Still figuring this out. Alright. Let's go ahead and go on the record. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Arizona Corporation Commission. I'm administrative law judge Charles Haynes. I've been assigned to preside over this matter. This is the time set for the pre hearing conference docket number E-thirteen455 in the matter of the application of Arizona Public Service Company for hearing to determine the fair value of the utility property of the company for rate making purposes,
to fix a just and reasonable rate of return thereon, and to approve rate schedules designed to develop such return. I'm going to start by taking appearances of parties, there being a bunch of you, this is a bit of a list here. If you have multiple clients, please feel free to go ahead and name all of your clients the first time I call you up. So, starting with the applicant, APS. Good morning, your honor. Jeff Allman and Scott Hesla on behalf of Arizona Public Service Company. Good morning. On behalf of AARP. Good morning, your honor. Leslie Sorensen, and online is John Kaufman. Thank you. Thank you. On behalf of Arizona Association of School Business Officials.
Good morning, your honor. Chanel Reyes and Antonio Lungowski from the Arizona Center of Law and the Public Interest, and I will list off the clients. We have the Arizona Association of School Business Officials, Arizona School Administrators, and Arizona School Boards Association, which we collectively call the Arizona School Associations. We also have the Arizona Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, which we'll call Arizona PERG. We have San Juan Citizen Alliance, TonoJoni and Ni, and Black Mesa United, collectively the citizen groups, the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project or SWEAP, Vote Solar,
and Wildfire. And we may have our co counsel for VoteSolar online. I'm not sure. That would be Leslie Coleman and David Bender of Earthjustice. Thank you. Do we have anyone from Earthjustice online? Alright. Okay. It was a maybe. Okay. It was worth a shot. Moving on with regard, Arizona Competitive Power Alliance. Good morning, your honor, Greg Patterson. Alright. Thank you. Arizona Free Enterprise Club. Good morning, your honor. Brennan Bowen from Frasier Law on behalf of Arizona Free Enterprise Club. Good morning. Is there anyone for Arizona Large Customer Group? Good morning, your honor. Thor Nelson appearing on behalf of the Arizona Large Customer Group.
Also, just for your information, during the course of the hearing, my colleague Austin Jensen will be here, and then my colleagues Michelle King and Seamus Crowley may be participating remotely during periods of the time. Thank you. Arizona Solar Energy Industries Association. Good morning, your honor. Autumn I'm sorry. What was that? Oh, go ahead. Autumn Johnson on behalf of the Arizona Solar Energy Industries Association or ARICIA. Thank you. And next, Calpine Energy Solutions. Good morning, your honor. This is Greg Adams on behalf of Calpine Energy Solutions.
Alright. Morning, mister Adams. And next, I have the, federal executive agencies. Good morning, your honor. This is Leslie Newton with the federal executive agencies and along with Matthew Von Drasek. And we will be in person moving forward. Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you. Freeport. Good morning, your honor. Patrick Black and Caitlin Smith on behalf of Freeport Minerals Corporation, and we too will be in person moving forward. Okay. IBEW? Good morning, your honor. This is Clara Bustamante from Lubininac and Bustamante, PC, on behalf of the IBEW locals. Kroger.
Good morning, your honor. Kurt Boehm appearing on behalf of the Kroger Company. Microsoft. Good morning, your honor. Good to see you. Bert Aken on behalf of Microsoft Corporation. Thank you. Likewise. Navajo Nation. Alright. NRG Energy. Good morning, your honor. Court Rich for NRG. I'm also representing Phoenix Hydrogen Hub, if you'd like me to make my appearance for that now. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Alyssa Runge. Alright. Kristen Nelson. Alright. Is Kristen Nelson? Okay. Richard Barton. Sierra Club. Good morning, your honor. This is Patrick Wolsey appearing on behalf of Sierra Club,
and also appearing for Sierra Club is my colleague Kartik Raj. Morning, your honor. Morning. State of Arizona or the is there attorney general? Good afternoon, your honor. I'm Coy along with my colleagues, Anthony for the state of Arizona. Alright. And you cut out in the middle of the I apologize. Andy McCoy, joined by my colleagues, Anthony Prohanu and Alexandria Gordon for the state of Arizona. Thank you. Is there anybody for our, TEP? Alright. Anybody for Underground Arizona? Is there anybody for Walmart? Good morning, your honor. Justina Cavillo on
Well, I got your name, but you cut out off after you said your name. Is there I'm sorry. Justina Cabello on behalf of Walmart. Thank you. And okay. You'd mentioned Western Resource Advocates was trying to get in there. WRA. Anybody Good morning, your honor. Apologies for the technical difficulties on my part. Emily Derfler on behalf of Western Resource Advocates. Glad to have you. Alright. And on behalf of the residential utility consumer office. Good morning, your honor Daniel Pozewski and Sarah Barrios Kuhl on behalf of Ruko. Good morning.
