 Oh, I haven't been home since this morning. Which bank is it? Oh, that one is in that old building. Yeah, that's the Wells. Treeness Tweeter has got it out. Here? Yes. Here? Here. Here. Lord, there has been a move of sensitivity in our community. There has been concerns expressed, compassion revealed, a spirit that sort of leads us to our own understanding of what compassion and empathy is. Lord, we continuously pray for those, our brothers and sisters, who are still struggling with hurt. We simply ask that Thou would touch us, energize us for service, be with us as a council as we lead and discuss. We ask it in Your name. Amen. Good. Jump right into the program. We'll begin. Good afternoon, how are you all? We are glad to be here to talk a little bit about Columbia Compass. We have been working pretty hard on this particular project and are glad that we can spend a little bit of time updating you on the process. So far what we've done is we've reached out to a number of citizens, including advocates, employees, administrators, people in different civic organizations. We've done this through a lot of social media surveying, and we've included, we believe we've reached about 3,400 people through our public meetings, through some of the responses we've gotten through surveys and through social media. So how we've talked to them, like I mentioned, we've had some open houses in October. We're going to have some more open houses coming up next week. We've done 14 neighborhood meetings throughout the community. We have a very extensive mailing list where people have been able to sign up on their own to get updates. We've also done something called Lunch with a Planner. So we've engaged with people out in different business districts, talking to them about various topics. And we have a website that also has been promoting a lot of the information for people to access. No, it's a brown bag lunch, so you bring your own lunch, and the planner is there. And so we've had it at the Fountain and Five Points. We have had it by the tables and chairs by the Meridian Building. One day we did have some rain, so we actually had a rain date, which is our conference room over at Washington Square. And then each month we've kind of publicized a different topic. So we've talked about population and housing. So if people have that interest, usually what happens, it's a more open conversation and people just come and ask questions. Some people have sporadically come. Some people see us talking and they just say what's this about and start talking to us and the other people that have shown up. It's been an interesting outreach to kind of see what works and doesn't work. From a demographic perspective for the survey, what we've learned, we have some overlapping circles there that represent the different influences. So we have 57% of the people who were surveyed live in Columbia. We have 55% who work in Columbia. And then we have 11% who attend school in Columbia. And you can see that overlapping number there within those circles. Also, we have over 35% of the respondents are living in Columbia for 21 years or more. And then you can also see the response by age on the FAR diagram. These numbers from the actual questionnaire that you gave everybody? Yes, so on the survey we actually asked questions like, how long have you lived in Columbia? We gave a range. We also asked for their age. So those who did respond, that's how we're able to calculate the. Do you compare those numbers to the sensors that we have? With the sensors? The sensors, you know, the numbers that we get. We can compare it with this case, it's kind of a random sample. So, you know, we have 130,000 people in the city. We surveyed it. People could have been in the city limits or they might have taken the survey and they live outside the city limits. So it's not, you can't really define it just to the city from that perspective. We did sort by zip code. So we also have some information of where they live from zip code. This is a map here of the survey respondents by zip code. So that was a pretty good transition there. And as you can see, some parts of the city were much more engaged than other parts of the city. And what I want to mention for our upcoming meetings this next week, what we've done is we've done a lot of Facebook advertising of those. And what we're doing is in the zip codes where we did not have as much participation, we're actually boosting those posts to try to see if we can get a little bit more social media in those particular areas. But I will mention we had a little less participation in the survey for some of those areas, but we went out into the neighborhood and we had those neighborhood meetings. Some of the participation levels in those meetings were higher in the areas where we had lower survey participation. So in the areas that had very high survey participation were some of our lower numbers and attendance for those meetings. So it's kind of interesting to see different parts of town actually maybe prefer a different type of outreach. I apologize if you already said it. And how much are we doing via this traditional snail mail? We aren't doing anything with traditional snail mail. We do have a very large email list. I think it's in the thousands. We have all the neighborhood presidents on that email list. Those neighborhood presidents who don't have an email, we have made phone calls to them to try to push it out from that perspective. But we've also done some press releases. We've had some media coverage. We've been doing some things on channel two. There's a couple of videos on the website. So we can do that. We can talk about it on date night. I can. So what we've heard is we've heard about values. So as a city we value our neighborhoods, our cultural offerings, our opportunities for engagement, protection of cultural and historic resources, and the walkability of Columbia. What we've also heard is some perceptions. So we've heard a number of things up here on the screen. They came up. So on the survey I should mention they were a lot of open-ended questions. And so from those open-ended questions we kind of searched and combed through the information. And this is sort of some of the things we've heard about perceptions. And so we, as a city, there's a perception that we don't always prioritize certain things. There's that disconnected