we've got a few things we want to cover her a couple of meaty topics i'm going to try to keep the agenda moving because we've got also a relatively full seven o'clock meeting we will start off with a review of the general manager and then we're going to have a discussion of the veterans memorial committee request for lighting and then we'll dive deep into the strategic plan we currently only have two thousand and ten minutes allocated on the agenda for the review i do think in fairness that that's going to require a little bit more time so if manager of the light board jessica as the director of h r has been facilitating that process for us and it is worth noting that this is the st time that any of us on the board are actually seeing the fully compiled reviewed review for progress the way open meeting well works the compilation of the of a review with feedback from multiple members is considered deliberation so we each had to independently provide our input to jessica who will talk through the kind of amalgamation of all of this and then we'll be able to discuss it with chris ok so in the packets i just passed out to everyone the st document is the actual review form which includes  that he completed on the st few pages then the actual questions on the review form which each of you answered individually and in the end is part three which is the goals for the upcoming year so that will also be a discussion topic for the board to go through with this year in terms of setting those goals for the upcoming year the nd document is a numerical summary of each of your individual ratings and what the overall average came out to be for each  section of the review and then the final spreadsheet document is a summary of each individual board members comments associated with the relevant questions that they chose to comment on this was quite general comments a is let's go through it sort of piece by piece so we can take a look at the self assessment that chris provided see that any commentary on that and then we'll take a look at any discrepancies that we have between the various different readings we provided and then we can talk through the commentary and feedback so with that st and foremost applaud chris for a very kind of thoughtful introspective self assessment it's always easier to go through these when someone has got a clear kind of idea  of what they've accomplished as well as sort of the areas that they want to invest in so i thought you did a very nice job of sort of summarizing that so an exam would have any specific comments that they'd like to make on the self assessment or  it i thought it was pretty much you want to tell the public a little summary of it i mean i thought it was fairly self i said it was well done when you said it was more detailed than we usually go for something yes exactly exactly so i think maybe what we'll do is some of these comments i think will be reflected know i did read it well done so yes i think we can then with that why don't we move on to the ratings for a minute and then we'll come back to some of the some of the feedback so we're all seeing the ratings for the st time surprisingly s yeah for the public's benefit just highlighting a couple areas we are evaluating the general manager on leadership and management qualities judgment knowledge and skills community relations and then we provide a overall rating in each case works out to be somewhere between three and seven subareas as noted we make a rating somewhere between one in fifty five being the highest i think five was in any case five is good if i did good so i'll just i'll run down a couple of these these to just provide some some context for folks in the public leadership in men in management qualities in the aggregate reviews  were basically all fours and fives i'd say functioning as a self starter setting high personal standards and pursuing goals with a high level of personal drive and energy was fives across the board other areas where he received fives evaluate program practices policies procedures and personal personnel effectively establish clear vision and direction for the organization again sort of fives across the board so joining very strong for that consistently was monitor's current budget an operational data assure continued success of the org i was force across the board was forth across the board which is still a very positive rating but perhaps it's interesting that all three of us you know put it the same i think that's right not the top notch so yeah if i look at some of the commentary that was added some budget matters arose during the year which began before he started mr roy is not with them life already has been given more notice of financial issues than in the past so this is improving  another comment if i would like chris to increase the involvement in the in the areas of sort of finance so i do think this is an area where it has gotten sort of a lot better which is great i do think it's an area where you've probably heard some feedback from the group that we like we are is really helpful and you really get in the numbers of the times right and that you know against benchmark perhaps and how we trending from that perspective when we get the numbers but it's unclear it's always been unclear to me frankly how we're doing as relates to the other forty one units that are out there so it's fault on our end but just sort of keeping us abreast of it early on and allowing us to be able to process it and get it you know in the budget and so make sure things like this don't happen before i understand you weren't the general manager when that off again so it's you should you inherited a problem with it but some of the commentary there you know roy's personal vision for belmont like department in historical priorities set out by the town climate action plan for example are well aligned where it takes community and stakeholder input into corporate it into his vision and day to day execution destroys ideas and suggestions have been well stated and in understandable so i think continuing to do a great job there judgement again i think this is a lot of mixes of fours and fours and fives i would say you know handling problems in a professional manager was outstanding across the board challenge motivates evaluates rewards employees and managers towards the achievement of goals and objectives was for across the board which again is a reminder is is good four and then we did add a section here that's evaluation of prior your goals so chris and i have had some conversations about whether he wants to roll out this form across the board as well so in theory next year and we set down the goals that are listed in part three for now that we have it we can just keep cruising the reviews will be a lot smoother going for you that's