Loading...
023 City of Boulder's Response to PUC's Motion to Intervene with Proposed OrderDISTRICT COURT, BOULDER COUNTY, COLORADO Boulder County Justice Center 1777 6th Street Boulder, Colorado 80302 Petitioner: THE CITY OF BOULDER, a Colorado Home Rule City, v. Respondents: PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY OF COLORADO, a Colorado Corporation, d/b/a XCEL ENERGY, MORGAN GUARANTY TRUST COMPANY OF NEW YORK; and PAUL WEISSMANN, in his official capacity as Treasurer of Boulder County. Attorneys for Petitioner, City of Boulder: Attorney Name: Donald M. Ostrander, No. 12458 Richard F. Rodriguez, No. 25105 Hamre, Rodriguez, Ostrander & Dingess, PC Address: 3600 S. Yosemite Street, Suite 500 Denver, Colorado 80237 Phone Number: 303.779.0200 Fax Number: 303.779.3662 Email: dostrander@hrodlaw.com rrodriguez@hrodlaw.com Attorney Name: Office of the Boulder City Attorney Thomas A. Carr, No. 42170, City Attorney Kathleen E. Haddock, No. 16011, Senior Counsel Address: P.O. Box 791 Boulder, CO 80306 Phone Number: 303.441.3020 Fax Number: 303.441.3859 Email: carrt@bouldercolorado.gov haddockk@bouldercolorado.gov  COURT USE ONLY  Case No. 2019CV030637 Division: 5 PETITIONER’S RESPONSE TO PUC’S MOTION TO INTERVENE 2 COMES NOW, The City of Boulder, (“City”) by and through its counsel of record, and hereby responds to the Motion to Intervene filed by the Public Utilities Commission (“PUC”) and states as follows: I. INTRODUCTION. The Motion to Intervene should be denied because the PUC does not qualify as a party to this case under C.R.S. § 38-1-109 or C.R.C.P. 24., as it asserts no ownership of, or that it has an interest in, the property the City seeks to acquire, or its interests are otherwise protected and will be addressed by the existing parties to the proceeding so there is no need for the PUC’s duplicative arguments. Further, the PUC’s claimed interest in this proceeding is protected by its jurisdiction to determine how the existing facilities are divided, assigned and jointly used and ensure that the facilities serving customers inside and outside of Boulder during separation construction continue to provide safe, effective and reliable service prior to the transfer of the facilities to the City. The transfer of the facilities to the City, by the 2017 PUC Decision1, does not occur until the Boulder System can be operated independently from the Xcel System. The proceeding before this Court is to determine the just compensation for the existing assets that will become part of the Boulder System. The determination of just compensation is one step in the process leading to the separation into two systems. This step does not require input from the PUC. The PUC has retained jurisdiction over the facilities until the Boulder System can be operated separately from Xcel’s (referred to in the PUC Decision and several agreements between the City and Xcel as the “Cut-Over Date”). 1 The 2017 PUC Decision refers to Decision No. C17-0750 in Proceeding No.15A-0589E (attached as Exhibit B to the PUC’s Motion to Intervene) which “satisfies Judge LaBuda’s January 14, 2015 Order” 2017 PUC Decision at ¶4. 3 II. LEGAL ARGUMENT. A. The PUC Cannot Intervene Because It Does Not Claim A Property Interest In the Property Being Condemned. Eminent domain proceedings are special statutory proceedings that must be conducted strictly according to the procedures set out in the eminent domain statutes. Ossman v. Mountain States Tel. & Tel. Co., 520 P.2d 738, 742 (Colo. 1974). The eminent domain statute governing intervention is C.R.S. § 38-1-109. Under that statute, a party may intervene only if the party is “an owner or has an interest in the property sought to be taken or damaged . . . .” Id. Because the PUC is not an owner and does not have a property interest in the property being taken in this case, the PUC is not allowed to intervene. In its Motion, the PUC tries to skirt this obvious defect by stating that it opts to comply with C.R.C.P. 24 rather than C.R.S. § 38-1-109 “because of the PUC’s narrow and unique interest in the subject matter of this condemnation action—specifically, that this action should not proceed until the PUC has issued a final decision approving the designation of assets for transfer.” While the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure generally apply to eminent domain proceedings, they do not do so where they are inconsistent or are in conflict with the procedure and practice provided by the applicable statute. C.R.C.P. 81(a). Here, the PUC does not have an option to choose C.R.C.P. 24 as opposed to C.R.S. § 38-1-109 because the PUC does not claim a property interest in the property being acquired. Ossman, 520 P.2d at 742; C.R.S. § 38-1-109. Unsurprisingly, undersigned counsel was unable to find any published Colorado case in which a party that did