Excellent. Alright. Let's go on the record. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Arizona Corporation Commission. I am administrative law judge Sarah Harpring, and I've been assigned to preside over this matter. This is the time set for the prehearing conference for phase two of docket number WS zero one three zero three a twenty four zero one three zero in the matter of the application of EPCOR Water Arizona Inc, San Tan Water and Wastewater Districts for a determination of its water and wastewater utility
plant and property, for increases in its rates and charges for water and wastewater utility service, and for related approvals. Phase two specifically concerns EPCOR's proposed annual rate adjustment mechanism or ARAM. I'll now take the appearances of the parties who've indicated that they intend to participate in this phase two. Sorry. So for EPCOR. Good afternoon, your honor. Jason Gellman on behalf of the applicant, EPCOR Water Arizona Inc. I'll also note that Gregory Stein will be appearing throughout the hearing, middle initial a.
And also to help us out, our corporate paralegal, Catherine Minland, who's sitting behind me since, the only thing I get is older and slower over time. So I appreciate the assistance. I understand that. Thank you, mister Gellman. Ferruco? Good afternoon. Your honor, Daniel Pozewski, Sarah Barasco Ferruco, I'm getting notice that Granicus is cutting out. Great. Rose, did you hear that? Or, Mike, did you hear that? I don't know how to verify whether it is or it isn't. Coming. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Should I carry on, or should I recess?
Take Okay. Thank you. It may be their Internet. Yeah. Must be on our side. Okay. Excellent. Then, thank you, mister And No problem. Steve Pratt, are you on the phone? No. I think he said he wasn't going to be at the prehearing, but to be honest, I don't remember. And I have a call in user one. I don't know who that is. So for the utilities division. Yes, your honor. Good afternoon. Eli Golub, staff attorney. I'm here with my fellow staff attorney, Ben Kayeras. Nice to meet you, mister Kayeras. Have I missed any party to phase one who indicated that they wanted to participate?
K. Calling user one, that's not you? Very good. Then for the record, I'm gonna note the parties from phase one who have made filings indicating that they don't intend to participate. One was Pulte Home Company LLC. Another was Anthem at Merrill Ranch Community Council Inc. Another was VPMRV LLC. Another was Lennar Arizona LLC, and another was RMGRES one c LLC. They have all indicated they don't intend to participate. The only remaining party, was Langley Freedom Farms LLC,
which didn't make a filing regarding participating in phase two, but has not made any filings indicating that it does intend to participate, so I'm assuming that they don't. Have I missed anyone? Okay. Very good. Let's talk about witness scheduling. I would note that mister Pratt was given a date and time certain. It's Wednesday at 9AM. He's also been granted permission to testify telephonically, so we need to work around that. But I don't think his testimony will be very long. So I'm gonna list off your witnesses,
and tell me what order you'd like to call them in and whether you have requests about their scheduling. So for you, EPCOR, I've got mister Locum, mister Boissel, and mister De Asendis. That's correct, your honor. And the only witness that will not be here in person is mister De Asendis. Since he's on East Coast time and he asked to testify earlier in the week, I've and I've reached out to the parties about this. I don't believe there's an objection. We would like to have a date and time certain for mister De Asendis at Tuesday at 9AM, Arizona time. Tuesday, 9AM.
That is okay with me. And other than that, we'll start with mister Locum, and then we may have to interrupt mister Boisel or whoever is the witness Tuesday morning? Correct. Mister Locum and mister Boisel will be here in person. Okay. Excellent. Then for Ruko, I have mister Madsen, mister Walters, and miss Zwick. So your honor, our preference of order would be, Madsen excuse me, Walters Okay. Madsen, and Cynthia. However, we do need one for a date certain. That's mister Walter's July 30 afternoon or thirty first in the morning.
Okay. Let's say July 30 afternoon. So 1PM? Should work. Okay. So that is Thursday, 1PM, mister Walters. Is everybody okay with that? Yes, your honor. Great. And then for staff, I have miss Hunsaker, but I also kind of have mister Parcel. So could you clarify that for me, please? We had planned on calling miss Hunsicker as our sole witness in phase two. Okay. Did your, filing indicated that you might bring mister Pressell as well, but you're not planning to do that yourself?