And on behalf of the utilities division. Good morning, judge Haines. Maureen Scott and Sean Botkin on behalf of the utilities division staff. Thank you. Is there any party that I failed to mention here? Okay. Alright. Alright. And just as a reminder, because because some of you are remote, please remember that you need to identify yourself when you speak so and also don't speak over anybody when you're someone else is speaking. With regard to the filings that have come in, the joint proposed witness list and the hearing schedule, I do appreciate the effort that went into that.
That is very helpful. If anybody has any objections to that, either of those, if you wanna come forward and and mention those to, you know, bring it to my attention now. So everyone is in agreement with the proposed list and the schedule. I'd like to make a comment on it, Aaron. We we, of course, are in agreement. We've been through it and certainly would like to thank the company and the parties for all their efforts. It was a massive undertaking. Believe me. But you will know that, you would know when you look at it that, there's, Ruko is also filed and in support of testimony
of Courtney Higgins, an AZLG. So you'll note that our, in the issue matrix, our, positions don't necessarily line identically. And there's some differences in not necessarily a position to something maybe we didn't take a position on or so we had the way we decided to do it was the way it is in there. They their position and to the extent they overlap, that is included. But I think it's, at the end of the day, we just wanna make sure you're aware that we support the positions, that are in the joint filing and testimony of Courtney Haynes.
So and if there are turns out there aren't any discrepancies, of course, they'll be cleared up before the end of this hearing. Thank you. Alright. Thank you, Glenn. I was caused by surprise. You know, I mean, you're making common cause and sharing witness since that was unusual, but that just brought more attention to it. So Yeah. As you could imagine with all the cases, it's getting very expensive. I shudder. We only have a limited capacity resource wise, so we're thinking out of the box a little here. Alright. Your honor Yes? With respect to the witness schedule, if this is the appropriate time to bring this up,
all of our witnesses except for one are out of town and so we would like to get date certains for them. And the other thing that I would ask is that once the witness starts testifying that they not be interrupted by another witness and then put after the subsequent or the witness that was moved in front of them. We would ask that their testimony be allowed to be completed once it starts. Your honor, if I may.
Okay. Go ahead. Jeff Altman on behalf of APS. You know, I think with regard just in as a general comment with regard to those witnesses that have a preference for, a date certain, and then, you know, with respect to what, miss Scott mentioned, you know, we we have a lot of witnesses and we do have a set amount of time and so, I think it's in some of the emails, that we were sending around in terms of trying to coordinate with the schedule, you know, we tried to take a, you know, it takes a village approach to this and so I think what I would say is that, you know,
we can certainly do our best to accommodate, those types of requests, but, you know, when push comes to shove, we we may have to have some flexibility at times, and so we would just ask the parties that, you know, as needed as we need some flexibility around date certain and some of these other things, you know, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But, you know, you certainly have our commitment that we will do our best to try to, accommodate things as best we can and be flexible, so that we can get through all the witnesses within the time that's currently scheduled. Well, just glancing through the proposed schedule,
and I I see miss Johnson. I see you raising your hand there. I'll get to you. But just as an observation, with the exception of mister Parcel, it looks like all the staff witnesses are you're holding up the back end. So pretty much every witness is in front of you. So I I mean, some allowance has to be made that you're you're if you're gonna be holding out on the back end, obviously, you're that's where you're at. Right. Your honor, I think that, we don't know if it's gonna end on the thirtieth and I think that, Mr. Smith, would appreciate having a date certain on the twenty ninth and thirtieth.
