Canadian Wind Farm Shuts Down After 23 Yrs.

The oldest commercial wind power facility in Canada has been shut down and is headed for the scrap yard after 23 years. Calgary Herald

“TransAlta is very interested in repowering this site. Unfortunately, right now, it’s not economically feasible,” Wayne Oliver, operations supervisor for TransAlta’s wind operations in Pincher Creek and Fort Macleod, said in an interview.

 “We’re anxiously waiting to see what incentives might come from our new government. . . . Alberta is an open market and the wholesale price when it’s windy is quite low, so there’s just not the return on investment in today’s situation. So, if there is an incentive, we’d jump all over that.”

So it seems that wind farms in Canada have a finite life of about 20 years and building new facilities are not economically feasible without government subsidies.

Final Plan for Williams Drive Study

City staff presented their proposed final plan for the Williams Drive Study to the council at a workshop on Tuesday, June 27, 2017. The presentation can be accessed here.

The purpose and goals of the study were presented as follows:

A summary of citizen feedback is shown in the following chart:

Several observations can be made about these charts.

1. The goals are very non-specific and mushy. Every individual can read them and interpret them to suit their own biases.

2. Only 58% of the respondents believe that the goals are being met as described in the plan.

3. 50 responses out of a population of 60,000+ is very disappointing and the sample size is so small as to be almost meaningless as a reflection of community concerns.

The Georgetown Transportation Advisory Board and the Planning and Zoning Board both reviewed the plan and made extensive inputs. 

One, the approval of the plan should be limited to those elements that can be accomplished in the next four years.

Two, the goals of the plan should be sharpened and made specific with the number one goal should be improvements in motor vehicle traffic flow with concurrent safety considerations.

There were several issues conspicuous by their absence. There are over 150 "curb cuts" or driveways along the Williams Drive study area and they were not addressed at all. These curb cuts impact both safety and traffic flow as vehicles enter and exit Williams Drive.

Also, there was no recognition of the three low income residential developments planned along Williams Drive.

This brings us to the point that a traffic study needs to be done to assess the current traffic as well as project future traffic levels. This is a critical element that needs to be accomplished early on to guide traffic mitigation plans.

Goals like sustainable growth, quality of life and context sensitive mixed-use services are feel good concepts that do not provide actionable guidance to city staff.

Focus on vehicle traffic flow and safety for all using Williams Drive.

More On Electric Power Cost Adjustment

Councilman Steve Fought, in his newsletter to residents in his council district, was asked the following question and he provided his response.

Question-2.   When I got my utility bill there was an increased PCA (Power Cost Adjustment) charge.  What's the deal, I thought the city's decision to go to renewable energy eliminated rate fluctuation? 

ANS-2.  There's a couple of dimensions to that question.  The first is that we do buy on the market from time to time because our solar is not yet on line.  Balancing the supply (which right now is our wind energy) with the demand is a hands-on process and we attempt to be "long" in the market so we can sell the excess.  But that's not always possible -- and will continue to be a chore until the solar comes on line.  The temporary contracts to fill in the recent gaps have been more expensive than originally budgeted.

The other dimension is the transmission cost.  All energy goes onto the ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) grid for distribution and ERCOT charges us to distribute the energy.  This month, an additional transmission cost of service (TCOS) charge has been added to the PCA charge to account for changes in the pass through rate since January.  This is a charge levied on utilities by ERCOT to recover the cost of investments in the ERCOT transmission infrastructure.  The fee is paid to ERCOT, who then distributes the funds to transmission companies in the ERCOT council/market. 

Given this explanation, it seems that we the ratepayers can expect a similar reduction in power cost whenever the solar farm comes online.

I for one am not holding my breath, but, we will watch for the cost reduction.

Georgetown Airport Capacity Increase Continues

The City is engaged in updating the Airport Master Plan. Following is a letter penned by Carl Norris describing the process. It is clear from the documents that this blogger reviewed that the solution was determined before the plan update was initiated. The analysis and data used was selected to support the apriori conclusion.

