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NOTICE IS POSTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION 54954.2(a) OR 54956
I. ROLL CALL
II. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
Members of the public are invited to address the Commission on any subject not on the agenda. A
reasonable time restriction may be imposed at the discretion of the Chair. State law generally precludes
the UAC from discussing or acting upon any topic initially presented during oral communication.
III. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES
Approval of the Minutes of the Utilities Advisory Commission Special Meeting held on January 18, 2018
IV. AGENDA REVIEW AND REVISIONS
V. REPORTS FROM COMMISSIONER MEETINGS/EVENTS
VI. GENERAL MANAGER OF UTILITIES REPORT
VII. COMMISSIONER COMMENTS
VIII. UNFINISHED BUSINESS - None
IX. NEW BUSINESS
1. Staff Recommendation that the Utilities Advisory Commission Recommend Action
Council Approve the 2018 Strategic Plan
2. Preliminary Financial Plans for the City of Palo Alto’s Electric, Water, Gas Discussion
and Wastewater Collection Utilities
3. CPAU’s Role in Community Resiliency – Defining Framework and Principles Discussion
4. Update on Outage Management System Operational Issues Discussion
5. Fiber Utility Update Discussion
6. Selection of Potential Topic(s) for Discussion at Future UAC Meeting and Action
Potential Designation of UAC Ad Hoc Subcommittee(s)
NEXT SCHEDULED MEETING: March 7, 2018
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION - The materials below are provided for informational purposes, not for action or
discussion during UAC Meetings (Govt. Code Section 54954.2(a)(2)).
12-Month Rolling Calendar
Public Letters(s) to the UAC
UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMISSION
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2018 – 7:00 P.M.
COUNCIL CHAMBERS
Palo Alto City Hall – 250 Hamilton Avenue
Chairman: Michael Danaher Vice Chair: Arne Ballantine Commissioners: Lisa Forssell, A. C. Johnston, Judith Schwartz, Lauren Segal and Terry Trumbull Council Liaison: Eric Filseth
Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: Page 1 of 8
UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING
MINUTES OF JANUARY 18, 2018 SPECIAL MEETING
CALL TO ORDER
Vice Chair Ballantine called the meeting of the Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC) to order at
7:00 p.m.
Present: Vice Chair Ballantine, Commissioners Forssell, Johnston, Schwartz, Segal, Trumbull
Absent: Chair Danaher
ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
Jeff Hoel commented on the report to Council for the Upgrade Downtown contract. He stated
that the report was not clear on the breakdown on the rationale for cost allocation for the joint
trench work between the water, gas and fiber funds. He also commented on the reference to the
Gas Distribution Integrity Management Program (DIMP) and requested an agendized presentation
on how DIMP works and the source of data. He questioned whether the use of purple pipes for
the water portion of the downtown project will be too expensive if the trench is open and whether
an analysis of the size of the pipe has been conducted in order to minimize the age of the water in
the pipe.
APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES
Commissioner Trumbull moved to approve the minutes from the December 6, 2017 meeting.
Commissioner Segal seconded the motion. The motion carried 6-0 with Vice Chair Ballantine and
Commissioners Forssell, Johnston, Schwartz, Segal, and Trumbull voting yes and Chair Danaher
absent.
AGENDA REVIEW AND REVISIONS
None
REPORTS FROM COMMISSIONER MEETINGS/EVENTS
Commissioner Schwartz reported she attended a pricing workshop at the California Public Utility
Commission on December 11, 2017. The primary discussion concerned the tradeoffs between use
of demand pricing and use of the marginal cost of fuel in determining the cost of service. Videos of
the discussion are available online. Perhaps the Commission's next discussion of rates could
include this topic.
DRAFT
Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: Page 2 of 8
UTILITIES GENERAL MANAGER REPORT
Ed Shikada, Utilities General Manager, delivered the General Manager’s Report.
FERC Rejects DOE Grid Resiliency Initiative: In September, Department of Energy Secretary Rick
Perry requested that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) initiate a rulemaking
proceeding to impose certain rules and regulations on regional transmission organizations (RTOs)
and independent system operators (ISOs), such as the California Independent System Operator,
“to ensure that certain reliability and resilience attributes of electric generation resources are fully
valued.” This move was considered to be in direct support of baseload fossil fuel, most notably
coal, nuclear energy and anti-renewable resources such as wind and solar. Many industry
stakeholders, including Palo Alto through the Northern California Power Agency (NCPA), opposed
the directive and called on FERC to reject the rulemaking. These stakeholders contended that the
proceeding was unnecessary and could potentially lead to new payments in support of coal and
nuclear plants. Additionally, the move was seen as a political attempt to discredit the renewable
industry. Stakeholders urged FERC to remain objective on this issue.
Last week, FERC sustained industry concerns and rejected the proceeding on a unanimous 5 -0
vote. The Commission noted the importance of resiliency and through the same order initiated a
new proceeding to evaluate the resilience of the bulk electric system throughout the nation. RTOs
and ISOs will have 60 days to address how their respective organizations incorporate resiliency
into their system operations. NCPA intends to talk about this issue with FERC com missioners and
staff during their annual Federal Policy Conference in April. Palo Alto staff will work with NCPA to
ensure our interests are heard.
Western Area Power Administration: The Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) and Western
Area Power Administration (WAPA) have been meeting with Central Valley Project (CVP) power
customers, such as Palo Alto, and other stakeholders regarding a proposal to provide ratepayer
relief to power customers. This is in an attempt to incentivize power customers to extend their
Western Base Resource contracts beyond 2024 for 30 years. Reclamation’s latest proposal is to
provide power customers with $92 million in ratepayer relief through a series of credits through
our WAPA bill. The first credit of $10 million would start in April 2018 with Palo Alto’s share being
$1.23 million or $3 to $4 per megawatt hour depending on hydro conditions.
The proposal is referred to as “Croffsets” which is based upon the Expenditures Credits and Offsets
(ECO) report that tracks all Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) Restoration Fund
revenues and expenditures from 1992 through 2016. The ECO report shows approximately $1.7
billion spent on CVPIA mitigation projects. Of that amount, power customers contributed
approximately $386 million—exceeding their accounting obligation by about $92 million. These
mitigation funds are intended to be used for environmental benefits and fish habitat restoration
throughout the project.
Transmission Access Charge Structure: The California Independent System Operator (CAISO)
recently initiated a stakeholder proceeding to look into the possibility of changing the way that
Transmission Access Charges are assessed to CAISO participants. CAISO staff recently issued a
straw proposal in which they recommend changing from the current structure – in which these
charges are billed based on a purely volumetric basis (a flat fee per megawatt hour) – to one that
Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: Page 3 of 8
combines volumetric and peak demand components. Such a change has the potentia l to reduce
Palo Alto’s overall transmission costs. Utility staff are closely following this proceeding and will
likely submit comments on the CAISO straw proposal through NCPA in February.
Net Energy Metering Successor Program Now Open: The City’s original solar Net Energy Metering
(NEM) program reached its capacity during the month of December and was extended through the
end of 2017 following approval of a rule change by City Council. New solar customers will now be
enrolled in the NEM Successor program, which provides customers with credit for hourly
electricity generated and exported to the grid. With 62 new applications in December for
reservation in the original NEM program, the City surpassed its NEM capacity of 10.8 megawatts
(MW). Customers wanting to enroll in the original NEM program will be placed on a waiting list in
the event additional capacity opens up. More information on solar in Palo Alto and NEM is
available at cityofpaloalto.org/solar.
SunShares Solar Group-Buy Program: The final tallies are in and Palo Alto was the top “Outreach
Partner” in the 2017 Bay Area SunShares solar group-buy program, both in terms of the number of
solar contracts signed and kilowatts (kW) of rooftop solar capacity that will be installed through
the program. In Palo Alto, 29 residents signed contracts for a total of 156.94 kW of rooftop solar.
Customers in all nine Bay Area counties participating in the 2017 SunShares program contracted
for a total of over 1 MW solar capacity. Of that total, Palo Alto’s share accounts for 14.5% of the
solar capacity volume. Thanks, as always, go to our actively engaged and environmentally-
conscious community members for their participation.
COMMISSIONER COMMENTS
None
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
None
NEW BUSINESS
ITEM 1: DISCUSSION: 2018 Cross-Bore Safety Program Update
Romel Antonio, Senior Engineer, presented the Cross-Bore Program update. A cross-bore exists
when a new pipe is installed by trenchless construction methods through an intersecting different
utility line. Gas service pipe cross-bores through wastewater lateral pipes can cause backups due
to the reduced cross-sectional area. Efforts to clear blockages with mechanical equipment may
damage cross-bored gas lines, which can cause natural gas to leak and migrate up the sewer
lateral, possibly leading to injury or death if an explosion occurs. On July 11, 2011, Council
awarded a contract to Hydromax for the cross-bore investigation project. Hydromax was selected
because of its specialization in this type of work, th e availability of equipment to complete this
project, and Hydromax's demonstrated ability to meet the City's quality assurance and quality
control requirements. All sewer laterals in the City were included in the scope of work, but only a
small percentage of laterals were actually investigated. All sanitary sewer laterals that were
investigated were categorized as completed or efforts exhausted as part of Phase I work. The
completed category contains approximately 7,160 laterals that were fully inspected and found not
to have a cross-bore condition. The efforts exhausted category contains 5,856 laterals that were
not fully inspected due to maintenance or construction issues encountered at the time of
inspection. Laterals in the efforts exhausted category need additional inspection subsequent to
removal of the impediment conditions. As of December 31, 2013, Hydromax has investigated
Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: Page 4 of 8
13,022 sewer laterals or 72% of the 18,040 total sanitary sewer laterals in Palo Alto. The total cost
for inspection of the remaining 5,018 laterals is estimated at approximately $19 million. Phase II,
which proposes inspection of approximately 15% of the 5,018 laterals, is estimated to cost
approximately $3-4 million.
In response to Commissioner Segal's inquiry about work to be performed for $19 million, Debra
Lloyd, Assistant Director of Engineering, clarified that $19 million is the estimated cost to complete
the investigation of the remaining 5,018 laterals that were not inspected plus the 5,856 laterals
investigated but not completed in Phase I. Laterals were classified into eleven categories, and
laterals in the four categories with the highest risk factors will be part of Phase II work. Robert
Item, Senior Engineer, added that the $19 million estimate assumes that every other lateral will
require some construction. Construction costs can be for locating and uncovering a cleanout to
cutting into a line and installing a cleanout to gain access.
Antonio continued with the criteria used to determine the priority of laterals, which included
installation date, occupancy rate, installation of excess flow valves (EFV) for gas service, location of
gas lines and sanitary sewer laterals, and service materials. Next steps are to review the
prioritization risk analysis and to develop a final list of Phase II laterals and a cost estimate, which
staff projects will be completed by March 2018. Updating the missing laterals in GIS from existing
data should be completed by June 2018. A review of the National Association of Sewer Service
Companies (NASSCO) contract template language for relevant, useful, and enforceable provisions
to incorporate into the Request for Proposal (RFP) should be finished by August 2018. Staff
anticipates issuing an RFP in June 2018 with proposals due in September 2018; interviewing
successful proposers in September 2018; selecting a vendor and finalizing a contract in October
2018; and obtaining contract approval by December 2018. Phase II work is expected to begin in
January 2019 and be complete in February 2022.
In reply to Commissioner Trumbull's queries regarding natural gas cross-bores in storm sewers,
staff advised that such cross-bores are not allowed. In approximately 2004, Public Works
performed a CCTV inspection of storm sewers and found several cross-bores that were addressed
immediately by rerouting gas lines. Whether there are more now is unknown.
In answer to Vice Chair Ballantine's question about inspecting for cross-bores immediately
following installation of a new gas line, Item indicated that staff confirms installation of a gas line
has not created a cross-bore.
In reply to Commissioner Johnston's inquiry about the percentage of laterals that will be inspected
by the end of Phase II and the need for subsequent phases, Item stated approximately 50% of all
laterals will have been fully inspected at the completion of Phase II work. At the end of Phase II,
staff will assess the need for additional phases. Item remarked that not all lateral lines will be
inspected because of assumptions made in determining the priority of laterals.
Commissioner Segal referred to Finding 2.3 in Exhibit A and suggested staff identify expertise gaps
earlier in the process so that staff has an opportunity to obtain needed expertise. Item concurred
with the suggestion. Antonio added that the RFP will include additional training needed to bring
staff up to date. Depending on the proposal, staff can match the expertise provided in the
proposal with staff's expertise. Ed Shikada, Utilities General Manager, clarified that staff's level of
Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: Page 5 of 8
expertise is specific to the future contract. Staff may need expertise to review inspection results
and to ensure the quality of work performed.
In response to Commissioner Forssell's request for the rationale for requesting an audit, Shikada
reported the number of services inspected, the number of services that could not be confirmed as
clear, and the cost of the work drove him to request the audit. The number of lines cleared did
not change as a result of the audit. Staff attempted to use the contractor's database of inspection
results to oversee the adequacy of services and appropriateness of amounts charged. A significant
amount of effort was expended to classify a sewer lateral based on its condition , when staff was
more concerned about the existence of cross-bores. Staff and the auditors debated whether the
focus should be on classifying laterals or restructuring the contract for the next phase to maximize
the clearance rate. The audit recommendations will be part of the next phase.
In reply to Vice Chair Ballantine's remarks about installing EFVs in parallel to cross-bore inspections
to reduce the risk of hazards, Item advised that EFVs are not 100% reliable. Item added that an
EFV in new service is placed close to the main line while the street is dug up. Lloyd indicated the
cost to retrofit EFVs is approximately $3,000-$4,000 each.
In answer to Commissioner Trumbull's inquiry regarding the vast difference between the projected
and actual number of laterals investigated, Lloyd explained that the project was cutting edge at
the time; therefore, staff and the contractor did not have a great deal of experience. Staff learned
valuable lessons from being one of the first jurisdictions with this type of project. Item added that
CPAU utilized different criteria to determine clear lines than other jurisdictions. Shikada noted
staff performs outreach to plumbers in the area to request notification prior to plumbers snaking a
sewer line. At some point, the Commission may want to consider a regulatory approach to require
notification.
Vice Chair Ballantine suggested future presentations regarding the cross-bore program include
photos from an inspection to demonstrate the difficulty in investigating lines.
ACTION: No action
ITEM 2. ACTION: 2018 Utilities Strategic Plan
Ed Shikada, Utilities General Manager, presented an overview of the 2018 Utilities Strategic Plan
(Plan) and revisions made in response to Commissioners' comments during the December
meeting. Development of the Strategic Plan involved a series of internal and public workshops.
The Plan focuses on priority areas that result in specific actions. The Mission Statement focuses on
the workforce and staff's work in delivering services to the community. Priority areas are
workforce, collaboration, technology, and finances and resources, and each contains specific
strategies and actions. Key performance indicators (KPI) are placeholders in that they will be
refined over time. Shikada reviewed KPIs for each priority area. In order to meet the KPI for
workforce, staff will need to be more aggressive in filling positions. Individual development plans
will be used to determine department priorities. Staff teams are organizing and will develop an
implementation plan for the Strategic Plan. Subject to the Commiss ion's discussion, the Plan may
be presented to the City Council for approval on March 5, 2018.
Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: Page 6 of 8
In reply to a Commissioner's question, Dean Batchelor, Chief Operating Officer, advised that the
department's vacancy rate has averaged 8% over the past five years, 3% from retirement and 5%
from voluntary separation. The rate for retirement will likely increase over the next few years.
Commissioner Schwartz requested automated metering infrastructure be revised to advanced
metering infrastructure (AMI). The workforce priority area needs to include cohousing and
creative solutions for it and recruiting from local community colleges and universities. The
collaboration priority area should refer to "listen" or "a listening organization." Requested that
staff consider moving up the date for implementation of Strategy 3, Action 1 related to AMI
deployment from 2022, and, Strategy 3, Action 5 – Outage Management System, currently
scheduled for 2019, should be implemented much sooner. Under the Technology priority area,
scheduling for Strategy 3, Action 4 seems slow, but AMI is needed to provide real-time
information. Because the City proposes implementation of AMI in 2022, the two dates should
align. With respect to Technology, Strategy 4, Action 5, CPAU is not keeping pace with customer
adoption of new technologies. Conceptually, the action should be to catch -up with customers.
Commissioner Schwartz was pleased to find Strategy 5, Action 2 in the Plan related to empowering
employees with technology. The Strategic Plan should consider third-party products that will
assist staff in implementing the Plan.
