held recording in live stream on RCTV and read the board of code of conduct with the board a recognizes the importance of public comment at the discretion of the chair on items on the agenda uh once recognized all persons addressing the board shall state their name and address prior to speaking and
is the role of the chair to maintain order in public comment or discussion any members participating remotely i don't think so right okay with that uh do we have public comment public
comment commissioner you're not I know well but these are comments are public comments so um there is an election in Reading on May 13 for the Kellum School and the Recal Building uh both off of
Havville Street um so if you're a Reading resident as probably many here and and certainly some in the audience might be um vote for those projects or you know whether you vote yay or nay whatever go vote um
the implication for reading why I bring it up here is that of course we have opportunities to do solar power there either on the building through the projects or in the parking lot so we will if depending whether it's up or down um that will be an opportunity for
for RMLD um second is uh May 9th and 10th is the bike recycling event and um working with uh uh Melanie there on the project mhm
um if you're not familiar with it uh whole bunch of bikes get dropped off a whole bunch of people kind of clean them up and we pass them on to the people who need them uh there's no no money involved just a lot of um spray oil and
paint and screwdrivers and things um and some tears not everyone gets the bike that they really really want there's a few of those yeah um and then any excess bikes go to bike nut bombs uh another place where bikes get reused um but um we're working through the paperwork with
our MLDD for that and then um uh working with Reading Cares and the writing climate committee to make that happen so um those two events um in the public comment section relative to the public great thank you very much Ray any other
comments i don't think so um great well we have two new members um we have it starting with our new cab member so Vick you want to take it away yeah so welcome we have a new cab member Charles from Wilmington what's that any comments you
want to make um no i'm just uh obviously this came about do you want to just briefly introduce yourself oh I'm sorry uh my name is Charlie Protoapus uh I live on 16 King Street in Wilmington i've been a Wilm I grew up in Wilmington um I've also been a lineman
for over 20 years so I'm familiar with the business uh well I should say the um construction you know the business is a whole different uh animal but um we'll train you yeah yeah and I'm I'm in my new position as a uh a transmission
planner job planner i'm kind of getting to see what that is i'm no longer in the tools i'm in the planning phase of uh for being a consultant for National Grid so um starting to see how the sausage is made and instead of just turning the bolts so it's uh it's very interesting
thank you welcome thank you very much it's great great to have you here do you go by Charles or child charles okay child charlie there you go there you go thank you and we have a new member of the board of commissioners Adam Richard Swanson i think you go by Rich right and
uh Rich please uh introduce yourself and uh let us know yeah so my name is Rich Swanson i'm very happy to be here uh I'm newly elected so newly minted i went in and and was sworn in at the town clerk last week uh so I
live here in Reading i' I've been a Reading resident for about 20 years uh moved from Colorado um I I'm a little bit familiar with sort of utility work i' I've worked as a consultant in in that space uh for a while on sort of
supply side due diligence and uh also with some regulatory training in different parts of the world through a state department program that we did um on cost of service tariffs and and kind of training commissioners and and uh
boards on uh that methodology and so forth um so anyway yeah very excited to be here and uh look forward to diving in welcome Rich welcome um okay with
that we move to the uh everybody's favorite time of year uh when we pass the torch after the election um so our as as per usual we have a discussion and then nominations and elect a new chair
and vice chair of the board so we're going to discuss this point um does the cab do this oh do you I think we're up oh he he's I think Fivc stays for two years so he's not gonna just be for this meeting
okay no discussion like to make a nomination okay so I'd like to nominate Pam Tascalasquez for chair second okay uh we have a we have a nomination a second any any discussion
who want to raise Ray yep okay well then I guess we're ready for a vote do you want to do it feels like Oh I'm uh would be happy to take on that responsibility if if the board decides that's the right move so I would
appreciate your trust okay well then I guess any other discussion or are we ready for a vote did you have a comment no I'm raising my hand oh voting first we say all in favor okay yes you can vote for yourself all motion
carries 5 there you go you can run the meeting from here and you want we can even switch spots if you'd like to i'm fine where I am thank you um I appreciate uh I appreciate everybody's trust like I said um I'm sure there will be some
patience required as I learn a little bit more about the role but um excited to continue to serve so thank you for that appreciate um and I so I guess uh the next one would be uh to nominate vice chair it's
true um so uh any discussion or on who would like to take that role or um do a nomination you want a nomination Pam yep um I'll nominate Bob Coulter vice chair okay um all right is anybody any
discussion on that a second do you got a second on it sure okay so then any discussion on that motion in the second oh sorry jeez i stepped out of line there
that's fine um any discussion on Does he want to do it just checking yeah okay any any other discussion okay ready for the vote all those in favor okay opposed motion carries 5 Z there we go
um and then it looks like we have uh appointments of the reading town of Reading audit committee and sub audit audit committee members um does anyone who's part of the audit committee I think that was the bill right so yeah I'd be happy to do it i
guess um I don't I think Phil did it for like 30 years or something right he did it was he the guy who or it was his career he was proud so what can somebody explain like and what since he always did it like what what's involved and
what's the commitment um I think I was assistant on that committee and I didn't do anything so is it it sounds like a sweet job all right does that mean you would like to be the nominee or is I will certainly serve on it if if if your seniority wants to take the first chair
and I'll take the second chair that's fine i mean I guess I guess I would Yeah I mean yeah sure i would I'd be happy to do it if if it's not an excessive meeting commitment so that's what I'm sorry Dave um to interrupt but I'm not So one of the positions is the representative for us on the town audit
committee so then that has their own meetings i'm not sure how many times they meet and then the other is um that subcommittee that just meets when we review the audit in June that's one which would only be one time can I just ask one other clarifying question phil
was also secretary and do we also need to nominate and replace the secretary so I just want to check 19 but I'm pretty sure what you guys decided was that every meeting you would rotate the secretary unless you want to have it up well Phil just Yeah technically you
would have to assign one for each meeting okay phil just he was doing it decades well he wasn't for decades but he did do it so when you say you guys you mean some somebody many years ago decided that that was what it would happen or did we recently decide we were
going to rotate it probably talked about it i'm not seeing it so it's really up to you guys what you at the board whatever you'd like to do okay well I'm happy to be the new casino on the board i'd be happy to do that job but if you want to go do the audit things first
move up are you interested in moving up in the role or would you like to remain as do we sub audit committee is the top sub audit committee or are we talking secretary let's talk let's talk about the audit committee first i I guess I'm
asking if you're comfortable staying in your backup role or if you're interested in taking a more prominent role in that i I would be happy to serve either role if you want to take the first chair I'll take the second chair and Okay that's fine uh is the first one to serve on the town
only the town of Readings books and the second one is just to one time meeting okay yeah so it's basically just on the town of Reading okay so why don't you take since you did you were why don't you take the point on the town one okay
all right and I I could do the second one okay um meaning we could do the one the one meeting for the RMLD board the second one okay and I could be the backup on all right so let's read it to serve as new Arnold board of commissioners member
so that's somebody back to the town so Ray is in the first space and and I could do so Ray and Dave and Dave and Ray yeah that's what I'm trying to figure out okay yeah you got it right all right so
it looks like we don't have to nominate we just have to read a motion so right um does anybody want to read the motion i'll I'll do it move although I'm a recipient of it but maybe I'll read it um move to appoint Ry to serve as a new
RMLD Board of Commissioners and Dave to serve as the backup RMLD Board of Commissioners member on the Town of Reading Audit Committee be effective after the vote is taken second second second i'll second i'll get involved here
we're going to put you in charge of reading motions sure okay all in favor all in favor okay um that motion carries 50 the next one uh does anybody would you like to
read yep yeah oh I'm sorry i'll read it yes uh move to appoint Dave and Ry as the new RMLD Board of Commissioner Sub audit committee members to be effective after the vote is taken
i'll second it any discussion okay all in favor okay carries 5 excellent and from a board of from a secretary stands I can read you the section so it says what you have right
now the secretary you shall be appointed by the chair from time to time as expedient and convenient for the board it doesn't need an action at that point okay all right so I guess I'd be happy to do it and do the be the fill if
you're willing if that's you might want to work with Rich as well that' be a great chance for him to learn exactly i'll be happy to do that that's great okay so do we need to do a motion on that okay great you are nominated so thank you so appointed okay
okay uh so moving along approval of meeting minutes um board of commissioners meeting minutes for December 17th 2024 and December 20th 2024 um Rich would you like to read the motion and then we'll discuss if needed
yeah uh move that the RMLD board of commissioners approve the December 17th 2024 and December 20th 24 uh 2024 open session meeting minutes as presented on the recommendation of the general manager second
uh any discussion i think we'll also just have a motion so that we can all discuss at the same time okay go for move that the RMLD citizens advisory board approve the December 17th 2024 open session meeting minutes as presented on the recommendation of the
general manager and the board secretary second any discussion from the cab uh for board of commissioners aldos in I think you do cab first right what they recommend or it doesn't matter in this
case listed BC yeah this case because it was a joint meeting so the order is independent okay so BLC all those in favor okay motion carries 5 okay motion
all right okay great marketing update hi everyone welcome members um we wanted to have a quick revisit to the logo um and identity um review that we presented last meeting just to be able to share with you guys a little bit more of where we had explored in the color realm um I
think we were all happy with the icon and the treatment in general the impact of it but more just um there was a request from the board and to see a little bit more so I want to walk through that and open it up for questions so I just want to kind of remind you and especially for the new members um the some of the rationale we
want sorry we wanted to make sure that this brand was very distinctive and ownable we want to make sure that it's clear u modern bold innovated all of the qualities that we really cherish in RMLD um we want to make sure that it's crisp and effective and it represents the future so it was all things that we
looked at in the push through this new identity um all of you have seen this um we looked for um a nice clean crisp and scalable icon mark and pipe treatment pushing forward with RMLD as the main but we have some supporting um in the
back end and all of the slides from the original deck are in the appendix for today just in case the new members need to refer to it um one of the questions was around color in particular we really wanted to pick a color palette that was flexible that was had lots of visual
impact and that really resonated both in electronic and print forms um had really nice contrast really nice accessibility all of those pieces and then specifically we wanted to make sure that it stood out we looked at all of say all
but we looked at many MLPS we looked at many IUs we looked at the colors that were prominent and we wanted to make sure that you know we were leveling to the top rising to the top in that and we proved that through this slide early on we did explore other color sets and
we'll show some of them now we looked from you know more reserved color sets and you can kind of see as color you know screen to screen does vary a little bit um but we looked at different tones of the blues different tones of a highlight color some greens um we looked
at some more vibrant colors to see and then and played with those throughout and that's what really had us land on what we feel still is the strongest of those color sets so I wanted to give the board a chance to you know now that you've had a little bit of time to sit with it to sit with the icons and are
there more questions or any you know concerns that we can address bob go ahead yeah um there were just two things that I had one is I know the the board last time gave some feedback around the light bulb itself being an incandescent um light bulb kind of
noticeable about those so I wasn't sure if that was something that you had gone back and looked at potentially tweaking that a little bit to make it more of a um modern technology sure so we had looked at the balance between the light bulb representing our history and our future so that was part of the
consideration we also did some initial early sketches where we did more of that um kind of the line of the the two-toned um current light bulbs we actually took photos of current light bulbs as we were sketching so the shape and the threads on the bottom represent the current
