Oh okay, there we go.

All right, since it's a work session, I don't bang the gavel, so I apologize for you me not banging y'all into order.

But I will go ahead and call our February 9th, 2026 work session to order.

We have one major item on our agenda, which is the discussion around our transmission line needs.

Um, and then we have an opportunity to go into closed session.

I will make a note that if we go into closed session, council will go into another room outside of this room so y'all can hang out here because we can then come back to this room to continue open session before we end the meeting.

So I just say that for those of you who are sitting in the audience or watching online to come back in so that you know we are going to come back to this space.

All right, so I'm gonna go ahead and kick this over to Aaron Keyes, our director of the utilities.

So, Aaron, take it away.

Well, good evening.

Uh again, I'm Aaron Keys, the utilities director.

I have a number of staff with me here tonight.

Uh Gwen Korches, our assistant director for electric, David Storvick, our electric engineering manager, and Eric Wirtz, our electric engineering supervisor.

And we are here to talk about the transmission line project.

So, why does Columbia need this transmission line project to continue to provide safe, reliable, and cost effective power to the City of Columbia electric customers.

We need a 161 kilovolt transmission line that connects Perchese Creek substation to grindstone substation.

The need for this transmission line will not go away.

The need for the transmission line project will only continue to grow as our city grows and as our electrical load grows.

The transmission line will benefit all customers of Columbia, residential, commercial, industrial.

The transmission line will benefit the importing of renewable energy, and it will benefit long-term reliability.

The dozens of other routes and options that have been studied provide less reliability and have significantly more costs than the two that are proposed.

Staff does not believe that load shedding or rolling blackouts are an acceptable solution.

Load shed will always be a potential, even with a new transmission line.

We acknowledge that load shedding is a small risk at this time, but that risk continues to increase with the difficult conditions in energy markets, very significant power supply challenges in Missouri, and overall lack of electric infrastructure in our state.

So when a severe cold snap or hot spell happens and our system has to shed load, many of our residents will be impacted.

And once that single issue resolves, and then customers demand that we fix that problem, it will take about eight to ten years and be more expensive than it is now.

Our staff takes a lot of pride in providing the best possible and most reliable solutions for our community that we're serving.

And we'd like to do so before an event like that occurs.

Staff recommends the Voder School Niphon Grindstone route as the most cost-effective, efficient, reliable, and overall best option to construct.

There are people unhappy with that proposed location and the and the impacts.

That will not change.

It doesn't matter what location gets chosen.

Wherever we locate this transmission line, there will be some people unhappy about the location and the impacts.

Staff is evaluating costs and risks.

This project is for the reliability of the entire Columbia system, including our residential customers and our commercial and industrial customers that provide the jobs and services for this entire community.

This project also impacts all of our closest electric neighbors, the University of Missouri, Fulton, and Boone Electric and Central Electric.

In 2024, staff revisited with council a request to proceed with a transmission line project from Perchy substation to grindstone substation.

At that time, staff was directed to update the cost estimates for Voter School NIFON Grindstone route and the Chapel Hill route.

To provide a reasonable estimate, the consultant had to perform some significant design work to develop the construction of material costs.

We are here tonight providing these estimates.

Knowing that we have some council members that were not part of the last council work session, we plan to provide a short historical summary prior to discussing the difference between the two routes.

It is our hope tonight that you will direct us to proceed with a transmission line route.

Directing us to proceed means that we will restart the entire public improvement process, including public meetings and a public hearing.

Staff understands that no amount of public meetings or public hearing is going to bring consensus, but we're recommending the route that reduces the most risks and is the most cost effective and reliable solution.

We have the ability and the information to go into a closed session this evening if you wish to go over the specific risk to our system since there's a few members that may not be aware of those.

So now I'm going to turn it over to Eric Wirtz, our engineering supervisor for electric to go over the history and discuss in more detail each of the options and the estimates.

Hello, my name is Eric Wirtz.

I am a professional engineer.

I've been with the city for 12 years in March, and this print transmission line project has been in my area of discussion for that entire 12 years.

So I'm very familiar with most of the aspects of this project.

Eric, then if I can, really quick.

I think one thing I'm gonna look to because I know there are some aspects of this discussion that are the sort of things that would be in a closed session because it's sensitive nature of material.

Can I ask that you, Nancy or Aaron, if that sorts comes up to one of us that we tend that you stop us?

Sure.

Okay, thank you.

Absolutely.

That's all I ask.

Thank you.

Um so we're very we're going to at the very beginning, we're gonna go over the just the two routes that are proposed and the cost comparison right up front, since that's what was asked at the last work session.

Then we'll we'll backtrack and go over the history and the risks.

And when we start with the risks, that's when the opportunity to go in the closed session.

I can be very general describing the risks.

It's when we get in the very specifics that requires a closed session.

Um we'll go over the route details and then we'll have the opportunity for discussion.

These are the two transmission line options available.

Uh the blue route, it is co-located with a 69 kilovolt transmission line that already exists connecting Grindstone, Hinkson Creek, and Perchy Creek.

Um this line would be constructed on the same poles.

We would rebuild the line so that the two lines would share the same poles.

Um the uh green line is the Voder School option, which is follows the original.

If you're up on your history, the original option A route.

We have omitted the Mill Creek substation from this project for your consideration.

Um would not ever promise to never bring Mill Creek substation before you later on, but that is not a part of this project.

Is that because it's not needed, Eric, or because we don't have the money to pay for it.

It's needed, but not immediately.

And I I ask you in budget questions.

Right.

And so when we weren't doing the transmission line project, we had a bunch of bond money.

We used and we need to use that bond, the money, the bonds that actually were issued, we need to use those funds in a timely manner.

So instead of the Mill Creek substation, we use those monies to upgrade uh two other substations that would help support our system in general.

So we're doing upgrades right now to Perchy substation and Bolstead substation.

So that's where we're spending those those bond monies that were already issued.

Uh that again supports the entire system.

Um, you know, ultimately, Eric's right, we will probably want a substation at that mill creek location that we already had planned.

We still own that property.

We can do it in the future, uh, but it's a large expense.

Um, and the transmission line is is the focus at this point.

And then I have a follow-up question to that.

You started off the presentation by saying these are our two options.

And you had originally, and I'm sorry to make you go back to the previous work session we had had.

You had originally looked at some of the other options that we had potentially discussed.

The Amran relationship about improving that one, as well as something on the north side, and I can't remember all the names.

So if you could touch on those, that would be useful to know.

So we went through a a good portion of the alphabet with options.

They were each evaluated by our planning engineer, and a number of them were evaluated by a consultant.

And some of the ones that made it farther in the evaluation process are highlighted on the sh are mentioned on the sheet that you that Gwen handed you.

Of significance.

Option B was presented back in 2016.

I think.

2012.

2012.

Okay, a while ago.

Option E was presented back in 2017.

17.

Um those were file found to be of less value.

So while each of those options would eliminate the need for load shed, the cost was higher, and we found that another transmission project might be needed sooner.

So if we had built one of those options, we may be coming back to you in 10 years for another transmission project instead of 20, for instance.

So since like 2012, we've looked at a number of different transmission line options.

And I don't want to go through the alphabet on them because I remember the confusion about that.

But we've looked going south, going north, going through Chapel Hill, going through the county.

Yes.

Yes.

You've looked at a number.

Okay.

Thanks.

Yeah, Nick.

Just uh up back to Mill Creek.

You're basically saying that the transmission line is of greater importance right now than Mill Creek is.

And with a lot limited resources, we need to be putting our resources in the transmission line.

We had previously purchased the equipment for Mill Creek substation, and that was tasked to go to Bolstead.

And so that equipment has been put into service or is being put into service.

So we don't have the equipment, so we'd have to re probably request more funds.

I mean it's that upgrade was still a very big, very useful to the electric system.

Um as a whole it put off the need for Mill Creek, and we're just you're right, it's just about the transmission.

Okay.

Thanks.

Quick question the Bolstead substation.

I don't see it on this map.

Where is it in relation to this?

Bolstead's at the far northeast.

Okay.

It's near the landfill.

Okay, I see it.

Thank you.

Yeah, Jackie.

Um just for clarification, you said that the Voder School Nyphong route, that was the old option A.

Yes.

Okay.

And that option was rejected by council and the groups that they put together.

It was approved by council, and we started the construction, and council, and he'll go over this in a in the history if you want to wait for the I can wait.

Thank you.

Okay.

We're going to zoom in a little bit later in the presentation.

Uh this is the cost that uh we came up over the past year.

The transmission estimate was provided by Black and Veach.

Uh the distribution was an in-house estimate.

It's not, I wouldn't say that it's I would say that the transmission estimates we contracted with Black and Beach for a 10%, a 90% estimate.

So it's it's pretty good.

Um the distribution, those those values are less certain.

Um the work on the distribution does not include Boone Electric.

There are several boon electric circuits along Voder School and Scott Boulevard.

The distribution is to that work is to put that distribution underground before we construct the transmission line.

The distribution along the Chapel Hill route, those those circuits share the polls with the 69 KV line is required that we underground those lines over a period of however long it takes before we begin construction of the transmission line to ensure that the customers that live along that route maintain their electric during that time.

I just want to be sure about the cost here, and this is a historic question too.

That these are the who provided these numbers for Chapel Hill and Water School on the transmission that was black and beach, and that was done in the past year.

Okay.

So these are more recent numbers than what we have in uh Dave's Rell's memo that's also attached.

Yes.

We were directed uh the the memo and the work session that we had in 2024, council directed staff to come back with updated cost estimates.

So that's what this is.

This is the updated cost estimate.

A significant update.

Yes.

Okay, thanks.

Yeah, Valerie.

Thanks.

Um you said we contracted for a 90% cost estimate.

Um does that have a shelf life with it?

How long do we expect that to be accurate?

Not long, the way prices are going up.

I mean, uh the the change in material costs alone have been significant in the last five years.

So as I mentioned earlier, this these numbers do not include the Mill Creek substation.

And we added to the slide the remainding bond authority, that bond was approved by the voters in uh 2015, which is also on your provided timeline.

So when that was uh approved by the election, it was option A or what we have, what we're calling now.

Well, the Vod was it the Voter School that was what was approved in the bond.

Is that correct?

Or did it have a particular did it have a particular uh transmission line?

That's what was advertised during the during the bond election process was that we were gonna move forward with option A transmission line project um in the actual bond uh agreement that we have with the bonding agency, it just talks about a transmission line, substations, you know, electrical work, that sort of thing.

When it appeared on the ballot, what was on the ballot?

Just the transmission line.

So the ballot language is always generic.

Right.

So what they're talking about are the promotional materials basically.

Um when they went out and started talking to the public about what was um the proceeds of the bond issue would be used for.

Okay.

So the conversation was around this particular route.

Correct.

So the ballot didn't have that specific language in it.

Correct.

Okay, thanks.

Yeah, Betsy.

Could I just ask if we could just call it the Voder School Road or the Chapel Hill line and not have to go with the A, the B, the B1, the A3, whatever.

Because I just remember that being massively confusing.

So if we could just it is The two we have in front of us are Vader and Chapel.

Those are the two we have.

So if we could just find that way.

Thank you.

Um so a little bit of the history.

Um actually doing research this afternoon in response to Mr.

Foster's question.

I think that we got the years wrong on the first two bullets.

Uh the transmission line or the Vader School route that included Mills Creek substation was proposed in 2013, not 2016.

And in 2013, we began a public information campaign surrounding that leading up to the bond election.

Um the uh in leading up to that, we've gone over it a lot.

Many routes other than what I've highlighted were studied.

Council paused the project after a public hearing on in 2016.

And I think that is uh January.

Well, so in 2013, council approved us moving forward with the project, and and staff was actively moving forward with a transmission line project along the Voder School route.

And it was in 2016 that council requested an additional public hearing.

And that's when the project was put on pause.

So there was a three-year period in which work was being done.

Yes.

And was that design work at that point?

Yes, that was survey work, design work, geotechnical investigation work.

Around the been broken and procurement.

We purchased two transformers.

Right.

And two.

Which have since been used at the end of the year.

Which has since been used at Bolstead.

Okay.

And that was um, I know I know that the city went out and said to folks what kind of transmission line um polls would you like, and they were having interested parties meetings about that.

And that appeared to be when everybody all of a sudden realized that this transmission line was actually where it was actually going.

And they seemed to not have although you'd had interested parties meetings, there were a lot of people who seemed to have not heard about this at all.

As somebody who sat through that 2016 public hearing, you know, it was like sort of like the public hearing we had last Monday night, except like twice as long.

Um, you know, with people that were uh upset about everything.

But when we paused it, I don't think any of us had at least I didn't anticipate that we wouldn't see it again for nine years.

So at that time, and I think I know we're we're I know we're getting a little bit detailed here, but I think it's important.

This has been around for a long time.

And you know, it it needs to move forward one way or another.

So understanding when things happened and why they happened is really important moving forward here, as any of those things might move, any of those reasons, for instance, if opposition or whatever will also move forward, I can assume.

So it it's really important to know when things happened and what the content of those conversations were at the time.

I I think I would add, besides it being important to know the history of it, is the lessons learned from it.

One of the things that we heard often was you mentioned the interested parties meeting about this.

One of the things we've heard often is that we sent it to customers.

And so to understand what about residents that are maybe not customers of water and light, uh because that was part of the conversation.

So answering that question that somebody has raised, which is that we informed customers of Water and Light, but maybe not customers of Boone Electric that were in the geographic.

So if you can respond to that, that um that concern that we've heard, or at least been told.

And then also like going forward, you said we're gonna start it again, regardless of what we do.

We're about to send out messages.

Who are we sending out these postcards to?

Sure.

And uh looking back at the uh 2016 memo that was sent to council, uh, it kind of outlines some of the public outreach that happened.

There, and this is even prior to the bond election, there were multiple meetings, multiple mailings, uh, and then some of the meetings, there were some meetings for the areas that were directly impacted.

So our typical meeting procedure is we do notify the neighbors that are immediately adjacent to construction.

So those people were definitely notified.

Now, whether or not some of the neighbors that maybe live, you know, 400 meters or further away from the line, they may not have been directly notified about an interested parties meeting.

Um, but all the adjacent property owners were notified, whether they were Boone Electric customers or City of Columbia customers, and there were multiple, multiple different kinds of meetings that were held.

And I I don't remember them off the top of my head.

I would have to read through and and send a summary.

Uh, but yes, as part of the outreach for this, we will again have to have multiple meetings on this.

We're we're not gonna be able to do one open house style meeting or anything like that.

This is gonna require some significant uh public outreach.

Yeah, so it sounds like and Betsy, you might be able to answer this that a lot of the opposition was aesthetic in nature, it was about the kinds of polls that it was going to require to put this line up, is my impression.

No, where they were gonna be well, yes, but where they were gonna be, how it was gonna affect property values if it was gonna cause um cancer or other medical problems, if it was going to affect property values again.

People had um run into um they'd asked for, I think Boone hospital had asked for uh variants to come closer to the road when they built one of their senior living places over there, and then they were like, Well, that's gonna be too close to our senior living place.

It's like, well, we've been working on this transmission line forever.

You know, it so there were multiple things, but it was just you know, a never-ending stream of people.

So in two was it 2016 when there was a uh when council put a pause on that one on Voder School.

Then the expectation was that again, you might be able to answer this better.

The expectation was that at that point other options might be explored.

Is that right?

So the idea was not to pause it to kill it, but deposit in light of the possibility of other things.

Of other of another of another line.

I mean, at that point there was the ABC, there were three or four different lines, and although this was the one that the city recommended, you know, you could have gone south.

I mean, there were other theoretical options until we looked in those more closely and got a lot of pushback from those property owners or you know, Amran's like, well, you can use the lines north of us if you want, you're gonna have to get your own easements.

And it was like, well, if the idea is to have these things spread out, that's not very helpful.

So there is has been a process since that time to explore other options and there were studies done and so forth.

Including the next thing they'll talk about that integrated electric resource booster plan.

Right.

Okay.

Quick question.

A little bit off topic, and if you don't know the exact answer, a ballpark will suffice.

The existing line up Chapel Hill.

When was that constructed?

The distribution line?

Earlier.

The one they're looking at piggybacking off of is it's a distribution now, but to potentially upgrade it to transmission, that one?

No, it is.

It's a 69 kilovolt transmission.

But not a 161.

Sorry, not a 16.

Right, not a 161.

But is it that far?

Is it that old?

I I would expect it would be the 60s or 70s.

Yeah, that's what we're guessing, the 60s, but we we don't know.

Yeah, a lot of that housing within.

Yeah, okay.

Thanks.

Um, so as Dr.

Peters mentioned, um council convened an integrated electric resource and master plan task force.

Um, and they operated from 2019, had a nice little break around COVID, and presented their report in 2022, and their recommendation um was for the Chapel Hill route.

And that information information on that route came from members of the task force and was evaluated by the consultant for the task force, which was Siemens.

Uh and then we had a couple of additional works work uh work sessions with council and the during the last council work session.

Uh you asked for an upgraded cost comparison between the Chapel Hill route and the Voder School route.

And that was in 2024 at the very end of 2024.

