in the region by nearly 200 000 metric tons. So year over year, we saw about a 23 percent increase

SPEAKER_20: In greenhouse gas saved from these efforts

Unknown: On the community side of things, of course, this works led out of jose bedepo members team, but also brandy bolden's team

SPEAKER_20: Through our community impact plan our sustainable communities initiative as well as our income qualified offerings

Unknown: we're working to provide

SPEAKER_20: Education and outreach workforce development and programs and incentives in clean energy technology. So really

SPEAKER_20: Guided by the sustainable communities map here to make sure we're investing in the right individuals and the right communities that really need our our help

Unknown: Now through the community impact plan we

SPEAKER_20: provided over a thousand energy efficiency and electrification measures in the meadowview neighborhood

Unknown: And in 2024, we also

SPEAKER_20: received a

SPEAKER_20: congressionally designated

SPEAKER_20: spending grant

SPEAKER_20: Thanks to congresswoman doris matsui. It's a three million dollar grant also to be spent in 2025 in the meadowview area

Unknown: Things like electrification again and weatherization projects, so

SPEAKER_20: We'll be able to present on that a bit in

SPEAKER_20: 2026 for 2025

Unknown: Now our shine shine program awarded five hundred sixty three thousand dollars to 29 local nonprofits

SPEAKER_20: And our workforce development programs in partnership with over 45 community organizations

SPEAKER_20: These include the northern california construction training

Unknown: the kasoomis river college grid alternatives

SPEAKER_20: salvation army the california

SPEAKER_20: Conservation corps just to name a few to provide education and training

SPEAKER_20: to over 4,700 individuals

SPEAKER_20: And helped employ or upskill about 991 individuals. So

SPEAKER_20: Great job. They're really providing a

SPEAKER_20: an opportunity for a lifelong career in

SPEAKER_20: the energy field

Unknown: Last but not least our income qualified programs

SPEAKER_20: expanded

SPEAKER_20: evi electrification providing 304 ev circuits 216 ev chargers to income qualified

SPEAKER_20: customers as well as 31 solar pv

SPEAKER_20: Arrays and 19 battery storage systems as well

SPEAKER_20: So a lot of great work going on in the community through these efforts by our passionate teams here at smud

Unknown: And with that we're on the last slide here

SPEAKER_20: You know in 2024 we were in compliance with sd9 goals

SPEAKER_20: We continue to expand clean

SPEAKER_20: utility-scale

SPEAKER_20: renewable and storage assets and continue to look at emerging technology that could support

Unknown: the complete decarbonization of the grid

Unknown: We checked the box on the renewable portfolio standard for the year 2024

SPEAKER_20: Our electrification efforts continue to reduce emissions and buildings and vehicles

SPEAKER_20: Distributed generation continues to grow through our programs and incentives

SPEAKER_20: And we've improved access greatly to clean energy technologies through

SPEAKER_20: The various efforts we highlighted on the previous slide

Unknown: So with that i'd like to go ahead and ask the board to accept

SPEAKER_20: The staff's 2024 SD9 board monitoring report and be happy to answer any questions at this time

Unknown: Thank you brian any board members have any questions

Unknown: Yes

Unknown: Trying to formulate it brian thing I don't clearly see in this report

SPEAKER_18: is

SPEAKER_18: Showing us how you're going to meet the sd9 goal

SPEAKER_18: Right. It's it's completely looking backwards. Do you have any commentary?

SPEAKER_18: About that you have the the long list of everything in the pipeline, but it doesn't

SPEAKER_18: It doesn't summarize it or have a conclusion. I was just playing with the numbers. I think

SPEAKER_18: That long list is about 62 percent of our overall smud goal is included in that spreadsheet, which is a tremendous amount

SPEAKER_18: But but i'm not totally sure

Unknown: Yeah, so that sheet has approximately

SPEAKER_20: 2500 megawatts

SPEAKER_20: of projects listed

SPEAKER_20: Zero carbon plan identified the need for between 25 to 3500 megawatts depending on

SPEAKER_20: things like carbon capture and sequestration

SPEAKER_10: And how much of that you might get or maybe a new technology

SPEAKER_20: So those are kind of the swing variables that provide that range, but that's kind of where we're shooting between

SPEAKER_20: 2500 and 3500

Unknown: I would say it's something to think about maybe in the year's report is how you might

SPEAKER_18: Show that pathway and part of that's probably touching upon some of the 2030 updates that we've had throughout the year

SPEAKER_18: So just something something to think about

Unknown: Appreciate that yeah that story to us

Unknown: Yeah, we could we could we'll take that back and we can think about how we might incorporate that into the april

SPEAKER_20: Zero carbon plan update. Thank you. Thank you brand

Unknown: I hear a lot of um

SPEAKER_13: Maybe around connecting the dots a little bit more

SPEAKER_13: On these items and there's a lot of dots. There's a lot of dots to connect. Yeah

SPEAKER_13: Um, anybody else? Yes

SPEAKER_06: So, um

SPEAKER_06: You know, I I don't know that there's an answer to this question, but it is something that I think about

SPEAKER_06: a lot

Unknown: and um, it's the renewable portfolio standard

SPEAKER_06: now I know that we're ahead of the

Unknown: Um standard that uh has been set right it's

SPEAKER_06: 33 percent or is it higher? So 2020 was a 33 percent standard

SPEAKER_20: Uh, the next compliance period for ended just last year 2024 with a 44 standard. Okay

SPEAKER_06: So this is my question are are we?

SPEAKER_06: just uh working to

SPEAKER_06: You know meet that 44

SPEAKER_06: percent standard

SPEAKER_06: um

SPEAKER_06: because that's the standard and we're not

Unknown: We're not climbing up more and renewable stuff. We're trying to keep the cost down because it seems like

SPEAKER_06: With all the building that we've been doing and the agreements that we should have more than 44 percent

Unknown: Uh renewable energy. Am I missing something or yeah part of the the challenge that the early part of this decade has been

SPEAKER_20: project delays

SPEAKER_20: We have experienced quite a few country acres. For example

SPEAKER_20: I believe once it comes online will be about seven years

SPEAKER_20: From ideation. We thought that would be a four-year project, right? So

SPEAKER_20: Project development slowed quite a bit the early the early part of this decade

SPEAKER_20: What we've seen from reports by n rail and every project development in this decade takes about five to seven years

SPEAKER_20: previous decade

SPEAKER_20: about

SPEAKER_20: You know four to five years before that maybe two to three years. So there's a lot there's a lot of things are impacting schedule

SPEAKER_20: So that's one thing that's really

SPEAKER_20: impacting how we meet the renewables

SPEAKER_20: But we are shooting above rps

SPEAKER_20: It's just when a project is delayed. We have to go out and procure additional renewables usually in the way of short-term

SPEAKER_20: renewable credits to meet the standard while continuing to

SPEAKER_20: Prepare to to exceed the goals. Hopefully that helps

Unknown: Thank you

SPEAKER_13: Brian isn't it that we're not allowed in california to consider hydro is renewable. It's carbon free, but it's not renewable

