Bangor committee weighs data center regulations, fleet electrification

[0:00] Daniel Carson: Stapp, Alternatively, another option that Brewer has done has been band data centers over a certain size, over 20 megawatts, so that's an alternative course of action, or we could not do that and just do really strict regulations. Stapp, And I have laid out, you know, a bunch of those regulations in here, based on what other communities have done. Stapp, And so I just kind of want to get that overall policy direction first, right, diamond regulations. [0:26] Joseph Leonard: Certainly. I'll open it up to the committee if anyone has any comments you'd like to deliver. If not, just speaking for myself, obviously, I still have a lot of concerns and issues regarding data centers and not only their economic validity of coming into any municipality, But also, I just don't really see, especially considering some of the developments of offshore data centers. I think that's going to be a much larger investment for these AI companies in the future. And that wouldn't really affect us. And I still just have a lot of concerns in general. role. I do appreciate the research that they've done also, and I don't necessarily disagree with them. We should have a very clear idea of what we can do going forward. Overall though, not only is it my own personal idea and opinion that we should have strict regulations on data centers, but it is also the will of our citizens. And regardless if any other municipality wants to engage with these centers, it's not what the citizens of Bangor want at the end of the day, so I mean, I know you're only asking for comments and feedback, so I know there's no actionable item on this, but I still have a lot of concerns about welcoming this type of [2:12] Michael Beck: business into the city personally yes counselor back a question about you know if a band is challenging if the council to the band is challenged what happens then i mean because we have no regulation other than the ban is it just the wild west guys limit for them or do we get a second bite of the apple to try to negotiate what's workable for the city [2:38] David Szewczyk: I think it depends on a couple of things, I mean, we'd have to consult our legal office, but it kind of depends on what the appeal is, what the subject of the appeal is, then that will kind of dictate what the judge may or may not do. So I'd have to find out from legal, but we can find that out. Exactly, I'll take that back to you. [3:00] Michael Beck: Yeah, a follow-up I could. So looking at what Brewer's done, which sounds like that's kind of the right approach of just, you know, hey, we'll accept it, but this is the Goldilocks data center that would work for our city. is that kind of the approach that we're leaning towards of you know if we said hey based on the capacities of our wastewater and you know zoning and everything else here would be a data center we would we would entertain but it effectively keeps you know these monolith big data centers moving in and gobbling up our resources [3:39] Daniel Carson: I mean, I think that it would probably be a good course of action to set that limit, because the larger data centers are the ones that are getting a lot of the negative pushback, and they are the most demanding on communities. And I was going to suggest too, there are some different zoning incentives that communities can offer like that would maybe allow them to go a little bit bigger if they do things like provide waste heat recovery, so sharing their waste heat with the surrounding community, so then they can be a little bit bigger, but they're, you know, offsetting their impact on the community in a way, so those are just throwing some options out, hey. [4:27] Lisa Goodwin: Oh yes, please. [4:28] Joseph Leonard: at council carson council i was talking a few thoughts please i am not a not a big fan of the [4:36] Daniel Carson: massive data centers, especially currently as they stand. I think we've all become familiar with the health consequences and the environmental consequences and the challenges with infrastructure places where we see that these are not regulated, like Georgia residents of experiencing utility cost increases were insane. That said, I'm also not necessarily a fan of a blanket ban on any particular industry, because these industries change so quickly. And the massive data centers that we're looking at right now are not the data centers of the future. The engineers and people much smarter than me working on AI are already redeveloping how AI thinks and how it processes, and the need for these massive centers is going to change over time. And the other problem I see with a ban is just what Councilor Beck brings up, which is that it puts us in the position of not regulating the industry. And so then if a ban is challenged, or a ban expires, or this council turns over every single year and another council comes elected by the public that decides to pursue an industry, I would see us at a deficit. I would appreciate, or I would be supportive of, setting what is a sensible threshold for Bangor data centers, maybe of a certain size. I think we could probably pull that off with understanding better our infrastructure capacity and things like that. But more to the regulations, a couple of things that I would really love to see put in here that I just don't see yet are first something for workers. The largest amount of workforce that occurs with a data center is in its construction. It takes very little, very few workers to manage a data center, and so for me I feel that is a race to the bottom, right? Workers abroad, a bunch of workers are brought on to build what is essentially a massive business. It's going to earn a lot of profit, and those workers are mostly going to be temporary. So I would appreciate seeing, if other counselors agree, something in here maybe to the effect of project labor agreements, you know, that workers brought in to construct these would at least make prevailing wages and benefits, and then something else, and it may have missed it because there's a lot of great work in here that you've done, would be community benefits agreements, which I don't necessarily see either. Large Industries, I would like to sort of see maybe, yeah. The problem is, I'm sorry, problem is those typically fall outside zoning, the scope of zoning, because with zoning we're really just looking at the land use impacts and land use restrictions, and typically the community benefits agreements are done project by project, and oftentimes they accompany like incentives that the city has put out there, like tax incentives cities put out to attract to use, but then they'll say in turn we want you to negotiate this community benefits agreement with us, and might could add to this. I feel like the project, the hiring commitments would be the same way. Yeah, definitely you can do impact [8:05] David Szewczyk: impact, fees, but they have to be connected to what the development is impacting, and I mean like when