September 25, 2023 Board Meeting
Transcript
Describer:
Board Meeting Agenda
Monday, September 25, 2023, at 6:00 p.m.
7404 Yorkshire Drive, Castle Pines, CO 80108
I. Welcome. Call meeting to order. Pledge of Allegiance.
II. Roll call. Determination of quorum. Disclosure of potential conflicts.
III. Consider approving the September 25, 2023, board meeting agenda.
IV. Public comment period. (Three-minute maximum per person).
V. Fire mitigation donation request- Mike McClaskey Forest Park HOA.
VI. Bid Award for Yorkshire Waterline Replacement Project.
VII. Finance Director's report.
August General Fund/Open Space $197.68
August Enterprise Funds $1,205.69
August Electronic Payments (all funds) $25,347.92
August Total Expenditures $26,751.29
September General Fund/Open Space $56,595.29
September Enterprise Funds $1,354,931.41
September Electronic Payments (all funds) $135,089.02
September Total Expenditures $1,546,615.72
Total General Fund/Open Space $56,792.97
Total Enterprise Funds $1,356,137.10
Total Electronic Payments (all funds) $160,436.94
Total Expenditures for the Period $1,573,367.01
A. Ratify claims for payment including check numbers 28106 - 28168 and electronic payments issued from August 25, 2023 through September 21, 2023.
B. Update and timeline regarding 2022 Audit.
VIII. Legal Counsel's report.
A. District Designation of 7053, 7047, 7041 Turweston Lane
IX. District Manager’s report
A. Update on meetings with the Hidden Pointe HOA
B. Summary of meeting with Dominion Water
X. Director’s Matters
XI. Adjourn
Board Vice President Jana Krell:
Good evening and welcome to the Castle Pines North Metro District board meeting. Today is September 25th. It is 6 p.m. I am Jana Krell, vice president of the board. And filling in for Jason, who's not here. I'm going to go ahead and call roll for, our attendees,
Board Member Director James Mulvey:
Jim Mulvey. Here.
Jana
And any, conflicts. Oh, I didn't do a pledge of allegiance. I'll do that next. Okay.
James:
No conflicts.
Board Member Director Leah Enquist:
Leah Enquist present, no conflicts.
Jana:
And do we have Tera or Jason online? We do not. Okay, but we have three, so we have a quorum. I'd like to ask you guys to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Please. ...
James:
Where's the flag? ... Usually right here. .... It's not a good start.
Do you. Do you have a copy of the packet? Yes. All right. I'm going to snag one because I'm having troubles here. Yeah.
All:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Jana:
Okay.
Coming over here, Jim.
Okay. Item number Three on the agenda is consideration for approval of the September 25th board meeting Agenda.
Board Voting All Speak:
Can I get a second for that? second. And can I just say. All in favor? Sure. Let's do it like that. Let's try this way. All in favor I approve. Okay. item number four. Public comments. do we have anybody here who would like to, come up and speak?
District Manager Nathan Travis:
I don't think we have anybody signed up and there's no one else.
Jana:
No, You guys are good.
Nathan:
So I think we're good to go to move on.
Steve Dawes, Castle Pines Resident off-mic:
Hold on, pardon me director but my agenda the wrong minutes on it.
Jana off-mic:
Oh, I have the wrong agenda.
Nathan:
You should have a new agenda so the packet that I gave you guys when I. When you guys walked in. Shouldn't have had the approved the board Minutes went on it. Yeah.
Jana off mic:
It's not supposed to be on it?
Nathan:
Yeah, I didn't we didn't get them in time for you guys to review them, so I, omitted them.
Jana:
The meeting minutes didn't come out on Friday with everything else, so the board didn't get a chance to read them yet. So that might have been Why.
Steve:
May I ask a question? Yes, sir. July's...
You approved the minutes for the July meeting. I just want to note my name was misspelled on there, if that makes any difference. That's all I was trying to say.
Legal Counsel Kim Seter, Esq.:
Okay. What is your name and how do you spell it?
Steve:
They spelled it Dodds. That's incorrect. It's a Dawes.
Jana:
Kim, I think we can get that swapped out.
Yeah. Okay. Perfect.
Steve:
You never know. who will see it.
Jana:
Well, thank you guys for being here. Okay, that closes the public comment period. Item number five is fire mitigation donation request. Is it Mikey, Janet?
Nathan:
I actually just caught that. So there should have been a Mike on the, board agenda, just for everybody's record.
Jana:
Thanks for joining us Janet. Go ahead.