SPEAKER_13: So if we added that on if we were allowed to it would be much higher than that

Unknown: Yeah with with the cec large hydro greater than 30 megawatts

SPEAKER_20: It's not it's not rps eligible

SPEAKER_20: So most of most of our fleet is above 30 megawatts

SPEAKER_20: So I say, you know about 20 percent adder on top of the renewable percent and that'd give you a rough range of like

SPEAKER_20: Carbon free percent carbon 65 percent carbon free right now

Unknown: Yeah, that sounds better than 44

SPEAKER_13: Yeah, I agree

Unknown: Last morning it was 78 percent carbon free. Yeah

SPEAKER_18: Yeah, yeah, that's a good amazing water here. Yeah. Yeah

SPEAKER_13: We pray for rain a lot around here. It helps

SPEAKER_13: It also keeps rates down. I think it's like an inch for every million dollars we save. Yeah the repairs

SPEAKER_13: Um, and we just added this year new geothermal. We just did that a few months ago

SPEAKER_13: So and of course i'm a huge fan of geothermal so hopefully we can find more of that out there

SPEAKER_13: um

Unknown: Country acres is going to be significant when that comes online and that'll be 20 27. Yep

Unknown: Yeah, and I was just at arc with with director herber we saw the smud

SPEAKER_13: workforce training program there and

SPEAKER_13: I went back and spoke to the students and they're very excited about getting into this industry

SPEAKER_13: But we can't electrify if we don't have enough people out there to electrify everything

SPEAKER_13: Um, so we're excited to do this workforce development programs locally

Unknown: Okay, any other questions we have public comment online

Unknown: All right, I should take the comments in the room first I guess yes, so i'm sorry. Thank you for raising your hands

SPEAKER_13: Um, yeah bruisey come on up to the mic

Unknown: Welcome

Unknown: You have three minutes. Thank you. Thanks. Um, so similar to what brandon said

SPEAKER_09: the overall scope

SPEAKER_09: um kind of I the one slide that was shown that showed the electrification

SPEAKER_09: um and the

SPEAKER_09: transportation electrification as a green bar chart

SPEAKER_09: The issue for me is that we see the top and we see the bottom

SPEAKER_09: But we don't know when the bottom is and so it's hard to evaluate the progress

SPEAKER_09: When you can't say we've done this much in this many years. All we can say is

SPEAKER_09: How much?

SPEAKER_09: ghgs have been because I can't tell if you're on on tap for achieving it or not with the way that's presented

SPEAKER_09: And then another thing on here is the again going back to vehicles

SPEAKER_09: Um in order to evaluate how we're doing with vehicles, we have a huge equity issue in that multifamily and

SPEAKER_09: People who don't have street parking have no access to the main benefit of electrification

SPEAKER_09: We need a map that shows us where the holes are and so that we can see

Unknown: Where smud needs to act?

Unknown: Um, so like a map that shows clusters of multifamily housing where the chargers are where the free chargers are

SPEAKER_09: Because you can't be sending people out to the airport to get free charging when they don't live near the airport. That's it's

SPEAKER_09: Unequitable. So a map that shows us where the holes are and where we need to go would be super useful

SPEAKER_09: Not just for smud but for the whole community

Unknown: And then on

SPEAKER_09: Electrification again context about like what policies are still in place with smud what rebates are still available

SPEAKER_09: Both at the state and federal level so that we can get some context when you say 35 percent

SPEAKER_09: Well, what's going to happen next year? For example?

SPEAKER_09: I know that we're talking about the past but

SPEAKER_09: Talking about progress when we know that we've had a huge setback with the with the end of that program

SPEAKER_09: It I mean you make it the report makes it sound like we're going to make all this progress

SPEAKER_09: But the truth of the matter is our progress is going to slow down without those rebates

SPEAKER_09: And that's not included in the report and to that I want to say

SPEAKER_09: At smud we need to think creatively about ways that we can do this without the feds, right?

SPEAKER_09: And we also need to touch on

SPEAKER_09: People that are not being touched by current programs and one of the thing one of the things that's a whole is financing

SPEAKER_09: I know it wasn't done in 2024. There was discussion about it then there's ongoing discussion about it

SPEAKER_09: But getting some sort of like on-bill financing would help fill one of those holes and I think would make your green bar

SPEAKER_09: Go up a little faster. All right, that's it

Unknown: Thank you so much rosie, those are great comments really appreciate it very thoughtful

SPEAKER_13: um

Unknown: Well, I guess shall we accept this report? I mean I feel like oh we've got a hand raised

SPEAKER_13: It looks like we have speaker online. Yes, we do have nancy huett

Unknown: Welcome nancy. We have three minutes

Unknown: Thank you actually this is rick codina oh hi rick. Yeah, you don't sound like nancy

Unknown: Yeah, well I don't

Unknown: Uh, I wanted to first uh express my appreciation to brian and his team

Unknown: Uh for seeking out and securing a diversity of sources out there

Unknown: of wind

SPEAKER_12: Solar angiothermal and we really need that diversity especially now given the the fog is suppressing

SPEAKER_12: Solar at least regionally

Unknown: um

SPEAKER_12: I

SPEAKER_12: Just wanted to ask a follow-up question. He mentioned the difficulty

SPEAKER_12: In delays of country acres being one project that's been delayed and you also have coyote creek

SPEAKER_12: Which will be very problematic because it's now a subject of litigation

Unknown: So my question is when you when you look at the interconnection queue you see a lot of projects there

Unknown: And a lot of them have gone through the necessary studies

Unknown: and

Unknown: some of us have talked to

SPEAKER_12: golden's golden state

SPEAKER_12: energy and we know that uh

Unknown: They they're thinking of a project down in wilton

SPEAKER_12: But i'm wondering to what extent

SPEAKER_12: are

SPEAKER_12: Are the local solar opportunities drying up?

SPEAKER_12: and does a lot of it have to do with tariffs or extra cost or

SPEAKER_12: What are the exact problems and and how does brian and others see the outlook for a lot of those?

Unknown: Unnamed projects that are in that interconnection queue. Thank you

Unknown: I don't think we can answer these questions because they weren't agendized. Is that correct?

Unknown: Yeah, laura lewis chief legal and government affairs officer

SPEAKER_11: We can't engage in an active discussion of those items

Unknown: Yeah, so maybe rick. I know you know brian and maybe you guys can have a meeting offline and

SPEAKER_13: You get the story

SPEAKER_13: Directly, but and in public we have to have items agendized if we're going to go into detail on certain topics

SPEAKER_13: That's correct. Yes. Yeah, we can follow up stuff. We can follow up with yeah, rick. I'm, we're happy to do that

Unknown: Thanks rick

Unknown: Do we have any other public comments?