And now here we are.

Nice question about that.

Is that typical timing to expect?

Um about a year to get the estimate?

Yeah, a year and plus some because wasn't it like October that we were talking about?

So it took a little while to negotiate the contract, and then it it these they basically had to design the project to get this level of cost estimate.

Is that mean we saved money on the design?

Oh your face says no.

Okay.

All right.

So this is typical of a cost estimate.

For this for this level of detail for this um confidence value in this number.

Yes.

Now the undergrounding number, which in my mind I I forgot to, we forgot to put that on the slide.

So Blacken Beach estimated a three to five times multiplier if we're going to underground the transmission.

But as staff, we believe it'll be more like five to eight times multiplier.

Yeah, and their confidence level in that is much less than what it is in the overhead.

Undergrounding the whole thing?

Underground the whole thing.

Can I ask a quick question?

I'm sorry to be naive about this.

Um, you know, so it's part of the con like looking back at the minutes from that really long meeting that Betsy had to attend.

Um part of the conversation was around like near schools or new near the health clinic.

So, like, is that ever an option to underground in certain locations because of proximity of certain facilities nearby?

Is that ever and I understand that adds to the cost, but just asking whether or not that's ever done.

It's always an option.

It's done in very urban areas where there's just no room.

Yeah.

Um it depends on what the goal of undergrounding is.

If it's aesthetic, I don't consider it valuable.

If it's concern about RF, it brings the lines closer to people.

Okay.

And the dirt does not significantly attenuate that.

Oh, Nick would like you to say that RF is radiation frequency.

You don't have to say it though.

I said it now.

Um I think is there ever an um a need to do it because of concern over just like if we think about like what we just saw in two weeks ago storms happening in Tennessee and other places where you know undergrounding for some of them, like would have potentially put their grid back online sooner than the 25,000 customers that are without power.

So I didn't know, like, is that ever a consideration in the cost of the You could consider it again?

It's three to five times.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Appreciate it.

You know, we're putting up metal poles.

They'll sustain some pretty significant storms.

Yeah.

I think that was probably another question from that public hearing was about undergrounding, but the cost is very impressive.

You can go on, sorry.

Thank you.

Messing with your with your own.

Hey, Eric said to ask questions at any time.

I know you guys are fine.

I follow directions.

This is great.

I I like it.

Um so this this we're gonna talk about risks a little bit.

I'm gonna kind of cruise through the slide and get to the map.

Um we've had less load growth recently than we anticipated back in 2020 when this project was identified.

So it was a little less urgent, but we are starting to see again significant um growth.

And that could be it's it's it's a potential when it comes to electric vehicles, electrification, or just general growth in the area where um where people are choosing to live.

Nick has a question.

I have a lot of questions, I guess.

Uh but I'm not gonna apologize for it, you know.

Um some of the some of the concerns, other concerns have been raised is about whether or not um this particular transmission is line is uh line is important or should be prioritized in light of our growth in other parts of the city, particularly the northeast.

Um I see you know, we're looking at cost increasing in the you know, load is not increased as much as anticipated, but what about that that issue where we we're gonna need the electricity as we grow because we will grow in different parts of the city?

I am going to pause I'm gonna like delay the answer to that for about a couple minutes.

Put a pen in it, that's fine.

Right.

When we get to the map, it'll make more sense.

All right.

So um we've been approached by uh various firms about various customers, both uh uh various customers about firm capacity requests.

These are industrial level customers who want to import quite a bit of power.

Um general risk is during summer afternoons.

We are a summer peaking utility uh between 2 and 8 p.m.

So it's when people get off work and turn on their air conditioner and start cooking dinner, watching TV.

Those are the high load times, and it's generally yeah, it's generally being between two and eight.

When we have a peak, it's usually around 5 p.m.

Um and we talked a little bit about long lead times on the transmission project.

If we get started, it's going to be a 10-year process.

And as Aaron mentioned, the costs are not as certain as we would like.

And then we discussed a little earlier about contingencies that can lead to load shedding.

So in the map, uh this map's it's a little busy.

The red line is the uh electric service territory.

It does not match the city limits.

The city limits is the black line in each of the wards is outlined here.

Sorry about that.

Turn off your phone, Eric.

Um the green line is 161 kilovolt transmission lines.

Uh the orange line are 69 KV transmission lines.

And these are all existing and doesn't show any of the um proposed routes.

You'll notice that Perchy Creek has a single 161 kilovolt transmission line leading to it.

Our primary goal with this project is to connect that substation to another green line.

The closest place where a green line exists is grindstone substation.

We have discussed other options that connect that Perchy Creek substation to grindstone various routes going to Bolstead, which is farther away.

But the fact that a 161 KV transmission line exists up and down the east side of Columbia generally means that any growth there we can accommodate with our existing transmission.

Any growth there.

I'm sorry, can I pause you really quick on that?

Is that because of it being a weather-related incident?

Because I know you you mentioned recently in that post about asking resident customers to conserve because we were being asked to like kind of turn on everything, that we had had a planned takedown for maintenance that we were delaying because of that.

So we've requested to take down for maintenance, but did not been denied it because of our redundancy.

So that incident uh because of the very cold weather.

We were doing some maintenance work, and I believe that was on our 69 transmission line.

Uh it was planned maintenance work.

In normal days, it's not a problem for us to do some of that maintenance work, but because it was going to be so cold, they wanted to be sure that uh anything that could be operational was operational so that power could flow freely everywhere it needed to get to during that very cold spell.

We were operating all of our units during that very cold spell, and that was to not only support Columbia, but to support our region.

Um it wasn't because we were asking people to conserve for the benefit of the whole region, not because we were having internal problems, but to benefit the entire grid was why we were asking people to conserve because things that happen elsewhere impact us, and things that happen here impact other people.

So we're we're all definitely connected with this electric grid.

