The executive committee meeting of the underground utility damage enforcement board and we I apologize for the noise in the room for the construction, so if you.
Cannot hear, just let me know and we will repeat ourselves. So I'm gonna start this morning with the opening the meeting with the role Paul.
Chairman Tubberville, vice Chairman Henderson, mr. Hood, mr. Pitts.
Yeah.
And mr. Raper. Mr. Hood and mr. Raper did let us know that they would not be here today.
They did. Alright, so in your packet you had minutes from last from the meeting from the last minutes from the last meeting. Have you had a chance to review those?
Why would that be approved?
Second.
Okay, we will take a voice vote. Chairman Tubberville.
Yes.
Vice chairman Hinderson.
Yes.
Mr. Hood, mr. Pitts. And mr. Riper. All right, we'll move on.
To the presentation of the investigation of complaints, and since we have three.
Members here today, if there are any recusals, we will have to move those to the next meeting. Alright, so the.
Section one in your packet, there is one file number for that one.
Make a motion to follow the status recommendation of the administrative closure.
Going on.
I make a motion to follow staff's recommendation of administrative closure.
Okay, we have a motion and a second and roll call votes. Chairman Tuberville? Yes. Vice chairman Hinderson.
Yes.
Mr. Hood, mr. Pitts? Yep.
Mr. Raper. All right, so that moves us to section two.
States I do have one that I want to recuse myself from, that is EB 250370.
Okay, so we will pull that one out and we will move that to the next meeting. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Henderson.
Chairman I make the motion we take all under section two with the exception of the one and make the motion maybe approved in. Staff recommendations.
Second.
Okay, roll call vote Mr. chairman Tubberville? Yes. Vice chairman Henderson? Yes. Mr. Hood, mr. Pitts.
Yes.
Mr. Raper. Alright, now we'll move to section three and section three is what's the penalty in section three? Section three.
What's the penalty?
I believe it's the warning letters.
So 146 and one 70 for warning.
Okay, so we'll move to section three.
And you have two file numbers in section 326 oh 146 and two six oh 170 and those are recommendations for warnings.
I'll make a motion to consider them together and follow staff's recommendation for warning letters.
Second.
Okay. Boys vote, chairman Tuberville? Yes. Vice chairman Henderson.
Yes.
Mr. Hood, mr. Pitts.
Yes.
And Mr. Riper.
Okay, so moving the next section section four, we have one file number in that one and it's Eb two five oh 138, and that is a recommendation for compliance training.
I had a question on this one. Would them being a utility? Who would attend the training and how many?
I will make that one for three, that we start out with three employees and if they happen to not have, if a excavator happens to not have, three employees, then we'll reduce it. But three will be the the number.
Since this is a utility, who would you ask to attend?
We don't, we don't give names anymore, we just let them select the three employees. Do you have, do you have a, a preference on.
My fear is they just pick three people out of the office to attend training that really don't have anything to do with the locating piece that is the reason that we're considering them today and I don't know how to distinguish of who needs to get it the best, the best course of action to get the best results. So I was gonna ask the rest of the members what they thought.
Yeah, I'm good with a minimum of three, so basically is.
To the operator's benefit or to the utilities benefit to select individuals that will impact damaged prevention. If not, then repetitive violations, then it'd be different than the training. So it's to their advantage to select individuals that will make an impact on damaged prevention for the utility. So I'm good with leaving it open for the utility to decide what three.
Yeah, I make a motion to follow the recommendation of training.
Just a second.
Chairman Humberville? Yes. Vice Chairman Henderson.
Yes.
Mr. Hood, mr. Pitts.
Yes.
Mr. Raper. Okay, now we move to section five and section five is recommendations for civil penalties of $811.
But station I'm gonna accuse myself for several, events in this one. EB 260062.
006-30-0640 EB 26. In addition to that EB 260080 EB 260084 EB 260085.
Okay. Thank you mr. Henderson and those will be moved to the next meeting so, those will not be voted on in this section today.
Madam with the exceptions as noted I move that the rest be approved and blocked the staff recommendation of a penalty of 801 $11.
A second.
All right, we'll start with the voice vote. Chairman Tuberville.
Yes.
Vice chairman Henderson? Yes. Mr. Hood, mr. Pitts.
Yes.
Mr. Raper. Alright, now we'll move on to section six and that is a penalty recommendation of $2500.
I moved that we accept the staff recommendation for EB 260054 the recommendation of $2500.
A second.
Alright, mr. Tubberville? Yes. Mr. Henderson?
Yes.
Mr. Hood.
Yes, that's good to be.
Mr. Pitt.
Yes.
Mr. Raper. All right, and that takes us to section seven. Civil penalty, thank you John. Civil penalty of $10000 is the recommendation for, for those.
I don't share approval of staff recommendation for all three penalty of $10000.
Second.
Mr. Chairman Tubberville?
Yes.
Vice chairman Hinderson.
Yes.
Mr. Hood.
And mr. Raper, ok, now, Tim Drown. Tim Drown is making his way up.
If it's not you can sit next to the slide.
Alright, my name's Tim Drown at the attorney for the board and I wanted to provide an update to the committee on a process that the staff plans to implement to address the outstanding civil penalties for underground damage. I know there's been just some discussion on trying to send those to the collection agency.