"For those who missed the Planning Advisory Committee (PAC) and the public workshop for the new 20 year (2016-2036) Airport Master Plan Update on the afternoon and evening of Tuesday, June 6, 2017 you missed a heck of a peep show.  This new plan is the fourth since 1980 when the old Airport Advisory Board and the council made the secret plan to develop the airport into the predominant reliever airport for Central Texas.  If you don't think this decision has been kept secret, how many full and comprehensive public information articles have you read in local newspapers?  How many are you reading now?
 Citizen visitors to the seven member PAC meeting were not allowed to speak.  The two PAC members assigned to represent the public never voiced a concern regarding continuous community opposition over the years to adverse impacts on the community's health, safety and human environment due to this major community decision nor the cumulative bad impacts being added by this new plan. The airport's location in the planned, densely developed heart of our city and, with its tens of thousands of gallons of hazardous materials totally atop the Edwards Recharge Zone, was of no voiced consequence to the PAC.
 At the public workshop citizen visitors were lectured by representatives of Coffman Associates that the cumulative expansion of based aircraft from their number in 1980 of 48 to the 2036 projected 400 (+733%) and annual operations (take offs and landings) from 31,550 to 133,400 (+323%) and the new projected peak operations per day from current 442 to 764 (+73%) must be quietly accepted by locals as the airport has been federalized for use as determined by FAA and TxDOT.  In other words, the citizens may own and pay local, state and federal taxes for the airport, but they have no say in it's    regional reliever development regardless of its bad impacts on their lives and properties. To the Airport Concerned Citizens (ACC) folks in attendance, that's akin to being told we're all like Ben-Hur and his fellow galley slaves, in this case in a boat they own, being forced into harm's way at direction of Admiral FAA, lashed to the rhythm of TxDOT's mallet beat and forced to go down with our own ship and without any opportunity of heading for a safer and superior location.
 That condemnation is not what Congress intended when it passed the NEPA and why the ACC objects to the proposed new multimillion dollar construction program of this plan without preparation of a fully scoped EIS.
 Everyone should track development of this master plan and its impact on lives of yourselves and neighbors by visiting its web site at “georgetown.airportstudy.com” and documenting your concerns to your elected councilmember, mayor and city council." 

To those who make public statements that this activity is "only maintenance and safety related", and not an expansion of the airport, need a course on the meaning of words.

This activity will clearly increase the capacity of the airport by upgrading navaids and doubling the load bearing capability of the main runway. These improvements will allow aircraft such as the Bombardier CS100 to use the airport. This aircraft has the capability of accommodating 133 charter passengers or the equivalent air cargo weight. It's Maximum Take Off Weight (MTOW) is 133,999 Lb., Maximum Landing Weight (MLW) is 115,000 Lb., its Landing Field Length at MLW is 4,499 LF. Cargo and/or charter passenger weights of aircraft can be managed to stay within the field constraints. If properly managed, the Bombardier model CS300 with increased capacities could also operate off a 5000 LF runway.

What is the old saying? Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to make the same mistakes. 

All one has to do is look at aviation and airports in Southern California over the last 50 years. It has been one law suit after another as people rebelled at having airports in residential neighborhoods, even though the airports were usually established before the housing was built.

Will Georgetown not learn from the experience of others?

Texas Bullet Train?

Keep an eye on this activity to see if private investors really believe that a train can be profitable. Senator Schwertner authored a bill that were passed and signed by the Governor ensuring the state won’t pick up any costs for the train.

Dallas News

Uber and Lyft for Georgetown?

The Governor signed Senator Schwertner's bill setting state-wide requirements for ride-sharing companies last month. That bill overrides local ordinances that imposed anti-free-market rules on ride-sharing companies.

Here is a good description of what happened in Austin. Weekly Standard

Citing safety concerns, in December 2015, Austin’s city council passed a law containing a number of restrictions on ridesharing services. The council began dictating where vehicles could pick up and drop off passengers, and required “trade dress” identifying vehicles as participating in rideshare services, as well as extensive monthly reporting of ride data. But the biggest issue was background checks for drivers.

“The Thumbs Up! app scans your drivers license, has a device to take fingerprints and snaps a selfie. It takes less than 5 minutes. Then, it sends the information to the FBI,” notes Austin Inno, a publication covering Austin’s tech industry. Unsurprisingly, asking people to volunteer to have the FBI start a file on them did not prove a success.

 So why the push to fingerprint drivers? An Austin American-Statesman editorial supportive of the regulations offers a clue: “Fingerprint-based background checks are required of Austin’s taxi, limousine and even pedicab drivers. .  .  . Aside from the public safety benefit, there needs to be a level playing field.” It’s no secret politically influential taxi cartels are having a hard time competing with Uber and Lyft. The taxi industry demands additional regulations to knock down the successful ridesharing services to the level at which it wants to compete.