Commissioner Schwartz's requested clarification on Collaboration Strategy 4, Action 3, related to
working with other agencies. Catherine Elvert, Utilities Communications Manager, explained that
staff, in collaborating with other agencies, can share best practices and resources.
Monica Padilla, Senior Resource Planner, reported that staging development of a new customer
information system (CIS), integration of the Enterprise Resource Planning System, and AMI
resulted in the target date for Strategy 3, Action 4. Commissioner Schwartz recommended staff
develop CIS in concert with AMI for a successful project. Dave Yuan, Utilities Strategic Business
Manager, clarified that staff is developing CIS specifications that include AMI requirements. Once
staff obtains approval of the business case, they plan to develop specifications for AMI technology.
Commissioner Johnston suggested KPIs remain under the priorities. Acronyms should be spelled
out the first time they are used. A list of target dates in chronological order in the Plan would be
helpful.
Commissioner Forssell proposed deleting the third bullet on page 4 of the Plan as it may be
construed as age discrimination. She concurred with Commissioner Schwartz to include "listening"
within the collaboration priority area. Commissioner Forssell was pleased to find financial
efficiency Strategy 5 and Strategy 4, Action 3 in the Plan. She commented that she found the
City’s strategic plan consultant, Tony Georges', appearance before the UAC to be uninspiring and
his slide deck to be too simplistic for the UAC and too confusing for community outreach.
In reply to Councilmember Filseth's inquiry of whether the intent of the third bullet on page 4 was
to attract recent college graduates, Commissioner Forssell advised that another provision of the
Plan covers recruiting from local colleges.
Commissioner Segal remarked that the CPAU values refer to accountability but not financial
responsibility or an economic aspect of accountability. According to the memo, the Strategic
Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: Page 7 of 8
Destination Statement should indicate where CPAU wants to be in five years; however, the Plan
does not provide a direction for five years from now.
Vice Chair Ballantine was pleased to see collaboration Strategy 2, Action 2 in the Plan and
interpreted that action to mean resiliency.
Commissioner Schwartz commented that KPIs for financial efficiency and resource optimization
may not be attainable because of cost of service issues and may result in tradeoffs. Understanding
tradeoffs is an important part of conscious management of assets and resources. This issue needs
a substantive discussion. Shikada clarified that KPIs are intended to track progress and to enable
staff to make decisions more explicitly and consciously. Performance bonuses will not be tied to
meeting KPIs. Commissioner Schwartz suggested including a statement as to how KPIs will be
used.
ACTION: No action
ITEM 3. ACTION: Selection of Potential Topic(s) for Discussion at Future UAC Meeting
Jeff Hoel requested future quarterly updates include reliability data and the UAC agendize the
quarterly update for discussion.
Ed Shikada, Utilities General Manager, reported the February agenda contains items for a fiber
update, next steps on resiliency planning, a financial forecast and rate changes, a status report on
outage management system, and the Strategic Plan. Shikada respectfully requested
Commissioners be mindful of staff's full work plan when requesting topics for future agendas .
Commissioner Schwartz expressed appreciation for the current atmosphere and collaboration of
meetings.
Vice Chair Ballantine suggested Commissioners indicate whether a topic will need a detailed staff
report. He requested a discussion item regarding analysis of a potential drought on power
purchases. Shikada advised that staff presented an analysis at a recent UAC meeting, but staff can
provide additional information. Monica Padilla, Senior Resource Planner, added that the
Integrated Resource Plan item will include a discussion of different types of portfolios CPAU could
have. During the recent drought, staff provided regular reports to the UAC and Council about the
impact of the drought. Staff monitors and forecasts all hydro resources monthly.
Vice Chair Ballantine proposed a future topic regarding the strain on infrastructure as electric
vehicles continue to build out. Shikada noted the March agenda contains an item for assessment
of the electric distribution system to integrate DER.
Vice Chair Ballantine noted the Q1 quarterly report is scheduled for March.
Commissioners expressed appreciation for Councilmember Filseth's attendance at UAC meetings.
Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: Page 8 of 8
Commissioner Segal requested an update regarding the additional transmission line and a
discussion of budgeting for deferred maintenance. Vice Chair Ballantine suggested Commissioner
Segal attend the budget workshop.
ACTION: No action
The next meeting is scheduled for February 7, 2018.
Meeting adjourned at 8:50 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted,
Marites Ward
City of Palo Alto Utilities
Page 1 of 2
1
MEMORANDUM
TO: UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMISSION
FROM: UTILITIES DEPARTMENT
DATE: FEBRUARY 7, 2018
SUBJECT: Staff Recommendation that the Utilities Advisory Commission Recommend
Council Approve the 2018 Strategic Plan
REQUEST
Staff request that the Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC) recommend Council approval of the
2018 Utilities Strategic Plan (Attachment A).
SUMMARY
Approval of the 2018 Utilities Strategic Plan (Strategic Plan) is necessary to provide the Utilities
Department (CPAU) with a cohesive roadmap to better meet the needs of its community,
customers and employees now and in the future. The proposed Strategic Plan has been
modified from the Strategic Plan shared with the UAC in January 2018 to reflect the UAC input
and suggested modifications.
BACKGROUND
At its January 18, 2018 UAC meeting, staff presented the Strategic Plan for approval (link to
UAC Memo). Several of the UAC members provided general comments and/or requested
specific modifications made to the Strategic Plan and asked that staff return in February with a
revised version of the Strategic Plan for approval.
DISCUSSION
Much of the UAC’s input at the January 2018 meeting was in general support of the Strategic
Plan along with clarifications related to specific strategies, actions and key performance
indicators (KPIs). Attachment B provides a summary of the key points and/or suggested
changes and staff’s response and/or modifications to the Strategic Plan. A redline version of
the document is included as Attachment C. Attachment D contains the draft excerpted minutes
from the January 18, 2018 special meeting.
NEXT STEPS
Staff will seek Council approval of the Strategic Plan at its March 5, 2018, pending UAC support.
Once the Strategic Plan is approved, staff will develop a detailed implementation plan, and
prioritize actions and tasks to carry out the specific initiatives. Annual progress reports will be
provided on the KPIs and status of implementing the Strategic Plan.
RESOURCE IMPACT
Approval of the Strategic Plan does not result in a direct resource impact for fiscal year (FY}
2018. Implementation of specific initiatives identified as part of the Strategic Plan may have a
resource impact for FY 2019 and beyond. As additional resource needs are identified, staff will
seek UAC and Council approval as necessary.
POLICY IMPACTS
The proposed Strategic Plan works in support of CPAU's current mission and is consistent with
Council approved policies related to the management and operation of CPAU. Approval of the
Strategic Plan will effectively replace the existing strategic plan. Staff will continue to track
existing KPls through the end of FY 2018. The new KPls will be included for consideration in the
FY 19 operating budget.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The UAC's support of the proposed Strategic Plan does not meet the definition of a project
under Public Resources Code 21065 and therefore California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA}
review is not required .
ATIACHMENTS:
A. 2018 Utilities Strategic Plan
B. Summary of UAC's comments and/or proposed modifications
C. 2018 Utilities Strategic Plan -redline version
D. Draft Minutes of the UAC special meeting of January 18, 2018
PREPARED BY: MONICA V. PADIL~ior Resource Planner
REVIEWED BY: DAVE YUAN, Utilities Strategic Business.~
DEAN BATCHELOR, Chief Operating Offic
C7~ APPROVED BY:
ED SHIKADA
General Manager of Utilities
Page 2 of 2
1
ATTACHMENT A
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
The City of Palo Alto Utilities (CPAU or the Utilities) provides services across the electric, natural gas,
water, sewer, and fiber industries – many of which are in the midst of substantial changes. Many of
these changes are based on shifts in business models, price trends in renewable resources, technology
adoptions, an uncertain regulatory future, evolving workforce dynamics, and increasing customer
expectations. As these trends converge, they drive significant change for utilities in the services offered
to customers and operations. This convergence also amplifies the impacts and creates the potential for
a fundamental shift in the market and eventually, customer needs.
Industry trends and changing utility business models provide both challenges and opportunities that
require periodic updates in strategic planning. To maintain operational excellence and relevancy, CPAU
periodically reviews and revises its Strategic Plan and associated strategic initiatives. Awareness of
these market drivers and trends, as well as a need to understand the potential impacts to CPAU and its
customers, was the starting point and driver for the Strategic Plan development process. While CPAU’s
Strategic Plan is routinely updated, the Utility’s Mission remains unchanged.
CPAU Strategic Planning History and Progression
CPAU’s current Strategic Plan was originally developed and approved in 2011 with City Council
refinements and updates to Performance Measures and Strategic Initiatives in 2013 and 2015. The
current plan includes four Perspectives: Internal Business Process, People and Technology, Financial,
and Customer and Community. Across the four Perspectives, there are more than 25 performance
measures or goals that are tracked and reported for Plan progress. Recognizing that several internal and
external factors have significantly changed since the last update in 2011 and that the utility industry
continues to increase in complexity, CPAU staff felt the necessity to develop a new Strategic Plan rather
than an update of the existing plan.
The proposed Strategic Plan is significantly different from the current Strategic Plan, which focuses more
on maintaining and/or improving current operational and customer performance measures. Rather
than rewriting the existing plan, the proposed Strategic Plan starts from a blank page with a focus on
defining a Strategic Destination, or ‘stake in the ground’ defining where CPAU will be in 5-10 years. The
Strategic Plan also focuses efforts on reporting and tracking progress to a more representative and
strategic set of 12 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), rather than more than 25 performance measures.
This will include defining new or refining existing initiatives and actions to achieve the CPAU’s future
goals and objectives. Key elements of the Strategic Plan include:
Mission Statement: A formal, enduring summary to focus and direct the organization;
communicate a shared understanding of the organization's intended purpose.
Strategic Destination: Statement that provides a snapshot of where the organization should be
five to 10 years into the future.
City of Palo Alto Utilities’ Mission Statement:
To provide safe, reliable, environmentally sustainable and cost effective services
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
2
Priority Areas: A problem, concern, challenge, or issue that the organization must address in
order to achieve its Strategic Direction.
Strategies and Actions: Strategies are the means by which the Priority is resolved, while Actions
are specific activities or tactics (achievable in approximately 12- to 18-months)
Key Performance Indicator (KPI): The means by which to measure, track, and report on
performance
Figure 1 illustrates the overall structure of the Plan and summarizes the relationship of the key elements
identified to realize the Strategic Direction and implement the Plan. While the Mission and Strategic
Direction are longer term, more enduring elements of the Plan, the Plan gets more detailed and tactical
with the Strategies and Actions. These detailed elements are focused on the near-term (e.g., one to
three years). As there are elements of the Plan that focus on the near-term, it is best practice to
periodically (e.g., every three years) refresh or update any strategic plan based on progress of the Plan
to date or significant changes in the organization or market.
Figure 1: Strategic Plan Structure and Elements
Strategic Planning Process
The planning process and development of the 2018 Strategic Plan were designed to engage staff and
stakeholders to ensure alignment with the Community and within the organization. Engaging internal
and external stakeholders throughout the development of the Plan also supports a successful
implementation.
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
3
Stakeholder Engagement
Extensive internal and external stakeholder engagement was included in the Plan development to
ensure community and stakeholder insights were properly integrated. CPAU’s executive leadership
team invited a cross-section of employees to participate as members of the Core Planning Team (CPT) to
support the development of this Plan. The CPT was critical to the development of the Plan and will be a
key driver to the short- and long-term implementation. The CPT’s role included:
Driving the development of the updated Plan (e.g., Priorities, Strategies, Actions) through
participation in five facilitated planning meetings, completing ‘homework’ assignments, and
continued involvement to support Plan implementation.
Providing periodic communication within their broader work groups to explain the planning
process, communicate/discuss the draft elements of the Plan, and solicit feedback throughout
the process.
In addition to the internal CPAU CPT being
responsible for driving the development of the Plan,
the stakeholder engagement process included
additional employee feedback, a community
workshop, and three external stakeholder groups:
the Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC), a Utility
Stakeholder Panel, and City Management
stakeholders. CPAU’s executive leadership included
extensive organizational and employee engagement
as an early requirement of the Plan development. In
addition to the CPT, the internal or employee
engagement included:
10 group meetings to ensure employee
feedback from all levels and divisions within
CPAU.
Two “all-hands” meetings for the entire
organization communicating Plan progress and
soliciting feedback / introducing the Strategic
Direction and more tactical Plan elements.
Two large employee workshops to solicit
feedback on the Priorities, Strategies, and
Actions included in the Plan.
Including external stakeholders in the development of the Plan provided an opportunity to gain
important community feedback on CPAU’s overarching strategic direction while supporting targeted
insights in developing the Plan elements. Providing a mechanism for community engagement and
feedback throughout the planning process also helps to ensure future endorsement of the Plan.
Market Trends
As mentioned previously, one of the key drivers to developing the new Strategic Plan was recognizing
that several organizational and market trends have continued their rapid pace of change and in many
cases significantly accelerated or changed since the last update. The energy industry currently faces
many challenges and opportunities, as well as increasing uncertainty related to regulatory, resource
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
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availability, security, technology, sustainability, and clean energy issues. As these trends converge, they
drive significant change in the services offered to customers and operations. This convergence also
amplifies the impacts and creates the potential for a fundamental shift in the market and eventually,
customer needs. To support the development of the Strategic Direction, Priorities, and eventual
Strategies and Actions, the planning process included discussion with stakeholders of the key trends or
issues influencing CPAU’s operations, market, and customers. Highlights of the stakeholder feedback on
trends and issues included:
Aging infrastructure / renewal and replacements
Climate change, adaptation, sustainability, and resiliency
Workforce (large portion of CPAU workforce retiring in next 10 years, how to attract new staff)
Customer demands (retail customer pressure, connectivity, flexibility, unlimited options, overall
load is declining)
Community or customer collaboration opportunities (attracting new staff, technology
evaluation/adoption, energy resources)
Balancing goals, sustainability aspirations with competitive rates and affordability
Technology (CPAU operations, cyber security, big data management, Advanced Metering
Infrastructure (AMI), mobile apps/access)
California regulatory trends (CARB/Cap and Trade markets, new renewable energy requirements,
hydropower availability, efficient building codes)
Reducing regulatory barriers, more efficient regulatory process
Increased opportunities to collaborate with other City departments and external stakeholders
Distributed energy resources (DERs) (e.g. customer or commercial energy resources)
Electric vehicle opportunities or incentives
Natural gas utility and potential for electrification; stranded assets for CPAU
Water resource availability, recycling, drought, and conservation
Communicate CPAU’s value and areas of leadership to stakeholders
The market trends and issues insights from stakeholders were directly integrated into the CPT
workshops and the subsequent Priorities, Strategies, and Actions. CPAU’s Strategic Direction and Plan
will help the Utility navigate these trends while remaining effective, valuable, and cost-effective to
customers.
CPAU’s 2018 Strategic Plan
Throughout these changing times and evolving markets, CPAU’s Mission remains the same, forming the
foundation for the utility’s enduring direction. The purpose of a mission statement is to focus and direct
the organization as well as to communicate a shared understanding of the organization's intended
purpose. The 2018 Strategic Plan aligns with and further advances CPAU’s Mission.
The 2018 Strategic Plan provides an update to the efforts and initiatives outlined in the 2011 plan, taking
into consideration recent market trends, emerging priorities, and additional input from our
stakeholders. The Plan should act as the guide and context for utility resource, workforce, technology,
customer expectation, and market related decision making. The 2018 Strategic Plan provides a “line of
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
5
sight” from the organization’s broader strategy to more day-to-day activities by staff, thus aligning the
Utilities organization with the Plan. The Strategic Direction, defining a “stake in the ground” for the next
5-10 years is the first step in providing this “line of sight” from the Mission to day-to-day activities. As
the planning process was designed to engage staff and stakeholders in its development, the following
Strategic Direction was vetted with multiple internal and external stakeholder groups.
Through the planning process CPAU also embraced its position as a department of the City of Palo Alto
by integrating the City’s values, while incorporating several attributes tailored to some of the unique
aspects of the Utilities operations and market. These values and CPAU attributes were also tested
throughout the organization and at an all-hands employee workshop. There was support for adopting
the City values and CPAU attributes along with a desire to promote a culture at the Utility that reinforces
them. Due to the level of interest and importance of the values, the Plan includes a near term Action
item to begin developing tools promoting these values by mid-2018.
City Values Adopted for 2018 Plan:
Quality | Courtesy | Efficiency | Integrity | Innovation
Tailored CPAU attributes support culture of:
Respect | Teamwork | Accountability | Reliability | Safety
The next step in the process identified the critical or core challenges that CPAU must address to realize
the Strategic Direction. These critical issues are defined as Priorities in the Plan and include:
Workforce: We must create a vibrant and competitive environment that attracts, retains, and
invests in a skilled and engaged workforce.