Not, no. We're not. Okay. We we we may change our mind, but we're not planning on doing that. Okay. In case the Yeah. Does anyone else have any I don't have any questions for mister Parcel. I was here for phase one Oh, okay. Good. As were you all. Yep. Does anyone else have questions for mister Parcel? We didn't have any questions, your honor. I I would have some questions for mister Parcel if your honor determines that he otherwise needs to appear. But I think what, I have to discuss with him, I should be able to to accomplish the other witnesses. Okay. Very good. Then I will assume that we are not going to be seeing mister Parcel.
Yes, your honor. As my colleague had just pointed out, we had we we were being over inclusive just in case the court or anyone else had questions. Thank you. Very good. I don't think we have any pending motions. Am I right? Correct. Correct. But at the appropriate time, I wanna respond to some testimony. Okay. Well, first, let's talk about exhibits. I've got up here two copies of, of course, list of witnesses and exhibits. Thank you. I have here I I have staff's back in the office. I have something from mister Pratt as well.
Ruko, you, have given me one copy of your exhibits, and I noticed when you made your filing for your exhibits, pardon me, and I haven't gone through it all because it's 800 pages long approximately. I haven't either. You use you reused some numbers, and it appears that the exhibits that are here are labeled as you want well, you reused eight, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve. Those were admitted below. You have a new eight, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve.
They can't have the same name. I know that my admin has emailed your admin about it, but what do you wanna do, and what does the actual filing look like? So the filing tracks the filed exhibit list, which is our proposed exhibits for this phase two numbered one through, 27. Now some of those exhibits, we included for ease of reference. They're copies of the phase one direct testimony that had already been admitted in phase one. So we do wanna keep hard copies of those available for yourself and the witnesses,
but they don't need to be replicated within the filing. I think given the need to change the numbers, it would make sense if your honor would give Ruko leave to file an an amended list exhibit list that conforms the numbers to, to pick up where we left off down below and reorders those. That would be helpful, but they'll have to be relabeled as filed, and copies of what the actual exhibits are going to be for phase two
will need to be provided with the labeling. One for me, one for the, official exhibits. I understand that, your honor. It'll be a a little bit of an undertaking for us to get this untangled. May we have your honor's permission to bring those exhibits with us on Monday morning if they cannot be untangled this afternoon? Okay. To what extent is that gonna create a problem for the other parties because they may be referring to things, and it's gonna be a little hard to know what to call something, what the overlap is.
That's fair enough. One of the things we could do in the alternative is I could keep our order the same and then relabel them using the convention Ruko p one, Ruko p two to indicate the second phase. Okay. I for and maybe I was just I looked at it really quickly. Are one through eight actually different than they were in phase one? No, your honor. They're exactly the same. They're exactly the same. Okay. Or I'm sorry. I shouldn't say that. We're one through Seven. Seven. Seven. They're exactly the same.
Seven are exactly the same. Okay. We could call your current overlapping eight, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve, 8, nine b, 10 b, 11 b, 12 b. That that would be much easier to to get sorted, and so we would that, accommodation, your honor. Okay. So then yeah. Okay. I have the old exhibit list from phase one, so I don't need, and they've been admitted anyway. So I don't need to revisit them, but at least we'll know what we're talking about. Does, does that work for you, mister Gilman? Yeah. I think so,
your honor. Okay. And mister Gollum? That's fine, your honor. Okay. It's just it's good to know what we're talking about. And it it sounded also like there was some confusion on my admin's part, and and my part, frankly, frankly, with respect to the number of binders, hearing exhibits that you wanted. We delivered two copies originally, and then one was picked up. Yeah. I don't understand why one was picked up by I I think that was just confusion on our part about how many were supposed to be left. So just to clarify, your honor wants two.
Yeah. One is for me Mhmm. And one is for the official not to be touched by anyone else exhibit file that's going to be I mean, they get scanned in. Okay. Great. We'll get that sorted and have make sure that those are delivered. And I know it it can be different from ALJ to ALJ, but I I do believe I put that in the procedural order. If I didn't No. I I'm sure that your procedural order was abundantly clear, your honor, and I apologize for the confusion on my part. Okay. I hope it was clear. I try. Alright.