The other witnesses are out of town too. Now, we will be flexible too to the extent we can, but because they're all out of town, and have conflicting commitments at times, we would prefer to to get in, date certain for these, for all the witnesses. But again, we will be flexible to the extent we have to. Alright. You do bring up a good point here too. Looking at this, obviously, this is aspirational. With regard to I did notice you had two days in here that you marked as open. Bearing in mind that that could be optimism showing through there that you may have
some spare time. Wanna build in some time also, APS. I'm assuming you're going to contemplate the possibility of putting on some kind of rebuttal case at the end or at least wanna have the opportunity. So is there a real sentiment that we may actually push beyond the days that we're already scheduled? Should we start budgeting that in now? Your your honor, I think that at this point, we believe the schedule that we have is achievable. I think when we look at those two days that are designated as open, You know, I think absent mister Smith's unavailability on those days, which we which we understand,
he's only available on the twenty ninth and the thirtieth, but that, you know, to the extent that we are running behind, we would absolutely be filling those days, with witnesses, that maybe haven't had yet had a chance to go for for one reason or another. So some of the a lot of the other witnesses that aren't necessarily date certain that have the ability to be either accelerated or pushed, depending on, how things flow, we can absolutely, we we think we the party should absolutely be able to accommodate that, and we've done that in in our in our prior hearings. I think the other thing too is is that there are some days in the
calendar that are currently gapped off because of contingent open meetings. We may not have a contingent open meeting, and if that happens, then that may be an opportunity to, fill that time with, with some additional hearing. I know also that the TEP case, they've started things about a half hour earlier, at at certain point to get some additional time. So, you know, we think that there are a number of things that we can still do within the confines of the current schedule in order to maintain, June 30.
We'll, obviously, as I indicated, maintain flexibility to the extent that that's not possible, but I think that would be, what we would look at as we're going through the the hearing in order to make up some of the time. Okay. I see you reaching for the mic here, but, miss Johnson, you've been waiting there patiently. Was this the topic you wanted to chime in on? Yes, your honor. Thank you. Autumn Johnson on behalf of Arista. Just to pick up on what mister Almond said as far as the PEP case, several of us just got out of the PEP case yesterday, and I will note that there were a number of witnesses in that case that
did not finish on the day that they started, you know, to miss Scott's point. It may may not be, especially pertinent in this case because staff is towards the tail end. But I will say that just logistically speaking, if you have a witness that does not finish that day, and then if they bump the subsequent witnesses, it defeats sort of the purpose of having date certain for those additional witnesses. And so I would encourage you to lean against doing that, to the extent possible, because at least for the interveners, you know, that, are not parties and are not state agencies,
we're juggling a lot of things, and so get folks' schedules tend to be very limited. Thank you. Alright. Just for clarification from staff, the the reason you want the date certain, you only said it's because they're from out of town. Is there actual scheduling conflicts or travel conflicts? Are they in other hearings as well? A lot of them are involved in other cases as well. I don't have their schedules with me but they have all approved these dates that are on the calendar and that's why we would like date certain for them.
And there was a situation in TAP as was mentioned where a witness would not finish on that day and then other witness would be put in before he would go again or she. Well, I mean, that that's fairly ordinary. I mean, that happens all the time. This is kind of a function of having all out of town witnesses. I I expect APS to be flexible, but they're going to be on the front. Staff I mean, you're you're in an awkward position because you are holding up the back end, so you should have everything in front of you already. So,
I'm kinda struggling with with why if if you already see the balance on the schedule that we set up or I I'm I'm kinda not wanting to predetermine that you're going to be in that position. And if anything, you know, I hate to say it. I mean there have been times when the commission has stayed late at nights just to finish people. I don't want to do that either but I guess Because, yeah, because you know they make plane reservations and everything, that, you know, they will be, if they have to change dates, you know, they will be,
penalized for that with respect to and whatever else, other plans that they have made. We just think having a date certain that they could rely upon and would be better in that regard. And if there's flexibility needed, Judge, we will I'm sure that they will, try to accommodate you. Well if you mentioned with travel plans and being here in person and they're flying in, it's more than just having a date certain you're talking about the possibility of time certain too if they have to catch a flight out as well. Is that not also an issue?
That has been an issue and again they try to they try to accommodate the the hearing schedule. Schedule. And, your honor, just along those lines, something that we this is Sean Botkin staff. Something that we we encountered in TEP is a possible option to allow that flexibility to allow witnesses that are coming in from out of town if they go over to justify by Webex. I I'm perfectly okay with that. I mean, that's I I said that night, it may have come across a little harsh with Ruko when they made the Webex request. It's like I that's why we have the Webex. Just just use it.
So long as you follow the directions that were provided in the, July 22 procedural order, I'm okay with you doing Webex. I don't hold it against anybody that you did it, particularly with you know, I see the horror stories out of Europe with jet fuel and whatnot. It's you know, I I wonder whether I should put out some advisory that I am entirely okay if, you know, in in prudence that you choose, you don't wanna fly out here and you want to Webex entirely. I am okay with that. That's why it's there. You know, make prudent decisions. We're all grown ups. So, that said, you know, if you wanna start out with somebody here in person and then transition over to
Webex to fill them out, I'm okay with that too. I do have a problem with again, you're you're in this advantageous position of being at the back end, so nobody else is waiting after you. So, you know, that that's one of the perks of being staffed and going last. So And and your honor, I mean, we're we're we'll be as flexible as we can. This is just a, you know, request we want to lay out in the procedural hearing. And and the request regarding, witnesses finishing their testimony completely before moving on to the next witness, that also comes from experience we just had at DEP where we actually had to have witnesses recalled because of intervening testimony.