So that was that instance.

What Eric's talking about is when we're uh like in the summertime or certain times when we want to do maintenance work that we need to do on the larger 161 transmission line.

Sometimes MISO tells us no, you can't do that outage right now.

And so it makes us delay doing our own maintenance work, which in turn impacts long-term reliability.

Whereas if we had more options, more 161 lines through town, then we would have the the ability to stay on on track with our maintenance.

Okay.

Thank you.

I don't know if that helped.

Okay, okay.

That was correct.

So most of our maintenance is done in the spring and fall.

Um low use.

Low loads.

Low load times.

Yeah.

Um we've talked about a little bit about load shed.

There are particular contingencies that can lead to load shed.

Discussing those specific contingencies would be the topic of the closed session.

Um so if you want to do that, I can continue if if you want to do that now, we can.

If you want me to continue and we can readdress it later, we can.

Um I don't I don't have a plan.

Uh could could really use a plan for this one.

Um Don has a question, and then Aaron, I'll look to you and kind of guidance on whether or not to go into closed and then come back to this.

Right.

So Don, question.

Yeah, that was my question is are there other items in the presentation that we could possibly go into closed session for?

I would rather have one closed session than in and out.

This is the opportunity for the closed session where we talk about the specific risks and the specific load shed.

Right, but we are saying we can skip ahead in the presentation and then come back to this for closer.

Because after after this, we're just talking about the specific routes and the details about the routes, and then back to the estimate.

Let's do that, and then we can come.

We can then I can move us into closed.

Um so here's this is another illustration of the routes, just so we were reminded what the routes were.

These are the poles that were identified by Black and Beach, the consultant who did the estimate for Chapel Hill.

This is a tandem structure.

This is the most numerous of the poles that we would see along Chapel Hill.

Uh the corner structure, this is one that we would see as it turns the corner up Scott Boulevard and maybe a couple other areas along the route, depending on the specific design.

Um this is a zoomed-in view of an area near Chapel Hill and Forum.

One of the particular um challenges of this transmission path is that it does not follow the road.

It cuts across parking lots, businesses, streets, front yards, backyards, and is very close to uh some homes.

Uh this is continues along through uh the forested area south of Chapel Hill.

Uh and this is where it turns up Chapel Hill onto Scott Boulevard.

And this is where it turns up Chapel Hill onto Scott Boulevard.

Uh the both routes are located in the same area, the same path uh once you get north of Chapel Hill up to Perchy Creek substation.

Um we've included a couple of these are just Google street views of particularly challenging areas.

Um if you kind of use your imagination to replace this pole in that person's front yard with one from the illustration schematic.

And this is the current Chapel Hill.

This this exists, yes.

Okay.

Uh this is another one out somebody's uh back window.

Uh there's a number of distribution circuits on there uh that shows kind of why the costs are was so high for underground.

You know, there's a number of circuits there on that pole.

Um this is another view of that actually on Chapel Hill traveling uh looking towards the west.

Um the path again, we're gonna go over the green path now, the Voder School Path.

Um I don't know if anyone uh noticed the the Voder School path is just slightly longer, half a mile longer.

Um didn't mention that before.

Oops.

And a note on the Chapel Hill route is those transmission line poles, if they are indeed from the 60s or 70s, if we go the other route, we're still gonna need to come through and replace those poles uh on the Chapel Hill route, but it's not as disruptive replacing a pole as it would be putting in a brand new transmission line.

So because we can do the poles like one at a time, whereas the transmission line, it's you'll have to do sections at a time.

So you clarify um we're gonna have to update the Chapel Hill regardless?

Update the poles.

We're we need to replace the poles.

They're getting past their useful life.

Okay, so but not necessarily the lines, but right, not the lines themselves, but the the poles we would need to update.

Yeah, and this is in light of like the event we had the tornado, and we we did lose some poles in that case.

These were probably of about the same vintage, I'm guessing.

Could be, could be, yeah.

We do inspect the poles regularly, and if there's one that's you know it needs immediate attention, we take care of it.

But you know, just as a matter of updating and maintain maintaining your infrastructure, you try to replace it before it gets that bad.

Can you also clarify when you talked about the line would be like cutting through parking lots and businesses and backyards?

Would there be any additional poles placed, or is it just replacing the poles in their current locations with different structures?

So if we went with Chapel Hill, are we gonna be putting a new something in someone's backyard?

So the poles wouldn't go exactly in the same place.

Um they would be offset somewhat.

So that might cross a property line or it may be in a new location that somebody hasn't seen before.

Okay.

And they're bigger, are these larger poles?

Yes.

So again, much more upheaval, too.

Disruption, whatever, to put in the new poles than to replace the existing poles one at a time.

Yes.

Okay.

So this pole structure is was was uh ident is what was identified for the Voder school route.

The idea here is that the foundation would uh be in an easement, but the lines are hanging out to the side, those would hang over the right-of-way so that they are as far away from property as we can possibly get them.

Um this is near uh Bethel and Nifong.

Eric Valerie had a question.

I was just gonna ask, since we didn't see that kind of graphic in the slides for the previous ones, are you not able to use that style pole on the Chapel Chapel Hill route?

So since the line does not go over a right-of-way, it's all easement.

So in instances where it's possible that we might be able to use that, but since it's a double-circuited route, in order to maintain the weight distribution, we had to put one on one side and one on the other.

What about the example in somebody's front yard?

That potentially.

That's why you have to use the pole where it's on both sides.

Because you have an easement there, and you have to stay in the middle of the easement.

In this example that you're showing, you could hang it over on the one side.

That I got for from the line on the map, I'm asking the one that it looked like it was in somebody's front yard, but over a cul de sac.

Right, for that one pole, but there's another pole behind it, right?

So backyard, I'm assuming.

Right.

And so you you're probably not going to want to change polls in a straight line.

Got it.