great knowledge and skills again glancing at what the consensus is wow chris fours and fives across the board response and then generally sort of fours and fives to other areas about demonstrating thoughtful knowledge understanding of operations prudent steward of physical and financial resources in month to month operations generally sort of quite positively glance here and see if there's any commentary mr roy's emphasis on developing a strategic plan is a demonstration of commitment to ensuring the light department is resourced to meet its long term objectives it's an ongoing process but mr roy is on top it this roy's work on the revised power purchase policy the various rate scenarios in the strategic plan are examples of his forward thinking manner so again i think really really good work and i think that like ford is is pleased with the progress  and fives and developing programs promoting a positive image of belmont light increasing awareness available services to the local community so again i think another area where we're going to show him in a time a very significant  positive contribution noting here in the commentary mr roy has been a joy to work with and collaborates very well his passion for public power shows and he has a good in baster for it so in ag overall or actually i will read verbatim the overall comments go i think it's it's worth there here are three there are three so chris roy has only been in his role as belmont like board general manager for nine months but even in that short time he's demonstrated his technical competence managerial aqim in leadership capability so much is very lucky to have running this role and i look forward to continue collaboration between the light board and the general manager this roy has exceeded even the high expectations that i had only hired him taken it to even even new heights his work on the incinerator site analysis for solar and battery storage has been invaluable his idea to redirect the three ball money to more productive incentives was a great initiative when he was asked for something he provided on time and he's done well i enjoy working with him splitting the chair of the light board from the chair of the board of selectmen has helped belmont light get the attention it deserves and finally chris has been an outstanding hire in an outstanding addition to our team on the telecom of these other pages belmont town policies procedures and precedence i think that was also reflected in some other areas where that's just takes time and i think you're investing to do that but i know it's an area that's important to you and i think the board values as well as legislative support for adoption of for ways to improve the crispness of communication i know one of the challenges that you have in this life board is that we are not all is nearly as knowledgeable as you are about some of these matters in finding ways that you can summarize the context the recommendation for the board and for the general public as effectively as possible i think is another another potential area of growth as we go into the balance of two thousand nine hundred anything else in the rest of the same to come back to get back in your coming being elected officials we've sort of proxies for the people who don't understand all the details of of the light power industry anymore than we do although maybe maybe less because we actually lived with it for a little while but so it's important to with these meetings when we're out in the public to explain to us in a way that the public can understand as well because you're not just talking to us you're talking to the whole and about it so i think that's an important and you're very good at it i mean i thought your slides about the energy the solar and all of the  incinerator site were very clear it was a one slide that just explained everything very crisply i think your slides coming later very well agreed on the and the for of course obviously people seem to like the website is transparency because we were rated number one for that so i can't get you can no one can say that you know perhaps needs to be considered i'm no gentleman i mean the light of that should be to plan is just the best way for us to govern the like department i mean i think it's been fine for the past nine years but there is sometimes disconnect because of our understanding of issues and great and i think you know a lot of that has to do it you know chris's leadership and perhaps our leadership as well as you know is this the most effective not suggesting a change i'm just saying perhaps you need to be considered as part of the i mean it i mean we i think guess we've talked about this when jim was on the board then we didn't and now a lot of the past nine years since i've been over i believe after two of them and we were looking at other towns and what they did and all that sort of thing and one of the things that came out and i made a suggestion at the time which was to if you wanted to do something with the board which i'm not sure you need to when you're number one  sits on here you know in the majority would still be elected but you'd have to the were appointed more expert in the area and then having the energy committee chair on would bring up a lot more of the green energy to have someone more focused on that now that i think we need to make a change at all but i think two kind of thing i'm not particularly upset with the way things are going so but i mean that was a suggestion that i had when jim was on the board and we talked about some person i talked about possibly taking it up as part of the strategic plan i think that's probably the way to go i think it's probably a much more involved conversation evaluation compilation of a valuation is present at the c v for chris roy i think that's a great idea let's do that with with one note i think we should review next meeting the goals that you set out less as independent from the review just more your goals for the year and have a good chris we'll pick up the goals discussion next meeting sure makes a lot of time for that ok so with that i would like to have a discussion of the veterans or moral committee request for lighting please join us if you if you electrical work and we wanted to put some idea down there to light the memorial and to light the pass and because that's something that was going to be handled by the electric light department once it was done we met with the light met with theater nears again with the light department and what we ended up concluding was that if we would have take out the lights along the pathway all except for this one central light here and just do these lights here around them are brown the morial we just got a new quote for that thirty nine thousand eight hundred dollars surprisingly close