The Board of Public Utilities held a regular meeting on June 17, 2026 at 5:30 PM in the Municipal Building Council Chambers. Key actions included approving a one-year gas rate increase ordinance for public hearing, supporting a charter amendment to remove the utility profit transfer to the General Fund, reviewing undergrounding cost estimates, and discussing reserve policy alternatives. The meeting was attended by Chair Robert Gibson, Vice Chair Matt Heavner, and Members Jennifer Hollingsworth and Eric Stromberg (quorum of 4). Member Charles Nakhleh was absent.
Good evening. I call to order this June 17th, 2026 regular meeting of the Board of Public Utilities. Thanks everyone for participating this evening. We will start as usual with uh opening the floor to public comment on matters not otherwise on our agenda this evening. Do we have any public comment? I see one. Sure. Can I not please state your name for the record and limit your comments to three minutes if you would please? Okay. That my name is Ray Sarder. I'm a resident of White Rock. And what I wanted to address is this residential demand that's being proposed. In principle, I oppose it because we're paying for the electricity twice. That the electric you're going to have an additional fee for our peak demand hour. And we're already paying the rate forever that hour is given in our forthcoming two-tier system. Given that if reality it can't, there isn't it won't be eliminated. I also oppose how it's being proposed. That the proposal is our peak demand over any 24 hours of the month. Whereas the purpose of the two-tier pricing system is to get us to shift out of the peak demand for the system. And that's what this res if you were going to have this residential demand. It should have that same purpose also. My wife often gets up early, 5 a.m. and she likes to turn on what she calls her servants. So the dishwasher will come on, the laundry, the dryer, the washing machine. She'll put a roast in the oven and all that's going on. And you're not going to tell me that her causing our personal peak to be at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. is going to put a burden on our electrical system. That there's a if we're going to have the residential demand, there's much better ways to do it. You've already identified six hours of the day where you want people not to uh to shift out of. So limit put the residential demand for the peak of that six hours is one way. Another way is what's the peak for the whole system of the month? What's that hour? Then identify the customers that drive that peak. And a third possible way is if uh set a goal, say you know what the the system capacity is. We and I understand we want to don't want to have to grow the system. We want to keep the system uh as it is or grow it as least as possible. Set a goal like 95% of our capacity, and every time there's an hour that exceeds that 95 capacity, then you identify who's the customers that are driving that high demand, and that way we will achieve this goal of shifting us away from our peak demand, driving the system to be ever larger. And that's my comments for today. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other public comment in chambers? Is there any online? Thank you, Chair Gibson. For members of the public who are joining us tonight on Zoom, when Chair Gibson calls for public comment, please use the raise hand function. If you are participating by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. If you wish to make a public comment at this time, please raise your hand on Zoom. Chair Gibson, there are no hands raised. Thank you. That takes us to approval of the agenda.