August 17, 2022 Video Study Session

Transcript

Board Work Session Agenda

Wednesday, August 17, 2022, at 5:30 p.m.

7404 Yorkshire Drive, Castle Pines, CO 80108

NOTE: CPNMD study sessions are educational opportunities for directors, the

staff/consultant team, and special guests with subject-matter expertise to

transparently

take a deeper dive into, discuss, and debate topics of interest. During study

sessions,

directors may ask questions and exchange views but are strictly prohibited from

voting.

Though public comment is not allowed, residents may watch the proceedings in person

via live video stream or video recording at https://cpnmd.org/board-meetings.

I. Call study session to order.

II. Roll call. Determination of quorum. Disclosure of potential conflicts.

III. Existing and proposed water-conservation policies and initiatives.

IV. Interim District Manager Nathan Travis’s perspective on operations.

A. CPNMD’s existing status.

B. CPNMD’s future.

C. Explanation of CPNMD operations.

D. Roles and responsibilities of CPNMD’s current and needed staff.

E. Status of re-engaging CRS and CPNMD’s financials.

F. Repairs and maintenance financial report.

V. Adjourn.

Describer:

The video starts on graphic with a white background and forest green letters which

says “Castle Pines North Metro District Study Session August 17, 2022”. The meeting

opens on a shot of Chuck Lowen, Jason Blankaert, Tera Radloff, and Denise Crew (on

Zoom) present.

Board President Chuck Lowen:

Welcome everybody. Those on zoom and those in the audience. This is the Wednesday,

August 17th, 2022 study session for the Castle Pines North Metro District. We do have

a quorum.

Jason Blankaert’s here. Tera Radloff’s here. I'm Chuck Lowen. I'm here. We expect

Chris Lewis to show up immediately. I think in a couple of minutes he's in traffic

and Denise Crew is on zoom, so I'd like to call the session to order. The first thing

I'd like to remind the board is, during these study sessions, the directors may ask

questions and exchange views, but are strictly prohibited from voting.

With that in mind, we're going to change a few things very briefly on the agenda. One

and two are completed. Number three is Nathan.

So if you are ready, the floor is yours. Mr. Travis, our interim district manager.

District Manager Nathan Travis:

Thank you, I appreciate it. So in front of you, you should have both a copy of our

current 2022 water conservation rebate programs. What we're going to be really

addressing here is our current conservation program, what that looks like. And then

the Excel spreadsheet that you have is a comparison of what other utilities in our

region have been doing. So I specifically looked at Parker Water, Town of Castle

Rock, Centennial, Aurora, and then kind of a more extreme and arid climate.

I also included Las Vegas on there also because I thought it was kind of fun. I got a

little bit carried away with it for sure.

So one of the key components in any utility, especially now, is the realization,

especially over the last 20 years, that the way that we have been building

properties, especially when it comes to landscaping, has been wildly unsustainable.

So over the course of the last two decades or so, regional utilities have been really

heavily focused on this issue. Castle Pines North Metro is not an exception to that,

but it has definitely been a while since we updated these plans.

I think the last update was done when Craig Miller started. I'm not even sure what

year that would have been seven years. Yeah, so it's been, David says, seven years

since the last time that we really have this. So there's a few things to consider. I

have some some of my personal favorites that I like on this list.

In terms of what other utilities are setting the standard around. Obviously, any

fully blown out plan would need to be approved by the board. This is just a good

starting idea to kind of get you guys some information, get you thinking, and then we

can start moving forward on this. A lot of this was spurred by two things.

One, our meeting with Aurora, kind of the chat afterward, just talk and shop. They

went through what at the time was their proposed plan that's now been ratified by

their by their board. And then also Director Lewis had has been questioning this for

the last couple of months as well. So we pulled together some information on it.

I think the and it's highlighted on the Excel spreadsheet. But I think probably the

biggest difference that we have across the majority of the districts in the area in

is the sod rebate per square foot. Right now, Castle Pines North Metro offers $0.40 a

square foot for replacement of Kentucky Blue, Kentucky bluegrass or other water heavy

usage grasses.

I didn't find any information on one from Parker. Town of Castle Rock is at $1.20.

Centennials at a dollar. Aurora's new program is even more robust than that. They

will actually pay for you to replace your entire lawn. They'll give you up to $3,000

for the materials and costs to fully, fully replace. It doesn't include any shipping

taxes or installation costs, but they'll they'll reimburse you for 100% of the

materials up to $3,000.

Aurora's got a lot of extra steps further than that. They're also banning front

yards. They're removing the ability for new golf courses to put down turf. They've

got a lot of really heavy restrictions. And some of those are noted on there. I think

at a baseline that one is the one that's really, really key to driving this down is

actually removing those plant materials.

And so I think that's something to evaluate. I think that dollar per square foot

mark, maybe even a little bit heavier kind of being more aggressive with it would be

nice. Obviously we need to as we progress into the budget season, we'll have to look

at what we can feasibly handle in terms of those rebate programs. All of these

utilities, with the exception of Las Vegas, have.

And I actually didn't find information on Aurora, but most of them are capped. So

there's a first come, first served basis. You project the amount that you're willing

to spend, and then whoever shows up first gets gets access to those. The we're pretty

much in line with the with the majority of the rest rotators, sprinkler nozzles, rain

sensors, ET controllers, all of those were pretty much in the ballpark on, but that

the big glaring one for sure is that that sod replacement residual or sod replacement

reimbursement program.

Board Member Director Jason Blankaert:

Could I ask what's our cap on that?

Nathan:

I'm not sure what our annual cap is for our reimbursement program. I know that we've

got one of the other things that we do is slow the flow. I know that one's capped at

10,000 a year.

Is that what it is for sod replacement as well? There you go. Thank you.

Chuck:

Nathan, quick question on Aurora. They're heavy on restrictions. Have they started

any yet? And do you get any feel from your friendship or your relationship with that

district manager, that how it's being received.

Nathan:

The the public reach back has been overwhelmingly positive? Aurora also has some

projected future water supply needs that are pretty dire. They have a huge chunk of

land from their east boundary almost all the way out to Dia that is yet to be

developed, and they don't have the water for it. And so that's part of the reason

that their swing at this is so heavy is really driving down the amount of water

they're going to need to supply those residents.

