- get started tonight with the City of Bloomington Utilities Services Board meeting for February 23rd
- of 2026. And a reminder of the mission of City of Bloomington Utilities is to enhance the quality of
- life in our community by providing safe, sustainable and high quality drinking water, wastewater and
- stormwater services in a cost effective manner, promoting
- the public health, economic vitality and environmental stewardship. And just a reminder that if any
- of our board members has a conflict of interest or personal or financial conflict with any of the issues
- or individuals on the agenda to be sure to recuse yourself during those particular portions of the meeting
- or those particular votes. All right.
- Next is any petitions or communications? Anything from the public or even board members? All right.
- Let's go on to the approval of minutes of the meeting of February 9th. Any additions or corrections
- to the minutes?
- Meeting minutes from last week. All right moved and seconded to approve the minutes of our February
- 9th meeting. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay motion carries. Next is approval of the claims
- and we'll start with standard invoices. It looks like
- chance to review all those. I just wanted to point out on page five, our $25,000 donation to the Lake
- Monroe Water Fund. Thank you, Megan. That's, that's an annual contribution. Great. Well, we know how
- important that is, since that's our main support source of drinking water. And that organization does
- a good job supporting our mission.
- All right, well, our standard invoices then amount to $953,221.81. I hear a motion to approve. I move
- that we approve the standard invoices. Moved and second, all in favor? Aye. All right, standard invoices
- are approved. Those accounts payable. Next are utility bills.
- And wait a minute, we got utility bills are next. Let's find those there. There they are. Total utility
- bills for pay date February 19 is $216,846 and 30 cents.
- the utility claims moved in second any discussion on utility bills all right all in favor say aye opposed
- all right we've approved the utility bills next our wire transfers in the amount of five hundred and
- seventy five thousand one hundred fifty seven dollars and sixty four cents
- been moved and seconded any discussion on wire transfers all in favor say aye opposed all right our
- wire transfers are approved next our customer refunds in the amount of three hundred and eighty seven
- dollars and eighty eight cents I move that we approve the customer refund
- All right, moved and seconded and in discussion on customer refunds. All right, all in favor say aye.
- Aye. Opposed? All right, customer refunds are approved. Next is the consent agenda. Catherine.
- Good evening, I'm Catherine Zager, utilities director. I'm presenting tonight's consent agenda totaling
- $21,084.91 for nonchemical contracts.
- First is with grip incorporated for $6,684.91 for flow meter installation at the Dillman wastewater
- treatment plant. Next is with electric plus ink for $14,400 for the installation of charging stations
- at Blucher Dillman in the service center. Next is with air gas specialty products for 0.178
- dollars per pound for the 2026 supply of ammonium hydroxide, aqua ammonia at Monroe Water Treatment
- Plant. Is there any member who wishes to consider one or more of these items individually? Hearing none,
- if there is no opposition, these items will be approved as recommended by staff. Hearing no opposition,
- the consent agenda is approved. Great, thank you.
- agenda is approved. Kat, my question would be on the charging stations. Do we already have them at Monroe,
- or I see that we've got three of our main facilities, but do we have one at the Monroe plant? No, we
- do not currently. We started with having them at the service center, Blucher and Dillman, since we're
- watching our water funds closely. For what? We're closely watching our
- water cash funds. Ah, yeah, okay. I gotcha. Thanks. All right. Next is the request for approval of on-call
- service agreement with Decker Pest Control. Jose. My name is Jose Fuentes. I'm the purchasing manager
- here at CBU.
- requesting on call service with Decker Pest Control, local company that we would like to have as a for
- pest control. That's for all CBU facilities, right? That is correct. It's a one year contract with two
- additional one year terms, right? That is correct. Okay.
- I don't know how many times they're used. Do they come out a certain number of times a year? It just
- depends on the scope of work. If we need something immediately, this is just being able to call them
- and have them come and provide a service for us. Do you feel that we get the $10,000 a year worth of
- service? We haven't used them yet, so I would have to look at that as the year goes. Okay. Maybe you
- could report back next year.