to the fifteen of us fifty nine dollars fifty nine cents but there's a credit we're getting we're going to go ahead with that but that assumes that we get power to the xbox they're going to put this box in the going to put the breakers and switches in but we need to get power as well and so what we need is we are hoping i met with with up the transformer bring the wire across underwood street and then just down to this point you're going to find the rest of the earth we'll find everything else it's just a question in this going to be no out of pocket expense other than labor ok for the only other thing that we talk about and we can do this later on now is we may want to put some lights on the power in chris was thinking that he'd rather see poll lights rather than surface lights and that's something that once the memorial is done we can sit down and it and see how we can do that and then we will have a better understanding of what we have left my budget so maybe we could pay for the poles or whatever they could do the installation but that's something that's off in the future what we need now concerns with regular street lighting or might shine people's windows and things like that so the nice thing about the pole mounted lighting is we can select a spec that's similar to the decorative version of the street lighting and then we can put smart photo wise on that so that's helpful for not only billing and maintenance but also back to deming we talked about that a little bit at the last meeting but also since we're selecting it it be a fixture that you know supports shields after market if we needed to but a big ones the deming what you have the demi one of and i have you guys informed the neighbors on underwood street i think they might want to weigh in on this when they i mean if you're adding lighting where there has never been to what the plan was you know was this was part of the visual the lights were impact on wildlife or anything like that having the lights on all the time the lights are not part of the original plan the lights were in addition poll lighting short balls that is about a twelve foot elevation difference at the memorial it is down in the holes it is about twelve feet lower than the street yeah so you take a pole you'd cut cut twelve feet off and put a shorter one thing that i've noticed myself to look at again and what you mention this is the future conversation but the merits to corporate enlarging that support smart photo eyes is the ability to perhaps add it to a schedule any point so you can create a group of lighting say just for here and have them turn off one whenever you want and so that's that ability where i was the lower lights don't allow that it's just a simple low level light but the poll mounted lights that accept our photo wise give us more control and maintenance it w and so did they are they aware of the change or if there is a change in the language they may say well you have to have a certain kind of light for some reason i don't i just don't want to go jumping in this and then some other committee says well no you can't do that because we the point that was was made earlier is the entire drawing package which was submitted to the to the historic district commission commission now for the year they don't need it they don't have to approve it they only have to advice ok it does not require historic district approval i just want everyone in the office all because some of the lights the lights for the most part in that particular but she wanted to get a letter from the h d c you need to actually present to them and then you also at the present get on the calendar present them and also present the con com i don't think it's necessarily through jump through those those hoops i mean this is a memorial that we support as a board  real let us know well i'm sure there's no risk to this so we'll let us know in two weeks what the outcome of this is please chris sure does this historic make their meeting in two weeks to discuss the stone so i'm what or suggesting here since it's already been to do is bring it to the table again as you know the meeting a lot you know it's just easier to bring it to the group in a formal setting so what i figured i would do is go through and solicit feedback because we dissipate they'll be an associated report with this but now is the time that if we go through this and there's substantial feedback and we have to do an about face or something we don't want to get all the way down this path and have all this work done so this is really the meat of what we're item with outreach to the community big proponent of the strategic plan is to be identifiable and understandable by the media large where they are an expert or not and so some of these initial slides are to try and help folks come up to speed with why we doing this what are we doing this for and house is going to help us and so that's where you see the what is strategic planning that we polled there also we tried to pull sources on there so if you're interested in learning more you can most certainly go to the and dive in a little bit more and and send a difficult questions our way but i want to point out the two big parts of it i think will be helpful for us as belmont light key questions are at our belmont lights activities being conducted in accordance with established goals and policy why we're doing what we're right are we doing what we're doing so that's a key question and that this is all for external but internal as well as we engage in our daily operational activities everyone on the team should be able to identify the activity i'm conducting today is and is moving x forward and so that's that question so wise to your plan right for a light basically our objective with this plan is develop a framework to guide daily decision making for both rebel and light in a way that is an alignment with the future vision of the community so it's also a way to assure what we're doing matches exactly what the in the community wants us to do so based on what we know so far in the meetings we've attended in the documents we reviewed we started creating this approach so you'll see there's four elements and each drills in a little bit deeper so as you can see the vision with the vision at hand that leads to focus areas those focus areas lead to goals and those goals lead to initiatives and if we follow that in the proper manner there but to get a plan done you say plan to finalize a potential town meeting presentation like when it seems pretty tiring and all and it's well i guess the answer to that for me was it depends depends on what feedback comes from today and then perhaps a future meeting so if today everyone's like this is terrible then it would be longer but if and this looks like a reasonable document then we're