light bulb shape that is on the market from Amazon to Walmart to wherever um the only thing that is missing is that two-tone which is a tech is a kind of an aesthetic feature that could disappear in the next two to three years it could go back to a full glass it could go back to you know there's there's always going
to be lots of variation involved and we wanted it to kind of be more of just that icon feel uh the second question is just I think this was also raised last time is what do we estimate the cost of the transition to be and I know you had talked about it being a kind of a softer
transition or slower you know rolling transition but there's probably some level of cost involved here so what do you think the what's the budget or what is the expectation for what you're going to have to spend to do a changeover i can talk a little bit about the step in progress as far as the website that is
already contracted and and paid for we're just waiting on the new identity to be able to move forward with that um we're actually recouping hopefully some of that cost with the being able to do some of this design work inhouse versus using that agency um as far as any of our digital properties that's really the
time and effort of the team here to update um as far as anything that's print or tangible we'll take a very proactive you know and careful approach towards that for we're not going to just kind of toss things out for the the um for the sake of updating the brands we're going to make sure we're
thoughtful and planning ahead and as new vehicles get introduced they get rebranded as new signage is needed it gets rebranded so there will be that interim time to be able to be careful of cost so we're not going to be immediately changing the logos on trucks changing the sign out front of the
building yeah we So we've over the um so we have money budgeted we're talking the range of $10 to $20,000 all in um but as Alyssa mentioned most of these are going to be when we're actually reprinting stuff or redoing we would normally order
stuff anyways the only place that really would come in as you mentioned the sign out front which does need to be updated it's a it's faded so the time we kind of help we were going to try and do that two years ago but we want to get this in place first and then when we order the trucks um we will probably before the
year is out end up doing all the trucks um we newer that will come in automatically come but again as part of our branding they'll probably be nine months of transition um but they're not overly expensive in terms of doing that those are the main elements um but the other stuff the the materials the
marketing communication stuff as we reprint we'll do the logo and the other element as she mentioned um you know back to the the bald you know it it it touches a little bit on the tradition so it's not a massive change so we don't we
don't have to do it instantaneously so that soft transition should be relatively inexpensive it's already in the budget um kind of similar to what Pam is saying you know Looking at the the colors I know you changed it from that lighter
teal to this darker um color that we had from the last Yeah I think part of the is the um these monitors are not color calibrated right you can even see all three of them are a little bit different um the print's probably the better representation of the color oh you don't
have print right so so that's Yeah yeah i just The question goes back to So go ahead yeah go ahead it goes back to black right um you know we're black today i I like the bold i like I like the the font i like the boldness of the font and I still
like our old light bulb because it has the image of almost like a a solar it's a light bulb with solar right you mean the star the starry aspect yeah I was going to comment on that yeah so I think this brings us back all I could think of when I first saw it was like a a 1950s
to to 70s bathrobe with the with the tealer color you know so I like I like the different color but again the light bulb i think our my opinion right I think our image today represents more of a solar type light and the starry the
star backing rather than the the fishbowl or the the cap the the challenge with that one um is it doesn't it doesn't reproduce at different scales be because of that we actually spent quite a bit of time early on in terms of
looking at how do we keep that starburst as we called it arrays we had a whole bunch of different names and we tried dozens of different um scenarios associated with it um the challenge is when you go to different size particularly you go to mobile you go to smaller um it just becomes a
circle and it looks like it's a jagged circle so it's pixelated it doesn't look very good so that's part of the reason why we got away from the the more fine uh image with those we we we we agree we like the concept of the idea um but we
we had to also make it practical in terms of being able to scale and print as well as digital we also sold but then we talk about you know our logo lasted for 30 years that's what
people are familiar with and if you look at other yeah go back to your slides yeah just see it and again I I do I do like the that that that image and scal it's it's printable i
mean I've seen it it's it's printed i know in a digital area we should be able to be able to reproduce it digitally um in some shape or form right any shape or form right and then on the on the on the trucks too right the truck can just say
RMLD it can in fact I I noticed one of them the fine print reliable underneath we got to make sure that there's no small lettering on a on a truck right there won't be in fact we put in fact you'll see in some of the backups you know the materials we showed last time we we
tried to mock up what it would look like on a truck just RMLD rmld that's it nothing else yeah we're we're doing more RMLD and again part of the reason why we're really focusing on RMLD we it's not in this slide deck but the previous one when you when you spell out ready
municipal light department it becomes very long yeah and you can't find it in fact that was one of the earlier slides we had in the last presentation it was dead center but nobody really saw it right and so we're with you 100% that the RMLD is a tighter more square and so let's be bolder yeah so so we like the
tagline and we like the name Ready Municipal Light Department and the other element why we've stayed with the light bulb again a more a simplified one is light i mean we were originally a lighting department right so it's still part of our image and part of our name so that's why we kept the bulb and the
other element you know Pam back to your comment is that um the majority of fixtures today still have a I forgot the number the TE30 screw in base even though they'll be a an LED um internal it'll still be a screw in base so that's
why we kept that as well i mean there's a whole bunch of reasons for it but um yeah so RMLD 100% with you but those we really we won't walk you through all the details but we spent a lot of time as Megan and Melissa mentioned trying to figure out how to put the rays in there
um so that's what we did and we did I don't know how many versions of the Yeah the shading but another thought would be just put a couple of them out there right you want buzz on your site put it up to a vote put on the put on the
website yeah so and and go ahead you can say it i I just you you put it out there it might generate some buzz there's some designs okay do a survey that's all it is the survey come back get some get some input i I just
I'm that I think it needs more input right than I know it's your idea i'm I'm I get it i get it and I'm I'm just saying it i'm not absorbing it right i hate to say it that way but I don't want to change it but I want it
to be a group decision to change it not Good make a comment no I think I think it's always good to think that way and it's definitely stuff that we considered early on i I think from where I stand and what I would always recommend as being the client or working with someone in the marketing realm would be go back
to your goals and does where we landed deliver on our goals and we kept kind of gut-eing ourselves on this over and over again and it really does it really stands out within the field it really feels strong it feels like it has legs to it and extends across the industry um
looking at other I feel like since we've had this initial exploration over the last couple months and then presented to you all last meeting you know it's it becomes part of your so now every truck that I see every national grid every unitel I'm like ours would look better than that ours ours would stand out better than that or ours isn't as drab
as that and it's really even made us feel even stronger about these choices putting it out to things like a vote or a survey can be helpful in some some stands but it can also bring you lots of opinions which opinions are always take into effect are we meeting the goals and it really should be based on are we
hitting the goals and if we're not which one aren't we hitting and how can we shift to go with that dave yeah just just the way we I'm sorry Rich you had your hand up earlier no well uh I had a little different vein of question so if this is continuing well it was it was
going to continue is that so what I heard last time is that all the work was done within the office right the the management team came up with this was just the management team but there it was internal yes okay so I I think just but not by vote there was a small
group but keep going that that okay whether it's a vote or a survey but sometimes with this they go out for AB testing of a focus group and what are people's reactions when they see one versus the And I think what you heard from the DOS was this looks retrograde
now you're telling me that it's the same as what they sell in Home Depot and I'm I'm sure it's true and the base I know what you're saying but my first impression was the same as what Ray said last me this looks like an older throwback technology and I hear what you're saying but that was my reaction
and it was the reaction of other people on the DOS 2 so if you were to put this to just a focus group that isn't the executive team that came up with it or their reports how would those people react to it they might be the same as us or they may might not so that's I'm a
little concerned about that it hasn't gone through that type of process i'm not proposing you go spend money i think spending money on this is itself you know why why spend a lot all the time and even all the time we're doing tonight and last week and all your time when we're not a competitive business
like people buy electricity from it so that's all some of those uh life plants by the way are they do run competitive businesses they have competitive broadband businesses taton Shrewsbury Norwood and a couple of the others up there are running competitive businesses and but not electricity so any those are
I'm I'm concerned about the the lack of external input that it does look retrograde and that it's a cost uh I don't know what is it well it's you mentioned 20,000 but it could be by the time we do everything it could be 10 to 20,000 but it's part of an existing but plus all the staff time that will
continue and the sign up front that you didn't include in that right you said oh that's part of the that's also in the budget as well oh it is I I you know kind of coming back um we actually internally had the same reaction to the light bulb yeah like we tried to do other things besides the light bulb and
we al they came back to the light bulb um because of going going back to the points that Melissa just brought up right it does tie to our heritage right we are a light company that is a recognizable symbol we tried all sort we we we tried all sorts of interesting
unusual things and we came back to that fit the that rationale in terms of what we're trying to position ourselves as um the other element is um I've done four largecale brand identities um startup companies to 1.6 billion dollar
companies right and so no matter what you put out they're going to be the group that says "Oh I don't like it." Six months later "Oh it's the best thing I ever saw." So it will grow on you um I'm just I'm telling you from personal experience i used to be a VP of marketing i've done this several times i did not design this i was part of the
team that gave a lot of the feedback to Melissa and Megan in terms of doing it um but back to her point it drives the point of what we're trying to be is a distinctive right and it's exactly you know Pam you said it at the very beginning right you found us instantly when they had that graphic right the the
the previous one you didn't find us right so we're just and while we're not competitive we still we still appear many many times in a sheet just like this and we're this long little thing down the corner so um it is important to
have presence and you're right we're you know we're not necessarily selling to our companies our customers um because they know who we are but there are a lot of other people that we need to make sure that we're prominent so I think going back to I mean we could spend a lot of time working through it
um I I think you know we have done that work for you and we're basically sharing here's here's here's what we're planning to do um we talked a little about colors the colors are distinctive um black so there's a there's a color palette behind it we'll do a lot of black um but we're
trying to do a color that is distinctive um the the gold was our old color our former color charlie you had a com so um I I think for especially for our older population having the light bulb there will help with the rebranding all of a sudden if
they see they see a new truck with RMLD they're used to the running municipal light but if they see the light bulb I think that will help them understand who's out in front of their house even if it's a bucket but sometimes you may have a a different type of vehicle and I
I think that might you know help them bridge to the new brand and having the light bulb you know just my opinion just my my question is um you know maybe this is just sort of part of the training uh you know for new
commissioners or whatever but I know that that utilities upgrade their logos you know and I've seen that happen i guess my question is why like wh why why the marketing why why the effort to sort of upgrade um not that it's
necessarily a bad thing i'm I'm just sort of curious like why do utilities do that given I'm sort of thinking about Dave's question you know it is a monopoly you know where's the point where where do you need to stand out what kinds of neighborhoods do you need
to stand out in that kind of thing do you want to make the first cut off sure i think from where we stand um looking at the current logo it's been around for around 30 years um it was due for a hard look whether an update or not it was definitely due for a hard look um and when we started to look at how it
was being used um you know we just didn't see it being used effectively we saw it struggle in small spaces we saw it struggled online and mobile we also saw it struggling even just doing you know point of purchase type things like apparel or giveaways etc there's so many
