The agenda for JEA’s final board of directors meeting in 2016 covered topics from finance to improving communication with customers to watching a robot toss a volleyball.
Paul McElroy, JEA CEO, reported “all signs look green” in terms of the utility’s finances in the first two months of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
He said sales of electricity and water and sewer service were slightly below projections due to the warmer than usual weather, but the numbers should get closer to what was expected in the next few months.
The trip to New York City last week to meet with credit rating agencies was an “outstanding success,” said board Chair Tom Petway.
Based on JEA’s financial position, its schedule to pay down bond debt early, the five-year electric rate stabilization plan adopted in November and the voters’ approval of Mayor Lenny Curry’s pension reform plan, Petway said he expects very favorable results when the agencies issue the credit reports.
“Our financials speak for themselves,” he said.
Board member Husein Cumber had a personal experience with a major JEA repair project when a 24-inch water main buried six feet underground broke in his neighborhood in San Marco late Nov. 27.
He had no issues with the speed of the repair, but thought JEA could do a better job notifying people affected by repair projects.
A boil water advisory was issued for about 3,500 customers in the vicinity of the repair who lost water pressure when the pipe burst.
Notices were hung on doors overnight, which meant many customers didn’t see the advisory before they started using water the morning of Nov. 28.
“When you wake up at 5 a.m. and start brushing your teeth and making coffee, you don’t think to look for a door-hanger,” Cumber said.
“There’s got to be a better way to communicate with our customer base when there are isolated incidents that don’t affect all JEA customers,” he added.
McElroy said staff will evaluate how to increase information outreach through email, text messages and social media. Posting advisories about issues in specific neighborhoods on jea.com also could be a solution.
Cumber said he had the opportunity to educate his neighbors, many of whom know he serves on the volunteer board, about training given to directors.
“I had to explain to them that I haven’t gone to JEA pipe-fixing school,” he said.
Electric systems engineer Todd Lovelace and several members of the JEA Team Resistance Robotics Club at Stanton College Preparatory School and Paxon School for Advanced Study demonstrated one of their robots after the meeting adjourned.
Lovelace said JEA engineers and managers have mentored the students for the past 21 years as they prepared for the annual Regional Robotics Championship at the University of Central Florida.
He said in March, the team finished in the top 2 percent of about 5,000 teams, some of them sponsored and mentored by NASA and leading aerospace companies.
More than 400 students have completed the four-year team program since it began and close to 700 have participated for at least one year, Lovelace said.
In January, the students will begin designing and fabricating their entry that will compete March 9-11 in Orlando.
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