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19 2008 Street Lighting Services Review. The SRA undertook a comprehensive review of its street lighting providers and potential providers of equipment and maintenance services. This process gleaned valuable information regarding terms and conditions of its encumbrance provider, Xcel Energy, and numerous competitive equipment and maintenance service providers interested in stepping into the deregulated street lighting environment. In conjunction with a SRA sponsored independent consultant report, a number of resources and the availability of new lighting efficiency technologies were identified, which are becoming increasingly important for cities. 2007 Gas and Electric Franchise Renewals. The SRA has traditionally assisted its members and established model gas and electric franchises. In 2007, many SRA members, and Minnesota cities, are in the process of renegotiating their gas and electric franchises with their respective serving utilities. The SRA has served as a resource on franchise terms including the implementation of franchise fees. 2006 CenterPoint Energy Gas and Xcel Electric Utility Rate Cases. In the Xcel case, the SRA, with the City of St. Paul- successfully opposed Xcel's proposed elimination of the favorable municipal pumping rate class and negotiated agreements with Xcel regarding substantive meetings on municipal pumping rates and street lighting service outages. The SRA was also successful in opposing increases in residential fixed customer charges, which tend to reduce conservation incentives when raised significantly by utilities. In both the CPE and Xcel cases such customer charges will not increase as significantly as either utility originally proposed. The SRA work with Xcel during 2007 and 2008 to identify strategies to reduce electric rates and electricity usage at municipal pumping stations. It is through this process that the SRA identified the method of how minimizinguse se of pumping stations during the six winter months can result in the estimated $1,000420,000 annual savings in rates to city pumping station electricity bills. The higher savings estimates would apply to larger municipalities with multiple redundant wells using greater than 25 KW in electricity. It is likely that even small municipalities would be able to utilize some savings from this method available because the SRA was able to retain the municipal pumping rate in this rate case. 2005 Service Lateral Utility Locate Rules. The Office of Pipeline Safety Rules, effective January 1, 2006, requires cities to locate water and sewer service laterals of utilities found in the right-of-way. This includes service laterals that are privately -owned for water and sewer, located deep under the right-of-way. The SRA assisted in the process of equipping cities within ordinances and permit language to effectively obtain location information on newly -installed water and sewer service laterals. 2004 Xcel Facility Relocation in Rights -of -Way. The SRA was active in protecting city rights to require relocation of overhead electric facilities in the right-of-way. 2004 Consumer/Small Business Protection in Telephone Rates. SRA presence in the legislative process had a significant impact on the comprehensive telecom legislation passed during the 2004 session. The SRA led a group of interests resulting in the defeat of provisions allowing unilateral rate increase authoritv and lower service standards sought by telephone companies. 355483vl JMS SU160-3 3