comment, which we've heard multiple times. Disconnected neighborhoods, disconnected business districts. So that's a reoccurring theme that we have heard from other planning initiatives in the past. And also there's a lot of comments about infrastructure needs, a variety of comments, and about being innovative too. Is there detail to go with all of that? We do have an Excel spreadsheet. It's not posted on the website or anything, but we do have a spreadsheet that you could, it's very long, but you could start sorting through if you were interested. It'd be interesting just to read more. I know obviously you have to generalize it for this, but getting down into some of that would be very interesting to read. We can get that. The worst thing that could possibly happen. We'll get you that information so that we can get that pushed out. Yes, Mr. Davis. You know, we talked about the attendance of a very different neighborhood. The ones where we had far attendance. Between then and now, have we done anything to communicate back to them? So those, we had the larger meetings at the 1st of October. We started our smaller meetings through November and December, and then the holidays came and we've been working, getting ready for the meeting next week. So we haven't done a lot of outreach in January, except for some things on social media and some emails. The ones that I attended, I was surprised at who was forward. How do we need to go back to them? The information was good in the attempt to give their input. It's good, but sometimes it's not good anymore. Yeah, that's always a struggle. We find that sometimes we do a process and we get really good engagement, and other times we do the same thing and we get less engagement. So it's kind of like growing a dart at a dart board. You never know exactly where it's going to land. Very good dialogue in the small groups. We did have very good dialogue in those small groups. So we're really pushing, hoping that we're going to get a lot of people this next week. This might be before you turn the page, John. Grace, this may be one more question for Alicia. But the print-in collaterals we have, we've got some really good content. Not just from the conference, but just generally. What's happening in the water sewer? What's happening in the sea? We mail in you that out or do you just have it in our public facilities for people to have it? We have lots of public facilities there. There was a time when we were doing some mail. There was a certain time when we were considering if we'd refer it that way but we're still doing that. I'm not really done in a mass amount of this type of thing. I've done with a dozen mayors in December talking about a number that are primarily around Smart City. And the second bullet point, everyone says that people in the city tend to tend to go. And in the age in which information is ubiquitous. I mean, as a young user, it's still being covered by the press, the Websites Act, and every social media platform or an active Facebook and Twitter. And it's continuing to push information out, even from now non-traditional sources. But people still can't find information. And I wonder if that is more indicative of this nature or if it is, in fact, that the information has gone out there. And I say that to say that obviously when you run a political campaign, it would be right now for a reason. And I'm sure that it would just be something there. And then there's, if you need to look at the things that are motionless, putting it in the mail for that time, whatever demographic, every demographic, every decision, just in the mail, you would just put some numbers about the new Website Act. Oh, that? Oh, you think it's too much? Okay, well, I'll take that, but hopefully out of date, I'm a happy person. Thank you. Great. Very useful. They're all on the Website, so anybody can always direct people to the Website to get more of their own. I think it's pretty good. Send them the link. All right, I think we've covered this slide. I think we'll move on to the next one. So within this particular map here, this is the responses, and you can see what we did was we had an interactive map, and we asked people to actually take their mouse and actually put down information. And so they provided lots of information in terms of where they thought there was opportunities, weak places, strong places. And you can see some of these overlap. I think it might be a little bit washed out on the screen, but that was a lot of helpful information. And in that data that we collected, a lot of people not only put a point, but they actually put a little tag on to that point that said, I think this is an opportunity for blank, or I think this is a weak place because of blank. So although this map really is a generalization, we do have more sort of metadata behind that. They are where it seems like a cluster of opportunity. I'm going to guess the river. We asked the question of, I want Columbia to be, and when we started through that data, these are the words that came up the most. So you can see in each of these words, their font size is relative to the number of times that that word came up. So you can see vibrant and safe and friendly. And so those were kind of some really good cues for us of what people were really wanting Columbia to be in the future. So the next thing what we're going to do is, Shane is going to pass out some little response devices, like a little remote. And you're going to take a little bit of a survey for each of you. The first questions, and I'm going to turn it over to Jonathan. The first questions are really just for you to become familiar with the device and the process so that you're kind of familiar with that. And then Jonathan will go through the rest of the questions. And then I'm going to close. Good afternoon. Does everybody have the little keypad polling device? What I'll tell you is it doesn't work anywhere else, so make sure you leave it on the table so I can take it back with me. I don't feel like you need to take it home or anything like that. But it is a pleasure to be in front of you and have a little time with you. I love to collect data. We've been working with John to collect a lot of data on the city to provide information to enrich this community. And so we want to walk through just a series of questions real quickly with you. This is anonymous, so you