not claim a property interest in the property being acquired was allowed to intervene. For instance, in Bd. of Cty. Comm’rs v. Anderson, 525 P.2d 478, 480 (Colo. App. 1974), the court allowed a party to intervene in an eminent domain action under C.R.C.P. 24 4 specifically to establish its property interest in the property being acquired. In so doing, the court recognized that “[i]ntervention has been refused in eminent domain proceedings only where the intervenor has no interest in the property.” The PUC does not claim a property interest in the property being acquired in this case. Instead, the PUC seeks to change the nature of the condemnation action into an action about the division of assets. A similar type of change in the nature of a condemnation action was rejected by the Colorado Supreme Court in Denver Power & Irrigation Co. v. Denver & R. G. R. Co., 69 P. 568, 572 (Colo. 1902). Allowing the PUC to intervene in this matter without so much as claiming a property interest in the property being acquired would be unprecedented and contrary to the eminent domain statutes. Even if the Court were to apply C.R.C.P. 24, the PUC’s request to intervene still should be denied. Under the rule, mandatory intervention is required only (1) when a statute confers an unconditional right to intervene or (2) the applicant claims an interest related to the property and he is so situated that disposition of the action may impair or impede his ability to protect that interest, unless the applicant’s interest is adequately represented by the parties. C.R.C.P. 24(a). Here, as shown above, C.R.S. 38-1-109 does not confer an unconditional right upon the PUC to intervene. Furthermore, disposition of the action will not impair or impede the PUC’s jurisdiction over the facilities until the Cut-Over Date so it retains its ability to protect its regulatory interest related to how the facilities are operated while they serve Xcel customers. As noted elsewhere, regardless of the determination of the amount of just compensation in this case, the PUC still has the ability to determine issues regarding the project’s separation of assets related to facilities held by Xcel. Finally, as noted in the City’s Motion to Strike, the PUC’s 5 interest is adequately represented by the parties, as the PUC’s arguments supporting intervention essentially restates arguments made by Xcel previously in Xcel’s motion to dismiss. For similar reasons, the Court should refuse to grant permissive intervention under C.R.C.P. 24(b). Again, C.R.S. 38-1-109 does not confer an unconditional right upon the PUC to intervene. And the PUC has failed to show that its claim or defense and this action have a question of common law or fact in common. Indeed, the PUC has failed to even properly assert a claim or defense in an appropriate pleading, which in and of itself is fatal to the PUC’s attempt to intervene in this case. C.R.C.P. 24(c) (“The [motion to intervene] shall state the grounds therefor and “shall” be accompanied by a pleading setting forth the claim or defense for which intervention is sought.”); Capitol Indus. Bank v. Strain, 442 P.2d 187 (Colo. 1968) (noting the rule specifies that the motion shall set forth the grounds for intervention while the pleading shall state the claims of the intervenor with each being distinct from the other). The PUC has essentially asked this court to enjoin this proceeding until it decides Boulder can proceed. It is basic law that condemnation actions cannot be enjoined. Town of Glendale v. City and County of Denver, 322 P.2d 1053 (Colo. 1958), and Toll v. City and County of Denver, 340 P.2d 862 (Colo. 1959). The eminent domain statutes grant this court, not the PUC, the authority to determine whether Boulder can proceed. C.R.S. §38-1-101(2)(a) states in part: “All questions and issues, except the amount of compensation, shall be determined by the court unless all parties interest in the action stipulate and agree that the compensation may be so ascertained by the court.” 6 B. Boulder Has The Unilateral Authority To Determine Which Assets Need To Be Acquired, Not The PUC, Thus The PUC Has No Interest To Justify Intervention. The PUC’s primary argument is that it has the power—pursuant to C.R.S. § 40-5- 105(1)—to approve or deny the transfer of assets that Boulder has identified it needs to condemn. While C.R.S. § 40-5-105(1) allows the PUC to determine which assets Xcel can transfer voluntarily, it is the City of Boulder that has the power to unilaterally determine what property interests need to be acquired through condemnation. Thornton by Utils. Bd. v. Farmers Reservoir & Irrigation Co., 575 P.2d 382, 389 (Colo. 1978). That is because once Boulder has determined which property interests it needs to acquire, that decision is not reviewable by the judiciary absent a show of fraud or