Um this alignment, the green line uses the old option A alignment that was identified by that construction company.

Um this is Bethel and Nifong and up at Forum and Nyphong, Bedford Walk and Boone Hospital South.

Um this is a Sinclair close to Mill Creek Elementary.

And then Scott Boulevard.

And there's a couple of street views here.

Um of the polls was identified to go right by Bedford Walk, which would be right behind that car.

And then we end up useful.

You can kind of use your imagination, another poll here in front of Boone Hospital South.

And um here the alignment switches sides of the road and goes on to the north side.

Um the alignment is not set in stone.

We can redo the alignment.

This is just kind of the alignment we chose for the illustration.

When he says alignment, whether it's on the north side of the street or the south side of the street.

We're not going to want to zigzag, obviously, but you know, we can stay on one side for a period and switch.

In this example, that is a distribution line.

That is a distribution line.

And so we would be then doing a transmission line up top and distribution lines below, like sharing a pole with both?

We would probably underground this distribution and rebuild part of this poll.

I think part of it is Boone Electric and part of it out is ours.

We'd have to reach an agreement with Boone exactly what they wanted.

In the original long, long ago, we were going to underground Boone Electric as well.

They do not desire that the lines be undergrounded.

So we'd have to come up with something that would be part of the public improvement process to nail exactly what that is down.

And that's just a clarification.

That was the Sinclair Road roundabout.

Mill Creek Elementary is to the right.

And Woodcrest Chapel to the Reddit.

Woodcrest Chapels in the in the view.

So if I understand you correctly, this picture here, that wooden pole would go away.

And those lines would be undergrounded because they're distribution lines.

And then the only thing then the only thing that would be there would be the taller transmission line.

Is that correct?

I would say most likely with the possible.

And then we'll go what we can move on with Boone Electric.

And there are communication lines on there.

So the you know, bright speed and those folks.

So it gets deeper and deeper.

It does.

This is actually the last slide.

This is again the cost comparison is the same as the first one.

Um questions for staff before we go into discussions around load shedding and closed session.

Yeah, Don and then Betsy and then Nick.

So if this voters between these two, bottom line, remaining bond authority, 29.8 million, and that's to be issued, that's what we could use for this.

Yes.

So if we went with Water School, we'd have to make up roughly five million, whereas Chapel Hill 20, 25.

Would we be able to cover either one of those out of reserves or revenue without having to request another bond issue?

Maybe.

I'm trying to think the best way to answer this.

When we issue the bonds, we'll have to raise rates to cover the that bond payment.

And then it's a matter of how much additional we're going to need to raise rates, depending on which option we choose.

If you go with the $56 billion option, then we have to we'll have to raise rates a significant amount.

And I don't I don't know what that number is.

Whereas the 34.9 million, probably not as much.

We may have some reserves in there, uh, but to do other projects, we're still gonna need to raise rates.

So because now you're either now you're taking away from the future projects we already have planned.

Understand.

So either regardless which way we go, like you said, there's going to be a rate increase associated with this, whether to pay for the bonds and to make up the difference.

Yes.

Or we go back, even if we do another bond require bond vote if it were approved, again, same thing.

We'd still have to raise rates to pay for those bonds as well.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right, Betsy.

I had the same question.

All right.

Nick.

Very efficient.

Is there any money left from the bond um authority that we've already issued?

We we've already issued bond authority for part of what we're doing already, right?

Right.

And that's where we're this um seems a pipe dream to me as I ask it, but is there anything remaining from that?

What's already been brought up?

Right.

So most of it we're spending on the perche substation and bullstead substation upgrades.

Uh I believe we still have some money in the um Mill Creek substation project that we could move into this.

You don't have any idea how much that is.

I think it's about three million.

Okay.

Thanks.

Yeah, Valerie.

Um we did our study to protect project expected rate increases.

Was this project considered in our plans for the transmission line?

No.

Not this expense.

I mean, at the time we thought the bonds would cover it.

And that was incorporated into the study, but our most recent study.

The one in 20, it was probably three years ago, whenever that one was.

Okay.

Not the one we used with our last budget cycle.

Correct.

We're looking at two to two and a half.

Not for the FY26 budget.

Correct.

2.5% give or take.

Right.

Every year.

Okay.

So that did not include uh us issuing these bonds.

Because you're currently in the process of doing the latest cost of service study for electric.

Is that for electric, no?

It's for a lot of for solid waste and sewer.

Did you have a clarifying with that, Valerie?

Don kind of clarified for me.

Right.

The forecast that we gave you for the FY26 budget, uh, that did not include issuing bonds for this.

When would we need to start that kind of increase?

What budget would that go with?

Usually once you issue the bonds is when you do the rate increase.

Would we need to do a new study?

No, we would just need to do some some forecasting, some evaluation.

I mean, we will plan to do a new study.

We plan to do those every five years anyway, about those cost of service studies.

So we'll be coming up on one fairly quickly.

Uh we can identify what the what the rate needs to be to cover these bonds.

Um, and then the cost of service would help us.

Tweet so that it's uh more refined.

Okay, thanks.

Any other questions for this?

Okay, so the intent now is uh we'll go into closed session to have conversations around the load shedding and any sort of risk con conversation that we need to have to help us make our decision, and then for us to come back into open session uh to continue this discussion uh to then give guidance to the utility on next steps.

Um I'll make a motion that the city council of the city of Columbia and Missouri uh to immediately go into a closed meeting in conference room 2A of City Hall to discuss leasing, purchasing, or sale of real estate by a public governmental body where public knowledge of the transaction might adversely affect the legal consideration.