Janet McClaskey, Castle Pines Resident:
Thank you. My name is Janet McClaskey. McClaskey and I, we live. this is my husband, Mike, and we live at 1445 Forest Trails Drive. We're in Forest Park, and we are members of the Forest Park. fire mitigation and forest Health Committee. And we do have a committee now, I wrote a grant, for the city of Castle Pines and received their money.
And we do start that mitigation this week. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. As you guys probably know better than we do, 80% of the sewer for CPN goes through Forest Park. Also, we have two wells that connect to two separate aquifers. So our community has not been, mitigated. We have a forest, a real forest. If you haven't been to Forest Park, it's aptly named, and we have a real forest and it has overgrown, the whole community.
And so the Hayman. No, it's the Cherokee Ranch Fire, we were evacuated during the Cherokee Ranch Fire in 2003. And so a lot of us have become aware of how overgrown it is And so we're working on this. So I'm currently in the process of a writing a Forest Service grant, Colorado, State Forest Service grant and asking for them to partner with us.
The City of Castle Pines is partnering with us. Douglas County is partnering with us. Nathan has written a letter of support. What we're asking for from you guys, since, you know, 80% of the sewer does go through us as water is there too, if we had a fire, 20% of the water would be knocked out for Castle Pines.
If there were some, if it, you know, if it hurt anything and it would hurt our homes, of course. But there's also those two utilities that are vital to the city. And that's why they're so excited about partnering with us. And that's also why Douglas County is, we've been named the worst. We're the most beautiful place because of the forest, but it's also the highest risk for wildfire in the community.
We're on the we're on the, western edge of Castle Pines, right by Wildcat Point. So if fire came, fire burned. The sanctuary golf course stopped at Wildcat Point in 2003. But if you've seen this side of Wildcat Point, it ain't stopping this year. Okay? I mean, it's not going to stop because there's just so much overgrown and the golf courses around us, the public golf course.
So what we're asking from you guys is, we'd like to partner with you, and we'd like your support. I think Nathan's written us a letter of support for the grant. We would like to have, we would like to know for this week. We would like to know if you have a map of the, of the of the, manholes.
We would like we would like to be able to mark them in the way you'd like to have them marked, if that is possible. If not, tell us how to mark them and we'll, you know, we'll mark whatever we find as we go through. If there's anything else you've got that's hidden in the forest, let us know and we'll try to located in market however you want it.
We also would like, at some point in time, if possible, to maybe have some, some team support from you guys. If you guys could come out and, help trim around the manholes and they, we don't necessarily need it this week, but we'll if we get the forest, the grant from the Colorado State Forest Service, we could use them and that would be next year.
That would be like next fall. Another thing is, if you have any if when you have your, finance meeting, if you would like to donate to us to our efforts, because it is, again, I will say 80% of the sewer for you guys and 20% of the water. So you we really want to partner with you in any way you can think of.
And we'd like to, you know, discuss whatever ways you want to come back with us. We can give you our contact information. Fact. I can give you my email, and then you can talk about it. And anything you wish to contact. It's Janet j-a-n-e-t dot McClaskey. m-c-c-l-a-s-k-e-y @gmail.com, and we do have a whole team, but I am the contact for the Colorado State Forest Service grant.
So you can always contact me or Mike and his name. His name is spelled exactly like mine with Mike.. Mike dot McClaskey class get the same email. So, Thank you. do you have questions?
Leah:
I have a few questions. Well, first of all, thank you. Thank you for giving us a little time, in terms of all the grants that you mentioned, if the majority of them were to come through, what percentage of the cost would be covered for the fire mitigation efforts?
Janet:
Well, they're matching grants. So, like the city of Castle Pines, our HOA has to put up 50%. And the city of Castle Pines has to put up 50% for the city, for the forest grant, for the state forest grant, our HOA has to put up 50% and the state will put up 50%. But Castle Pines is willing to,
The city is willing to loan us the 50% until the state pays back. And they're working on that letter and that agreement right now. So they're helping us out so that we can ask for more and more and more. And if you are willing to send out any workers, I can count that. But, you know, you have to okay.
And everything, but I can count that as in-kind, an in-kind donation, which would bump up our amount of grant. So even if you were going to send them out for a few hours and it's like $300, that would still get us $300 more on that. But if you want to give us, you know, 50,000, we'll take it and ask for 50,000 more.
Do you know? So it's it's kind of whatever you guys want to do right now, but we will be doing other stuff in the future because this will not, you know, this will not. We're it's a thick forest.
