City Council Minutes 2018 07 17 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Council Meeting Minutes July 17, 2018 Page 9 of 13 Councilmember Loo asked why we aren't doing a forced ranking on the questions. It forces people to tell us what they really want for the money available. We could get valuable information about what people are really willing to spend their money on or if they want to pay more for what they want if we used forced rankings. Mayor Muckle noted some of the questions are related to Key Performance Indicators and we need to keep those to get that data but we can thin out some of the other questions. He stated he doesn't object to using forced ranking questions unless they are ranking unrelated topics and then it requires a lot of context to make understandable. The committee and staff will work on another draft that includes context and try not to make the questions too unwieldy. Councilmember Leh asked members to send suggested language for the questions. Councilmember Stolzmann stated she likes the ranking questions to determine the tradeoffs and to see if people are willing to increase funding for items not included in the budget. r DISCUSSION/DIRECTION/ACTION — CITY OPTIONS FOR XCEL ENERGY'S RENEWABLE CONNECT PROGRAM PHASE II Assistant to the City Manager Hogan stated Xcel Energy recently launched its Renewable Connect program which offers customers the option to increase their share of clean, solar power by subscribing to a new solar farm Xcel is building. The cost is in addition to regular electric charges. The cost varies according to contract length. Currently, the City's electricity usage for facilities is approximately 33% renewable, specifically solar. That solar production comes from four sources: two solar gardens located in Boulder County, City -owned solar panels at the Water and Wastewater Treatment Plants, and solar capacity purchased from an array in Weld County. The amount of energy available for Phase II of Renewable Connect depends on the capacity Xcel has to offer after Phase I is complete. Staff has provided an analysis of the City's remaining facilities to determine what the cost would be to enroll in Phase II and increase the City's share of renewable energy to approximately 100%. There are additional options to increase the City's share of renewable energy staff can also look into beyond Renewable Connect, including Xcel's Windsource program. Public Comments Deb Fahey, 1118 West Enclave Circle, stated any arrangement with Xcel is an improvement but owning and operating the solar panels separately would be more secure in an emergency situation. If the City could buy, install, and maintain its own panels it would be less expensive in the long run.