So the public, the public has received it really well. The official program won't be

implemented until September 30th of this year, so it hasn't gone into full effect

yet. This is something that was voted on and approved within the last 3 or 4 weeks.

Chuck:

So it was voted by the constituents in Aurora?

Nathan:

By The board.

Chuck:

By the board.

Nathan:

Yeah. Or the council in the case of Aurora. Okay. Thank you.

Board Member Director Tera Radloff:

Thanks for all this information. So just as I was looking at our website a little

bit, it looks like we really haven't done any evaluations like under the conservation

tablets 2006 I think were the last ones I see. I don't know which one you were

referring to from Craig, but so clearly we need to do some updating of our reports.

But can can we take a step back a little bit and put this in context so, you know, it

would be helpful for me to kind of understand if we're going to make a good policy

decision that is is defensible. I mean, I I'd like to know what it is that we are

trying to do. And, you know, what's the goal and how do we come up with meaningful

numbers?

The numbers have to be based on something like, if we're trying to conserve, I don't

know what it is, 15% or whatever, it'll give us X number of gallons for the future. I

mean, obviously, you know, we we are allotted at a certain amount of water that we

can use per year. And if we don't use it, it's not like it accumulates or whatever,

but in a way it does in that we have we're preserving our resources for the future.

But what how do we make meaningful numbers around that? And how do we do good

informed, make a good, informed policy decision based on data?

Nathan:

Yeah. So there are and I can I can certainly pull together some different reports

that have been done regionally. Douglas County has a water conservation plan. That's

what Centennial pretty closely follows. Each one of these organizations has on their

website available their conservation plans, their target goals, kind of what they've

been able to track or what their metrics are for, for success that they came up with

these numbers on.

There is definitely a little bit of an intangible part of part of the benefit to it.

So as much as we can put data to it and put matrix to it as much as we can, an

important goal of this is to really save money on that next dollar for water

purchased down the road, so water is getting more and more expensive, and the outlook

is that it's just going to continue that upward climb.

And so when you focus on driving down your usage now, you drive down what you have to

what you have to produce as a utility for that next year. The better off, the better

off you are. So you're not only driving down your existing costs, but you're also

making water of the future. Not necessarily cheaper, but less of a capital output

because you don't have to buy as much to meet your needs.

And so right now, a huge percentage, somewhere between 60% regionally, we're in that

same ballpark of our clean treated drinking water. Just go straight on the ground.

And so when you're talking about a percentage of utility use that is that high, you

can make a real difference. If you can actually get large amounts of specifically,

the grass is honestly the biggest contributor to that.

If you can get large amounts of that pulled up, you can really drive down that that

usage. Other additional policies that you can push beyond that. There's a lot of

variations in here, but if you move into kind of the restrictions and program side,

you look at doing watering days. Right now we have a watering schedule that's posted

on our website.

It's suggested it's not enforced. There would have to be a broader conversation

around putting something like that in place. What does enforcement look like? But

there's certainly a lot of data available put together by a lot of entities and the

efficacy of this stuff, and it's one of the reasons why people keep pushing it so

hard is it's showing itself to be really, really effective.

Tera:

Right? And I mean, everything that you talked about said seems like there are numbers

and there are data behind that. I think it would be important for us to actually, you

know, see that again, if we're going to make a policy decisions so that it's based on

data and we know exactly what we are trying to accomplish. I mean, what is what is

that number?

And and when we know what that number is, what does that number based on if we're

trying to conserve 60%, what is the basis for that? Does that make sense? Absolutely.

Chuck:

And I think that it's important to note that this is why we're bringing this up

today, to start working on some of these programs. I look to you for suggestions on

what might be the most beneficial in the way of any one of these rebates, programs,

or restrictions. I think that they all have merit. And I agree with Tara.

There has to be a monetary situation that we're aware of so that we just don't slap

on a restriction without knowing how it's going to affect either the constituent or

our district. I know that in talking about conservation programs, we should obviously

let those that are watching at home know that we're our wells are working good. We

have water.

But it's really important in today's environment to talk about these restrictions and

programs. So, Nathan, I think this is a good start. We need a lot more information.

You got more?

Nathan:

For today. The comparisons and rundown is really why I kind of ran it down. I wanted

to get a starting point, get feedback from the board and kind of a direction to move

forward from here. Spot to put our foot in the ground and move forward.

Chuck:

I think definitely move forward. And you have quite a few items that allow for some

rebates. We have several that are not applicable. Maybe we should turn those around

and see how that affects us economically and how from a priority standpoint, what

would be the best out of those? I'm there's there's some great options, but I'd like

to obviously no more.

I know the board would to. So keep it coming.

Nathan:

Yeah sounds good. I can also do some preliminary reaching out. I know the center

Center for Conservation Resource Management is a wealth of information and knowledge,

especially the Front Range in Colorado. They put together a ton of data. One of our

historically more well received programs has been slow. The flow, which is available

to our customers first come, first serve.

It's a full system irrigation audit where we actually send somebody out to your house

or center for Conservation Resource Management, the longest name ever. They actually

send an auditor out to your house. They'll run through your entire irrigation system.

It's it's really cool. And at the end of the day, you end up with like a six page

report that recommends different watering schedules based on sun exposure, plant

material types, system upgrades.

And so that center really just lives in this wheelhouse. It's what they do. So I can

certainly reach out to them for some data and back up and other target utilities and

or other target goals and other target goals that other utilities have used as well.

So I can certainly dig some research there. And then I've got some contacts.

Castle Rock, Centennial I can talk to their conservation resource guys and pick on

their brains a little bit too, so.

Chuck:

That's great. Whatever information

Nathan:

Somebody else do, some of the heavy, heavy lift, heavy lifting for us and we'll go

there.

Chuck:

I also recognize that the district has quite a few areas of open space and green

grass that we water. Some of the is probably direction from the city, but we should

work with the city to see where we can cut back and have more water tolerant meeting

strips or corners, and also maybe put together a program to educate the homeowners

associations to be conservative as well.

This should be a team effort. I know that where we have David, where you have put

some rabble along monarch as you turn off a castle pines to go west on monarch.

That's all been repaired. That used to, as you know, since I've been on the board for

the last 4 or 5 years, that has been a real thorn in my side.