Perhaps Georgetown can learn from this episode and let the free market determine the best method for people to get around town. Does Georgetown really need a bus service? Subsidies to low income people for using a ride-sharing service might be cheaper and meet riders needs better. It should be looked at before expanding the city bus system! 

SuddenLink is Foreign Owned

Altice USA was formed when Altice NV purchased Suddenlink and Cablevision Systems. The privately owned subsidiary of Altice NV went public via a Initial Public Offering (IPO) and is now trading on the New York Stock Exchange. CNBC

Altice USA, which operates in 21 states, had $9.2 billion in pro forma annual revenue in 2016. It has said it plans to use IPO proceeds to pay down some of its roughly $21 billion in debt.

Altice USA's parent is a European and Israeli telecoms and cable empire that Drahi has built through debt-heavy acquisitions. It will hold 70.3 percent of Altice USA's shares and 98.3 percent of the voting rights in the company thanks to a separate bundle of stock.

It will be interesting to see if Suddenlink's quality of service changes. 

Williams Drive & Ronald Reagan to Get Safety Improvements

The intersection at Williams Drive and Reagan Boulevard has become a very deadly place.

KXAN Reports

Since June 2014, there have been 108 crashes at the intersection of Ronald Reagan Boulevard and RR 2338, according to the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office. The speed limits along those roads add to the intensity of the crashes; it’s 65 miles per hour along Ronald Reagan Boulevard. The speed limit along RR 2338 is 60 miles per hour. 

Beware the Train Salesmen!

There are influential people in the U.S. who continually try to sell our elected officials on the efficiency and convenience of travel by train. The Wall Street Journal cites transportation experts that sing the siren song of rail transportation without mentioning the cost.

MR. KUNZ: Our vision [at the U.S. High Speed Rail Association] includes a network of fast trains connecting America’s metro areas as our main form of national transportation. This would be seamlessly integrated with local rail, bus and bicycle networks in each city, and supported by dense, walkable communities around the stations.

Notice how Kunz wants to get us out of our cars and force us to live in high density apartments clustered around rail stations. No thank you! Give me the wide open spaces.

Rail, Like Vampires Never Die!

Like a vampire, commuter rail is still alive and gestating in the bowels of Cap Metro, the regional transportation organization that was created to facilitate transportation projects across central Texas. Wilco Sun

"Eric Bustos, government relations coordinator for Cap Metro, said rail is still on the table, but it would take longer, possibly more than five years, to be put in place."

Unfortunately, Cap Metro is not accountable to a single voting constituency as its board members consist of county and municipal government officials in the region. Therefore, a given electorate can only impact the board member that represents their voting area, and, in the case of Georgetown, the City Council gets to decide who serves on the Cap Metro board and represent the citizens of Georgetown. so at best, the voters would have to change the mayor and a majority of the council to cause a change to the Cap Metro representative.

There is a massive data base in the U.S. compiled over the last 50+ years that show rail is very expensive and never pays for itself. It requires continuous taxpayer subsidies to cover on-going operations costs. Capital costs and upgrades and replacement costs are NEVER paid for by fares.

Let the Mayor, who is your Cap Metro representative, know that he needs to drive a stake through the heart of any commuter rail proposal that impacts Georgetown taxpayers.

Secure the Electrical Grid

It's time for Georgetown to support securing the Texas electrical grid. All the utilities in Texas and ERCOT need to develop and implement a grid security plan to protect Texans from a failed electrical system.

In addition to EMP, physical and solar radiation threats, the cyber threats are real and in existence.

Hackers allied with the Russian government have devised a cyber weapon that has the potential to be the most disruptive yet against electric systems that Americans depend on for daily life, according to US researchers. (Washington Post)

Texas Representative on Government Overreach

Texas State Representative Paul Workman has penned an excellent piece in the Austin Statesman regarding government overreach.

The piece is primarily aimed at countering the argument that Governor Abbott is supporting and signing legislative bills that restrict the power of local governments, especially the city of Austin. As he notes, Governor Abbott is not "Austin-bashing, but is liberty-protecting".

It is also worth remembering that in our system of government, the State is sovereign. States created the federal government and all the government entities within states.

"So, what constitutes an ordinance that should stand versus one that should be overruled by the state?

There are four criteria for determining whether the state should prevent or overrule certain local ordinances:

• When an ordinance in one jurisdiction affects citizens of another jurisdiction.

