good evening and welcome to the belmont municipal life board meeting of december eighteenth two thousand and seventeen i madam dash the chair of the light board with me as a board member jim williams and standing the other side of the room certains soon to be sitting at the table street so our first item on the agenda is an executive session there are two pieces one is to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining i b e w local one zero four and the second is to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with nonunion there's an item we discussed in session which requires a vote now an open even proposed awarding the two percent calling crease to mr spinelli effective january first as well as a subsequent marriage increase of three percent consistent with light department practices and this would be effective january first of two thousand originated one of our main verticals and we're also one of the preferred vendors of the american public power association i think the other thing just want to touch on to introduce ourselves just a little bit is that we are a full service firm so actually all the calls to belmont like have two supervisors that monitor all the calls and make sure everything is is point fission and you're out your customers will really have an enjoyable experience on the call and then just finally you know just very briefly just want to let you know this is a custom survey for so what we hope to accomplish this hour project overview i think for the most part what i want to just call your attention to is the third and fourth bullets we did conduct a telephone survey it was a random sampling of all belmont light customers for the tracking study from what we did in two thousand and fifteen so you'll see some some of the questions that were like questions we'll see some improvements and change some changes year over year that will be interesting and finally you know the final bill it will really hope to accomplish we really wanted to early understand and help set customer expectations now we wanted to identify some opportunities for improvement and wrap up and hopefully as you continue this year over year i have some information on you know how to create a roadmap to keep you know scores going positive  direction these are kind of our ears investigation of the topics of the survey i won't go through all of them for the most part we covered kind of the main core of the organization so we had them rate the utility we had them great customer service and field personnel  we also had some custom questions like i said that were for this year we talked about communication method is energy efficiency programs renewable energy initiatives and then we always wrap up with a demographic profile of the customers to make sure we get a good cross section of the customer base for one telephone service as i mention all those studied surveys were conducted like i said in our corporate headquarters from august eighth twenty first so this is a good side to just look back on as you know time starts to pass the shutter of you those results to countersign what was going folks took the full survey with us but you call that a good response right yeah yeah typically with our telephone survey and we have about a one in ten for every ten calls they make we usually get about that sponsor and that's about it go and here is just so little snapshot of the actual or survey respondents you can see you know we tried to get a good mix of ages a fair representation of some renters as well as homeowners a good mix of gender and then obviously a couple different questions to gauging the  levels of the respondents we captured how many customers like company from meeting earlier today i believe it's eleven thousand meters or so when you made the four thousand because you decided to call forty there forty six and it was the largest age group on the slide forty six pages forty six to sixty four respondents the largest the largest education levels forty seven point one percent postgraduate female fifty four point six percent and  can cover so i think first and foremost you get two bullets are really are a testament to kind of just the positive perception of belmont light among customers so we can just ask people in general just the rate of variety different utilities or service organizations that interact with key our electric utilities in general tend to score on the better and then we actually ask folks ok as your bill molly customer rated on these nine different attributes from rates to community service to helping customers conserve we can take the summation of those nine questions we had an average pop as an average positive rating of ninety point one percent which is an increase over eighty six point one we covered back in two thousand and fifteen with last of this  the top areas rated were reliable service ninety four point four and knowledgeable and helpful staff ninety three point two the next two bullets are really the transactional questions so we asked folks if they had any sipe of interaction with the utility and how  that experience go in terms of the c s r s customer service reps ninety percent of folks who interacted with them on a call or visit to the belmont office were satisfied and first in terms of the field service reps so folks actually coming out to their home to do  whatever maybe ninety four point one percent or satisfied to that seventy both of those mark increases over the original data we captured back in two thousand and fifteen in terms of paying your bill once again over ninety percent were satisfied and customer satisfied customer a less than satisfied we take a summation of the folks who report either be an advocate a loyal customer or satisfied customer ninety four percent felt one of those three buckets and only five percent were in the less than satisfied bucket finally or now finally a smart move along we asked