you have a project that is going to cause a lot of traffic, you can have an impact fee for to, you know, to fix that traffic situation. So with that it would be a little bit harder with community impacts, but the effect it would have on water and sewer, you know, would be, is something that needed help with that. [8:36] Joseph Leonard: That was a great follow-up question. [8:38] Daniel Carson: The only thing that I would follow up would just be that, personally, that I would push back on the idea that at least PLAs are a project by project case. I think it would be discriminatory to approach each specific project requesting project labor agreements rather than to build them into a regulation so that they are the same for everybody. [9:01] Joseph Leonard: Council Theluna and then Council Fish. [9:04] Susan Faloon: So I know you're talking about zoning and yeah so maybe this is separate but like I was also interested in community investment and I know that some communities are building in like you know we want you to invest x amount in something and like the thing that came to mind for me and I know this isn't zoning but I don't know where this would fit in but you know like we you know maybe something to do with the rec center like hey you know we would like to see some investment in you know something Like this I don't know I know other communities are like as part of these agreements requiring community investment not just like you know like a little bit different than community impact I think but community investment also like if the utilities were to require an upgrade I think we want to make sure that doesn't and again that I know this doesn't fall under zoning but since we're talking about data centers I mean our electrical infrastructure is pretty tapped out I think you know like when It comes to solar projects sometimes they have a hard time getting connected so if we're going to have a huge project and it's going to require a big infrastructure upgrade I think it's really important that does not fall into rate payers, that gets absorbed by the developer. And then also, if we are facing a capacity issue, especially during extreme heat or cold, and we're facing rolling power outages, I know some communities have put in a requirement environment that these data centers are the first to go offline and the last to come back online or would have to default to an alternate electricity source so that they're not so their residents aren't going without power in the in the data center is still has power and then the only other thing I was going to Comment was that when you were talking about labor agreements, my understanding is that when they build a lot of these, that they bring in their own crews because they do this and they just show up and they do it and they leave. And so maybe there could be some kind of requirement to use local labor. And again, I know that like a lot of those things are not related to zoning in particular, but look into it and see what we're able to do. Yeah. [11:32] Daniel Carson: I can speak to a few of those things though with, you know, the transmission infrastructure and everything. So one of the things I was gonna clarify in here for some of the set of regulations I mentioned was they would have to provide written verification that there is power capacity currently from the electricity provider, and that would be part of their land use approval. The other requirement I was going to mention was we could require a certain amount of rooftop solar to at least offset part of their electricity impact, and then also require efficiency in the way the building is designed to help reduce the amount of electricity they need to cool. And then again, using some of that waste heat potentially could maybe reduce the amount they have to cool. I don't know, we have to, you know, there's like a line between what we can require and then what is regulated by the state in the utility commission. So I don't know that we can say like, you know, the data center has to be the first one to go offline. I think that kind of thing might be regulated by the utility commission, but I do think there's definitely things that we can put in regulations to reduce their impact on the grid. And then I was going to mention too requiring battery energy storage to be used as a front line for power outages, and then if they need to use generators, we would have regulations on the generators because the generators in many communities is what is providing a lot of the impacts on neighboring residents and I think that was everything I was going to mention on that piece of it. [13:12] Susan Faloon: Did you ever follow council flow? No, I guess I should just disclose that I work at the public utilities commission, so maybe I shouldn't even be part of this conversation. And that just kind of clicked with me that like, sorry, like I don't know if this is really directly related. I like, I don't know, I mean, it crosses over, so I guess if you guys think that there's a conflict here I [13:38] Joseph Leonard: Can step out so if anyone does feel like there is a conflict, I 'm just keeping it real. I don't think there is a conflict at this point in time because we're sort of brainstorming. But if we were to vote on something, I mean, but I maybe we can bring that up again at some point. But I think for right now the discussion is just because you brought up right now. I think the points that you made were not only valid, I would have brought them up or another counselor would. I mean, unless you feel the need that we should vote on that right now. I 'm just going to [14:13] Daniel Carson: interject. I think once it's been raised it should just be voted on, even if the answer is no conflict. [14:19] Joseph Leonard: Okay so well I guess I could, I did, we need to make a motion on that. Okay, could I entertain a motion, the [14:35] Daniel Carson: motion can just be for discussion purposes. I move to discuss whether or not Councillor Faloon has a conflict. Okay, we have a motion. [14:44] Joseph Leonard: Do we have a second motion and seconded? Okay, the discussion is open. Yes, Counselor Carson. [14:50] Daniel Carson: No, I think Counselor Balloon has a conflict. Okay, any other comments? Counselor Fish, I think with [15:00] Carolyn Fish: the discussion with the direction of this discussion, I think some of her recognition is in fact helpful, and I think for discussion purposes she does not have conflict moving forward. If there's a specific, you know, once we know what we're voting on, I'd like to reassess at that time. At this stage I do not see conflict. Okay, any other comments? So [15:26] Joseph Leonard: give a motion in a second to discuss with anyone entertain a motion to motion that Councilor Faloon has a [15:36] Lisa Goodwin: conflict of interest i'm [15:40] Joseph Leonard: not seeing any. So since there's no motion and just you can make the motion and then okay it just doesn't pass or okay, so could I entertain at least a motion? I [15:55] Daniel Carson: will move