- that I can be happy to do that. Also, it's as needed. That is correct. That's kind of what that so you
- may not use it all if we don't have any issues or problems. Yes, that is correct. OK, so it's kind of
- like, yeah, not to exceed. Right. Yes, it's not kind of like it is not to see. Yeah. So it, you know,
- it avoids us having to wait two weeks to come in and talk to the board.
- about an individual contract. So we set it out for 10,000 per year. And as we use them, they will invoice
- us and we'll pay them for the cost of what they do. And if we get to 10 grand, we can't we won't the
- contracts done for that year, we wait until the next year. And we have more than one contractor per
- discipline usually, so we can rotate through them and continue to keep services going at the different plants.
- without having to wait, again, like I said, two, maybe even sometimes three weeks to get before the
- board to get things approved so we can come in and turn a screw or something simple like that. That's
- what I was asking. Thank you. Amanda. Chris, actually, just a question for you. So these on-call services,
- because they are, as you did, a great explanation of how these work, is this something that,
- Could the board approve on call service contracts in a group like we do consent agenda, or is it necessary?
- I guess I'm kind of for me it's like cost of business, you know? And you have to have X number of air
- conditioning people, HVAC people in contract because we're a business that has to have that
- that type of service if electricity goes down, if we have a cockroach infestation, if we, you know,
- there's just different things that to me are just cost of service and that we have the people that are
- in our back pocket when we need them and we don't have to go through red tape. So I guess I bring that
- question of twofold. You know, how involved is the board
- really need to be in on-call services, and if we do require approval, probably in part because of maybe
- amounts, could they be bundled as here are the on-call services that we are renewing contracts with
- or we're going into a contract with? Well, we have a cap on what we so we have a we just got done with
- a consent agenda, but our cap
- through the controller's office is $25,000 and less. And a lot of these on-call agreements, arguably
- this is a 10,000 per year, but from an accounting standpoint, we look at it as a $30,000 contract. So
- it's above what the consent agenda would permit. And so that's why you, we used to try and run them
- through the consent agenda, but arguably they probably shouldn't be. And so we've, you've started seeing
- them on the regular outside of the consent agenda.
- And so a lot of that has to do with transparency as well, just to allow the public to know what we're
- spending, what we're earmarking into allocating our funds for. I don't know how we could streamline
- it in a way that if it was like per discipline, if we were like, hey, here are all of the electrical
- contracts, on-call contracts, but they don't all expire at the same time. So we can't really bundle
- them like that.
- And then if you're gonna bundle them together from different disciplines that might have different amounts,
- that starts to get tricky. So I still feel like this is probably still the best and most efficient,
- most transparent way to handle these on-call contracts is to do them individually. Thanks for bringing
- up the fact that even though it's under that threshold 10,000, that it's per year. The whole contract
- is earmarked for
- three years if we use them each year, right? So it really is from an accounting standpoint it really
- is a $30,000 contract. Good? Thank you. So the bottom line is if we get to the $10,000 don't tell the
- pests because they will just come back. Yeah. Well, we probably have option B or option C lined up.
- We already have one in
- in place. This is just an addition. Yeah. Right. Hey, well, thanks. I think it's been moved and seconded,
- right? Did I? Are we tracking? OK. All right. Ready for a motion, then? I move that we approve the on-call
- decision. With? I was looking at other things. Number six. Decker pest control. All right. It's been
- moved and seconded. Any further discussion?
- All in favor say aye. Opposed? All right the on-call service agreement Decker pest control is approved.
- Next is the on-call service agreement B&L sheet metal. Jose? Good afternoon this is just the second
- roofing company that we'll have is an on-call contract so this is just again a just-in-case moment with
- B&L sheet metal and roofing.
- The amount there is $20,000, correct? Correct. Okay. All right, I hear a motion. I move that we approve
- the on-call services with B&L, sheet metal, and roofing. Second. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion
- on this on-call agreement? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, motion carries.
- Next then is approval of Emergency Services Agreement with SET Environmental. Isabel. There's another page.
- Hi, good evening. My name is Isabel Quiroz. I am the Hazmat Coordinator for Environmental Division.
- I'm here to present a request for approval for an emergency contract of $33,904.72. Any questions? Why
- is a contract such an odd amount?