bad faith, neither of which have been alleged here. Id. Because the City’s power is derived from Article XX of the Colorado Constitution, the legislature does not have authority to enact a statute—such as C.R.S. § 40-5-105(1)—that would impair that constitutional right. See id. That does not mean that the PUC lacks the power to determine how the existing facilities are divided, assigned and jointly used, which it did in its 2017 PUC Decision at ¶ 4, or to ensure that the facilities serving customers inside and outside of Boulder during separation construction continue to provide safe, effective and reliable service prior to the transfer of the facilities to the City when the Boulder System can be operated independently from the Xcel System. 2017 PUC Decision ¶ 9, 144, 160, 177, 213, 245-247. The PUC will continue to oversee the separation of the existing facilities as part of the separation project. The determination of the just compensation and ultimate condemnation of the assets necessary for the City's electric distribution system (the condemnation proceeding) is a separate and distinct concept from the 7 construction project to separate those facilities from existing facilities operated by Xcel until there are two separate independently-operating systems (the project). The PUC has no jurisdiction over a non-voluntary transfer under the City’s constitutional power to condemn, but it does have limited jurisdiction over the facilities operated by Xcel until the Boulder part of the system can be operated independently of Xcel’s. The PUC quoted the LaBuda order in paragraphs 96 and 97 of its 2017 PUC Decision regarding the balancing of the respective jurisdiction of the PUC and the City to condemn. The PUC recognized the limits of its jurisdiction: “While the Commission possesses broad authority over public utilities [i.e. Xcel], such jurisdiction does not extend to municipally owned utilities except to the extent that such utility operations are outside city limits,” 2017 PUC Decision ¶ 95, and “Therefore, while the Commission’s jurisdiction is broad in the realm of the Public Utilities Law, it is not boundless, and must be tempered according to its statutory strictures, or it runs the risk of acting ultra vires.” 2017 PUC Decision ¶ 218. The distinction between the condemnation proceeding and the project is best illustrated by Colorado’s “Project Influence Rule” that requires valuation of the assets being condemned separate and apart from the larger project. Under the Rule, the condemnor identifies what land would be needed for a project. That land is valued as if the project did not exist so that there is no influence up or down on the acquisition price caused by the project itself. Once that unit value is established and applied to the land (or in this case land and equipment) being acquired, the rest of the landowner’s property is then reappraised with the “project” taken into consideration to determine if the rest of the landowner’s property has been damaged or benefitted 8 by the project. Importantly, the Rule distinguishes between the property being condemned and the project as a whole. Here, the “project” includes the separation of the current system into two independently operating systems. In preparing the Separation Plan, the City engineers looked at each feeder (1) identified each Xcel customer and Boulder customer served by that feeder after separation, (2) unless all of the customers served by the feeder belong to one or the other utility, the parties decided whether the Xcel or Boulder customers would be relocated to another feeder, (3) once all of the required relocations on a feeder were identified, they were modeled and Synergi software was used to analyze the performance of the feeder to assure that the changes do not impact safe, effective and reliable power delivery to the effected customers. These caused several hundred changes that had to be separately described in separate scopes of work as further discussed below. See Catanach affidavit, ¶15. The 2017 PUC Decision requires that it retain jurisdiction over the facilities that Xcel would continue to operate until the City’s system could be operated separately to ensure the safety, effectiveness and reliability of the system to serve customers inside and outside of Boulder during construction of the project, and of the Xcel System after separation is complete. 