More Costs Associated with Renewable Energy?

The City just posted the following information on nextdoor.com.

"Georgetown is one of 35 Champion Cities selected this week as finalists in the 2018 U.S. Mayors Challenge, a nationwide competition that encourages city leaders to develop innovative ideas that confront challenges facing their cities. Georgetown was selected as a finalist amongst more than 320 applications.

Georgetown’s innovative idea involves developing the “virtual power plant.” While Georgetown is the first and largest city in Texas to secure 100 percent of its purchased power from renewable sources, there are cost uncertainty and reliability concerns related to transporting that energy over long distances. The City of Georgetown hopes to be able to lease rooftop space on residential and commercial properties to install solar panels that will generate enough energy to offset the need to purchase power from outside sources in this completely renewable energy-powered city."

This is the first time we have been told that there will be a continuing need to purchase power from outside sources, even though the city owned electric company has racked up multi-million dollar bills with ERCOT for two different periods over the last two years to purchase power.

Now we find out that the city wants to install solar panels on residential and commercial buildings to offset the need to purchase power through ERCOT.

When are the citizens of Georgetown to have full transparency into the electric company? It looks like a change in state law is required so the the Open Records statues apply fully to municipally owned utilities.

More From Councilman Fought on Road Closure

"Closing Roads (the opposite of Connectivity)

When the City decides to build a road, or to insist that a Developer provide a road within a project, that road ought to serve a well-defined and understood purpose. When the City contemplates closing a road, there ought to be similar well-defined and understood purposes.

In my opinion, and given our recent experience with West Majestic Oak Lane, any proposal to close a road ought to be accompanied by at least the following:

1. Evidence that the connection which is proposed to be closed does not meet established safety standards;
2. Evidence that a reasonable range of alternatives, other than closing the road, have been explored to resolve the safety issue(s);
3. Analysis to support the contention that closure will resolve the safety issue(s);
4. Proof that the proposed road closure will not generate safety issues in other areas;
5. An analysis of the initial and long term costs of closure;
6. Comments from residents and businesses in the areas which might be affected by a closure;
7. An analysis of the impact on public safety (e.g., Police,Fire, and EMS) if the connection were closed;
8. An estimate of the impact of using the conditions in the proposed closure as a precedent for future closures;

When the City Council was recently asked to consider closing the connection between Woodland Park and Sun City at West Majestic Oak Lane, the City did not have a policy in place to evaluate the various factors being debated. The Council directed the Staff to develop a draft policy on road closures and to have that draft available not later than the Council Meeting on 10 July, 2018. I believe these 8 requirements should be part of a new road closure policy and I will argue in favor of including them."

Road Closure Policy Development

Councilman Steve Fought has shared his ideas on the development of a road closure policy for the City.

Wilco Building Custom Home for Employee at County Park

The County Commissioners just voted Tuesday to build an almost $400,000 custom home at a county park for a live-in employee who will pay no rent. What a sweet deal using taxpayer funds to build a 4 bedroom, 1900 Sq. Ft. home.

Here is a link with more information and a link to the commissioners court vote.

http://www.wilcoreport.com/382171-75-taxpayer-funded-custom-home/

Mayor Ross Defends Renewable Energy

The Texas Public Policy Foundation hosted their annual Policy Orientation February 7-9, 2018. One of the panels discussed the subsidies afforded the renewable energy industry. Mayor Ross was one of the panelists. He was joined by Donna Campbell of the Texas Senate, Lisa Linowes of The WindAction Group, and Bill Magness of ERCOT.

Set back and grab your popcorn!

Renewable Energy Subsidies

City Selling Three Downtown Properties

Recall that the City decided last year to proceed with building a new city hall west of downtown at a cost of $13M. A substantial portion of those funds are to come from the sale of existing downtown city owned properties. Here is the announcement for the sale of those properties.

The City of Georgetown is accepting proposals from potential buyers for three city-owned buildings. The buildings for sale are the historic post office at 113 E. Eighth St., the Municipal Court/City Council Chambers at 101 E. Seventh St., and the Visitors Center at 103 W. Seventh St. The Municipal Court and the Visitors Center buildings are located on the historic Square around the Williamson County Courthouse. The historic post office is located one block east of the Square and is currently home to City Hall.

In total, these buildings represent more than 25,000 square feet of commercial space in the nine-block core of downtown Georgetown. All three properties are zoned mixed-use downtown, which allows for a number of uses including office, retail, restaurant, hotel, or event facility.

While purchase price is one consideration, the goal of this process is to connect with buyers willing to provide the best overall proposal for of each property. Proposers must submit a business plan and timeline detailing the intended use of the site.

City Council Strategies

The following chart condenses the City Council's strategies as understood by the city staff.

What is strategy? Here is a general definition by Michael Porter, a strategy expert and professor at Harvard Business School. He emphasizes the need for strategy to define and communicate an organization's unique position, and says that it should determine how organizational resources, skills, and competencies should be combined to create competitive advantage.

It is difficult to make the connection between the core city government functions of public safety, transportation, recreation, libraries, water and sewer and drainage systems and the above strategies.

How does becoming a destination or enhancing our reputation as a "City of Innovation" advance and improve the core government functions?

Other strategies, such as lobbying the State legislature, are completely inappropriate, especially when it is contrary to the best interests of city residents.

Water Water, Do We Have Enough Water?

The city staff presented a 20 page analysis to the City County on Janyary 23, 2018 Water Resource Utilization. It focuses about 90% of the time on conservation with no discussion about recycling or increasing available supply to support the continued growth of Georgetown.

It appears that over 2016 to 2017 the city increased production/consumption of water while also decreasing consumption per person. The net increase was about 0.9B gallons for the year.

Currently the city has 55,670 acre feet of raw water available annually. This is equivalent to 18.1B gallons of water. With 2017 water consumption at 7.2B gallons, there would be about 12B gallons annually available for growth. If consumption continues to grow as the population increases at about 0.9B gallons per year, all the available water will be used in 13 to 15 years.

The issue is more complex than presented here, but, the city needs to do the analysis that includes drought years and treatment needs in addition to conservation to get a true picture of our water future.

Buidling Projects Sprouting Everywhere

Let us take a look at what is happening in and around Sun City. The Sun City Master Plan shows additional development along Ronald Reagan and also along CR 245 and Williams Drive to the west.

The addition of Neighborhoods 88 and 89 gives rise to the issue of "connectivity". With only a single road out to Ronald Reagan, connectivity for safety purposes will depend on the Madison project being built with connections to that development.

The Madison has its own problems with connectivity as shown in the following map with Shady Oaks in the lower right corner. Shady Oaks is not within the Georgetown city limits

Here is a link to the developer that partially shows the layout. Madison

I think the Madison project has been planned, at least the lots and streets have been layed out. There was a presentation around July 2016 that shows Madison connecting into Shady Oaks at three loacations, Oak Branch Drive, Roble Roja Drive and Twin Cedar Drive. So you would have Georgetown specified streets of 30-32 ft wide with curbs, gutters and sidewalks connecting to 22.5 ft wide streets in the County with no curbs, gutters or sidewalks. I wrote on my blog at the time that I thought that was a stupid idea as there are two main roads out of Madison, one to 195 and one to Ronald Reagan.

This looks like West Majestic Oaks all over again unless the city takes an action.

The City has all kinds of regulations about how neighborhoods are to be connected if they are within the City, however, they do not seem to address connectivity between City and County developments.

Stay tuned for more fireworks!