How bad it has looked. It looks great today, so congratulations on doing a really

fine job there. I don't know who designed it. That's water tolerant. When you put

that rock in there, maybe that should go all the way up to the end of our property

line going. I recognize it cost money. So that's a good start. And it's a good

example of what we can do to show that we are being effective water watchers.

Board Member Director Chris Lewis:

So. So, Travis, I know I was one of the ones that actually asked you to do this. So I

appreciate you putting together the The Matrix here. And I'm definitely interested in

seeing what the plan and the study was that came out of the Aurora, because I know

they put together a significant plan and I'm not sure. Did they share that with you

yet?

Nathan:

Yeah. So this this sheet actually includes the bullet points that were pulled from

that. I do have a copy of the full ordinance that they put that they just approved.

So the meat of it is included inside of the spreadsheet. The back I don't have the

background data, but I could reach out. I never did get anything immediately

following our meeting, but I can reach back out and see if they have any of the the

data points that they use to get to that decision point.

Chris:

I'm okay with that. I just as long as I know they were going to forge some stuff and

then, yeah, if we can definitely do some type of, you know, we have a good rebate

programs and so forth. And one of the things that I've done in the meanwhile, I've

actually been talking to some of the hose to find out, you know, what it is that we

can do from even the perspective.

And the guidance I got back was that they take lead from us as the metro district and

as the board has. Members of the board have already indicated water, water

conservation. And it's not the restriction that I'm more interested in, but the

conservation aspect of it is very important to us. You know, in the news this week,

you had the whole the Colorado River basin opining on what's going to happen to all

the lower Colorado River basin.

We don't need to be at that situation before we take action. We don't need to be at

that situation before we say, hey, maybe this is something we should study. We need

to get ahead of the game. So I think it's important that we lead from the in front

and essentially take the initiative and come up with suggestions and recommendations

on overall how we as a community and we as a water district can benefit from what

we're seeing from other water districts, you know, borrow, steal, whatever we want to

call it baseline, as we say in business, and then come up with proposals that we can

present to our constituents and hopefully be able to say, you know, this is where we

are. As as the president mentioned, we're not lacking in water. So this has nothing

to do with that. But that doesn't mean we don't leave from in front.

So appreciate what you put this together. Thanks for all the researchers. And then

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing something that we can do from a resolution

perspective or from a proposal to our, our community on on a go forward. Here are

some recommendations. More than just rebates.

Chuck:

Nathan. Just to tag on what Chris says, I think we could learn a little bit from

those who have gone before us, and to tag on to what Aurora has done is a learning

situation. I think what Centennial is going to start on September 1st is really going

to show us what can be effective, I hope I'm looking at the restrictions that you

have placed on this spreadsheet, and it looks like each community with the exception

possibly of Pines North, restricts the number of days per week you can water.

And the runoff that's prohibited. I don't know how you gauge that or catch it or

monitor it. That sounds rather problematic, but all of these are things we need to

consider. And I agree with with Chris, now is the time to do it. So thanks for

bringing this up. Absolutely.

Okay. If Chris I mean, Nathan, if you are complete with number three, I'd like to

have you address item number four. And I want to make one change. I think that to me

personally as the president, the most important item, they're all important. But he

right now seems to be the elephant in the room. I'd like for you to address where we

are with CRS and our financials, and what we can expect at the next board meeting and

thereafter.

Nathan:

Sounds good. We've definitely had a lot of communication that's had to happen with

CRS, especially over the past few weeks. We got to a point with speaking with both

Joel and Sue, where honestly, to be completely frank, the way that they were kind of

presented and spoken about at one of our board meetings had them really leaning

toward pulling out of the district contract entirely.

I was able to meet with Joel pretty shortly after that, and just have a really good

conversation with them around a lot of that, a lot of the issues that we were having

with CRS and kind of what was perceived as their inability or unwillingness to

perform from us really comes down to a lack of support on the district part going

back.

And so Joel and I had a really, really good conversation right now. What they're

currently contractually obligated to do was really just supply to two able bodies two

days a week, and then handle utility billing services prior to taking on the

accounting side, the the transition with the accounting was rough, largely because

Amanda just got sick at a very inopportune time.

And so they were trying to get there, get their feet on the ground, get rolling, and

not getting the support of the district in the way that they needed was was a big

challenge for them. So they went from pulling out after after my conversation with

Joel, I was able to talk to him. So where we're at as of today, CRS has agreed to

basically be all in.

They have agreed to stay on doing the utility billing. So from the utility billing

perspective, they will have a employee here two days a week. That'll be Wednesday and

Friday. We've gotten them set up for remote access to take care of any system

upgrades or any account updates that need to be done in the interim. And then

there'll be they'll have a heavier staff presence during the actual utility billing

and everything going out.

The other side of that is working with Greystone to do the system upgrades. We talked

about that at the last meeting. I have the proposal, I think. I haven't looked at it

yet. I just got it this morning for the hardware. We still are waiting on the

software proposals that need to come in. They're working with Continental Billing to

find out exactly what all of their system requirements are.

So once we get that stuff in, we'll be able to move forward. That'll help out,

especially with with CRS and their ability to remote in. So a lot of their business

model is built on the ability to do a lot of work from their offices so they can work

on multiple clients at a time. From an accounting perspective, they are also on board

to take care of the accounting and finance side.

They have, as of this last Monday two days ago, they have hired two new full time

employees. Both of them are in their finance section. They're spending a few days

this week really getting them brought up to speed. And then one of those employees

will be dedicated to us basically full time until we get caught up on everything.

So they are last I spoke. They will have at least a cash flow update for us at the

board meeting on Monday night to let us know where we're at, and then they'll have a

full financial breakdown at the following board meeting to get caught up on all the

approvals that need to be done. They're also both feet in on the audit, which needs

to be completed by the end of September.

They're ready. They're getting ready to jump on that. I've already connected them

with the firm I the name escapes me right now, but with the firm that's doing our

audit, they've already been connected with CRS to begin working through that work.

And they're also fully aware of all of the budgetary needs that we're running a

little bit behind on the budget.

But I'm extremely confident. It was a really great few great conversations that I had

with both Joel and Sue. They've really got their stuff together. I'm excited, excited

to work for them. And I'm we're going to get there. We'll get we'll get this stuff

caught up, get rocking and rolling.