that we can't because it's so fine and such an interesting and different font that was not interesting different but such a like fine font that doesn't really translate well so at the minimum we needed to do some updates to the general aesthetic of it and then when we really dug down deeper it really didn't
represent where we were right now as a company and where we were going even though we don't market there's a sense of pride both with our employees and our customers of we are a very forwardthinking local utility we are always doing more and more for the customers we're making better and better
decisions we're trying to be modern and bold even though we don't have shareholders demanding that that makes sense yeah i look at your slide so if you want to get rid of the rays and you want to get rid of the
small phone do that just keep black and gold keep black and gold keeps the same thing but you know it just trans so we would look at ahead um we did look at the black and gold as a color we do this set black and gold yeah we do have some struggle with the reproduction of the
gold sometimes it looks tan sometimes it looks kind of washed out so specifically around things like the trucks and signage we have lots of back and forth with those folks around trying to match it um and it fades very quickly and then go go to the And looking at you'll see
black and gold here so it's not distinct that's part of the other reason why we moved away from the black gold they're great colors but we wouldn't stand out like we do pardon me so Brun
that's a sharp goal go ahead what was the thought process of I like the idea of u reliable power it's one of the goals that we have here is No wait it hasn't gone away oh okay yeah yeah the tagline hasn't gone away right we're not I thought you were doing just RMLD which
is all I know as a taxpayer in Wilmington i don't know the reading municipal it goes on and on yeah you don't right i just call it RMLD you know I got to pay my bill i got to do this i got to get the discount you know I like the RMLD square simple but
the tagline yeah no we did yeah we we're not getting rid of the tagline okay good yeah there we go yeah yeah go ahead um so as much as I'm sad we're going to lose the little starburst that and and the connection to solar in
addition to the light energy as opposed to the light bulb um I I looking at all the other things we are about the only one with a bolt everyone's got a variation on the outlet power lines lightning bolts i mean which are fine
symbols also i mean I'm not saying that that's a bad way to identify what they're doing but the bulb does is different among that grouping so um so I can see for the for the two reasons of
it is a takeoff of what we did before it'll be recognizable by by people oh yeah it's the light bulb truck okay I that's our local utility and and I'm good with that um and then looking at the lettering of everyone else it it's all the block it Yeah so
um Roman is is probably not going to be the font going forward times Roman is uh maybe what I use but uh probably not what the modern people are looking so the I I see the block being probably more scalable and whatever so um I I
think in terms of cost that we're talking about 20,000 that rolls out over time that's a manageable number so I guess I'm better shirt by the way that is So you're already you're already It's white it's white not black or whatever
so you can see it can transform into I I like the lettering i think the lettering was it definitely got to go with but to the boulder font that that that that good on the truck I guess it's the color
palette again fan of black you know on on the on the white truck I think you're hearing feedback again no if the right term there's four five six right here everyone's questioning it right and as we do Bob
yeah no I I you know I've I've been rebranded many many times right and I I've seen good brands and I've seen bad ones you know and then look at Verizon verizon said Verizon and it went to a check mark it was like what the hell is a check mark right it's terrible you know
soccer team that was going to no more balls in this town they were going to launch with that that didn't work right okay things stop it doesn't work but the Wakefield track and field team was an interesting choice for for their t-shirts i I did not see that but I I
they're up there wakefield's right there but again that you heard some feedback again if you could just expand a little bit on the thing just throw throw something with the old I the light icon
together with it but feed it back to everybody here right in the in everybody that's here right i think it was too small of a group um and yeah I you keep you keep defending something i think we're tell we're giving you feedback and you you gave us the same thing right
back um I I'm just not not digging it we don't So um everybody has their expertise right and this is marketing right it's like asking you guys how many cylinders should be on the heavy duty
truck we don't ask that that's Yes it's marketing i'm okay i'm okay with changing it i'm okay with changing it it's just you get feedback on the light bulb maybe work tweak the light so we we can walk so it might be helpful so what you don't have the benefit of um is
walking through the process that we walked through right so maybe we try and give you an abbreviated version of that i mean I if we're well well if you put put it to a vote that's
there's no vote on this yeah i told you before don't change the logo without asking and and you we're not loving it well here we're not loving it so that's why I I wanted to make sure I came to the board you you that's been there for 30 years don't think it has been for 30
years we're not changing it let you know that that's why I don't like it right you don't like it because it's different that's I do I like the font i like the change of the font right that that was a tweak right i I that I appreciate that but the color scheme and the lip bulb I
I don't like you don't like the light bulb i the light yes i don't I apologize for my my opinion but I don't like it i like the old one and you know maybe there's a blended that maybe it needs a tweak maybe it needs a remodel so when I
say legitimately again I'm not trying to argue with you guys i again this is I don't I didn't We don't want you to change it no but hang on um the light bulb the old light bulb needs to be changed it is It does not replicate particularly in small scale so
we can't just go I say this it is it it is not the um we're making the change because when that was created it was all print very very very little digital back in 1987 and the
world today is small screen understood we all I think we all got that so I don't know what but you're ask so what are you asking I can I make a recommendation because this is not something that you're asking us to vote on i I don't think it's something that we necessarily although I appreciate
that you're sharing with us and I also recognize the feedback is important this is a slow roll out what I'm going to recommend is you know your you proceed with the digital elements of the roll out and figure out a way to ask for customer feedback on the new logo when
it starts hitting bills website whatever put it in the newsletter what do you think of our new logo or you know hey we're doing this new logo we have three color options please vote just something that gives number one it engages customers perhaps maybe it'll get a few additional clicks in the newsletter if
you're asking people for their feedback and number two we can get some data around what people think of it ultimately it's a lowcost thing i think we all agree it presents better than what we have currently we probably don't need to spend a ton of additional time from it but I do think
the feedback should be recognized and let's let's come up with a unique way that moves the ball forward on the communication with the customer to also get back is that Yeah that's a good idea okay
great so we can move on to the next one policy review and thank you Melissa for the update thank you thank you yeah thank you okay so now we have a cab motion on policy one right the motion I see are you presenting about this the policies yeah
we we can do each one individually do you want me to you want to present or I mean normally we read the motion first and then I give you a quick description but flexibility in a way you read the motion first that's typically what we do right that the ard cable advisory boards recommend that the
arald board of commission Approve policy on community relations revision six as presented on recommendation second rich would you mind reading our motion yeah thanks uh move that the RMLD board
of commissioners approve policy one community relations revision six as presented on the recommendation of the general manager and the RMLD citizens advisory board second discussion so uh pres are you presenting
yeah I'll just yeah I'll just give you a quick we'll do each one individually so um we have a habit of reviewing uh we have roughly 32 um policies um it kind of and our what we had reviewed a couple years back a couple years a couple
months back is to take that list and see which ones are more appropriate for procedures and which ones are should stay policies and then the policy ones try and clean them up yes so in this particular one um we basically went through um probably the
biggest thing is part of our community engagement as you guys know from earlier discussions to really engage legislators and regulators as well in in the state of uh in the Commonwealth um we made some other clean up but that's probably the biggest cleanup um that we did the table in front basically walks through
each section what we did for each sections and then there's a clean version and then there's a red line version so we definitely think the communication policy is important um we think it should be a policy um we have some um we kept the key pieces of it and we and Greg can I just add a comment
here yeah please some policies the cab will not have because if it's a more of an operational issue we don't want to have an input but if it's something that involves the community in all four towns the cab has some input some of them the cab has so you because
it's community input would yeah the others you would Yeah so some people feedback that's that's fair yeah um I have done with your presentation yes wasn't Melissa isn't she the communic here do you want to bring it
back i thought I would have thought she'd be there's Yeah she That's what she reports to me oh okay all right so so skipping to the pa the the third page of the red lines of the revisions here
so all this stuff is deleted where you will implement educationalformational programs targeting members of the communities within service territory including customers senior citizens schools libraries youth organizations professional organizations civic associations uh it deletes everything
where we're participating in these types of events and I I I would I wonder why oh we took out a lot of the specifics because this is a policy document and all these items are actual activities and strategies we already have a
marketing plan that that that we have so the way we brought the policy up level these are procedural type things okay well I mean it's it's but there's other things that are specific about joining civic organizations and that's still in
here so I just don't know it seems like under the logic you just described that would also be deleted if it's all just procedures well the the reason why we left the civic organization because that is um governed by 164 certain things we can't and can't so that's why we left it
in the policy okay i mean reading it cold it just seemed like deleting a lot of things that we would want to be doing you're saying that it doesn't mean we're not we're diminishing our things we're actually doubling our efforts we're we're hiring another marketing communications group
okay um All right so the fact that it's deleted has no no meaning in terms of just deemphasizing those activities and I think that that's the strategy for the whole policy revision so not just for this one but for all policies right I mean so some things are being removed
from a policy procedure I mean okay uh the previous page you're you're you're adding execute communications activities across the service territory but then you're deleting again like deleting that prepare communications budget and so it
seems again we're deleting things about you're deleting it because that again this is us trying to streamline this is exactly what we did with policy 19 we took all the board responsibility to put in one policy okay this budget is part of a budget process so that's why it didn't belong here we do it is part of the budget process i assume you have a
policy that you need a budget every year that gets approved by Well in fact it's in policy you guys So we have we have to create one and you guys need to approve it right so that's where it's covered but yeah so we try we try to look at these carefully and say keep them in one place as opposed to
repeating three or four times go ahead so would these would those elements that that Dave referring to would they go into this uh responsibilities be too the communications plan that is to be developed we well not to be developed we have a working communications plan every
year so so these things develop and update development yeah we're not we're not so one of the things which is communication it's a we continually try and do a better job of communication to the customer
um and so this is not meant in any way shape and form to diminish those efforts it's just basically we're trying to clean we're trying to clean and streamline the policies to keep policies policies and make procedures procedures ve does that help yeah so I had a question
on section 3A which talks about charitable contributions yes so what are examples of charitable contributions that are supposed to be mentioned in this section and since it it also you also add the
word excludes right it says regarding you there's some input that when they like excludes must um so no but but let me first first let you what what charitable contributions are excluded here so I just want to be sensitive to that
i I think this what this is saying is it that charitable contributions must be excluded from service costs they cannot pass those to the rateayer correct unless there is a very clear benefit to the rateayer so it's not
saying at least how I read read this it's not saying you don't do charitable contributions it's just you can't pass them along to the rateayer it's part of unless No so So what does that mean so like who's making the charitable contribution and if RMLD makes the charitable comp if RMLD makes a
contribution to an entity we have to make sure that that contribution is to the benefit of the rateayers not just because we like so maybe would it help to give an example like what what would a recent charitable contribution I can give you someone gets hurt in the line
of duty and a lot of times they might have a charitable contribution that could go to that person for family support right that that's a prime example of something that happens in the utility and you might want to make a significant donation towards that person
