The Operations, Parks and Recreation Committee of the Stamford Board of Representatives met remotely on September 24, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. Chair Daniel R. Sandford called the meeting to order. In attendance were Vice Chair John Pelliccia and Representatives Bradford, Didelot, Gardner, and Zachary. Representatives Beckham, Finkel, and Salas were excused. Staff present included Energy and Sustainability Engineer Brandon Mark and Senior Transportation Planner Luke Buttenwieser. The committee considered two resolutions approving cost recovery fee models for electric vehicle (EV) chargers at the Bell Street Garage and the Government Center Garage.
The committee approved both resolutions by voice votes of 6-0-0 (Sandford, Pelliccia, Bradford, Didelot, Gardner, Zachary in favor). Chair Sandford noted that the items will go to the full Board of Representatives on October 5, 2026, then return to the committee for a public hearing, and finally go to the full Board for final approval on November 4, 2026. Thus, final approval is not expected until November.
The meeting adjourned at 7:19 p.m.
I will go ahead and call this meeting to order. It is 7 p.m. on September the 24th for the operations parks and rec committee. I'm Chair Sanford. And I will go ahead and Sheila, can you call attendance for me and we'll make it official? Representative Beckham is excused. Representative Bradford. Okay. Representative Didlow. Present. Representative Gardner. Present. Representative Finkels excuse. Representative Politia. Present. Representative Silas is excused. Chair Sanford. Present. Representative Zachary. Present. And Representative Bradford again. Present. Okay. Awesome. And then also in attendance from the city, we've got Luke Buttonweezer from the traffic department as well as Brandon Mark. So what I'm going to do, we have two items on today's agenda. And if you could scroll down just a little bit, Sheila on the on the screen. Yeah, there we go. If I could entertain a motion to approve item one, OPR 32.018 resolution approving cost recovery fee model for electric vehicle charges at the Bell Street Garage. Second. I have a second. So at this time I'm going to open it up for discussion. Mr. Mark from the administration is here tonight to give us a little background of what this resolution is. So Brandon, if you go by Brandon, I'm I'm going to go ahead and give the floor to you. And then after you're done, I will open it up to the floor to for a little QA if you don't mind. Yeah, there you go. Yes. Okay, cool. Sorry about that. Um everybody, my name is Brandon. I'm uh from the city's engineering department. I'm an energy engineer and sustainability manager. Um so the items before you today are two cost recovery models for levying fees at both the Bell Street garage and the government center garage. Um this is part of kind of a long time coming project where we received a grant a number of years ago to install chargers at both of those garages. And through the the will of the the board at the time, they did request that um the city recoup all operating costs um associated with the usage of the chargers. Um the grant does not allow us to make a profit for the first three years of operation. Uh so this model kind of proposes like that that the fee that each driver would pay would be just equivalent to the typical cost that it is to operate the chargers, and that mostly boils down to the specific uh kilowatt hour or like dollar per kilowatt hour rate, the electric rate for each garage, as well as uh some overhead costs that will come as a uh like a flat service fee uh for each usage. Um and that and the the way that this is set up is instead of just saying that this is going to be you know 25 cents uh per kilowatt hour forever, um, the reason it's more of a model is because these operating costs will change over time. Um, as you know, electricity keeps getting more and more expensive.