• When ordinances vary among jurisdictions such that confusion exists when traveling from one to another.

• When an ordinance has the potential to damage the economy of the state.

• When an ordinance interferes with the individual liberties of its citizens, including their private property rights."

These criteria make eminent common sense and should be accepted and adhered to at all local government levels.

Read the entire article!

Georgetown Electric Bills Increasing!!

Despite assurances by city officials that our electric bills would not increase, here is the notice we received today:

The 0.4% per KWh is directly attributable to increases in power costs, yet, supposedly the Spinning Spur wind farm near Amarillo, Tx provides more electricity than Georgetown requires. We were told that the contract was for a fixed price per KWh over the life of the contract.

Recall that the city electric company lost over $6M last summer due to poor hedging activities. One has to wonder if this cost increase is an attempt to recover those losses. After all, the ultimate payer for government services, including losses, is the taxpayer/ratepayer.

This is What Happens When Government Subsidies Stop

It's Confirmed: Without Government Subsidies, Tesla Sales Implode

"Nobody was hurt more than Tesla: the company, whose sales were skyrocketing at the time, lobbied against the move, with CEO Musk warning during a visit to Copenhagen that sales would be hit. It wasn't clear if the warning was targeting the government, the people of Denmark, or his own bank account and shareholders, but he was absolutely correct: in 2015 Tesla sold a total of 2,738 cars in Denmark. In 2016 the number dropped by 94% to just 176 units."

The same will happen in the solar and wind industries when the government subsidies stop. 

Georgetown better enjoy the subsidies, paid for by U.S. taxpayers around the country, while they can!

Mayor Ross on NBC

For a Republican Mayor in Texas, Clean Energy Is a ‘No Brainer’

by James Rainey

“We got something in common,” Dale Ross told Al Gore last summer. “You invented the internet. And I invented green energy.”

Ross, the mayor of Georgetown, Texas — pop. 65,000 — was having a bit of fun with the former vice president and longtime environmental activist. But, in the coming months, his rapid ascendancy in the renewable-energy cosmos might make the boast seem less of a joke.

The mayor has recently been interviewed by a Dutch film crew and appeared on both NPR and MSNBC. He spoke last month at the Earth Optimism Summit in Washington, sponsored by the Smithsonian Conversation Commons. And in the coming months, he will take on the role of unlikely hero in three high-profile documentary films, including the sequel to Gore’s 2006 hit, "An Inconvenient Truth."

A volunteer politician from a little-known town in central Texas, Ross might otherwise be laboring at his more workaday tasks: issuing proclamations to residents who turn 100 and promoting the beauty of Georgetown’s central square. But he is becoming a national media darling because, in an era of hardened political boundaries, he has unapologetically colored outside ideological lines. He is a Republican, a conservative and a Donald Trump voter (with an asterisk on the last point) who is so committed to green energy he has pushed his city to become one of the first in the country to get all of its electricity from the wind and the sun.

Play

A hip video blogger from Los Angeles showed up not long ago to hear Ross’s rap on renewable energy.

“We’ve got an endless supply of wind and sun,” the mayor said on the blog. “I’ll take that bet over fossil fuels, any day of the week.” The bearded, denim-clad blogger from the West Coast, who goes by his first name, Hyla, quickly embraced the the mayor, wearing white shirt and bow-tie, as “my honorable Republican homie.”

Ross, 58, makes time for all curious outsiders — even when one-hour interviews stretch to four. “My Tea Party friends accuse me of being a Democrat,” Ross chuckled. “But we need to put national politics aside and make decisions that are best for the people we serve.”

Though he clearly doesn’t shrink from the attention, Ross says it’s really all about the city he loves. A conversation with him will not end without at least one boast about the town square (acclaimed for its beauty and preservation of 19th-century architecture), a beloved swimming hole and the relentless hospitality offered by what he calls “the greatest city on earth!”

Ross, an accountant by day, said the city’s moves toward alternative energy had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with common sense.

Despite its rich history in the petroleum industry, Texas has become a national leader in renewable electric power because of its ample supplies of both sun and wind. “We started in 2008 with the goal of getting 30 percent of our power from renewables by 2030,” Ross said. But improved technology in solar panels and more accessible transmission lines allowed the city to become much more ambitious.

With favorable weather, Georgetown already could claim last year that it got all its power from renewable sources. It will slide just under that mark in 2017. But it has a contract with a new solar farm coming online in West Texas next year.