So I I think what staff is suggesting is we prefer to have, if we have an open day, try to keep the witness testimonies contained so we don't have to recall a witness after intervening testimony from other witnesses. I guess I'm having a hard time understanding, if you're at the very back end, who's gonna intervene that's not a staff witness? And it's not just for staff witnesses, your honor. This is for all witnesses. And the reason I'm suggesting that is it makes it easier for cross examination and for us to to maintain a continuity and hopefully keep the schedule on track. May I be here, your honor?
Yes. Go ahead. Thank you, your honor. So, as is noted, I just recently, with many others, come off of TEP. And I think it worked rather well and helped us to conclude right on time that everyone was flexible. The counsel for the company, in that case, mister Patton, would start it in the day with sort of reviewing the schedule that was coming up, and people would have an opportunity to voice any concerns. But that did allow us to, to, make use of the time that we had and also conclude on time. I think that if you, if you finish each witness in order as they appear in the schedule,
the further we go along, the schedule will no longer be reliable for any of the witnesses or for the attorneys, many of whom, like myself, are aspirationally relying on the schedule in order to coordinate their lives over the course of the next two months. And for those of us who've just come off of TEP, it's it's really a a series of months of of rate cases. So I I think mister Almond has shown, a great ability to herd the cats, so to speak, in coming up with this schedule. And I I trust that you'll also be able to,
guide us with his, suggestions and and knowledge of everyone's concerns in in moving forward. I'll I'll say right now, I'm like I said, I'm not inclined to do anything different from ordinary practice and then rely on the company who all of your witnesses except for possibly mister Coyne. Oh, and and the one, depreciation rate schedule are coming in from out of town, but everybody is local if need be. There's some flexibility. And if we need to make up time by keeping them or using them to flex them around, so be it. The other witnesses that are here in town also being flexible, so be it.
You are at the tail end, so you should be able to see how much road you have and how much runway you have left after based on your travel plans. And as I said, I'm okay with you transitioning to Webex afterward. So that's that does not offend me. So anything else that needs to be said on this topic? One thing I'd like to say, your honor, there was some mention about the, using the contingency dates. There's very few dates built in where we don't have hearing, and we do have other things we have to deal with. So I strongly prefer to not have things added into those dates if at all possible, especially since there are two open dates on the scheduled calendar.
I I know. And then there are other things on the schedule. It probably noted that, you know, I took some liberties myself. One, the contingencies. One observation I have is when I I reserve those days in anticipation of the contingencies that are no longer scheduled contingencies, it's sort of like seagulls snapping up food. Other people schedule things on those days as well. So, at least one of those I saw, there was there was no space. One of them might have some, but, that'll be a play it by ear. There's June 9 excuse me. June 19. I I reserve that for people who respect the day. We, as a state, do not acknowledge it as a holiday.
So that actually is an open day, but, I don't wanna do that, in any event. There are some days that could be flexed around. I'm not inclined to change from the days we've already put out there for that reason. Other people may have snapped them up for other reasons, etcetera. If anything, the more likely thing is we would push beyond the June 30, and so it is what it is. So Your honor, yes. Thank you. And and we appreciate that. We don't, again, don't have a specific proposal right now to add any days. We're just speaking more in terms of what are the options in order to complete things by the the June 30,
time frame that we have. I I do think though, that miss Barriosko raises a good point about the the need to be flexible with respect to, you know, not having a witness finish and then go to the next. The, from our perspective, we don't believe that's necessary and that we can, you know, shuffle people around as needed. The, you know, the transcript at the end of the day won't reflect that in terms of how we present it all in our briefs and so, you know, I think that is still a a key flexibility that that we would we would encourage with that that we maintain going forward.
Well, I'm all for flexibility and that sounds like everybody with the exception of staff's request there seems in line with that so, we're gonna go with how we usually do things so okay. Alright. And With regard to having everything be able to move smoothly, I am trusting everyone to ensure that your witnesses are ready to go at the time they're called. So, with regard to having their exhibits, etcetera, on hand that they're going to be relying on, that's that's gonna be on you. Each of you is responsible for your own witness. If they are going to be needing to refer to things, that other people have, etcetera, making sure their Webex is lined up and ready to go at the time they're
ready to go, that that's on you. So but all of that can contribute to making sure we do have a smooth flow. We maintain inertia as we move through so I would ask that you be mindful of that. With regard to motions, next topic here, I didn't see any pending motions out there that had to be addressed. Alright. Are there any motions that have arisen? Anything that people wanna take up at this time? Objections to testimony. Okay. Alright. One thing I had on a checklist of things to address, with regard to the anticipated cross examinations. I appreciate everybody giving me your lists.