Unknown: I don't see any other hands

Unknown: Okay

SPEAKER_13: Well, I was also impressed

SPEAKER_13: It seems like we're making real headway on our customer adoption of solar and storage in the batteries and I know we doubled

SPEAKER_13: the amount of the incentive for

Unknown: home battery storage and there's now five different brands of batteries on our website and

SPEAKER_13: So I hope people are taking advantage of those because that helps us store that solar when the sun is shining and

Unknown: When the sun is not shining we can feed the grid. So that really helps us even out those those curves on

SPEAKER_13: Production. Well, thank you so much brian and thank you really appreciate all the staff that worked on these programs

Unknown: Great. Thank you. Um, and with that we'll turn to agenda item number three

Unknown: Which is to discuss the monitoring reports for strategic directive 11, which is the public power business model

Unknown: Presenting that is our own depth. Steve linds who's our deputy

SPEAKER_13: General council and director of government affairs. Welcome steve. Thank you. Good evening. Steve linds deputy general council and director of government affairs

SPEAKER_19: I'm here tonight to talk about the sd11 monitoring report and recommend the board accept it. We are in compliance with

Unknown: SD11 and sd11 is the core value for smud

Unknown: it

SPEAKER_19: supports preservation of the public power business model and the local decision making

SPEAKER_19: That allows us to tailor solutions to meet the needs of our customers and communities and that um,

SPEAKER_19: My team's provided you with a really detailed st

SPEAKER_19: 11 report for your reference, but in the interest time tonight i'm just going to hit some of the highlights

Unknown: these next few slides, um

SPEAKER_19: touch on a few of the state legislative issues and i'd like to start with a bill that smud sponsored

SPEAKER_19: ab 881

SPEAKER_19: Was critical to the advancement of carbon capture and sequestration technology it established

SPEAKER_19: Regulations for the safe transportation of carbon dioxide

Unknown: by pipeline

SPEAKER_19: AB 881 had a companion bill sp 614

SPEAKER_19: Which ended up being the vehicle that ultimately was passed and approved by the governor and this was an incredible victory for

SPEAKER_19: The sutter energy center which you can see depicted on the right side of this slide

Unknown: In the next slide on the left another bill that smud supported ab 1207

SPEAKER_19: Extended cap and trade through 2024. I'm sorry 2045. It's now referred to as cap and invest

SPEAKER_19: smud along with other publicly owned utilities supported this bill because it retained the flexibility of the pou option

Unknown: But most importantly it did not make any proposals

SPEAKER_19: To reduce our allowance allocation amounts and that could have been an impact on smud of 20 to 30

SPEAKER_19: Million dollars a year now that issue has moved over to the carb

SPEAKER_19: Cap and invest docket. So we're watching that closely and we'll probably be back talking to you about that in the st 11 report for

Unknown: 2026

Unknown: On the right side of this page sp 541 was a bill that we opposed

Unknown: This bill would have required the cec to do two things first

SPEAKER_19: allocate load shifting targets to retail electric suppliers

Unknown: like smud and second standardized measurement methods

Unknown: To determine the value of demand reduction by time and location

Unknown: We provided several amendments to the author on this and we were not taken up on those. So we opposed the bill

SPEAKER_19: ultimately

SPEAKER_19: We asked the governor to veto the bill at the end of the day the governor did veto the bill citing

SPEAKER_19: the cost implement the cost to implement and the redundant and potentially disruptive

SPEAKER_19: nature of the bill

Unknown: The last legislative issue i'm going to touch on this year relates to western energy markets

SPEAKER_19: The board may recall that we're in eim the energy and balance market

SPEAKER_19: The board also authorized smud to participate in the edam market the extended data head market

Unknown: through bank

Unknown: The balancing authority of northern california the target go live date for that is around fall of 2027

Unknown: But what's most important to the stakeholders in expanding?

SPEAKER_19: The edam market is the independent governance across the edam footprint

SPEAKER_19: And you can see that the map here generally the footprint is the western united states and the stakeholders

SPEAKER_19: Really don't want to see california governance. They don't want to see the california iso

SPEAKER_19: in charge of that whole market

Unknown: So there's an effort called the west wide governance pathways initiative which created the three steps

SPEAKER_19: You see on the slide that first step was accomplished for the second step. We needed a california bill

Unknown: That would authorize the california investor owned utilities to participate in a market

Unknown: That was that had a regional organization other than the iso that bill was introduced this year as sp 540

Unknown: There were some poison pill amendments which unfortunately unfortunately forced us to oppose the bill

Unknown: That language was then moved to ab 825 by assembly member petri norris

SPEAKER_19: With at the end of the day with a lot of back and forth at the last minute

SPEAKER_19: It was approved and signed by the governor. This was a huge

Unknown: Win for the pathways initiative and then finally as you can see in the slide step three

SPEAKER_19: envisions a longer term process where future expansion of functions and services offered by

SPEAKER_19: the regional organization

SPEAKER_19: Created in step two will move forward

Unknown: Next slide is going to touch on some of the state regulatory. Yes in terms of of the pathways bill

SPEAKER_18: How did we feel the final bill language?

SPEAKER_18: Was it most of what we we supported but was it most of what we wanted do you think it will be effective in

SPEAKER_18: implementing

Unknown: That governance model. No, we think it will be and we think that the poison pills were moved in the second iteration of the bill

SPEAKER_19: So we're pretty much satisfied. I mean there are some

Unknown: um

SPEAKER_19: Some conditions that the iou's are gonna have to meet with the puc if they want to pull out and and and get in

SPEAKER_19: There's some but they're minor and we think it's fine

Unknown: Okay, this slide touches on some of the important regulatory issues that we've

SPEAKER_19: Addressed this year first the load management standard regulation in 2023 the cec adopted regulations

SPEAKER_19: That would have required someone to have dynamic

SPEAKER_19: Hourly rates in every single customer rate class

SPEAKER_19: We argued with uh the cec that we thought it made more sense to allow our board to decide

SPEAKER_19: Whether or not pilots and programs were a better path

Unknown: They agreed with us and they built that into the regulation. So smut adopted its load management

SPEAKER_19: standard

SPEAKER_19: Compliance plan and submitted it to the cec in november of 2023

Unknown: The cec got back to us and said, you know what we'd like to see some more analysis

SPEAKER_19: So we provided some more analysis, but we reached the same conclusion and that conclusion was that

SPEAKER_19: incorporating dynamic pricing

Unknown: Wouldn't really be cost effective or a prudent investment for our customers

SPEAKER_19: Especially since we have a successful time of day rate at this time

SPEAKER_19: So we've got to revisit this every three years, but in august of 2025 the cec unanimously approved our lms compliance plan

Unknown: Next advanced clean fleet not many people who want to worry about the cost of power or every every 60 minutes of their life

SPEAKER_18: Although there are some

SPEAKER_18: I'm going to point that out

Unknown: Well, we discovered in conversations with the staff about all our pilots and programs that yeah

SPEAKER_19: Most of our customers wanted simplicity

Unknown: They didn't there are some folks that want to play around with dynamic hourly prices and and the gadgets that might take advantage of that

SPEAKER_19: And the technology but for the most part, you know folks our customers weren't interested. So next advanced clean fleets