Chuck:

We did notify the office of the state auditor that we were going to extend our

reporting period to the September 30th. That correct? Yep. Okay. I just wanted to

make sure that that got in.

Nathan:

Yeah, we got that we got the extension signed for that I believe early to mid last

week. Well ahead of the deadline to make sure that it got put in.

Chuck:

And we do have a notice from Kim Seter’s office regarding, I think it was Kim's

office. Somebody let me know that we we do need to confirm in October.

Nathan:

December for the mill levy. The October 15th is the draft budget. October 15th. If

I’m correct on that one. Yeah. Okay.

Chuck:

And December on the mill levy. December 10th. Okay. October 15th for the. Draft

budget. So that gives us a little bit of time. You've if I understand you right from

the last meeting, you've already started that process a little bit.

Nathan:

Yeah. Correct. Especially from the operations and capital side. So there's a few

things we need to do as CRS that Amanda had started. One, one, one thing we need to

do is go back through, especially since the renovations at the treatment plant were

largely done on an emergency basis, not planned capital improvements. We need to go

back through the expenditures for this year and pull out those improvements that need

to be capitalized.

A lot of that stuff has to do with the, well site specifically and the water

treatment plant. So Wells, any time that we replaced equipment and then the treatment

plant, large scale electrical components, all of the pump work, all of the generator

that just got delivered this last week, all of those expenses need to be capitalized

and pulled out. Or not pulled out, but.

Chuck:

Okay. And I correct me if I'm wrong with that. Money that we're spending on our

capital improvements theoretically, was to be drawn from the sale of the funds, the

sale of our property up north, those funds is that.

Nathan:

Yeah, that was my understanding from Jim Worley that that was the bulk of where that

money would come from. And then there was also some money available for that. I can't

remember if it was in the general fund or not. Kim. Kim may remember better on it.

Legal Counsel Kim Seter, Esq.:

I'm not sure the closing though on the water will be September 9th.

Chuck:

September 9th. Oh, good. Okay. All right. Do you. This is kind of a leading question.

If you don't can't answer it, don't. But with our operations right now and the. Not

the improvement, not the capital improvements you've made, but just the general

maintenance on the equipment, the pumps, the the wells, the treatment plant. Are we

in budget, as far as you can tell. And not having seen a financial for the last two

months.

Nathan:

Yeah. In terms of if we're looking at just the normal operating expenses for the

plant, chemicals, general equipment, repairs, that kind of stuff. Yeah, we're we're

tracking right or wrong, right along like normal. We haven't had anything extreme

jump out in that area. The only potential expense that'll it'll be interesting just

to see how it lines in there was the need to take the backwash reclaim sludge to

McDonald farm. So that was a significant expense.

I think the total came in mid six figures to get all of that stuff taken out and then

disposed of following state and local requirements. And so that's something that I

don't know if it was captured in the previous budget. I don't remember seeing that in

the in the historical like historically.

I don't remember seeing that as a specific line item in the water treatment side. The

ORC quarry was the one that kind of ran that side. So I didn't pay super, super close

attention to it before I took over the plant, but that's one that'll be interesting

to see if it put us in there. Part of what we're doing to mitigate that cost moving

forward, because it's really heavy.

We need to do it, on average, we'll actually need to do that twice a year. But when

we do the redesign on the reclaim tank, which is a work that will be completed

January, February of 2023, we're actually putting in a pumping system that will allow

us to take just the sludge out. A lot of what we ended up actually taking and pumping

out, we didn't need to necessarily send it to get it taken to that, that level of a

facility.

It's a lot of water that sits in there. Just the way that our system works. We can

only pump that down to about five feet, bring it back into the plant. So we're

installing the sludge system that will let us take just the bottom sludge off. So

we'll do it more frequently. But overall there'll be a much lower volume of material

that we need to dispose of.

Chuck:

What is McDonald's farm? That's not going to affect my hamburgers, is it?

Nathan:

I hope not, McDonald's farm is a high, high hazard waste handling facility.

Chuck:

Where is it located?

Nathan:

It's northeast somewhere. It's. I think it's out by Brighton. I've never actually

been there. Interesting.

Chuck:

Not in my backyard. All right. Great. Any other questions? All right. Good. Thank

you. Oh. Sorry.

Chris:

So when is our normal Study session? Don't we normally plan that. Is that August

September. We normally go through the budget study session?

Nathan:

Yeah. So that October is usually the border is usually the presentation of the

original one. We have definitely done study sessions interim. I think that that's

kind of been a board by board decision in terms of when they're when they're

necessary, when we need to get them in. There have been there's been some variation

around, you know, various ways that we want to disseminate that information and move

forward.

Certainly this year's, I think, a little bit different. One of the other things that

I've been working on, just so that we're loaded and ready to go with CRS, I've been

working really closely with with Kennedy Jenks about our projected capital programs

for next year. So pulling the other dollar amounts that we need for the lift station

improvement plan, the filter repair and improvement plan, the backwash tank

replacement plan, and then we're also going to be doing in fall of next year, a rehab

plant for our rehab plan for all of the tanks inside of the plan.

It's a lot of epoxy coatings and stuff like that. So Kennedy Jenks is going to have

budget items ready for me to go in time for that. We've also got some programs we

need to add backflow system backflow program management. So I've already got budget

line items for that. I need a little bit of a better breakdown for it, but we should

be loaded, at least on the operations side and ready to move forward.

Chris:

So did did I hear October or did I hear a different date?

Nathan:

Yeah. October 15th is the one that is required. We've certainly done other smaller

sessions outside of that as well.

Chris:

Okay. But when is that? When we do our budget study session? We normally do it before

that, right?

Kim:

Typically they're done at that October meeting because that's your first presentation

of what staff thinks is going to be your final budget. And then you go through that.

Then we'll have to have a hearing either in November or December before you approve

the mill levy. So the hearing is on the budget. People get to comment on it. You make

changes if you want to or not.

So any time in between there, you can call a special meeting to go over the budget if

you want to.

Chris:

Okay. Thanks. Yeah I just I forgot when we did it the last.

Tera:

So typically don't you start the budgeting process usually in August. I mean that's

when things typically begin. But I think what I hear you say is we are we've, we've

had, you know, resource challenges. So we're now sort of catching up, but we have the

dedicated resources to get it going. And we will definitely have a draft budget by

October the 15th because we're hired to.