that Counselor Balloon has a conflict of interest. You have a motion. Would anyone like [15:59] Joseph Leonard: to second that? Second. Okay, so now we have to vote on that. So I will do a roll call vote. Councillor Carson, no. Councillor Mallory, no. Councillor Fish, no. And I will be enough. So if you want to revisit this item in the future we certainly can, but I appreciate you for bringing it up and being a transparent street forward. Thank you very much. Council, if you were all done, I think we'll move on to Councillor Fish. Yeah, I'm done. [16:31] Carolyn Fish: Okay yeah thank you. Some of the questions I had on this you did answer and my other comments were out of all of these suggestions and looking at what Arizona and Virginia and Brewer is doing there were bits and pieces of some of them that I liked for us to consider but I agree with Counselor Carson that we should probably come up with our own ordinance it's come up with something because to control our narrative would be better than then we don't have anything and certainly wouldn't want to be challenged and lastly I think with the suggestion of community or some type of contribution back to the community I think with the casino we had it would be different but along that same concept there was a lot of things to come back to the community through that we can see the casino agreements right so we might get some ideas I just thought of that I haven't had a chance to go back and look at that negotiation process and what we came up with but I do know that they do have a lot of contributions right so that would be a good idea to go back and review that yeah we'll do some research to see yeah absolutely [17:53] Michael Beck: I'm not under the committee but I mean at some point this will come to the full council and as part of that discussion it would be if there are stories out there or community like oh thank goodness we have a data center I'd like to hear some of those it seems like a lot of buyers were more so right now at least that's the trend so we could hear some success stories of hey here's some community to love their data centers worked out great I mean there's some lessons we can [18:19] Joseph Leonard: learn from those successes certainly I would concur and unless there's any other comments. I do appreciate everyone's thoughts on the matter and to the points that were made, I think developing regulations and restrictions and trying to get a handle on what this industry is going to be evolving into in the future would be in our best interest to protect ourselves by developing what those are. I do want to make it very clear though I think we do owe it to our citizens to make those regulations and restrictions as heavy as possible so [19:04] Daniel Carson: it sounds like the overall direction is not to ban them but to develop the regulations and do we want to ban over a certain size or allow all sizes but have [19:16] Joseph Leonard: different regulations for each size personally for me speaking I would at this point just ban all sizes until further notice if we want to change it later but I'm just one person on [19:31] Daniel Carson: The committee, how's it, Carson, when does the moratorium, our temporary moratorium, we're limited to six months, right? When does that expire? Mid-October, but we can extend it if we still have the need and we're working on regulations, sorry. We'll follow up mid-thought, but because I'm not certain where I land on the differentiating between the sizes, and I think I'd like to hear a little bit more about our infrastructure and capacity before I say that, you know, here is my line that I think we should cut off, and probably when I learn more about that would be a really compelling reason to consider, at least personally for me, a ban of large data centers, but I would like to focus more on the regulations, I think. Okay. [20:26] Michael Beck: Councilor Beck. And I think the memo brought up too was, you know, whatever we end up doing here in Bangor, you know, there's nothing to stop them from going just across the city line and building something there. So maybe part of the discussion too is, are we in partnership with our community, you know, neighbors, you know, that say, hey, you know, are you willing to put some kind of restrictions too? Because that'd be terrible if someone puts a huge one right on the line and there's nothing we can do for our residents or, you know, suffer under that. [20:52] Joseph Leonard: and not only is that a good point counselor beck this also might be something that we might want to bring up in our legislative committee for whoever's going to be our next governor since the current one did veto the state moratorium that doesn't necessarily mean that the next one will continue that mindset or not so obviously if there's a state moratorium on this conversation with me at that point but anyway food for thought on that any other [21:25] Lisa Goodwin: thoughts or discussion or questions or comments from staff? Yes, sorry, so it sounds like we need [21:35] Daniel Carson: to come back with more information for everybody, some of the questions that have come up, and I did just want to note on the, we can, I don't know how much information we'll get on the electricity city side, we can definitely look into that, as far as capacity for the water system, we can definitely get an idea from the water district of, you know, and it might be hard for them to say, but try to say, you know, what is the water needs of these different sizes of facilities, I will say one of those Suggested recommendations to have is to require a closed loop for a recycled water system, and that would significantly cut down on the water use impact back to at least, but we can definitely look into more, some of these questions more and [22:20] Lisa Goodwin: just bring this back to you though. I would appreciate that very much. Thank you. Yeah. [22:26] Daniel Carson: Any other final thoughts or comments on this item? Yes, council person, I recognize. Like CVAs plas may not fit perfectly into the, but I would like to continue that discussion and figure out where are those fed next away, so we might need more than one regulation in different parts of the city code. [22:45] Joseph Leonard: Okay, well thank you so much, and we'll move on to item two, an update on sustainability projects. First the energy audits, and then we'll go to fleet electrification, and I know item A was a lot of information, and if people do have thoughts I of course would love to entertain them if possible. If there are like in-depth pertinent questions, I would definitely entertain maybe scheduling a special BED meeting if we wanted to get more into the weeds with those details, so that was the only disclaimer I want to put out there, but with that said, are you leading the discussion? Yeah. [23:37] Daniel Carson: Okay, so just to summarize, we did energy audits for six city-owned buildings, two of the schools, two golf course buildings, Banger Innovation Center, and the central fire