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Minutes 09/27/2006
PUBLIC POWER AGENCY
September 27, 2006

Members Present:        John Montone, Chairperson, Timothy C. Lattimore, William Graney and Mike Luksa

Members Absent: Vijay Mital (called and said he would not be able to attend), Frank DeOrio (on vacation), Robert M. Buschman, Robert Bergan (called and had another meeting)

One vacancy

Staff Present:  Michael Long and Nancy Hussey

Meeting called to order by John Montone and meeting was started by having everyone introduce themselves to the other members and public at the meeting.  Last meeting was held March 15, 2006 and Chairperson asked for approval of minutes.

Nancy Hussey advised the Chairperson that there was not a quorum of members so the agency cannot transact business, which would be approving the minutes.  John asked if a quorum was a majority and Nancy stated that it was, there are 8 members on the committee, their are 9 originally but there is one vacancy which leaves 8 members and the majority would be 5.  The Chair stated that since there is a lack of a quorum we would go to new business, which is to replace one of the agency members and asked that some names be thrown out on the table.  Nancy stated that any business that you transact without a quorum would include throwing out any names or any discussion of that nature would be part of the business and it wouldn’t be proper, the proper procedure is and said she will leave this up to the Chairperson, but there isn’t a quorum according to Roberts Rules and a date set for adjournment for a meeting when a quorum is present.  Nancy I understood that the Chairperson has some people here for a presentation, it would be unfair and unkind to postpone them, the presentation can be given.

John Montone stated Kamayr is here to give a presentation on the regional digester and on the agenda are some different points and he is going to go through them.  There have been meetings on this so there are things that have been going on.  Kamayr is going to present basically the digester, a project similar to what the County is doing, the County and City have been working together on some of these things and this is a little bit different type of digester project than the one for the County, and the reason the Chairperson is familiar with it as he is on that committee as well a Mr. Graney and basically that is dealing with using cow manure and the County is going to put it on the site out there on County House Road and get the energy off of that and use it all for that facilities out there, including the jail, the nursing home and whatever other buildings that are out there.  That is a project that is similar to what Kamayr is going to show you here except the fuel for that is coming from cow manure, this is going to be something different.  This has to deal with the City itself, the location of this will be at the landfill site.

Kamayr Zaldeh, of Ecotechnology Solutions thanked everyone for the opportunity to speak.  He stated that the capability analysis of this work began in April of last year and then went into the presentation on the City of Auburn Regional Digester & Bioenergy Enterprise. He spoke on the background, assumptions, concept, scope of major hardware, scope of hardware and service, operation, major operating costs, assessment of transportation requirements, environmental permit requirements and operating revenues. Mike Long stated that this is funded through a grant 50% through the NYSERDA and a co-partnership with the County and the City.  There was a question and answer period after the presentation.

Mike Long stated that there are basically three projects that NYPA is working on; one is the hydro-site; another that is going to come up and Mike believed they are ready to do a presentation to the council most likely a week from Thursday may be on the conservation project.  They went out to bid, got the numbers back, sat down and looked at the bids to see where we could do some cost savings, over all it looks like it is a $3.8 million dollar project for 12 buildings for conservation plus the geo-thermal system at the Fire and Police Station.  With the savings of energy that would be used using that as basically a buying down of the capitol costs, the net cost to the City is about $22,000 - $23,000 per year to pay back that capitol cost.  It looks to be a very promising project.  The third project that NYPA is working on with us is the incinerator project.   They did a feasibility study, they have since taken that initial work, worked with their consultants to come up with a better look at the project of more detailed design and David Laney is trying to get all the numbers together and we are hoping to have him come back another time and do a presentation possibly to the Power Agency and to City Council.  The initial numbers may have been a little optimistic when they did their initial study which led us into a conversation about possibly instead of running the incinerator and the energy there using the sludge and going to this process with the digester.  Mike stated what the City is hoping to do is to take the incinerator project merge it into the digester project take the grants that were initially awarded and help pay for the capitol cost and that is going to make this an even better project.  We have two NYPA grants and two NYSERDA grants.

Kamayr stated that the County is ready to start their project but because of the delays they are going to hit the winter months.  There are foundations that have to be poured and there will be delays to some of the construction until April so they are looking to commission this unit in April and will probably occur in June or July.  

John Montone thanked everyone for coming even thought it wasn’t an official meeting.  In regards to other meetings, John said he would get together with Jane and communicate with the other members and see what time is convenient for them and get some dates from them.  John anticipated that the commission would be meeting at least twice a month, if they want to and do some work sessions with the City Council.  Adjourned at 6:30 p.m.