can push the button on there. You can push it as many times as you want until I tell you to stop so you can change your mind. I don't feel like if you select an answer and you don't like the answer, that you can't change the answer. But let's start out with something fun. So select your two favorite foods from the list that you see up there. So we've got cereal, salad, sandwiches, cookies, and ice cream. Ice cream would be my favorite. But I'm not trying to bias you by any means. Let me know whenever we turn my screen. Give her one. Push it out. Absolutely. Push away. Select two. Everybody made their choices. So we get to see now. Here's the results. It looks like salad and ice cream. So my bias did work a little bit. But now you see how this kind of works. And it's just a process for us to take a look at some interesting questions as we kind of go through this. And we'll use this as we sort of run along the plan. All right. So rank the following food items from the most favorite to the least favorite. We're going to do one more test because I want you to see how this works. You had to pick the top two. Now what I want you to do is go through each of these A, B, C, D, and E. Pick the order that you like. So you want cereal to be first. Push that A first. Ice cream to be first. Push the E first. And then move forward. The reason this is important is that these are two test questions and we're going to answer a couple questions like this. I want to make sure everybody understands the process. I'm not that interested in your favorite types of food. Chris is though. It might be good information. He's looking for content this week. Absolutely. Okay. All right. Everybody got your everybody. So let's see where we're at. Okay. So you can see now the statistical when we look at ranking, you can see how it sort of changed there ever so slightly between the two. But let's jump into a real question here. So in your opinion, did the citizens of Columbia have a shared identity as a city? Yes or no? 50. Very interesting. How's that possible? Seven people vote. They're eight. Eight now. Eight now. Thank you, mom. All right. Let's move on to the next one. What are our three best assets? They're pick three in the list that you've got here. And we've got a lot. Public parks and public space, cultural activities, historic resources, quality of life, size, lower cost of living, diversified regional economy, diversified population, the rivers, higher education. And there are no one answer. That's a true question. I promise you it's not. Everybody in? Okay. Let's see. Let's see what we get here. Interesting. I would agree. The rivers, followed by diverse populations, lower cost of living. And then you've got a pretty good spectrum across the board there, around 10%. Of the following, what are the top three challenges your constituents face? Select those in the order of importance. You can see A through J there, lack of job opportunities, access to affordable housing, access to quality school, transportation options, access to quality natural resources, deferred maintenance of public facilities and infrastructure, lack of investment or reinvestment, lack of shared sense of community, deception of safety and public health issues. Quite a list. Remember to pick your top three. Everybody good? Let's see what we got. Interesting. Another ranking. What are the top three challenges your constituents face? You're attracting new residents or retaining residents, again, selecting the order of importance. You'll notice that A through J are the exact same as what we're talking about. Everybody good? Okay. Everybody's in. It's almost like jeopardy. Community? Yeah. Some of the questions you're going to ask today will be on the previous slide. Some of them have been written more specifically for you. So like this one is your constituents. Obviously, if you're a citizen, you don't have a constituents. Right. So this is a question that we've, but then there's some, slightly different questions that you're going to ask the residents. They have. And they have a much bigger survey. They do have a bigger survey. So it's just a suggestion. I would say, see, I would say perception is always there. Because I would argue that it's not there. But there is a perception that we don't have. Well, I don't think that's 100%. Yeah, not all your schools are at the top level. You can't say that. Well, not all of them, but this district itself has a lot of opportunities. And I think that is an issue of attracting new residents because there's a perception. I'm saying there's a perception, but when you, when you go and I strongly, I would encourage you guys, there's a night as the state of the district and what the schools will be sharing. But there's a lot of great things. And if you look at this year's report cards, a lot of schools ranked low and everybody universally throughout the state are challenging it because of the way the state has issued their report cards. Anyway, as a current parent, a ritual one, and a wife of a commission. So one of the reasons we did decide to ask you for this one of the reasons we did. Thank you. One of the reasons we did ask you to do the survey with you before we actually go to the public was we did want to hear some of that feedback. And thank you. That is one of those things that that that we've heard very specifically from people the way it's raised. But we've also know that it's perception. So it's that struggle of how to work. Notice there's not because there's no questions on there about, but there's no questions on there about ability to get building permits or anything like that. I noticed John and them left those kind of questions out. Every day. But my what I noticed. These topics barely came up anyway. Question. What they would like to see. I think you're already getting pretty good feedback. No response. No response necessary. Let's keep on. I'll start talking about parks and district one in a second. There you go. You can kind of see where we are across the board there with the top three for the first three A, B, and C. Let's jump to our next question. It deals with business here in the community. Select the three greatest challenges. Columbia's business is based. You can see attracting, retaining talent, commercial, industrial burden, access to appropriately scaled properties, flash facilities, high quality or modern infrastructure. And that could vary in how you interpret infrastructure. Desirable housing options, perceived quality of life. Lack of shared city identity or image, perceived quality of life. Lack of a safe net workforce skill set. Fill in your results and we'll take a look at it. Anybody in? Take a look. Some interesting information there. All right. Take another stab at something else here. Which of these outside challenges should be the city's greatest priority? Please choose two. Lack of a diversified corporate fill in profit investment, non-taxable properties, SCDOT ownership of roads, unfunded state, federal mandates and or legislation, perception of school quality, cultural or deferring, culture of deferring maintenance, and lack of collaboration between jurisdictions and or agencies. Everybody good? All right. Let's see. Very interesting. What are the largest internal challenges for city government? Please choose two. Attracting and retaining employees, coordination with outside agencies, lack of funding, collaboration communication between city departments, setting and adhering to priorities, funding allocation, facility and infrastructure needs. Okay. Again, no right or wrong. Select three investment opportunities that you believe would have the greatest positive impact on Columbia. Parks and public spaces, the riverfront, infill and redevelopment, gateways and corridors, existing neighborhoods, business districts, greenways, and cultural and historic resources. Yes, select three. Doesn't matter the order, just select three. Let's see what we got here. Riverfront, existing neighborhoods. You can see the like and then you get a red cross. Third position. In your... Go back, go back, go back. Can't jump back. I can pull that up a little bit. I need to jump back out. I got to finish the survey. So, in your opinion, which two items would be the greatest catalyst for the city? It'll mess up the quality development of riverfront, connected greenway system, development of intermodal transportation, hub in the Central Midlands, and beyond, marked city implementation, rail consolidation, property tax reform, or focusing on economic development efforts on target soldiers for those. Number two on property tax reform, first being quality development of the riverfront. Okay. To your point there, generally, how would you prioritize the city's limited funding resources over the next in your area? Fewer but larger scale projects. More but smaller scale projects throughout the city, combination of both knowing that both will take longer to complete. Everybody good? What we got here probably. Rank the following statements in order of importance. A, being the implementation of projects and programs should be focused in the core of the city and along corridors. Implementation of projects and programs should be balanced equally across council districts. Implementation of projects and programs should be equitably identified areas that have been left behind or suffered greater hardship. Rank A, B, and C. Remember put whichever number in first or letter in first if you'd like to do that. Everybody in? There we go. Okay. That concludes our little survey. Back over to John. Well, Jonathan just kind of summarizes all of that. I just wanted to follow up and we've kind of talked about our public meetings next week. We are sending out emails about that. We have put some posts on Facebook so you can go to Columbia Compass and one way you might be able to from social media if you actually like that and people are following you on your Facebook or on your Twitter. Maybe they'll pick up that feed from all of you and share it as well so if you could share that. And we will follow up with an email to all of you with some links of where you can, we'll set up an email, one email that you can just easily forward to your constituents and then we'll send you another email that has some links and resources for you if you don't have those. So, Jonathan, do we have anything else or? I kind of think to them there are some areas where you do have electronically in tune so we need to figure out a way to get them more involved. We're going to cure them. We're going to cure their list even if we, yeah, how much of a notice we need but maybe even an info. Thank you guys very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good job. When that's moved into our 2020 Census Complete Count Committee discussion, I know Council has brought this up a couple of times and so as Krista kept hearing it, she sent me an email and said, I think this week the Council is trying to go so we, yeah, with Mayor Benjamin, the idea of the Complete Count Committee and Krista will explain how that works. Our Planning and Development Services Director. Good afternoon everyone. So, 2020 Census is coming up and obviously it's a very important endeavor for the federal government but it has a lot of impact locally but the Census has been going on since 1790 every 10 years and it's a count of the people obviously but why it matters to us beyond making sure that our population stays highest in the state is both political power and funding. The Census is used to help redistrict, force, draw, draw district lines, state legislative district lines, the apportionment of Congress and then money and impact. So right now over $675 billion a year is distributed to state and local governments based on Census data. So the higher the numbers we can get, the more accurate count we can get, the better for our local government. So there's around 16 large Census guided programs and that goes everything from transportation, PDVG funding, education funding are guided by the Census. So the Census has recommended it's by no means mandatory what is called a complete count committee. We as a local government have done all of the technical work we need to do up to this point with the Census. GIS has done a terrific job. Someone in my staff has transferred this, the actual accounting of addresses over to them making sure our boundaries are accurate, the addresses that the Census has is accurate. So we are where we need to be with regard to that at this point in time. Now it's about really a PR and marketing campaign to try to get the count to where it needs to be. And that's where the Census recommends that people in the count committees. Some states have established complete count committees and have funded them with some of that money going to local governments. At this point the South Carolina has not done so. Some local governments are stepping up and going ahead and doing so. The reason it's so important now is because people are rather suspect of the federal government at this point in time. So it's going to take local voices, trusted voices to go out and tell people how important this is, that the privacy of their data gets secure and how to actually be counted. So this year they are going to allow for online response via the Census. And I believe Ms. Wilson has already been contacted by the library of Melanie Huggins. They want to start to jump in and figure out how they can help with outreach to get people online responding to the Census. So what happens, the Census sets this out, sets out how you establish the committee. I've reached out to the Atlanta Regional Office. They were obviously out of work for a while. And I imagine their back load is a bit high. So I'm hoping to hear back from them soon because they would actually generally come and give this presentation to you. But they establish the process, the highest local elected official establishes a chairperson for the committee. That chairperson then establishes subcommittees. Those subcommittees range from government, education-based media, housing, recruiting, business, senior citizens. And they all establish goals in trying to figure out which communities to go into to get the word out. What activities to engage in. It's all voluntary. It's all volunteer. However, there is generally speaking some funding that is out. So the... But most communities, it's a combination of public and private dollars that go into this because a lot of businesses, nonprofit organizations realize the importance of a correct challenge. So some of the activities that people go into develop the barrier lists, host workshops. Some have a march to the census in March of 2020. Just all sorts of creative ways of trying to get the information out. Whenever you go out to places telling your constituents about what it means to them as a citizen to... To... And by the way, I borrowed this from the census. So thank you, census. I just want to give credit where it's due. I'll move this through here. So the chairs and the subcommittee chairs are chosen through this process. Come out. Why haven't they ever tied this to your taxes? Everybody's got to file their taxes. Not everybody can count. That's the one who doesn't want to be one. Yes. You've got to get it somehow. Right? I mean, why isn't it attached to every federal if you're getting assistance or you're paying taxes? Why isn't it attached to that and made it part of the process? I mean, it makes a lot more sense to me. Yeah, but my point is if you have to file for taxes or you're filing for assistance, you could make it as part of the process that you have to fill this out to receive it. So if you get... And they don't get assistance? How is that possible? You got to do one or the other. You can't live by your... Not every... We're not going to go there. We've got to stand up a complete committee. We've got to resource it. All the individuals. The undertone... Unstated challenges here is that commerce is not supporting some of the aggressive grassroots efforts that was green in other sort of running past years. If communities don't stand up their own efforts, then I think the reality of the undercount is the one before us. Well, that's why we're doing this this year because the green was here. Some of the robust efforts you've seen every 10 years will not be supported by... That's obviously the president, Purgator Rossi, prerogative. But it does not mean that we ought not stand up our own efforts. I think at Baltimore and the Houston, there are a few other places we can share as much information that we have at hand as well. And see what our effort, I would love to add, I think including Melanie and a whole bunch of other stakeholders that make sense. Can we get some consensus on standing up a committee and also resourcing at the time of the active and aggressive marketing? And what are those as well? Can we get a budget? Yeah, absolutely. March 4th. Somebody's birthday. All the fellows back there like, look at the world, usually it's San Frans on y'all. I think you've seen him bring us a lot of stuff. But we are set right now with regard to our... Yeah, they've been... Christa hasn't mentioned and Theresa had mentioned in terms of data manipulation. Notice that they've been doing all of that work. A number of things to make sure the numbers are most representative. The key is really making sure people are engaged and feel comfortable responding. So come back with a budget, but we gotta move forward. Let's do it. As you transition to Robert, the room's a little young right now. All the fellows stand up for a second. A very quick introduction of yourselves. We are... We are from... Junior Dartmouth. Once you guys sit down, so you can see it's taking the rock. They're bright. They read. They write. They research. Use them. They... Are you allowed to do some work for us and do some research? Everybody but you. Actually, actually, if I get some good research, half of you. Not all of you, but half. All of his research is by me first. No, but really talented young people volunteering their time for the city. Use them. They're here getting experience, but we're all working to build anything. Aerocapar. Ed, come back. Come back to Earth, Ed. That's right. I like your hair. Don't stop. That's called jealousy. That's all that is. He's jealous. He's got hair. I'm surprised you haven't asked for this. Mr. CFO, put some... Put some hair in the budget for Mr. McDonald. Thank you. Let's give him a move. Thank you, people. Thank you, chambers. So our next item, item three is our water and sewer rate study. Mr. Robert Chambers, principal of lack of beach management consulting. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to be here and to serve in this capacity. This presentation and this cycle of the water and sewer rate study work that we've done. The goal and the objective here is just to present what we'll do, talk a little about the journey, how we got here somewhat and then ultimately get feedback and direction from you as necessary. Okay? So getting into it and what are the drivers of Columbia? So you've seen this slide in the past and the reason why it keeps coming up is because we believe it to be very important with regard to how you manage your utility and not just managing your utility but managing it in a sustainable manner. Currently, this study goes about the financial roadmap that's important to understand how you can meet your obligations going forward but in understanding that financial roadmap we also have to look at operationally are we catching all the costs associated with operating in a sustainable manner and more importantly that your stakeholders, your customers and other constituents what all this means. As such, maintaining revenue stability maintaining sufficiency across the utility fund making sure that you're resilient as a utility looking about continuing to implement your capital and operating programs and when we say that we mean people processes and technology how we go about pricing the utility services you provide engaging your stakeholders and ultimately staying competitive with your neighboring utilities we see these items to be implicit drivers of your business and we'll continue to monitor these drivers as we continue this journey and it's please ask questions if you have questions as we go through so how did we get here this table outlines just a little bit of a history of what our revenues and costs look like and how we're meeting what we call debt service coverage debt service coverage is net revenues which is revenues less expenses divided by debt meaning your annual debt and it gives you a ratio the target internally is about a 2.0 which is row 7 and we're hovering at and around that 2.0 range so you know we're going and we're meeting our target and that's an internal target but that's not required by bond or anything your bond target is a 1.2 and you're at the right it helps you to get cost of capital with your bond rating the rating agencies like to see when you adequately meet your coverage requirement and it just provides a good perspective of how you're running your business so looking at this table historically when we've looked at the history of what you've done with rate increases we've seen some lumps and what we call lumps is years we may have increased years we may not multiple years we may not it is the testament of this body of taking the action necessary to implement the increases as needed you know recently we were a part of a bond issuance which was done by Columbia Water and one of the positive comments that came out of this effort by the rating agency was stability as an organization and your proactive approach to rate making to taking action and these were some of the positive comments the rating agency drew from you as an organization that has allowed you to have a good credit rating so we just wanted to continue to show and track and highlight the importance of what we've done you've done as the head of this body correct the storm the first time we've done storm with a bond yes sir so on this slide what we wanted to do is highlight some significant or just some events that have happened over the last few years so as a part of this what we call integrated financial planning paradigm we have had to deal with some of these issues for example loss of a significant customer but I disagree with that in terms of cash flow the value of what we got back in the cost of service improvement that we were going to have to do in that area and then you turn back the taps that were returned to us the value to us is much greater than anything so I think that's not a true statement and I would argue on that he's in the macro and that's how do you frame it implementation of your capital program clean water 2020 impacts as it relates to consumption and cost as a result of flooding and rain events you know building out your storm water system looking at adjustments to Columbia water and operations and potentially extending service to new customers all these things have happened and have an impact whatever the impact may be on the manner by which you currently operate and you plan to operate going forward and these are things we've had to deal with as a part of this journey so looking at the financial forecast that was presented to you last year we went about implementing a 9.76 rate increase last year and based on the forecast last year we're looking at somewhere just under a 6% you know we we will look and work through forecasting you know updating slash creating the new forecast going forward but we just wanted to highlight to you what we presented last year as it relates to potential increases and use it as the baseline to start this analysis going forward how much are we continuing to do bulk rate when you say how much how much volume are we doing bulk rate that we're not getting a regular rate I'm not able to say we do wholesale water we don't have a bulk rate right now it's that's the all other rate that we so Town of Chapin, Winsborough those types of customers we do have that sort of rate we are and part of Robert's work is going to be looking at a large volumetric user you know moving forward because of some of the discussions we've had around right now there is no wholesale bulk rate per say rate classification it's the all other rate which is fairly close to trying to understand the volume of that and are we equally spreading and I mean the cost of business for us increases and equally pass that on to the folks who are receiving that in some proportion I mean volumes different than a house but you know we're asking an individual homeowner to take an increase are we equally spreading that out it's a great question I think and something that Robert can help us look at I think there is a very small differential between the residential rate and the commercial industrial and the other rate it's a very minimal difference make sure we share that and the analysis although I really don't want to talk about Winsborough we are in that well and I think too and I think going forward we need to make sure that I know there's a gap between government entities and the state that we need to make sure that we're applying that because if they're not paying at least what our homeowner is paying and rate equivalent then we need to make an adjustment because that's that's unacceptable huh no for Jackson's I'm thinking clarity because I think we maintain I'm thinking clarity Winsborough we don't know what I think before we say I think let's get the information and discuss it and then we can weigh out the benefits and so forth but you know we can't keep going back to the same well which is our homeowner right there this is not a question for you Robert but Clint, Theresa as Winsborough moved forward with the alternative sources of order do you know that they do have a solid water line but they're still they're still I don't I don't miss for a day I don't think we should yeah again I don't want to talk about that too much that was not the last time we did it but for the overall particularly as we look at shared responsibility burdens and benefits Robert so I have questions if you don't mind going back on the ratio question so you're predicting a two point ratio debt service ratio coverage ratio is to go up on your rates for nine point seven six right and on the other slide five point nine eight five point nine eight five point nine eight five point nine eight just under six percent five point nine eight so going back on the previous one how did we get here more than projected at two point one two does that give you an inclination that maybe you should adjust some of these rates or some of these numbers sorry what was that question so the debt ratio and the projecting or projecting at two point two point zero for the past two years we actually surpassed that so was that part of the calculation to come up with the rate increase for this year and every other year obviously we've maintained that it even does better because two point one two last year was it two point one two and the year before so I'm just I'm curious was that part of your calculation that part of your estimate no problem and may I step away from the mic that's correct it was like twelve percent thirteen fourteen somewhere in that range yes sir yeah what we'll we'll have to go through the process and yes sir not a full transfer in the rate well you stop that don't stop that but the debt service the coverage ratio is the amount of cash we have available to cover the relationship between that and the rate of no it but certainly making sure we have cash available to meet the obligations obviously rate affects that I think two points we've made one is that the proposed rate increases are significantly lower than what we talked about and then also the buy ticket approach we've taken to meeting the debt issues with the cash several issues has helped us significantly with the not borrowing for the five point for the five point time is it's just an adjustable based on the situation we'll we'll have to we'll have to go through the analysis I thought we were going to settle in we'll we'll have to so moving into our study approach our study approach is a bottoms up approach where we look at your billing information and your rates to go about calculating revenues based on the breakdown of costs by all your cost centers and how you budget and track your cost we incorporate all the costs compared to the forecast of revenues at the time to answer the question to answer the question you know what are the annual requirements and how are we doing to meet those requirements then we go through the cost of service we've spoken about equities we go through the cost of service to say how much should be collected from each service type basically the different classes or type of service you provide from this business unit from the water and sewer front from Columbia water and then the third and final step goes into actually pricing and understanding how you should collect those revenues so that's the three step process to our study approach so some areas of focus and this time around wanted to just highlight these areas of focus based on the three step approach so looking and maintaining the financial integrity of the system meaning debt service coverage risk mitigating funds, fund balance look about sustainably implementing your capital program clean water 20 that brings up a good question so today obviously we're coming through the descent decree we're making improvements at what point we're not maximized obviously in our mgb so when do we quit putting in capital and when is it just pure maintenance do we have a point where we get there that balances out from the investment at some point we're going to have rebuilt everything we're at a point now let's speak let's speak more everybody would look at how do we also manage with our program we just also we absolutely have got a plan in place to start weaning ourselves if you will off the program management capabilities but also to your point councilman about the capital investment infrastructure and we are absorbing a lot of the rehabilitation cost now cleaning, lining, rehabilitating manholes those sorts of things that is being absorbed in our O&M budget because that's not a true capital expenditure that's maintenance work and so we have started at some point our capital budget is because if you look at it we're going to be 24 million of our own cash invested plus all the financing when do we get in the 2022 we've made all the major we're back to just focus in on maintenance yes sir I think as the projects have been laid out to meet our capacity assurance program which is something that the consent decree required us to develop it's basically how do you minimize sanitary sewer overflows making sure that the pipes are big enough after you've corrected the inflow and infiltration we've got a lot of projects yet to do we're probably looking at five to six year window we're about to submit those list of projects that the hydraulic modeling and studies have helped us develop we submit those to EPA and then those become consent decree deliverables by a junk attachment to the consent decree so we're wrapping those projects up now that lays out the capital spend looking forward a lot of our effort so far has been developing O&M programs how we operate how we maintain and how we track and make sure we don't get in a difficult situation that we have a lot of sanitary sewer overflows moving forward so there's quite a bit of capital spend ahead of us to still get to a position where we're in compliance with that capacity assurance program so on average our wastewater treatment plant is treating around 35 million gallons a day we have capacity for 80 or 60 right now with a potential plan to expand to 80 the