station, and those for the most part they had a lot of kind of low lift items that would save us a pretty good amount of money on utilities, things like low flow, low flow water fixtures and low, you know, low flow toilet, things like that, insulating hot water pipes, air sealing, those kinds of things don't cost a lot of money, but they really do make a big difference, and those were pretty common across all the energy audits, so I think we can kind of extrapolate to say with other city buildings we might see those same savings, and then there were some higher cost improvements, like insulating some of the walls and some of the schools that would be pretty high cost, they would also have a really big savings over time. And they just want to mention too that the report, it was kind of out of their scope to evaluate transitioning to heat pumps and heat pump water heaters. They looked at electrifying, so electrifying from natural gas or oil to electric heat, but they chose an equivalent system and it was outside of their scope to look at heat pumps. But I will say that heat pumps generally are much more efficient than say an electric boiler, and especially in buildings where we do have oil heat, that cost of heating with a heat pump is going to be much lower usually, and with heat pump water heaters also are much more efficient than a traditional heat pump water heater, or I'm sorry, a traditional water heater. So when we do get to the end of life with those, I do think a heat pump water heater would make a difference, and there's significant [25:19] Lisa Goodwin: incentives with efficiency mean for those as well. So questions or comments? Council cars, did you [25:25] Daniel Carson: have your hand up? I, it did, I started to, yeah. I was just wondering if you found any diversity in the generality that the heat pumps are better in than the buildings that have like the oil. I'm just thinking about like my personal house, when we ran a cost analysis on installing heat pumps, we found that oil was actually more efficient and more affordable over the total life of, yes, because the heat pumps were going to require a draw about three times the energy that's interesting. I will say, you know, the city did just contract for a very low electricity of 11 cents a kilowatt hour, so that might make a difference. I know residential heating getting electricity rates are pretty high, so Councilman, Councilfish. So my question is about [26:16] Susan Faloon: that 11 cents a kilowatt hour, how, long does that last? I assume that there's an end point [26:22] Daniel Carson: with that, like it's for 18 months, and then I think the contract for a new break, I suspect, I don't [26:30] Susan Faloon: know this, but just given what's going on with like gas and oil prices, usually electric rates are sort of right behind that, because we depend a lot on natural gas for electricity generation [26:43] Carolyn Fish: Council fish, I too had that question. This was a great report, but I was surprised on the heat pump suggestion, because I know now with the real estate, with so many heat pumps and the cost of fuel and the cost of electricity, when we're sitting down and qualifying the expense of about home for especially first-time homebuyers, as part of their projections of what to cost to operate the home. We, in the last couple of years, have been able to identify the heat pump expense on the expansion and the increase of the electric has ended up being less effective and less efficient than the oil. We've not had enough data for natural gas because so many of the rural communities still don't have it. So we just couldn't get enough data to really effectively come up with a real assessment of that but the heat pumps with oil definitely at this point the heat pumps with the additional electric expense [27:50] Daniel Carson: less effective have you seen that even with the recent oil price increases yes matter of fact [27:59] Carolyn Fish: it's been three four months ago we had another audit assessment for a couple of buyers and it ended up being less effective i definitely think it's something that [28:13] Daniel Carson: would need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis maybe with 11 i'm sorry no it's i was just going to say like going from a traditional electric water heater to a heat pump water heater i think would definitely save some money and i agree i did the same and it was [28:29] Carolyn Fish: it was the water heater was more effective for me and I think also I don't know how much longer we would get the 11 cents or if that you know if that changes in the future it might change [28:41] Daniel Carson: the effectiveness of the cost savings yeah well I will say in most buildings the heating systems are still kind of a ways out from being replaced I think the only one that needed replacing soon was is at the golf course clubhouse but most of the other items that were recommended are things [29:00] Lisa Goodwin: that reduce demand you know like the air sealing so yeah any other thoughts questions tell us [29:10] Michael Beck: counselor that good to comment overall looking at it you know adding up to six buildings so that's our total cost of what, 1.45 million bucks in an annual savings overall $324,000. You know, that's 23% return on investment. You couldn't get that money, put it in the bank. Like that's pretty great. And overall, and this is again, you know, kicking into today's energy costs is a factor, but you're gonna see, you know, that money break even four and a half years from now. you know i just it seems like we could be printing money past that you know i mean because energy costs are only going to go up so the savings are only going to increase so i mean i say why not give ourselves the raise and you know hold on some of that money and [29:58] Joseph Leonard: Take advantage of this and those were my sentiments. I appreciate you bringing up those comments, Counselor. Back, any other thoughts or questions on this item? I know we don't need any action on this, but are there any feedback or comments that stack me to the point? Yeah, Council Carson, thank you for all of your work. Okay, well next we're going into the electrification of our vehicle, our transportation system, and I'll let [30:35] Daniel Carson: Officer Collect take it away. Yeah, so this is another report that detailed the savings we can achieve with some changes that we might make. I did have our intern, or she chose this project, but it also lined up with our climate action plan, our comprehensive plan, to look into electrifying our fleet, what that might involve, what are the savings we could potentially see. And in addition to financial savings that we could get from that, typically you also see less air pollution and noise pollution from EVs because they're quieter and don't obviously have the tailpipe pollutants, and those do actually translate into economic benefits. The Clean Air Act in particular, since passage of that, has had trillions of dollars in economic impact, so that's pretty