CPAU along with other utilities providers throughout the state and country struggle with
attracting and retaining a skilled workforce. For Palo Alto, this issue is amplified as the cost of
living and/or relocating to the Bay Area is among the highest in the nation. The Workforce focus
area reflects the need to do improve retention and recruitment efforts to ensure long-term CPAU
has the staff and/or workforce solutions to meet its core service obligations and customers’
expectations. The strategies and actions identified are intended to focus in the areas of
retention, recruitment, training and work-life balance needs.
Collaboration: We must collaborate with internal teams and external stakeholders to achieve
our shared objectives of enhanced communication, coordination, education, and delivery of
services.
Delivering high quality services to customers is a shared objective across all CPAU services. To do
so in an efficient and consistent manner requires an understanding of customer and stakeholder
issues along with the ability to effectively communicate and coordinate efforts with customers
and throughout the City. The strategies and actions identify projects and/or initiatives requiring a
high level of collaboration to effectively implement as well as promoting a systematic framework
in which to ensure collaboration within CPAU and throughout the City.
STRATEGIC DIRECTION
At CPAU, our people empower tomorrow's ambitions while caring for today's
needs! We make this possible with our outstanding professional workforce,
leading through collaboration and optimizing resources to ensure a sustainable
and resilient Palo Alto.
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
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Technology: We must invest in and utilize technology to enhance the customer experience and
maximize operational efficiency.
The increasing convergence of technology, utility services, and customer expectations is driving
significant change in the utility markets. CPAU must embrace technology to further enhance
internal operations and improve efficiency in this changing market. Customer adoption of new
technology applications is also dramatically changing utility – customer interactions and demand
for services. The Technology Priority includes implementing the Technology Roadmap to
effectively guide CPAU’s customer and operational technology investments and programs.
Additional Technology strategies include AMI deployment, enhancing customer interaction,
improving field operations, and training employees to ensure effective use of existing and new
tools.
Financial Efficiency and Resource Optimization: We must manage our finances optimally and
use resources efficiently to meet our customers’ service priorities.
Facing an evolving utility business environment, aging infrastructure needs, and sustainability
objectives CPAU must maintain a competitive position in the market. Remaining financially
sustainable and competitive in the market while optimizing our resources is key to maintaining
and enhancing our value to customers. Strategies in this Priority focus on proactively replacing
and managing CPAU’s infrastructure, continuously improving financial processes, enhancing
infrastructure maintenance programs, defining CPAU’s role in community resiliency, and
achieving sustainable energy resource and water supply plans.
To complete the Strategic Plan, more tactical Strategies and Actions were identified and developed to
complete the Tactical Action Plan. Strategies were developed within each Priority to resolve the issue or
challenge identified, while Actions include specific activities and tactics to implement the Strategy.
Reporting and Tracking Plan Progress
Successful strategic plans include the ability to track the Plan’s progress and report on performance
within the organization and to stakeholders. As an organization tracks performance, it can adjust
resources or the Plan, to better respond or act on Priority areas that may lag desired performance levels,
or learn from others that are exceeding expectations. KPIs are the primary tool in concisely
communicating and reporting on performance to stakeholders.
KPIs are a metric or measurable value that demonstrates how effectively the organization is achieving its
Priorities and Strategic Direction. The 2018 Strategic Plan includes 12 KPIs for periodic (e.g., quarterly)
reporting to governing bodies and stakeholders on the Plan performance. These KPIs may also be
applied and tailored throughout the organization to align CPAU divisions, work groups, and individual
contributors with the Strategic Plan. As some of the KPIs identified are dependent on new strategic
initiatives by Utilities, or include a near term completion date, they may require refinement or updating
as completed or the strategic initiatives are scheduled/completed (e.g. technology or system
implementations). The KPIs are included with each of the priorities below.
Tactical Action Plan
The comprehensive Tactical Action Plan including all Strategies and Actions by Priority is included below.
Please note, those Actions that are expected or scheduled for completion in 2018 are noted with bold,
italicized text.
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
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Priority 1: Workforce
We must create a vibrant and competitive environment that attracts, retains, and invests in a skilled and engaged
workforce.
Strategy 1. Establish CPAU as an organization where employees are proud to work and recruit other strong performers.
Action 1. Support pilot rollout of annual professional/journeyman individual development plans (IDP) and
rollup to department training priorities, to develop internal talent. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Review and expand training/education and certificate programs that emphasize mastery of trade,
profession, or management position and promote development and longevity in areas of expected need. Complete by June 2018.
Action 3. Update Divisional Succession Plans to prepare staff for promotional opportunities and to retain
institutional knowledge within the organization (update existing 5-year succession plan). Complete by
December 2019.
Action 4. Promote a culture that reinforces City and Department values. Complete by June 2018.
Strategy 2. Create a workplace that attracts and retains skilled employees.
Action 1. Prioritize resolution of collective bargaining issues and finalize an agreement that ensures CPAU
will attract and retain high caliber skilled employees that will advance the Department’s Mission.
Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Reduce processing time to hire new staff to ensure potential candidates are offered positions in a
reasonable time frame. Complete by December 2018.
Action 3. Support CPAU staff communication outreach in recruitment strategy for hiring utilities
employees. Complete by December 2018.
Strategy 3. Evaluate and consider alternative workforce solutions to achieve organizational business objectives.
Action 1. Create opportunities to empower and support individual employees and work groups to offer a
work-life balance through alternative work schedules or other options. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Determine the potential for projects and/or functions to be effectively outsourced while continuing to meet
organizational needs and objectives. Complete by December 2019.
Action 3. Consider developing a hybrid workforce of full time employees and non-benefitted staff. Complete by
December 2020.
Action 4. Create an internal labor pool from within the City to fill temporary business needs. Complete by
June 2019.
Workforce KPIs:
Reduce employee turnover rates to less than 10% by 2020 (calculated as a three-year rolling average).
90% of all CPAU positions filled/staffed on annual basis; while 100% of critically identified positions are
filled within 90 days.
100% of employees have implemented an individual development plan with updates every two years.
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
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Priority 2: Collaboration
We must collaborate with internal teams and external stakeholders to achieve our shared objectives of enhanced
communication, coordination, education and delivery of services.
Strategy 1. Increasing communication through active listening and engagement with the community enhances customer
satisfaction and community trust and will help us deliver programs and content based on community desires.
Action 1. Establish a routine practice of involving stakeholders on strategic projects and initiatives to
support customer satisfaction, customer choice, and program outcomes. Ongoing.
Action 2. Proactively communicate about capital improvement projects to mitigate the impacts of construction, while maximizing public support and the allocated financial resources. Ongoing.
Action 3. Identify and develop proactive strategies and customer education that allows CPAU to support
customer needs for Distributed Energy Resources (DER), including storage, solar, EVs, energy efficiency.
Ongoing with DER plan timeline; phase 1 to be complete by December 2018.
Action 4. Partner with community stakeholders to facilitate large scale residential building electrification (beyond
rebate scale). No timeline; beginning conversations and research now.
Action 5. Enhance customer service through deployment of technology such as upgraded online bill
payment, account access system and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). Ongoing with Utilities
technology roadmap.
Action 6. Build customer support for programs and understanding of how we provide cost-effective
services. Ongoing.
Action 7. Create interdepartmental work groups to identify and resolve ongoing workflow and priorities
involving permitting, procurement and legal. Ongoing.
Strategy 2. Strengthening coordination and integration across City departments aligns Utilities and City goals while improving
performance and efficiency
Action 1. Enhance current coordination of scheduling, synchronization and communication of capital
improvement, maintenance, operations projects and other Utilities programs and services with other departments to improve implementation and efficiency. Ongoing.
Action 2. Explore opportunities to improve City processes, policies and information sharing that allows the
community to easily understand and implement DER opportunities such as EVs, solar, storage, energy
efficiency, and building electrification. Ongoing with DER timeline; phase 1 to be complete by
December 2018.
Action 3. Share information and opportunities across departments to expand outreach about CPAU
employment. Ongoing.
Action 4. Promote regular interdepartmental information sharing throughout the City to assist employees
understand City (and common) goals. Ongoing.
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
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Priority 2: Collaboration
We must collaborate with internal teams and external stakeholders to achieve our shared objectives of enhanced
communication, coordination, education and delivery of services.
Strategy 3. Fostering a culture of cooperative work within Utilities improves productivity and awareness, and understanding of
our common goals.
Action 1. Support the implementation of the Utilities’ technology roadmap with comprehensive communication of:
technological advancements and the department's short-term and long-term goals; how these advancements reflect
customer and operational needs; how projects are prioritized; and how decisions are made. Ongoing with timeline
of Utilities technology roadmap; full implementation scheduled for completion by December 2022.
Action 2. Strengthen existing tools for intradepartmental communication to ensure transparency and
informed staff that understand the Strategic Plan and other key CPAU issues and how they directly relate to
the work of our employees. Ongoing; some tasks by April 2018 with completion of the Strategic Plan.
Action 3. Collaborate with staff involved in deployment of AMI and develop a comprehensive outreach plan
to communicate AMI and supporting technologies, impact to staffing resources, staff responsibilities, and how the customer engagement platform operates. Ongoing with timeline of Utilities technology roadmap;
AMI full deployment scheduled to be complete by October 2018.
Action 4. Support upgrade of MUA by communicating the customer and utility operational benefits and
functionalities. Ongoing with timeline of MUA; phase 1 complete by July 2018.
Action 5. Establish intradepartmental team to evaluate and determine best practices for an outage management
system (OMS), including communication across divisions to reduce restoration time and provide customers with
more real-time outage information. Integrate with Technology S3, A4. Complete by June 2019.
Action 6. Support the workforce priorities by aligning organizational values and reiterating employee roles
within the framework of the Utilities Strategic Plan. Ongoing.
Strategy 4. Collaborating with government, trade, and regional agencies enhances our sphere of influence, allows us to
identify common ground, and leverage economies of scale.
Action 1. Continue to work with Industry/trade/regional groups (NCPA, League of Cities, CMUA, BAWSCA,
E Source etc.) to collaborate on shared objectives. Ongoing.
Action 2. Coordinate on regional utility programs to streamline processes, achieve mutual objectives, and realize
greater impacts. Ongoing; some tasks can be completed by December 2019.
Action 3. Communicate our public awareness efforts and resources with government agencies (DOE, EPA, CEC, etc.) to improve public and stakeholder awareness of utility issues, programs, and shared goals.
Ongoing.
Action 4. Collaborate with educational institutions and companies to attract local candidates for CPAU positions.
Ongoing; some tasks can be completed by December 2019.
Collaboration KPIs:
Maintain 85% or higher “excellent” or “good” performance ratings in annual customer satisfaction survey.
Maintain 50% or higher level of customer awareness for customers affected by CPAU’s key programs,
incentives, and /or initiatives.
Maintain 60% or higher level of agreement regarding employees who feel they contributed and/or were
involved with CPAU projects or decisions that directly affect their roles or work.
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
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Priority 3: Technology
We must invest in and utilize technology to enhance the customer experience and maximize operational
efficiency.
Strategy 1. Finalize and implement technology road map to clearly identify CPAU’s short-term and long-term goals, reflect
customer and operational needs, prioritize projects and guide decisions.
Action 1. Identify, align and prioritize customer-focused and operational technologies to improve customer
satisfaction and operational efficiency. Ongoing.
Action 2. Implement Technology Road Map including project prioritization, 10-year timeline, and co-dependencies.
2018 through 2022.
Strategy 2. Deploy AMI to increase reliability, enhance customer service, and improve response time.
Action 1. Finalize Business Case including cost and benefit analysis, scenarios, and staffing impacts.
Complete by June 2018.
Action 2. Develop AMI/MDM System Requirements to identify functional and system requirements. Complete by
June 2019.
Action 3. Evaluate Multi-Agency AMI/MDM with NCPA to pool resources, share ideas and increase purchasing
power. Complete by June 2019.
Action 4. Proof of Concept Phase to deploy 2,000-5,000 meters, install all network infrastructure, establish system
integrations, , develop future state business processes, provide testing and training, and pilot customer
engagement. Complete by September 2021.
Action 5. Citywide AMI/MDM Deployment of 73,000 electric, gas and water meters. Complete by September 2022.
Strategy 3. Invest in technology infrastructure to enhance customer engagement and satisfaction.
Action 1. Upgrade Utilities customer portal: My Utilities Account (MUA 2.0) to provide customers additional
24/7 self-services and customer information to better manage their consumption and choices. Complete by
September 2018.
Action 2. Leverage City’s mobile app (Palo Alto 311) to provide residents, businesses and visitors more access to
City services and information. Complete by December 2019.
Action 3. Implement a Street Work Notification customer portal for long-term construction projects that may result in
traffic, parking or other impacts to neighborhoods. Complete by December 2019.
Action 4. Evaluate and upgrade Outage Management System (OMS) to reduce restoration time and provide
customers near real-time outage information. Complete by June 2019.
Strategy 4. Implement technologies to improve response time, security and operational efficiency.
Action 1. Deploy Mobile/Field Technologies (devices and software) to reduce operational costs and
improve service delivery. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Upgrade Customer Information/Billing System (CIS) to improve responsiveness and ensure customer
data is accurate and secure. Complete by September 2020.
Action 3. Maintain Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to ensure a safe, reliable, and efficient distribution system. Ongoing.
Action 4. Integrate with new GIS (ESRI) to ensure accurate infrastructure information for customer service and
infrastructure improvements. Complete by June 2019.
Action 5. Ensure that CPAU systems keep pace with customer adoption of new technologies to enhance
the customer experience and choice. Ongoing.
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
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Priority 3: Technology
We must invest in and utilize technology to enhance the customer experience and maximize operational
efficiency.
Strategy 5. Ensure and empower employees with current Technologies to perform work efficiently.
Action 1. Streamline business processes to facilitate adoption of new technological solutions that improve
performance in targeted priority functions. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Implement continuous education and evaluation of new technology applications and related
utility trends to ensure CPAU maintains an effective, competitive, and optimal use of technology applications. Ongoing.
Action 3. Train employees to adopt and maximize utilization of new technologies. Ongoing.
Technology KPIs:
Increase the number of MUA registered users by 10% per year and utilization by 5% per year (e.g., paying
bill, reviewing consumption, etc.).
Provide 50% of field support staff with paperless workorder and maintenance documentation tools by
December 2018 and 90% by December 2019.
100% of staff affected by new or upgraded technology receive / attend applicable training.
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
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Priority 4: Financial Efficiency and Resource Optimization
We must manage our finances optimally and use resources efficiently to meet our customers’ service priorities.
Strategy 1. Establish a proactive infrastructure replacement program, based on planned replacement before failure to support
reliability and resiliency.
Action 1. Initiate a program to update data in the utility asset management system to establish
infrastructure replacement programs and support maintenance plans. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Develop, prioritize, and propose planned infrastructure replacement programs based on currently
available key asset information for implementation in Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 and begin reporting of planned
infrastructure replacement status. Complete by September 2018.
Action 3. Establish a system of regular reporting on planned replacement progress, including management
reports appropriate to every level of the organization. First report by September 2018.
Action 4. Develop a plan to fill data gaps and ensure data accuracy identified in A1 and implement collection
process. Complete by September 2019.
Action 5. Use updated data in comprehensive asset management system and database to improve planned
replacement programs and status reporting. Start implementation in July 2020.
Strategy 2. Develop financial planning processes that provide stability and clear communication of service priorities and the
cost of achieving those priorities.
Action 1. For FY 2019 budget process, collaborate between Rates, Admin, and Water-Gas-Wastewater
Engineering to pilot an infrastructure budget development process for one utility (Water, Gas, or
Wastewater Collection) that coordinates Capital Improvement Project (CIP) budget development with
planning for funding sources and reserves management. Complete by March 2018.
Action 2. Starting with the FY 2020 budget process, implement an integrated and replicable CIP budgeting
process with Admin, Rates, and Water-Gas-Wastewater Engineering to develop a CIP reserve and an annual
CIP contribution amount for one utility. Complete by September 2018.
Action 3. For FY 2021 budget process, expand and apply the integrated CIP budgeting process to at least one
other utility (Electric, Water, Gas, or Wastewater Collection) with remaining funds in FY 2022. Complete by
September 2019.
Action 4. In 2019, update benchmark study for one utility. Begin a process of regular benchmarking of one utility
per year going forward. Complete by December 2019.