um that needs to be included somehow in that in that language and that there's a benefit to you know if we make that there would be a benefit and so what we typically do at situations like that is we don't make that individuals the individual employees would make that contribution we would do that so you're
saying nothing from the rate so nothing from the rate payers bucket is going as a charitable contribution it could be from below the line though it could be out of your rate of return yeah yeah yeah you have to make sure that those So yeah so this is saying it can't be out of anything that
you put back into the rate so it has to be after you've calculated your rate of return if you have any profit you want to make a donation out of a profit or a charitable that's not what this is saying reading light won't make that donation that's what that that's what Jason you're you're partially correct um
because those below the line pieces actually fund the capital budget so the legal guidance we've gotten is to be very restrictive in terms of what charitable contributions we make they have like win and error we won't make the charitable contribution and we we
want to participate we'd rather do it in kind services as opposed to cash can I ask so this is specifically saying that we comply with a DP policy correct and then it's then it explains what the DPU policy is is that the exact language in the DPU policy and does it require does
this policy require us to specify what that is version it just says it's going to comply with the DPU and then it says that the policy is this the new version is just basically putting what the DPU policy is in the language it kind of makes it a little bit easier to read it
just doesn't the old the old language is easier i think we're saying the RMLD follows the policies and guidelines of the Department of Public Utilities regarding charitable contributions and gift giving the DPU policy is as follows but it Yeah that's a So it just puts a
snapshot yeah we'd rather So if that policy changes so one of the things that we've learned also is to have it refer back to the actual policy as opposed to try and paraphrase it yeah i think I guess that's my point is um we can change the first sentence the way that
you've changed it to make it cleaner but potentially or perhaps referencing the exact language in the policy is better than paraphrasing which is what you are presenting here in the I didn't I didn't mean to say par paraphrase I wanted to this came from a version I not didn't go
back to look what we basically are trying to do is refer back to the place the state laws which is what which this is as opposed to having it replicated here in case it changes then we have a conflict between our policy and what the laws changed so that's we've been doing
that all along to try and take you are intentionally trying to paraphrase so that it doesn't we're intentionally trying not not to paraphrase but just we we basically say we're trying to be consistent with DPU policy that's what we're trying to say I I just would like to take the word excludes out because
policy which regarding charitable take the word excludes because again to the scenario that I talked about if god forbid somebody got hurt here light would want to contribute to that person I don't think that would make sense in a sentence the way that written oh excludes but because it's it's
specifically talking about excluding it from this rate payers but everything's rate payer based greg just said that if it goes if it's a profit does it go back in it i just want to make sure that in that scenario are you sure that from the profit doesn't meet that because the
payment comes out of the profit it is very clearly stated that that cannot be above the line to be party rates or for the for just the reading pilot right as opposed to in our case the 20-year agreement you want to look at another municipal like that maybe only serves
one community that pilot payment can only come out of the the profit it can't come above at all and it's voluntary and it's voluntary that's a whole another topic well yeah i mean but if you go to the state law it's
supposed to be voluntary supposed to be below the line it's not supposed to be a taxable item as well agree completely Jason so one could I mean a reasonable person could think that if that's your profit and it's what you've earned and you're within the 8% which is
your chapter 164 guidelines you could potentially contribute to a trade for that money it's not part of the cost of service i understand that you might change move some of that profit into your construction your capital fund capital which we do offer choice you can make and it comes out your profit that
money doesn't have to go there well if it doesn't go there and we do a capital project then the rateayers need to contribute so at the end of the day the rateayers are paying the bill completely and so again what if you look at the the revised version right the non-redline
version RMLD complies with DPU policy which excludes charitable contributions from service cost unless clear evidence shows the contributions benefit rateayers and are essential to serving them it so agreed that is that is um paraphrased in that section we deleted
the actual text um we can't we can't delete the word exclude Bob because that's what the DPU is telling us but we were we're we're following the DPU policy is what this is we are very careful about I mean we we we have lots of requests given our size we have lots
of requests can you donate to this can you make a charitable contribution it's good and they're all good things to do um but we are very cautious about not doing those um like it's it's rare when we do them what's an example of of a
contribution that is uh essential to serving rape papers um I I don't have one off the top of my head because they are so rare i don't have an essential one but I do have something we did which one is to this this is when we um bought the island
down the street um next to the McDonald's somehow we were able to use I think below the line funds for that and that kind of the landscape we said was just like Jason said was a budget for pilot was a budget for
profit no but I mean you're totally right to that point baked into budgets even municipal that we served in this valley but realistically Your pilot payment is voluntary it's below the line
it's it doesn't may or may not me ne necessarily benefit your rate payers yet you still voluntarily give it it's almost like a charitable contribution for payment move taxes i mean yeah to the community right but remember we're RLD is a little bit distinctive and that
we are not that that our host community is 27 28% of our total load and total revenue the majority we are we are so different so we are very cautious in terms of doing this so so so what Erica said was that payment was made in the
past but going forward we will not do it I right we we can I'll ask maybe a different question we can get I had gone back to that example we can get out of the adopted island stuff that's fine yeah I don't know I don't know that that's our I don't think that
necessarily what we're saying but um is with the proced That's what you're saying i thought that's what you're saying right no that's a benefit that's probably a marketing there's some My question is to try to try to close out the conversation on this one unless
others of concern i assume can you please tell me if there's a procedure around review and approval of charitable contributions every time they come up to ensure that this policy is followed all of those come to whoever whoever they come through which is typically
through customer service they end up coming to my desk okay so the procedure is I Okay and and and politely and nicely etc but yeah just Okay so you're you are the one who's looking at to make sure that it follows this policy every time i I I do need to point one other
thing out is I noticed that the red line version is not the same when you accept the red lines is not the same as the accepted version so when I I've been reading the red line version like for example in 1B it's in this the sentences are they're different the sentence says
strengthen positive relationship between RMLD and it serves and the other one says it's just been edited differently so I don't know if there's other mistakes think we should have stuff to vote on where we have red lines that match what the what the final is so I think we should we've spent too much
time just we will push this to next month okay that's fine i mean I want my apologies for the for the air i haven't looked to see if there's others yeah um I'm so we have a policy in communications and community engagement
and in this revision chapter on community relations is being dropped now I get that we don't want the laundry list here and I think I heard they are doing community relations
programmings but that is something that's somewhere else it's a responsibility of one of several staff members so it's not the doing it but I I I guess I'm missing I'm guess I'm missing why we still can't have a six
that says our develop and implement various educational and formative programs targeting members of the community um particularly given that it's a a policy that's talks about community engagement and it doesn't have
to be list the all of the places you know not limited to and have this laundry list we can take that out but you're going to create a program informative program um you say you've got staff
committed to doing it so I don't I don't I guess I'm not sure why we're losing that heading or we can't have a not that we're losing responsibilities but you want to put it back in we can do it so we'll go back we'll double check the at a high level i get at a high level it's fine i'm good okay so so for policy one we're
going to punt that one to next month when we'll double check the redines the red lines and we'll add back in the first two lines of the of that six A
okay any other discussion on this one the first column it should be fine okay first column uh so we will what do we do when we just decide to vote is that it just move on is there a word for that okay we'll go move on um all right policy
three um should I read it sure that'd be great thanks all right I'm into it uh move that the RMLD board of commissioners on the recommendation of the general manager dissolve policy safety committee and that some components of this policy as presented
will be incorporated into RMLD's safety procedures so the discussion on this one is we have an active um safety program as those of you that are involved in the industry right safety is first and foremost right it's uh it's
ahead of reliability low cost and on carbon um we have a safety program that's in place it's run by the general line foreman they meet monthly anytime there's an issue we review uh the issue what happened lessons learned etc so it is actually a procedure um the procedure
we updated procedure from version zero to version one that's also in your book so we basically the the concept of removing us from a policy is that it's really an internal procedure that we follow and we have in place that's kind of the bottom line it's it's it's very
important read it any discussion read the motion we did read it yeah second motion second seconds oh yeah sorry any discussion on this one
ready for the vote on paper i Okay 5 Z all right uh policy 10 fraud so on policy 10 fraud um we had some we're going to I want to request that we hold that to the next meeting okay um there are some details that we want to walk through on that one before we present
that to you um the boards to consider okay great one one comment on that um I don't fraud on fraud the um tech the old section seven whistleblower protection was stricken out um it was captured
somewhere else it was was that moved it was moved up and then reporting the suspicion of the protect okay never mind we got some to do on that one yep okay okay policy 17 tuition
reimbursement you you want to review this one today yes please okay would you like to read the motion move that the uh RMLD board of commissioners on the recommendation of the general manager approve policy 17 tuition reimbursement revision five as presented and that some
components of this policy will be incorporated into RMLD's tuition reimbursement procedure okay second i'll second that thanks okay again with the concept so we think that this one um uh should stay as a policy
um we did do some cleanup associated with it um uh we moved some of the pieces um to procedures um the one probably big change that we made is uh we remove part-time employees from being eligible um we have at any given time
there's at least one individual who's at least one sometimes two that are involved in tuition reimbursement so it's a program that's actually utilized um and we're a big supporter of encouraging uh advanced education whether it's bachelors
or some cyber security whatever it might be how many part-time employees have taken advantage of the tuition reimbursement in the past none so that's part time employee okay yeah so it's not it's just as we looked at it like is it something where in the future if you had
a part-time employee would they petition to have it or is it a hard no you know I think it's a hard no again we're looking at re so we're a big believer in it um but um you know we're making an investment um our view is it's a full-time employee
that's going to be here for a while in the state there's no there yeah we just we just thought that part-time didn't belong greg one quick question is there a limit on how much from a budget point of view that you're willing to spend per employee or across the organization it
it has to be approved ahead of time um but we again we tend not to put limit the the numbers are not significant because people usually do one course um at a time um so we really haven't put any cap on it um and we it hasn't been
ownorous for us and we we're really we're big we're a strong proponent of continuing education of one form or another there are certain requirements that they have to meet it has to be fully credited that they have their grade has to be above certain level so
some people may not finish but they will take some courses that's our experience so far one quick on the responsibilities i know we push down the approval lower into the
company right i just saying it shouldn't not necessarily go to you as a GM maybe to the director of HR um we you know I'll I'll approve someone's I'll agree with their what they're taking and then it comes to me i
I approve it maybe you take yourself out of that got enough things on your plate i I don't know how often it occurs where it becomes necessary but I don't I don't see it requiring GM approval to take a class i think either the director of the the um HR or Yeah she does so she she
processes all of it again I've got to sign on all like you guys do too i have to sign on everything anyways yeah good good thank you it's helpful but it's not in the in the grand scheme of things i just find this like I still sign the rebate letters um that go out
