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PARTNERS MEETING SUMMARY NOTES September 2, 2010 Attendees: Lou Camara, City of Hanford Barbara Marty, City of Hanford Baldo Rodriguez, City of Porterville Lew Nelson, City of Tulare Kim Loeb, City of Visalia Cruz Dominguez, City of Woodlake Gail Henry, County of Tulare
Maureen Hoff, SJVCEO
Courtney Kalashian, SJVCEO
Frank Lauro, So Cal Gas
Jesse Langley, SCE Bill DeLain, SCE Brian Thoburn, SCE Cal Rossi, SCE Hammad Chaudhry, SCE
Location: County of Tulare RMA, RMA Main Conference Room, 5961 South Mooney Boulevard, Visalia, CA 93277 Time: 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Next Meeting: Thursday, October 1, 2010 Location: County of Tulare RMA, RMA Main Conference Room, 5961 South Mooney Boulevard, Visalia, CA 93277
Agenda Topics on September 2, 2010
1. Welcome and Introductions 2. Administrative Business a. SEEC Best Practices Conference, October 13th – 14th, Burbank b. On-Bill Financing Feedback 3. Energy Savings Goals for 2010 – Chris Coronel 4. Strategic Planning Progress Report a. 3.1 Discussion re: building inventory/assessment process and “guinea pig” volunteer solicitation—Courtney Kalashian 5. Marketing and Outreach – Maureen Hoff a. Recap of Events i. Hanford Farmers Market | City Employee Appreciation Night, August 12th b. Upcoming Events i. Visalia Home Expo, September 25th – 26th 1
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1. Circulate volunteer signup = free tickets! ii. Tulare County Health Fair, September 30th c. Holiday Light Exchange – Planning and Goals Round Table Discussion: Strategic Plan Solicitation Opportunity – Jesse Langley Peer Sharing Next Steps a. Action items – Maureen Hoff b. Topics of interest for next meeting: Title 24 Training specifics c. Facilitator for next meeting Adjourn VIEW Partnership Meeting
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Lou Camara called the meeting to order at 10:08am and we went around the table for introductions. Jesse introduced Hamad Chaudhry from Southern California Edison. Administrative Business o SEEC Best Practices Forum – Courtney Kalashian asked all Partners if anyone was interested in attending the October 13th – 14th SEEC Best Practices Forum in Burbank; however, no Jurisdictions will be able to make it. Courtney is planning on attending. o On-Bill Financing – Courtney asked Jesse Langley for feedback on On-bill financing (OBF) progress. Jesse explained that all is going well, but there have been a few glitches. OBF loans are commercial, not consumer loans; according to lending laws, the minimum loan amount for a commercial loan is $5,000. Applications are still being accepted. From the VIEW Partnership, Hanford is the only one who put in an application. Jesse and Courtney encouraged all Jurisdictions to submit an application to both Edison (via Chris Coronel) and the Gas Company (via Frank Lauro). Frank Lauro reminded everyone that a half million dollars ($250,000 from each utility) in zero-interest loans is available. Energy Savings Goals for 2010 – In Chris Coronel’s absence Courtney went over savings to date. Frank noted that we have Gail Henry to thank for submitting a few boiler projects and VIEW is now on board with about 1500 therms! Kim Loeb asked Frank if Visalia was in talks with the Gas Company for a waste water treatment plant. Frank will look into this project for possible gas savings. As usual, if Partners have any questions about projects on the spreadsheet, please be in touch with Chris Coronel. Gail Henry asked Courtney about the status on ARRA funds. Courtney, on behalf of the San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization (SJVCEO), updated on status of contracts. She noted that the SJVCEO is still waiting for the CEC to sign the contract so things can move forward. A lot of cities have been losing out on funding because the process has been so slow; however, Mike Nemeth of the SJVCEO is working on maintaining the enthusiasm by keeping in touch with all the cities on a daily basis. 2
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Strategic Planning Progress Report – Courtney reported that after speaking with Chris Coronel and getting his recommendation, the Partnership will use the City of Woodlake as a guinea pig for Strategic Planning menu item 3.1 (building inventory/assessment/benchmarking). The city only has 33 accounts and will be a good way to transition into the project. Courtney asked if there is someone she can talk to find out more details (types of facilities, square footage, and other specifics) on the accounts that we will need answered to move forward with the benchmarking. Gail had a concern over leased versus owned facilities because she felt the results of benchmarking would be misleading; however, Frank assured that the process was more about awareness for each Jurisdiction and the results could pinpoint facilities for programs such as Direct Install. Kim Loeb said he has been trying to figure out what types of buildings all his Edison accounts are and it has proven to be a challenge. Frank Lauro said the gas company does provide more of a description when listing the accounts. Another major challenge, Kim noted, will be determining facility use-type – what percentage of the building is for this, what percentage for that. Getting this information as accurate as possible is critical to having accurate benchmarking. Courtney agreed that there are challenges to this project, but said she is willing to work through it and hopes that Woodlake will serve as a great start and that we can have procedures in place for the rest of the Partners