So I'll make a motion that the city council of the city of Columbia in Missouri uh to immediately go into a closed meeting in conference room two A of City Hall to discuss leasing, purchasing, or sale of real estate by a public governmental body where public knowledge of the transaction might adversely affect the legal consideration, therefore, pursuant to Section 610.0212 revised statutes of Missouri and existing or proposed security systems and structural plans of real property owned or leased by a public governmental body and information that is voluntarily submitted by a non-public entity owning or operating an infrastructure to any public governmental body for use by that body to devise plans for protection of the infrastructure, the public disclosure of which would threaten public safety.

The disclosure of such information would impair the city's ability to protect the security or safety of persons or real property and the public interest and non-disclosure outweighs the public interest of disclosure of the information to be per discussed pursuant to section six ten point zero two one nineteen, othervised statutes of Missouri.

Can I have a second?

Second I guess all right.

Uh Miss Carroll.

Yes.

Miss Elwood, yes.

Missample.

Yes.

Mr.

Foster.

Yes.

Mr.

Waterman.

Yes.

Miss Peters?

Yes.

Miss Buffalo, yes.

All right.

Anyone that needs to go into the closed meeting, please join me in conference room 2A.

All of y'all can hang out until we come back.

Our um open session for the work session on February 9th, 2026.

I appreciate this.

We're discussing uh transmission line needs uh in our distribution area.

Um so uh Erin, I'm gonna kick it back over to you to kind of answer some of those um maybe uh answer any questions that we have.

Um if you have questions, I think Valerie you had a question that was maybe more um which Eric, you'll probably just remember the question that was an open session discussion that we wanted to make sure that we brought down to here, but any sort of kind of overview that you wanted to cover.

Sure.

Well, I know uh one of the questions asked was if we have some other remaining bond funding.

And I had a minute to look it up.

Uh we do have three point five million dollars existing uh of bond funding uh that we can use to start a design.

You know, we could use to hire an engineering firm and start that process again.

That's in addition to the twenty-nine point eight that you mentioned.

So we do have an additional one million dollars in another project.

Uh I hesitate to pull it out of that, but if if we need to, we can and you know, put it into this project.

So that would bring it up to 4.5 million.

We would be very close to we would be very close to being able to uh get to the say we have to get to the 34 million without any additional bonding.

Okay.

Yes.

But an electric electric rate increase regardless.

Yes, as if we issue the bonds, there's a rate increase that goes with that.

Correct.

It um a rate increase above and beyond our already expected sort of like incremental increase of every year because of the increase in cost.

Okay.

Yes.

Um I think if I remember your question correctly, it was about our relationship to our neighboring.

Do you do you want to ask that question again?

And and back given that we each affect all of our neighbors and vice versa.

Um with our strengths and weaknesses and their strengths and weaknesses, are we generally um good players?

So um in general, the answer is yes, but we participate in two major organizations that our neighbors participate in.

The first is MISO.

So they're a reliability coordinated, so they recoordinate reliability between its members.

So Amran and the City of Columbia both participated in MISO, and part of MISO's responsibility is to make sure that everything is going just fine.

Um if one of our neighbors were to have a issue, Amran associated, they would not hesitate to bring it up with us.

It's not come up a lot.

Central Electric did endorse, does endorse something.

Any improvements we make to the transmission system has a secondary benefit to everybody in the surrounding area that that's really hard to quantify.

Um the other organization is called CERC.

It used to be called Southeastern Reliability Council.

Now it's just called CERC.

And you're supposed to know what that means.

But in addition to Amran, City of Columbia, MISO, Associated Electric also belongs to that organization, and a number of larger organizations such as TVA and Duke Energy.

Um they coordinate reliability for the Southeastern United States.

Thanks.

Any other follow-up questions for this?

I and I think the curly, my question to you is kind of like so.

We're having this work session.

Last one we had was in October of 24.

You know, we got our costs back.

What are the next steps on what do you need from council on this?

Um you follow up, you have a question before he gives us that direction.

I do have a question.

Okay.

Um Black and Beach already did a lot of um design, didn't they to have to do this?

I guess my question is, you know, you were saying that Black and Beach had to do a lot of the design plans for this to give us this type of cost um estimate.

But now you're saying we're gonna have to go out and get a whole design.

Are they not the people that would do that then?

Or they might be, or we have to do an RFP.

So how do we move forward with that?

And and is the work that they did not, I mean, I feel like we've already paid for half of this design stuff.

Right.

So if you direct us to move forward with the public improvement process for this, uh we would need to go through a number of public meetings.

Uh I can't predict how long that will take.

Um then a public hearing.

And if the public hearing you direct us to move forward with the design and construction, then we would have to.

Then we would hire an engineering firm.

We would need to go through that process, the the uh request for qualification process to hire an engineer and move forward with that.

Okay.

Thanks.

Any other questions before I ask the current?

Yeah, Nick.

Going back in the timeline again and the previous actions that have been taken and taken into those who've been involved.

I'm wondering about, and this is one of the first meetings I was a part of after being elected, and was uh hearing from the IERMP.

And at that point there were five options, I think, under consideration.

We're down to two at this point.

Without digging all that up.

How how how did we get from all of those to these two?

Because I know there was some difference of opinion about how they reported out.

So it was a citizen-led task force, and they were evaluating certain alternatives.

Uh the Voders, my understanding is the Voder School NIF route was not one of the ones they evaluated.

They did evaluate the Chapel Hill route.

Um they came up with a matrix for that for those evaluations and proposals.

Uh when it came down to staff, staff was looking at what we believe is the most cost effective and efficient route, which is the Voder School NIFON route, but we also accept that the Chapel Hill route is elect electrically equivalent.

So IERMP did not consider Otter School.

I don't believe so.

They didn't.

Because I know I read through it probably, but it's been probably a year and a half ago, and I thought that was one of the options of the, as Nick said, the five.

I think in the report it was discussed.

But I don't remember it in their matrix.

Okay.

Additional questions for staff.

So DeCarlene, what are the sort of next steps on this?

Yeah, so I think kind of what Aaron was saying.