significant. So she did a total cost of ownership analysis of the city's current vehicles and if we were to transition to electric vehicles, and I'll just skip to the savings part, but she found that for our lighter duty vehicles like SUVs and passenger cars, over their total lifetime they could have a savings of 11 to 31 percent. And if the city were to completely transition its light duty vehicle fleet over the next 10 years, we could see an estimated one, almost 1.2 million dollars in savings, and that includes things like lower fuel costs and maintenance costs, cost, especially because EVs don't have as many moving parts as gas vehicles. And then also she did outline, she had tables in her report with the different vehicle types, what a typical gas powered car looks like in terms of price, and then different EV prices. And some of them were cost comparable and some of them were even less than the gas powered one. So that was interesting. Interesting. She also did look at electric, or I will say equipment, and things like lawn mowers, leaf blowers, things like that, and whether that would be feasible to transition to electric. A lot of the tools were feasible. They had a pretty small payback period. And with forklifts, the payback period was less than two years, which was pretty significant. But as far as medium and heavy duty vehicles, it probably wouldn't be feasible at this time to transition to those because the cost is really high and we would have to probably look at fast charging or I will say level three charging with that it's also called fast charging but that has a much bigger electric load and it's very expensive to install whereas with lighter duty vehicles you can do level two charging which is pretty cheap you're looking at roughly sixteen hundred dollars for just installing and buying the charger and I wanted to mention with the chargers to those can be shared between vehicles because not every vehicles would need to be charged every night because many of these have ranges of about 300 miles and if people are just doing city driving they're not going to be using a lot of mileage every day and let's see I think oh yeah I just wanted to go over her recommendations at the end and that was to establish and follow a phased vehicle transition plan for the next 10 years and as vehicles reach their end of life look at electric alternatives prioritizing the light duty vehicles and those with the most consistent use those that are used on like a consistent schedule would be most feasible for transitioning because they'll have a set time that they would charge there's also efficiency made rebates that we can take advantage of we have maxed out the number we can take for the next 36 months then we can take advantage of more after 36 months and then implement chargers at priority department locations so before I open it up [34:22] Joseph Leonard: I just want to say this is a very detailed report and I very much appreciate that from the staff member and I did just want to thank them very much for that because even taught me some things that I was not acutely aware of. The only thing that I wanted to state was just making sure that when we transitioned to guaranteeing that, especially like emergency vehicles would not be impacted by this. But I remember Chief Hathaway many years ago saying that when they started to transition some of their vehicles to electric, they did not see any issues whatsoever in transitioning. So I hope that's, for right now, like not an issue that I'm keeping track of. So that said, I think this is a pretty thorough plan to actually protect ourselves by developing a multimodal transportation philosophy on top of also reducing our carbon emissions, which in case anyone doesn't know, the state of Maine, 50% of our carbon emissions come from our transportation. Patient, so it's in our best interest to actually continuing the path of making sure Bangor has some of the cleanest air in the country, and this is one of the ways that we can do that. And I would actually personally agree and recommend to go with the staff recommendation of developing the plan to transition into electrifying our vehicles further, but that's just me. I do want to open up to the committee to discuss, if anything. Councilor Dish. [35:59] Carolyn Fish: Do we know what the battery life and the battery replacement, I know that usually battery replacements are very expensive, and what battery life, because right now I know some of our police departments, sometimes they have older vehicles, and sometimes I'm amazed to see how old the airport vehicles and the police vehicles sometimes are, and but the battery, but they do, you know, they do seem to last and last. So I'm just wondering how the battery life and the expense of replacing that battery and I also understand that heavy equipment, you know, and I think you said it's not as feasible for heavy equipment, like you know major industrial equipment, that they would need an earth moving [36:49] Daniel Carson: being in that type of equipment, is that what you said in my correctness? Yeah,, so batteries, battery technology has improved drastically in the past few years, and with newer vehicles, battery replacements, you know, early on, are extremely rare. I think Amelia detailed in her report that the battery life is expected to be at least 13 years, and then you also have manufacturer warranties on batteries, and the time limits on that can vary depending on the manufacturer, obviously, but you know I will say, like, I think that it would be cost comparable to, you know, when you have a very old gas powered car, you're going to have very expensive things break, you know, if at some point you had a very old EV, you might have to replace the battery, but it would probably be similar to the cost that you paid for replacing very expensive things in your gas powered car, but it's, you know, they've made these so that you're going to have a long life out of your battery. It's definitely much more durable than like a cell phone battery or something like [37:54] Carolyn Fish: That you know and follow up just for the few people that I know that have the electric vehicles, I think the warranty was five years, that's why I was just wondering what the cost and I think they're new and it may be, I'm I'm sure it varies from vehicle to vehicle, but it was going to be like three to five thousand to replace the battery, so it was just kind of my [38:16] Daniel Carson: Mind trying to put things in perspective, yeah, comparison, yeah, it should be at least, I mean on average is 13 years, I will say you know I've had my EV for five years and I haven't had an issue, but yeah I mean I've also had gas cars where they estimated transmission replacement was going to be five thousand dollars, so you know you will have costs eventually, but the overall lifetime cost of less maintenance on the EV I think will far outweigh it because you don't have oil changes, belts and timers And all these things to replace, any other [38:56] Michael Beck: Questions or comments from counselors and sorry about I overlooked this, but has there been any input from department heads, I mean kind of the point with counselor what we're saying where the chief is hey we've no problem going over to electric, how does public works, I don't feel we're working [39:15] Lisa Goodwin: With electric equipment versus what they're doing now as far as equipment, I haven't [39:22] Daniel Carson: Heard of many equipment purchases going to EV, although I will say I think actually we use electric equipment around city hall and seems to work fine, I will say as far as the EVs themselves We've had good feedback from all the departments that have implemented EVs and that includes the police department. [39:38] Michael Beck: So. Just a follow up on that. Where I would see this going is, you know, council could make a recommendation or opinion, hey, go electric, you know, where you can, but it'll leave open the door for, you know, departments who, you know, they know their equipment, they know what they need to be able to say, hey, that's not going to work for us and be able to still come to council with what they really need. [39:59] Joseph Leonard: Yeah, and I think that's what the sentiment stated in the report, but I completely concur with that, absolutely. Any other thoughts or questions? Any comments from staff? I know you're only looking for comments or feedback, but again, I just want to reiterate, I very much appreciated this report and just thank you for all the hard work on it. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Please give my regards to Amelia. Okay. Next, we are going to have an update on the Long-Term Rental Registry pilot program. Anne, would you like to take [40:45] David Szewczyk: it away? Yeah. Actually, our community development officers here to review. [40:51] Joseph Leonard: Robin Stanicki is approaching the table. [40:59] Lisa Goodwin: Hello. My [41:03] Robin Stanicki: name is Robin Stanicki. I'm the community development officer for the city. And I'm here to update you on the city's pilot program for the rental registry. So two years ago, we established that we wanted to try a couple of things related to our rental properties. I've detailed in this memo, some of the context about, you know, from the historic perspective, how the program came to be. And what I've offered here for you is really some observations about just this idea that I think we need more information, not just information about like what we're doing, but whether or not what we're doing is actually going to get us to where the city council really would like to see. So what are some of those data metrics that we really should be concentrating on? And some of the reason that this came about is because in our conversations, the big value add was that we were able to talk with landlords and kind of begin to build a better relationship with them. And throughout these conversations, we really tried to clarify and to distill what the approach was and how to kind of get that buy-in. And we found that it was really challenging. And so one of the recommendations that I have is to either kind of tell me what it is, the problem that we're trying to solve to make sure that we're implementing the rental registry in the right way, or if we can figure out do we want this to be a mandatory arrangement so that we can actually try to do the things in a in a mandatory format so does anyone have any questions about the memo and any specifics related to the last two years all the way up to the committee if they have any questions [43:18] Carolyn Fish: council fish i'm not surprised with your challenges i think maybe education somehow partnering, continuing the effort, maybe two years just wasn't enough. I heard from a lot of people that they just have this idea that it's for an opportunity to get more taxes for some reason, more code or more control over what they're doing. And they, so there's a lot of resistance there. And I think if we force them with a mandatory, I think that's going to hurt a rapport we're trying to build with landlords to cooperate and be more collaborative with us. So maybe we just could be a little more creative and ideas how we might be able to communicate and better encourage some participation. And you know, I don't know, I'm looking see what ideas you've been out there in the field, right, you might have some ideas on that. [44:26] Robin Stanicki: I think the principal feedback that we received from the landlord community is that they didn't see the point. And most of the people that I'm talking to are the people that are taking care of their properties and didn't feel like there needed to be oversight in that regard. So in going to them, I found myself really trying to, I wanted to co-produce something that the landlords could buy into and that we really needed. And maybe it was a product of those outgoing conversations and we kind of reached a standstill in which I said, well, I need to go and kind of affirm what we're doing so that I'm not making assumptions about, oh, you know, we've kind of had some mission drift. So you know, so that's where I left it with them. They know that, you know, I was coming here to try to see if we could get some clarity on it and some renewed effort in that way and in whatever way the council would like us to do that. [45:28] Joseph Leonard: Did I answer your question, Counselor Fisher? Any other questions? Answer my question. Thank you. Okay, Counselor Carson, you had a question. [45:36] Michael Beck: No, Counselor Backer. So when I wrote the memo, my takeaway was started off with there was going to be mandatory inspections and then there was funding as an incentive and both [45:49] Robin Stanicki: things got pulled from you. The right, the mandatory inspections were one of the motivators, I think, for the initial discussions. And so over the evolution of the time, it became less about mandatory inspections and sort of then we replaced that mandatory auditory inspections with here will incentivize a voluntary structure with voluntary inspections. And so what we replaced it with didn't actually replace it, essentially. Sure. And I think that [46:25] Michael Beck: You know, not having any funding to do the work, I mean, it just, it didn't have the chance to succeed because it just is nothing to incentivize. Well, right, yeah. To that point, I'm not on the committee, but you know, we were looking for direction. I mean, where I personally land and back to the 2019 housing report that came out, and it's talked about the importance of a long-term rental registry. You know, it's my assumption that with what we get from assessing, it says we have this many units and here's who owns them, but not the quality of the units, you know, if it's got mold and all the inspection information. And so my hope is that we can find a way to make it so that we can do the rental registry with mandatory inspection, because we're talking about people's health, you know. And as all of us who campaign for office, we