thank you for tuning in to the city connection show the very first one of this wonderful new year two thousand and thirteen and we're here for that very first show with mayor dykstra from the city of holland we're so grateful that you can join us this morning mayor thanks for  would tell you there's lots of things upcoming it always seems like right after christmas is when everything picks up or down under our city charter we have to have our budget approved in may and though may seems like a long time away we really begin the process of planning for the upcoming budget already in january and we'll be having open house what we call coffee with council coming up and then after that the council will meet and as you know spend a couple of days talking about what we might like to see happen and we'll have a better idea of what some of the the budget numbers will look like so we'll know what kind of dollars we've got where those dollars might go and what some of the priorities will be so that's one of the big things that always comes up every year right after the first of the year or you just think that you're done with the budget because you know somewhat ironically that the budget has to be approved in may and it doesn't take effect till july but we start about six months ahead of time and begin the process of of budgeting get yes well i'm howland's energy needs is another tactic that we've been really hitting hard in the last couple years especially this past off it absolutely we've you know in addition to the stuff that comes up every year what we've been able to sort of have upon us over the past couple of years and ultimately culminating in the coming year will be the question of not only where should we get our energy from for the next twenty forty years but also how might we be better users of that energy so we've been looking both at the question of of where should where should it come from should we generate continue to generate a lot of it ourselves should we buy off the market but then also are there ways that we can make sure that you know whatever energy we do create gets used the most efficient way maybe we can talk a little bit about that yeah right great you know we looked at some of the questions and where to get the energy and this is sort of taken a winding path over the past couple of years we started out by looking at a potential what we call a solid fuel burning option some coal some would perhaps at the power plant removing one of the oldest units the unit three as we call it a very creatively name that are there and that we're using and for everyone as we said downtown here next to the fireplace unit three is the one that runs the snail mail system so three was put into service in the early fifty's and it's done well but it's clearly not the most efficient you know we've got out there and ultimately we knew we'd take three offline and replace it most likely with something we started out with the solid fuel or coal type option looks as though we've morphed now into a potential natural gas option and ultimately what's going to have to happen because of in these past couple of years new regulations that have come out from the federal government and a little bit from the state government is we're going to have to all not only get you know three offline units four and five we'll probably have to have some substantial changes to right now they run off of coal but they're able to also run off natural gas so the thought right now and we'll see if you know if this is ultimately what happens but the thought right now is that we will take four and five and convert them to natural gas and potentially use them for those hot july days when we have to have that peaking power so they won't be primary generating capacity but they're there they're paid for and we ought to i think continue to potentially use them if we need them otherwise you have to pay for other capacity somewhere right right yeah i mean it's very complicated but the general nature of this is that you don't simply have enough power for what you need an every day basis the government requires you to have sufficient capacity power so that on those hot days you have the capacity to generate as much as you need but what this would do is it sets in motion the kind of the demise of units four and five and frankly the demise of the de young site as a power generating spot because they really wouldn't invest much of anything into those sites any longer and you know they have a shelf life today you know they'll run out of their useful life at some point and at that point we take them down and close it down so while the lakefront might not be opened up immediately it begins the clock ticking on the time when the lakefront will no longer be used for power generation and could potentially be used for other things whether that's redevelopment for commercial type development or parkland or residential who knows but the idea of having a power plant in the lakefront most likely within our lifetime if not ours our kids and grandkids lifetime will will no longer be the case yeah so natural gas is kind of the big i d f and peter garrett for the study that they really recommended going that direction yeah it's you know we've seen kind of a shift in national energy policy and again we're sort of we have to play the hand that we're dealt and right and that the car dealer if you will is the federal government and the e p a so pretty much the idea of burning coal is not going to be likely almost anywhere in the country  whether that's wise or not people can debate but the fact of the matter is that as far as fossil fuels go natural gas has become more plentiful we found more of it we found ways to get at more of it and therefore it's been cheaper and of course it burns much more cleanly so we're moving in a natural gas direction i think most utilities are moving in a natural natural gas collect direction and so that's kind of what we're seeing and the the nice