SPEAKER_19: um the first iteration of the regulation adopted in april 23

SPEAKER_19: required three market segments large commercial fleets

SPEAKER_19: public fleets and dredge trucks to

SPEAKER_19: Transition their medium and heavy duty vehicles to zero emission carb also

Unknown: Sought a preemption waiver from the usepa to enforce this rule, but in december of 2024

Unknown: They saw the writing on the wall and knew it wasn't getting it approved and they withdrew that waiver

Unknown: the problem with that was that around

SPEAKER_19: 90% 93% of the market was those private fleets

SPEAKER_19: So it's hard to create a or it's hard to make a market when you don't have a market maker

SPEAKER_19: So since then carbs initiated rulemaking that includes just the public fleets

SPEAKER_19: we continue to work with our public power partners and advocate for

SPEAKER_19: flexibility to respond to the changing market conditions and

SPEAKER_19: implementation challenges, but if you look on that slide you can see the initial

SPEAKER_19: Proposal was that we had to have 50 percent of our purchases be zero emission by 24 and a hundred percent by 2027

SPEAKER_19: That hundred percent has been pushed out to 2030. That's a huge help with that

SPEAKER_19: Change and a change to some of the mutual assistance

Unknown: Provisions and some other minor changes if everything goes perfectly

Unknown: And if Ford still makes pickup trucks, we think we'll be able to comply through 2030

Unknown: But after 2030, it's a whole new ballgame and we anticipate there's going to be issues with affordability and availability

SPEAKER_19: And we're just gonna have to cross that bridge

SPEAKER_19: when we get there

SPEAKER_19: Finally on this slide the state water resources control board issued a draft general order

Unknown: That was supposed to address operation and maintenance related to wildfire mitigation

Unknown: But they came out with an order that addressed 11 project activities and many of those project activities

Unknown: Really were just normal operation and maintenance poll replacements

SPEAKER_19: Vegetation management and so our staff looked at that and estimated there would be an additional

SPEAKER_19: 1500 jobs that we were going to work on that would have to comply with that regulation

SPEAKER_19: it would increase time it would increase cost and

SPEAKER_19: The estimate was around five to ten million dollars a year extra for that work

SPEAKER_19: So we are working with water the the resources control board staff

Unknown: We believe they actually don't have the authority to expand the scope to potential impact on water quality

SPEAKER_19: So we're working with them to try to narrow the scope. We expect a final rule in early

SPEAKER_19: 2026

Unknown: This next slide just a couple of federal issues. I know you're all familiar with our grip grant

SPEAKER_19: We were awarded a 50 million dollar grid resilience and innovation partnership grant in October of this year

SPEAKER_19: We received a letter from the DOE

SPEAKER_19: Terminating that grant it said hey pencils down

Unknown: And send us your your documentation for reimbursements

SPEAKER_19: So as of October 10th, which was the pen the ultimate pencil down date we had about 33 million dollars of reimbursements

SPEAKER_19: So on November 4th, we initiated an informal dispute resolution process asking for that 33 million and also actually asking that they restore the entire grant

Unknown: So we'll see how they respond to that request

Unknown: Depending on how they respond we may file a claim in the US Court of federal claims

Unknown: last issue on federal issues

SPEAKER_19: We are waiting for IRS guidance to come out on the energy tax provisions

SPEAKER_19: That implement the one big beautiful bill act OB 3 on that first bullet that you see there on the list

SPEAKER_19: We actually did receive guidance that guidance took away the 5% safe harbor for wind and solar projects

SPEAKER_19: It used to be that you could if you spent 5% of the budget right up front you could be in the safe harbor

Unknown: Now they have some language that says quote unquote physical work of a significant nature and it's all fact-based

SPEAKER_19: It's very vague and it's extremely difficult to get that credit

Unknown: the last two we're still waiting on guidance for foreign entities of concern and

SPEAKER_19: post 2025 domestic content requirements, but the prohibited foreign entities for that second bullet are

SPEAKER_19: China Iran Russia and North Korea and then the domestic content

SPEAKER_19: Requirements are obviously going to prohibit

Unknown: content from those entities in your project, so

Unknown: We're waiting on this IRS guidance all three of those together can have a significant impact on project cost and project

SPEAKER_19: Timelines and that's going to impact the renewable portfolio projects that we're developing for our 2030 zero carbon plan everything that you know

SPEAKER_19: Brian just talked to you about so we'll be watching that closely

SPEAKER_19: And with that I mean I've just been hitting the tip of the iceberg on all these issues

SPEAKER_19: And I'm happy to answer any questions if you have any

SPEAKER_16: Without last one we're not gonna be the only utility who is gonna have issues with

SPEAKER_18: Projects in progress like bringing batteries in from China is probably the biggest one

SPEAKER_18: That there's a whole slew of the industry that's it's in progress

SPEAKER_18: Especially just that it's taking five to seven years to build anything

Unknown: Yeah, it's gonna be a problem for all of us

SPEAKER_19: And I don't think we are gonna really know the impact until we have the details on exactly

Unknown: Like what percent of what content from which countries?

SPEAKER_19: And and whether or not we're able to get some relief on that

Unknown: And that's outside of just tariffs right 50 or 100% tariffs yeah

SPEAKER_19: Yes

Unknown: Thank you

SPEAKER_06: Wonderful report you all are doing so much

SPEAKER_06: I mean you didn't even talk about the local level and you know the government affairs activities there

SPEAKER_06: so

SPEAKER_06: Good work. I I did want to ask you it's more kind of a philosophical

SPEAKER_06: question, but it is embedded deeply in this

SPEAKER_06: Strategic directive and that is

Unknown: Doing things to promote and support public power

Unknown: What do you think smut is doing in that arena?

Unknown: to promote and support public power wow that is

SPEAKER_19: Well back to the SD all of this work that we're doing in all these dockets is trying to bring

SPEAKER_19: Control back to our local boards. I mean that's the whole purpose of that strategic directive is to instead of having

SPEAKER_19: Resources board or the any Commission or the Energy Commission?

SPEAKER_19: Prescribe exactly how we're going to do what we're going to do

Unknown: Instead letting our board decide have them give us a goal and let us decide

SPEAKER_19: How to get there and the decision on how you get there is different for every jurisdiction and every utility

SPEAKER_19: It's community specific and so I think

Unknown: Really, that's the whole purpose of what we're doing is to try to leave as much control with you as possible

SPEAKER_19: Instead of having the state agencies decide and tell us how we should do what we're going to do within our communities

Unknown: Thank you Steve

SPEAKER_13: I mean I see this in my day job all day where it just seems like the regulators are getting further and further off the rails and

SPEAKER_13: They don't understand affordability. They are not being conscious

SPEAKER_13: I don't even know if most of them have been in private sector knows what it's like to make payroll have a budget

SPEAKER_13: I've worked in the state so I can say that

Unknown: But it really worries me because we are not going to be able to do these projects

SPEAKER_13: If they keep just ratcheting up requirements and like for the clean fleets

SPEAKER_13: I can tell you even in the garbage business that I'm in my day job nobody could we couldn't even buy them