Nathan:

Yeah, yeah. Historically, working with Pinnacle and Amanda, we've usually done the

majority of the budget worksheets. So pinnacle would go through, they'd flag anything

that they think we needed. Review staff would also go through and flag anything that

they need to review based over the previous year's budget. And I historically,

historically, I usually started that process in mid-July so that I was ready to go,

which is what I've done again this year.

But yeah, so those budget worksheets would go out late July, early August, and it

just gave us a longer lead time leading up to that October 15th meeting. So we're

definitely on a truncated schedule with the resources that we've had.

Chuck:

But in speaking with Joel at CRS, he really did an awesome job in finding to, I

think, qualified accountants, one we're going to have here on a semi-permanent basis,

and the other is good backup. And I think that according to Joel, he feels

comfortable that we can we can meet our deadlines, we can get our budget done, we can

get our financials put together, and we can get back down into the the heavy lifting

when we see what our numbers are.

And that's critical. And that's why I wanted to move it up to a so that we could talk

about it. But again, Nathan, thank you for also speaking with Joel and calming him

down a little bit. I think that it's very important to have CRS recognize that this

board is pleased with his work, as understands how important it is and how respectful

we are.

And I, for one, want to convey that openly to to the rest of the board and also to

CRS. They'll do a great job for us, and I can't wait to meet the two new employees,

because I think they are critical for this whole financial issue to get behind us.

On item number five again, I took item A, which we just moved down a little bit from

the status of CRS and it says existing status. I think that the existing status, if

I'm not wrong, Nathan would also be would qualify for BC and, D and F. And so you can

take any one of those and start talking about them.

Nathan:

Yeah, I think that they're all I agree with you that they're all absolutely linked to

each other with regards to our future. I think that the board staff has been on the

same page for a really long time now. It's a complicated process with a fairly simple

goal. We just want to provide clean, safe, renewable drinking water as cost

effectively as we can to our customers.

And so with that as our mission statement, it certainly affects how we're going to

proceed internally with staffing and moving forward. From an operational perspective,

I'm really focusing on running this district as though inclusion isn't something

that's on the table. That's I've spoken about this before, but putting all of our

eggs in the basket and Parker really put us in a rough situation where we were got to

a point where right at the end where we were getting ready to turn over the keys, and

we left ourselves in a position where we were understaffed and just not ready to move

forward.

So I've been working within the existing staffing framework, the number of FTEs that

we've always had on and just kind of backfilling positions. One critical role that's

actually going to also help out significantly with CRS is getting somebody at the

front desk full time. So we've done a couple interviews. Susan, I have interviewed

we're hiring an employee. They're going to start Monday for full time customer

service representative.

We have been very, very open and upfront with where we are as a district with all of

our applicants that we're working toward inclusion, what that's looked like in the

past, what our goals are so that nobody is coming in with blinders on. They know what

they're getting into, what we as an organization are moving forward. And so we've got

a great candidate accepted the job offer yesterday day before yesterday.

So like I said, she'll begin work Monday. Another key role that we've been working on

backfilling is David's old job. So our parks and open space forum and position has

been open for a while now. It's been posted various locations. We have an employment

tab on our website now that we've used to post both of these positions can broaden

the search under that.

And we got a bunch of really qualified applicants that we're pretty excited about to

to backfill that form and spot. David and I, over the next few days, we have three

applicants that were interviewing tomorrow, another one that we're interviewing on

Friday and then one on Tuesday. So hopefully that'll be able to we'll be able to fill

that position relatively quickly to get David the sport that he needs, especially as

we're dealing with stuff like the open spaces that need a little bit more

maintenance.

Some of the issues that have been talked about with, like just the ability to get

eyes on these facilities every day, you know, weed abatement all of those things to

make sure we've got somebody out in the field really handling it. So I'm cautiously

optimistic that we'll have a really qualified candidate that's able to pull in and

fill that position relatively quickly.

Susan has moved into a role that slightly modified from the role that Janet Burnham

used to have as district administrator. So Susan historically has worked with the

district. She's been here for, I think, 15 years now. She has an amazing

understanding of all of the district practices. She's got the longest view of any of

us. She's the our longest tenured employee at this point.

So she has moved into a role of office operations manager. So she will be handling

all of the accounts payable, all of the accounts receivable. She'll be managing the

front desk staff, and then she'll also be the primary point of contact for a lot of

CRS contacts. So CRS will work with me obviously more on the financial side, Susan is

going to make sure that they're keeping up with all of the billing requirements, all

of that processing stuff.

She'll she'll make sure that all of that stuff stays on track. It's also freeing her

up to do a lot of other things around the office that just needed to taken care of,

that she just doesn't have the time for now with her, with her attention split across

so many disciplines, she's just pulled teeth in. So there's a lot of like, little

button up items around the office that could be taken care of.

And then we also have a team. I'm waiting for the official proposal for them, but

we're working with the company to basically not only evaluate workflow, but more

importantly than anything, they're going to go through this building and start

digging into files and catacombs. So we've got a lot of easement easement data that

needs to be found, mapping that needs to be organized.

We've just got a lot of things that have been stored, and nobody's really sure where

any of it is. So they'll be working ultimately with Kim's team to go through and find

out what we need to keep where it's useful, really get a lot of this information

pulled together that was very, very difficult to find through. The inclusion process

with Parker will be important, especially as we move forward on the stormwater

initiative and any future inclusion partners will be able to really categorize that

data, archive it in a way that makes sense, and get rid of anything that we don't

need that's just kind of been stuffed up there.

We did have a fairly organized system in a room upstairs that actually got it's been

a couple of a few years ago now, but where a lot of this information was, was in

stored in labeled boxes in a room upstairs, that room got left unlocked during a

kid's birthday party, and some strappy young person went in there and dumped

everything out on the floor.

And so we've had some attempts over the years to try and get in there and organize it

and put some of it back in the boxes, but it's it's a chaotic it's a chaotic den in

terms of, in terms of file keeping. So we'll also have the option to digitize a lot

of this stuff, make it much more searchable. And so really getting all of those

things in line, we're really just pushing ourselves to a point where we're the the

high level functioning organization that we have been for a long time and constantly

looking for ways to improve all of those things.

Tera:

Quick question on that. I love the sound of that organizing chaos and getting our

records more secure. Any of those records of the nature that they should be locked or

more secure?