Strategy 3. Enhance planned maintenance programs for all utilities through clearly defined maintenance plans, improved
management reporting, and developing innovative ways to ensure efficient completion of all maintenance.
Action 1. Develop an inventory of existing maintenance programs and a reporting framework to monitor progress. Identify areas where planned maintenance is not being completed and areas where more data is
needed to design maintenance plans. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Identify and evaluate asset data requirements and accuracy to develop and monitor proactive
maintenance programs and identify any data gaps. Complete by December 2018.
Action 3. Identify staffing, software, and other resources required to implement and monitor maintenance programs, identify gaps in existing resources, identify alternative ways to implement the programs and the
costs and benefits of different approaches. Complete by September 2018.
Action 4. Establish a system of regular reporting on maintenance progress, including management reports
appropriate to every level of the organization. Provide first report by September 2018.
Action 5. As additional asset data becomes available from data collection efforts identified in S1 A1 and S1 A4,
update and improve applicable maintenance plans. Implementation to be determined.
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
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Priority 4: Financial Efficiency and Resource Optimization
We must manage our finances optimally and use resources efficiently to meet our customers’ service priorities.
Strategy 4. Achieve a sustainable and resilient energy and water supply to meet community needs.
Action 1. Work with other City Departments to establish an implementation plan through FY 2020 to
achieve the City’s carbon reduction and water management goals while assessing utility operational risks
and mitigations associated with electrification. Complete by June 2018.
Action 2. Establish and implement a Distributed Energy Resources plan to ensure local generation
(e.g. solar), storage, electric vehicles (EVs), and controllable loads (like heat pump water heaters) are
integrated into the distribution system in a way that benefits both the customer and the broader
community. Complete by December 2018.
Action 3. Evaluate recycled water, groundwater, and other non-potable water sources and integrate the results and
outcomes with water supply plans. Complete by December 2018.
Action 4. Incorporate a review of the changing competitive landscape (such as low-cost local solar and storage, the
rise of Community Choice Aggregators, and the potential for competition and Direct Access) into routine electric
supply planning processes. Complete by December 2020.
Action 5. Adopt and implement for the Electric utility an integrated resource plan for 2018 through 2030.
Complete by December 2018.
Strategy 5. Engage stakeholders and define CPAU’s role in supporting and facilitating community resiliency.
Action 1. Engage in community outreach to identify what aspects of resiliency are important to the
community for each utility to support development of a resiliency work plan. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Define minimum emergency service commitments and targeted full system recovery times in case of a
major disaster(s) and communicate general guidance on recovery times to the public. Implementation to be
determined and dependent on A1.
Action 3. Develop an outreach and education program to facilitate individual customer resiliency efforts.
Implementation dependent on A1.
Action 4. Identify high priority issues that could interfere with emergency service commitments and recovery times
and develop a plan to improve resiliency in these areas. Implementation dependent on A1.
Action 5. Complete evaluation of redundant/backup transmission service to CPAU and communicate to
stakeholders. Complete by December 2018.
Financial Efficiency and Resource Optimization KPIs:
Identify/catalog 90% of critical assets or components in asset management system by 2022
Complete 80% of critical component planned replacement annually; and 90% critical component planned
maintenance annually
Maintain average (e.g. median) or below residential and commercial utility bills as compared to
surrounding utilities and communities.
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
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List of Acronyms
AMI Advanced Metering Infrastructure
BAWSCA Bay Area Water Supply & Conservation Agency
CARB California Air Resources Board
CEC California Energy Commission
CIS Customer Information System
CMUA California Municipal Utilities Association
CPAU City of Palo Alto Utilities
CPT Core Planning Team
DER Distributed Energy Resource
DOE Department of Energy
EV Electric Vehicle
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
FY Fiscal Year
GIS Geographical Information System
IDP Individual Development Plan
MDM Meter Data Management
MUA My Utility Account
OMS Outage Management System
NCPA Northern California Power Agency
SCADA Supervisory Control & Data Acquistion
UAC Utilities Advisory Commission
Appendix A
Stakeholder Groups
Core Planning Team
Leadership Team
Tom Auzenne, Customer Service Richard Simms, Operations
Monica Padilla – Resource
Management/ Strategic Plan Project
Manager
Debbie Lloyd, Engineering Rick Baptist, Operations
Ed Shikada, General Manager Jimmy Pachikara, Engineering Rui Silva, Operations
Dean Batchelor, Chief Operating
Officer
Lynn Krug, Engineering Ryan Johnson, Operations
Catherine Elvert, Communications Silvia Santos, Engineering Scott Williams, Operations
Dave Yuan, Administration Heather Dauler, Legislative
Regulatory
Bruce Lesch, Resource Management
Sushma Tappetla, Administration Althea Carter, Operations Jonathan Abendschein, Resource
Management
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
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Joshua Wallace, Resource
Management
Mike Haynes, Operations Lisa Benatar, Resource Management
Crystal Jensen, Customer Service Anna Vuong, Administration Sonika Choudhary, Resource Mgmt
Utility Advisory Commission
Michael Danaher, Chair Judith Schwartz
Arne Ballantine, Vice Chair Lauren Segal
Lisa Forsell Terry Trumbull
A.C. Johnston
Utility Stakeholder Panel
Name Affiliation
Annette Glanckopf Palo Alto Neighborhood (PAN)
Sheri Furman Palo Alto Neighborhood (PAN)
Sandra Slater Cool Block & Palo Alto Forward
Lisa Altieri Carbon Free Palo Alto
Debbie Mytels Silicon Valley Climate Action Alliance & Acterra
Peter Drekmeier Tuolumne River Trust & Bay Area Action
Julianne Frizzell Landscape Architect
Andy Robin Active Citizen - UPS programs
David Coale Carbon Free Palo Alto, Acterra, Sun Works, SV Bike Coalition
Tess Byler San Francisquito Creek
Judy Kleinberg Palo Alto Chamber
Russ Cohen Business Improvement District & Downtown PA
Roxy Rapp Developer & Property Manager
Sven Thesen Climate One & EV advocate
Jon Foster former UAC member
John Melton former UAC member
Citywide Management
James Keene – City
Manager’s Office
Lalo Perez – Administrative
Services
Kenneth Deuker– Emergency
Services
Rumi Portillo – Human
Resources
Jonathan Reichental–
Information Technology
Peter Pirnejad– Development
Services
Gil Friend - Sustainability Mike Sartor – Public Works
Attachment B
Strategic
Plan Element
Comment and/or Modification Request
Response and/or Action
General • List KPIs with priorities and not as stand-alone item. (Johnston)
• Delete any reference to the term “millennial”. (Forssell)
• List key target dates for initiatives in chronological order. (Johnston)
• Financial responsibility should be included as a value. (Segal)
• Include intent behind KPIs. (Schwartz)
• Define all acronyms the first time they are used
• Strategic Direction does not seem to reflect a destination (Segal)
• The document has been modified.
• The document has been modified.
• This information will be provided to the UAC once implementation of
the Strategic Plan begins.
• Accountability is intended to include financial responsibility.
• The document has been modified as applicable.
• The document has been modified to include a table of acronyms.
• The Strategic Direction simply provides a shorthand statement of the
focus of the Strategic Plan, the achievement of which would be a great
place to be.
Priority 1 (P1):
Workforce
• Housing solutions including co-housing should be listed as an action
item to help attract and retain employees. (Schwartz)
• Workforce priority does not include actions related to working with local
community colleges for workforce development. (Schwartz)
• Affordable housing and work-life balance solutions are a priority for
the City overall and for City employees the City Council has identified
this as a Council priority. Developing specific actions related to co-
housing are not within the purview of CPAU, but rather a City-wide
issue and therefore not included in the Strategic Plan. CPAU staff will
work within the City-wide program to ensure viable housing and work-
life balance solutions are considered in the context of recruitment and
retention.
• P1: Strategy 2, Action 3 contains tasks related to working with local
high schools, community colleges, and universities to promote
internship and other opportunities in the field. These tasks are not
included for approval of the Strategic Plan, however will be included in
CPAU work plans and implementation efforts.
Priority 2 (P2):
Collaboration
• Include a strategy/action related to listening. (Schwartz)
• Supports collaboration related to implementation of CPAU’s technology
roadmap; however expressed concerns about the not having AMI fully
deployed until December 2022 and order of deployment efforts.
(Schwartz)
• Would like to see an outage management system in place before June
2019. (Schwartz)
• Add “affected” to KPI addressing number of customers aware of
programs.
• P2: Strategy 1, has been modified to including listening.
• See comments under Technology
• Operations is currently evaluating the existing outage management
system to assess whether the functionalities meets our needs. The
results of this evaluation may lead to exploring other vendor services
or systems. There is no currently forecasted timeline for this endeavor.
• The document has been modified.
Strategic
Plan Element
Comment and/or Modification Request
Response and/or Action
Priority 3 (P3):
Technology
• Use of the term AMI is inconsistent with industry terminology. Should
be advanced meter infrastructure. (Schwartz)
• Encourages staff to learn from and collaborate with other utilities that
have effectively deployed AMI. (Schwartz)
• Concerned about the time it will take to achieve fully deployment of
AMI (September 2022). (Schwartz and Johnston)
• CPAU staff needs to recognize that the City is behind and not in pace
with adoption of new technologies and action should reflect that the
City needs to catch up. (Schwartz)
• The Strategic Plan consistently uses the term advanced meter
infrastructure.
• CPAU staff participates in several AMI workgroups and recognizes the
need to further explore best practices throughout the industry.
• The AMI deployment schedule as proposed is necessary to ensure
successful deployment given existing resources and the need to
implement and integrate with new enterprise and billing systems.
• Staff strives to understand customers’ technology needs and prioritizes
cost effective deployment within the existing constraints and
resources. Staff recognizes that AMI deployment and use of other
technology is behind that of other utilities; however will keep Strategy
4, Action 5 as is to reflect CPAU’s goal rather than as a statement of
current status.
Priority 4 (P4):
Financial &
Resources
• KPI to maintain bills below average or median may not be unattainable
if CPAU is also pursuing improvements to infrastructure. And, are
employee bonuses determined based on KPI performance? (Schwartz)
• KPIs are intended to be goals to strive towards and employee
performance is not measured against KPIs.
1
ATTACHMENT AC
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
The City of Palo Alto Utilities (CPAU or the Utilities) provides services across the electric, natural gas,
water, sewer, and fiber industries – many of which are in the midst of substantial changes. Many of
these changes are based on shifts in business models, price trends in renewable resources, technology
adoptions, an uncertain regulatory future, evolving workforce dynamics, and increasing customer
expectations. As these trends converge, they drive significant change for utilities in the services offered
to customers and operations. This convergence also amplifies the impacts and creates the potential for
a fundamental shift in the market and eventually, customer needs.
Industry trends and changing utility business models provide both challenges and opportunities that
require periodic updates in strategic planning. To maintain operational excellence and relevancy, CPAU
periodically reviews and revises its Strategic Plan and associated strategic initiatives. Awareness of
these market drivers and trends, as well as a need to understand the potential impacts to CPAU and its
customers, was the starting point and driver for the Strategic Plan development process. While CPAU’s
Strategic Plan is routinely updated, the Utility’s Mission remains unchanged.
CPAU Strategic Planning History and Progression
CPAU’s current Strategic Plan was originally developed and approved in 2011 with City Council
refinements and updates to Performance Measures and Strategic Initiatives in 2013 and 2015. The
current plan includes four Perspectives: Internal Business Process, People and Technology, Financial,
and Customer and Community. Across the four Perspectives, there are more than 25 performance
measures or goals that are tracked and reported for Plan progress. Recognizing that several internal and
external factors have significantly changed since the last update in 2011 and that the utility industry
continues to increase in complexity, CPAU staff felt the necessity to develop a new Strategic Plan rather
than an update of the existing plan.
The proposed Strategic Plan is significantly different from the current Strategic Plan, which focuses more
on maintaining and/or improving current operational and customer performance measures. Rather
than rewriting the existing plan, the proposed Strategic Plan starts from a blank page with a focus on
defining a Strategic Destination, or ‘stake in the ground’ defining where CPAU will be in 5-10 years. The
Strategic Plan also focuses efforts on reporting and tracking progress to a more representative and
strategic set of 12 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), rather than more than 25 performance measures.
This will include defining new or refining existing initiatives and actions to achieve the CPAU’s future
goals and objectives. Key elements of the Strategic Plan include:
Mission Statement: A formal, enduring summary to focus and direct the organization;
communicate a shared understanding of the organization's intended purpose.
Strategic Destination: Statement that provides a snapshot of where the organization should be
five to 10 years into the future.
City of Palo Alto Utilities’ Mission Statement:
To provide safe, reliable, environmentally sustainable and cost effective services
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
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Priority Areas: A problem, concern, challenge, or issue that the organization must address in
order to achieve its Strategic Direction.
Strategies and Actions: Strategies are the means by which the Priority is resolved, while Actions
are specific activities or tactics (achievable in approximately 12- to 18-months)
Key Performance Indicator (KPI): The means by which to measure, track, and report on
performance
Figure 1 illustrates the overall structure of the Plan and summarizes the relationship of the key elements
identified to realize the Strategic Direction and implement the Plan. While the Mission and Strategic
Direction are longer term, more enduring elements of the Plan, the Plan gets more detailed and tactical
with the Strategies and Actions. These detailed elements are focused on the near-term (e.g., one to
three years). As there are elements of the Plan that focus on the near-term, it is best practice to
periodically (e.g., every three years) refresh or update any strategic plan based on progress of the Plan
to date or significant changes in the organization or market.
Figure 1: Strategic Plan Structure and Elements
Strategic Planning Process
The planning process and development of the 2018 Strategic Plan were designed to engage staff and
stakeholders to ensure alignment with the Community and within the organization. Engaging internal
and external stakeholders throughout the development of the Plan also supports a successful
implementation.
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
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Stakeholder Engagement
Extensive internal and external stakeholder engagement was included in the Plan development to
ensure community and stakeholder insights were properly integrated. CPAU’s executive leadership
team invited a cross-section of employees to participate as members of the Core Planning Team (CPT) to
support the development of this Plan. The CPT was critical to the development of the Plan and will be a
key driver to the short- and long-term implementation. The CPT’s role included:
Driving the development of the updated Plan (e.g., Priorities, Strategies, Actions) through
participation in five facilitated planning meetings, completing ‘homework’ assignments, and
continued involvement to support Plan implementation.
Providing periodic communication within their broader work groups to explain the planning
process, communicate/discuss the draft elements of the Plan, and solicit feedback throughout
the process.
In addition to the internal CPAU CPT being
responsible for driving the development of the Plan,
the stakeholder engagement process included
additional employee feedback, a community
workshop, and three external stakeholder groups:
the Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC), a Utility
Stakeholder Panel, and City Management
stakeholders. CPAU’s executive leadership included
extensive organizational and employee engagement
as an early requirement of the Plan development. In
addition to the CPT, the internal or employee
engagement included:
10 group meetings to ensure employee
feedback from all levels and divisions within
CPAU.
Two “all-hands” meetings for the entire
organization communicating Plan progress and
soliciting feedback / introducing the Strategic
Direction and more tactical Plan elements.
Two large employee workshops to solicit
feedback on the Priorities, Strategies, and
Actions included in the Plan.
Including external stakeholders in the development of the Plan provided an opportunity to gain
important community feedback on CPAU’s overarching strategic direction while supporting targeted
insights in developing the Plan elements. Providing a mechanism for community engagement and
feedback throughout the planning process also helps to ensure future endorsement of the Plan.
Market Trends
As mentioned previously, one of the key drivers to developing the new Strategic Plan was recognizing
that several organizational and market trends have continued their rapid pace of change and in many
cases significantly accelerated or changed since the last update. The energy industry currently faces
many challenges and opportunities, as well as increasing uncertainty related to regulatory, resource
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
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availability, security, technology, sustainability, and clean energy issues. As these trends converge, they
drive significant change in the services offered to customers and operations. This convergence also
amplifies the impacts and creates the potential for a fundamental shift in the market and eventually,
customer needs. To support the development of the Strategic Direction, Priorities, and eventual
Strategies and Actions, the planning process included discussion with stakeholders of the key trends or
issues influencing CPAU’s operations, market, and customers. Highlights of the stakeholder feedback on
trends and issues included:
Aging infrastructure / renewal and replacements
Climate change, adaptation, sustainability, and resiliency
Workforce (large portion of CPAU workforce retiring in next 10 years, how to attract new staff) or
millennials)
Customer demands (retail customer pressure, connectivity, flexibility, unlimited options, overall
load is declining)
Community or customer collaboration opportunities (attracting new staff, technology
evaluation/adoption, energy resources)
Balancing goals, sustainability aspirations with competitive rates and affordability
Technology (CPAU operations, cyber security, big data management, Advanced Metering
Infrastructure (AMI), mobile apps/access)
California regulatory trends (CARB/Cap and Trade markets, new renewable energy requirements,
hydropower availability, efficient building codes)
Reducing regulatory barriers, more efficient regulatory process
Increased opportunities to collaborate with other City departments and external stakeholders
Distributed energy resources (DERs) (e.g. customer or commercial energy resources)
Electric vehicle opportunities or incentives
Natural gas utility and potential for electrification; stranded assets for CPAU
Water resource availability, recycling, drought, and conservation
Communicate CPAU’s value and areas of leadership to stakeholders
The market trends and issues insights from stakeholders were directly integrated into the CPT
workshops and the subsequent Priorities, Strategies, and Actions. CPAU’s Strategic Direction and Plan
will help the Utility navigate these trends while remaining effective, valuable, and cost-effective to
customers.