2017 PUC Decision ¶¶ 245-247. To meet the condition imposed by the PUC to ensure that neither Xcel nor out-of-city customers would incur any costs for the city’s municipalization, Xcel and the City have entered into an Agreement for Sharing of Costs dated October 24, 2019 (the “Cost Sharing Agreement”) which was filed with the PUC on October 26, 2018 in compliance with the PUC Decision. The Cost Sharing Agreement describes the separation construction process that is estimated to cost approximately $110 million dollars, to be paid by 9 the City, of project expenditures required for Xcel’s and the City’s portion of the separate construction. Importantly, however, the PUC has no right to usurp the City’s power to determine which assets are necessary for condemnation and the agreement does not grant such a right. Thus, intervention by the PUC is unjustified. C. The PUC’s Reliance Upon Judge LaBuda’s Order Is Misplaced Because Boulder No Longer Seeks To Provide Extraterritorial Service. The PUC’s Motion relies upon a January 14, 2015 Order by Judge LaBuda in Boulder District Court case 14CV30047 (the “LaBuda Order”)(PUC’s Motion to Intervene at Exhibit A). At the time of Judge LaBuda’s Order, the City had engineered what it thought was the best separation plan from an electrical engineering standpoint which would have included acquiring equipment and serving customers outside the City limits. But Xcel owned a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (“CPCN”) to provide service to extraterritorial customers outside of Boulder’s city limits. LaBuda Order at p.9. In her Order, Judge LaBuda stated: “Boulder seeks to serve unincorporated Boulder through transfer of the CPCN; there is no legal authority to indicate such a transfer is not subject to” PUC review per C.R.S. § 40-5-105(1). As Judge LaBuda explained, “if Boulder were seeking to create a municipal utility to serve City of Boulder residents only, it could do so without any PUC involvement.” LaBuda Order at p.2. After a series of applications before the PUC and negotiations with Xcel, the City designed the Separation Plan that is the subject of the 2017 PUC Decision so that Boulder serves only customers inside the City boundaries. See Steve Catanach affidavit attached as Exhibit 1 at ¶ 12 for the distribution facilities, and Tom Ghidossi affidavit attached as Exhibit 2 at ¶ 15 for the substation facilities. Under the current Separation Plan that forms the basis of the facilities 10 and property interests sought to be acquired in this action, there will be no customers outside the corporate limits of the City of Boulder that would be served by the Boulder system. See Catanach affidavit at ¶¶ 3 and 12. Nowhere in the LaBuda Order, nor in any of any of the PUC filings or pleadings before Judge LaBuda, does the PUC assert that it can determine for the City which equipment and real estate, is to be acquired to serve City customers. The PUC never asserted, nor could it assert, that it has the power to tell a home rule city what it can acquire to serve customers within its boundaries. Order at p.6; Colorado Constitution Art. XX. In fact, the PUC acknowledged that a municipal electric utility is not jurisdictional to the PUC when it is serving only customers inside its boundaries. 2017 PUC Decision ¶¶ 92 and 231. The PUC has only asserted that it retains jurisdiction over Xcel and the facilities owned and operated by Xcel to ensure that remaining Xcel customers outside of the City have safe, effective and reliable service after the City creates and operates an independently operating system, and that customers inside and outside of Boulder have safe, effective and reliable service during separation construction. 2017 PUC Decision ¶¶ 92-98, 245-247. The PUC determined how the existing facilities should be divided, assigned and jointly used. 2017 PUC Decision ¶ 4. After the 2017 PUC Decision, the engineers for the City and Xcel identified every point where customers may have to be relocated to a different feeder and new facilities added to result in two systems consistent with the 2017 PUC Decision to effect the Separation Plan. See Catanach affidavit ¶¶ 15-18. The scopes of work created by the parties are to describe how each necessary relocation of a customer to a different feeder is to be accomplished. There are hundreds of points of separation and relocation, each of which had to be documented with 11 sufficient detail that designers could prepare construction drawings. Both parties are several months into drafting the construction drawings to bid the cost of actual separation construction. By the terms of the Cost Sharing Agreement, those detailed design drawings for distribution facilities are to be completed by October 1, 2019, all at the expense of the City. See Catanach affidavit ¶ 21. The construction bids or a good faith estimate for the construction costs to implement the Separation Plan are due for both the distribution facilities and substation facilities by May 1, 2020. See Catanach affidavit ¶ 22. The City has provided to Xcel a letter of credit of $1.7 Million to secure its payment of those design costs for the distribution facilities and another $2.6 million to secure the design costs for substation facilities. As a result, the PUC will retain