um it just it's it's part of it's a fun part of the job yep here's a check for $3,500 you know it has a cover letter from our Yep we don't want you not to have fun Greg yeah it's a positive element that like
it brings a smile to people's faces the the only the only thing I would say I get I get that there haven't been part-time employees that have taken us up on that program in the event like we don't speak to it at all it seems in this policy now it's full-time employees
and it excludes interns and oh yeah get that we don't make any comment maybe it's just part-time employees will be considered on a like ad hoc basis or something I I would hate to like have a part-time employee who's a great employee who wants to further their education maybe become a full-time
employee they not have that opportunity here um just because they don't speak to we don't speak to it at all or it's a hard no i mean I it's not going to move the needle one way or the other if you want to put the part time back in we can put hard time back in i I I'm I'm flexible
on that one again I'm just my feedback is yeah it would be great to have some mechanism where if that case happens and it's something that somebody wants to do they have a mechanism for requesting that and it's not in a prorated immediate hard note could you prorate it to their level of I don't even think
like I I don't even know that I think make that statement right now i just give them a path yeah it would give them a path i think that's that's a I like that that's actually a good way to do it Pam good suggestion okay most of your part-time people would only stay six months anyway they're not here for like
three years are they we have some that are here depending upon where they are in their stage of life that that part-time works for them um we have an individual in the purchasing team that is in that category and will probably be here for another five years has been
here for three but they're they're they're infrequent i mean they're they're not it's not common we tend we don't we don't have a lot of part-time positions in general because we we have to create the part-time position if we're going to have one and we tend not to
um but just again no part time has to fill in for part time and it just gets terrible it can great fits for parttime and some employees are fantastic and part-time works you want to hang on to them and I think that's a good point around this
individual is wonderful yeah we don't you know it I'm sure there are many who are and you know we would want all of them to have the opportunity to further education that's related to RML if they want that we are massive supporters of education any other okay so it would be
uh we would have to add as amended or in terms of adding back the path for time to the policy as amended we'll create a a B4 a uh Okay 3b4 is there further discussion on that ask
for part time does anybody have a problem with that okay probably not the right language to use a problem with that problem with that exactly question you got a problem with that
okay what are you looking at uh all uh all in favor okay motion carries 5 thank you no problem um okay dust standards policy 23 yeah I don't want to monopolize anything
here but this was good for your reading is good just wait till we get to procurement request that's really tongue twisters move that the RMLD board of commissioners on the recommendation of the general manager dissolve policy 23
dress standards and that some components of this policy as presented will be incorporated into RMLD's clothing procedure clothing procedure what's clothing that's exactly what we did we we created it's in there we created a a clothing procedure um we updated it to
reflect um administrative people that are inside the building as well as those that need protective gear as well um again we Sorry is the is the document we're looking at that says RMLD policy number 23 dress standards the procedure they didn't get the procedure oh I'm so
sorry okay um everything in this can you throw it up on the screen so you're saying getting rid of this we're removing the we're we're removing the policy yeah um and we updated the
clothing procedure OP 15R1 got a number and I'm sure there's Put that in a t-shirt [Music] op i'll catch up with you at night oh no i'm not allowed to wear shirt with
a stain on it all my shirts have stains i'd be naked that's accurate that's not authorized either nor safe in many cases i got to transfer this oh you got transfer over
yeah i mean it basically there's acceptable attire items to avoid grooming standards exceptions additional requirements for field work um and then specific things for online workers hearing protection fall protection arc flash protection
respiratory high visibility specialized tools so two and a half pages of of procedures it's a procedure i mean it's sure i assume I I've never read read this one before i assume this passes legal muster in terms of you're able to
tell people they they can't wear uh shorts below a certain part of their thigh or whatever you're you're actually allowed to do that under the law and as long as you're saying yes then yeah fine okay okay so
um did did Sorry did we read this one yep we did we did okay uh all in favor okay motion carries 5-0 um vehicle use uh move that the RMLD board of commissioners on the
recommendation of the general manager dissolve policy 31 vehicle use and that some components of this policy as presented will be incorporated into RMLD's vehicle use procedure same idea yep second i'll second it yeah
exact same idea um so we actually updated we do have a uh we had an existing vehicle use procedure um and so and I I will let you know that I because I I have it here on the procedure but um it does have a
provision relative to aftermarket products including statues including stickers including stickers okay good so is it it's a procedure not a policy is the fundamental
right which in terms of the enforcement equally severe equal okay I mean depends upon the situation yes what uh elements did you not move to the procedure I
uh well I think you just did this polic policy pretty recently okay just I'm just reacting to the some elements got moved to in the Yeah in the um some components of this policy in the um motion that we just
read i think they're all um so if we were to comprehensive okay it's literally it's um it's six pages plus a plus if we can amend to say and that all components of this
policy as presented will be incorporated into the vehicle use procedure that would be accurate um and the reason I'm pausing is the element of if it's covered someplace else it might not be in this say in in
an operating procedure as opposed to the vehicle use operating procedure i'm okay with that amendment you follow what I'm saying so there's different procedures we have lots of We have lots of procedures well regarding vehicle use no there's one vehicle use procedure but again um I haven't got I I
had looked at this a month ago um Rich to be honest and so I'm just trying to remember which ones if there's anything that didn't make it I'm pretty sure all of this stuff made it back to Erica's comment um but if they didn't make it into this one they would have made it somewhere else they're all useful pieces
so I'm okay with that amendment okay yeah okay um sorry I can confirm for the review that we did internally that all statements from the previous policy are in the current okay okay so no for the amendment you can add if you want but
doesn't Yeah let's just amend it just the Okay uh any further discussion on that one okay all those in favor okay motion carries 5-0
and sorry oh proud one sorry we we passed through that so that's why that was the only other one for we pushed two of them to the next one yep and just I was expecting another cab one so okay okay procurement requests
all right uh this is for the substation transformer assembly project move that IFB 202501 for Wilmington substation transformer assembly project be awarded to Transfluid Services Inc for
$164,800 pursuant to MGL C3039M as the lowest responsible and eligible bidder on the recommendation of the general manager the second Bob thanks so for discussion um
as you guys know we took delivery last week of the first of two transformers for the new substation um station six the second one is due in uh at the end of this week theoretically um if not early next week um this particular bid
is for the assembly they came um broken down for lack of a better expression so they can be shipped um there's a lot of pieces of equipment that hang off them um the bids were sent out to 26 companies we had five respondents four were responsive um this particular company that we're awarding to Trans
Fluid Services um they're based in Houston um they've got 25 years of experience in terms of transformer and substation equipment across North America they met technical requirements um uh uh we contacted their references they
all had profit positive references to work with and so our recommendation is to go with Transluent yes go ahead transformers the prices were all over the place right so what so in terms of what we budgeted where did this come out
in terms of the budget um we know uh the capital budget for this item was $300,000 that's that's what I thought because Yeah yeah we put it right so we we as a practice we put it right on the on the bids request um you know as you'll see um so there were two bids that were relatively speaking close to
each other um and then the other three were higher well one of them was way high but that's a but the other two were higher but the last one didn't qualify anyways um so in terms of bids the 164 to 237 while it seems like a lot it's not a massive range for a project like
this can you um just from again my own edification can you outline just briefly high level how you do these bids uh you said you sent them out to a certain number of companies so this isn't in this case this is not an open bid this
is you have a list of vendors that Oh we do post it on So it's all posted on the website but we also proactively send it out to people that we know would be well that we think would be interested okay and then and then when biders come back what's your review sort of process
so for most projects like this we before we sent the bid out we we create a technical spec we create a the technical spec is an evaluation team that will actually that creates a spec and then they'll go back and look at it after the fact um they score it against those specs they score it against the specs um we typically look at um capabilities
first and then price second typically not always but typically if it's if it's excavation services they're excavation services so there's not really a technical evaluation but you'll see that in just a moment um so that's basically we're we're basically approving an hourly rate but in this particular case
yeah we go through a there's a outbound process and a posting process and an evaluation that comes back okay yeah that's great was it surprising that only four four came back complying is that what you said yes sir out of the 25 that
you sent out correct and no open submissions unsolicited submissions i uh I don't I I don't know that for certain to be honest um but we you know we will typically average two to five responses to any individual
bid we do um okay we're um um you know we're a larger MLP but we're not an IOU right um but yeah the other element about uh MLPS is um we we pay promptly and we're on credit risk um and we do have
particularly now there's a lot of uh recurring business so you'll see in a few moments that sometimes the existing the incumbent will because we have to depend upon the length of the contract typically contracts are no more than three years sometimes one year with two opportunities for automatic renewal as
well depending upon how good we find it to be okay that's helpful thank you good discussion okay ready for the vote all those in favor motion carries and next one
uh IFB 20250707 electric utility excavation services so this says uh move that the IFB 202507 for electric electrical utility excavation services rates be awarded to
Tim Zanelli excavating LLC pursuant to MGLC3039M as the lowest responsible and eligible bidder on the recommendation of the general manager contract is for a one-year term with the option for RMLD to renew the contract for a maximum of
two one-year renewal terms we have a second second thanks Dave great so discussion um these this is we do this um on a regular basis these are for um excavation services as needed so
we're actually approving an hourly that's the way the bid was structured um we've we've done a hope over the we do this on a regular basis um this particular template um seems to work well for us um and for the people that bid um it's not only regular utility
excavation um but emergency excavation services as well it would also cover for example if um our equipment is not able to set a pole or whatever so we will depending upon what it is um uh but it's basically excavation services um the uh
um it was sent out to 23 companies eight responded um seven were responsive um and the lowest ended up being um Tim and LA Escobane services they've been servicing us for a couple years now they do a particularly good job they're very responsive and in
this case we're literally it's bid on the lowest it's an excavation services and they're responsive so if they for some reason um stop being responsive to us then we will end the contract at the end of the first year but they've been very helpful for us
additional discussion okay ready to vote all those in favor motion carries 5-0 all right one more recharge point electric vehicle DC fast chargers
move that RFQ 202511 for three charge point electric vehicle DC fast chargers be awarded to Voltrek LLC in the amount of 106,500 pursuant to
MGLC30B22 as the lowest responsible vendor on the recommendation of the general manager second yeah sorry sorry discussion on this one is it so that's is that 33 grand each or 106 grand each uh total
for all three that seems like a good price it seems like they used to be a lot more expensive than that one was one was 100,000 right but there's a difference um yeah this one has a slightly lower power but we're going to compare them okay
so it might still get up to like over 100 kilowatt yeah so this is these are DC fast chargers but they're 60 kW um level twos are somewhere between typically 10 to 20 kWS um but there's um so these are less expensive level twos
are more like 6,000 watts level two is uh seven 7.2 so seven yeah to 12 and and some of the ABB ones 20 i'm pretty sure that okay so so we'll check the specs but yeah less than 10 are level twos anyways
these are 60 um the ABD ones the two previous ones that we purchased were up to 175 that we go faster but yeah the 60 seems like plenty it we we agree and we thought the price was good and again we're very we're we're we're not rushing to install a whole bunch of them but we
agreed that um at the price point um it was and so we plan to install the first one literally um in front so we'd have a DC fast as well as the L2s that we have out front as well and then the other two we have a couple sites that we're looking at for that as well what's the business model on these
