January 2, 2026 Colorado Public Utilities Commission Attn: Eric Blank, Chairman Megan Gilman, Commissioner Tom Plant, Commissioner 1560 Broadway, Suite 250 Denver, CO 80202 AND TO: Xcel Energy - Colorado Attn: Robert Kenney, President Hollie Velasquez Horvath, Regional Vice President, State Affairs & Community Relations Andrew Holder, Community Relations Director Tyler Bryant, West Metro Regional Community Relations Manager 1800 Larimer St Denver, CO 80202 RE: Formal Letter of Concern Regarding Public Safety Power Shutoffs, Communication Failures, and Disproportionate Impacts on the City of Golden Dear Chairman and Commissioners, and Xcel Energy Representatives, On behalf of the City of Golden, its residents, and its business community, we are submitting this letter regarding Xcel Energy’s recent Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) and the associated communication failures, prolonged outages, and downstream impacts that our community continues to experience. While we recognize the importance of wildfire mitigation and public safety, the execution of this event revealed serious and systemic shortcomings that cannot be dismissed. Impact to Residents The City of Golden is home to over 20,000 residents with a poverty rate near 13%, illustrating that a significant portion of our community lives with constrained economic resources. Golden is also home to two mobile home parks that provide some of the most affordable housing options in the city, where many households are on fixed incomes and particularly vulnerable to rising costs of basic needs and utilities. Our community includes families with young children, seniors, and other residents for whom every dollar matters; out - of - pocket costs and disruptions from prolonged outages have especially disproportionate impacts on those living paycheck to paycheck. Financial shocks — such as lost wages, spoiled food, or additional heating costs — can push already - strained households into deeper financial hardship. Residents Reliant on Medical Devices Xcel Energy’s assurances regarding residents who rely on electrically powered medical devices were insufficient. Golden has residents who depend on oxygen concentrators, CPAP machines, refrigerated medications, mobility devices, and other life - sustaining equipment. Guidance to “prepare in advance” or rely on short - term backup solutions is generic. Multi - day outages, particularly for seniors, people with disabilities, and those with limited financial means can be financially challenging and disruptive to their healthcare regimens. Many residents cannot simply absorb extended loss of power without significant risk to their health and safety. The lack of targeted communication, coordinated support, or practical contingency planning for medically vulnerable populations represents a serious failure that must be addressed before events like this are allowed to occur again. This is particularly important for vulnerable populations who may not have the capacity of preparing with backup power, food storage or alternate accommodations without significant financial impacts. Impact to Businesses Golden is a relatively small community whose economic vitality is reliant on locally owned businesses that make up the character and charm of this city. Many of our businesses operate on thin margins, particularly during the winter season. The prolonged outages resulted in spoiled food, lost wages, cancelled services, and significant revenue loss during a critical time of year. These are not abstract inconveniences; they are real financial harms that compound over time and cost businesses their livelihood. Events like this cannot be allowed to occur as a repeated fire mitigation strategy, particularly when each lost day of operation has real financial consequences for businesses and food spoilage alone results in losses of thousands of dollars. Disproportionate Impact on Golden Golden was uniquely and disproportionately impacted due to poor weather prediction accuracy, the geography of our infrastructure, and the timing and duration of the outages. Decisions were made that effectively shut down our community for multiple days, despite weather conditions that did not align with the severity communicated in advance. Loss of power from the PSPS resulted in the closure of critical infrastructure, including many City facilities, the recreation center, and private businesses, with the financial burden shifted to local government and private operators rather than the utility responsible for the outage. Essential City services, including water treatment operations, were placed at risk and required continuous generator use for extended periods, incurring significant and unplanned costs to the City. Communication Failures The communication surrounding this PSPS event was inadequate, unclear, and at times misleading. • Timelines for shutoffs and restorations were vague, frequently shifting, or entirely absent. • Communications failed to clearly convey the true severity and likely duration of impacts. • Some public - facing resources provided by Xcel Energy were outdated or inaccurate during the event, making decision - making challenging at both the household and municipal level, and shifting responsibility onto municipalities to fill the gap with critical information. Local governments, businesses, and residents were left to make high - stakes decisions without reliable or timely information. Resilience and Preparedness Concerns The lack of redundancy, resilience, and real - time coordination raises serious questions about system preparedness. Asking communities to absorb repeated closures, economic losses, and operational disruptions, while also expecting municipalities to shoulder emergency response costs, fill the communications gaps for decisions regarding power shutoffs and infrastructure inadequacies that are at the sole discretion of Xcel Energy, is neither fair nor sustainable. Long - Term Economic Consequences The impacts to our business community do not end when the power returns. Lost inventory, cancelled bookings, reduced staffing hours, and deferred recovery all carry long - term consequences. For a small city like Golden, these cumulative effects threaten the economic vitality of our downtown and neighborhood business districts. Xcel Energy , which reports annual profits of $1.5 billion or more , should be made aware of these costs and we demand that Xcel invest in more resilient and hardy infrastructure and public facing communications tools. The current approach results in a loss of Xcel customer confidence. Expectations Moving Forward As a city located in the Wildland Urban Interface, the City of Golden supports partnering with all entities who are engaged in wildland fire risk mitigation. We fully acknowledge that wildland fire season in Colorado is all year, and we support collaborative, fact - based decision making to drive processes that reduce the risk of wildfires in Jefferson and Boulder Counties. The City of Golden expects meaningful accountability, including: • Provide clear accounting of this event, including decision - making rationale, duration, actual compared to forecasted weather conditions throughout the region, actual Xcel infrastructure damage within and outside of the PSPS area, and lessons learned, and outline corrective actions to prevent a repeat of these failures. • Detail plans to harden Xcel Energy infrastructure to reduce or eliminate the reliance on PSPS as a wildfire prevention strategy. Xcel’s infrastructure should match the wildfire threat. • Detail plans to utilize advanced technology to better monitor infrastructure and reduce the reliance and delays associated with visual line inspection prior to power restoration efforts. • Establish clear, transparent, objective criteria for initiating, maintaining, and ending Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS), including defined thresholds and decision points that are clearly and effectively shared with communities impacted by PSPS with adequate notice for residents, businesses and local governments to properly plan for these events. • Develop and disseminate protocols for residents who rely on electrically powered medical devices, to include targeted outreach and coordinated support for low income, vulnerable people. • Harden infrastructure to minimize PSPS and/or develop a program to compensate for losses due to planned outages rather than placing the burden largely on individuals or municipalities to solve and carry the financial impacts of these solutions. • Improve weather modeling and risk assessment to ensure decisions are based on accurate, localized conditions rather than broad regional forecasts. • Provide timely, consistent, and actionable communication to municipalities, businesses, and residents, including realistic restoration timelines that are updated in real time. All outage and restoration communications should be public facing. • Immediately update and maintain all public - facing resources so information is accurate, current, and consistent across platforms during an event. • Address the financial impacts shifted to local governments, small businesses, and residents including costs related to emergency operations, generator use, facility closures, lost inventory, lost wages, spoiled food, and prolonged economic disruption. • Improve coordination with local governments before, during, and after PSPS events to ensure operational impacts, critical infrastructure needs, and community vulnerabilities are fully considered. Golden is a resilient community that can weather any storm. Our residents and businesses are asking for and deserve a wildland fire risk response that is in step with public safety and economic vitality. We respect that the balance can be arduous. We look forward to continuing discussions regarding the request below. We request a formal response from both Xcel Energy and the Colorado Public Utilities Commission addressing these concerns and outlining both short - and long - term corrective actions. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Respectfully, Mayor Laura Weinberg on Behalf of the City Council of the City of Golden