CPAU’s 2018 Strategic Plan
Throughout these changing times and evolving markets, CPAU’s Mission remains the same, forming the
foundation for the utility’s enduring direction. The purpose of a mission statement is to focus and direct
the organization as well as to communicate a shared understanding of the organization's intended
purpose. The 2018 Strategic Plan aligns with and further advances CPAU’s Mission.
The 2018 Strategic Plan provides an update to the efforts and initiatives outlined in the 2011 plan, taking
into consideration recent market trends, emerging priorities, and additional input from our
stakeholders. The Plan should act as the guide and context for utility resource, workforce, technology,
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
5
customer expectation, and market related decision making. The 2018 Strategic Plan provides a “line of
sight” from the organization’s broader strategy to more day-to-day activities by staff, thus aligning the
Utilities organization with the Plan. The Strategic Direction, defining a “stake in the ground” for the next
5-10 years is the first step in providing this “line of sight” from the Mission to day-to-day activities. As
the planning process was designed to engage staff and stakeholders in its development, the following
Strategic Direction was vetted with multiple internal and external stakeholder groups.
Through the planning process CPAU also embraced its position as a department of the City of Palo Alto
by integrating the City’s values, while incorporating several attributes tailored to some of the unique
aspects of the Utilities operations and market. These values and CPAU attributes were also tested
throughout the organization and at an all-hands employee workshop. There was support for adopting
the City values and CPAU attributes along with a desire to promote a culture at the Utility that reinforces
them. Due to the level of interest and importance of the values, the Plan includes a near term Action
item to begin developing tools promoting these values by mid-2018.
City Values Adopted for 2018 Plan:
Quality | Courtesy | Efficiency | Integrity | Innovation
Tailored CPAU attributes support culture of:
Respect | Teamwork | Accountability | Reliability | Safety
The next step in the process identified the critical or core challenges that CPAU must address to realize
the Strategic Direction. These critical issues are defined as Priorities in the Plan and include:
Workforce: We must create a vibrant and competitive environment that attracts, retains, and
invests in a skilled and engaged workforce.
CPAU along with other utilities providers throughout the state and country struggle with
attracting and retaining a skilled workforce. For Palo Alto, this issue is amplified as the cost of
living and/or relocating to the Bay Area is among the highest in the nation. The Workforce focus
area reflects the need to do improve retention and recruitment efforts to ensure long-term CPAU
has the staff and/or workforce solutions to meet its core service obligations and customers’
expectations. The strategies and actions identified are intended to focus in the areas of
retention, recruitment, training and work-life balance needs.
Collaboration: We must collaborate with internal teams and external stakeholders to achieve
our shared objectives of enhanced communication, coordination, education, and delivery of
services.
Delivering high quality services to customers is a shared objective across all CPAU services. To do
so in an efficient and consistent manner requires an understanding of customer and stakeholder
issues along with the ability to effectively communicate and coordinate efforts with customers
and throughout the City. The strategies and actions identify projects and/or initiatives requiring a
STRATEGIC DIRECTION
At CPAU, our people empower tomorrow's ambitions while caring for today's
needs! We make this possible with our outstanding professional workforce,
leading through collaboration and optimizing resources to ensure a sustainable
and resilient Palo Alto.
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
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high level of collaboration to effectively implement as well as promoting a systematic framework
in which to ensure collaboration within CPAU and throughout the City.
Technology: We must invest in and utilize technology to enhance the customer experience and
maximize operational efficiency.
The increasing convergence of technology, utility services, and customer expectations is driving
significant change in the utility markets. CPAU must embrace technology to further enhance
internal operations and improve efficiency in this changing market. Customer adoption of new
technology applications is also dramatically changing utility – customer interactions and demand
for services. The Technology Priority includes implementing the Technology Roadmap to
effectively guide CPAU’s customer and operational technology investments and programs.
Additional Technology strategies include AMI deployment, enhancing customer interaction,
improving field operations, and training employees to ensure effective use of existing and new
tools.
Financial Efficiency and Resource Optimization: We must manage our finances optimally and
use resources efficiently to meet our customers’ service priorities.
Facing an evolving utility business environment, aging infrastructure needs, and sustainability
objectives CPAU must maintain a competitive position in the market. Remaining financially
sustainable and competitive in the market while optimizing our resources is key to maintaining
and enhancing our value to customers. Strategies in this Priority focus on proactively replacing
and managing CPAU’s infrastructure, continuously improving financial processes, enhancing
infrastructure maintenance programs, defining CPAU’s role in community resiliency, and
achieving sustainable energy resource and water supply plans.
To complete the Strategic Plan, more tactical Strategies and Actions were identified and developed to
complete the Tactical Action Plan. Strategies were developed within each Priority to resolve the issue or
challenge identified, while Actions include specific activities and tactics to implement the Strategy.
Reporting and Tracking Plan Progress
Successful strategic plans include the ability to track the Plan’s progress and report on performance
within the organization and to stakeholders. As an organization tracks performance, it can adjust
resources or the Plan, to better respond or act on Priority areas that may lag desired performance levels,
or learn from others that are exceeding expectations. KPIs are the primary tool in concisely
communicating and reporting on performance to stakeholders.
KPIs are a metric or measurable value that demonstrates how effectively the organization is achieving its
Priorities and Strategic Direction. The 2018 Strategic Plan includes 12 KPIs for periodic (e.g., quarterly)
reporting to governing bodies and stakeholders on the Plan performance. These KPIs may also be
applied and tailored throughout the organization to align CPAU divisions, work groups, and individual
contributors with the Strategic Plan. As some of the KPIs identified are dependent on new strategic
initiatives by Utilities, or include a near term completion date, they may require refinement or updating
as completed or the strategic initiatives are scheduled/completed (e.g. technology or system
implementations). The KPIs are included with each of the priorities below.
Priority 1: Workforce
Reduce employee turnover rates less than 10% by 2020 (calculated as a three-year rolling
average)
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
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90% of all CPAU positions filled/staffed on annual basis; while 100% of critically identified
positions are filled within 90 days
100% of employees have implemented an individual development plan with updates every two
years
Priority 2: Collaboration
Maintain 85% or higher “excellent” or “good” performance ratings in annual customer
satisfaction survey
Maintain 50% or higher level of customer awareness for CPAU’s key programs, incentives, and /or
initiatives
Maintain 60% or higher level of agreement regarding employees who feel they contributed
and/or were involved with CPAU projects or decisions that directly affect their roles or work
Priority 3: Technology
Increase the number of My Utilities Account (MUA) registered users by 10% per year and
utilization by 5% per year (e.g., paying bill, reviewing consumption, etc.)
Provide 50% of field support staff with paperless workorder and maintenance documentation
tools by December 2018 and 90% by December 2019
100% of staff affected by new or upgraded technology receive / attend applicable training
Priority 4: Financial Efficiency and Resource Optimization
Identify/catalog 90% of critical assets or components in asset management system by 2022
Complete 80% of critical component planned replacement annually; and 90% critical component
planned maintenance annually
Maintain average (e.g. median) or below residential and commercial utility bills as compared to
surrounding utilities and communities
Tactical Action Plan
The comprehensive Tactical Action Plan including all Strategies and Actions by Priority is included below.
Please note, those Actions that are expected or scheduled for completion in 2018 are noted with bold,
italicized text.
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
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Priority 1: Workforce
We must create a vibrant and competitive environment that attracts, retains, and invests in a skilled and engaged
workforce.
Strategy 1. Establish CPAU as an organization where employees are proud to work and recruit other strong performers.
Action 1. Support pilot rollout of annual professional/journeyman individual development plans (IDP) and
rollup to department training priorities, to develop internal talent. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Review and expand training/education and certificate programs that emphasize mastery of trade,
profession, or management position and promote development and longevity in areas of expected need. Complete by June 2018.
Action 3. Update Divisional Succession Plans to prepare staff for promotional opportunities and to retain
institutional knowledge within the organization (update existing 5-year succession plan). Complete by
December 2019.
Action 4. Promote a culture that reinforces City and Department values. Complete by June 2018.
Strategy 2. Create a workplace that attracts and retains skilled employees.
Action 1. Prioritize resolution of collective bargaining issues and finalize an agreement that ensures CPAU
will attract and retain high caliber skilled employees that will advance the Department’s Mission.
Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Reduce processing time to hire new staff to ensure potential candidates are offered positions in a
reasonable time frame. Complete by December 2018.
Action 3. Support CPAU staff communication outreach in recruitment strategy for hiring utilities
employees. Complete by December 2018.
Strategy 3. Evaluate and consider alternative workforce solutions to achieve organizational business objectives.
Action 1. Create opportunities to empower and support individual employees and work groups to offer a
work-life balance through alternative work schedules or other options. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Determine the potential for projects and/or functions to be effectively outsourced while continuing to meet
organizational needs and objectives. Complete by December 2019.
Action 3. Consider developing a hybrid workforce of full time employees and non-benefitted staff. Complete by
December 2020.
Action 4. Create an internal labor pool from within the City to fill temporary business needs. Complete by
June 2019.
Workforce KPIs:
Reduce employee turnover rates to less than 10% by 2020 (calculated as a three-year rolling average).
90% of all CPAU positions filled/staffed on annual basis; while 100% of critically identified positions are
filled within 90 days.
100% of employees have implemented an individual development plan with updates every two years.
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
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Priority 2: Collaboration
We must collaborate with internal teams and external stakeholders to achieve our shared objectives of enhanced
communication, coordination, education and delivery of services.
Strategy 1. Increasing communication through active listening and engagement with the community enhances customer
satisfaction and community trust and will help us deliver programs and content based on community desires.
Action 1. Establish a routine practice of involving stakeholders on strategic projects and initiatives to
support customer satisfaction, customer choice, and program outcomes. Ongoing.
Action 2. Proactively communicate about capital improvement projects to mitigate the impacts of construction, while maximizing public support and the allocated financial resources. Ongoing.
Action 3. Identify and develop proactive strategies and customer education that allows CPAU to support
customer needs for Distributed Energy Resources (DER), including storage, solar, EVs, energy efficiency.
Ongoing with DER plan timeline; phase 1 to be complete by December 2018.
Action 4. Partner with community stakeholders to facilitate large scale residential building electrification (beyond
rebate scale). No timeline; beginning conversations and research now.
Action 5. Enhance customer service through deployment of technology such as upgraded online bill
payment, account access system and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). Ongoing with Utilities
technology roadmap.
Action 6. Build customer support for programs and understanding of how we provide cost-effective
services. Ongoing.
Action 7. Create interdepartmental work groups to identify and resolve ongoing workflow and priorities
involving permitting, procurement and legal. Ongoing.
Strategy 2. Strengthening coordination and integration across City departments aligns Utilities and City goals while improving
performance and efficiency
Action 1. Enhance current coordination of scheduling, synchronization and communication of capital
improvement, maintenance, operations projects and other Utilities programs and services with other departments to improve implementation and efficiency. Ongoing.
Action 2. Explore opportunities to improve City processes, policies and information sharing that allows the
community to easily understand and implement DER opportunities such as EVs, solar, storage, energy
efficiency, and building electrification. Ongoing with DER timeline; phase 1 to be complete by
December 2018.
Action 3. Share information and opportunities across departments to expand outreach about CPAU
employment. Ongoing.
Action 4. Promote regular interdepartmental information sharing throughout the City to assist employees
understand City (and common) goals. Ongoing.
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
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Priority 2: Collaboration
We must collaborate with internal teams and external stakeholders to achieve our shared objectives of enhanced
communication, coordination, education and delivery of services.
Strategy 3. Fostering a culture of cooperative work within Utilities improves productivity and awareness, and understanding of
our common goals.
Action 1. Support the implementation of the Utilities’ technology roadmap with comprehensive communication of:
technological advancements and the department's short-term and long-term goals; how these advancements reflect
customer and operational needs; how projects are prioritized; and how decisions are made. Ongoing with timeline
of Utilities technology roadmap; full implementation scheduled for completion by December 2022.
Action 2. Strengthen existing tools for intradepartmental communication to ensure transparency and
informed staff that understand the Strategic Plan and other key CPAU issues and how they directly relate to
the work of our employees. Ongoing; some tasks by April 2018 with completion of the Strategic Plan.
Action 3. Collaborate with staff involved in deployment of AMI and develop a comprehensive outreach plan
to communicate AMI and supporting technologies, impact to staffing resources, staff responsibilities, and how the customer engagement platform operates. Ongoing with timeline of Utilities technology roadmap;
AMI full deployment scheduled to be complete by October 2018.
Action 4. Support upgrade of MUA by communicating the customer and utility operational benefits and
functionalities. Ongoing with timeline of MUA; phase 1 complete by July 2018.
Action 5. Establish intradepartmental team to evaluate and determine best practices for an outage management
system (OMS), including communication across divisions to reduce restoration time and provide customers with
more real-time outage information. Integrate with Technology S3, A4. Complete by June 2019.
Action 6. Support the workforce priorities by aligning organizational values and reiterating employee roles
within the framework of the Utilities Strategic Plan. Ongoing.
Strategy 4. Collaborating with government, trade, and regional agencies enhances our sphere of influence, allows us to
identify common ground, and leverage economies of scale.
Action 1. Continue to work with Industry/trade/regional groups (NCPA, League of Cities, CMUA, BAWSCA,
E Source etc.) to collaborate on shared objectives. Ongoing.
Action 2. Coordinate on regional utility programs to streamline processes, achieve mutual objectives, and realize
greater impacts. Ongoing; some tasks can be completed by December 2019.
Action 3. Communicate our public awareness efforts and resources with government agencies (DOE, EPA, CEC, etc.) to improve public and stakeholder awareness of utility issues, programs, and shared goals.
Ongoing.
Action 4. Collaborate with educational institutions and companies to attract local candidates for CPAU positions.
Ongoing; some tasks can be completed by December 2019.
Collaboration KPIs:
Maintain 85% or higher “excellent” or “good” performance ratings in annual customer satisfaction survey.
Maintain 50% or higher level of customer awareness for customers affected by CPAU’s key programs,
incentives, and /or initiatives.
Maintain 60% or higher level of agreement regarding employees who feel they contributed and/or were
involved with CPAU projects or decisions that directly affect their roles or work.
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
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Priority 3: Technology
We must invest in and utilize technology to enhance the customer experience and maximize operational
efficiency.
Strategy 1. Finalize and implement technology road map to clearly identify CPAU’s short-term and long-term goals, reflect
customer and operational needs, prioritize projects and guide decisions.
Action 1. Identify, align and prioritize customer-focused and operational technologies to improve customer
satisfaction and operational efficiency. Ongoing.
Action 2. Implement Technology Road Map including project prioritization, 10-year timeline, and co-dependencies.
2018 through 2022.
Strategy 2. Deploy advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) to increase reliability, enhance customer service, and improve
response time.
Action 1. Finalize Business Case including cost and benefit analysis, scenarios, and staffing impacts.
Complete by June 2018.
Action 2. Develop AMI/MDM System Requirements to identify functional and system requirements. Complete by
June 2019.
Action 3. Evaluate Multi-Agency AMI/MDM with NCPA to pool resources, share ideas and increase purchasing
power. Complete by June 2019.
Action 4. Proof of Concept Phase to deploy 2,000-5,000 meters, install all network infrastructure, establish system
integrations, , develop future state business processes, provide testing and training, and pilot customer
engagement. Complete by September 2021.
Action 5. Citywide AMI/MDM Deployment of 73,000 electric, gas and water meters. Complete by September 2022.
Strategy 3. Invest in technology infrastructure to enhance customer engagement and satisfaction.