folks to describe or tell us what they thought the ownership was of their current utility we had close to eighty percent say that it correctly identified as a community owned it we did ask some folks a little bit about the new smart hub online customer platform at the time of the survey in august twenty two point nine percent had used in the past and among those who had close to three quarters were satisfied with the ease of navigating and finding information on that smart home platform we asked folks a little bit about rates and we provided a statement basically said considering all the changing economic and energy costs do you believe or would you agree that belmont white is doing all it can to keep prices  recognize our efforts and always nice to know so we were out along we asked folks like i said on the air investigation about a couple different energy efficiency programs and for the most part the highest likelihood to participate fell into distributing of energy efficient light bulbs sixty percent either had done that in the past or planning on doing in the future and then rebates on energy efficient appliances close to half forty nine point eight either done in the past or likely to do in the future distribute energy efficient liquids yes we do say we talked a little bit about the preferred communication methods in a new question for this go around we asked about the new social media platforms for boma only seven point seven percent engaged prior to the survey however seventy three point three percent were unaware of these recently launched social media pages or something to work on when did you do the survey august eighth the twenty first but before after the but after so little bit about new media we also asked about kind of the the the traditional media specifically the power connections web newsletter we did have close to half of folks recalling it and among those who were reading it almost all the folks we spoke with so that was you look at this chart right here you know like i said we basically asked folks in general just to rate all these different organizations they were interacting with and as you can see gas water and electric utility kind of came out is that the top three and then you know we wanted to show you kind of what the actual nine organization characteristics that average looks like compared to just kind of general perception the utility and they're very closely aligned so ninety two point four nine hundred ninety point one percent that was the customers conserve electricity up to eighty six point two from seventy nine point one few years ago to par game in that regard so it's good to see that showing up in the stuff just also one of the lower rated areas but we saw a pretty sizable improvement in there as well just raising rates in general went from seventy four point six up to eighty point two and then like i said some of the other areas we already touched on you know your what were the mid ninety's and scores in terms of your staff and your liability that all in summation brought the average positive rating up to ninety point one percent here into the transactional questions so in twenty seven thousand we talked to one hundred seventy people who actually either went to the office or called among those folks like i said nine out of ten now we spoke with were satisfied with that interaction that too is an increase of a couple percentage points over two thousand and fifteen and as you can see here point we did out about seventeen percent recently called related to that outage which  just talks to what we spoke with just a couple seconds ago was also in the middle of our cut overs as well so we have the ongoing planned outages as well as the block kodesh that would explain why that was the number  reps again a pretty strong increase in terms of satisfaction up from eighty six point five to ninety four point one this year once again some more similar types of contact people are interacting with stall service outage meter good on the bill weir he spoke with the key study finds that ninety three percent of folks at said however they're paying their bill it's convenient to them i think in terms of the bill itself just one other comment ancillary point is eighty four point five percent so the bill was clear and easy to understand and that's a good number compared to the muni that is a good number i think in general just to kind of in summation i think we consciously kind of ask her and have our clients tri to to kind of look at a five percent as a benchmark ok you know that's kind of when you're when you start to think about that's kind of a get into that area of kind of top notch world class service you know so it's right there in terms of the bill being clear and easy to understand  we spoke about that net positive rating that relationship the advocate oil satisfied customers the top three box in that sense was ninety four percent i think one of the thing to look at and that is if you just look at the people like to describe themselves as an advocate for oil customer those folks who if they had a choice was sick with the right yes those folks who had a choice would stick with belmont like you have close to a third of folks indicating that they were either an advocate or oil customer did about fourteen percent were unsure at the time of the survey which is not surprising but you know definitely one slice of the pie a very few people only six percent were incorrect when you get people who are new to town or people who want the bill payer in about a fifty fifty split forty six point seven percent were very or somewhat aware of that structure and another fifty percent were either nobly tracks the number of people who know what a select  dk utility best practices you know preference towards community goals over utility best practices are they equal in your mind as you could see about a third of folks in twenty seventeen