SPEAKER_13: They don't even exist the trucks don't go up hills like in San Francisco or in the mountains

SPEAKER_13: They're not able to hear carry those heavy loads and you can't require people to buy things that literally aren't on the market yet

SPEAKER_13: Or aren't working

SPEAKER_13: so

Unknown: Yeah

SPEAKER_13: I hope I'm really appreciative of all the work that you've done to protect our public power business model

SPEAKER_13: And I still don't know how the people of Sacramento County had the foresight to annex us

SPEAKER_13: I basically pull ourselves out of the PG&E territory back in the 20s

SPEAKER_13: It took us 20 years of litigation to be able to run this operation

Unknown: But we've got to protect it and I know that we also do the we have support staff for how many

SPEAKER_13: community choice aggregators now, I think we're

Unknown: Which are also a version of more public power model

SPEAKER_13: Seven seven. Yeah run by chief customer officer. So yeah

SPEAKER_13: Thank you for all it may be next year that could be added to the program because that really does support public power model

SPEAKER_13: I think quite a bit that

SPEAKER_13: CCA staffing

SPEAKER_19: Appreciate it. Just one fact that I forgot failed to mention on advanced clean fleets

SPEAKER_19: they complete switch out of our fleet to to comply with the regulations before they pushed out to

SPEAKER_19: 2030 was about a hundred million dollars. So that's you know, five six percent of a rate increase now

SPEAKER_19: We have some of those goals to electrify our fleet anyway in the 2030 zero carbon plan

SPEAKER_19: But now you've got a good point. There's it definitely translates to rates

Unknown: Well, and we just found out last night that what we're at forty nine million dollars of outstanding debt from our customers right now

Unknown: People can't pay their bills and we're fifty two percent below PG&E. So

SPEAKER_13: Thank you for all you're doing for us a lot of good work and

SPEAKER_13: We'll go ahead and accept the report looks like unless I have public comment. I

Unknown: Didn't see any I don't see any hands

SPEAKER_11: Maybe guess wait one minute

Unknown: Yeah, I don't see any hands from a remote participants. Okay hands. Thank you. Thank you very much Steve. Appreciate it

SPEAKER_13: Okay

Unknown: So now we will move on to item number four which is to discuss approving and ratifying the submittal of smuds grant

SPEAKER_13: Application to California Department of Fish and Wildlife for the sport fish restoration act boating access

SPEAKER_13: To for Rancho Seiko Lake invasive mussel prevention grant. That's a mouthful

SPEAKER_13: So we'll go ahead and turn it over to James Frazier our director of research and development grants and partnerships. Thank you James

SPEAKER_13: So I really appreciate you reading that the the purpose that we're here tonight is to ask

SPEAKER_00: For approval to accept this grant as required by the funding agency

SPEAKER_00: And so there's there's some specific language that we need and that's that's very useful

SPEAKER_00: This particular grant before I jump in just really quickly because I only have one slide and it's gonna be very short

SPEAKER_00: I just want to acknowledge how exciting it is to hear work from folks like Emily that are talking about the grants that we've delivered and

SPEAKER_00: Seeing the dollars that we talk about from small opportunities like this going from award

SPEAKER_00: To actual community impact and bringing this value to the Sacramento region and that's that's very fulfilling for the type of grant work that we're talking about here

SPEAKER_00: Golden mussels are an invasive species that has recently began spiking in California and is a significant risk to our waterways

SPEAKER_00: And to the extent that it is also a significant risk to those waterways

SPEAKER_00: It is a significant risk to the hydroelectric systems that are integrated with those waterways

SPEAKER_00: Earlier this year we were awarded

SPEAKER_00: $91,000 for

SPEAKER_00: boat cleaning equipment to help protect the the Rancho Seiko lake so that boats can be cleaned and and hopefully sterilized before

SPEAKER_00: being docked into that water to prevent golden mussels from

SPEAKER_00: In invading that space the lake itself hosts a hundred thousand visitors annually and about

SPEAKER_00: 450 boat launches per year and so this this slide and this request is to allow us to accept that

SPEAKER_00: $92,000 $91,160 so that we can purchase that boat cleaning equipment and protect our waterways

Unknown: We've already been awarded the grand chains and all you need is our permission to accept it. I just need you to say yes

Unknown: We've never said no to money so I think we're okay with that

Unknown: Any other comments besides yes, okay

SPEAKER_13: Yes, no public comments. I would just say one thing. You know, I've got a house up in Tahoe and these muscles

SPEAKER_13: It's a real thing and I still we've talked about this in the pre brief

SPEAKER_13: But I am not sure anything will stop them from coming in if we do not stop people from dropping in boats from other

SPEAKER_13: waterways

SPEAKER_13: So I yes, of course, let's do this but I still worry that someday we're gonna have to deal with remediation anyway

SPEAKER_13: Because I just watch a lot of people try to get around the system and they use their paddle boards and everything and they

SPEAKER_13: Don't clean them properly. So

SPEAKER_13: Hopefully I'm wrong or we find a way to just rent boats or something

SPEAKER_13: so yay, we'll say yes to the money and

Unknown: Good job on the grant. Do we have anybody online? I

Unknown: Don't say anybody no. Okay, you're good. Okay. Thank you again James. Appreciate it. Okay. So with that

SPEAKER_13: It's item number five and this is to allow the board members an opportunity to discuss the committee memberships and chairs for

SPEAKER_13: 2026 and this will be presented by

SPEAKER_13: 2026 vice president Rob Kurth, thank you

Unknown: The incoming president director tomorrow asked me to present this to you. I'm excuse me vice president tomorrow

SPEAKER_02: And so the committee assignments that he has worked out presumably in consultation with everyone

SPEAKER_02: I know it was with me too is for the four main committees strategic development

SPEAKER_02: Proposed chair is Heidi Sanborn vice chairs Rosanna Herbert

SPEAKER_02: Committee member Greg Fishman who's rotating back into committee membership as he gives up his presidency

Unknown: The policy committee would be Rosanna Herbert's chair Brandon Rose as vice chair and

SPEAKER_02: Rob Kurth as committee member

SPEAKER_02: Finance and audit Brandon Rose would be chair

SPEAKER_02: Nancy Bowie Thompson is vice chair and Rob Kurth as the committee member and

SPEAKER_02: Lastly the energy resources and customer service committee would chair would be Nancy Bowie Thompson

SPEAKER_02: Vice chair Greg Fishman and committee member Heidi Sanborn and so those are the proposed

SPEAKER_02: Assignments is there any discussion on that?