thing about having some more capacity generated locally is that not only can we burn it once it's generate electricity we can in essence take the waste heat run it through another system heat more water generate more electricity but then ultimately use that leftover heat  power things like snow melt and we could have the potential to greatly enhance snow melt but also to do some things like potential district heating kinds of kinds of things so you know major buildings in town whether it's things like the college or maybe the hospital  some of the schools could be heated by using some of this heat that is generated from the waste heat so to speak so this gets in not only to the question of where do we get it but making sure that we use as much of it as we possibly can to make ourselves as much as efficient as we can so you know it's an exciting time it's a complicated time it's at times a frustrating time because we'd all like to have you know clear kind of consensus and unanimous decisions in this community but we we know that these are complex things and people's opinions vary and ultimately we try and take the best information we've got and make the best decisions we can and the you want to be deliberate because this is a thirty forty year kind of kind of choice and you know we don't want our children later on saying boy why back in two thousand and thirteen these people make this bad choice and rush into something so yeah that's kind of where we're at yeah look for more information in twenty thirteen because i think you know thirteen is going to be a big year as we begin to continually implement some of these plans and make some decisions to go in certain directions yeah and it has been a really interesting process and many people have been excited about how they could be involved all along this process and people from outside looking in like the american and bloom judges that were here were really so intrigued with the level of participation that we have had with the citizens throughout this whole of the solution process clearly i mean for the nine of us on council we've learned a whole lot more about utilities and electrical generation than we ever thought we would why did we not become engineers it would have made it task forces on the conservation side of activities whether it's things like district heating task forces were building efficiency and labeling task forces but also to be a part of this this decision making process as to where should we and how should we get power in the future so you know i think that as far as these kinds of decisions go you'd be you'd be pretty hard pressed to find another place where you people have had the opportunity to weigh in and evaluate and look at the potential decisions as much as what we've had in our process yeah i feel pretty good about that yeah and i appreciate the way the beefeater views not just looking toward natural gas but they're also incorporating as many renewables as those haven't maybe gone as well they haven't been that they looked promising but didn't turn out to be as promising as we had hoped by now but good thing we ran the test absolutely instead of investing at exactly what we've now done is we've bought it and have what's called the purchase power agreements essentially a contract for power and got incredibly good rates i mean rates that are comparable frankly with with fossil fuel generation so i mean it's really a win win for the for the the right players of the b p w because they get good clean power at a very affordable rate and also it doesn't cause us to sort of occupy some of our capital right in owning and building and maintaining a wind farm but we just basically purchased the powers can we get out of the risk yeah we do it  same programs better perhaps but you know certainly some of the same programs the council meetings broadcast and shows like this but what we've done is we have brought some of that work in house again we brought it into the city and the  gentlemen who are here producing our show today are now employees of the city and they've really done remarkable work they they always did remarkable work before but they've really done a remarkable in house and what we've sort of figured out we can do is with the ad we found that you know by doing these things in house we can really maximize those dollars and and also then not just broadcast on television but also look to have things on on line and websites and now we have council meetings that are now on websites to people can basically keep in touch with holland not just of their local and for their t v but if they have their i pad or their computer anywhere in the world yeah so you know this is important for us because i think one of the values that we have as a city and as a specifically is the government of the city is that we we think that when we make decisions they ought to be transparent and we ought to try and provide more information to people rather than less information so that's why we broadcast our meetings that's why we broadcast them live that's why we do programs like this so that people can continue to learn and discover and find out more about what's happening in their city so you know we put a high premium on these kinds of things and one of the things that we've seen in the past few months is we upgraded or council chambers council chambers was built as part of the addition to city hall for fifteen seventeen years ago used every week and you know the technology was really really good back in the early ninety's but through continual use it started to break down the quality wasn't nearly what it is right now so we've taken some of the dollars through the public access money and invested them back into council chambers with new and improved cameras new sound systems better presentation equipment so that again so that we can not because we want to put on a good show but because we think it's important that our decisions not only be made in a public