Nathan:

Yeah. And so that was absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And so that's part of Ken's

team's involvement, is really making sure that a lot of that stuff is secured,

properly digitized, to the point that we can the room that it is in currently is

actually behind two separate locked doors. And so we're not exactly sure what

combination of events happened that allowed both of those doors to be unlocked.

And then also a kid to find it during a party. So it was under lock and key, and

we're certainly going to look at options to get that further locked down.

Tera:

And then the second question is again, love, love this project. Is it proposed in the

next year's budget or is it it being covered somewhere in this year's budget?

Nathan:

A lot of that will depend on the cash flow work that we get back from CRS, and we get

an update with where we're at. And then also when we get the final proposal in place.

So if it's something that we can act on immediately and do within the confines of

this year's budget, absolutely. If not, it's something that will be looking to add to

next year's budget so we can start first of the year with it.

Tera:

Okay, so I thought, I'm sorry, did you say they were coming in or.

Nathan:

They’re giving us there, they came in, did an evaluation. I'm currently waiting on

their proposal.

Tera:

Perfect. Thank you.

Nathan:

Kind of completing the picture on the roles and responsibilities for the operations

manager position. Especially while I am interim and given not just the climate with

our district, but water operators in general are almost impossible to find. Qualified

certified operators are like unicorns. There's we've got even before all of the COVID

and supply chain stuff, there is a very, very high level of our industry that is

retiring on the operator side and they are being replaced at a very, very low rate.

So the industry is starving for operators. So I went with I went and talked to Will

Parker with CMA Corps their owner. It is a very common business model for them to

have already in place where Will serves as the operations manager for those

districts. With his now almost full year of familiarity with our system, his staff

already in place, will is more than happy to step into that role.

So he will be joining us at Monday night's board meeting just to get a face to face.

For those that you haven't met him, introduce himself. He'll be available by zoom or

in person for the for board meetings moving forward. And then from a financial

perspective, in terms of the the existing contract that we have with CMA Corps for

the remainder of this year, it's not going to impact the contract that we have with

him at all.

So the his preference on that position was rather than guess what that workload is

going to look like and try and build that into a contract. He just wants to sit in

the role for a few months. And so he'll basically function as the operations manager

under the existing CMA Corps contract, and then moving into our contract with them

next year, he'll evaluate what time that took and decide if, what, if any,

adjustments need to be made to that contract price.

Chuck:

How long has she been with us? Or better question is how long has will been on site?

Nathan:

So will CMA Corps and will have both been here. We we engaged with them in early

February. The original founder of the company, Guy named Scott, has been around the

region forever and a day, so he was actually already pretty familiar with our system

just because he's been on the south end of Denver through Colorado Springs for so

long.

He was he actually been in our plant multiple times even before they came out. So

they've got a really good handle on just how water systems work in the region

generally. And then they also had some personal experience before they came on. But

Sima Core is officially been with us since February.

Chuck:

And with all of the improvements and upgrades we've made, Will has been present for

that.

Nathan:

Correct. Yeah.

Nathan:

Will, Will and his staff members. So he's got.

Chuck:

Or has done it maybe.

Nathan:

Yeah. So yeah Will. Will has been on been present a lot. Mark Dufresne is another

similar employee. He's he is the one that's principally been here in the water

treatment plant probably more than anybody else. Another young man by the name of

Riker has been helping out a lot. But they have a staff, I think, of 7 or 8, and all

of them have been getting familiar with our system so that any one of them can

respond to any issues that come up.

So their entire team of eight operators really functionally run the system in any

given day meters, customer complaints, lift stations. I've been moving more and more

toward them, managing a lot of the other aspects, especially as over the past few

weeks as I've moved into the interim district manager, making connections so that

they've got the ability to call out EPR, which is our primary pipeline response

company.

Summit does a lot of our flushing and all of our flushing and hydrant and valve

maintenance programs. So they're getting more and more adept at the workflow here.

Will they're all relatively local companies, and so Will had an existing relationship

with almost all of them. These guys have it's a very small community, so everyone

kind of knows everyone to begin with.

But so they've been working great with our other contractors, our existing

contractors, people that we've had on board for a really long time. And I mean,

they're they're killing it. They've been they've been plugging right along. I'm

incredibly impressed with CMA Corps their staff there.

Chuck:

And the elephant in the room question I'm assuming that the contract they are

currently under is in, is consistent with our projected 2022 budgeted numbers.

Nathan:

The it'll. Be the way that we we're going to have to they'll definitely be some sort

of budgetary adjustment that needs to be made there, simply because, if nothing else,

because it's the difference on running a contract employee versus having in-house

staff. So historically, we had three, three staff members in operations that were

Castle Pines North Metro District employees.

And so I'll have to work with. It'll be something we work with CRS and also with you

guys on. And just in terms of how we want to classify, classify those finances. So

they've been getting paid. Jim, Jim Worley had been coding those services to the same

line item that we've been doing for all of the treatment plant.

O&M stuff. So we need to break that down, pull it out and see how it compares to the

employee numbers, because it hasn't been drawn against what we've got budgeted for

our FTEs. Yeah. So we'll have to do some adjusting and figure out where it lands in

there, but certainly seem a course contract. The amount of money that we are spending

on course contract is significantly lower than we had been paying for three full time

operations staff, so the money that we're spending there is, is much, much lower.

It's a huge savings. There were six figures cheaper on the annual ride. And then that

doesn't include and that doesn't take into consideration things like benefits and

PERA and insurance and all of the things that come along with employees. So it's a

it's a great cost benefit to the district for sure.

Tera:

I was just going to ask you if that was the contract where you had saved us a lot of

money. Gotcha. That one.

Chuck:

I'd like to hear the word save money. What else you got?

Chris:

So comment. So I just wanted to comment on that's pretty innovative model where you

were able to get or discuss with the CMA Corps on being able to evaluate the position

for a period of time prior to just doing a contract. So good on you and doing that.

And then the good, good, good response so far on all the the employee issues that you

had originally had to deal with.

And that's definitely taken some work on your part to turn those around, especially

since we were at risk of losing people that are pretty critical to the operations. So

just wanted to say good on you for that.

Nathan:

Much appreciated.