Action 1. Upgrade Utilities customer portal: My Utilities Account (MUA 2.0) to provide customers additional
24/7 self-services and customer information to better manage their consumption and choices. Complete by
September 2018.
Action 2. Leverage City’s mobile app (Palo Alto 311) to provide residents, businesses and visitors more access to
City services and information. Complete by December 2019.
Action 3. Implement a Street Work Notification customer portal for long-term construction projects that may result in
traffic, parking or other impacts to neighborhoods. Complete by December 2019.
Action 4. Evaluate and upgrade Outage Management System (OMS) to reduce restoration time and provide
customers near real-time outage information. Complete by June 2019.
Strategy 4. Implement technologies to improve response time, security and operational efficiency.
Action 1. Deploy Mobile/Field Technologies (devices and software) to reduce operational costs and
improve service delivery. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Upgrade Customer Information/Billing System (CIS) to improve responsiveness and ensure customer
data is accurate and secure. Complete by September 2020.
Action 3. Maintain Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to ensure a safe, reliable,
and efficient distribution system. Ongoing.
Action 4. Integrate with new GIS System (ESRI) to ensure accurate infrastructure information for customer service
and infrastructure improvements. Complete by June 2019.
Action 5. Ensure that CPAU systems keep pace with customer adoption of new technologies to enhance
the customer experience and choice. Ongoing.
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
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Priority 3: Technology
We must invest in and utilize technology to enhance the customer experience and maximize operational
efficiency.
Strategy 5. Ensure and empower employees with current Technologies to perform work efficiently.
Action 1. Streamline business processes to facilitate adoption of new technological solutions that improve
performance in targeted priority functions. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Implement continuous education and evaluation of new technology applications and related
utility trends to ensure CPAU maintains an effective, competitive, and optimal use of technology applications. Ongoing.
Action 3. Train employees to adopt and maximize utilization of new technologies. Ongoing.
Priority 3: Technology KPIs:
Increase the number of My Utilities Account (MUA) registered users by 10% per year and utilization by 5%
per year (e.g., paying bill, reviewing consumption, etc.).
Provide 50% of field support staff with paperless workorder and maintenance documentation tools by
December 2018 and 90% by December 2019.
100% of staff affected by new or upgraded technology receive / attend applicable training.
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
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Priority 4: Financial Efficiency and Resource Optimization
We must manage our finances optimally and use resources efficiently to meet our customers’ service priorities.
Strategy 1. Establish a proactive infrastructure replacement program, based on planned replacement before failure to support
reliability and resiliency.
Action 1. Initiate a program to update data in the utility asset management system to establish
infrastructure replacement programs and support maintenance plans. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Develop, prioritize, and propose planned infrastructure replacement programs based on currently
available key asset information for implementation in Fiscal Year (FY)Y 2020 and begin reporting of planned
infrastructure replacement status. Complete by September 2018.
Action 3. Establish a system of regular reporting on planned replacement progress, including management
reports appropriate to every level of the organization. First report by September 2018.
Action 4. Develop a plan to fill data gaps and ensure data accuracy identified in A1 and implement collection
process. Complete by September 2019.
Action 5. Use updated data in comprehensive asset management system and database to improve planned
replacement programs and status reporting. Start implementation in July 2020.
Strategy 2. Develop financial planning processes that provide stability and clear communication of service priorities and the
cost of achieving those priorities.
Action 1. For FY 2019 budget process, collaborate between Rates, Admin, and Water-Gas-Wastewater
Engineering to pilot an infrastructure budget development process for one utility (Water, Gas, or
Wastewater Collection) that coordinates Capital Improvement Project (CIP) budget development with
planning for funding sources and reserves management. Complete by March 2018.
Action 2. Starting with the FY 2020 budget process, implement an integrated and replicable CIP budgeting
process with Admin, Rates, and Water-Gas-Wastewater Engineering to develop a CIP reserve and an annual
CIP contribution amount for one utility. Complete by September 2018.
Action 3. For FY 2021 budget process, expand and apply the integrated CIP budgeting process to at least one
other utility (Electric, Water, Gas, or Wastewater Collection) with remaining funds in FY 2022. Complete by
September 2019.
Action 4. In 2019, update benchmark study for one utility. Begin a process of regular benchmarking of one utility
per year going forward. Complete by December 2019.
Strategy 3. Enhance planned maintenance programs for all utilities through clearly defined maintenance plans, improved
management reporting, and developing innovative ways to ensure efficient completion of all maintenance.
Action 1. Develop an inventory of existing maintenance programs and a reporting framework to monitor progress. Identify areas where planned maintenance is not being completed and areas where more data is
needed to design maintenance plans. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Identify and evaluate asset data requirements and accuracy to develop and monitor proactive
maintenance programs and identify any data gaps. Complete by December 2018.
Action 3. Identify staffing, software, and other resources required to implement and monitor maintenance programs, identify gaps in existing resources, identify alternative ways to implement the programs and the
costs and benefits of different approaches. Complete by September 2018.
Action 4. Establish a system of regular reporting on maintenance progress, including management reports
appropriate to every level of the organization. Provide first report by September 2018.
Action 5. As additional asset data becomes available from data collection efforts identified in S1 A1 and S1 A4,
update and improve applicable maintenance plans. Implementation to be determined.
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
14
Priority 4: Financial Efficiency and Resource Optimization
We must manage our finances optimally and use resources efficiently to meet our customers’ service priorities.
Strategy 4. Achieve a sustainable and resilient energy and water supply to meet community needs.
Action 1. Work with other City Departments to establish an implementation plan through FY 2020 to
achieve the City’s carbon reduction and water management goals while assessing utility operational risks
and mitigations associated with electrification. Complete by June 2018.
Action 2. Establish and implement a Distributed Energy Resources plan to ensure local generation
(e.g. solar), storage, electric vehicles (EVs), and controllable loads (like heat pump water heaters) are
integrated into the distribution system in a way that benefits both the customer and the broader
community. Complete by December 2018.
Action 3. Evaluate recycled water, groundwater, and other non-potable water sources and integrate the results and
outcomes with water supply plans. Complete by December 2018.
Action 4. Incorporate a review of the changing competitive landscape (such as low-cost local solar and storage, the
rise of Community Choice Aggregators, and the potential for competition and Direct Access) into routine electric
supply planning processes. Complete by December 2020.
Action 5. Adopt and implement for the Electric utility an integrated resource plan for 2018 through 2030.
Complete by December 2018.
Strategy 5. Engage stakeholders and define CPAU’s role in supporting and facilitating community resiliency.
Action 1. Engage in community outreach to identify what aspects of resiliency are important to the
community for each utility to support development of a resiliency work plan. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Define minimum emergency service commitments and targeted full system recovery times in case of a
major disaster(s) and communicate general guidance on recovery times to the public. Implementation to be
determined and dependent on A1.
Action 3. Develop an outreach and education program to facilitate individual customer resiliency efforts.
Implementation dependent on A1.
Action 4. Identify high priority issues that could interfere with emergency service commitments and recovery times
and develop a plan to improve resiliency in these areas. Implementation dependent on A1.
Action 5. Complete evaluation of redundant/backup transmission service to CPAU and communicate to
stakeholders. Complete by December 2018.
Priority 4: Financial Efficiency and Resource Optimization KPIs:
Identify/catalog 90% of critical assets or components in asset management system by 2022
Complete 80% of critical component planned replacement annually; and 90% critical component planned
maintenance annually
Maintain average (e.g. median) or below residential and commercial utility bills as compared to
surrounding utilities and communities.
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
15
List of Acronyms
AMI Advanced Metering Infrastructure
BAWSCA Bay Area Water Supply & Conservation Agency
CARB California Air Resources Board
CEC California Energy Commission
CIS Customer Information System
CMUA California Municipal Utilities Association
CPAU City of Palo Alto Utilities
CPT Core Planning Team
DER Distributed Energy Resource
DOE Department of Energy
EV Electric Vehicle
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
FY Fiscal Year
GIS Geographical Information System
IDP Individual Development Plan
MDM Meter Data Management
MUA My Utility Account
OMS Outage Management System
NCPA Northern California Power Agency
SCADA Supervisory Control & Data Acquistion
UAC Utilities Advisory Commission
CITY OF PALO ALTO UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY
16
Appendix A
Stakeholder Groups
Core Planning Team
Leadership Team
Tom Auzenne, Customer Service Richard Simms, Operations
Monica Padilla – Resource
Management/ Strategic Plan Project
Manager
Debbie Lloyd, Engineering Rick Baptist, Operations
Ed Shikada, General Manager Jimmy Pachikara, Engineering Rui Silva, Operations
Dean Batchelor, Chief Operating
Officer
Lynn Krug, Engineering Ryan Johnson, Operations
Catherine Elvert, Communications Silvia Santos, Engineering Scott Williams, Operations
Dave Yuan, Administration Heather Dauler, Legislative
Regulatory
Bruce Lesch, Resource Management
Sushma Tappetla, Administration Althea Carter, Operations Jonathan Abendschein, Resource
Management
Joshua Wallace, Resource
Management
Mike Haynes, Operations Lisa Benatar, Resource Management
Crystal Jensen, Customer Service Anna Vuong, Administration Sonika Choudhary, Resource Mgmt
Utility Advisory Commission
Michael Danaher, Chair Judith Schwartz
Arne Ballantine, Vice Chair Lauren Segal
Lisa Forsell Terry Trumbull
A.C. Johnston
Utility Stakeholder Panel
Name Affiliation
Annette Glanckopf Palo Alto Neighborhood (PAN)
Sheri Furman Palo Alto Neighborhood (PAN)
Sandra Slater Cool Block & Palo Alto Forward
Lisa Altieri Carbon Free Palo Alto
Debbie Mytels Silicon Valley Climate Action Alliance & Acterra
Peter Drekmeier Tuolumne River Trust & Bay Area Action
Julianne Frizzell Landscape Architect
Andy Robin Active Citizen - UPS programs
David Coale Carbon Free Palo Alto, Acterra, Sun Works, SV Bike Coalition
2018 UTILITIES STRATEGIC PLAN
17
Name Affiliation
Tess Byler San Francisquito Creek
Judy Kleinberg Palo Alto Chamber
Russ Cohen Business Improvement District & Downtown PA
Roxy Rapp Developer & Property Manager
Sven Thesen Climate One & EV advocate
Jon Foster former UAC member
John Melton former UAC member
Citywide Management
James Keene – City
Manager’s Office
Lalo Perez – Administrative
Services
Kenneth Deuker– Emergency
Services
Rumi Portillo – Human
Resources
Jonathan Reichental–
Information Technology
Peter Pirnejad– Development
Services
Gil Friend - Sustainability Mike Sartor – Public Works
ATTACHMENT D
EXCERPTED DRAFT MINUTES OF THE JANUARY 18, 2018 SPECIAL MEETING
UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMISSION
ITEM 2. ACTION: 2018 Utilities Strategic Plan
Ed Shikada, Utilities General Manager, presented an overview of the 2018 Utilities Strategic Plan (Plan)
and revisions made in response to Commissioners' comments during the December meeting.
Development of the Strategic Plan involved a series of internal and public workshops. The Plan focuses
on priority areas that result in specific actions. The Mission Statement focuses on the workforce and
staff's work in delivering services to the community. Priority areas are workforce, collaboration,
technology, and finances and resources, and each contains specific strategies and actions. Key
performance indicators (KPI) are placeholders in that they will be refined over time. Shikada reviewed
KPIs for each priority area. In order to meet the KPI for workforce, staff will need to be more aggressive
in filling positions. Individual development plans will be used to determine department priorities. Staff
teams are organizing and will develop an implementation plan for the Strategic Plan. Subject to the
Commission's discussion, the Plan may be presented to the City Council for approval on March 5, 2018.
In reply to a Commissioner's question, Dean Batchelor, Chief Operating Officer, advised that the
department's vacancy rate has averaged 8% over the past five years, 3% from retirement and 5% from
voluntary separation. The rate for retirement will likely increase over the next few years.
Commissioner Schwartz requested automated metering infrastructure be revised to advanced metering
infrastructure (AMI). The workforce priority area needs to include cohousing and creative solutions for
it and recruiting from local community colleges and universities. The collaboration priority area should
refer to "listen" or "a listening organization." Requested that staff consider moving up the date for
implementation of Strategy 3, Action 1 related to AMI deployment from 2022, and, Strategy 3, Action 5
– Outage Management System, currently scheduled for 2019, should be implemented much sooner.
Under the Technology priority area, scheduling for Strategy 3, Action 4 seems slow, but AMI is needed
to provide real-time information. Because the City proposes implementation of AMI in 2022, the two
dates should align. With respect to Technology, Strategy 4, Action 5, CPAU is not keeping pace with
customer adoption of new technologies. Conceptually, the action should be to catch-up with customers.
Commissioner Schwartz was pleased to find Strategy 5, Action 2 in the Plan related to empowering
employees with technology. The Strategic Plan should consider third-party products that will assist staff
in implementing the Plan.
Commissioner Schwartz's requested clarification on Collaboration Strategy 4, Action 3, related to
working with other agencies. Catherine Elvert, Utilities Communications Manager, explained that staff,
in collaborating with other agencies, can share best practices and resources.
Monica Padilla, Senior Resource Planner, reported that staging development of a new customer
information system (CIS), integration of the Enterprise Resource Planning System, and AMI resulted in
the target date for Strategy 3, Action 4. Commissioner Schwartz recommended staff develop CIS in
concert with AMI for a successful project. Dave Yuan, Utilities Strategic Business Manager, clarified that
staff is developing CIS specifications that include AMI requirements. Once staff obtains approval of the
business case, they plan to develop specifications for AMI technology.
Commissioner Johnston suggested KPIs remain under the priorities. Acronyms should be spelled out the
first time they are used. A list of target dates in chronological order in the Plan would be helpful.
Commissioner Forssell proposed deleting the third bullet on page 4 of the Plan as it may be construed as
age discrimination. She concurred with Commissioner Schwartz to include "listening" within the
collaboration priority area. Commissioner Forssell was pleased to find financial efficiency Strategy 5 and
Strategy 4, Action 3 in the Plan. She commented that she found the City’s strategic plan consultant,
Tony Georges', appearance before the UAC to be uninspiring and his slide deck to be too simplistic for
the UAC and too confusing for community outreach.
In reply to Councilmember Filseth's inquiry of whether the intent of the third bullet on page 4 was to
attract recent college graduates, Commissioner Forssell advised that another provision of the Plan
covers recruiting from local colleges.
Commissioner Segal remarked that the CPAU values refer to accountability but not financial
responsibility or an economic aspect of accountability. According to the memo, the Strategic
Destination Statement should indicate where CPAU wants to be in five years; however, the Plan does
not provide a direction for five years from now.
Vice Chair Ballantine was pleased to see collaboration Strategy 2, Action 2 in the Plan and interpreted
that action to mean resiliency.
Commissioner Schwartz commented that KPIs for financial efficiency and resource optimization may not
be attainable because of cost of service issues and may result in tradeoffs. Understanding tradeoffs is
an important part of conscious management of assets and resources. This issue needs a substantive
discussion. Shikada clarified that KPIs are intended to track progress and to enable staff to make
decisions more explicitly and consciously. Performance bonuses will not be tied to meeting KPIs.
Commissioner Schwartz suggested including a statement as to how KPIs will be used.
ACTION: No action
Page 1 of 2
2
MEMORANDUM
TO: UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMISSION
FROM: UTILITIES DEPARTMENT
DATE: FEBRUARY 7, 2018
SUBJECT: Preliminary Financial Plans for the City of Palo Alto’s Electric, Water, Gas and
Wastewater Collection Utilities
________________________________________________________________________
REQUEST
Staff request that the Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC) receive an informational
presentation on preliminary financial forecasts and plans (“Financial Plans”) for the City of Palo
Alto’s Electric, Water, Gas and Wastewater Collection Utilities.
SUMMARY
Every year staff presents the UAC with Financial Plans for its Electric, Gas, Water, and
Wastewater Collection Utilities and recommends any rate adjustments required to maintain
their financial health. These Financial Plans include a comprehensive overview of the utility’s
operations, both retrospective and prospective, and are intended to be a reference for UAC and
Council members as they review the budget and staff’s rate recommendations. Each Financial
Plan also contains a set of Reserves Management Practices describing the reserves for each
utility and the management practices for those reserves.