uh so the business model is a is a combination of um uh so we're we'll re So we put together a DC fast rate last July June July year ago so we would own we in this particular case we would own
the asset it's not too expensive um we we don't mind if other people own the asset instead of us but but but these assets we own there's no grants on these or no grants on these okay yeah there's no grants on because I know there was there's some Navy grants which are at
risk so that's why Yeah well we also we had applied for there was last year there was a 5.25.3 million grant that we were in the running for but it all went to Boston it got focused in the Boston collect revenue on on it too yeah
what are you charging per kilowatt hour per uh right now it's 20 cents but we are going to change that to higher that's a lot that's good it should be higher yeah it should it was very low but I think initially the idea is just
really it's used as educational tool like right to or to motivate people to buy EVs so that they don't have don't need to buy a charger charger and car chargers but after this procurement we're going to review like you know how
we're going to invest in new EV chargers right when uh are we anticipating these to get delivered um I think they're in stock actually they're in stock okay huh um so this in
essence we'd have to spare them uh we we plan to deploy all three of them all three okay if we have to If we had if we had probably sorry
[Music] but in in the case that one does get wrecked we we correct we don't have we don't we have a SP we we have the equivalent of a sparrow though we'll put it into service okay the one we probably would we we anticipate putting two
together at a at a retail establishment there's two that we're looking at specifically if one of those got hit or whatever we would probably take the one out here and move it over there until we got that one fixed yep most likely but we'll see i mean we're to go back to the use we go through phases of utilization on the ones that are out front here um
they go through phases where they're all bus that utilization's high and then it slows down um so again as Megan mentioned we're learning in terms of of uh installation and where but and and is this so so you mentioned your
own you own these assets yep uh I'm I'm sure you've explored other models right of somebody else owning them yeah somebody else owning them but that doesn't pencil out as well yeah we actually work with municipalities like that we have we serve four towns so we
tried to convince them to invest and they were like well you guys you guys so that was the other option is having the towns own them for public chargers that would be the yeah best and is there also where the third party owns it own we have people come to coming to us
proposing fast chargers as well yeah but this was the best from a revenue generation standpoint um this particular because the price point's relatively low the payback period is shorter and we can actually put one out in front and and learn again we're trying to learn more
and more from we have we have an ABB one in library which is part of the grant program we have another ABB unit back here which has no revenue tied to it because we use it to charge our trucks we have two service trucks um and then
these two would be to because they're relatively inexpensive the payback period would be quicker what is the payback yeah what are you talking about we haven't we haven't set the rates yet oh it's that much to to break even is 5
to 10 years oh right so because of the utilization right yeah that's why I said after this procurement we have to look at we we currently have over 30 charging stations uh so we're looking at all of them the
performance of them and some of them are about to kind of expire like end of life you know in a few in a few years 10 to 15 years only any other questions ready to vote
all those in favor okay 5 Z okay uh CAB BSE and CAB transition statement clean heat large building attachment five okay so um Ray and I happen to be part of a a
webinar we've actually become more familiar with the clean heat program um the IOD team has been doing research on the clean heat program um the other MLPS have taken a much
stronger stance um against uh CHP large building reporting advanced clean trucks um our view um and again we we'd like this to be a letter from you guys so it'
have to be your view as well but um we believe that the MLP business model um is uh uh it's a superior business model um in terms of serving electricity into um our our communities the um what the clean heat
standard in particularly and then there there are four different items here I will let you know that the advanced clean truck regulation uh which we've talked about before um as of Monday that got pushed off another year so it's not it won't take effect until January 1st
2027 i think we should still leave it in there um but we can walk through each one of these but basically the clean heat standard is meant to encourage the adoption of heat pumps and we are we've had a heat pump program in place now for five years we have over a thousand
systems installed ravaging somewhere between 200 and 270 heat pumps um as uh u Megan walked you through uh meeting before last we've we've upped the incentives uh we've put in place the um
zero interest loan program so we we think heat pumps are a good thing for our customers um we think it's a good thing for us um but we think it's also linked to when customers because heat pump systems um are not in significant
capital investments and so the timing to do that for we we think for our customers would be when they're replacing their furnace or they're replacing their central air conditioners or they're replacing their window air conditioners um the standard the clean heat standard
that's proposed right now by um the commonwealth um it would not be ownorous to us um I think the current calculations are it would start in 2026 it would be about 40 units 40 systems um
full house systems 100% systems um we are expected to be just over 50 in 2026 is our forecast so we don't expect to have a penalty we think we can meet the standard um our response is really um it's going to create another additional
compliance obligations for us but more importantly uh for the first time it will actually if for some reason again the decision to do a heat pump is on our customers decision it's not our decision and so there's a significant penalty if
um our customers choose not to hit the minimum number and the number is $6,000 per installation increasing to $10,000 by 2030 so it increases $1,000 a year um that money unlike um other ACP
alternative compliant payments that stay inside the territory um these monies would actually go to the state and they have yet to quite define exactly what they would use the money so while we don't think it would be a problem for us um we agree with the other MLPS that
having money taken out of our our territory um if the customers decide not to adopt heat pumps as fast as we would like them to or the state would like them to is probably not a good thing for our MLDD so that's one piece of it hey go ahead question question so what is
what is the objective of this standard then is it to encourage you to you instead of paying a penalty use that as an additional incentive to customers to convert like what what's the what's the driver to get the customer it's it's a
if this is effective it's a mandate so no matter what you do utilities you have to meet this mandate if you don't you get a penalty it's a stick coming from the state yeah so it's a stick it's a stick on national it's hitting national
grid it's really all all four towns all four towns get gas from national grid and that's about 50% of the heating right right so 50% of the heating is national grid and the rest is oil so it's forcing national grid to make the decision to change buildings to
electrification to it's trying to drive all res so this is residential and and commercial buildings but it's in it's intended to in the context of fulfilling the um greenhouse gas goal of being net
zero by 2050 and the projection of the adoption of heat pumps right now is below what the state thinks is required to hit that this is meant to be a larger stick to drive that adoption now the adoption is not the the penalty is not
put on the customers the penalty is put on the energy providers the oil companies the gas companies and now the electric companies um so it's it's meant it's a um again we think we think heat pumps are great and we have been for a
long long time we just this this mechanism for forcing us to do it has a couple of things in it one is it's got a penalty that moves that could move dollars outside of our territory um that's that's pro that's that's a big piece of it and the other element is um
it's basically moving which for the first time well it's these three items for the first time trying to bundle MLPS into the same bucket as the IUS mlps as a group are about 15% of Massachusetts load so while there's 41 of us we're
relatively small um we think we do a lot of innovative stuff we're you know our our rates are lower our reliability is higher and our compliance is also higher um so we're we're suggesting that we um our letter is not quite as aggressive as some of the other ones we're basically
saying look our business model works we don't need the push go ahead yeah um in in the followup with Greg um there is for Rich's edification um there's an organization which is just has been
amorphous for a little while we're trying to get firmer in our in our structure called the Municipal Light Commissioners Association and it's basically designed for us uh and and the reason for that creation is to do a
couple of things number one you and me into recently and Pamoto just a few months more recently than that longer than that come into this position with very little instruction on how to actually perform it
so and being able to talk and get information greg is very kind in giving us instruction about that but of the five of us if any more than two of us talk then we're in violation of open meeting laws so how do you learn when you have restrictions on
communication so the idea of the MLCA is to say let's get everyone together and let's talk about policy items at a high level not specific to any one organization so the commissioners can be engaged learn about topics so when you
come back to this setting you have knowledge about subject matter and and then can speak to it without having to violate open meeting laws and learn from each other and so uh this the clean heat standard was one
we just had a meeting on fairly recently and one of the challenges that some organizations have and I don't don't think we're we're quite that adversar adversarial here is some some GMs have gone off and said "We're a municipal light we don't regulate us we're exempt
under the law just leave us alone go away if you want to harass IUS then go do it." Well the we set policy and we advise the GM and GM implements that policy by you know how he managed the organization so
when we talk about clean heat standards the MLCA said "Well we don't necessarily agree we want to take the position that go to hell we don't want to do this." Because in fact in many ways we really want to we do and in many ways we already engage the
organization the communities by working with the schools the senior center to do green building programs and the incentive structure and the incentive structure so so in many ways you know we're ahead of the curve in terms of
doing it and in a go away we're exempt leave us alone isn't the voice that we want to have either to our GMs or to the regulatory body so how do we talk about that how do we learn about it so the MLCA is one avenue for doing
that and I invite you to talk more about it and I'll get your contact information it'll be on the mailings um but that's a long way long intro to we did have a discussion about this and and I think the message
is yes we're for heat pumps no this program won't incentivize us to do more because we're already doing a lot some of the things that we are doing we're not getting credit for under this program and so rather
than have a framework which would take money away from our ability to continue to promote that inside of our inside of our territory by having taxfree uh interest free programs or or aotments
let's let's just continue to do that and we support the goal of getting to carbon um but this isn't the framework um administratively that we would want to follow um although we agree with the basic goal so I that's the way a lot of
others have framed it i think this does I I'm not sure about the other three i would want to personally I'd want to read this more than than I have before voting on it yeah so um but but nevertheless that's that's the you have exactly right that's that's what I um
the other one is the the large building energy reporting and that gets into a legal issue we want to try and avoid being an illegal issue um if they if the if the state wants to collect if the customers um want to uh give us permission to share the information we
would so again we're not we're not trying to be counter but um the the state needs to get permission from um the building owners not us and we use an example of we have a semiconductor customer and energy data um is a proxy
for production and energy can be a competitive piece of information and we are very like we we we don't share we don't I mean we put that in the category of privacy if they allow us like if we were to share anything with somebody who's doing uh an energy audit or whatever on that building we get their
permission to release that data so that's where that second large building energy reporting thing comes from the truck one we talked about i think we should still leave that in there because it will it'll become an issue we've got a one-year reprieve uh we'll talk about it at the next meeting or either the May
or June buy more trucks now that's and and that's what we're doing so So we got a reprieve but the trucks have to get delivered but we think we should leave that in the letter because just to have addition while they while we have another year reprieve it's going to come up again um so that's why that one's in
there um we thought about deleting it but we don't think we should no my suggestion for you guys would be to take a look at this um send your edits back just to me and not copy to anybody else i will um assemble a final version with with Melissa um and Megan and and I'd
like to try and get something out by the end of the month if we can yes so I I think you know the big look at the tone go ahead i'm sorry go ahead the big issue here is the ACP right the ACP is the real issue right the um well that right so for that rather than looking at
as a problem say what ACP is for oh okay so the ACP what is AC alternative compant how they get any but there's no there's no b if we're over we can't sell there's no provision to there's no provision for us to get it any right no
I know I I recognize that but then let's state it and saying this is not working for us flip it make it attractive for us as it is we doing make it work for us and there is like there is value here like I'm I'm just