I think the first next step is to decide on which route we want to choose.

And then we have to move forward with the public improvement process, and that's going back for our public engagement meetings, public hearings, and then we'll get to the part where we have to go into start the design part.

But it's actually moving us forward with uh some direction on which way to go.

So I guess uh clarifying question, we don't do votes at work sessions, but we would just basically be saying, like showing intent, or would this come back to a council for us to to move forward?

Nancy, that might be a you question for you know, giving direction for starting the public improvement process and coming back to us.

When what would be the proper place to do that?

I mean, you can you can discuss it here and reach consensus.

Um and if there's not clarity for the city manager, then he might have you he can have you do that at a more formal city council meeting under the like the report section.

I mean my suggestion where that could occur.

Okay.

So um the kind of basis for this is whether or not we have consensus on proceeding um with going forward, knowing that you have multiple public hearings as well as additional information going out.

Multiple public meetings, my apologies.

And and then a public hearing.

Right, and doing your prior thing.

And then the public hearing after the public hearing would be when we would vote to either go forward or to not go forward.

Um and then that's when you would get a then we go after RFP to get an engineer.

For the engineering design, if yeah, yeah, Vera.

I was just gonna ask, is there a reason that we do the process in that order where we we pick one option and then bring it to the public rather than bringing these two options to the public meeting?

I'd lead a bit I that's a question I think for staff.

Um that's up to your discretion.

Well what we're asking is let's go with one and move forward.

But if can you just speak to why that's your recommendation?

So that we have clarity as we move forward, we have clarity in the meetings that this is the the one that we plan to move forward with.

I think probably it would be more of like if there's no um there's no consideration from council for one of the options, like we probably wouldn't have them even ask people about it if there was no way that I would suggest you know what I mean, like maybe that would be those sort of recommendation.

Sure.

That would be my thoughts.

Yeah.

If if if we don't want to spend $56 million, then there's no sense bringing that to the public, in my opinion.

Yeah, done.

Well, really, mine is more just a comment that you know we have the two options here, we see the significant difference in cost.

And also my understanding is that part of this is again for a redundancy standpoint.

And to my mind, piggybacking this second line with the Chapel Hill line is not really addressing that redundancy because like you said, you mentioned earlier that you know the poles are built to withstand significant weather, but by the same token we saw this past spring, we lost a couple of train, you know, a transmission line for a brief time when the MERF was uh destroyed in the tornado.

So to my mind, it would make the better option would be the Vaughn School option again, costs and adding the redundancy by having a secondary route.

So my comments.

Yeah, Nick.

Um what's been the involvement of the water and light board and uh advisory board in this process and you bring in this to us?

We haven't heard anything directly from them.

Uh sure.

This we've discussed what this work session should look like, and they gave us some input on what they uh thought you might want to hear, because there are some newer members on there.

So they helped with that as far as seeing the entire presentation, they're seeing it the same time you are.

We do have a meeting on Wednesday where they plan to discuss this work session.

And if you would like their feedback, I'm sure they would be happy to provide that as well.

Um, if they're meeting on Wednesday, do we want to wait and hear from you all the next Monday at the regular city council meeting as to just what their recommendation is and then make a decision then?

Would that make people feel to be during staff reports, staff comments at the end, and then it would have to be a comments at the end of the day.

We wouldn't be able to get it on the agenda, so it would have to be at the staff report.

And and that's that I mean it's appreciated to have that sort of feedback for this on going forward.

Yeah, and that would just delay this a week, which is not even exactly a week, yeah.

What's another week?

What's another week?

After 20 years, yeah.

I think that would be appreciated.

Um I think so, but before we move on to kind of getting that feedback, I think some of the things that um I I would be interested as we move forward with this is to see that sort of communications plan that is expected that includes things like the history roadmap that passed out before.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Um, as well as um, you know, there's been the discussions on the other options that were in there and the reports that were done and why those were not, like why did they then score lower?

It gets really confusing when you talk about the alphabet because some of them changed names.

Like in one A became a different letter or a different number in one of the reports.

So maybe it was very confusing.

So clarifying some of those would help us to answer those questions.

And then, yeah, the plan for outreach and communication to customers as well as residents nearby, either of the plans that we go forward with any other questions on this.

Um sounds like a plan.

So I I will say that um from my stance in looking at these, um 20 million dollars is a big difference.

Um and so I mean I I'm I I appreciate hearing from the Water Night Advisory Board on this.

Um, but that I I I my own personal opinion is looking at this is that's a lot of money, and I I don't know whether or not the the voters and our ratepayers can help with that.

I think knowing the relationship with the other and and the outreach that did take place with both Amran, Boone Electric, all our our providers around with trying to tie into those lines will be really helpful in us feeling confident in making this decision because those did seem like viable options probably 10 years ago.

So knowing about that it it was no longer an option, I think would be really useful to know from the the residents that we're hearing from.

Um, because yeah, that's a big cost and and the risk that we have um for planning for the future is a big deal.

So any other feedback from council before we go on to anything else.

Well, thank you.

So we look forward, so we will expect during staff comments on Monday, our February 16th meeting, that we will hear the feedback from Water Night Advisory Board on recommendations, and then at that meeting, council will give direction on next steps with a public improvement for a transmission line improvements.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

Is there anything else for the good of the cause?

I will just say one thing I will be sharing out is that um in relation to electric.

I will just say one thing I will be sharing out is that in relation to electric, um, one of our major partners that we have uh in Sykston, the power plant there is looking to potentially shut down and they're doing their strategic plans.

So I'll probably be sharing a letter with council that we'll do for encouraging them to look at alternative energies as well as gas generation and other things on behalf of the because we're a large customer of theirs to encourage them to do that process.

So I'll share that out and maybe ask you all for your opinion on Monday.

Anything else?

All right, I'll go ahead and close our work session at 758.

Thank you.