SPEAKER_02: I'm good with mine, and I would just think Crystal and the staff for doing some crawling

SPEAKER_18: I'm fine. I hear no objections any objections would result in more assignments. So I

Unknown: Expect we won't hear any

Unknown: Then we shall stay quiet with that then and accept the assignments. Thank you so much appreciate that

Unknown: Okay, so now we will move on to and do we have any public comment. I should have asked so no we don't okay

Unknown: So we'll move on to agenda item 6 which is the board work plan and this will be presented by President Fishman

Unknown: We do have a couple of things coming up in January

Unknown: The Finance and Audit Committee has a few things on the agenda our internal audit services report

SPEAKER_03: typical financial results for the month and supply costs and then

Unknown: We have some residential assistance weatherization and electrification contracts to talk about

SPEAKER_03: Policy is GP 5 election of president and vice president

SPEAKER_03: GP 6 role of the board president and GP 9 board committee chair, so we will go over our own governance policies on

SPEAKER_03: January 14th and

SPEAKER_03: There's something about a commendation resolution on the board meeting on the 15th, I don't know what that's about

SPEAKER_03: And then we'll let Dave pick it up from there

SPEAKER_03: But if there's anybody with a burning thought about something that needs to go in the parking lot or something we'd like to agendize

SPEAKER_03: at a future meeting we can

SPEAKER_03: Certainly talk about that

Unknown: Seeing none I'm done

Unknown: Thank you almost you get one more night

SPEAKER_13: Okay, so unless we have public comments no we don't okay so with that

SPEAKER_13: We've wrapped up the meeting except for public comment for items not on the agenda and we have several

Unknown: People in the room have requested to speak for items not on the agenda, so I'll go ahead and start with Tim

SPEAKER_13: Washburn can please come up

Unknown: And I just want to thank the public for coming we always appreciate public engagement, thank you for being here

Unknown: Members of the board my name is Tim Washburn. I'm here on behalf of

SPEAKER_16: Third Act Sacramento bunch of retirees

SPEAKER_16: working on climate and democracy issues

SPEAKER_16: I'm here tonight to talk about Coyote Creek I

SPEAKER_16: Attended a meeting yesterday over in McKinley Park

SPEAKER_16: with 250 people who showed up last night

SPEAKER_16: Totally energized and these are your most ardent supporters of green energy and public power and

SPEAKER_16: they are outraged by the Calleary Creek project and

SPEAKER_16: Notwithstanding the board approval that occurred earlier

SPEAKER_16: this year or last month

SPEAKER_16: they are plotting the steps ahead and

SPEAKER_16: There are many, but I'll highlight at least three

SPEAKER_16: One of them is the expectation that we will challenge the legal adequacy of the EIR in

SPEAKER_16: Court I think Shawn may speak to that when he comes up

SPEAKER_16: The second is we expect to contest the numerous state and

SPEAKER_16: federal environmental review and permit requirements that are yet to be met on the project and

SPEAKER_16: We can imagine that these steps will continue the delay that shows up in your spreadsheet tonight

SPEAKER_16: no date certain on when this project may ever be ready and could well be that it

SPEAKER_16: extends out beyond even your 2030

SPEAKER_16: ZCP deadline

Unknown: the third was

SPEAKER_16: Our expectation that we will join that small band of smud watch

SPEAKER_16: Project 350 folks David Wright

SPEAKER_16: Riccadino and others

SPEAKER_16: to observe proceedings here before the board and

Unknown: I would assure you that anyone who

SPEAKER_16: Including myself who takes on this responsibility has great respect for the work of smud what you're doing with clean energy

SPEAKER_16: big supporters of

SPEAKER_16: Public power we understand you sort of stumbled into this Coyote Creek agreement

SPEAKER_16: That there wasn't a lot of vetting of the environmental costs of the project

Unknown: The only hint that we have of it of course is desri negotiated with you a virtually unlimited time frame

SPEAKER_16: for getting through the environmental review and permitting process despite a date certain for

SPEAKER_16: Project delivery so they have as much time as it may take

SPEAKER_16: To get through the environmental review and permitting process before you could say anything about their failure to perform

Unknown: Okay, we understand that during this period of course you've been

SPEAKER_16: Neutral we don't comment nobody says anything about this project pro or against

Unknown: Nothing about the need for the power versus the environmental cost we get that

SPEAKER_16: We're going to be here with our

SPEAKER_16: Friendly watch people to ensure that you maintain that neutrality

Unknown: So that if desri happens to come to you looking their environmental

SPEAKER_16: Review and permitting wounds and wants to change the price structure of the contract you're neutral no

Unknown: You took the risk

Unknown: You knew what you were getting into

Unknown: If you can't make this project work for the price we agreed to that's your problem not ours

Unknown: I

Unknown: Appreciate I should say appreciate you being patient and waiting to the end

SPEAKER_13: Tom

SPEAKER_13: Benedetto Bernardo, sorry

Unknown: Please come up

Unknown: Is there any affiliation if you're affiliated with anybody

Unknown: Yes

Unknown: It wasn't written down so I can write it down. Good evening. My name is Tom Bernardo

SPEAKER_01: I was born and raised in Sacramento County. I'm a resident and a smud customer

SPEAKER_01: I'm testifying today and proposed Coyote Creek

SPEAKER_01: 500,000 solar panel project

SPEAKER_01: My retired State Park Ranger and Park Superintendent. I have worked at Prairie City SVRA

SPEAKER_01: My organization the California State Park Rangers Association established in 1964

SPEAKER_01: voted unanimously at our annual general membership meeting last September to oppose this project

Unknown: Why?

Unknown: The AIR has very serious environmental and cultural protection flaws

SPEAKER_01: It even states that the project will result in extensive and permanent view shed damage to the park

Unknown: 2.66 million dollars has been set aside by the developer for mitigation to the park

Unknown: Mitigation by definition is the action of reducing the severity

SPEAKER_01: seriousness or painfulness of something is a red flag

SPEAKER_01: This project is unacceptable

Unknown: Local Native American tribes have testified at public meetings. They are opposed to the project they have been not they've not been taken seriously a

Unknown: large contingent of prominent OHV recreation organizations and

SPEAKER_01: Conservation organizations have banded together to oppose this project

Unknown: the first

SPEAKER_01: Tree medication plan to replace thousands of mature black blue Oaks

Unknown: Lost at a one-to-one ratio with seedlings and then open the area the cattle and sheep grazing is preposterous

Unknown: The

SPEAKER_01: Project was proposed by a group of 55 landowners and a solar development company based in New York City

SPEAKER_01: Who will each benefit in millions of dollars of smud?

SPEAKER_01: Customer revenue and at the end of the project be set up for a large housing development

Unknown: Smud approved a power purchase agreement with the developer in 2021

Unknown: The project was supposed to be up and running by December 2023

Unknown: But extensive delays for mitigation have resulted in easements and environmental permits

Unknown: outstill outstanding

Unknown: Smud's original PPA was flawed and embarrassingly short on environmental considerations

Unknown: Every group I mentioned unanimously supports alternative energy projects including solar

Unknown: Except this one the right technology at the wrong location

Unknown: protect our state parks

Unknown: protect our environment

Unknown: Listen to the late Native Americans the ancestral stewards of these lands stop this project

Unknown: Thank You Tom for your comments

SPEAKER_13: Rosie I believe you wanted to come up but speak on this as well

Unknown: So

SPEAKER_13: Rosie Yakub with 350 Sacramento

Unknown: Hi, yeah

SPEAKER_09: So my understanding is that after approving this project

SPEAKER_09: Smud has now dedicated itself to not doing a similar thing again by making

SPEAKER_09: Future projects that are not smud projects, but are contracted projects

SPEAKER_09: Subject to the same environmental quality standards and vetting beforehand

SPEAKER_09: I say if we have an opportunity to also do it for this project. Let's do it, right?