- Because that is the final cost of all the services that were provided. So this is the total cost for
- services? Correct. Yes. Well, you might elaborate a bit on the purpose of the contract. Yes. So on October
- of last year, at the intake, we have, just to want to remind you guys, we have the intake, we have two
- underground vaults, which is where we inject
- copper sulfate and sodium permanganate and There were some pieces that were being changed due to age
- We think one of them was faulty as it failed very quickly after it was Changed so that created this
- incident in which we had a spill inside of the vault What happened is that we had an old pipe from original
- design of the plant that
- Although it was blocked at the end of the pipe, we were worried that because we didn't have a way to
- know how much of the material was flowing into that pipe, it was decided that we didn't want to take
- that risk. And the outflow of that pipe was close to the lake. And that's why it was decided to call
- set environmental to come and take care of the incident.
- Correct. And it was addressed in October, correct? Yes. So why are they invoicing us so late on this?
- Yes, that is because they didn't pick up the waste right away. Usually when we have a chemical cleanup,
- it takes some time to do the waste profiling and we had some tests and some analysis done to, this is
- kind of to know what's going to be the cost of disposal.
- And then we had to schedule it, so that took a little longer. And then invoicing, it usually takes them
- a little longer as well. Great, thank you. Yeah. Okay, I hear a motion to approve the contract with
- SET Environmental. I move we approve the contract with SET Environmental. Second. All right, it's moved
- and seconded. Any other discussion?
- All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Services agreement is approved. Next is the request for approval
- of the service agreement with Reedy Financial Group and Matt Havy is going to talk on that. Payment
- processing?
- process. Ever since then, we've had some challenges reconciling some of our accounting accounts. So
- we've been trying to figure it out ever since that change was put into place. So we're going to see
- if a second set of eyes can help us figure some of these things out. So what accounts did you say? Which
- type of accounts? Our revenue accounts and our bank statement.
- I apologize if I don't recall. Can you elaborate on what the chain was? Because I don't remember hearing
- about this. So we used New World, which is a Tyler software product. And they forced us to update to
- Tyler Payments. And ever since we've changed to Tyler Payments. Who forced us to change to Tyler Payments?
- Tyler. OK. Yeah. OK. So they updated the way they process the payments.
- And ever since then, we've had some challenges, so. OK. Do they offer support that's just not been what
- we need? They haven't been able to help us out, no. Are there other utilities that use this software
- that experience the same issues? That I don't know. OK.
- What's our like discrepancy that I mean, I'm sure we're not talking about like a few dollars on the
- bottom line. It's not crazy. It's probably less than a thousand dollars every month. But before we switch
- to this payment process, we could bounce the penny every single time. I mean, that's important. We appreciate
- that. I just wondered what how far are we? OK.
- I just wish they could offer you more support. That seems like if that's our contract with them, that
- that's their job to make sure that it balances for us. And I'm just, I'm not understanding a $30,000
- contract for them. Like, I guess not knowing. That's just what they wanted the engagement letter to
- say. It will not cost anywhere near that. Yeah, basically.
- That I don't know, to be honest with you. And is Tyler a group that we exclusively use, or is it a group
- that the city of Bloomington, the whole city uses it? And are other departments experiencing this problem,
- or do other departments not have the accounting system we do? I don't know if they're experiencing the
- same problem. All I do know is that the amount of transactions that we do is much greater than any other
- department in the city, except for maybe parking.
- I would be interested to know if the other city departments experience this issue as well. And then
- are they just like, well, it's only a couple of dollars. So we'll just let it go. And then that feels
- like that should be like a shared expense. And this is what we need. And I know you say it's going to
- be less than the 30,000. So I just feel like we should get the customer support. I'm sure we're paying
- a lot for the program to use every month.