valued community goals are more important than industry best practices  with another close to one quarter of folks getting preference towards and i think that that's a i think that's a incredibly significant finding that people are people have a community sense of this that they want to use the  a as a social force possibly yeah i think that i think it also speaks to kind of the general trend in public power which is really is that emphasis on demonstrating the value of it as compared to some other the the ownership and you can tease out a we were at a long game to couple the communication questions we already touched on the current uses the smart home like i said it was twenty two point nine percent with close to three quarters being satisfied but i think one interesting finding on slide twenty five is we start to look look at that's part of use by not surprising but a much higher rate of folks that fell between ages eighteen to forty four using spark up compared to some of the other age brackets one thing i'm surprise is the little relatively low asked folks a question regarding you know willingness to pay to increase our renewable energy in the power supply portfolio belle isle as you can see you know we did have a third just less than a third of folks thirty percent you know said they weren't going to pay anything  over half a lease provided some sort of finished contribution per month eight point seven less than one dollar twenty point four percent want to four dollars per month and you know close to a quarter of folks twenty four point five percent saying willing to pay demographics on that for me abbie i do believe it's good to know that you know that something in the community seems to have more than half right and i think these these this data that we're getting now can help direct us in these future decisions that we have to make and i think that's also why really thirty three to forty percent so you know you're almost really you have more than that you know so other other surveys you've done in other communities or are you yeah it's tough because every when you a bull energy question might be a little different some people might be focused on solar you know some of places we work with in the west you know are kind of interested in wind so it's not perfectly apples to apples but typically when we see renewable energy and willingness to pay we see it you know thirty four thirty eight percent forty percent is that's how not above half not a a that's seven out of ten and last time i checked with the seven where's the seventy percent so he floated one hundred minus thirty point two is seventy percent but those of the thirty percent are unwilling to pay for extra to get r improvements from you know customer service reps to perceptions utility things always more to share those results when you can not folks know you know that the customer value for their putting in you know as i said we are kind of on the value of public power but any opportunities promote that community connection as a point differentiation from some of the other neighboring utilities who maybe ious or different structure can go all the way to demonstrate that value like we we said  is that smart of us will go up and we do the study again so any opportunities to kind of continually tweak and and you know smooth out the edges of some of the things that popped up us potential opportunities would be valuable and then finally like we said if there's opportunities to market the energy efficiency programs in terms of just in general utilities is seen as doing better than it was in twenty fifteen helping customers conserve but some of the specifics of what those programs look like  any of these results surprise you from what you were expecting coming into this process so yes enough so we work with a lot of the utilities in massachusetts so i would say that year scores were were pretty typical of the ones who have done a fair amount of research with us in the past you know oftentimes some of the highest scores we see are folks who have done surveys every two years for a precise amount time because it gives them  data and allows him to make those kind of marginal curve and say get you from a ninety to a ninety four whatever it may be so you know i would say that you know anytime you're looking at consistently scores going up and being above eighty five percent on your s avenue for improvement very happy with the level service of the customers feel they're getting from all the operational groups meter customer service wells line department they they consistently you had you know high marks you willing to take this information and to give the board a report on things that you're going to do as a result of this to improve the  has to be fourteen so it's eighteen thousand if they did the government study which the board had talked about before and then for the treatment of a new manager they would charge for twelve thousand if they had done the government study even if they don't do proposal for at the time mr search i thought i was going to have a quote from them but they did not get the governance study right whether we decide to move forward that or not the future i guess for that's to be determined if we involve concerts in the search least they have some sense of the department and the recruitment efforts and in fact into our culture i think and they're up to speed on things i think you're right that a great job and i think something like the price i mean to get up to speed he could hit the ground running there's no education about you know do the first part of what he did with the town a minister search was what kind of town is belmont what do they want to do we talked to the department head i think you guys a sense and we could be much easier we have so we certainly don't need to go for the it's my understanding that we do not i thought we talked to the two counsel at the beginning