I have put together my list so I know who wants a piece of whom. I saw one from, Arizona competitive power. You mentioned you have about an hour, but you didn't say who. So I I kinda put you in there as a a maybe or a question mark on everything. So, Ruko, I I I don't know if I missed I didn't spot one from you, but, I mean, I can, as a placeholder, just say you want a piece of everybody as a placeholder if that's easier. So your honor, I apologize. We did we did file a notice, but it was a a bit premature in Oh. Terms of, the the deadline. We just tried to get it out of the way for TEP. But we would reserve, right to cross examine each of the witnesses.
As best we're able to do so, however, as we identify that we're not actually going to have questions, if we know that we're not gonna ask questions, we'll refer to each of those those witnesses' corresponding attorney to let them know we're not gonna have questions. That was fine. I only ask for my planning purposes so I can when I do the, cross examinations and ask anybody instead of having to do a roll call of everyone, I only do the roll call of people who have inch mentioned they have an interest, and then, we'll have an up for grabs anybody who wants to chime in who did not previously say they wanted a piece of this witness. That's how I was going to do it.
But so I should've looked earlier. Okay. That's why I missed yours. So No no worries. Everyone's very busy, your honor. But thank you. Yes. Please do call Enrico each time. Alright. Your honor, I have a quick question. If we know we are going to add a witness, should we file an amended notice? Because of miss Howard or the or any of the other later witnesses or because of rejoined your Just because we've changed because we were busy with the TEP case, and so we've had a little more time, and there's a couple more witnesses we wanted to add for one of our clients. I I don't strictly need it, but, I mean, it was only so I could come up with my preliminary list.
Like I said, I will go through my list and then I will add in, like, a you know, is there anybody else who wants a piece of this person? So, so Okay. Okay. I don't I don't strictly need it. So, what I see miss Johnson. I see you wanting attention here. Before I get into the next point, I did wanna bring up. Sometimes people get, have opinions on the order of cross examinations. I will point out that other than having the company go first and then Ruko and staff coming up at the last or at the end there, I just went with alphabetical. So, that said, do people have a preference as to the ordering of the cross examinations?
Do they wanna take a stab at that? I guess my question would be, would you like me to have all of my questions in a row for the clients since I have multiple clients? I I I'm not gonna dictate that because part of the cross examination is you telling your own story and to the extent each of your clients has a different story to tell, I'm I'm not gonna force you to do that. But if you want to, I'm not gonna stop you. I No. What whatever you prefer. I know in TEP, she would just have me say which client I was speaking on behalf of, but we're fine to also go in alphabetical order. I will say so I did use some shorthand.
So I did have you as, like, school groups at one point, citizen groups at other points. So, other than those kind of broad groupings, AZPRG and wildfire, I guess those would be public interest or rate payer public interest, and then, you have Volt Solar as well. So it's basically four groupings. Mhmm. Is that fair? I mean, if you wanna if you wanna do them all at once and not be broken up, that's entirely up to you. Okay. So Okay. Just, yeah, what you were doing in TB and just identifying which one if you are transitioning, that would be helpful. So alright. Miss Johnson. Thank you, your honor.
Autumn Johnson on behalf of Aracia. Just a couple of things, to respond to what you've said. First, we're fine with an alphabetical list. Secondly, as far as, you mentioned the exhibits for witnesses, something that we did in TEP that I found helpful is if you know you're gonna be cross examining someone to let the council know in advance which exhibits you're going to be referencing so that they can have those prepared. Because if you're going to be asking about you know, their exhibits, obviously, are your exhibits, then that's fine. But you might be asking about, you know, I don't know, XYZ37.
That isn't something that that they would have have would have reason to have in front of them, so that might be helpful. That's also useful to let, you can use that same email to just let them know that you do plan to cross. I know for Aracia, we will have additional people that were from what are was in our filing as well as we have time to go through, the testimony more closely and prepare our cross to that they will be added, and I do plan to let counsel know in advance who will be crossing and what exhibits we'll be referencing. Thank you. Thank you. And and with regard to what was done in TEP, to the extent that's practicable and and would be helpful,
I I encourage it. I do bear in mind, somebody alluded to that no plan survives contact with the enemy or however the expression goes. You may intend to come into a cross examination and only be using certain things and then as the testimony develops you may pull out more that you weren't expecting you were gonna have to use. So I won't hold people strictly to, you know, you can only talk about the, exhibits you mentioned you were going to talk about. But, to the extent you can, it is helpful, and, I do encourage you to try. So, alright. Do I see any other hands? Anybody else wanted to talk about this topic?