by December. While on the topic of Strategic Planning, Courtney asked Jesse Langley to update on Competitive Strategic Planning solicitation. He stated the conference on the 19th went well and the question period has already closed; however, answers to all questions will be posted on September 13th. There was some concern over submitting anything because it will take a lot of staff time. Courtney asked if the SJVCEO could assist Jurisdictions; Jesse said this is allowable as long as the lead agency is not SJVCEO. Courtney suggested that next week’s SJVCEO board meeting could be a good time to bring this up as long as there is enough interest from the Partners. Gail said it helps to know there is the possibility of assistance and will look to see if there is any interest in the County of Tulare. Proposals are due October 15th. Courtney will send Jurisdiction Partners the RFP so they can see the options for competitive strategic planning solicitation. Marketing and Outreach o Maureen Hoff briefly touched on topics from the earlier marketing meeting and recapped some of the Partnership’s most recent outreach events. o Courtney reminded Partners as the Visalia Home Show volunteer sign-up circulated that volunteers do not have to be the people in this room. Please ask others in your offices! Jesse Langley explained how the Holiday Light Exchange program is being phased out of Edison and will now be considered a marketing piece. Although the Partnership will now have to front the cost of the lights, the program can be tailored to how we see fit. Partners agreed that we should keep the event an exchange and still collect and recycle old lights with CSET, a local non-profit; however, we do not have to collect contact 3
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information or adhere to the ‘one for one’ rule. The SJVCEO will have staff member Sandy Nax put together a story on the holiday light exchange to include in our promotional pieces to explain what we did last year and the plan for this year. Courtney Kalashian will take a look at the Partnership’s marketing budget to see how many LED strands we can purchase for this year’s exchange. Courtney expressed her great enthusiasm for Direct Install and announced its return to the area in 2011. In order to prepare business owners, the Partnership will reach out well in advance to the community with a letter-writing campaign, utilize building inspectors, and incorporate a bi-lingual component. Courtney, still very excited, set what she deemed a realistic goal of a 75 percent capture rate as a partnership. Peer Sharing – Courtney explained that as a Partnership it is important to share our successes, but that it is just as important to share the bumps along the road so that each Jurisdiction can learn from each other. The City of Visalia recently had an issue that almost led to tier regression. Bill DeLain explained that several areas were negatively affected by programming glitches; energy efficiency results had been double counted so when the results were re-counted, Visalia experienced a tier-regression. Bill noted that the spirit of the partnership prevailed and Visalia did not have to regress by quick work and communication. A traffic signal retrofit project pushed Visalia back in the right direction and Edison is providing technical assistance. Kim Loeb said that although Visalia was upset, in the end they feel this has been a good experience and do appreciate Edison’s assistance to get the project going and will probably be going out to bid next month. Title 24 – Frank Lauro brought up Title 24 training at the last Partnership meeting but not many Partners showed a great interest. Kim Loeb said a group of Visalia people attended an all-day training and was curious if VIEW would get an abbreviated version. Frank said there was probably not much you could get through in an hour session. It could be a good idea if any Partners had interest in the training to go the route of competitive strategic plan solicitation. Another option, Courtney suggested, would be to do one of the AgTAC in the community pieces. Courtney announced that AgTAC will be holding a water conference on September 29th where Lew Nelson will be part of a panel. Maureen Hoff will contact someone at AgTAC and pass around details to all Partners. Valerie Williams was nominated facilitator for next month’s meeting. With no further business, the meeting was adjourned.
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Frank Lauro will check to see if there are possible gas savings for Visalia’s waste water treatment plant. Courtney Kalashian will send out the competitive strategic planning solicitation RFP to Jurisdiction Partners. 4
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Courtney will look into the marketing budget and send around to Partners so we can move forward with Holiday Light Exchange planning and purchasing of lights. The SJVCEO will have staff member Sandy Nax put together a story on the holiday light exchange to include in our promotional pieces to explain what we did last year and the plan for this year. Maureen Hoff will send around the Visalia Home Expo volunteer sign-up sheet via email. Maureen will contact AgTAC for more details on the September 29th water conference at AgTAC where Lew Nelson will be part of a panel. She will circulate details to all Partners. PARTNERSHIP 2010 MEETING SCHEDULE: Thursday, October 7, 2010 Thursday, November 4, 2010 Thursday, December 2, 2010 Thursday, January 6, 2011 Thursday, February 3, 2011 Thursday, March 3, 2011
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