Utilities Advisory Commission finalizes FY2026 work plan after staff and commissioner edits

Palo Alto — The Utilities Advisory Commission completed a multi‑hour, line‑by‑line review of its proposed FY2026 work plan and voted unanimously to approve the final document for City Council consideration. Commissioners debated scope, staff capacity and where to place several proposed topics before consolidating most items into revised standing topics and adding a few distinct priorities.

What changed and why: Commissioners submitted 14 proposed work‑plan items; staff and commissioners iteratively revised the text to avoid duplicative items, to make expectations for staff feasible, and to ensure priorities aligned with council direction. After discussion, the commission accepted language that: (a) adds a distinct review of the long‑term gas utility strategy to be coordinated with the city’s climate and electrification goals; (b) incorporates a data‑center competitiveness and market‑analysis agenda under the electric system/supply standing topic; (c) makes a fiber‑utility pilot review and metric‑based decision point a specific agenda item; and (d) subsumes microplastics/PFAS water questions and emergency preparedness into broader standing topics while asking for explicit performance metrics and an emergency lens for utilities.

Why it matters: The work plan sets the advisory topics the UAC will emphasize when it provides formal recommendations to City Council. Commissioners repeatedly signaled that several items — most prominently a long‑term plan for the gas utility and the fiber pilot metrics — deserve near‑term attention because of budget, equity and policy implications.

Key additions and decisions from the meeting: - Gas long‑term strategy: The commission added a distinct item to review the gas utility’s long‑term business model, decommissioning sequencing and financial impacts (scope to align with the City’s climate action goals and the SCAP process). Commissioners asked staff to remove strict numeric timelines from the work‑plan text and to align deliverables to SCAP and the utilities’ internal modeling cadence. - Data‑center market analysis: Commissioners asked staff for an initial scenario analysis showing how large, continuous loads would affect reserves and rates, and for a concise market‑demand briefing the commission can use to decide whether to pursue deeper market outreach. - Fiber pilot: The work plan now asks staff to return on a schedule that includes pilot metrics and a business‑model review before recommending a full city‑wide fiber rollout. - Water quality (microplastics/PFAS): Staff advised it will monitor statewide sampling efforts and bring findings back; UAC agreed to subsume the technical monitoring conversation under water quality oversight and revisit when state data are available. - Emergency preparedness: Commissioners asked that measures of success and a utilities‑specific emergency planning review be included in the resiliency topic; staff agreed to carry those measures into upcoming resilience agenda items.

Final vote and next steps: The commission approved the work plan unanimously. Staff will finalize a redlined document reflecting the commission’s edits and forward the work plan to City Council for its review and approval. Commissioners asked staff to ensure that when items are later brought back to UAC meetings, packet materials explicitly address the metrics and questions the commission identified during the April discussion.

Provenance: The article is based on the transcript sections where commissioners proposed edits, staff explained capacity and policy intersections, and the final unanimous vote to approve the plan.