City Council Minutes 2018 07 17 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Council Meeting Minutes July 17, 2018 Page 10 of 13 Councilmember Maloney asked if the annual pricing is a projected price or a fixed rate. Director Kowar stated it is a projected number. Councilmember Maloney noted this price may go down in the future so he doesn't want to commit to a set price. Director Kowar noted there is a fixed termination fee if there is a desire to get out of the contract. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton asked for more information and detail. Director Kowar stated staff has evaluated the program and packaged all of the major facilities the City can submit for. We don't know how much energy Xcel will have available in the program. The worst case scenario looks to be a net cost per year of $1000 and a cost of $42K if the City wants to get out of the contract. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton stated the City should try to get as much as we can at this cost. Mayor Muckle agreed. He noted Phase I was for residential and smaller commercial facilities and Phase II might allow us to cover as much energy as we want for our big power consuming facilities at very low risk. It also puts the maintenance and long-term costs on to the utility. Councilmember Loo stated she is concerned these costs will not be sustained and in the end it will cost us more; making assumptions about the future is risky. The downside risk is $42K. This is probably not a bad price to pay to get to 100% renewable energy. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton asked how this would affect the Renewable Energy Credits (REC); is it in the greenhouse gas inventory to give us a REC. Director Kowar noted this program gives us a REC where previous solar gardens have not. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton stated the County methodology for measuring greenhouse gases doesn't give us credit for having a REC. We don't get credit for reducing our emissions as a City in that report and according to their methodology we are not making progress. This will be an important point in the next report and needs to be noted. Councilmember Stolzmann asked Attorney Light if there are any issues with our budgeting rules and entering into this 10-year contract. Attorney Light stated this will end up being a utility charge. We may want to consider a non -appropriations clause to make sure we meet TABOR rules. Staff will check with Xcel to see if they have a boilerplate provision recognizing us as a municipality and our constitutional constraints. We will ask they add an addendum touching on the issues for public entities. Councilmember Loo asked Attorney Light for the proper language for a motion with that clause. Attorney Light suggested a motion to direct staff to enroll in the program for all facilities noted on the list and that the Mayor and City Manager be authorized to execute the service agreement subject to final legal review. Councilmember Loo made that motion; Mayor Muckle seconded. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote.