 be the case all right we have a quorum I believe we have everyone here and you are welcome to start okay let's do that if we could start this meeting of the board of public utilities and have secretary if I do a roll call please yes chairman galvin vice chair anoni here board member baden for here board member grable board member mullen here board member watts here board member right here okay thank you very much let's start off with a reminder to board members to please mute your microphones when you are not speaking and I will first ask if there are any statements of abstention seeing none let's move to the next item which there are no study sessions we do have a set of minutes for approval but before accepting the minutes let me first open it for public comment we're not taking public comment on the minutes approval if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star none to raise your hand secretary aether do we have anyone making a public comment we have no public comments very good then unless any of the board members have any revisions the minutes will stand approved as submitted and that takes us to staff briefings which we have none and next to the consent items um does anybody have a question i need the consent items or wish to pull the consent item off the consent calendar apparently not uh therefore do i have a motion to approve the consent calendar so moved thank you second i'll second okay i think lisa beat you to it okay that's good so now that we have a motion we're now taking public comments on item 6.1 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand secretary aether do we have any public comments there are no public comments all right then if you could please call the roll by sharon ony i board member baden for hi board member mullen hi board member watts board member right hi very well that motion passes unanimously uh that takes us to our report items and we do have a report item director berk would you like to introduce this item thank you vice chair anonia members of the board our first and only report item is a sole source contract specification for tesco programmable logic controllers and schneider electric radio telemetry system for controller and radio upgrades at water pump stations and sewer lift stations contract number c zero two zero five two and supervising engineer tracy dwayness will be making the presentation thank you thank you uh i just would be clear everyone can hear me is is that okay yep can hear you and we're now seeing the presentation excellent well good afternoon vice chair anonia and members of the board i want to thank you for your attention and efforts regarding this item my name is tracy dwayness i'm a supervising engineer with capital projects engineer in and today i bring before you a recommendation for the sole source uh contract specification for the controller and radio upgrades at water pump stations and sewer lift stations project contract two thousand fifty two uh robert a next slide please so as background um the city's existing um supervisory control and data acquisition system skediff provides the water division means for remote monitoring collection storage and operational data for its various water and wastewater facilities um sked essentially provides the division means to operationally control reservoir water levels system pressures flow rates at water pump stations as well as water levels um at pump and pump activation at its sewer lift stations um so the system is comprised of an elaborate network with a main primary server located the utilities uh field operation ufo and a backup server located at pump station four at the location stone avenue and farmers lane intersection and so from these server from these locations the servers communicate directly um with the city's main wide area network system in its various facilities um which include um 20 water pump stations 23 water reservoirs three water wells one well one water well treatment plant and 17 sewer lift stations uh next slide roberta thank you so the uh skada communication um is primarily through a robust redundant radio network uh radio frequency repeaters are strategically located at high elevations um through the city reservoir r7 and 17 specifically and this is to provide an extended signal transmission coverage with consideration to the long intermediate distances and the local geography within the city between the primary backup servers at the various and the various facilities so um r7 repeater communicates to 11 water pump stations and six sewer six lift stations and r17 repeater communicates with nine pump stations um 11 sewer lift station and one well site uh next slide please um so the city acquired professional design services from kennedy janks um and in august of 2019 we received a finalized pre design report um that essentially provided an assessment um and an evaluation of the city's existing skada system um the report found the system generally uh was built with programmable uh logic controllers plc's made with solid state equipment manufactured back in the 1980s and 90s in a system comprised of essentially non-uniform hardware the software and apps uh obsolete replacement parts next slide please so the report also further uh described the existing radio telemetry system as having equipment also no longer supported by manufacturers um and also had replacement parts that were more or less obsolete or are obsolete um that would require um engagement with a third party vendor if replacement was needed so overall the condition of the existing skada system provides an increased probability of uh communication errors and operational maintenance impacts next slide please so kj's report um ultimately provides the basis for the proposed scope of work for the control and radio upgrades project improvements include up to plc upgrades at 19 water pump stations and radio telemetry placement at 41 various locations including lift stations water well reservoirs um and pump stations next slide please so the project um spans generally to the all the outer extents of the city limits um with plc upgrades shown here um in yellow icons and radio improvements replacements in green icons um as detected it's a bit hard to see but the majority of the water pump station sites involving plc upgrades um are accompanied with radio replacement upgrades as well so plc upgrades will include new tesco units along with all the required hardware preferences and necessary programming um with radio upgrades um including replacement with new schneider electric equipment um with these radio upgrades it would promote a higher data promote higher data rates uh reduced interference more or less uh be a more efficient use of really the existing dense wireless spectrum that currently is out there so in order to complete the project um construction phasing will be required to minimize operational impacts it would require radio upgrades to curve first with no more than half of the skater system offline and followed by plc improvements at the pump station sites with only one station to have taken off line at a time uh next slide please so the proposed contract documents will um explicitly specify tesco l 3000 model um for the plc unit uh for the secure control communication processor for the universal input and output modules and for the power supply unit uh and further would also specify schneider electric model trio uh for the radio frequency trans