Draft Minutes
Executive Committee Meeting
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
9:00 am
In Person:
Conference Room 5
Ava Community Energy
1999 Harrison St., Suite 2300
Oakland, CA 94612
Or from the following remote location:
Dublin City Hall - 100 Civic Plaza, Dublin, CA 94568
Via Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88267670367
Or join by phone:
Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location):
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Meetings are accessible to people with disabilities. Individuals who need special assistance or a disability-related modification or accommodation to participate in this meeting, or who have a disability and wish to request an alternative format for the meeting materials, should contact the Clerk of the Board at least 2 working days before the meeting at (510) 906- 0491 or [email protected].
If you have anything that you wish to be distributed to the Executive Committee, please email it to the clerk by 5:00 pm the day prior to the meeting.
1. Welcome & Roll Call
Present: Members: Kalb (Oakland), Balch (Pleasanton) and Chair Tiedemann (Albany) Not Present: Member Hu (Dublin) and Marquez (Alameda County)
2. Public Comment
This item is reserved for persons wishing to address the Executive Committee on any Ava Community Energy-related matters that are not otherwise on this meeting agenda. Public comments on matters listed on the agenda shall be heard at the time the matter is called.
As with all public comment, members of the public who wish to address the Committee are Ava Community Energy
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customarily limited to three minutes per speaker and must complete an electronic speaker slip. The Executive Committee Chair may increase or decrease the time allotted to each speaker.
(15:24) Public Comment: Aya Peters Paz, representing Local Clean Energy Alliance, extended an offer to collaborate with Ava Community Energy in designing and implementing a study session on resilience hubs.
3. Approval of Minutes from June 5, 2024
Member Balch motioned to approve the minutes. Member Kalb seconded the motion which was approved 3/0/0/0/2:
Yes: Members: Kalb, Balch and Chair Tiedemann
No: none
Abstain: none
Recuse: none
Not Present: Members Hu and Marquez
4. Closed Session Public Comment
There was no public comment for the closed session.
5. Closed Session
A. Conference with Real Property Negotiators pursuant to Government Code § 54956.8: 251 8th Street (Negotiators: CEO Howard Chang, General Counsel Inder Khalsa) (price and terms of payment).
6. General Report Out of Closed Session
There were no items to report out of closed session.
7. Resilience Initiative Overview (Informational Item)
Overview of what work is being done
JP Ross, Vice President of Local Development at Ava, provided an update on Ava’s resilience hub activities, highlighting three key areas: residential battery storage, municipal resilience hubs, and community resilience hubs. He mentioned the success of Ava’s Resilient Home program, which connects 1,200 batteries to the grid, reducing peak demand. Additionally, he emphasized the importance of partnering with cities to create resilience hubs in critical facilities and community-based hubs, with plans to launch solar and storage incentives in early 2025 as part of Ava's broader resilience efforts.
Member Kalb raised concerns about the timing of a study session on resilience hubs for the board, stressing that it should occur before any major decisions are made. JP Ross and CEO Chang discussed the plan to gather community feedback through focus groups led by community-based organizations and emphasized the importance of aligning this process with the board’s needs for eligibility criteria and decision-making.
Ava Community Energy
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Public Comment: Audrey Ichinose from East Bay Clean Power Alliance and the California Alliance for Community Energy requested clarification about the types of critical municipal facilities identified among the 61 sites across eight cities.
Public Comment: Ayla Peters Paz expressed concern over the disparity in funding between community engagement and technical assistance in the resilience hub program and asked for the reasons for the difference.
JP Ross explained that the identified critical municipal facilities include fire stations, libraries, community centers, police stations, and more, all guided by the emergency response plans of Ava's member cities. He noted that each facility requires a customized approach, making the technical work complex, with no uniform solution across cities. In response to a question on funding allocation, JP Ross clarified that community engagement funding supports outreach and site identification, while technical assistance funds cover more costly engineering evaluations necessary for implementing resilience hubs.
8. Committee Member and Staff Announcements including requests to place items on future Executive Committee Agenda
There were no Committee Member or staff announcements.
9. Adjourned at 10:51am.
The next Executive Committee meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 2, 2024.