jurisdiction to address the operation of the system during construction until Cut-Over, but has no interest in this condemnation proceeding to determine the value of the assets to be acquired by the City that would warrant its unauthorized intervention. D. The PUC Wrongly Fails To Distinguish Between The Division of “Facilities” And The Division of Real Estate Assets. The PUC argues that it still must determine certain issues regarding how the facilities are assigned, divided, and jointly used. In so doing, though, in addition to asserting jurisdiction where the LaBuda Order says it has none, the PUC wrongly conflates Xcel’s real estate assets with its “facilities.” At no time did the PUC assert it had some expertise in real estate that it had to exercise. Judge LaBuda’s Order uses the term “facilities” to identify the actual equipment to be acquired: “The utility system the City seeks to acquire includes four substations, power lines, and poles, a 115kV transmission loop, and other facilities.” Order at p.3; see also St. Vrain Valley Sch. Dist. RE-1J v. A.R.L., 325 P.3d 1014, 1017 (Colo. 2014), (a “facility” is a man-made 12 structure affixed to the land). The division of Xcel’s facilities has already been determined. The real parties to the condemnation—namely Boulder and Xcel—have already agreed on the assets that will be part of the Xcel System and those that will be part of the Boulder System. Exhibit 5A before the PUC (Exhibit 1 to the City’s First Amended Petition) is a list of those assets. This was not a minor undertaking. This took hundreds of hours by highly qualified engineers from both sides meeting and going through the maps of the existing facilities and identifying each piece of equipment to determine which system the equipment would be part of after separation. Catanach Affidavit, ¶ 15. The PUC has determined that if separated as the parties agreed, following separation, Xcel will be left with a safe, effective and reliable system. See 2017 PUC Decision at ¶¶ 4, 114, 144, 181, and 182. The PUC argues that it must still approve Exhibit 5A as a precondition to condemnation. Even if this were true, which the City denies because it is only acquiring property and facilities to serve customers within the boundaries of the City, there is no legitimate reason why a condemnation action cannot begin while the PUC acts on Exhibit 5A. Per the PUC Decision, the facilities and property will not be conveyed to the City until this action is completed and the facilities separated from Xcel’s. See 2017 PUC Decision at ¶ 213. The City does not seek possession of Xcel’s property prior to the Cut-Over Date so Xcel will continue to serve all of its current customers without disruption until an award is determined and a cutover occurs. Once Boulder and Xcel agreed upon the facilities to be acquired, the parties worked to identify real estate interests outside of the City’s rights-of-way associated with those facilities and filed the list with the PUC as Exhibit 5B. The City does not intend to acquire the property interests on Exhibit 5B, but only the portion of those property interests associated with the 13 facilities on Exhibit 5A, if they exist outside of a city right-of-way. Because the property interests to be acquired are only those held by Xcel directly associated with the facilities to be acquired, any list of property interests approved by the PUC would not be the same as the property interests the city intends to acquire. Thus, there is nothing for the PUC to “approve” regarding the real estate acquisitions prior to the transfer at the Cut-Over Date. Condemnation law contemplates and authorizes concurrent proceedings. Miller v. Public Service Company of Colorado, 129 Colo. 513, 517, 272 P.2d 283, 285-286 (1954); Public Service Company of Colorado v. Shaklee, 784 P.2d 314, 316-317 (Colo. 1989). Here, the Petitioner is not seeking possession. Although the City would like this court to proceed to valuation as quickly as possible, a valuation trial is realistically at least six to nine months away. There is nothing about the transfer of assets from Xcel to Boulder that confers a property interest in the PUC or prevents the PUC from following its process while the valuation process proceeds. E. The PUC Motion advises the Court of only some of the ongoing PUC proceedings. In its Motion, the PUC asserts it seeks to intervene “in order to apprise the Court of the ongoing PUC proceeding and to preserve the PUC’s jurisdiction to approve the designation of assets for transfer”. The PUC then goes on to say that the delay it seeks is not only to approve the designation of assets for transfer, but to “resolve whether any decision are ripe for review regarding transfer of assets inside substations” and “remaining issues raised by intervenor IBM.” However, that is directly contrary to the 2017 PUC Decision: “This Proceeding may conclude with a final decision designating the assets for transfer (those outside of the substations) from Boulder to Public Service upon the Commission’s satisfaction that Boulder has complied with the three conditions set forth in this Decision.” 