Hope Water & Light Commission

The Hope Water & Light Commission met Wednesday April 26. After checking attendance, the minutes from the March 15th meeting were considered and approved.

The finances were then covered. Overall, the water and the broadband revenue are up but not electric.

A proposal for cost of service and rate design was the next topic. Requests for proposals were advertised and one proposal was received. The electric cost of service , financial projection, and one year rate design is $24,200. The water cost of service, financial protection and one year rate design is $16,500 for a total of $40,000 excluding travel and out of pocket expenses. In 2018, the entire cost of the project was $43,938 which includes travel and expenses. The actual cost of the study was $39,738 and expenses were $4,200. The Budget includes an approved amount of $60,000 for the study. The staff recommended awarding the scope of the work to Utility Financial Solutions, LLC in the amount of $40,700 plus expenses. The proposal was approved.

A bid for a drive through is being worked on for the Hope Water & Light building, which hopefully will come out in May. Once the bid is received and approved, it is estimated the project will take about 6 months to finish.

The meeting covered transmission, net metering and fiber to the home.

A lot of progress has been made on the fiber with the Arial and pond cabinets the most complete. The handholds are 89 percent done, the underground 76 percent and the fiber in conduit 74.

The Commission discussed how many pre-registrations there were (291) and how many customers had signed up (251). It is expected customers outside the two pilot areas can look forward to connection within 4 to 6 weeks.

The progress with fiber has been slowed down by the loss of a project manager and having to order more fiber. This fiber will be the responsibility of the engineering firm. They should be up and running again and have enough cable. Cable will go down Hervey to Hogwash and tie in there. It will also go down Avenue B.

It was noted the fiber industry is very challenging as people move from job to job and information doesn’t always get passed on. With tornado and hurricane repair work paying better, once workers are lost it is hard to get them back.

There was an issue of the construction company not getting paid since December as the engineering firm had not signed off on the invoices. The project manager didn’t share information with the engineering firm.

There is concern about losing potential customers due to the length of time it is taking to get the system up and running. Commissioners are eager to see the work completed and they hope potential customers will be patient as the system is coming online.

The next meeting is on May 24th.