- service agreement moved and seconded any other discussion or questions as far as like this month just
- to get it reconciled this month or could we pass I don't I mean like I I want to say I say have the
- confidence in you that I
- I would question this it's just like could we see are the other departments experiencing this and you
- know like I guess that would be my hesitation here is like how how what's it like for other folks that's
- my question and so like if I were to you know wish that we would delay this vote till next time is that
- putting you you know another month behind or what's the time frame for you okay
- I guess I'd like to see a little bit more information about what the discrepancy is. In the type of
- budget that we run, $1,000 doesn't seem like a ton of money, but I respect the need to balance out each
- month. I respect that. I just feel like a $30,000 contract to figure out an accounting error that
- should be resolved by a company that we are contracting with is a lot of money to, I mean, they may
- turn around and say, oh, here's the problem and we have it in a week and it costs us $1,000. I don't
- know necessarily that that will be the case because I'm sure we've had you and other people in the department
- looking at this. So I think I'm leaning more towards
- either voting no or tabling for just a little bit more information. Well, I think Megan suggested, are
- there other departments, are other departments balancing out? If this is something that's used by the
- city, are there other issues?
- And then maybe there's another city that also uses this that we could say, hey, you know, that has a
- big revenues that we could check with them and how was their transition? How did it balance for them?
- Or if there's a department that's in here locally that they say, yeah, we had that same problem and
- here's the solution. I mean, I guess those would, those are the types of things that I would want to note.
- And if we are having a problem as the city with people not being able to reconcile accounts, if we're
- working in a silo here and having an issue and someone else is having an issue and we're not talking
- to each other about the issue, as a larger group, we'll have more power saying this is not a solution
- for us. Again, I'm not fully understanding how it all works, but if other departments are using it,
- I'd be very curious to know
- they can't balance. From a procedural point of view we do have a motion and a second on the floor so
- we're gonna have to vote on it and then if we vote no then we can ask that it be brought back in two
- weeks or whenever. Thank you Jim for keeping us in line. Okay so yes if there's I thought we were still
- under further discussion.
- could move the table. So we have to act on it. Okay. Sure. So you all are going to do more research
- on this. If it turns out that we do need
- outside help, like I would assume that you're not going to use it until you've found, you know, all
- the information that you need. So like I'm inclined to approve it knowing that you're not going to use,
- like it's not a guarantee that they're going to spend this money, but that it doesn't make them wait
- for us to vote on it again.
- I guess my vote will be a no and then I would request a table. Just since Matt said there's not like
- this, we need this resolved today. So if there'd been a different sense of urgency, I think I would
- lean that direction. But I think as is, I'll just vote no. And if there is something that is a shared
- issue within the city, then it should be a shared cost to resolve it. Yeah. So like I said, I have too
- many questions to pass it.
- since it's a system that we didn't really buy. Call for the question then. All in favor say aye. Opposed?
- No. Then motion fails and this can come back
- Another reading. Okay. Thank you for the information and your time and I appreciate you've spent a lot
- of time on this getting up to this point. So thank you for a little bit more time and then we're going
- to get it resolved, help you get it resolved one way or the other. Thank you, Matt. There's nothing
- worse for an accountant for not seeing zero.
- All the background and history that went into it so that's really it's really not a problem Okay, the
- next item on our agenda is is requesting approval for amendment number two of the on-call services agreement
- with Rehab Corporation
- Good afternoon again. Brehab works on our compressors. So anytime we have a compressor go down, they
- are the ones that we call currently. And if we have a compressor that's not in service, they will rent
- us one. So that's why we're amending this contract for the cost. Did we not just amend this not too
- long ago with Brehab or was it a different company with their crane
- We just had a company that went through for compressors. That leads to my second question. This seems
- like a very specialized service. We do have multiple vendors that can assist with this, correct? That's
- correct. Okay, great. That's one of the things that I've been asked to focus on is getting multiple
- vendors that can do the scope of work at our plants for that purpose. Thanks, Jose.
- I hear a motion to approve. I move that we approve the agreement for on-call services with Rehub Corporation.
- Second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. That is approved. Next
- is request for approval of amendment number two to the on-call services agreement with Todd Septic LLC.
- Hello again.
- They pick up our waste. We had a machine that went down and so we had to use a good amount of the on-call
- service money. So this is just to carry us over until I believe it's August when it gets auto renewed.
- Other questions for Jose?
- talked about this tonight about the annual for three years. So in August, it'll reset at the $10,000
- limit. And then if we needed to do amendments at five and 10 again, but it doesn't reset at 20,000
- in August. For this year. Okay. Okay.
