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Board - Committee - Commission - Council:
RMLD Citizens Advisory Board
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Date: 2016-03-23 Time: 6:30 PM
Building: Reading Municipal Light Building Location: Winfred Spurr Audio Visual Room
Address: 230 Ash Street
Purpose: General Business Session: General Session
Attendees: Members - Present:
Mr. George Hooper, Chair (Wilmington); Mr. David Nelson, Vice Chair
(Lynnfield); Mr. Mark Chrisos (North Reading); Mr. Dennis Kelley
(Wilmington)
Members - Not Present:
Mr. David Mancuso, Secretary (Reading)
Others Present:
Mr. Thomas O'Rourke, Board of Commissioners
Ms. Coleen O'Brien, Ms. Jane Parenteau, Ms. Kathleen Rybak
Minutes Respectfully Submitted Hooper,By: Mr. George Hoop Chair
9
Topics of Discussion:
1. Call Meeting to Order — G. Hooper, Chair
Chair Hooper called the meeting of the Citizens' Advisory Board to order at 6:30 p.m.
and noted that the meeting was being audio recorded.
2. Approval of Minutes — G. Hooper, Chair
Materials: Draft January 13, 2016, Regular Session Minutes; Draft January 13, 2016,
Executive Session Minutes
Mr. Nelson made a motion that the Citizens' Advisory Board approve the Regular
Session Minutes of the January 13, 2016, meeting as written, seconded by Mr. Kelley.
Hearing no further discussion, Motion carried 4:0:1 (4 in favor, 0 opposed, 1 absent).
Mr. Nelson made a motion that the Citizens' Advisory Board approve the Executive
Session Minutes of the January 13, 2016, meeting as written, seconded by Mr. Chrisos.
Hearing no further discussion, Motion carried 4:0:1 (4 in favor, 0 opposed, 1 absent.
3. RMLD Dashboard Overview — C. O'Brien, General Manager
Ms. O'Brien noted that staff is developing an RMLD communications roadmap, and we
are starting to see bits and pieces of that, such as the Twitter account and the app
developed with that. Internally, staff have been working with SharePoint for the past
few years. By utilizing SharePoint, we are able to share documents for informational
purposes, or to facilitate review and edit of documents. The moto for of the 2014
Annual Report was "be efficient, get greener and go paperless" - we are trying to
practice what we preach.
Another element of Office 365 (in addition to SharePoint) is "Power BI" which can be
used to develop "dashboards." Dashboards can be used to build customized displays
of data and information from various sources such as SharePoint, Cogsdale, the outage
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management system, and eventually the GIS system. Managers will be able to
customize their own dashboards to look at the various types of Information or data that
is Important within their division. Ms. O'Brien presented some examples of the various
types of data (i.e., billing data, usage data, outage information, etc.) that can be
® Included on a dashboard, and how that data can serve to monitor key performance
indices. In the future, we will be developing dashboards for the public on the RMLD
website to provide customers with easy access to customer-specific information such
as, their billing information as compared to the average customer usage; outage maps
to show where current outages are happening. Dashboards are geared toward the user
and what information they want to see.
Ms. O'Brien noted that she would like to start developing a dashboard for the CAB and
Board, which will be accessible to members through external log-on. There are utilities
that have developed successful dashboards and we will present some real life examples
to the CAB at a future meeting. In the meantime, the group should start thinking about
what type of information would be Important to them to see on their dashboard. Ms.
O'Brien asked members to email Chair Hooper with any requests or suggestions they
may have for the dashboard.
Ms. O'Brien reported that she is getting ready to implement Skype Business, which will
be used to call in resources during emergencies. The Control Room Operator is
currently responsible for calling in emergency assistance using the on-call list, trying to
reach personnel through various telephone numbers on record, while responding to a
high volume of customer calls. Skype Business will send out an automated phone call
to individuals on the call list. Skype Business will continue to call until the individual
either answers the phone or it will leave a message. The staff member will respond to
the message, and if the Control Room Operator Is not able to answer, the message that
he's coming in or not will revert to a text on the screen so the Control Room Operator
can very quickly look and tabulate who is coming in. The goal is to make the process
Q more efficient, while distributing overtime fairly. The group discussed the logistics of
using Skype Business. Ms. O'Brien noted that we needed something that was more
efficient and allows the Control Room Operator to grow into the technology he is going
to be expected to use in the future. We will also use Skype Business (in the future) to
send out messages to the Board and CAB that are outside of the Twitter
communication.
Ms. O'Brien displayed the RMLD SharePoint site to give an idea of some of the
information and programs that have been put together and posted on the site (career
development plans, operational procedures, training, policies, employee benefits,job
descriptions, etc.)
4. Public Comment — G. Hooper, Chair
Chair Hooper asked if there were any additional comments or questions. There were
none.
S. Next Meeting — G. Hooper, Chair
The group discussed the order of the Budget presentations and agreed they wanted to
review the Operating Budget prior to the Capital Budget. Ms. O'Brien noted that the
FY17 Budget would be out to the CAB by March 31st and asked if there was anything
that members wanted to see differently from last year. There were no requests. The
FY2017 Budget Review Meetings will be held April 6th (in North Reading) and April 13th
at RMLD.
O As discussed previously, moving forward the CAB will meet the first week of the month
and the Board will meet the second week of the month. This will allow ample time for
the staff to prepare financials for review by the CAB prior to the Commissioners
meetings.
The next Regular CAB meeting was scheduled for May 4th.
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6. Adjournment — G. Hooper, Chair
Mr. Nelson made a motion to adjourn the meeting of the Citizens' Advisory Board,
seconded by Mr. Chrisos. Hearing no further discussion, Motion carried 4:0:1 (4 in
favor, 0 opposed, 1 absent).
The Citizens' Advisory Board Meeting adjourned at 7:16 p.m.
As approved on July 13, 2016
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