Chuck:

And Nathan, I want to drop back for a few minutes on Greystone and Continental. I

think I heard from a lot of people, including CRS, but yourself and even Jim Worley,

that we we need to do something in getting our software up to date. And in order to

accommodate that, getting our equipment, our hardware up to date. And that is a

proposal you are waiting to hear from, from Greystone or Continental? From Greystone.

From gravestone. And do you have a timing issue there? Timing.

A timing. That date that they may put on their proposal to get to us? And is it

obviously it's going to be an operating expense that might have to reflect a change

in the budget. I don't know what they're going to come in at. Maybe not, but what's

your thought?

Nathan:

They the last I spoke with them, they anticipate having the remainder of that

proposal pulled together by the end of the week. So the, as I'm sure Jason can attest

to, the the continental billing side is where it gets a little bit complicated,

especially with the external access. And so they're also figuring out VPN clearances.

They have to do a lot of like system design stuff to make sure that we've got clean,

clear access portals. We've got a lot, of much, much smaller issues that we'll be

able to resolve through this.

But with all the staff turnover, we've got multiple emails that, you know, this this

company is attached to this email address, this company is attached to this email

address. So kind of figuring out a plan to clean part of that stuff up. Although it's

like the lower financial impact of it. Also making sure that we do it in a way that

makes sense, so that we have all of these companies available to us is a little bit

tricky, which is why we have them.

Chuck:

I, I, I threw Jason under the bus last month and said he's going to run with this. So

Jason, if you're still in agreement, I'd like to just have you see if you can.

Jason:

Absolutely. I love involved with Nathan.

Chuck:

And Nathan, share whatever or Greystone puts together, and it's a language that I

don't understand. So, Jason, nice to have you on board.

Jason:

Thanks. Yeah. Nate, I'd love to be a second set of eyes for you, and we can discuss

whatever they propose, and I'm sure it'll probably be in line, but it doesn't hurt to

to have a second opinion.

Nathan:

Yeah. No joke. That's fantastic. I appreciate it.

Chuck:

Maybe, Jason, once that happens and you get a pretty good understanding of our.

Infrastructure and our computer infrastructure and software, that would be a good

report for the rest of the board as well. I think that's to me, financial information

is critical, and to have equipment that runs properly is that much more critical.

Jason:

Yeah, I completely agree. And if we're looking at digitizing a bunch of documents

that have been stored in the closet for years, that maybe the time to address that.

Good, good.

Chuck:

Great. Nathan. Anything else?

Nathan:

No, that's all I've got for now. I'm happy to answer any questions. Of course.

Chris:

So I do have a couple, but not for Nathan. I do, and not a question that's more, but

a request for Kim. So kind of status on the IGA with the city. Where do we stand on

that. Because doesn't that and I don't expect an answer tonight. But I think for a

board meeting I think did that have a clause in there or something that has to be

done by September 1st or September 30th?

Kim:

Yes, September 30th. And we did have a meeting about that with a couple of the city

officials and laid out the deadlines. And I think things are moving forward. I can't

say at what pace, but we will be getting back together and trying to shoot for that

deadline. September 30th, I think was the.

Chris:

Okay. I'd be interested to hear some of the discussions and what some of the issues

or concerns were raised or none if they're not. And then the last one would be an

update on all the items that we had from the the Parker inclusion. You know, we had a

whole list of all these things that we were supposed to do in at this point, I think

we're pretty far along.

So I kind of know what's left over. We pretty much done now. And, you know, so we can

actually have information to make some good decisions and push the issue a little

bit.

Kim:

And Chris, there is a running list in my status report for the board meetings. So

I'll make sure that that's updated for Monday night.

Chuck:

If I have the information correct. Where to notify the district customers before

September 30th that the city will take over stormwater responsibilities effective

October 1st. Correct. That stands. Correct. Okay. And the closing is set for

September 30th.

Kim:

At the moment.

Chuck:

You've had some challenges.

Kim:

I think we'll get there. But again, we're going to have the same kind of challenges

with the easements and those items, which is why one of the issues that came up, I

think, well, in the board meeting, because Tera mentioned that there was the parks

agreement, one of the things that came up in our conversation with the city was we

could relieve all of us of a lot of issues with regard to easements if the parks

moved over to the city.

Chuck:

I'm sorry I couldn't hear you.

Kim:

If the parks were moved over to the city, rather than having to delineate all of the

easements that go through the open spaces and those kinds of things, I don't I didn't

notice any great enthusiasm on the city side for that discussion, that we may have

been not talking to the right people. Nathan provided me with the agreement

concerning the parks, so I'll look through that and there will be something in the

status report on that too.

And that would be an issue. You're going to have to decide whether you want to move

forward with that or not.

Chuck:

Well, you'll have to get me the pros and cons.

Kim:

I'll tee it up.

Chuck:

I get a lot of questions about pickleball. Seems like this is a never ending saga.

Kim:

Sure feels that way to me. I put in a.

Chuck:

Wwell let me just back up. We are going to do it. Correct.

Kim:

We are going to do it.

Chuck:

And we have plans.

Kim:

We have plans.

Chuck:

And we have a shovel ready to stick in the ground.

Kim:

As far as I do, we have a shovel ready to stick in the ground. As soon as Xcel puts a

signature on something.

Chuck:

It seems to be that there's a sliver of land that nobody wants. Nobody. Why don't we

just build over it and let them come later?

Kim:

The contractors won't cross that sliver.

Chuck:

So the contractors are holding us up to get to make sure that that land is buildable

from a permission standpoint, from this district.

Kim:

Yes. They're not liable for that.

Chuck:

I understand. All liability.

Kim:

Yeah. What initially happened there's there's 2 or 3. There's definitely two plots

that when they were drawn they didn't meet.

So they should have a common line and they don't. And it's long I'm not talking 100

yards and talking I don't know. Probably three quarters of a mile. And it's about

eight feet wide and Nobody owns it.

Chuck:

Was Xcel going to sign a document saying go for it?

Kim:

That's the conversations I'm still having with them or trying to have with them. And

then we went ahead and started an action to try to condemn it in the hopes that

they'll say, let's not go through all that, we'll just disclaim it, and then I'll

have the court declare it as ours. Xcel says it's ours. Xcel what? They say it's

ours.

They don't want anything to do with it, but they don't want to say anything that says

it's not art, it's not theirs.

