06-25-18 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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REGULAR MEETING June 25, 2018 Councilmember Oliver Davis stated, TRANSPO has hired a company that will be helping to hire a new General Manger. We just bidded that out and you will be hearing about that coming up. That will take anywhere from sixty(60)to ninety(90) days. So we are in June and hopefully by Augus and September we could be nailing it down. In terms of writing a letter, Council Attorney Palmer and I are going to work together. Instead of bringing it to resolution, for those of you that would like to write a letter to our congressional delegation regarding what is going on in Texas and all of that, if you want to put together a letter we are going to send them separately. It could be the same letter. If you don't want to send it,that is up to you. If you want to send it, you can. If you want to help us craft something and put something together, that would be great. It has been an ever changing flow of issues. I do know that in some parts of the State there are some big rallies. We also have gotten some emails regarding AEP and the Sierra Club. Doctor Varner and I sponsored a resolution on that a couple years ago and so I saw the emails and, sorry, I wanted to send them back to the new people regarding what we did. I think it would be good to highlight what we did for us and also to share back with all of those who are interested. I don't know whatever happened and I didn't hear any follow up from that. I think the amount of time it took to craft, I thought it helped bring South Bend into the forefront. I will get an email out regarding what we've already done. PRIVILEGE OF THE FLOOR Gojiaik Ephraim, 50655 Tarrington Way, Granger, IN, stated, I would like to propose municipal broadband for South Bend, Indiana. As you are well aware, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai spearheaded the repeal of the Obama Administration's Net Neutrality rulings. That took effect on June 11'l`. Why that would be important for St. Joseph County, let's look at the fact. Three (3)out of four(4) Americans only have one (1) choice of broadband provider. This is due to a 2002 FCC ruling that high speed internet would be classified as an information service which is unregulated instead of a telecommunications service which is regulated. That was in hope the market would take care of itself but it didn't. Americans pay at least twice as much for high speed internet as many European and east World countries and we have much slower speeds. This is because ISPs, or Internet Service Providers,such as AT&T,Comcast and Verizon have virtually no competition.As a result, the US is at least ninth(9b) in broadband and forty-sixth (4601) in mobile speeds and I believe we can do better. Other municipalities, there are at least eighty-two (82) of them, have municipal broadband. One (1) is Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 1999 they instituted ERB to provide municipal broadband as competitor services rose. They feared they didn't have an image and it worked. I believe we can do that. Carolyn Eveaz, 1434 Marigold Way, South Bend,IN, stated, I am here today with members of the Indivisible Environment Team: Repower Indiana and we are concerned. We hopeful residents of the City of South Bend ask for your leadership as Indiana/Michigan Power, our local utility, prepares its twenty (20) year energy plan this year. This plan, known formally as an Integrated Resource Plan(IRP), is very important as it determines what energy resources I&M will utilize to meet customer demand over the next twenty (20) years. It is especially important because the utility has indicated the plans to end the lease of Rockport Unit two (2) when it expires in 2022 and retire Rockport Unit one (1) by 2028. I&M must decide what energy sources will replace power from the Rockport Plants which accounts for nearly half of the utility's current generation. In just ten (10) years, it is likely that I&M customers won't be getting electricity from Rockport. That presents a once in a lifetime opportunity for I&M to invest in solar, wind, battery storage and efficiency communities like Fort Wayne, South Bend, Muncie and Marion. We appreciate the commitments that, in steps,the City has taken to address climate change to protect our community through an equitable rate increase, and also appreciate the additional steps the City has taken including passing the resolution of the South Bend Common Council in support of a reasonable transition to clean our source of energy for South Bend. The Mayor joins the Global Covenant of Mayors for climate and energy measures to measure greenhouse gas emissions and create a community-wide plan to reduce emissions. He also joined the Mayors for one hundred percent (100%) Clean Energy campaign which pledges support for community-wide transition to one hundred percent (100%) renewable. Since South Bend's climate success hinges upon its energy supplier,we hope to learn more how the City will meet these goals and how being involved in the integrated resource planning process can ensure our utility's generation goals match that of our City. Because I&M have announced those plans to phase out Rockport,we would like to see robust 13