- The way the on-calls work is that in order to automatically renew they have to renew under the exact
- same terms and conditions of the existing agreement so if we increase the not to exceed now in its own
- amendment it will it will renew at that amount. At 20 then? Yes. Okay. Exactly. Thank you. Just since
- we discussed that with other contracts tonight then I wondered.
- for on-call services with Todd Septic. All right, it's been moved and seconded. All in favor say aye.
- Aye. Opposed? A motion carried. Next is amendment number one to the service agreement of course and
- fire and security. Who's that? This is just to move the expiration date. It was set I believe in April
- to move it towards the to the end of the year so that they can
- do our inspections throughout the throughout the year. Correct on the contract and it it's to inspect
- the backflow devices fire suppression system alarm detection systems and fire extinguishers at all CBU
- locations. That is correct as well as our vehicles and heavy equipment they'll inspect them all.
- annual inspections this we will need annual inspection but this what's inspected on February 24th needs
- to be re-inspected by February 20 24 2027 yes okay so by extending the expiration of the contract everything
- will still be in compliance nothing will be like correct more time so they can do their inspections
- yeah correctly and thoroughly thank you
- questions all right ready for a motion approval for a contract with course and fire and security okay
- all in favor say aye opposed okay motion carries of course and thank you Jose next is old business so
- is there any old business to come before the board
- Yeah, Amanda. I just had a question if we have any word on Jeff's, the replacement for Jeff Eamon's
- position. Oh, yeah, so what we know now is that the committee has recommended someone to council and
- they will be voting at their next, at their meeting next week, March 4th. At the March 4th meeting.
- At the March 4th meeting, yes. Are we at Liberty to know who that person is yet or is it,
- not yet not yet okay so March 3rd it'll be on March 4th during the regular council council meeting thank
- you any other old business new business for the board right subcommittee reports oops ah
- New business from staff. Yes. Okay. So this came up. I just wanted to talk about some of the changes
- to the consent agenda. So Chris, Rachel and myself sat and thought about the consent agenda just to
- make sure we were continuing to stay mindful of what we were putting on there and what we were not.
- And so it already came up today that these on call contracts were not on the consent agenda. And we
- discussed why that was because the many of the on call contracts have to renewal periods which would
- put them above that twenty five thousand dollar limit which is why those were pulled from the consent
- agenda. But additionally we discussed potentially adding the minutes to the consent agenda which I would
- love to hear the board's input on that any
- pros cons to that and then another kind of rule that we made for the consent agenda is that any contracts
- that are associated with new projects shouldn't be on the consent agenda because we want to make sure
- that we're giving the board the opportunity to discuss any new projects even if that project or that
- contract would be under that 25k. So those are some of the changes we'd like to implement on the consent
- agenda just for added transparency clarity.
- thoughts? Yeah, the last thing you mentioned sounds fine. With regard to the minutes, it takes only
- 30 seconds for Kirk to say, is there approval of the minutes? Are there any questions? Well, if there
- are any questions, they would also come up if it were on the consent agenda. So I don't see that it's
- saved us any time. In fact, it would
- probably take more time for you to go through that. So I think it's pretty efficient the way it is right
- now. We were questioning some of the minutes. Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with Jim. 100%. May make
- it longer to put the minutes on the consent agenda. Yeah. All right.
- I'm okay if they, just like, I see it your way. I'm fine with it to just say I approve or ask questions,
- but I'm on other boards that they aren't included in the consent agenda. So I think that just, you know,
- either way. So I agree, it just takes 30 seconds to do that. So that's fine. I could see how if there
- were consistent things with our claims that, I mean,
- I mean, usually like the wire transfers, that's just like straight through. Again, it only takes 30
- seconds, but we often will have comments on the standard invoices and customer refunds. I appreciate
- your taking the time to look at that and see how can we streamline things. Yeah, I just noticed that
- the consent agenda was getting longer each time and I was like,
- still being mindful of what's getting put on here, especially the contracts associated with new projects.
- I just want to make sure that you have time and the space to deliberate and to consider these new contracts.