saying there is value someone someone else is capturing that value and you know that value is going from our community so is there a way for us to capture under the current proposal exactly right so so I'm just saying if you take it to your municipal group and you say if you capture the value and
figure a way to split it just split it with us so if there is if we are ahead of the curve split that value if if I may VC so that's actually an interesting idea and I think we can make the edit on that um as we talked about earlier today but not to split because again this is
right so it doesn't matter yeah just I just want to make sure that I capture the just everybody's on the same page that that those um that the benefit stays within our rate payer base right it doesn't it doesn't go to the state it stays within RMLD's territory but by by splitting it means split it with the
homeowner or something like that so you give someone an incentive to do that M okay that's part of the incentive program all I'm stating is is our intention is not to split it with the state no not with the state but say if it's like I'm just looking from a business point of view if I want to
incent a home incentive home buyer then I'll just Yeah but I think that when you go back why this is all coming rate of adoption right a lot of every new building is saying hey go green you know I don't want any gas or oil going
in that's X all retrofits okay yet this they want the big utilities to now go in and replace your furnace at their dime with with utility i didn't say every utility
you're going to go around and take out your furnace i call it the 35 45 whatever it is put it in you eat it and everybody pays for it in your rate bill and that's how we're going to do it right that that's the driver of the driver that's the driver right
that's unfathomable but that's what the state is doing right now rather than wait for it to happen in a a natural attrition you know they're forcing everybody's hand in equally they're not going to exempt a municipality from it and that's and that's I think and that's
why we're trying to you're exactly right now bankrupt you can bankrupt municipal electric companies when you say 70,000 customers I got 20,000 dwellings that that's if that took 30 to $50,000 per we go bankrupt per year but that's what you
say it has massive upward pressure on on cost because it's again that's part of the problem with the system is that it's penalizing us as the electric utility penalizing like I said it's nicely like we're the good guys in this like we're trying to make it happen but at a rate that makes sense
for the customers but but again if it says you you have to do this over this conversion why am I paying for somebody else's heat pump to get installed that that's the that's what's missing somebody else what is the conversion timetable that they're talking about when do those penalties they could say
start 2026 2030 certain percentage that you achieve by 26 and then they have another one at 30 and another 2050 yeah so in fairness Rich it's been full you know right now we are above that minimum threshold that's what that's what you say here
yeah so so we're again we're not but if for some reason that adoption slows down back to Bob's point now we're taking it's not it's not you know a slap on the hand of $500 it's $6,000 going to $10,000 i mean that's per per installation right per per installation
per gap right but per gap is installation yeah yeah per gap exact insulation excuse me insulation that would not happen right right and it's and those those are not trivial numbers now again because of all the work we've done we're ahead of the curve so we're
not like we're not shaking in our boots but we we're trying not to be dropped again Bob exactly we're trying not to get dropped into the you're going to be putting a $40,000 bill potentially on top of on top of customer right and
that's probably a higher number but if you're already adopted but you're if you're already adopted you're going to pay somebody else who isn't that's not fair well that's another that's a whole But there's there's a bunch of there's a that's a Yeah there's another set of pieces anyways go ahead there's also a whole set of customers out there that
are going to refuse this right and if you get to that set that's refusing to do it and you can't make them do it no matter what now you're going to be penalized exactly for people that absolutely refuse to put a heat pump in right that doesn't make sense to me like just like when we go to an AMI and a
radio meter people opted out because they didn't want to have the RF well for whatever reason they come up with they didn't want the meter AMI meter and there's people today that hold out that still have the electrome mechanical they have to go out and read and they're willing to pay extra for it what happens
when you get to the people that don't want heat pumps refuse to go to it and you get penalized for it that's right not right what is what is the goal what are the target levels yeah so uh starting 2026
will be 48 full electrification and then no 48 installations in what percentage of up to 2050 24,000 we have 24,500 residences 3,000 installations
that's required per year to meet that no not per year total of the next 25 years 12% of the customers by 2050 it's about So they have a rapping scale that starts at just under 50
it's not like 100% 10% 10% 10% by 2050 it's pretty darn close so I think 45 I have to go back and look because we've done a lot of I think it's 100% by 45 um but it's not a trivial number and again our intention back to Bob's comment is
we're trying not to get like we can there will be as Jason mentioned some that when we get to 2035 or 2040 that just hey over my dead body am I going to to be electric right um so between now and 90% of our customers could say that
is what I'm hearing 98% say that right now is as VC mentioned again and this is work that remember the reading climate action committee right we did those two different surveys 50% are natural gas just in ready we'll take that from the whole group and 48% are oil the balance
are either propane or electric right so you're right it's a it's a massive transition now you know I guess sorry I'm not seeing the goals by 2050 as a massive no like maybe I'm getting the numbers no I well so based on the standard
And based on the current trend of adoption so I I cannot predict whether the current trend will continue for 25 years i think we can meet the standard but that's all that all depends on customers actually are willing to convert totally get it but but just the
endstate goal is that you have approximately 10 to 12% of your Yeah single family homes in your entire territory at the end of 2015 yep sure whole house yes right hands that doesn't sound okay
just understand what it is that we're arguing and also Barry I totally understand the point around the stick versus the carrot fine this is not about installations the standard is about metric tons of
emissions avoided so the actual standard is on metric tons right and then for that purpose partial installation also counts for credit counts for half the credit are are are just for the sake of the this discussion and the context of
it you're orienting us to this letter right now and I mean at least for me I I would like to learn a lot more about the clean eat standard see you next week okay seriously no we would all like to I don't think that's a a one-on-one conversation i think that should be a
board conversation with for the board to like either you send us the materials link what whatever works best we can it's sure it's online right so do our own research we'll send you we'll send you some links and then and then I'll be you know we'll create a Q&A session
without the framework is on the uh the D website because I I'd like to know what Yeah what we're saying you did yes yeah slow down yeah i think the piece I'm sorry uh the piece that I was in addition to the lengths of what is the
what is the standard proposed what is the impact the projected impact to us to our so that we understand where are we today what is it telling us we would need to be at and how feasible is that so the impact is we probably will again under our current adoption rate and
we're going to again we are proactively promoting we'll do more webinars we you know we increase the incentives so we think we'll always be above the requirement so we don't expect to have to pay a compliance payment to the state
however we're right as we get into the analysis right now 2030 to 2035 or 2028 to 2035 we're right we're just matching it like there's not a lot of margin of error we're not below it but we're not so Greg I spent a fair amount of time looking into some of the standards yeah
please go ahead so that's useful to look at what's on the web but I think the missing piece for this conversation is what like you said Pam what is the implication for RMLD so so we have that analysis if you can share that with us because for us to take a decision
because clearly this is something that the BOC was asked to respond and it's a was a question whether the cab would also take a position and since we actually represent you know majority of the shareholders I mean the the payers
so I I think it makes sense for the cab to also participate but I think we really need that information as We'll we'll put a package together and we'll get it to you probably Monday and then we'll be available we'll figure out a mechanism to either as a group or individual depend upon what we send to
you what kind of questions do you have because if you look at the if you look on the website it talks about a $6,000 payment per installation but there's also a price per ton of carbon $190 per ton of carbon right right uh
so to translate that into what it means for RMLD I think if you can tell us this is what we think this is the logic for why we think we need this then we can make an informed decision for our towns also
we'll take one and just clean heat right it's also the large building reporting that this letter is yeah is it all part of one regulation or is it separate there's different regulations yeah there four different pieces and I will say the piece I like about the way you've written out the
large building you've provided an alternative and the others have no alternative recommendation i think it would be useful for us to understand what you know again we all agree that this is the right yeah I think we'll try and create an alternative yeah the alternative I think VC mentioned is like
right now for example I think that in the first few years based on our projection right we're going to be above the standard and we can bank those credits but there's no dollar value to those credits the big some way if we can get some credit for it you know in dollars one of the
things I don't you remember we had a conversation here about energy efficiency and like when I was thinking of that discussion I was thinking about and Dave you and I it's a discussion Okay so it was about reducing greenhouse gases so if you're
converting a home from gas to electricity and you're saying we've only focused on the energy efficiency part of the electricity piece we're missing the whole story right so we want to help that and so to help that and we are exceeding the limit we should get some
credit so I'm just saying there is value here i I it's like the Rex right the wreck was there wasn't a wreck market when they started but now there is it's a new market is what they're developing new market we got to get together form a business and we're going to start
selling clean energy credit based on and that's where it's going to go to it yeah right and and to be a new market here in Massachusetts only in Massachusetts we're going to be trading this buying this complete I love it yeah exactly what it is and I know it
okay how how do we capture who does a conversion so say customer A just calls a heat pump company and they have a Mitsubishi unit installed how does running light know that they're not they they have to kind of uh request the UN
it's a utility authorization number because it's an electrical work that they need to get a port permit and they get inspection so through town permit process or something like that change up to me for the service exactly you just have an HVAC company
come in change it over and away they go and reading light doesn't know losing you get incentive to it you get you get a tonnage back right you get a rebate so it's wild that just didn't know it and cared
and just paid for it right the contractor probably would know if we have a way that huge well you had mentioned fraud there's been a lot of cases of mass save
yep unbelievable fraud so we it's something that is very important to always keep an keep an eye on um multiple you like the concept but not implementation like people going doing some serious jail time for multi-millions dollar fraud against mass
save so it's it's it's just because of just to your point someone says oh I did it oh I did it 10 times boom boom boom 10 times okay so oh sorry well I was just going to say one quick thing about this clean heat standard and VC's point about there is value there to maintain
within the territory and within the district is there's a lot of different ways that you probably come up with that so I I guess I I I would be cautious about putting something that's super specific uh in the language because I think
there's probably different ways lots of think about to capture that value um so anyway just uh you know it might be worth kind of thinking about those different ways we'll keep it open but create an alternative right i'm sorry i
know you're trying to wrap up y um to our dear friends at the cab um you can be part of the MLCA uh you guys are unique in the industry there aren't many utilities that have you guys so um if you guys want to connect and be a part
of that discussion where utility policy and and stuff is discussed um I'll I'll give you a link or or share your email and you you you're not excluded from that you're more than welcome to participate in those discussions thank you
okay so we've got some follow-ups there um good on that anyway okay great update speak yes so um I will be relatively quick um so we talked about one of the two um
so big picture um team members right new system engineer started we talked very very briefly about this three weeks ago um one of the two IRD positions is the marketing communications position um I mentioned before we are putting a lot more emphasis on reg legislative and regulatory um and community right back
to their community engagement um the ribbon cutting that we were planning to do at the end of this month we're going to move to the 13th so that we can get more of the legislative participants uh reg well legislative participants in particular um speaking of uh the MCLA uh
that joint storage um I'm sorry uh there's a couple different grants there um but we did uh I'll get down to the good at the very last I'm sorry the joint um OCED grant application that was a project that we are um participating