Development and implementation of Financial Plans is a multi-step process requiring
collaboration with other City departments, UAC, the Finance Committee and City Council. The
process starts with staff’s initial assessment of key cost drivers, including capital improvement
needs, revenue requirements and projected rate changes. Staff will provide UAC with a
presentation of preliminary Financial Plans for consideration and initial feedback. The
presentation is not attached, as cost drivers and revenue requirements are being refined. Input
from the UAC at this stage is essential to the development of the Fina ncial Plans.
NEXT STEPS
Staff will incorporate UAC’s input, update revenue requirement projections and finalize the
Financial Plans for UAC consideration at its March and April 2018 meetings. The Financial Plans
and corresponding rate changes will go to the Finance Committee in April and May 2018, and
then to City Council with the Fiscal Year 2019 operating budget for adoption.
RESOURCE IMPACT
UAC’s review of the preliminary Financial Plans does not have an impact on resources.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
UAC’s review of the preliminary Financial Plans in consistent with current policies.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
UAC's review of the preliminary Financial Plans does not meet the definition of a project
requiring California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review, under Public Resources Code
Section 21065.
PREPARED BY:
7
ERIK KENISTON, Senior Resource Planner r i:/ /-
REVIEWED BY: MONICA V. PADILLA, Senior Resource Planner~
APPROVED BY: c?~
EDSHIKADA
General Manager of Utilities
Page 2 of 2
3
MEMORANDUM
TO: UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMISSION
FROM: UTILITIES DEPARTMENT
DATE: FEBRUARY 7, 2018
SUBJECT: CPAU’s Role in Community Resiliency – Defining Framework and Principles
______________________________________________________________________________
RECOMMENDATION
This report is provided for discussion by the Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC). Feedback is
requested on staff’s plan to conduct two workshops with the UAC to establish a framework and
key working principles that will guide ongoing efforts on CPAU’s role in community resiliency.
The UAC may consider forming a subcommittee to work with staff to develop content and
structure for the workshops.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The purpose of this report is to lay out next steps for development of City of Palo Alto Utilities
(CPAU) resiliency efforts. CPAU is proposing to work with Bluepoint Planning, LLC., one of the
City’s strategic planning consultants under Contract No. S17168751, to facilitate a UAC
discussion of community interests in this arena. This will start with pre-workshop planning,
which could involve one or two UAC commissioners to ensure our approach is in line with
community interests. The anticipated deliverables from this effort are a framework of priorities
and guidelines CPAU will use to develop initiatives that reflect community interests as well as
direction on communication tools for residents that facilitate their role in reinforcing a more
resilient Palo Alto. Before CPAU finalizes the project scope we are seeking your feedback on
this approach.
DISCUSSION
Over the past year, CPAU has been actively engaged with internal and external stakeholders in
updating the Utility’s strategic planning document with a focus on CPAU’s strategic destination
and specific actions and/or initiatives to be carried out by staff over the next three to five years.
During the public outreach sessions, the topic of resiliency was a consistent theme, from service
recovery expectations, to the resiliency of the utility business model against disruptive market
forces, to the community’s ability to adapt to the impacts of climate change. With that
feedback the CPAU team working on the “Financial Efficiency and Resource Optimization”
priority developed a “community resiliency” strategy and list of action items. The workshops
with the UAC would set staff on the path to complete Action 1:
Strategy 5. Engage stakeholders and define CPAU’s role in supporting and facilitating
community resiliency.
Action 1. Engage in community outreach to identify what aspects of resiliency are
important to the community for each utility to support development of a resiliency
work plan. Complete by December 2018.
Action 2. Define minimum emergency service commitments and targeted full system
recovery times in case of a major disaster(s) and communicate general guidance on
recovery times to the public. Implementation to be determined and dependent on A1.
Action 3. Develop an outreach and education program to facilitate individual customer
resiliency efforts. Implementation dependent on A1.
Action 4. Identify high priority issues that could interfere with emergency service
commitments and recovery times and develop a plan to improve resiliency in these
areas. Implementation dependent on A1.
Action 5. Complete evaluation of redundant/backup transmission service to CPAU and
communicate to stakeholders. Complete by December 2018.
With its full complement of utility services and integrated Office of Emergency Services, City of
Palo Alto has already made significant inroads with its Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk
Assessment (THIRA), which identified a number of risks and hazards with the potential to
disrupt utilities, ranging from natural disasters, accidents and technological failures, to
deliberate attacks on CPAU infrastructure.
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/thira
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/lhmap
CPAU recognizes its responsibility for the protection of the Utility’s critical infrastructure and
key resources for our own customers as well as for those governments (City included) likely to
send public safety and other responders (multi-agency, multi-jurisdiction, multi-echelon) in the
event of a disruptive event. CPAU is updating departmental emergency plans to address
findings in THIRA and develop an integrated plan to coordinate responses for all of our utilities.
Emergency management can be defined by phases: mitigate, prevent, prepare, respond, and
recover. Resilience means different things to different people, one definition being it is the
ability of infrastructure to withstand risks and hazards and then the ability to recover in some
expected time frame. However, most of what might be considered for the emergency
preparedness element of "resilience" may not be compelling from a normal financial or
operations point of view. Hardening of infrastructure requires designing and building to
address low probability/high impact contingencies. Fast recovery from disaster and outages can
be achieved by building in redundancy of supply and distribution: more reservoirs for water
supply; local generation and storage to enable microgrids and islanding; storing replacements
for key supplies and long-lead time components, such as distribution elements. However,
bolstering systems and maintaining stocks of redundant supply and distribution resources will
come at high cost. Therefore, a considered, deliberative process is needed to evaluate such
options under a comprehensive framework of potential costs, opportunity costs and potential
future benefits.
From the community perspective, resiliency may be achieved at a customer or neighborhood
level rather than relying on utility sized solutions. In this case, the utility role could include
facilitating customer side resiliency efforts (e.g., microgrids and islanding) in the short term
(next 5-10 years). A final comprehensive plan will likely be a hybrid of utility and customer
scale solutions, combined with robust communications with the community to inform the
public of the expectations they should have of the utility and their role in community resiliency.
Initiating Action 1:
CPAU will work with BluePoint Planning, LLC. (Consultant) to facilitate two workshops
(anticipated to be around two hours each) with the UAC with the following objectives: 1.
Provide information and education about what resiliency means and help develop a clear
definition for the City of Palo Alto; and 2. Establish a framework and key working principles
developed with the UAC that will guide ongoing planning and efforts by CPAU. A two workshop
format is proposed as an iterative process where the UAC has the opportunity in the first
workshop to lay out their priorities and focus for a more action orientated second workshop.
Step 1: Develop educational materials and information for the workshops
Consultant will identify and help develop effective materials and information for the
workshops. CPAU staff and Consultant will work on materials for the workshops to facilitate
discussion, such as preliminary scenarios for resiliency, and a visual map of the City that
identifies high load areas, community centers and critical services. A UAC subcommittee of one
or two commissioners may be involved in this planning stage to guide the content and structure
of the workshops to best engage the UAC.
Step 2: Workshop #1. Define Scope and Understanding of Resiliency and Facilitate Brainstorm
Consultant will facilitate and manage an initial workshop with the UAC. This first workshop will
focus on presenting the current conditions of the City, including plans, issues and concerns; and
facilitating a conversation to establish a clear definition of resilien cy and preliminary guiding
principles. Consultant will lead a brainstorm session to explore various scenarios and
possibilities for the City.
Step 3: Workshop #2. Review and Refine Framework and Scenarios
If a second workshop is needed, the Consultant will facilitate and manage this workshop with
the UAC. The second workshop will be designed to refine and establish a working Resiliency
Framework and Guiding Principles. In addition, in coordination with CPAU, consultant will
provide more refined scenarios to help inform and shape the framework. Scenarios may include
developing a second transmission line and/or developing a robust Distributed Energy Resources
network. Further, a goal for this workshop will be developing clear timing for implementing
resiliency efforts.
Step 4: Implementation of identified resiliency efforts
In addition to new efforts identified through the workshops, CPAU has the following ongoing
activities related to resiliency:
An assessment of the City’s electric distribution system ability to accommodate
Distributed Energy Resources (DER) growth;
A community DER survey to assess residential customers’ interests, issues, concerns,
priorities, and preferences to inform CPAU’s DER Plan development. The purpose of the
survey is to identify the various attitudinal and/or behavioral characteristics within each
customer segment toward different home energy investment options and more broadly,
their interest in energy and water use issues;
• Evaluation of a second transmission line to provide redundant (backup) connection of
the City's ~lectric distribution system to the California electric grid;
• Water reservoir study, which, when the system model is complete, can be used to
analyze the City's ability to maintain water delivery under a number of disaster/system
failure scenarios;
• Recycled water strategic plan: while the purpose of this is to look at long-term options
for alternative water sources, it may also provide insight for short term emergency
supplies;
• Smart grid applications that may enhance trouble-shooting capability to more efficiently
detect and fix faults and resume service, and also increase customer control over their
energy use and allow customers to respond in the event the utility requests reductions
in load use; and
• Day-to-day maintenance and infrastructure replacement plans designed to keep our
utility systems safe and reliable.
While CPAU has a comprehensive view of resiliency and reliability for all its utilities (electric,
fiber, natural gas, water, and wastewater collection), staff's expectation is that the focus
initially for new initiatives will be with the electric utility.
RESOURCE IMPACT
Funds of $12,310 for this work are included in the FY 2018 budget. Staffing resources to
manage the consultant and to finalize the work product have also been identified within
existing staff. Funding for projects identified for Step 4 implementation will be subject to
Council approval in subsequent years.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
This recommendation sets no new Council policy and is consistent with the Council-approved
2011 Utilities Strategic Plan's strategy objectives for reliable supply of utility resources.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
Discussion of conducting workshops to develop a framework and principles for resiliency
planning and efforts does not meet the definition of a project, pursuant to Section 21065 of the
California Environmental Quality Act, thus no environmental review is required.
PREPARED BY:
REVIEWED BY:
DEPARTMENT HEAD:
DEBRA LLOYD, Acting Assistant Director, Utilities Engineerin ~
DEAN BATCHELOR, Chief Operating Officer, Uti~
~~Office of Emergency Services (OES Chief)
ED SHIKADA
General Manager of Utilities
Page 1 of 3
4
MEMORANDUM
TO: UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMISSION
FROM: UTILITIES DEPARTMENT
DATE: FEBRUARY 7, 2018
SUBJECT: Update on Outage Management System Operational Issues
______________________________________________________________________________
BACKGROUND
This report is an update on the current state of and issues related to the City’s Outage
Management System (OMS). This report is offered in light of recent events that highlighted
problems in the current system when customers called in during outages.
The problem that occurred in the recent outages was that customers were unable to report an
outage because they were placed in an endless loop and were unable to exit the OMS system.
This situation was caused by a software error in the OMS which was created by a software
update.
The main functions of the OMS are to accumulate outage reports, determine the extent of the
outage, create a map of the outage for the City Website and provide customers status updates
of the outage (i.e. time of outage, estimated restoration time).
To understand the problem and the challenges related to the system a brief explanation of the
how this system works follows. The OMS uses two sources of data: the Customer Information
System (CIS) in SAP and the geographical and attribute data stored in the Topobase
Geographical Information System (GIS). The OMS uses these two data sources to create a
geographic circuit model with customer information assigned to a location and an electrical
circuit. When a customer calls the electrical outage hotline number (650-496-6914) to report an
outage, the OMS identifies the customer phone number and searches the database for a
matching phone number. If there is a matching phone number the customer is prompted to
report an ongoing outage and the system logs an outage at the customer address in the system
for that phone number. In the case where the customer phone number is not stored in the
system, the OMS forwards the customer to a different line where either a live person answers
the call or the customer can leave a voicemail.
Recent problems with the OMS occurred when customers called in from phone numbers that
did not have corresponding or matching numbers stored in the OMS. As the result of an OMS
system update, a software error was introduced into the system where customers were not
being forwarded to the alternate line where the customer can either speak to a live person or
leave a voice mail.
Page 2 of 3
DISCUSSION
The reason the software bug was introduced into the City’s OMS system has to do with the fact
that the City uses only the OMS module, which is typically one subpart of a fully integrated CIS
system (National Information Solutions Cooperative - NISC). NISC serves primarily electric
cooperatives and telecommunication companies. Palo Alto is the only utility using the OMS
module which does not also subscribe to the entire NISC suite. The City implemented the OMS
module in 2010 and developed interfaces to the City’s existing SAP CIS and GIS systems.
Accommodating these interfaces requires changes in the vendor’s software code. During a
recent system update, the vendor failed to modify the software to accommodate the unique
characteristics of the City’s OMS-only system.
In addition, there are other limitations to the system that present challenges, including the
inability to store multiple phone numbers for each address. It is common for residents to hold
multiple phone numbers (i.e. home, work, cellular) from which they may call from to report an
outage. Currently, the OMS system stores only one phone number per customer. If the
customer number is not found in the system, the customer is routed to a live person or
voicemail which reduces the automated benefits and features of the system. A more robust
system would allow customers to modify and add new phone numbers linked to their
addresses. The system is difficult to maintain and manage due to multiple interfaces for
extracting and organizing customer, geographical, and circuit data. These interfaces require
extensive validation and verification of data each time they are run.
NEXT STEPS
The following short-term actions are being taken by the software vendor and/or Utilities
staff, as appropriate, to correct the existing situation:
Correcting the errors in the software.
Implementation of a more rigorous process for testing the program after system update
to ensure that it performs as designed
The system and phone tree are being reviewed to determine if there is a more effective
or efficient way for customer to report outages.
Increasing the number of call in lines from 10 to 97 allowing multiple customers to
report outages simultaneously.
Continuous social media outreach and push (e.g. City website, Facebook, Nextdoor,
Twitter) to inform community of outages and status.
Determining whether the addition of modules in the OMS to store multiple phone
numbers is feasible, and if so, implementing.
For the long-term, staff will assess operational efficiency and address functionality issues of the
OMS. The system will be reevaluated during the CIS and GIS upgrades, advanced metering
infrastructure (AMI) project, and citywide 311 system review to improve customer service and
reduce system maintenance requirements.
RESOURCE IMPACT
None at this time. May require funding for a new system in the future.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The UAC's review of this update does not meet the definition of a project under the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), pursuant to Public Resources Code Section 21065 .
PREPARED BY: TOMM MARSHAL~t~nt Director, Utilities Op~. ioo~~ ~
REVIEWED BY: DEAN BATCHELOR, Utilities Chief Operating Officer~ '
APPROVED BY: C~.
ED SHIKADA, Utilities General Manager
Page 3 of 3
MEMORANDUM
TO: UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMISSION
FROM: UTILITIES DEPARTMENT 5
DATE: February 7, 2018
SUBJECT: Fiber Utility Update
This fiber utility update provides a summary of highlights ofthe City's dark fiber optic backbone
network, including the current status of various initiatives to expand the network for citywide
fiber-to-the-premises and wireless services. This update has been prepared to keep the UAC
apprised of the major efforts and issues associated with the fiber utility.
Staff is requesting UAC feedback regarding current efforts related to the fiber-to-the-
node/fiber-to-the premises request for proposal (RFP) to retain a management consultant to
prepare a business case, in addition to strategic advice regarding the City's future broadband
expansion opportunities. The overall objective is to fully leverage the existing fiber network
and reserves to support new and future applications and technologies dependent on gigabit-
speed broadband, in addition to identifying potential public-private partnership opportunities.
Staff is also seeking UAC feedback on the most effective structure for reporting progress and
advising the City Council on the work ahead .
Attachment A: Fiber Overview and Initiatives
REVIEWED BY:
JIM FLEMING, Senior Management Analys ~
'? 1
PREPARED BY:
APPROVED BY:
DAVE V:UAN, Strategic Business Manager
' --/ '~ ~-· ~··
EDSHIKADA
Utilities General Manager
Page 1of1
Utilities Department
Version: 4.0
Fiber-to-Fiber Premises and Wireless Communication Initiative Page 1 of 7 Date Last Updated 12/28/17
OVERVIEW OF CITY DARK FIBER OPTIC BACKBONE NETWORK
FIBER-TO-THE-PREMISES AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS INITIATIVES
Executive Summary
This document is intended to provide a summary of the highlights of the City’s dark fiber optic backbone network, in
addition to various initiatives to expand the network for citywide fiber-to-the-premises and wireless services. It is only
meant to inform the reader who wants to understand the history of the City’s dark fiber network and recent broadband
initiatives.