No. Alright. Alright. And with regard to the exhibits, anybody has yet to file their exhibits. They are due today. With regard to the reminder that the exhibits, we are expecting two hard copies, of the nonconfidentials to be also due today. If any party has any, confidential exhibits, please remember to provide the sealed copy of each. I think those are due on Friday, if I recall correctly and with regard to witness summaries if you haven't filed them already I think I got them from everyone but if you haven't done one they they were due already but get them to me as
soon as possible and next with regard to apologies. Hey, Ron. I have a question about something that you just said to give a clarification. My understanding was the hard copies were due on Friday. Has that changed? The the the filing is today and then the hard copies was Friday? If not, would it be possible to file them on Friday? By Friday is fine. Okay. You know, I could be wrong about that. So, yes, mister Nelson. Yes. Thank you, your honor. Thor Nelson for the Arizona Large Customer Group. One question on witnesses and exhibits of now is an okay time. In the course of our preparing our exhibits,
we observed that there was an issue with the testimony that was filed on behalf of mister Garrett. And in particular, if you look at mister Garrett's direct testimony, he references in the direct testimony five appendices which relate generally to I'll tell you what they are. There's an appendix that talks about what the DCF methodology is. There's an appendix that talks about what the CAPM methodology is, and then and then three appendices that discuss different aspects of depreciation. These appendices do not affect the substantive analysis that mister Garrett did.
They don't affect his testimony. They don't affect his recommendations. They're just background for the issues that he covers. Unfortunately, we neglected to include those, we realized, when the testimony was filed. And so at this stage in the process, our intention, unless you would guide us otherwise, was to submit those five appendices as potential exhibits that we would offer during the course of mister Garrett's examination. And, obviously, parties have the opportunity to raise whatever issues they might have with regard to that.
But I just wanted to flag that we had that issue. We felt that treating them as exhibits would be a simpler way than trying to revise his testimony at this stage in the process, but I wanted to bring that to your attention. And if there is a different process you would like us to utilize, we're, of course, happy to do whatever you would like. What you proposed is fine by me, and we can play it by ear. And if people have objections, they can raise them at the time. So Thank you. Anything else on anything that I set up to this point? No. Your honor, I'm sorry. I forgot one thing. If if I may speak again.
Yes, miss Johnson. This is Autumn Johnson on behalf of Aracia. Just this is in regards to the cross order. In the TEP case, the judge would sometimes let us modify the order if we had a scheduling constraint. There are several days of the hearing that I know I'm going to have a childcare gap. And so in TEP, I ended up being first, for all of them. And so that just created a conflict, and some days she would just let us ask if we can go later in the in the order. And so to the extent that's possible, it would be greatly appreciated if you could have some flexibility to the cross order for some witnesses. Thank you.
Yeah. I'm I'm pretty easygoing. Like I said, that list was just out of convenience and sticking to the alphabetized was just to make it easy for me. So feel free to horse trade amongst yourselves if you want to go out in a in a different order. That's fine by me. So just let me know. I did see a hand raised, I forget your name, but with, Free Enterprise Club. Yes, your honor. Brennan Bowen on behalf of Arizona Free Enterprise Club. I know, from reviewing the pre hearing conference in the TEP matter, there was some confusion about whether witness summaries, if physical copies were required to be delivered and how many.
So I wanted to raise that here. If my reading of the procedural order here was that they were not, but I wanted to clarify if they are physical copies need to be delivered to the hearing division, and if so, how many we should send? That's a great question. It depends on whether you wanna use it as an exhibit. The witness summaries that I required in the procedural order was basically just a short form for me and anybody who's following the docket so they can get up to speed on what to expect the witness is gonna talk about. Some people do occasionally want to have the witness summary as a separate exhibit in addition to the pre filed. If that's your choice, then treat it like any other exhibit.