in with Burbank California which is a public power utility and also battery storage um it's a long duration they are still um early uh in terms of development so we would be one of the pilot installations if this grant
gets applied for um it's a different chemistry it's not a lithium ion anyway just to let you guys know that that concept of innovation innovation um we're actually putting our money where our mouth is on that one exploration um harvest I mentioned that one in there specifically
um but that was uh two sessions ago with the MCLA i try and attend these as well this was basically a group that has a uh thermal storage program for um uh peak management um so we've actually uh had a follow-up meeting with the company we'll
do a little exploration internally with the IRD team in terms of how does the economics work and is it something that's actually commercially available products um so we'll see if that makes sense for us it looks it's actually rather intriguing um MBU was uh again one of the things that uh the VC we
appreciate uh um uh uh invitations for us to meet new people um the VEX's been pretty good it turned out on a regular basis mv is another one it's a demand response for small commercial customers they have a whole bunch of different pieces but that's probably the area if there's anything it'll be in the small commercial i'm not
as optimistic there'll be a good match but it's still good for us to explore uh and then the connected grid alliance um it's basically MLP innovation with small local companies more than startups software and hardware um it's another
program that Jeanjac is um spearheading um and we are participating with them as well as potentially a test bed for some of these smaller companies to actually test their products um again not not development not research level but initial application type stuff so the
point being is we continue to look for you i'll give you more on this Rich but we u we we as a MLP are somewhat distinctive in that we are a microcosm of the greater Boston electrical load our load is 40% residential 30%
commercial 30% industrial um we've got a wide rebank so we're just a nice little microcosm we're big enough to have resources but small enough to be nimble to try things so that continues to move on projects um over the next couple of months we'll do more detailed projects but uh substation 6 I gave you a quick
update right transformers are delivered excavations in process um our uh um our intention is to have the transformers placed by June um ultimately we're still on on you know to be fully transferred by 2027 but we are partially at the
schedule of national grid we are connecting to national grid transmission line in this particular case um on the AMI replacement program um as we mentioned before right we uh executed the contract uh last month uh we issued the PO immediately
thereafter um the uh we basically are looking at two phases so this summer in the fall is the first um phase one meter deployment we'll actually do that with our team to learn um some of the software platforms we ended up doing a
uh um a cloud-based solution bam um so that's actually stood up and then in 2026 will be the the rest of the deployment and we'll actually subcontract the the uh installation of those the balance 32 31,000 meters
because our goal is to do it fairly quickly and one fell through um that's uh being well managed right now um this is the Lynfield Center um water district um so uh this is the we probably expect
this to be probably a fall 2027 event um part of it is due to um the article 97 status of um the area that we want to put the the uh project in and it's also linked to the fact that
the pump station um is um somewhat delayed in terms of the installation so the pump station will get installed first and then we'll put our solar array and potentially a battery next to it go ahead Vic what's the capacity of this project solar and battery uh the solar is about 2 point two to two and a half
megawatts um and the battery system would be a 5 megawatt system the other element I'm going to try and do this on a regular basis again responding to goals so we tried to lay out some mechanism to say where are we uh we had some deliverables in the first quarter um those deliverables in the
first quarter we've completed um some of those we've started so basically you know the I um the the yellow or or uh amber color is uh is paused um some start some stop um the green are in process and then the blues are completed so you'll see progress on a regular
basis on all these and we expect to get them done this year yeah go ahead the pause on the last line long duration storage pause yeah so that's um I'll probably come back with you guys in terms of a little more detail analysis associated with
this is the form battery project the one that we were looking to do um uh the reason for this pause is just the economics tied to it i think we've been pretty clear saying that we're willing to this is a situation where
it's a long duration battery project um we think that the economics are favorable for RMLD to invest up to 5 million um but we need to we need another 10 million to come from somebody else so it's a $35 million project there's a $10 million hole and part of
the legislative regulatory discussions are seeing that the state has $10 million that they want to invest in our project uh I say invest but in our project um it's it also benefits a local uh company Form Energy i don't know how this will play out um but we didn't do
as much in March on it we had a lot of activity last year in January Feb um but I just said pause it's not pause forever uh we have to make a decision on it we'll probably come back to you with some recommendations in May same kind of rationale for line
T that one was also paused after two green months and then a yellow yep yeah i mean is it economics well no that's different that's just um basically the the timing of uh having space available to do these projects so okay well when
we get the executive session I'll walk you through some of the reasons why that's paused okay um it's not a lack of interest it's just where do we put it yeah because one of the issues with form is that it requires a lot of space yeah it does right so so it impacts I would
imagine the land implications also so it's it's not just a it's not just the project economics but it also ties into land and Yeah storage is it's a quirky this system is particularly you know it
requires and heavy a quick question you probably told us this before but Jay where you audited customer communications and recommended enhancements is that is there a document or a summary of that Yep okay i know you probably presented on it and I'm just blanking on it but if you could send that I just kind of want to look at it
sure or send it to the group probably is that all right is it in last it's in the board package so we'll resend the board package okay and I'll point out All right if it's in the board package then my bad so it was last month yep okay so that that answer on Jay was in last month's board packet okay thanks thank
you yeah just one quick formatting question so things that are like Q4 25 and show as paused does that really just mean not yet started correct well in the case of complete customer satisfaction survey H yeah it hasn't been started yet okay just may want to think about just
changing the color on that or the logo teal um um wait we're not we're not pausing we we started we did now but we didn't back
in April we're now trying to give you like yellow bad red bad green good blanks we didn't start it yet and that's okay we're on track we'll start it when we I'll choose a different color than white but okay white says forgot about it but I'm with you i hear the idea a
different color than yellow pick whatever okay good any other questions on the update yeah good am I going back to tea again um I I'm sure that's um paused in part because we're looking for land and that hasn't quite gotten settled yet but my my uh response is we
don't need land we need area and if uh if uh we get past the uh recal and kill them there's like three or four parking lots that become Yes we're actually looking into a grant opportunity with the state and and I'm
not advocating we do anything until after the vote because if the town votes it down then that's a whole different deal but we still want to get um solar P i I No I I I totally know that uh and and if if the town votes to to issue the
bonds um then that means those projects are go and that means we can we can play we like it do do is it a priority to encourage private solar construction using our rebates yes we have the rebates in place and
um we have the rebates in place yeah.$100 per kilowatt yeah and and we might go back and revisit that again but at the end of the day um we're we're looking at solar in terms of our power supply portfolio it doesn't really move the needle in reality no no
I know i know of course yeah it doesn't i think I mentioned it before we are working to look at some commercial rooftops to try to work with them we need to work through some legal uh uh issues too like meaning that RMLD would
own it like if we le we le if we lease their rooftop what does that mean like warranty and and whether we have to do it as it's in place right now okay and are we letting people use that to the maximum which one that that use the $600
and build their own and get We aren't we aren't chasing people away okay and we're encouraging them but at the end of the day Dave as you know right because our rates are low the payback period is long for them yeah right yeah so again our view is that the maximum opportunity would be for our ability to own assets
as opposed to but we we have incentives in place we encourage it um and they're going to adopt as it gets back to the heat pump issue which is if it makes sense you'll do it if it doesn't they won't i had a quick question about the uh AMI replacements
um I I love you know AMI metering uh I just curious is there a document or something that sort of explains how you're going to use the data or like what what's the there are some data um like in other words why the AMIs h
how do you how are you going to yeah what's the programming after the so that's an ongoing discussion because we're learning ongoing so we're actually replacing an existing AMI AMR system so it's not so um okay So you've already
had we've got experience right now and we're not using it to its fullest extent um one of the things that I'll update you on is is there's a big emphasis in terms of data analytics um more emphasis part of the the rate experimentation with TOU so
we're doing a lot of things um we also anticipate using that data from an operational perspective as well in terms of uh improving the reliability so there's a whole bunch of different elements um but we are we are still early in that process any input you have in terms of things we should think about warmly welcome um but it's it's purpose
it is a replacement program not a oh hey this AMI is kind of okay so it's we just completed the meter data management system so we already have our hourly data we have maybe 90 I would say 90% because some of the meters are too old or in a location where you can't get the
signal but so we were developing hourly low shapes already for groups of c like different groups of customers including industrial customers yeah so okay all right so there's more there's more there's a lot of information that you you guys are already sort of in the
works of planning through how those data can be used everything from load shaving peak shaving y um t one of the one of the goals is the cost of service and great
design yep so lots lots there great shall we adjourn uh can we just do scheduling really quickly oh so May 29th is the next one and I don't think we have anything else scheduled uh it seems so
June um personally I would I would be looking to the last week in June 26th the 25th or 26th 25th 26th for Wednesday or Thursday open pardon me open either
day of the Thursday 25th would be my preference wednesday 25th good 25th okay 25th keep going um then in July I guess looking at the 23rd
great pretty good okay and then August uh we have NEPA for those who may be attending the 7 to 17th and the 20th mhm so maybe the 27th 27th as a placeholder yeah what about the the earlier one the
uh 13th 13th then we we have uh two that would be three weeks in between meeting we just had three weeks okay sometimes we've not done an August meeting right we typally don't but the past two years we've done we've just had
so much going on so why don't we placehold it on the 13th okay and then uh if we decide in July not to have it we can decide not to have it but it's good to it's better to delete it from the calendar than find so So what are the dates june 25th July 23rd and August
13th 13th okay okay um and then we have two new elected members that need to be newly elected reelected that need to be assigned to APM payroll um do you have any preference either of you we can
share more about what this is rich it's just uh offline emails say Rich is green all right oh I'm so sorry or sorry Dave do you want to be green only because this gives us time to
train Rich to do the June warrant yeah so you just take a rubber stamp and you put it in the ink and then you go that's what you do you actually don't even do that you just respond to an email or actually yeah you click on a doc you want to be green it's fine sure all
right Dave I'm put I'm I'm putting a live for me so Dave Okay so So then I'm orange so that means that I am doing these things here all right we'll walk you through the process it's just review questions and signature
um okay so uh we would be adjourning to executive session um would the CAB like to Yes Charlie can you read them yep hear it move that the RMLD Citizens Advisory Board go into executive session
pursuant to MGL C164 section 47D exemption from public records and open meeting requirements in certain instances under purpose number six to consider the purchase exchange lease or value of real
property relative to property in Wilmington and Reading and return to regular session for the sole purpose of adjournment second second okay all in favor i Rich uh move move that the RMLD board of
commissioners go into executive session pursuant to Massachusetts GLC 164 section 47D exemption from public records and open meeting requirements in certain instances under purpose number six to consider the purchase exchange
lease or value of real property relative to property in Wilmington and Reading under purpose number two to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-UN personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions
or contract negotiations with non-UN personnel and purpose number one to discuss the reputation character physical condition or mental health rather than professional competence of an individual or to discuss the
discipline or dismissal of or complaints or charges brought against a public officer employee staff member or individual and return to regular session for the sole purpose of journment second
second okay all those in favor hi okay we are adjourned to executive session thank you i don't I don't know it's too far ahead yeah i I don't I'm going
away in September recording stopped we're here yes please bye