meeting but also explained in a public meeting so that people know where their tax dollars are going it's a value that we really strongly adhere to and this helps us i think we'd better counsel and help the people in holland better understand where their money is going yeah i mean you really nowadays have to have a virtual gateway to your city it's not just about wreck and mortar anymore and people try to access information from other places and are interested in coming to an island maybe moving to an island and they're not going to go first to and office somewhere they'll probably go online first to check it out and we don't want to be anywhere usa so yeah it's great to have that kind of team that is built in leadership in the technology department to  kind of keep working and flexibly redoing things and in a way that really serves the people well yeah indeed and you make a great point that you know if we want to drive as many people as we possibly can to the cities website city of holland dot com because we want you know people to have access to city services and city information regardless of whether it's you know tuesday at nine in the morning if it's wednesday in the morning at three a m and they're somewhere in singapore we want them to be able to have access to the information so we try and push as much as we can on the city's website and we've invested there but also it's allowed us to do some cost it you know we don't have nearly the staffing in city hall we used to so people can find for example tax records online now instead of having to come into city hall and find that information well if they can find it online they don't need a staff person as readily to help them so i think it's really a win win people expect now to have more information online we're trying to do our best squirrel in the road or of you see long grass or if there's some issue you see in the city you can fire up the app it's g p s related so if you're right there you can snap a picture of it identifies a location on the map and it then sends it off to the right city department so that the city knows where the issues are the citizen knows that the issues have been received and then ultimately the citizen can continue to get updates on that particular thing to make sure that the issue's been taken care of so you not just sort of launching into some black hole but the city knows what's going on in the city knows of the issues that arrive and the citizen knows that that the issues are being taken care of so we're one of the few communities in the area who have done this again this was something that you know i don't think council or i thought of g the next day you go over that same pothole or whatever but if you can pull over to the side and take a picture and send it in it's handled the and the fact that you can get updates to that really want to get so you know that it's actually being handled and it's not bully have your mailbox knocked over and it's not hit by a truck it's just the strength of the snow so when we don't know what kind of snow year we're going to have but forecasts are quite a bit let's see what really happens and on the  app or you can call city hall the policy is that if a truck hits the mailbox the city will pay to replace it if it's merely the force of the snow that causes a mailbox to be knocked over the city won't pay to replace that truthfully is you know i involved it's a great great town you know you and i both moved here by choice and we're both so glad we did but ultimately i guess i would just ask our citizens and our residents to to get involved but also communicate with us you know we sometimes get a lot of communication a particular issues but for many kind of what we might consider routine kinds of issues you know we don't get a lot of communication so we'd like to hear from constituents we'd like to hear from people in holland tell us what we're doing poorly fellas what we should be doing and you know if you want to you can tell us what you think we're doing ok it's a great community and really great to be with you today yeah this is great and we're so thankful to have a community like this where people really believe in doing things from a new perspective that entrepreneurial spirit the way they've embraced this energy policy and you know snow melt was kind of weird when we did that but now everyone loves it everyone wants more of it and possibly this development into district heating is another way to use what we are already producing in a better way throughout the community and and that is great too so it's wonderful to have people that are willing to come together to solve problems to work hard to support the nonprofits that are trying to do their work with some many cases less support and so it's really good when we have a large base of people that care and want to make a difference for the future and build into the future so we're grateful that you are mayor and ho eternal and we want to do that yeah well thank you so much mayor dykstra yes and we're grilli glad that you have tuned in today to listen to a little bit more about city connections and listen to mayor dykstra here on what's coming up our twenty thirteen year if you'd want to learn more about the things that we talked about about the city of holland just go to our website city of holland com and you can find a wealth of information it's also very well laid out  full website that the technology department has been doing for the city so i think you really enjoy learning about all the different things that are available and all the information that is there for you also if you would like to watch this program on line or any other past episodes of city can sections just go to counseling city of holland and you can access watching the ad in and pass programs so really glad to launch into this new year with city connections and our wonderful crew here to bring you all the information about the city that we love so thanks for tuning in to