If you don't intend on using an exhibit, then, feel free to leave things as they are. So Thank you for the clarification, your honor. Alright. Okay. Alright. Moving on. And I apologize. I'm getting used to wearing reading glasses, so back and forth here. And with regard to again, back to the exhibits the parties have, so if there is a large document, so So we do have the one hard copy. People in the past have relied on using the court reporter's copy, so the court reporter doesn't handle the hearing exhibits anymore. I will have that copy. That's going to be used as the,
copy that's submitted with the record, but, I I do expect to have it present in the room, but since we don't have the room every day, I I will truck it out on those breaks when we aren't going to have the room. Don't assume that I necessarily will have it. You are encouraged to make sure that you have an exhibit you you want to have for the witness to look at if you know it's going to be a big one. So, in any event, I will try to have one, but I'm not guaranteeing there will be one that has been submitted to me for that purpose. So okay. Alright. With regard to oh with regard to confidential testimony because of the back and forth and trying to maintain an inertia a flow as
we're going through this I would encourage you to the extent that you have identified confidential soft topics subjects that you want to ask about think hard about whether you wanna do it. It does break the flow, and it does, slow down the inertia if we have to go back and forth into closed session in order to have those proceedings and and back out again. Also, feel free to check with the company and see if they really meant it when they didn't, you know, describe something as confidential and it when I look at the confidential, I've only looked at the redacted version, so I have no idea necessarily why it was considered confidential. I have no capacity to assess,
you know, other than some that are obvious, like people's pay rates, things like that. So, so it's not necessarily obvious to me, but I encourage you to work that out ahead of time so that you can figure out, and make efficient use of it if we know we definitely will absolutely have to go into the closed sessions for confidential so that those can, be as efficient as possible. So, yeah. Thank you, your honor. We make every effort to avoid that if at all possible, and we would invite everyone who, if they feel like they need to raise something, that has been designated as confidential or please approach us, and we'll, we'll see if we can work something out,
and and cross that bridge when we come to it. Thanks. Appreciate that. Thank you. So I've noticed this. I never made a point of this in any prior case I've had, but it seems that this has become an issue in in prior APS and TEP cases with regard to transcripts. As I understand it, the company will have its own copy. I get my copy, and I think staff and I assume also get copies, but other parties, as I understand it, the court reporter treats the transcripts as copyrighted or or subject to their work product, and so you do have to pay for your own copy. As a public service we we do have our docket where you can go in
and review them to your heart's content, print out 20 pages a day, but other than that I leave it up to you make your own arrangements how you want to get a copy for yourself if you need one for your purposes. That said, is there any issue that people foresee with regard to needing access to transcripts at this time? Miss Reyes? I guess the only issue I would say is I was planning to just get a single copy for all of my clients because there's no way for me to put a wall in my brain, but, yeah, as long as that's acceptable. Alright. I mean, as far as I know, as long as that's acceptable with,
Glenny, we're not a part of that. So I just in case people were turning to me for a copy of it. So, I'm I'm not taking charge of that. So alright. Your honor, in the briefs, are we able to cite the video, time stamp for the recording? That was miss Johnson? Yes. I'm sorry, your honor. I mean, we have accepted that in the past. I you know, I'm not gonna stop it. Had a case that doesn't to the to the extent that that helps. I'm sorry. I I didn't I've never had a case in which the judge didn't allow that, and I've been told that it being a video was one of the reasons why they don't provide a free copy, but I just wanted to confirm for purposes of the record that we can do
that. You can, to the extent that, you know, you wanna rely on that. And, I mean, it does make things easier when everybody's referring to the record the same way, you know, page, verse, etcetera, but I mean, not gonna stop you from doing that. Judge for yourself whether that's helpful for your cause or not, and so whether that improves or takes away from clarity, that's a judgment call that's left up to you. As I understand it, we we do treat the transcript as the official version of what was said. So your interpretation of what is being said at the time is not necessarily going it it
comes into an issue of, like, a tie breaker whether the audio recording is in somehow in conflict with what the official transcript is. Past practice always been that the transcript is the one that is the record of what was said. So, you know, I'm not gonna get in or, you know, I just caution you how much you wanna rely on the audio recording. So okay? Alright. And with regard to on the day of the first day of hearing, there is the public comment session scheduled. I have no idea how long it's going to go. There could be a great many people who show up and don't say anything. There could be a great many people who show up and say everything,
and there could be nobody shows up at all. Plan accordingly. I don't expect you to be here for the whole thing. I don't expect you to be here at all for any of it. It is scheduled to end at one. I would prefer that you be available at around 12:45 or thereabouts so that you're like teed up and ready to go at one on the assumption that everything does go as scheduled. Just be forewarned. It could go long. So any event. Alright. And one thing this is new, I was advised this is by way of a public service announcement with regard to Tucson Electric and the use of Webex.