“From then on, we will be 100 percent renewable,” said Ross. “I think we will run out of fossil fuels before we ever run out of sunshine and wind.”

The electricity will come from the solar installation in the west part of the state and from a giant wind farm 40 miles west of Amarillo in the Texas panhandle. That energy feeds into the state's general electrical grid. But Georgetown has contracts directly with the solar and wind providers, paying their rates to pull as much power off the grid as it needs.

“I think we will run out of fossil fuels before we ever run out of sunshine and wind.” Dale Ross, Republican mayor of Georgetown, Texas.

The mayor said that long-term contracts will shield the city from price fluctuations, and the volatile politics of the energy sector, for 25 or 30 years to come.

Ross said he voted for Trump, though he did not like either of the nominees in the 2016 election. He believes that Trump backed himself into a corner by pledging during the campaign to abandon the Paris climate agreement. “When you put politics in the decision-making process, it’s not going to be an optimal decision,” he said.

He deemed himself “disappointed on a personal level” that Trump reversed America’s commitment to meet carbon-reduction goals. “But that does nothing to us here, because we have 20- to 25-year wind and solar contracts. We have stability,” Ross said. “There is nothing the federal government can do about that.”

The makers of “An Inconvenient Sequel,” which debuts in New York and Los Angeles July 28 before opening in theaters nationwide, said Gore was intent on spending time with the Texas mayor.

“Al feels this issue has really grown beyond politics and parties and he felt it was important to reach out and spend some time with a leader in a deeply red state, in a red city, who was so intent on going to solar and going to wind,” said Jon Shenk, who directed the film with his wife, Bonni Cohen.

The mayor, in turn, became smitten with Gore, the politician he voted against multiple times. He said the former vice president had a “wicked” sense of humor and was loose enough to pose for pictures beneath the Williamson County Republican Party banner. Gore also took time to speak to Ross’s wife, who runs the local history museum. And when Gore discussed the economics of energy, Ross was impressed.

“He really knows his stuff,” Ross said. “He is incredibly smart. He is just the real deal.”

Michael Bonfiglio, who filmed the mayor for “From the Ashes” — a dark National Geographic documentary about the coal industry that was partly funded by Michael Bloomberg’s philanthropic arm — wanted a figure who represented the nation's shift from coal power to non-polluting alternatives. The director didn’t know he was also getting a salesman who likes to hand his out-of-town visitors a Georgetown commemorative coin. “It’s impossible not to be charmed by the guy,” Bonfiglio said.

The sentiment apparently won over at least one other filmmaker, Jamie Redford (son of Robert Redford), whose HBO documentary “Happening,” also features Ross. HBO has not yet said when it will release the film, which focuses on clean energy and broader themes like human resilience and social justice.

Is the little-known pol from a red state suddenly in danger of over-exposure? Bonfiglio concedes he felt a “slight twinge” when he learned Ross would appear in so many other forums. “But he is such a compelling figure, and so is the town, that we had to keep them in,” the director said.

Mayor Ross got another affirmation in early May when voters returned him to office for a second three-year term. He won 72 percent of the vote. Last Thursday, he and his wife traveled to Washington to attend a screening of “From the Ashes” at National Geographic’s headquarters and museum. Mickie Ross says she and her husband remain “awed and impressed” every time they get to return to the capital.

Her husband gives an "aw shucks" to the suggestion he has done anything that special, saying Georgetown's energy initiative amounts to a “no-brainer.”

“We are going to provide cost certainty on our electricity for 25 or 30 years. And there are no pollutants going back in the atmosphere," he said. "Everybody wins on this deal.”

Do Zoning Rules Restrict Development of Affordable Housing?

Recent studies show that affordable housing is not available for many in central Texas. In Georgetown, the average apartment rent has grown from $592/month in 2011 to $1168/month. That is a compound annual growth rate of 14.6%!(RentJungle) The average income has certainly not grown at that rate.

The Mercatus Center recently published a report suggesting land use regulations reduce the supply of housing relative to what it would likely be in a free market and ultimately increase housing costs for consumers.

"The vast majority of municipalities in the United States regulate land use and development to some degree. Land-use regulations come in many forms, ranging from traditional zoning and density restrictions to newer “smart growth” policies designed to limit urban sprawl. While these rules have some benefits, they can also restrict housing supply and inflate housing prices."

Georgetown needs to minimize the impact of land use regulations or the average citizen will not be able to afford to live in the City.