SPEAKER_09: so if so first of all

SPEAKER_09: With this project if there's any changes in the contracting like there's a request the public needs to be notified

SPEAKER_09: We need to know that there's an opportunity to stop this thing

SPEAKER_09: number two

Unknown: We feel that I feel that there should actually be

Unknown: A public hearing if there is a proposed

SPEAKER_09: Recontract because of pricing or anything else perhaps there, you know the 2023

SPEAKER_09: Failure to perform should be reconsidered. It's considered if possible and that gets to my next point

SPEAKER_09: Really asked legal staff where we are with this thing. What are the implications of?

SPEAKER_09: Of either denying the contract as it is because the time period under which it was supposed to be constructed

SPEAKER_09: has gone past

SPEAKER_09: and if not if they come back and ask for for

Unknown: More because the costs have gone up then consider whether the contract

Unknown: Has to be renegotiated and then it would be subject to smud's new policy

SPEAKER_09: Which would prevent it from going forward?

SPEAKER_09: and

Unknown: then also

SPEAKER_09: Consider that you do have

SPEAKER_09: 1370 megawatts in five locations in your interconnection queue. This is not smud's last chance

SPEAKER_09: To get to be all renewable

SPEAKER_09: That's it for me

Unknown: Thank you very much

SPEAKER_13: and

SPEAKER_13: Shawn worth

Unknown: Good evening. My name is Shawn worth. I'm representing environmental council of Sacramento today and our habitat committee

SPEAKER_14: And also I have some comments on my own. I was

SPEAKER_14: quite surprised to see the

Unknown: Environmental leadership agenda item today and I was hoping to speak on that

SPEAKER_14: Environmental stewardship I heard electric lawnmowers

Unknown: Gardens for pollinators, I mean you know

SPEAKER_14: I mean these are all good things, but the loss of the habitat that we're talking about in Coyote Creek

SPEAKER_14: You could do that for a hundred years. You wouldn't even come close

SPEAKER_14: We are in a forest ik province in this part of California. There are 36 in the world

SPEAKER_14: Those are the most biodiverse spots on the planet the most biodiverse habitat type in that most biodiverse area is

SPEAKER_14: Oak woodlands of which are going to be destroying an incredible oak woodland

SPEAKER_14: irreplaceable absolutely irreplaceable

SPEAKER_14: The approval at the board you can listen to the reasons that were given by the supervisors

SPEAKER_14: Had smud done their pre-screen had smud done their site visit and said

SPEAKER_14: We'll take a pass on this one. This would not have happened. So this biodiversity

SPEAKER_14: Devastation is a stain on smud. That's my comment for environmental groups my comment personally

SPEAKER_14: Every year I get five leaves green energy letters

SPEAKER_14: My house I've had a green energy account for 30 years for my rental properties for 25 years

SPEAKER_14: I love this program for a few reasons one is that I pay more so other people don't have to I like that because I can afford it

SPEAKER_14: I feel utterly and totally betrayed

SPEAKER_14: I want my money back if this is going to be something on that portfolio. I do not want

SPEAKER_14: I do not want

Unknown: Coyote Creek solar voltaic project on our portfolio where I had anything to do with paying for it. It's a complete

SPEAKER_14: opposite of what this program was about what I bought into what I paid into and it's just

Unknown: Whatever you have to do to remove yourself from this do it. It is an absolute stain on your reputation

Unknown: It got through the border super is because of the great reputation you have you're losing that now

Unknown: Thank you

Unknown: Thank you very much John do we have any other public comments

Unknown: Do you have some virtual comments

SPEAKER_11: Somebody's online access beauty by Brianna Chris Bennett is oh, okay. Sorry. It looks like beauty by Brianna might be first salon

SPEAKER_11: Hello, are you there and go ahead and speak if you're online

Unknown: Hi, my name is Brianna

SPEAKER_07: Found a resident of Sacramento today. I stand in strong opposition of the Coyote Creek solar panel project

Unknown: This meeting is about environmental leadership

Unknown: But you have failed to listen to the scientist

SPEAKER_07: environmentalist conservationists

SPEAKER_07: ecological lists and tribes

Unknown: And the community when we point out

Unknown: The irreversible damage it will do to our ecosystems local by

SPEAKER_07: biodiversity and natural resources

Unknown: If you speak of protecting biodiversity, but this project will destroy

SPEAKER_07: 1400 acres of some of the last remaining intake vernal poles and oak woodlands in the Central Valley

SPEAKER_07: It will kill over 3,000 blue Oaks many of which are hundreds of years old

Unknown: Just one blue Oak can house over thousands of species

SPEAKER_07: Your project will endanger already threatened species like the tricolored blackbird

SPEAKER_07: Burrowing owl vernal pull

Unknown: fairy shrimp and western spade foot

Unknown: You'll be getting rid of one of our biggest carbon sinks in the valley as someone who values the preservation of Sacramento

SPEAKER_07: I urge you to consider a less destructive

SPEAKER_07: Alternative if we cannot harness solar energy without sacrificing our old growth ecosystems

SPEAKER_07: What does that say for the future of green energy and smud's commitment to upcoming generations?

SPEAKER_07: I urge you to seek sustainable solutions that prioritize the preservation of our forests

SPEAKER_07: We must advocate future where renewable energy and nature can coexist

Unknown: One to one mitigation does not add up and it's your responsibility to fix your mistakes

SPEAKER_07: You cannot promise the protection of these ecosystems beyond our lifetime

SPEAKER_07: Restoring such diverse habitats will take centuries

SPEAKER_07: This unique environment must be preserved for both current and future generations in my short lifetime

SPEAKER_07: I have I have witnessed the devastating effects of deforestation in Sacramento

SPEAKER_07: I'm not kidding South Sacramento North Sacramento our forests are being torn down

SPEAKER_07: I've seen animals struggle often returning only to face starvation. I have spent

Unknown: The very little free time I have to advocate for a remaining oak forest and I shouldn't have to fight for something

SPEAKER_07: That's so essential. We have so little left. You have to find a better way

SPEAKER_07: We are standing strong as a community the city of trees. Please consider our plea healthy ecosystems bring healthy communities

SPEAKER_07: Let's work together to protect the ecosystems that define our region

Unknown: Thank you

Unknown: Thank you, Brianna

Unknown: And who's next in the queue

Unknown: Chris Bennett is actually showing up my list at the top

SPEAKER_11: I

Unknown: Can hear me okay, we can

Unknown: Go ahead. Okay. My name is Chris Bennett and I'm a smud customer and a former resident of Rancho

SPEAKER_17: Marietta, which actually has one of these solar plants that this company that's bulldozing trees and Coyote Creek

SPEAKER_17: Built so I can tell you that it is an eyesore unlike some of the things that they mentioned there