issue comes whenever we have rain events we go well above 60 MGD we've approached 100 MGD and some of the really wet seasons that we have this fall and it's not just a treatment capacity it's the capacity of the conveyance to get it there and Lake Catherine is a perfect example you'll see a project coming up in the not too distant future to invest quite a bit to make those feeders so we minimize sanitary sewer overflows in that localized vicinity but at the same time none of that will help if we don't clean the storm leftover and little Lake Catherine and other feeders then we're just clogging up everything so we need to look at that certainly a programmatic approach so this plan when we get to that point at the end we'll still be at the 60 million gallons of treatment capacity treatment capacity so the one thing I haven't seen in any of our plans what are we doing to fill that capacity with pain customers well that's your economic development piece in trying to grow the system well let's be honest the one thing we need to encourage to grow within our municipal boundaries not outside because the cost of maintaining and bringing it in is where we got several times in the past it's too expensive to deliver the centralized plan I'm trying to see if I really understood the question at what point do we get to the pulling back many years I think from the actual happenings there's a lot of that's the obvious pay out there for us as we drive through the city we would see basically just maintenance going on versus repair and replacement of the that's more of the six year time frame of the program management that becomes another education problem depending to the public it'd be nice if we could look as we go into the budget and pull all these things together to make a plan that maybe we try to commit resources to recruit 5 million gallon users each year for 5 years to use up that capacity to help bring in more revenue we can do a constant analysis of incentivizing let's identify where we're located is where a lot of growth is so on the cost of service as we're discussing extending service to large use customers and looking at potentially what that rate or options could be from the cost of service perspective and then the third and final area would be rate design appropriately pricing the service looking about pricing the service should the service be based on the price should be based on cost of service or some other policy driven for example economic development factor for example another example as it relates to looking at impacts to the price of the service we're looking at and we've discussed moving from CCF to gallon potentially what would the impact of that look like so that third area will be looking at pricing the service and potentially what those impacts could or could not I think we need to add customer service people with no mind paying extra they get quality service and answers and that's something I know they're focused on and getting but we still probably the majority of us that's the number one thing that we deal with what a customer issues you're setting a rate it's got to be part of that and I think that needs to be part of our overall plan understanding the impact of the customer and how we respond to it I mean we got to make sure that we're getting the customers information that they need and not hard and somebody gets has a water leak or other issues and it takes days and weeks and the rates are all over the place you know and I know a lot of it hopefully will be taken care with the automatic metering you know the other things that we're working on but I think that needs to be part of your rate design because if we can't provide the quality of service you can't get the rate Robert part of your study do you have a gut where our current rates water and sewer kind of fit in in southeast right now I know the last time we looked we trust maybe a year a year and a half ago we're somewhat in the middle of the road but so what we can do is the next time we come back we can have a comparison explicitly show the comparison of comparable utilities in the southeast to see where we are but I remember we're somewhere in the middle we trust everyone else bring your data right so we'll wait for the data we'll wait for the guests and so the next steps initiate the project you know and you know and get going thank you very much for the opportunity any questions before we close I think compared to a copious note that we're asked about a large users about ESER and if that helps us with rate I mean I like the two point of coverage I think we need to stay there I know the years past we went much lower than that you and you and the guy at the door needs and over there we want we want to transfer in that direction in all fairness Mr. Mayor I wouldn't take any credit you know it's really folks on that back wall I'll give you blame if we don't get there you get all the accountability we want to keep going in the right direction I thought I wanted to see a rate consultant from come and give us information but you've been great the last ever year thank you very much next time you're sick Robert don't send anybody on your stage just wait until you're better and just come and do it yourself tell your colleagues to do that all right so I'll move on I would like to make an emergency going to the executive session to see the legal alliance and let it continue to train I believe I believe I'm sure you don't really like this discussion completely unrelated to this motion I do want to raise the fact we'll talk to several members of the legislative delegation I think it would be very helpful at some point in the near future we talk to have the delegation and discuss with them some of the data from the funder conference with two of our senators it was enlightening to them so sharing them some of the data and also maybe sharing some of the data from Robert's presentation as well so they understand some of the conversations we're making in that space as well a bit of an education as to how this city is unique vis-a-vis other cities in the state right now and how we might need some legislative solutions to help us but just a really deep and broad education some of the data in the funder conference in particular I think we need a plan to do that so let's start working that way moving to the next question for Colorado hi yes hi thank you