of this whole thing about this very question but w  consultant to assist us with the general me of the missile like department general manager search subject to town councils confirmation that we do not need to go out for an hour of peace for this country would be and then two of the folks are here tonight so i would be the chair of the of l back up the chair of the energy committee and a profession a professional from another town's muni like department and just go from the head maximum of two hundred fifty kilo watts to be generated this way they were looking for one point three in my total or independent her for each and the relation for each installation per customer and they were looking for could not afford or allow that type of installation but we would have needed to continue talking with them about possible project that we could work on together with it be mutual benefit benefits off of some kind of installation not what if you'll sell in particular but they approached the light bomb in the past about a solar array and the like buttons been looking at doing a possible battery storage project so if it made sense where going to continue but i just want to let the board know that you know those types of conversations are happening in this particular case was a fuel cell phone we have residential customers in town that are actually installing a wall pack battery  energy so it doesn't burn natural gas but he uses natural gas as a sauce so you're still you know really not in the spirit of the reno policy that we have you asking for when there's no vote for us to m the one thing that really jumped out to me anyways and i know that the high school project is being discussed in that building possibly being not zero and again as i was just mentioning off all see is maxed right now at two hundred  so you need a lot of perkins and so we're going to need to change out or increase that for the school but also the the new high school project could be another avenue where we can do something somewhere where we could we can make it you know we might have to take a look at the cleaner than the national average emissions but of course the national average is a lot dirtier than the new england janowicz really is and i just wanted to live as we just went through that with oh yeah so i just want to give you that thing o did we need to make changes i mean to get with the program going forward with the new technology that we may have to do some things so it could get another five yes well in that same vein so as steve just mentioned so we've been meeting obviously myself and al back and we've make a purchase up to a certain megawatt and up to a certain time frame so i think in here it's five years old last and no more than three megawatts which is approximately about twenty percent of our power for the belmont like as the max that's with this as yet again just so that's what's written on it today i mean that's what it needed me to me i think we should just read that and then you know do something different  to come up with a timeframe and steve would you be willing to a room and an interim policy before you get to the final because well we can't just have this open and we certainly don't want to be depending on and on and hold policy that none of us understand couple of months will have anything to do with it from two thousand and nine right at eight years ago i mean i think the situation is so much different than the with the nobles and solar and the price of all those has changed dramatically i mean my own feeling on whatever energy persis we're talking about other than something that's to minimise but sometimes these policies take months to craft and i'm wondering if you're willing to come with an interim guideline that we can twenty to two thousand and thirty it's through one of the companies that we presently contract with purchasing power but it's a nuclear opportunity so it's what's being marketed as a mission it's not renewable it's new enough it's from seabrook in new hampshire it's not i with the sort of the discussion has been that's not what we mean we mean green energy it's not it's not green it's carbon this car bravery but it's not when we have our next meeting i'd like to go over this policy again that's what they're going to use and you know what we are he's going to come back in january twenty second or next meeting with discuss it again and i look at my own feeling is and i can't speak for anyone else is that we're not you then i wouldn't recommend us using that policy in the in term and that we use more of a collaborative process until we find how finalizers the like or how are we involved and what we're legally or not but i think we're trying to be collaborative and understand why i think if there was a purchase just like now craig would be coming to you and saying here's the suggestion here is what perhaps the i'll back recommended about that here is perhaps what the energy committee recommended about that and then there'd be a discussion would trigger that contract coming up as far as our opportunity being presented of and did you doing with the firm that are going to actually purchase of the power for us there are a vendor if you will on that front so they would bring an one of these opportunities as come in front of us we've spoken about it the feeling was it wasn't the green energy that or the non carbon energy that belmont would like to purchase but ultimately it's the choice of the board to to move approval from all those in favor and then there to executive session minutes of october sixteenth twenty seventeen and also december fourth twenty seventeen was a common way i don't know whether i had executive session minutes was forth but then you can january twenty second february twenty sixth march twelfth april twenty third may twenty first and june eighteenth will see that i have a motion to adjourn so moved second on favor