Chuck:

And you can find nothing in any of the deeds or maps or plats or anything that shows

that it's ours.

Kim:

No, it's clear in the deeds that there's a gap.

Chuck:

How long ago did this occur? At the beginning of time?

Kim:

No. It was while the properties were being platted over here. I don't remember the

dates. I think the last erroneous platting was like two, 2012. Maybe something.

Chuck:

That I was going to say at least ten years ago. Maybe a little more. Okay.

Interesting.

Kim:

Yeah. It's when you run into these land issues, it's just it's so difficult to try to

straighten them out because just like this situation, nobody wants to take

responsibility. I would love to own it.

Chuck:

Of course you would.

Kim:

I could charge you a fortune.

Tera

You probably sell it to us right?

Chuck:

You're turning in. There's dollar sign. So I get it. Unless there's.

Tera:

Yeah. Thank you. So kind of kind of. Bring it back. Thank you so much for. And I want

to be respectful of time. So I'll, I'll put it out there and we don't have to talk

about it tonight. But but just to kind of clarify since these were really the action

these your perspective on operations were really requests that I made when I'm

talking about the status, our status right now.

And I know you know this, but this is something that I think the board would be

interested in hearing is we really, you know, are is the cash that we're bringing in

covering our operations. I don't know that I've seen anything and poking around on

the site or any updated, but, you know, that's really important. You know what,

repairs are needed.

And do we have enough to cover that? You know, we stopped collecting the renewable

water fee. I think renewable water is key for our future. I mean, you know, if

anyone, any one here who owns a home knows that it will have no value if we have no

if we have no water. So and when we talk about renewable water, if we're still

interested in talking about our, you know, regional potential inclusion partners, you

know, our approach seems to have been to go out to them.

But I think what would I would recommend is that we actually have them come and

present here for a couple of reasons. One is because we're all hearing the same

information the board is and two is it's also being recorded so that our customers

can also listen in or go back and review the the data later. So instead of doing kind

of these one off going and talking to Centennial and talking to Aurora and talking to

Parker, whatever my recommendation would be to bring them here. So.

Chuck:

Tera, we did that. When we did the initial inclusion with Parker, we had Parker come

in and everybody did a show and tell. It's it's the way we're going to do it right

now. We're just kind of introducing ourselves, feeling out the other districts to see

what they might want to do and might want to be invited to that sort of thing.

And as we found out already, Aurora couldn't just from a geographic standpoint. But

that's exactly what we will do next. Next opportunity we have when this board elects

to pick that or two districts that we want to consider.

Tera:

And circling back to that 2020 rate study, we haven't done a rate study since 2020.

In that 2020 rate study, it was recommended that we raised the rates in 2021, which

was done also recommended we raised rates in 2022, which has not been done to date.

And as we've discussed in one of the previous meetings, the world has really changed.

So even though that rate study was done in 2020 with the supply chain and after COVID

and everything has really changed. I mean, I think that's something, again, it's

really important to understand, are we collecting the right amount of money? Is the

amount of money that we're collecting covering our operations. So that's when I say

our existing status. That's the type of stuff that I am looking for.

Chuck:

I think economically, Tera that we are, I know that we are appropriately collecting

and spending the money that we budgeted at least through May when we had our

financials. I don't think we've gone over that. We know that we are going to look at

the renewable water fee. We had a discussion that that be reenacted. That's still a

discussion. When we talk about our budgets, the capital item coverage, that's going

to be an interesting one that you're going to put together, Nathan, so that we can

really take a look at whether or not our capital item budget is correct or has to be

modified in 2023.

And of course, a rate study is going to be reflected by how the budget comes out. And

I will hazard a guess right now that that rate study is going to reflect an increase

for Castle Pines to the to some degree, I don't know how much. Obviously it depends

on the budget.

Tera:

So we're doing the rate study.

Nathan:

Yeah. So per the I don't remember what it was. We got a couple of board meetings, go

to the previous board meeting. The board had asked me to engage the company that had

done our previous rate study. And so I'm glad you brought that up because I forgot to

mention it. So I touched. So I touch base with Bartle Wells.

They I spoke with them, I don't know, 2 or 3 weeks ago now. So they are in line. They

absolutely agreed that we need to do, if not a full rate study, at least kind of an

overview or a check in and just kind of do an update to those rates. So they CRS is

also aware that they're moving forward.

The representative from their company that we had used before, that's really familiar

with our financials, had a project that he was finishing up in the next couple of

weeks. And so his schedule is going to free up late August, early September to start

reevaluating that. And he'll be connected with CRS. So that is something we are

moving forward on.

Chuck:

You did get a copy of the rate study, Yes? From Bartles and Wells.

Tera:

The it's available online. The 2020 one? 2020 is the most recent one I've been able

to find on our website.

Chuck:

We don't have a more I mean, the current one. We put together. What?

Nathan:

Yes. So yeah, to to Terry's point, the most current rate study was done in 2020. It

is available online. And it does talk about rate. It does recommend rate increases

that weren't done through the Parker inclusion okay. And so we'll look at we'll look

at that. And then that will obviously be information that is you know like captured

when they do the evaluated rate study.

If we have any any catch up that we need to do. One thing that I know we have going

for is the water, the amount of water that we have been selling this year at least,

like I said, through May when we had our last update, was far outpacing what we had

anticipated for. So I Amanda's last projection, we were we were well ahead of our

income in terms of what we were expending, exposing our expenditures, our water

resource reports and stuff that we've been working through with Jim Water have been

reflecting that just overall, it was a dry year last year.

This year has been even drier. We also have several more taps online that we didn't

have last year. So we've been bringing in more money than was anticipated for our

current budget as well.

Chuck:

Good. Well, in the spirit of what we voted on at the board meeting, we tried to keep

this to an hour. We've run over a little bit. I appreciate, Nathan, the information

you brought to the table. Kim, would you get with Ken and make sure that your items

that we discussed will be put on the agenda for the Monday meeting?

Board meeting? I will I would like to hear a motion to close the meeting.

Board-Voting All Speak:

I make a motion to adjourn. Second. Second. All in favor? I. Tera. Everybody. Jason.

Denise. I. thank you very much, guys. Nathan, again, thank you very much.

Describer:

Meeting adjourned. Thank you for watching.