City of Palo Alto Dark Fiber Optic Backbone Network
The dark fiber optic backbone network (“fiber network”) was originally conceived by the City in the mid-1990s and is
maintained and operated by City of Palo Alto Utilities (“CPAU”). The City’s initial telecommunications strategy was to
build a dark fiber ring around Palo Alto that would be “capable of supporting multiple network developers and/or
service providers with significant growth potential.” In the mid-1990s, most investor-owned and public utilities invested
in fiber optics to improve command and control of their utility infrastructure. Many of these networks typically had
excess capacity that could be licensed or leased to third parties.
The first phase of the fiber backbone construction occurred in 1996-1997. The initial portions of the network were
constructed in a backbone ring architecture in existing utility rights-of-way. The fiber backbone was routed to pass and
provide access to key City facilities and offices. The majority of the City’s business parks (e.g. Stanford Research Park)
and commercial properties are also passed by the fiber backbone. The original fiber backbone consisted of 33 route
miles with 144 or more strands of single-mode fiber along most routes. Since the late 1990s, the fiber backbone has
been expanded to approximately 49 route miles of mostly 144- or 288-count single-mode fiber.
Fiber network construction was financed internally by the Electric Enterprise Fund through a 20-year, $2 million loan at a
0% interest rate. These funds were used to construct the network and to cover operating expenses. At the end of Fiscal
Year 2008, the fiber optics business completed the loan repayment to the Electric Enterprise Fund for all capital and
operating expenses from the beginning of the project. A separate Fiber Optics Enterprise Fund, capable of maintaining
its own capital and operating budgets and financial operating reserve, was also created. In Fiscal Year 2009, a Fiber
Optics Enterprise Fund Rate Stabilization Reserve (RSR) was established.
The fiber network was built in part in response to telecommunications service providers such as emerging Competitive
Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) that would use available dark fiber to provide various telecom services. In the mid-
1990s, there was a high demand for fiber transport facilities to support the expansion of bandwidth-intensive
broadband services.
By the late 1990s, many CLECs left the market either through mergers with other CLECs or bankruptcy; the so-called “dot
com bust” also occurred at roughly the same time. As a result, the anticipated demand for dark fiber in the original
target market proved to be somewhat limited. By the late 1990s there was a glut of available dark fiber in many areas of
the country. Nonetheless, it was evident that a fiber network would be a valuable asset for command and control of
City of Palo Alto Utilities (CPAU) facilities (e.g. electric substations) and other critical City infrastructure such as the traffic
signal system. The network would also support a wide range of broadband voice, data and video applications for City
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departments, in addition to various commercial users, telecommunications service providers, and the community as a
whole.
In 2000, the City began to license “dark fiber” for commercial purposes. Dark fiber is unused fiber through which no
light is transmitted, or installed fiber optic cable not carrying a signal. The basic business model is to provide dark fiber
connectivity to users requiring access to large amounts of bandwidth. Customers are responsible for providing and
maintaining the equipment to “light-up” or provision licensed fiber strands. Dark fiber is licensed or leased by a provider
such as the City without the accompanying transmission service. In contrast, traditional telecommunication service
providers only make available certain products (commonly known as “managed services”) within their service options
that may not adequately meet the requirements of the specific applications.
The fiber network has high market share and brand awareness among commercial enterprises and other organizations
that need the quantity and quality of bandwidth provided by direct fiber optic connections.
By connecting to the City’s fiber backbone, the customer gains fiber access to their Internet Service Provider (ISP) of
choice. A dark fiber customer can interconnect communications systems or computer networks across multiple Palo
Alto locations and can also connect directly to their local and/or long distance carrier(s) of choice with a full range of
communications services. Dark fiber customers can also have redundant telecommunication connections for enhanced
reliability.
Many of the City’s commercial dark fiber customers gain access to the Internet through the Palo Alto Internet Exchange
(PAIX, now owned by Equinix). PAIX is a carrier-neutral collocation facility and hosts over 70 ISPs at their facility located
in downtown Palo Alto. Equinix has similar facilities in the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Asia.
The City currently licenses dark fiber connections to 108 commercial customers. The fiber network also serves the
following City accounts: IT Infrastructure Services, Utilities Substations, Utilities Engineering, Public Works, Water
Quality Control Plant and Community Services (Art Center). The total number of dark fiber service connections serving
commercial customers and the City is 221 (some customers have more than one connection). At the end of fiscal year
2017, the licensing of dark fiber service connections resulted in a fiber reserve of approximately $28 million. According
to the proposed Fiscal Year 2018 Budget, the fiber reserve is projected to increase by $1.1 million.
Annual dark fiber license revenues come from the following customer categories:
• City service connections: 27% of gross revenues.
Private sector entities licensing dark fiber from the City:
• Resellers: 42% of gross revenues. “Resellers” are telecommunication companies that purchase large amounts
of transmission capacity from other carriers and resell it to smaller end-users. Examples of resellers are telecom
companies that sell broadband, telephony and video services to the commercial and residential markets.
• Various commercial enterprises: 31% of gross revenues. Examples of private end-users are companies involved
in various technologies, web hosting, social media, finance, medical, pharmaceuticals, research and
development, software, law firms, consulting firms, e-commerce, etc.
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• Service offerings: Dark fiber backbone license fees are based on the number of fiber miles per month. Utility
Rate Schedule EDF-3 (Dark Fiber Licensing Services) base license price is between $213 to $425 per fiber mile,
per month. Typical installation costs range from $500 for a building with existing fiber to $8,000 or more for
installations requiring extensive substructure. Available configurations include point-to-point and diverse rings.
For more information regarding commercial dark fiber services, refer to the City’s website:
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/utl/business/programs/fibernet.asp
The majority of business parks and commercial properties are passed by the fiber backbone. In 2014, CPAU completed a
project to serve 18 Palo Alto Unified School District facilities with dark fiber service connections (17 schools and the
District’s Business Office).
Fiber Optic Network Rebuild Capital Improvement Project (FO-16000)
In 2016, CPAU retained Celerity Integrated Services, Inc. to provide a one-time comprehensive review and audit of the
City dark fiber optic network. Celerity completed the review and audit and provided a physical description of the
network; documented the number of fiber strands, in addition to conducting an inspection of 90 fiber nodes/cabinets
(i.e. network splice points) to identify what is labeled within the individual nodes/cabinets.
The rebuild project will install new aerial duct or substructure (conduit and boxes), in addition to fiber backbone cable to
increase capacity for sections of the dark fiber ring that are at or near capacity. This project will allow CPAU to meet
customer requests for services. The project areas primarily cover the Stanford Research Park, Palo Alto Internet
Exchange/Equinix at 529 Bryant, and Downtown areas. This project basically “overlays” new fiber over existing fiber
routes in the network. Existing fiber will continue to serve City facilities and commercial dark fiber customers.
Rebuild Work Completed
The route from PAIX at 529 Bryant to the Park Boulevard Substation has been completed. This phase of the project
included substructure work, fiber pulling and cabinet installation. The new fiber installed for the backbone rebuild is
312-count single-mode fiber (2 x 144-count single-mode fiber, plus 24-count single-mode fiber).
Upcoming work scheduled over the next 12 months:
• Route from Park Substation to Hansen Substation
• Route from Hansen Substation to Stanford Research Park
• Additional phases/routes to be determined.
The estimated cost for the rebuild is between $500,000 and up to $1,000,000 for substructure work. Another $250,000
for the overhead portion of the work is allocated for the project. CPAU crews are performing the equipment
installation, cable pulling and terminations. CPAU’s substructure contractor is installing the conduit and boxes.
Other Capital Improvement Projects (CIP)
In 2018, the City will complete installation of fiber optics for Public Works’ pump stations and creek monitoring at 17
locations.
For the Downtown Upgrade CIP (water and gas pipes), fiber optic conduits will be installed to support the Council’s
directive for a “Dig Once” strategy to increase the availability of fiber infrastructure in the downtown area.
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Fiber-to-the-Premises
For more than fifteen years, the City has worked to develop a business case to build a citywide Fiber-to-the-Premises
(“FTTP”) network to serve homes and business. A number of business models have been evaluated. The following is a
summary of the highlights to develop a network:
1999: A Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued to build citywide FTTP. There were no viable bids.
2000-2005: In 2000, the City Council approved a Fiber-to-the-Home (“FTTH”) trial to determine the feasibility of
providing citywide FTTH access in Palo Alto. The FTTH trial passed 230 homes and included 66 participants in the
Community Center neighborhood. The purpose of the trial was to test the concept of fiber-to-the-home. The FTTH trial
proved successful (i.e., proved technical feasibility), but when initial investment and overhead expenditures were
included in the calculation to create a business case, it was not profitable for the City and the trial was ended in
December 2005.
• Title: UAC Recommendation regarding Fiber to the Home Financing Options
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/5292
• Title: Recommendation to Terminate Fiber to the Home Trial and Discontinue Monitoring of Financing
Methods in Other California Jurisdictions
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/5684
2006-2009: In 2006, the City issued another RFP and negotiated with a consortium of private firms to build FTTP under a
public-private partnership model. In 2009, Staff recommended to Council termination of the RFP process and
negotiations due to the lack of financial resources of the private firms.
2010: The City responded to Google Fiber’s Request for Information.
2011: Staff worked with two telecommunications consulting firm to evaluate the expansion of the existing dark fiber
network for its commercial dark fiber licensing enterprise and also to expand the network on an incremental basis to
attract a “last mile” FTTP builder and operator. This is a link to the staff report provided to the Utilities Advisory
Commission in June of 2011, and the Council Finance Committee in November of 2011:
• Title: Provide Feedback on the Development of a Business Plan for the Citywide Ultra-High-Speed Broadband
System Project
http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/27421
2012: Staff worked with a telecommunications consulting firm to study the feasibility of an alternative model for
citywide FTTP which would rely on homeowners paying on a voluntary basis for some or all of the cost to build-out the
existing dark fiber network into residential neighborhoods. The name of this model is “user-financed” FTTP. The
analysis concluded that an opt-in FTTP network can be built using a combination of upfront user fees and City financing;
however, there is very little probability of the debt incurred being repaid through operations. Ongoing subsidies would
be required, very likely in excess of surpluses in the Fiber Optics Fund reserve generated by licensing dark fiber. The
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study was supported by a market survey which concluded there was limited interest among residents in this model. This
is a link to the staff report provided to the Utilities Advisory Commission in June 2012:
• Title: Request for Feedback Concerning the Dark Fiber Optic Backbone Network
http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/30112
2013 - 2015: The City Council started it’s “Technology and the Connected City” initiative and directed staff to prepare a
Fiber-to-the-Premises Master Plan and a Wireless Network Plan. In 2014, a Citizen Advisory Committee was appointed
by the City Manager. The Citizen Advisory Committee is structured in a way for individual citizens to share opinions and
perspectives, study issues, and develop recommendations. In 2015, staff worked with a telecommunications consulting
firm, CTC Technology & Energy, to prepare these plans and they were provided in this September 28, 2015 Council staff
report:
• Title: Discussion of Fiber-to-the-Premises and Direction on Next Steps for Fiber and City Wireless Services
http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/49073
At the September 28, 2015 Council meeting, staff and the consultant reviewed these plans with the Council Members.
As a result, a Council Motion directed staff to pursue several initiatives, which are described in this August 16, 2016 staff
report which updated the Council about the various activities from the Motion:
• Title: Fiber-to-the-Premises update on City Council Motions and Google Fiber
http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/53363
2014 - 2016: Google Fiber announced Palo Alto as a potential “Google Fiber City” for a build-out of their fiber optic
network. Since early 2014, staff worked with Google personnel to complete an extensive checklist process regarding
City infrastructure and processes, in addition to negotiating agreements for a project description, utility pole
attachments, encroachment permits, environmental reviews and other agreements for cost recovery for use of staff
time. Based on Council direction, staff also worked with Google to develop a “co-build” concept to explore the
feasibility of building a City network in parallel with Google’s network. In July 2016, Google announced a delay in their
plans for up to six (6) months to build a fiber optic network in Silicon Valley, which also included Mountain View, San
Jose, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale. Google advised staff that they are exploring more innovative ways to deploy their
network, which may include implementing wireless technologies. Co-build discussions were also delayed. At this time,
there is no activity related to Google Fiber.
In the summer of 2016, the City approved permits for two cabinets so AT&T can begin to deploy their “AT&T Fiber”
service. AT&T is exploring deployment of additional cabinets in 2017-18.
On December 12, 2016, staff provided Council with an informational update regarding Fiber-to-the-Premises and
wireless initiatives:
• Title: Update for Fiber-to-the-Premises and Wireless Initiatives
http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/55016
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2017
April 5, 2017: Staff provided the UAC with three options for the City’s fiber utility:
1. Future Plans for Fiber and Broadband Expansion;
• OPTION 1: Municipally-Owned Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP);
• OPTION 2: Municipally-Owned Fiber-to-the-Node (FTTN) Network with Neighborhood/Private Last Mile
Provision;
• OPTION 3: Pause Municipal FTTP Development Efforts; Increase Transparency and Predictability for Third Party
Providers.
2. Expand Wi-Fi to Unserved City Facilities; and Discontinue Consideration of City-Provided Wi-Fi in Commercial Areas
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/56779
The UAC made a motion to recommend Council approval of Option 2, taking into account UAC feedback on that option
including the idea of a neighborhood beta where the City would build to the node and extend fiber and/or wireless to
one neighborhood to gather data, experiment new applications, and explore partnerships. The UAC also approved the
recommendations on wireless expansion, excluding extension of Wi-Fi to the golf course and discontinue consideration
of City Wi-Fi in commercial areas.
May 23, 2017: Staff provided the Council Policy and Services Committee with a report recommending Option 2 for the
Municipal Fiber-to-the-Node Network (FTTN) for Fiber and Broadband Expansion; and (2) Expand Wi-Fi to Unserved City
Facilities and Discontinue Consideration of City-Provided Wi-Fi in Commercial Areas
• Title: Expansion Plan for Fiber Optic Network and Wireless Network (ID # 7735)
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/57822
The Policy and Services Committee approved the wireless recommendations and elected Option 2 (FTTN). Staff was also
directed to:
• Define more clearly the goals of Fiber-to-the-Node (FTTN);
• Reach out to other communities on approaches post Google and share strategies and funding models;
• Include ROI estimates;
• Present a rollout strategy w with an estimate of how may homes will be passed; and
• Draft a communication strategy.
August 21, 2017: Staff provided the Council with a report for a work plan for Fiber-to-the-Premises and Wireless
Network. Staff, UAC and the Policy and Services Committee recommended Council to:
1. Pursue a Municipal Fiber-to-the-Node network for fiber and broadband expansion; and
2. Expand Wi-Fi to unserved City facilities and discontinue consideration of City-provided Wi-Fi in commercial
areas.
• Title: Work Plan for Fiber-to-the-Premises and Wireless Network (ID # 7616)
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/61084
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The Council passed a Motion directing staff to:
A. Develop a business case for a municipal-provided Fiber-to-the-Node (FTTN) network for fiber and broadband
expansion (“Option 2”); engage a management consultant to develop the business case, funding plans, identify
potential partners and/or service providers, and high level network design; and engage an engineering firm to
design a FTTN network including an expansion option to build a citywide Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network;
and
B. Expand Wi-Fi to unserved City facilities and discontinue consideration of City provided Wi-Fi in commercial
areas; and
C. Expediently return to Council with Ordinances that will lower the City’s FTTN construction costs such as a Dig
Once, String Once, Multi-unit housing, and Microtrenching.
Next Steps
Staff has been working with the CAC in preparing a Request for Proposals ("RFP") to retain a management consultant to
complete the above-noted items in the Council's directive. It is anticipated the RFP will be issued in the first quarter of
2018. Staff has also been engaged in exploratory discussions with third party telecommunication firms regarding
potential fiber and wireless deployment plans and public-private partnership opportunities. Staff is also developing staff
reassignments and seeking UAC feedback to expedite advancement of Council’s motion.
Wireless Projects
• On November 30, 2017, a Request for Proposals (RFP) was issued by the Office of Emergency Services (OES) for a
Mobile Broadband Network for Public Safety (“in-vehicle” mobile broadband access). The Fiber/Wireless Core Team
worked with OES staff and wireless consultant to prepare the RFP. Final bids were due on December 18, 2017, but
no bids were submitted. Staff is evaluating next steps.
• Expansion of OES Point-to-Multi-Point Network: OES and the Fiber/Wireless Team are working to finalize a site in
the Montebello Reservoir area to locate a pole for additional equipment to improve the coverage of the existing OES
network.
• Based on an August 21, 2017 Council Motion, a project was initiated to expand the City’s OverAir Wi-Fi Hotspots to
specific unserved City facilities at portions of the Cubberley Community Center, Lucie Stern Community Center, the
café at the Golf Course and Lytton Plaza.