Or trying to write them off, but before we can do any of that, we have to have a hearing. And the reason we have to have a hearing is, well, two reasons. One, tennessee law requires it, and two, do process laws under the constitution require that before we take any funds from someone, we have to have a give them opportunity to be heard. So we're coming up with a process.
That's where it's gonna have to have two processes in the beginning, one to deal with the citations that have already been sent out and one process that's gonna deal with the citations going forward. And hopefully once we deal with the prior citations, we'll just have one process. And what we're planning envisioning is, and, and this is in the early stages, so we're still.
Haven't hammered out the specifics yet. But what we're envisioning is when we send the citations out, it'll be like a parking ticket kind of, just like our normal citations, but the citation will have a notice of a hearing on there. So it already have a date, a time, it will advise them of all the legal requirements that need to be in there to to if they want to be heard, they can appear. And at that date, they'll have a hearing. We'll also send out notices for the prior ones as well for hearings. And so we're gonna work through all these and on that date.
Date, there will be a hearing. If NO one appears, then the administrative law judge can enter an order of default. And at that point, we can record them as accounts receivable and we can send them to a collection agency or if we can't collect, we can write them off. If they do appear, then we, then ALJ can have a hearing, can hear all the evidence.
And all the information and then they can enter enter an order. If the ALJ finds that the citation is valid, then the ALJ can enter an order ordering the payment of the funds, and we can send it to a collection agency at that point or eventually write it off if we need to. Another option is we can negotiate. Also, maybe they come in and say, hey.
I can pay this much today, here's some money, and, and we can take that. So we have some opportunities there by setting these hearings. The main thing that this is going to help us do is move these forward because right now we're issuing these citations and some of these are just sitting there and we're not able to collect. And so we need some way to either send them to a collections agency or write them off, and this gives us the ability to do that. So it's going to allow us to have these citations come to a conclusion. So that's what the staff's planning on doing. Is there any questions?
Yeah, we've been talking outstanding balance for a while, so I want to make sure that again the process that you're speaking of now that this is an ongoing process, so is this what you're saying now and is this our consistent process moving forward?
Our goal is, we can still look for informally to try to call them up and get them to pay, but our for our goal is, is to have one process that gets these things moving to some sort of conclusion. So whether that is we send it to collection agency and we're able to collect, they appear and they go ahead and pay the money or when we determine we're not able to collect and we write them off. So there's going to be, we will, we have those options where right now we don't have those options because we not we're not having a hearing. Does that make.
Yeah, I just want to make sure we have a, again, whether it's a documented process, whatever something that is.
Yes, we're gonna have that.
We're yes, we're gonna have a documented process. That's what we're working on, and so we're gonna have to address legal requirements such as notice, how we're gonna send these citations out, what the citations are gonna say. We haven't worked through all that, but I wanted to give you guys an update of, hey, this is what we're planning on doing as opposed to waiting and saying hey we're already doing it. I just want to keep you guys informed on what, what staff is planning on doing.
Okay, NO, thanks for the update.
And Tim, for the, there will also be a similar process for the older ones. I think Milton was also talking about.
Yeah, the the old, the, so the prior ones, then the ones going forward, we're gonna send a citation and it will have a, the notice on the citation itself. So the 1st thing goes out. For the older ones, we're gonna have to just send out another notice, so a letter or something. We we've gotta figure out how we're gonna send that out, but we'll do those for the older older ones saying, hey, we're gonna have a hearing on this date. And if you want to be heard, you can appear if you don't want to be heard, I don't know what I'll say exactly, but then an order of default maybe entered, and that'll allow us for those old ones to move them forward as well. Okay.
Thank you.
Thanks Nasa. Any other questions?
Adam Terry is that is there an intent once you've got this worked out to come back and tell us you've got it worked out?
Yeah, we we'll provide updates. I wanted to just give you sort of what we're envisioning so that you're not surprised and you kind of know where we're moving moving towards and I think the plan is sometime early, Q1 next year to really have it hammered out.
Thank you.
The rep, the report that, I've just given you is on our consent agreements. So just to give you an update on those, there are.
About 14, on the list that have not been complied with. So these 14, I would.
Like for John to start working on enforcement for those John West is.
The staff attorney, for, for us now, he has been with the commission for a Kentucky public service commission. He's, he's been with us for a couple of months. You wanna get your microphone?
Or you can use this one. John has experience with, the Kentucky Public service Commission and with their damaged prevention board. So, we're glad to have John on board with us and I apologize for not introducing you sooner. I jumped right into the meeting.
So John is gonna be working on, on enforcing, and these 14 consent agreements, I would like for him to, I I think that would be a, a good start for enforcement for him for these.
Is it requiring any extra for much?
You don't, you don't have to vote on it. I'm just giving you an update and, and letting you know that he's, he's gonna reach out and enforce these try to get them to comply and move them move them toward resolution through the legal process.
Stacey, if we can add this to our next meeting, just to kind of give an update around the consent agreements.
Also, Houston was at our last meeting, but, she will not be at our next meeting. She, she will be, she will be out for a couple of months and I will miss her terribly, so, be sure and wish you still well before you leave today. It will be January before you see her again.
Do we have any public comments? Any discussion topics for our next meeting?
All right, NO public comments. So that concludes the agenda.
You have it.