More Software/Hardware Problems for Georgetown

The Georgetown Utility System (GUS) is in an extended process to purchase a new integrated Customer Interface System (CIS). It was originally budgeted for $4.5M in FY2015. It is difficult to determine the current cost to completion, but, it is estimated to be close to $6.0M with an unknown completion date.

The City Council is being asked to approve an additional $397,00 at the council meeting on Tuesday, June 13 via the consent calendar, meaning it is not open for public input. Here is the relevant description:

"The final design documents added more interface data points (equating to 188 man-days) than were removed (90 man-days) netting an additional scope of 98 man-days.   This, combined with the additional ($5K) for the demand billing modifications, equals $103,000.00 for change order 004. This item increases the previously approved Itineris contract by $103,000.00 and represents additional interface work to be done by Itineris.

The amount of $294,000.00 represents 50% of the cost associated with extending the project timeline.  It took an extra four months to finalize the interface designs (change order 004), neither GUS nor Itineris fully anticipated the length of the delay and both are sharing in the costs. 

 The designs were due this past December and served as prerequisites to the start of the next project phase.  Work could not begin until the interface designs were completed and that occurred in April.  In change order 004, GUS increased the number of interfaces needed for the project which also impacted the timeline.

 Itineris also concluded that the CIS customer portal needed some important additional features.  They agreed to make the necessary modifications to their customer web portal as outlined in change order 005.  As a result, Itineris is absorbing the other 50% costs associated with the 4-month delay and will utilize the extended timeline to incorporate the additional features."

Thus we see that the total cost has increased $691,000, of which the city is liable for $397,000. 

City to Update Software & Hardware Used for Operations

The City currently uses a patchwork of antiquated software/hardware and stand alone programs to operate the City. It is very labor intensive, requires manual input of data and is not interconnected across all City organizations. There is a definite, uncontested need for a modern, secure system to facilitate City operations.

Staff will be presenting their plan for defining, purchasing and installing a so called Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to the Council on Tuesday, June 13 at 3pm in Council chambers. Georgetown is preparing to spend $6.5M to $12.3M on ERP over the next 10 years. 

What is an ERP?

Consider a municipal government. It has departments for finance, human resources, purchasing, and information technology as well as other departments that operate like their counterparts in private organizations, providing internal services to the rest of the organization. Other departments exist that oversee essential services that are provided to the community they serve to include utilities, public works, parks, engineering, building, and public safety (police and fire) to name a few. Each department performs a series of common, repetitive tasks: issuing permits, performing inspections, making zoning determinations, among many others. And, of course, there are ongoing, administrative responsibilities: writing checks, accepting and processing payments, processing payroll, hiring staff, and others. 

The management of the business functions and processes within these departments requires software that serves their unique needs: financial software for accounting purposes; HR software for personnel management; and police software for coordinating dispatch and records. However, when organizations operate with a “silo” mentality, not sharing information across departments, the amount of complexities and inefficiencies increases. Redundancies become commonplace through the proliferation of “shadow systems” (i.e., offline spreadsheets and databases separate from the primary system), with data entry duplicated and then synchronized across multiple departments to ensure accuracy.

The City consultant, plante moran, a midsized CPA firm based in Michigan, recommends private or public cloud deployment. Their report is here: http://agendas.georgetown.org/CoverSheet.aspx?ItemID=17524&MeetingID=2187

   Over the last few years, cloud-based ERP solutions have emerged, a centralized system of management, where applications and data are accessed via the Internet. Vendors will tout this model as a seamless process that eliminates the need for individual computers to become bogged down with expensive software and documents while delivering: 

Quicker, more efficient deployments. Tapping resources remotely speeds time-to-market and reduces the costs associated with implementations that are performed on-site.

Additionally, cloud service vendors are committed to security, lessening government IT burdens and providing other cost savings.

Innovation is enhanced with software stored in the cloud, product enhancements can be shared across a user group, leveraging the capabilities of advanced technologies quickly and at minimal cost. 

Scalability, Cloud-based ERP software enables governments to add or subtract components as needed, customizing functionality (within the constraints of the software package) to suit current needs. 

One model of cloud-based computing, Software as a Service (SaaS), is a subscription model whereby applications do not reside on end user computers but rather “in the cloud,” whereby the same instance of that software is shared with all of the other entities using that software. 