- That's my new business. Not a new business. Okay. Do we have any subcommittee reports since our last
- meeting? I don't think so.
- meeting right before the next regular meeting just to remind people the environmental committee meets
- at four o'clock and our next meeting date March the 9th okay looks like we're up to staff reports I
- just wanted to put a quick
- Invite or reminder that we have our we have an IURC field hearing at council chambers this week on Wednesday
- the 25th at 6 p.m. Field hearing so this is an opportunity for the public to voice any Concerns opinions
- thoughts that they have on our rate case Yeah
- Wednesday, February 25th at six PM. So Wednesday, February 25th at six PM at city council chambers.
- Yes. And six PM and this is open to the public and the public should appear if they have any concerns
- or comments. Be there when you'll be there.
- I will certainly be there. Chris is nodding too. Chris is like, yes, I will be there. Matt,
- will you be there? Yeah. I think we'd. I hope the public's there. Are you just curious about who's going
- to be there from CBU and the city? The deputy mayor intends to attend. Deputy mayor intends to attend.
- I intend to be there. You'll be there. Cat's going to be there. So we need a lawyer. The commissioners
- and outside council, Dave McGimsey, will be present as well.
- There will be the two commissioners that have been appointed to the case from the IORC will be present.
- Members of the OUCC will also be there. I don't know whether any of the interveners will be there, probably
- not, but that's generally who all will be there. Do you have any sense of how much representation from
- the public? Well, historically, zero. Really? You can't ever know.
- But historically, we've had this field hearing and it lasts about 15 minutes and no one's there. I'm
- just thinking back to the Duke meetings. It was overflowing with public. Yeah. So people don't like
- the race increase. We'll find out on Wednesday. OK. And this is our how many times have we presented
- this information to the public, just not
- at this stage, but it's the same information that we've shared since the fall. Yeah. It's been at least
- three, if not four times. Absolutely, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that'd be four. Are there likely to be people
- from IU or IU Health there to talk about their side? Hard telling, not knowing. We've had more meetings
- than attendees, so it'd be great if the public could show up.
- Yeah, and again, this is just an opportunity for public input. This won't be the same presentation as
- before. You might tell us how the agenda usually works for these. Chris Wheeler, City Legal. The IURC
- will give a short statement about
- the purpose of the meeting, open it up to the public. If nobody's there, they'll take a short recess
- of about 15 minutes just to give an opportunity for any public to show up. They will reopen the meeting,
- again, ask for any comment from public. And if there is no public, they will then close the meeting.
- It's very short. That's the agenda. And if we have anyone that wants to review the information, it's
- on our website. Yes. Yeah, there is no presentation that
- This is all for the I or C to hear any comment. This is an opportunity to be heard from the public Do
- this in Bloomington on the on that process is this a one-and-done Thank you It's interesting that
- that it's a field hearing, but there's no presentations by both sides, I guess. I mean, we expect full
- transparency for people and ability of people to come to speak. But if they bring up questions,
- which they might, you would expect the public to have questions, how would those get answered at a hearing
- like this? It's not supposed to be a dialogue, it's for the IORC to hear comment. It's not a question
- and answer session. And that's part of what they will explain at the very beginning of the field hearing.
- And it all goes to due process, an opportunity to be heard.
- before the government takes action. So this is the IURC's compliance with due process to give the public
- an opportunity to be heard. Got it. Yeah. I just think, well, what concerns me about, you know, when
- public gets a chance to voice their concerns, sometimes they would expect
- they would expect an answer from their their city government about their issues. And I guess there are
- they've had opportunities to come to see us. But it wouldn't be a bad idea don't think you know, obviously,
- the IRC is running this we're not right. Correct. So it's not our game. But do we have like a fact sheet
- of kind of a rundown of what we're
- doing here, like the Reader's Digest version, because it's hard for citizens to understand all the nuts
- and bolts. But at least a, if we could have something we could hand to members of the public, you know,
- we could use other times even. Because I- Outreach materials on our website, and we've developed quite
- a few outreach materials as part of this current rate case. So,
- you know, FAQs, you know, Frank's done a great job with outreach and the graphics explaining our capital
- improvement projects and how much those cost. Yeah. I think it'd be good to have some things handy.