So, Ruko, the other thing I wanted to ask you about was the confidential information, work papers, not exhibits? No. The confidential work papers are not exhibits, your honor, but we did provide them on a USB drive, to the hearing division with respect to the procedural order's, request that we provide copies of all schedules and work papers. Okay. Can you tell me, first, whether you intend to refer to them in any way during anyone's testimony? And second, what they are, why they're confidential because I haven't actually looked at them yet. I do not intend to refer to them.
Okay. And what they are, they're both, confidential documents. I believe they're, reports from rating agencies that mister Walters, references. Okay. So they're proprietary information? Yes, your honor. Okay. That helps me. Thank you. Alright. Mister Pozewski, you wanna talk to me about exhibits or testimony or I forget what you said? Yeah. Your honor, looking at your original procedural order requesting that any objections to pre filed testimony or exhibits shall be made before at the prehearing conference. I don't have an objection per se,
but I have a foot holder for a potential objection, so I don't wanna lose the opportunity. Okay. And what I'm talking about is there was rejoinder testimony filed by mister is rejoinder. The part that, I'm referencing begins on page six, line nine. Line nine. And goes through page eight at line seven to q and a. It's just one q and a. And it's in reference to some hypothetical tables that was used in my client's analysis,
mister Madsen, in his direct testimony, which indicate which followed commissioner Marquez Peterson's request for analysis. And the reason why it may be a potential objection is mister Boissel has filed a couple exhibits in response to the direct exhibits. Okay. I'm gonna stop you for a second Please. Because I don't think you gave me the, page reference that you intended to. Because I don't entirely possible. There's not a q and a that starts on page page six at line
nine. K. Let me make sure I'm looking at the right case. These days that's over the question. Yeah. There's a lot of overlap. Yeah. We start there, and it is rejoinder testimony, mister Rizzell, page six. Okay. Then I'm looking at the wrong thing. So hold on. It might be on you, this one. Yeah. This one is on me. These are not separated in any way. So rebuttal. Oh, do you know the Bates number by any chance? We don't have Bates number copies. Yeah. We don't have Bates number copies. The copies. Your honor, it is Bates number 2094.
Okay. Thank you. Yeah. That was totally on me, mister Krizewski. I have to get there. No worries. This is why I like binders. Okay. So you potentially will want to object to this? I may. Here here's the situation, your honor. You can, I hope, relate to this? If you look, the question refers to both references made in Mr. Madsen's direct and surrebuttal, but the answer part really refers to responding to charts that were filed in mister Madsen's direct testimony. And and my concern or my my problem with this is we just got through
rejoinder, what, this morning. Possible, Buzzell might be testifying, I don't know, maybe Monday or Tuesday depending on where this goes. Given the amount of time, my concern is whether I gotta speak to my client because this is a response that really probably should have been made in the company's rebuttal testimony. Now that it's in the rejoinder testimony, we are real limited. And this is a substantial response to, to a analysis that my client did that, I mean, we maintain the company had all this information to respond to and could have done
it in rebuttal. But because they've responded and rejoinder, it's kind of less than us. And rejoinder is being filed today. But, again, I I I'm trying to I haven't talked to my client. I'm gonna talk to him after this case, and probably might go away. I just wanna reserve it in case so you know it's a possibility. Okay. I should tell you because this might help you in your analysis. Mhmm. I found his tables very confusing, and I have a bunch of questions for him to get him to explain them to me. I even shared them with a couple of other ALJs to say, can you explain this to me?
And we all went, So That's good to know because, that will, help me in my discussion today to make sure that he's super prepared for where you're going. I I am gonna want him to walk me at least all the way through the one on page 20. Got it. Because I yeah. K. I will make sure, that happens. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Any other potential objection related issues? Just for the record, you mean your expert,
not your client. Right? You refer to Madsen as your your client. Madsen is your expert as client. Right. Our expert. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I I knew who he meant. Okay. Just making sure. Oh, you're oh, excuse me. Your honor, staff has potential objections to the admission of certain, I guess, there are exhibits to the exhibit, exhibit, for Ruko eight and nine, and that's the direct and, sir, rebuttal testimony of mister Madsen. And what I'm referred to as DMM four seven fourteen
twenty and twenty one. And basis here is basically those are all PowerPoint slideshows slideshow presentations that we believe mister Matson in his file testimony doesn't lay the proper foundation for what they are, where they came from, what's supporting it. So, again, we'll look forward to see what he does in his testimony here at the hearing, but we anticipate objecting to those. And one of them has an identical exhibit that's DMM SR three, Ataturuko nine.