knocked on a lot of doors and saw a lot of problems in people's homes, and they were more than happy to complain about all the problems in their homes. And having a rental registry that it's mandatory to have inspections to be on the registry was one of the findings of this report. So I for one would be interested in trying to create that program that this report envisioned, you know, where it talks about not only launching the rental registry and talks about why, but also what the city is lacking is accountability for housing quality. You know, that's a key step. And with 60% of our people renting, you know, I want to make sure that people aren't living in mold, aren't living in, you know, ceilings that are falling down, all these problems. And I recognize there's a lot of landlords who do a lot of work to keep their properties up, you know, and there's some real good ones out there, but there's some other ones out there that are kind of skirting the system a little bit. And with no accountability, I just think that, you know, as a council, we need to give staff some teeth to be able to do this. That's where I'm landing on this, and I don't know 100 what that looks like. I just know that I like what I read when I see the 2019 report and I see the need. How do we get it so that every rental unit in this city gets inspected and we work with, you know, landlords? How do we get this fixed so people aren't breathing in law and aren't, you know, worried about the rough cave in and out, aren't in harm's way just because where they're choosing to live? And let's figure out how we can make sure we have, you know, quality [48:52] Joseph Leonard: Housing and hold the whole owners accountable for that, and I appreciate those comments that council is back because, well, I'll just get to what my assessment was of reading this. I think what we need to do is a dual problem approach. We don't need to just go to those that own the buildings. I think we also need to open up a window of opportunity for those who rent to actually say, hey, this is an issue that I'm having in 128 Harlow Street, this is an issue that I'm having in 25 Broad Street, the ability for actual people that live in the buildings to actually submit their own feedback to whatever type of website program whatever it is that we want to develop if we don't include those that are actually living in these buildings they're going to be the subject matter of experts to figure out if a building is up to code or not if there's a hole in the wall then these fly through and sting good he's a tenant said that 's just one example that i can think of that actually happened but the point being though, is I think I don't want to yet approach a carrot and stick approach to this because I don't think we're there yet. But what I think we do need to do is meet renters at this point in this rental registry pilot, because those are going to be the people that are going to ring the alarm bells. So I think creating a system that prioritizes those who live in these buildings is going to help the city overall to not only buildings but to also make sure our infrastructure that the city does not own is up to date and going to be healthy because that's, that's for the city overall, that those are just my thoughts, and I don't know if staff has any follow-up questions or, thoughts on that. Yeah, so coming [51:01] Robin Stanicki: here tonight, you know, we were trying to think of the model and what would really work given in, you know, your comments here tonight, and it's really funny because I grabbed your pen to write exactly what he said because it came to me that really we have, we already have a system in place in which a tenant can call the code office and it will prompt an inspection because you can allow as a renter anyone into your home and it can be a code officer to come and look for something, so this exists already. So there is potential there for, instead of going into a mandatory inspection. So what if we go to the other side and we make it easier or explore a way for more of the problems to emerge? Because I think one of the biggest pieces of feedback related to it is landlords who do the right thing want to move on as though, you know, they're doing the right thing, so they want something that wouldn't affect them necessarily if they weren't doing the right thing. So in this way, you're kind of, you're turning it on the obverse potentially, so that is, maybe we could come back to you with maybe a few implementation options if you'd like us to do that way, like here are some, here are some avenues that we could go in, these three directions, that was actually going to [52:32] Joseph Leonard: be nice, but so I, very much appreciate your thoughts there, Counselor Fluid, and then [52:39] Susan Faloon: Counselor Carson, thank you, yeah, I appreciate you saying like that you'll come back with multiple options, because what I've heard from a few constituents is that they're not dealing with landlords, they're dealing with property management companies who have in some cases become very difficult to deal with, and they don't dare to say anything about the issues they're having with their apartments for fear of repercussions, so I don't think we can entirely leave it up to the tenants to make the calls because there are people who are literally afraid that they are going to lose their housing if they do that, right, and that's why we don't have a, you [53:23] Robin Stanicki: know, our code office isn't, you know, inundated with those types of things, so that's why I think if we did do that, we need to pause and think, you know, how do we protect those from being exploited or [53:36] Lisa Goodwin: discriminated against, yeah, and if I can, and I know you have a comment, Council Caution, [53:42] Joseph Leonard: we might be able to also amend the attendance bill of rights to include that if you're ringing the alarm bell and like it's not going to penalize you, can't, I know that there's always ways for those that are not straight arrows to find ways to get people out of their living situations, but that's on us to figure out how do we protect those people that are actually helping the city at the end of the day, so I, that is a very good point though, Council, that's something we want to take in consideration Council Carson, I just a comment [54:24] Daniel Carson: I'm going to continue watching LD 1806, which is carryover from the 132nd legislature. That would have been the state's version of the mandatory rental registry. And when they started talking about that, I just had a suspicion. You probably confirmed this for me, because ours isn't mandatory, but if the states, unless when they get it to session next they do some significant revising, if I remember correctly, states proposed version includes an exception if you have, if you have registered in another rental registry. So my suspicion would be that if the state legislature moves forward with that carryover in the next session, we wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel of getting people to consider registering, because they would either have to do it with the state or they could do it by choice here in Bangor, which would alleviate their need to have to do it. I think probably in that situation prefer to register with their municipality than with the state, right? And [55:36] Robin Stanicki: given that we don't really know how they might roll that state registry out it gives bangor an opportunity to build the one they want the way it works the way that we want it so there is an [55:50] Lisa Goodwin: element of control over that. So yeah, counselor back from council Fish, I would do that too then. [55:57] Michael Beck: Whatever we come up with as a council for this rental register, I would also like to see us return the incentives. I'm sure there's a lot of landlords out there who you want to improve their buildings and you know trying to keep rents down and not you know really make it in to meet with it and you know an opportunity for the city, whether it's going to be view funds or however we come up with it, to you know help them get it up to code and keep these departments affordable while also you know healthy and livable and you know some quality housing for people. Absolutely. [56:27] Carolyn Fish: Council Fish, I would caution against a mandatory registry. I just think it's, it's really going to be a barrier of our relationship with a lot of the landlords. And tenants do have multiple avenues with their own codes, as well as other tenants' rights and bill of rights and lots of portals and avenues to complain. And there are civil penalties against the landlord if the tenant can prove that they were punished or evicted from complaining. So I'd rather see a more positive approach by giving them incentives for those that register and maybe also making for the city's website or whatever an easier portal perhaps for tenants that do want to be able to submit a complaint to our code or other appropriate division but being mandatory just the word and the conversations that have come up there's been a great deal of concern from developers and investors and department owners so I would like you know I see the need for it I see the point of it but I think making it mandatory I'd rather have it ascent incentivized and have other avenues where we can perhaps address those same problems we're concerned about without having a mandatory registry and just be clear it's it's [58:04] Joseph Leonard: It's not mandatory right now, and I don't think we're on an approach to make it mandatory yet. The only thing that would be mandatory is if the state wouldn't be able to do that. And I don't think we're actually in a capacity right now to even enforce a mandatory rental registry at this point, hence why I like the idea of meeting renters where they're at. [58:27] Robin Stanicki: Right. And I think that we have some existing tools, like you can report pretty much anything around the city with a I can't remember C click fix so that could we can maybe we can use existing tools potentially yeah but we can put together some carrot-like items and bring them back to you [58:48] Lisa Goodwin: for your next meeting yeah I would like to see that orange did you have a question yeah I [58:55] Michael Beck: just if I'm not mistaken Orono has a mandatory yeah and I guess I would like to see some comparison how it's working out for them you know what they're doing because that would be a good place to start because I think the lesson from this pilot is it without being mandatory and not having incentives it didn't have a chance to really succeed and I don't know if there's a way to break down to you know whether a drop off participation when the funding was pulled or not but I just I see if mandatory is the only way this is going to work because you know the ones that are already doing it right and doing the best means it's just one more inspection they're already doing anyway if they even need it, they could probably get a waiver if they've been inspected recently. And we can certainly work out, you know, fees are a barrier to certain landlords or any landlords. We can certainly have that conversation as well, but you know, in 2019 an entire board was convened with real estate agents, with landlords, everybody involved. They all came on and said this is what you have to do if you want accountability for quality housing with 60 of our rent, our citizens renting. I feel we have a duty for their health to protect them, to look out for them, and you know it's It's a common refrain that retaliation just a thing. Not every landlord does it, but it's happening out there, and we don't have any way to really protect those who get retaliated against. It's nice, it's lip service, it's great. We can say you know the law says this or that, but remember the law says don't, you can't have wool in your place, and that's still happening. Where's the key for that? So you know I, there's no teeth right now, I mean [1:00:31] Joseph Leonard: People need to protect people, and I also would pinker, I would like to see what up right now [1:00:37] Daniel Carson: Council Carson, you're in your hand up. Yeah, so I'm now, I'm going to take your position, which is just to say I'm sure since this has started there has been a landlord and this, a combination of we need to build the relationships and that positive line of thinking, but I'm sure there has been somebody who has signed up for this since it has been like put in place and has found this to be useful to them, to their tenants. It would be great to hear those stories so we can tell those stories to encourage Other people who might want to do that [1:01:10] Joseph Leonard: Yeah, we'll try to bring you some. Okay, any other thoughts or questions on the matter, staff? [1:01:17] Lisa Goodwin: Do you have any questions or comments for us? Yeah, so we can, we can come back [1:01:24] Joseph Leonard: Yeah, with a couple of conditions, we're looking forward to that. Okay, so we have one more item on our agenda, and I will be looking for a motion. Mr. Chair, pursuant to one MRSA section [1:01:41] Daniel Carson: Section 4056 C, acquisition of no property development [1:01:48] Joseph Leonard: second remote him in a second we will do a roll call vote counselor carson yes councilman yes councilman yes council fish yes and i hope you yes we are in executive session you're live okay we are live we are out of executive session and i will be looking [1:38:10] Daniel Carson: Looking for a motion. Yes, Mr. Chair, regarding the affordable housing tax increment financing district, I move staff recommendation. Second. We have a motion, we have a second. We will [1:38:24] Joseph Leonard: Do a roll call vote. Councillor Carson? Yes. Councillor Faloon? Yes. Councillor Malheur? No. Councillor Fish? No. And that will be a yes. So we'll move on to council. And I'm I'm not seeing anything else on the agenda the staff or counselors have anything else they would like to add I feel me had nothing else so with that said it is nine