- The city did give the public plenty of opportunity to comment and have question and answer, and the
- public did not take advantage of those opportunities.
- So the question, the time for question and answer is over. We're now at the point where the IORC is
- going to have hearings between the OUCC, the city of Bloomington and any interveners. So anybody who
- has an actual concern who wanted to weigh in would need to intervene and give their testimony to the
- IORC at this point. We're beyond question and answer. Again, if the public has
- general questions about what we've proposed in some of our presentations to both this board and council.
- We're happy to answer those questions. And since it's not our meeting, we wouldn't be standing up to
- answer those questions. But if members of the public show up, it'd be good to be able to have some you
- get a hand to them and say, here's where you go to get the information or here's the fact sheet or whatever.
- I suspect that if anybody had a question and asked it at the hearing, we would hear it and take note
- and there would be an opportunity to convene and discuss it with those members of the public after the
- meeting or even here at this forum or even just informally through the city of Bloomington. And that's
- exactly what should happen, Chris. What I get concerned. What's not going to happen is the IORC is not
- going to try and answer any questions because they don't represent us and they don't even know the answers.
- Right. But what I'm saying is,
- what I should say is, over the past week, I've seen an increased amount of social media dialogue about
- this, more than I'd ever seen back when we had our own discussions about it. Because I think what happens
- a lot of times is people, it gets on their agenda when it's starting to become reality. And that's when
- they think, well, now I need to engage. And they may not have thought that till now, because it's an
- it's, it's getting close. So I guess my point is, I've seen a lot of discourse going on, and now people
- are starting to think about it. So now it's when we need to be able to have answers. I know, Wednesday
- is not the time for us stand up and give answers. But if people are there, it'd be it'd be nice for
- us to kind of reinforce our transparency by saying, well, those were
- good points you made or whatever. Thank you for being here. Here's what here's what we're trying to
- do here. Yeah, I agree with you. We have that information out there. I don't think we should have to
- have everybody here scramble in a week to make a pamphlet or a handout or Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's
- on the website. So
- sites, we have materials. Yeah, I think we've gotten really good about communicating with the public
- about this rate case and making sure that they're getting all the information they need. And if it's
- not in all some of the materials we've already made, we're happy to find the answers to their questions.
- It may not be a bad idea if it's not already to have what Kirk is speaking about already at City Hall, like just
- for people that walk in and at other times. I know there's other loose leafs, materials over there.
- So I just I lean so heavily toward making it easy for the average rate payer to understand what's going
- on. And it's hard to figure all this out. I mean, we live it. Because we see what happens
- we think about it all the time about what happens if we don't make these investments. But most people
- take this stuff for granted that that that we our staff or our team fights their way through every day
- to make sure that we flip the faucet on it's great quality water. But I think a lot of people take that
- for granted and then they start to suspect that we're they don't have
- they don't have a good enough understanding so that they they start to suspect that we're we're not
- doing our job very well. So I think that we've got the tools to help them. It's a good thing. But we've
- done we've done plenty already. But a lot of times, you know, it's like you may not show up to the third
- hearing that you're
- 20 acres next to your neighborhood is gonna get rezoned. You don't do that till the last day. And quite
- frankly, we'll see the bulk of our complaints and concerns about it when it's approved and it shows
- up on their bill. And we've been talking about this for two and a half years. So I see your point and
- we are in the weeds with all of this.
- But again, I think staff and the city and the city council have all done a fantastic job of giving the
- public opportunities to comment. And this is the next step in the path that this is not a Q&A time.
- Yes, this is not a Q&A time, but I do really appreciate your reminder for us to stay vigilant about
- outreach because it is ongoing.
- And sometimes, you know, you get into a mindset of outreach is this period to this period, and then
- we're done. And so I mean, outreach is continual. So I do appreciate your reminder to stay vigilant
- on that. And we will trust and transparency. It's almost like you can't do enough of it. But we try
- our best. And that's great. Appreciate that. All right, we're still in staff reports, I think anything else?
- Petitions or communications? Seeing anything? All right, we'll move to adjourn then. There's no other
- business. We are adjourned. Thank you.