I was made aware that somewhere somehow displeasure was registered with regard to the use of backgrounds when you're on Webex particularly if you're using branded backgrounds so apparently somebody had a background that loudly proclaimed who they were employed by or what firm they're with I don't know I'm getting this secondhand but it is recommended that you stick with just a plain ordinary default background or one of the ones that come with it so as to not be a distraction. I don't know what it was that they're talking about but just be advised.
That's the end of my list. So is there anything, any issue that, people feel need to be addressed or they would like to have addressed at this time? Your honor, just one, minor point. We recognize that the, joint issues matrix as a printed document is a little bit cumbersome. And so to the extent it's convenient for the parties, we can and the hearing division as well for your honor, we can provide that in Excel. Is that something that would be useful? I mean, it's helpful to hold them side by side. I mean,
I I did notice they run page, they overrun on some pages, so you can't put them all in side by side. I do know that on occasion, some parties will will take umbrage if they didn't show up on the same page, like they're being dismissed or being not, put on an equal footing with other parties on the issues matrix. I I have no preference on that. I I do know how to hold two pages up and kinda spread them out. So but some parties, they they just don't trust to that. So is any party unhappy with that? If that's an offer being made You'll take it. I will take it because,
there's a lot to that, and it would be nice if the company could arrange it in a way that's easily accessible and open so that we don't have to try to coordinate and paginate the different pages, and also the different, it's just not one page. It's broken down into different tabs. So it'd be nice to have one with all the tabs put together. If the company could do that, that would be great. We we'd be happy to do that. We'll just send it around to everybody on email. Please. That's alright. Yeah, email it to my assistant. Don't email it to me directly. No. Of course. Yeah. Alright.
And, miss Johnson. Yeah. Sorry, your honor. Just a few things. Back to the video recording thing. Of course, if we relied on the video recording, we would be, doing it verbatim. So it would be the same. So I understand your comment there. The second thing was, I was in the PPE hearing every day for three weeks, and this is the first time I've heard about a Zoom background. Eressea typically has a Zoom background that says Eressea on it so that, people that we're speaking to know on whom's behalf they are being questioned. And so you're saying that that's not permissible? I'm not saying that it's not permissible. As I said, this was not a part of any procedural requirement that I put out the beginning.
I have received this secondhand or thirdhand even. It was related to me by, others. So I do not know the context for it other than it came out of something that happened in the TEP proceeding. So, being that it did come from someone who is in the decision making chain, to the extent that you want to bear that in mind and to the extent that it affects in a way that either, you know, adds, detracts, or is a distraction from whatever you're trying to accomplish, just bear that in mind. I'm not gonna require it. I haven't been told to require it,
but, just bear in mind the request has been made to not use, those placardings. So use best judgment. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. That's the first that I've heard of that. The other thing I was gonna ask is, exhibits on the stand for the witnesses that are in person. In the TEP case, the company provided a copy of the exhibits to the witnesses that were on the stand for all witnesses and all exhibits. I wanted to ask if that was gonna be the case in this as well. Thank you. Well, I did briefly allude to that. Like I said, I will have so, in the procedural order,
I did require two hard copies. One of which is the substitute for what would have been the, court reporter's copy. I will do my best to remember to bring those into the room at all times. That said, those are the exhibits that I've been given already, and so don't assume that as new exhibits roll in afterward that I'm going to have it up to date and such, especially if there are exhibits that are only provided like the night before and such. I'm not guaranteeing that I will have copies of those on hand every single time. It'll be those that bring some, the instance, the, pre filed testimony.
I'm probably gonna have all of those, but as you roll in these kind of the ad hoc, cross examination exhibits, etcetera, I'm not guaranteeing I will have a hard copy of that. Company may, I assume, will will have the ones that they have, but it is generally better if if it's something you wanna make sure the witness has. If it's an exhibit that you're the one who wants to put up to the, the witness, it's your responsibility to make sure that they get a copy of it some way some way, somehow. So Is the company going to continue to put exhibits in the data room as the hearing progresses? Your honor, yes. We will. Okay. Thank you.
Just to be clear, to the extent that you do put documents into the data room, that's not a substitute for the eCommission or eDocket. So, you know, I I don't get access to the data room. Yes, your honor. The data room is, you know, for the convenience of the parties, staff, interveners, everyone, we do not treat it as a substitute for providing the copies that we would otherwise provide to the docket or to your honor or to the court reporter, as part of the ordinary course. Alright. Okay. Alright. Looking around the room, is there anything else anybody wanted or felt they needed to bring up at this time?
No? Okay. Alright. Anybody have any questions you wanna raise to me? Not related to any request being made. We're good. Okay. Alright. In that case then, thank you everyone for your participation today. I'll see you all back here on Monday, the eighteenth. Alright. We are adjourned.