And I believe that's the same as DMM 20, Attashirocco eight. Again, the the idea here is that these are just, kind of PowerPoint presentations that have been presented, we feel, not with anything else supporting them. So we object to their inclusion through his, testimony and argue that if they're gonna be made part of the record, they should be their own separate exhibits and have some foundation there, stand on their own. Okay. To make sure that I followed you correctly, you said DMM four seven fourteen twenty and twenty one?
Correct. And as well as DMM SR three. But like I said, that is The same as 20? Yes. Correct. Mister Caeros, I'm not certain that s r three is exactly identical to s r 20. If my recollection serves, it's a PowerPoint with the same title, but it's an updated PowerPoint. Okay. It's s r three. They're they have different dates, and they're presented to different I think, well, I think might one may have been presented to Naverick, and one may have been presented elsewhere. But Okay. I thought they were the same dates.
Yeah. That was my mistake. Okay. Yeah. Remember, she has to get everything down, so My apologies. Take turns. I was gonna say, yeah. I thought they were the same date, but if they were different if they are different than my mistake, but the same objection will apply for DMM SR three, assuming that it is different than DMM 20. Let me just look real quick so I can confirm that for mister Caros. Oh, please. While you look, I will mention that our evidentiary admission standard is rather permissive.
And that if they don't appear to be something other than what they are represented to be, and they are relevant to the subject matter, I'm going to be wondering why staff would bother to object to them. But you can tell me all about it at hearing. That's understood. And, frankly, it's a just have it on the record. Okay. Sorry, Dan. That conforms in my understanding. Yeah. Thank you. Your honor? Yes. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt your train of thought. I just figured this was a good time. I was just waiting. Yeah. I mean, part of the challenge with the we got our list of Ruko exhibits yesterday.
And, I mean, some of their testimonies, some of them are commission orders, obviously. Those are not things that certainly the company was intending to to object to. There there are four exhibits labeled public comment. And I guess the challenge is and the request I make is I'd like to reserve the right to object, but I'm not necessarily objecting. I'm certainly not objecting. I'm being marked. We just don't know what the purpose is yet of of those exhibits. So the the six that I had identified as eighteen, twenty one through 24, and 29. I I don't know if we'll object to any of them or certain ones.
I just like to reserve the right depending on, the purpose of what they're being introduced for. Repeat those numbers for me. Sure. It was Ruko 18, which I think is marked as, mister Baxter's testimony in Global Water, '21 through '24, which are labeled public comment one through public comment four, and Ruko 29, which is the assessment of impact of increasing rates gradually versus over time. And I just I just wanna preserve the right to object rather than objecting now or, saying they're fine because I don't know again what the purpose is yet.
And that's the basis for my, I guess, position at this time. Okay. If it helps, your honor, Ruko is not intending to, offer in evidence, public comment one through four. We we've marked them. We may refer to them, but we're not gonna move to have them admitted as as exhibits. Okay. Well, that changes things. Yes. It does. Thank you. And, also, mister Kairos, I I stand corrected. You're right. Those are they are identical at least on their the front face. So Okay. Okay. Anything else objection related? Just one thing I'll place on the record,
your honor. I've, conferred with mister Gellman, and it's my understanding that no part of the prefiled testimony of, mister Locum is meant to, provide a legal opinion. And I've rest on mister Gellman's, assurances. But if for some reason something changes in that regards, we would preserve our objections. Okay. I'm well aware that it is inappropriate for a witness to provide me a legal opinion. Okay. Anything? We were not intending to go into, any further direct with mister Locum about his,
legal opinion. I think the the caveat is I mean, it's, I think, common knowledge that mister Locum is is educated as a lawyer. It's and he does touch upon in his testimony, so I think I tried to clarify that. But that that's the intent from our side. Yeah. As I recall, there was something in there about, I'm not providing a legal opinion. But This is my legal opinion. Yeah, well. Okay. There are a few things that I thought RUCO might want for its witnesses to correct in their testimony when they're on the stand.
Yeah. Go ahead, please. And I think that this is probably primarily due to all of these overlapping cases. In mister Walter's surrebuttal, on page six, he refers to attached exhibits CCW four and CCW five. There aren't any. They are CCW one SR and CCW two SR, unless I'm mistaken. So and again, in mister Walter's surrebuttal on page 30, he attributes a quote to mister Parcel in phase one of this matter.