receiver next slide please so in review of public contract code 30 section 3400 it is required that when a specific brand or a trade name product is called for within a contract construction repair public works project um that that contract specification um should be followed by the words or equal so that bidders may furnish any equal product or service so the the general intent of this section is more or less to encourage contractors and manufacturers to develop and implement new products new materials and services that in function in all respects to that required by the contract but at the lower cost to tax payers so it's intended really to promote competition in innovation with the construction and manufacturing industries in in conjunction with providing a competitive bidding environment on public works projects next slide please so further um section 34 also provides a governing exception in that the award authority may make a finding that allows a specific brand or trade name for a particular product or service in order to match other products in use on a particular public improvement either completed or in the course of completion next slide please so uh pursuant to the public contract code um the department's primary primary basis for proprietary specification um currently is to match uh equipment currently present within the water department um specifically the specifically Tesco PLC equipment already in use within the local water and wastewater operations division and the Schneider electric radio telemetry equipment already in use in the reuse division so further continued utilization of equipment will also maintain reliability and uniformity within our system it'll capitalize and preserve staff's familiarity and institutional knowledge it would provide a platform for consistent training and maintenance and troubleshooting protocols along with guarantee a reliable spare parts inventory and lastly guarantee manufacturer support to the system next slide please river and last so with that it is recommended by the transportation and public works department in the water department that the board of public utilities by resolution prove the sole source contract specification for Tesco controllers programmable logic controllers and Schneider electric radio telemetry system for the contract radio upgrade at water pump stations and sewer lift stations contract 2052 um with that I would be happy to answer any questions um I'm assuming I may have the assistance of deputy director of water and sewer operations Joe Shavoni to assist any specific questions regarding operations in the systems and I did want to clarify in the resolution uh the quantity for the proposed plc's as stated as 22 I believe that's in that's inaccurate the number's actually 19 which is consistent with this slide here so I apologize for that excellent thank you for your presentation mr. Gwyneth are there any questions or comments by board members board member right I support this my only question is um if we do other improvements build other things in the future and we want to use the sole source do we have to you need to come back to the board again to get sole source approval in the future or is this from here on in we can use this as a sole source answers for the answers uh to that question uh board mr or right um every contract specifically is required to um have its own exclusive sole source process um this recommendation is explicitly just for this contract um in the past projects have gone through um and requested the sole source in conjunction with the war of the contract um but our process right now is to bring before the board um in actually a subcommittee forum to uh get the board involved with what is coming through in terms of a contract sole source specification um so the answer is uh if if the next project um requires a sole source equipment it would have to go through the same process as we're currently doing right now do you have anything to add to that mr meadow I think mr dwayneus is exactly right the awarding authority uh for any contract in which sole source authority is intended to be used has to make a finding that as in this case the purpose for um specifying a particular brand name brand name product is to match uh equipment uh currently in use and to accomplish the system-wide uniformity that his slides and the language of the proposed resolution address and so I think he got it exactly right excellent thank you are there any other questions or comments by other board member mullen thank you vice chair um I appreciate and compliment the the staff on the work they've put into uh bringing this item forward as well as the kennedy jinx consulting with the city staff um to come up with this proposal for sole source but I think we would all acknowledge that sole source contracts can be slippery slopes if they're not done appropriately and the city the city's shown a very skilled way of approaching these and so I compliment you for that however one question I have about the the comment about the same where we would give them the ability to propose similar like equipment how can we be assured that our equipment is up to date because we can look back on the 80s and 90s and some of us would consider that to be the good old days but um it's also been um you know 40 years um and so now the technology has advanced in light years uh to where we are today and we wanted to it's going to continue so my question is do we have some assurance in this process with this contract um that our all of our equipment that we have now that they're going to turn and look at when they propose to to do this project we don't have some old dinosaur pieces of equipment in there that somebody's going to see and say well you have item x in here and I proposed another item x um so is that a clear question or do I need to clarify it more so I guess you want to make sure we're not we don't have any legacy equipment that uh we'll we'll send us down that slippery slope you're talking about having to do successful sole source contracts so yes that's exactly where I'm going yes and I think that's a fairly technical question so uh uh mr. Dwayne yes or mr. Chavone uh what do you think uh if I could defer to director deputy director Chavone in terms of his experience with the uh the system itself um their familiarity with with this this product really goes back um since the beginning I believe um so uh Joe would you have any input on this I would thank you board member moll and that's an excellent question and that's actually part of the reason why we hope for this process you know we kind of help we were hoping that Kennedy Jinx would help us a bit guide you know guide us to the right equipment and the latest model of what we need with regard to the sole manufacturer um this is their newer model or the model that's the current model they would use it's it's newer than the model that we use on some of our other stations that were done previously but it is the most up-to-date model at this point for what for the work that we need there there are several operational benefits to this particular manufacturer and that's why the we go through this process that we're going through today to get um your approval to to get this specific manufacturer the specific brand but this model itself is the latest model that we need for our operations okay thank you thank you thank you for that any other questions or comments by board members