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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 11042008 - C.13 r; TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS - .' t`--��' Contra FROM: JULIA R. BUEREN PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR Costa. DATE: November 4, 2008 County srA,co6tir� SUBJECT: Accept Report on Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) Coordination Efforts for Street Light Maintenance with Cities and County of Contra Costa, Countywide, (All Districts) SPECIFIC REQUEST(S)OR RECOMMENDATION(S)&BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATION(S): Accept this Status Report on the Street Light Coordination effort between PG&E and the County and cities for street light maintenance, as recommended by the Public Works Director. FISCAL IMPACT: None. BACKGROUND/REASON(S) FOR RECOMMENDATION(S): The Transportation, Water and Infrastructure Committee, on March 10, 2008, asked staff to report back to the Committee in October 2008, on the status of the street light coordination effort with PG&E. Staff reported to the Committee on October 20, 2008 and were instructed to share this information with the Board of Supervisors. Continued on Attachment: SIGNATURE: �J COMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRAT 4R X,RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE APPROVE —OTHER SIGNATURE (S): ACTION OF BOARD ON m APPROVED AS ECOMMENDED OTHER VC}TE OF SUPERVISORS UNANIMOUS(ABSENT AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTAIN: I hereby certify that this is a true and correct copy of an action taken and entered on the minutes of the Board of Supervisors on the date shown. GH:jc , �/ . l G:\EngSve\BO\2008\11-04\PG&E Street Light Coordination BO-12 FORM.doex ATTESTEDefLL /&; w� 4�0 f Ao f DAVID TWA, Clerk of the Board of Orig.Div:Public Works(ES) Supervisors and County Administrator Contact: G.Huisingh,Engineering Services(313-2257) cc: B.Barbas,Deputy Director / � s M.Perella,Engineering Services By Deputy r SUBJECT: Accept this Status Report on the Street Light Coordination effort between PG&E and the County and cities for street light maintenance, as recommended by the Public Works Director, Countywide. (All Districts) DATE: November 4, 2008 PAGE: 2 Since March 2008, the County Public Works Department and some cities have been meeting on a monthly basis to discuss street light maintenance issues. These discussions focus around the daily maintenance of the street lights and the processes and communication to improve these services. The coordination meetings have been held each month at the County Public Works Department. County staff, PG&E and interested city staff openly discuss current issues related to the street light maintenance. Thus far,the meetings have focused on a handful of pertinent topics including the following items: • PG&E's monthly summary reports for outage calls to the County, cities and PG&E. • The goals as outlined in the Letter of Understanding(LOU). • New technology for street lights. • Group Lamp Replacement. • Communication to all interested parties regarding street light issues. Progress has been made on some of the items that the County and cities had requested to be addressed by PG&E. Below are some of the issues that have been addressed/completed or the status of progress: • Response time for routine items and common outages has improved and PG&E completes most of the repairs within the 14 day period in the LOU. PG&E is still working out internal operation protocol to insure that the 90 day period for other more extensive repairs is met on a more consistent basis. Streetlight "knockdowns" via vehicle incidents are also covered by this more extensive 90 day process. Overall, there is some improvement in these longer project completion periods but the response time is not consistent at this time. • Group Lamp Replacement—A group relamping schedule has been completed and distributed to all cities in the County, as well as County Public Works. PG&E has nearly completed this year's group relamping effort. One of the tasks for this coordination group will be to insure that this effort continues into the coming years. The relamping program is scheduled on a 5-year cycle based on estimated lamp lifetime. Photo controls are scheduled on a 10-year basis. Eight thousand lights were scheduled for replacement and approximately 6,000 have been replaced, with the remaining 2,000 to be completed by the end of this year. • Replacement of Deteriorated Poles — In some cities and areas of the County, hollow-core wooden poles exist and are deteriorating. PG&E is reporting quarterly on the status of planned and actual replacement of these poles. • Reporting follow-up and customer communication — There has been improvement in customer service feedback and PG&E is continuing follow-up to further improve feedback to customers who report outages on-line and via the toll free phone number. • Street light pole painting - PG&E has reported the completion of all poles scheduled to be painted. Thus far, we have not heard from any jurisdictions that indicate differently. Standard maintenance cycle is for pole painting on an as-needed basis. SUBJECT: Accept this Status Report on the Street Light Coordination effort between PG&E and the County and cities for street light maintenance, as recommended by the Public Works Director, Countywide. (All Districts) DATE: November 4, 2008 PAGE: 3 There are several areas that will require significantly more attention in the coming year by all interested parties to insure that the forward progress related to street light maintenance continues into the future. Those items include: • New Product Choices — There have been general discussions about new product choices and new technology for use on street lights. There are some pilot projects in the works related to newer technology and rate schedules but additional work remains before this moves forward as this was secondary to the improvement of maintenance response times. • A new streamline process called "Fast Flow" was developed for new service installations. A new customer service group was created, but PG&E is still working through internal procedures to install new services to the County and cities faster than the current design and build process. • Reporting of work in process and completed work — PG&E is continuing to work on the format and data contained in the monthly summary reports. PG&E is receptive to concerns of the interested parties and is incorporating modifications into the reports. • Improve participation by the cities in the coordination meetings. Meetings have been held on a monthly basis. Based on discussions with the group, we will be moving to quarterly meetings. The next meeting will be held in January 2009. Staff from the County, some participating cities, and PG&E, have committed to continue working toward improvement in the street light maintenance process. We will continue with the coordination meetings and also work toward increased participation from all interested parties to insure that this effort remains in the forefront for all involved. CONSEQUENCES OF NEGATIVE ACTION: No consequences. Informational only.