But the footnotes, there are two of them, which is odd in itself, if I remember right. Refer to testimony in the APS rate case, not this case. And I don't think that that is a quote from him in this matter. So you should look at that, and then whatever you need to do to correct his testimony, I think would be a good idea. Are you with me? Look up if when you're done. Okay. In mister Madsen's direct, on page 62 at line 19, he refers to the amount of gas consumed. Pretty sure he meant water.
In mister Madsen's direct on page 64, line 19, he refers to this surrebuttal testimony, but I think he meant this direct testimony. And in mister Madsen's surrebuttal, exhibit DMMSR two is a letter that was filed by commissioner Marquez Peterson in the TEP docket. I'm guessing that that wasn't the letter that he intended to include. And I don't need you necessarily to fix the next thing. I just noticed it, and I think they're exactly the same. But, in mister Madsen's direct testimony,
exhibit d m m 19, he includes, of course, responses to Ruko's data requests 1.03 I mean, I'm sorry, 1.01 through 1.32. Then in his sir rebuttal, as DMMSR one, he includes, of course, responses to Ruko's Doctor 1.01 through 1.31. So the only difference that I noticed was that 1.32 isn't provided on SIR rebuttal. But if there's something different about those that I'm supposed to appreciate, I I don't know what it is yet,
so let me know. And, Evcor, you got off lucky because I had two things for you, but I crossed them out after I got to read, your filing. So yay you. And, Steph, I didn't have anything for you. So are there any other issues that need to be addressed before Monday? Your honor, concerning specifically the July 14 procedure order Yes. We chose to address, those bullet points in rejoinder, so I'm just noting that for the record. And I do wanna make sure that or confirm that the,
second bullet point, the electronic copies were provided to you yesterday. I believe so, but I am not absolutely certain because I wasn't here. Okay. But I think Rebecca got them, and I think that Rebecca put them on our internal drive so that our accountants can see it. Okay. If there's an issue, let me know, please. I will. Yeah. Thank you. Anything else? Yes, your honor. I I believe that, if I'm not mistaken, staff had a question, or maybe the company did, about about Ruko eighteen,
and and why that was there. It's there in the event I want to refer to it in discussing staff's positions on formula rates with miss Hunsaker. Okay. That that's fine. I just didn't know at the time. I mean, that that was my only concern, and that's why I raised it. Your honor Yes. I'm gonna bring us all the way back to the witnesses and order. Mhmm. I guess, staff just wanna confirm, basically, the order in which we're going. I know we have Pratt at the date and time certain on Wednesday at 9AM. Other than that,
staff would propose a company goes first, assuming and then Ruko slash Pratt, whoever comes first, and then finally staff. And I I guess I'd like to say if mister Walters has a date certain of Thursday, July 30 at 1PM, Ruko had stated they wanted him to go first. But I I I guess I'm saying if if Ruko's up to go and it's before that time, we think it would make sense that Ruko then put on one of its other witnesses first. I think that mister Pozewski is aware of how I run things,
and I agree with you. I don't like to have partial days of hearing. I like to get done. So, I agree with you. And that was the order party order that I intended to go in. Thank you, your honor. Mhmm. Anything else? Okay. Nobody has any questions for me. Everything is crystal clear and I'll ask mister Pazewski's favorite question just so we don't miss it next week. May we dress casually on Friday if we are still in hearing? It is fine by me. I sincerely hope we won't still be in hearing. But if we are, yes.
And on every other day, I think it's gonna be hot. Right? Like, hot. Like, today, maybe not as bad as today. You can take your jackets off. I absolutely do not care. So, please, I don't want you to be in here sweating because you think you have to have on a jacket. I I guess because Friday came up. I do have a hard stop next Friday at 05:30PM. So to the ungodly extent we're still in hearing at that point, I do need to, end it at next Friday at 05:30.
I personally am getting on a plane on Saturday. So, yeah, we need to be done. And we will be filling in as witnesses come up because that's how we get done. So, anything else at all? No? Alright. Great. Thank you all for coming. Sorry it's so awfully hot out and very uncomfortable to be outside. I will see you on Monday. Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you. We are adjourned.