Special Bd. of Aldermen — 08/06/2019 Page 2
So we put out the RFP, we had four or five responses and as | said, either | think Ms. Chisolm and maybe Ms.
Marchant will fill you in on some of those details but we had a Committee to review the responses and the best
deal for the City was provided by Revision Energy. They were selected, there were a number of people on the
Committee and then they and the City moved forward to examine the buildings where solar might work. It came
down to 3 or 4 possibilities where this would work well right away. One was the garage, the bus garage the
transportation garage out on Riverside Drive. You need both a roof that is amenable to this and also a structure
that can support the weight of the solar array. In addition, the Lake Street Fire Station was one of the other
buildings that was identified as a good candidate for solar. There was some work done on the transportation
office building where Public Works is as well. That was questionable from a structural point of view. Also the
Public Works Building was examined, the Public Works Garage, that could work for solar but we really need at
least 10 and maybe 20 years of life to make the solar investment worthwhile. Since the future of the Public
Works Garage is in doubt, we could be replacing it or expanding it or something else; that was thought to be not
a good fit for a long term project such as this.
Also, because the financial benefits to be gained by any participant in the solar project grow to the extend there
is a larger scale, it seemed like it made sense to talk with the Conway Arena about including us together in
basically the same project under the same terms. Of course their finances would be separate from ours but we
would both gain the benefit as a result of a larger scale project. So we talked with the Board of Directors of
Conway and they were very receptive to the idea because they do use a lot of electricity. Now they have one
concern and | think we can take care of that and that is that the City’s lease with Conway is running out in not
too long, Charlie can give us the exact number of years. They would like to extend the lease under the current
terms for another 20 years. That would be a separate proposal coming to the Board of Aldermen so that they
can participate in this project and make solar work for them over a longer term period.
It seemed to me, of course the Board of Aldermen would need to approve the extension of the lease, but it
seems to me that they have done an extremely good job for the community offering low cost ice to our high
schools teams as well as providing ice for all of our recreational hockey and many other, adults free-skating.
They have done an extremely good job of managing this situation and they have in addition generated profit in
the neighborhood of $650,000.00 which Alderwoman Caron can tell you they have contributed as a member of
the commission, that they have contributed to the non-profits in the area. This year there were about
$50,000.00 or $55,000.00 worth of awards. So the relationship, public/private partnership with Conway has
been, | would say high successful and therefore to me the extension of the lease is something we would do
anyway and if it helps them help us with the solar project that seems like something that we should in my mind
undertake and certainly seriously consider.
In any event, that gives you an overview of the situation | think. Now| would ask either Deb or Sarah or both to
come up and kind of brief us on the procurement, what was done to select, vet and select the various energy
companies which led to the selection of Revision Energy.
Deb Chisolm, Community Development
Hi, Good Evening, | am Deb Chisolm | work in Community Development with Director Marchant. The Mayor did
an excellent job of pretty much covering everything. We did go through a procurement process, of course we
followed all the rules and regulations of the Purchasing Department downstairs. But we were lucky to get
proposals from 4 different solar companies. It gave us a lot of options and a lot of a learning curve for myself, |
am typically, my hat is usually Waterways Manager but for tonight | am Solar Person. Sarah and myself and
Bob Hayden from Standard Power were the review committee. So we reviewed all of the proposals that came
in. We got 4 proposals in; we took 2 and moved them further, asked specific questions about specific properties
and specific pricing. Thankfully, again Bob Hayden was on our review committee because Bob is standard