Within the governmental setting, there has been some level of resistance in adopting this model as concerns related to the security, ownership of data, the ability for unique local customizations, the disentanglement of services, and others have resulted in a slow adoption of this computing model. CIOs will need to read through the rhetoric when conversing with providers of cloud-based ERP solutions and understand the trade-offs and benefits when considering such a solution as compared to more traditional software models.

However, experience has shown that design and implementation of new hardware and software systems cost much more and take much longer than originally estimated.

Given this background, several questions arise.

1.    Does the city staff have the knowledge and experience to manage and implement such a complex system?

2.    Is the City prepared to hire certified cloud sercuity experts that fetch a salary up to $140K annually to assure the contractors/vendors are providing the security the City expects?

3.    There are serious and far-reaching issues to be addressed with a cloud based ERP. What is the EXIT strategy if vendors are changed in the future? Who owns the data?  What are the security protocols? And many more.

4.    Can the City cope with the cloud vendor updating hardware and software on the vendor’s schedule, not the city’s schedule? How is the training accomplished when the vendor changes the system? Does this affect employee productivity?

8.    Should the City set up a citizen’s steering committee whose members have extensive experience with cloud based systems to guide this project?

9.    City staff should provide a list of cities to Council that have implemented a cloud based ERP along with contact information to allow Council to get first-hand feed-back.

New York Times Touts Solar Energy

The New York Times argues that the solar industry is where the jobs are in the energy sector: 374,000 in solar versus 100,000 in wind and 160,000 in coal mining and coal-fired power generation. Only the natural gas sector employs more people: 398,000 workers in gas production, electricity generation, home heating and petrochemicals.

What is totally neglected however, is the inefficiency of solar and wind generating electricity compared to coal and natural gas.

It is glaringly obvious how wasteful, inefficient and unproductive solar power is when you look at the amounts of energy produced per sector. (This tally does not include electricity generated by nuclear, hydroelectric and geothermal power plants.) Zerohedge

398,000 natural gas workers = 33.8% of all electricity generated in the United States in 2016

160,000 coal employees = 30.4 % of total electricity

100,000 wind employees = 5.6% of total electricity

374,000 solar workers = 0.9% of total electricity

It’s even more glaring when you look at the amount of electricity generated per worker. Coal generated an incredible 7,745 megawatt-hours of electricity per worker; natural gas 3,812 MWH per worker; wind a measly 836 MWH for every employee; and solar an abysmal 98 MWH per worker.

In other words, producing the same amount of electricity requires one coal worker, two natural gas workers — 12 wind industry employees or 79 solar workers.

Even worse, whereas coal and gas electricity is cheap, affordable, and available virtually 100% of the time — wind and solar are expensive, intermittent, unreliable, and available only 15–30% of the time, on an annual basis. Wind and solar electricity is there when it’s there, not necessarily when you need it.

The only thing solar and wind companies do well is collect billions of dollars in subsidies from taxpayers and billions of dollars in much higher electricity rates from consumers.

Georgetown has doubled down and placed their bet that solar and wind energy will continue to be subsidized by the American taxpayer so that we can enjoy low stable electric rates for the next 25 years. Let us hope the city has become more proficient at hedging electric prices in the ERCOT market so that the city does not lose another $6M+ this summer.

Governor Abbott Calls Special Legislative Session

Gov. Abbott called for a special 30 day legislative session beginning July 18, 2017.

The Governor has called for the passage of sunset laws that extend the life of existing state agencies, such as the Medical Licensing Board. Once such laws are passed, he added 19 items for the legislature to address. Several of those items will directly affect the city of Georgetown.

Property tax relief similar to that proposed in Senate Bill 2 in the past 85th session. That bill seeks to curb the growth in property taxes that local government agencies like cities and counties impose on property owners. SB 2 could require taxing entities to hold an election if the amount of operating and maintenance funds they plan to collect from property taxes is, in general, 5 percent more than what they took in the previous year.

The Governor also requested the legislature either pass a state law or pass a resolution for a constitutional ammendment that would limit state and local government budget growth to population growth plus inflation.

Pass a law prohibiting over-regulation by local governments with special emphasis on:
  1. regulation of tress on private property
  2. changes in regulations during approved property development
  3. accelerate the permitting process

Pass a law that prohibits regulation by local government of mobile devices used in motor vehicles.

And finally, pass a law that prohibits city annexation of property without voter approval of those owning property within the proposed area to be annexed.

Other items to be addressed in the special legislative session may also impact city governance. Time will reveal other potential impacts.