2017 PUC Decision at ¶ 10. The time to amend 14 the 2017 PUC Decision has long since expired and this Court cannot now amend it. The PUC then goes on to cite and attach filings and objections by Xcel and IBM, but does not advise this Court that the identical list of facilities that was filed as 5A on June 28, 2019, was previously filed by a Joint filing of Xcel and the City on October 26, 2018. The PUC does not advise this Court that Xcel withdrew from the Joint filing on January 18, 2019, alleging there were problems with the list of facilities, and delayed that proceeding for six months, then agreed there was no error in the October 26, 2018 list of assets. The PUC does not advise this Court that the initial stay request was in February for two weeks. When the City could not get a status conference before the PUC it filed its Response to Xcel’s Declaratory Judgment on June 12, 2019. In addition to not advising this Court of any of these filings, the PUC did not respond to any of Boulder’s filings at the PUC until August 14, 2019, after filing its Motion To Intervene in this case. Even then, the PUC has not responded to Boulder’s motions. It first set a time and procedure to approve the list of assets filed on October 26, 2018, on August 28, 2019. These failures by the PUC to fully advise this Court show a different intent in filing its Motion to Intervene than it stated in its Motion. At its business meeting on August 14, 2019, some of the individual Commissioners stated they did not intend to delay Boulder’s municipalization which is contrary to the Motions filed in this Court to intervene and dismiss or stay this proceeding. III. CONCLUSION. This Court should deny the PUC’s Motion to Intervene. A proposed Order is filed along with this Response for the Court’s convenience. 15 Respectfully submitted this 29th day of August, 2019. BOULDER CITY ATTORNEY’S OFFICE Thomas A. Carr, No. 42170, City Attorney Kathleen E. Haddock, No.16011, Senior Counsel HAMRE, RODRIGUEZ, OSTRANDER & DINGESS, P.C. /S/ RICHARD F. RODRIGUEZ’S DULY SIGNED PHYSICAL COPY OF THIS DOCUMENT IS ON FILE AT THE OFFICE OF HAMRE, RODRIGUEZ, OSTRANDER & DINGESS, P.C. PURSUANT TO CRCP RULE 121, SECTION 1-26(9) By: Donald M. Ostrander, No. 12458 Richard F. Rodriguez, No. 25105 ATTORNEYS FOR PETITIONER 16 CERTIFICATE OF DELIVERY I hereby certify that on the 29th day of August, 2019, a true and correct copy of the foregoing PETITIONER’S RESPONSE TO PUC’s MOTION TO INTERVENE AND PROPOSED ORDER DENYING PUC’S MOTION TO INTERVENE was sent via Colorado Courts E-Filing or sent via e-mail or placed in the United States mail, first class, postage prepaid, and properly addressed to the following: John R. Sperber Sarah M. Kellner Brandee L. Caswell Matthew Dumont Clark Katharine M. Gray Sean J. Metherell FAEGRE BAKER DANIELS LLP 1144 Fifteenth Street, Suite 3400 Denver, Colorado 80202 jack.sperber@faegreBD.com sarah.kellner@faegreBD.com brandee.caswell@faegreBD.com matthew.clark@faegreBD.com katharine.gray@faegreBD.com sean.metherell@faegreBD.com Attorneys for Public Service Company of Colorado Olivia D. Lucas Boulder County Attorney’s Office P.O. Box 471 Boulder, CO 80306 olucas@bouldercounty.org Respondent Paul Weissmann, in His Official Capacity As Treasurer Of Boulder County Philip J. Weiser Paul C. Gomez Ruth M. Harper Attorney General’s Office 1300 Broadway, 6th Floor Denver, CO 80203 Paul.gomez@coag.gov Ruth.harper@coag.gov Respondent Proposed Intervenor Colorado Public Utilities Commission MORGAN GUARANTY TRUST COMPANY OF NEW YORK Registered Agent: CT Corporation 4400 Easton Commons Columbus, OH 43219 HAMRE, RODRIGUEZ, OSTRANDER & DINGESS, P.C. /s/ Lori A. Argo By: DISTRICT COURT, BOULDER COUNTY, COLORADO Boulder County Justice Center 1777 6th Street Boulder, Colorado 80302 Petitioner: THE CITY OF BOULDER, a Colorado Home Rule City, v. Respondents: PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY OF COLORADO, a Colorado Corporation, d/b/a XCEL ENERGY, MORGAN GUARANTY TRUST COMPANY OF NEW YORK; and PAUL WEISSMANN, in his official capacity as Treasurer of Boulder County.  COURT USE ONLY  Case No. 2019CV030637 Division:5 ORDER DENYING PUC’S MOTION TO INTERVENE The Court, upon the Motion to Intervene filed by the Public Utilities Commission (“PUC”), having read the Motion to Intervene, response(s), and the reply, and being fully advised, hereby DENIES the PUC’s Motion to Intervene. Done this _____ of _______________, 2019. BY THE COURT: _______________________ DISTRICT COURT JUDGE cc: Attorneys or parties of record.