um seeing none can we get a motion and followed by some public comment I'll move that the Board of Public Utilities approve the sole source contract specification for Tesco Controls Inc. Programmable Logic Controllers and uh Schreider Electric Radio Pelement Telemetry Systems for the Controller and Radio Upgrades at Water Pump Stations and wastewater on lift stations thank you that's the mouthful that's a mouthful is there a second second thank you Director Mullen um now are there first of all are there any board member questions regarding the motion if not uh let's see if there's any public comment we're not taking public comment on item 7.1 you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you are dialing in via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand and Secretary Aitha do we have any public comments on uh oh Mr Meadow you have a question this is not a public comment and I raised my hand prematurely but as Chair Arnone why don't you take the public comment then I have to one thing I want to mention very good then that's uh do we have any public comment Secretary Aitha there are no public comments thank you Mr Meadow I'm just reacting to what Mr Duenas said about the uh first paragraph of the proposed resolution which talks in terms of 22 various local operations water pump and sewer lift station sites did I understand you Mr Duenas to say in fact what you're seeking to acquire is 19 that's correct uh Vice Chair Arnone I think the the board may wish to consider perhaps amending the resolution that is before you now to change the number from 22 to 19 in the first paragraph uh and and Mr Duenas you check me please I think that's the only place the problem exists yes any of the documents before the board is that correct uh it may have been covered in the staff report uh we don't need to amend that though thank you okay remember right do you have are you is that an amendment acceptable to you yes I'll amend as uh Mr Meadow is recommending and I'll I'll second second so the motion has been amended now let me just briefly open it up for public comment on the amendment are there any public comments on the amendment there are no public comments thank you uh could we please have a roll call vote then yes Vice Chair Arnone I board member Baden Fort I board member Mullen I board member Watts I board member Wright I very good that motion passes unanimously that brings us to item number eight which is public comments on non-agenda items if you wish to make a comment on an item within the jurisdiction of the bpu but not on the agenda please make your comment if you want to do it via zoom raise your hand if you're dialing in with telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand are there any public comments on non-agenda items secretary we have no public comments thank you very much let's see I guess that brings us to where are we that was referrals first of all there's are there there's no referrals there's no written communications that I see here on the agenda I don't believe there were any subcommittee reports anybody have a subcommittee that met that we're not aware of okay how about board member reports anything you want to report board members nothing director Burke I think that brings us back to you you have a direct support for us yes thank you vice chair Arnone and members of the board I just have a short good news to share with the board today I wanted to update the board on our AMI our automated meter infrastructure project as it is almost completed hard to believe we started this about four years ago in conversation and now we're almost done so we hope to have this project completed by mid-spring of next year the project includes roughly 53,500 meters that need to be upgraded or replaced including the replacement of the meter lid which contains the data transferring device for the meter this effort was completed by contract and with support from our local operations and water billing staff and as of Monday we only have 672 meters left to upgrade to AMI so it's very exciting um our water billing staff will continue replacing the five eighth inch uh to one and one inch meters and then our local operation staff will replace the one and a half inch and uh bigger meters that still remain so uh just again wanted to thank everyone that's worked on this project as I mentioned uh the actual conversion started in 2016 and this project reduces our labor costs provides uh us with uh hourly usage data helps us help our customers locate customer side leaks and educate our customers on their water use and also helps us determine the efficiency of our programs and provides vital information during emergencies so a really great project really appreciative of the board's leadership in uh approving this project and having it move forward and very excited that we are almost complete and that is my report and happy to answer any questions thank you very much dr Burke are there any questions from board members okay um let's see if there's any public comment on this item item number 13 if you wish to make a comment by zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star none to star nine to raise your hand there's no star none um is secretary i thought do we have any public comments there are no public comments thank you very much i believe that brings us to item number 14 which is the announcement of a closed session uh mr metta do you want to take us into closed session yes vice chair now need there is one item to be discussed in closed session today conference with legal counsel on existing litigation under government code 5495 6.9 subdivision d sub subdivision d1 uh and the name of the case is bush versus brown farms and allies one case to be discussed in closed session in what i believe is a separate zoom meeting that will be a separate meeting and after i asked for any public comment that there may be on this closed session item i will ask the board members to log off of this meeting onto the closed session meeting and when we conclude the closed session meeting we will log back on to this zoom session to adjourn the meeting itself so prior going to going into closed session we're not taking public comments on item 14.1 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you are dialing in via telephone please dial star 9 to raise your hand uh do we have any public comment secretary atha we have no public comments very well then i will look forward to seeing you momentarily in the closed session room and we will reconvene here when that is concluded thank you very much are we all here believe we are all here and so once uh everybody's here then let us uh i don't believe there's i guess we should have a roll call to make sure everybody is returned from closed session so secretary that could you do a roll call to make sure we're all back where we should be yes vice chair anoni here board member battenport here board member mullen here board member watz here board member right here and mr meadow would you please give us a report out of the closed session that we just concluded yes vice chair anoni the board did meet in closed session there are no reportable items from that closed session thank you very much for that report and there being no further agendas on our agenda that brings us to conclusions so i will adjourn the meeting and thank you all for being here and have a good the pre-holiday season take care everyone this meeting is adjourned