SPEAKER_17: Now during this meeting there was a lot of talk about sustainability objectives like not harming local wildlife

SPEAKER_17: Preserving native ecosystems and respecting tribal and cultural resources, but this project flies in the face of all of those sustainability goals

Unknown: More than 3,400 old growth oak trees and many of California's native vernal pools will be destroyed for this project and that

SPEAKER_17: And the project itself does not appear to be necessary for smud to achieve your sustainability goals

SPEAKER_17: There's also a ton of shadiness behind the project and transparency and ethics are really important to maintain public trust

Unknown: Now I think the original plan that they had was so bad

SPEAKER_17: They actually had to do a revision on it

SPEAKER_17: And one of the things that they said they would do would be to bring in the sack tree foundation

SPEAKER_17: To plant a single acorn for every old growth oak tree that gets bulldozed and then monitor those saplings for seven years

SPEAKER_17: Now that sounds reasonable on its face

SPEAKER_17: But if you peel back the layers just a little bit you see that it's a very different story

SPEAKER_17: Once you once you're actually paying a little bit more attention

SPEAKER_17: So the first thing is that the political consultant that pushed this project through is

SPEAKER_17: Actually the sack tree foundations board president Michelle Smira, which is a severe conflict of interest

Unknown: another thing to consider is that it takes a minimum of 30 to 40 years for an oak sapling to reach full maturity and

SPEAKER_17: This solar plant will be decommissioned in just 35 years

SPEAKER_17: so that means that the project is going to be

SPEAKER_17: decommissioned before a single oak tree that gets planted in response to the

SPEAKER_17: Stred to the destruction is able to grow back which really doesn't make any sense

SPEAKER_17: Additionally an oak an oak sapling that gets planted as an acorn

SPEAKER_17: There's like a only like a 30 to 50 percent chance that it'll even reach maturity

SPEAKER_17: So seven years is just not enough time to monitor these saplings

Unknown: So I think the big thing to consider is that it's not too late to do something about it

SPEAKER_17: And I think the members of this mud board would gain a lot of goodwill from members of the public if you were to cancel

SPEAKER_17: approval for this project and stop it from taking place

SPEAKER_17: instead of forcing all kinds of people like us to jump on these calls and

SPEAKER_17: Complain and ask you to not do this thing if you do the right thing now and

SPEAKER_17: Make it so that coyote Creek is not going to get bulldozed

SPEAKER_17: Then you're gonna save yourself a bunch of time and money from lawsuits

SPEAKER_17: You're gonna make the public happy and you're also not even going to be having any negative impact towards your sustainability goals

SPEAKER_17: So in my mind it just makes perfect sense to just stop coyote Creek in its tracks and reverse the project and don't allow

SPEAKER_17: This horrific act of greenwashing and destruction of native habitats to take place

SPEAKER_17: So I urge you please do whatever you can to stop coyote Creek from happening

SPEAKER_17: And of course don't believe things that are coming out of the sack tree foundation when their consultant is also pushing forward the project

SPEAKER_17: Thank you

Unknown: Thank you for your comments do we have any other comments Elaine

SPEAKER_13: Cavas, sorry, babe, miss for Elaine. Can you hear us? Yes. Thank you. Please go ahead. Thank you

Unknown: Great. I'm a resident of Sacramento County going on 10 years and as many can speak on the Cody Creek solar project

SPEAKER_04: It was badly. Research is unsustainable and will permanently and irreversibly

SPEAKER_04: destroy the land

SPEAKER_04: Species including endangered species vernal pools and sacred tribal areas

SPEAKER_04: It will also permanently and irreversibly destroy the community trust in smud to operate in their best interests

Unknown: This project is incredibly short-sighted destroying 400 year old heritage oaks for projects slated to last

SPEAKER_04: About 30 years which I'm 35 and that's about the time. I'll be retiring

Unknown: It makes absolutely no sense

SPEAKER_04: You've discussed your work with the underserved community and that you care about the community impact

SPEAKER_04: But this project that ends one of the more accessible spaces for the disabled and the project was pushed through without proper

SPEAKER_04: comment or approval from the local tribes

SPEAKER_04: and

SPEAKER_04: You also discussed about how you listen to commute to customers on how they want their power

SPEAKER_04: but right now we're not being heard about

Unknown: not about where it comes from about

SPEAKER_04: This project not being what we want

Unknown: You're done yes, that's it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much for your comments and the last one is Rachel

SPEAKER_13: Rachel you can go ahead

Unknown: Rachel can hear us

Unknown: Rachel

Unknown: You can go ahead and speak Rachel if not we're at the end of our public comment period

Unknown: Can you hear me yes very good sorry about that no, thanks. Yeah, I

Unknown: Don't have anything

SPEAKER_08: Substantive to add that the other public commenters have haven't already said

SPEAKER_08: But I just wanted to add my voice in opposition to the coyote Creek solar project

SPEAKER_08: It does seem like a short-sighted

SPEAKER_08: greenwashing attempt

SPEAKER_08: I think you guys are better than that and the public deserves better than that

SPEAKER_08: and

SPEAKER_08: I think that you know, there's so much public opposition that it's safe to say

SPEAKER_08: You know, it won't

Unknown: Come to pass but it just

Unknown: It's up to you to

SPEAKER_08: Like

Unknown: Not turn this into a

SPEAKER_08: Giant knockdown drag-up fight, I guess so. Thank you

SPEAKER_08: Thank you very much Rachel. Are there any other comments? I do not see any more hands. No, okay

SPEAKER_11: So I want to thank all the public for providing their input. That's very, you know informative for us

SPEAKER_13: We always appreciate public engagement. So thank you for being here. Oh

SPEAKER_13: I'm sorry. I just want to make a brief comment. You know, we live in an era right now where

SPEAKER_03: political discourse usually just devolves into yelling and screaming and shouting and you know, even among families

SPEAKER_03: and I just want to say how much I appreciate the respectful tone the thoughtfulness the reasonableness and

SPEAKER_03: And the time it took for all of you to come here and deliver your comments are really appreciated

SPEAKER_03: I agree. I was listening to a city of Los Angeles meeting today and I've never heard so much swearing in my life

SPEAKER_13: It was terrible. So we really do appreciate you coming and being respectful. Thank you

SPEAKER_13: So with that written comments that were received on items not on the agenda will be included for the record if received within two hours

SPEAKER_13: At the end of the meeting and with that we'll have a reading of the summary of committee direction

SPEAKER_13: Staff will provide information related to the type of equipment that we have available

Unknown: Staff will provide information related to the type of equipment that we electrified

SPEAKER_11: Staff will include specific information related to what we're doing to support biodiversity and future SD7 presentations

SPEAKER_11: And then we'll look to include a pathway to 2030 in the April

SPEAKER_11: zero carbon report zero carbon plan report

Unknown: Okay, and then and

SPEAKER_13: Future monitoring items trained to tide dots together as best we can future and past. Okay, very good with that

SPEAKER_13: We'll call the meeting adjourned. Thank you

Unknown: you