looking at you know perhaps a fall you have a public  to update what we've discussed and come back again next month we can do that and i somewhat expected that so it's i wouldn't say it's checked off it's just that's where we're at ok where we are today and then i don't know if you an so that's that was my intent but here you know just trying to time it with different the board meetings and committee meetings that i figure more discussions better than less so so you know you'll see that in through our long it takes maybe we can wrap it up in march but then subsequent to that also times well with the energy committee roadmap public forums and so we can incorporate anything when it is i'm sorry you missed it the way that we provide feedback to chris modeling platform that takes these visions and initiatives and puts it in a modeling algorithm essentially that says here's an optimum way to invest in storage and solar and rates and  greenhouse gas mitigation do you want the lowest rates do you want the optimum mix the bell curve you can throw all that in and so that's really phase two and we expect that's also why i wanted to gauge this discussion early is because that r p process takes time  highlight the vision section so this is where we did or mathematical equation values plus industry trends equals our vision and so i think we put in what seem you know are fairly typical and very do a pretty good job of saying we're going to get we're going to reduce carbon greenhouse gases no i understand i'm just saying but it should be a stated value and when you get to the vision here it says to be the leading utility providing in effect a balance between operational reliability community service environmental stewardship  an academy award yet i think we might get well it's one group that did some a valuation group that we should take note of and be very proud that we were number one but it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone in the universe is really tying back in that modeling phase two if you will that's that's what's helping determine this balance because that's a delicate balance that while i don't necessarily don't optimize so then tying in that  we move to focus areas so with the vision you know we do we identified the six focus areas to help achieve that vision so you'll see in a part chart those of the six along with the related themes if you will for each category so as you can see we're drilling down to a little bit little more and more detail and so we tried to hit all areas of the organization so i think that's a true statement certainly that a lot of these a roll successes today but that certainly doesn't you know things are changing fast so if you don't keep up with the changing climate it may not be excessed a success to mars or to keep it from the customer experience focus areas were a little bit confusing for a start we suggesting that we want to be a part of changing industry standards like that's one of our areas of focus or so yes so changing industry standards so that's maybe perhaps a cryptic way of saying  and thirty years ago might have tolerated a two hour outage and today two seconds is unacceptable and so we have to keep current with that as technology advances it's insta communication it's social media so this is content so when you say yes i'm straight a little bit of to so customer experience where customers are we have to focus on what our customers experience so that's how we look at it operational resilience is the reliability component workforce and employees of each each general if you die stop what belmont makes  these are the six areas that really it's our three legged stool kind of evolved into a six legged stool so before it was right you have rates you have environmental goals and you have a  liability but then we added these other three components that really make it a six legged stool to keep us with if you take away a slice it's not really a successor he said this is the six work for me some of the bullet points around it but i'll provide you feedback offline  goals and so that's where you see just to quickly discuss the format here goal one so the goal is your what is your main topic in the yellow that's where you see your what's the relevant focus area of the six and then with the so should have goals this is where we start our targets and this is where we are today so goal one of mentally i think is the most cryptic for especially for folks that are well versed in reliability metrics so you was just an example in the current data that's our data and then the targets are derived from industry information out there for other muni's ious of what's this is our data here correct we have that we maintain a software platform that whenever there's an outage we're looking to improve this a little bit but any time is an outage we put it in this the reliability tracker and it keeps  these so the yes but they're not good enough you'll find that iou metrics for this are way worse so there are going are you know there's muni data out there but this is comparable to so we have muni data that's collected nationally so this is the rate p p a that sets the bar bit higher than your typical industry standard interest that might be helpful at some point if you flushes out provides a back up to show take trees down unilaterally but there is some aspect to controls t v right in should we somehow should you work with time on that if you think there are trees that create at risk you know just how much street alone one of the neighbors help the tree with the wires going right through it so there is a branch down that's why i left it on my from the road right now and so when the sheets can be down just take the whole neighborhood out you know so i don't know whether there's a way to align that plus what we need to do continue to keep our community green you know as well so absolutely so that's all captured there should point out there we're talking overhead these metrics also help show the value of underground so you know moving to an absolutely sure there yeah so i mean there's a lot into the operational piece and i completely agree that's that's a key area for that balancing act of cost carries for wards but that's i don't want when the next lightly for me is in march march i mean not to rush through this i mean do you think it makes sense mr chairman to take it up again well i mean we you know we can look through a provide feedback and then to discuss together what our feedback is phenomenal and we i would suggest the press we take i think about i would have preferred that slow you down but i don't want to i don't want you to be delayed a month so maybe we can provide you with some feedback in the meantime so you can progress and then we can pick this up again that would be helpful i just