Leah:
Okay. Thank you.
Jana:
I had a few more questions. Do you have a cost estimate for full mitigation? Yes we do.
Jana:
Would you be willing to share that?
Yes. I would, according to Cova Tree, who is right now our mitigator, they do mitigate for Castle Pines and they are certified by Douglas county as arborists and fire mitigation specialists. They estimate between 250,000 and 300,000. Now, I know that sounds like a lot of money, but the reason it's so much money is nothing's been done in this forest for 20 years.
So it's it's massive. And we went out and walked the forest. We walked the portion that we're going to mitigate this week, it's kind of unbelievable. Okay. And if you'd like to come walk, that'd be great to,
Jana:
And then another question is the mitigation just limb trimming?
Janet:
No, it is scrub oak thinning and reducing. It is trimming canopies so that the fire won't leap.
It is trimming a scrub oaks away from the pines. We'll also leave a snag trees for, for for animal dens and, you know, we saw a lot of animal refuges when we were in there. So we know the animal trails. We're watching the animal trails. We've already measured the wind. so, and so there's a lot of a lot of components that go into it.
So basically removing all dead trees except for the ones we leave for the animals ten foot tall. And then, we're reducing scrub oak, which will be a continued process. And our HOA does have a plan to fund that through our HOA. Or maybe with you know, some extra funds as we go along. But the initial thing is huge.
Then yearly, you know how if you trim the scrub oaks in your yard each year, it's not such a big deal. But if you didn't do it for 20 years, you know it's a big deal. So remove the scrub oaks, remove dead trees and the wood product, the wood some we're going to use some of the wood chips, in some of the eroded places.
So we've got that plan in place to, so it's pretty much dead tree scrub oaks. There are some non-native trees which are planted, and some of those will be removed. Dead ones will be removed. Invasive species we've got to work on a little bit and see what we're going to do with those, you know. So does that answer?
Jana:
Absolutely. Thank you. And Jim, do you have any questions, any additional
James:
You talked about, not being mitigated in 20 years. It was that considered an HOA task? I guess that wasn't performed for 20 years.
Janet:
It we believe it is, It's HOA acres. Individual homeowners do mitigate or, we we believe it's HOA acres now. It was never grown. We've been there 15 years and it was never grown up like this.
So there had been something done along the main thoroughfares. So we don't really know exactly what has happened. Okay. Because we haven't been there the whole time. Yeah. There's 29 acres that need that are open space and well, they're not open now. They're forested space that belong to the HOA and that is the land we're working on, not individual homeowners, which we do have a plan for that to which we're, know Pine Ridge was a Firewise community, and City of Castle Pines was a Firewise community.
And we're looking at that, too, but we're educating our homeowners to about it.
James:
Okay. And then one more thing. I put in parentheses highest risk of fire in Castle Pines. Could you quantify, you know, qualify that? Where was that?
Yes. Dillon, the two fire mitigation specialist. Jill Well and, Dill, I don't know what Dillon's last name is, but they're Douglas County.
They said that. When Spencer Weston of the state looked at it, he said, oh my gosh. And we also had Eisner Jensen do a write up last year, I believe he came through, looked at everything, and South Metro, yeah. Came and did a did a report. It's like a 50 page report which I can provide you if you'd like.
James:
Okay. And, are you part of the, I guess, part of Castle Pines? We have the goats, and they kind of eat up the underbrush and,
Janet:
Both, Douglas County specialists and, the city of Castle Pines have used those. And they both said that they have discovered that what they'll do is they'll eat the grass, but they will do nothing to remove the scrub oaks and the dead trees.
And they both said, as well as the state, Spencer Weston, that we need to do the trees and the scrub oaks first. And if anything's left, then we come in with goats.
James:
Okay. Are you part of the HOA Association for Forest Park?
Janet:
We are, we are a committee on the HOA Association.
James:
Okay. Is there any possibility that the HOA, you know, like a representative, maybe your HOA frozen and can come in and kind of talk to you?
Mitigation that was done, wasn't done, should have been done kind of thing.
Janet:
Well, here's the problem with that. I could try, but that board is new. They're people who've moved in in the last five, three, six years so they could come and tell you what they've done in the last five, six years. But they couldn't speak to what was done.
You know, five years into the community, ten years into the community, I can seek to find someone who would know that previous board members, if there's still some in our community.
James:
Okay. I think that would be helpful and interesting.
Janet:
We'll certainly we'll certainly attempt that. I can have the HOA if they were willing to come talk to you.
But they don't know, like I'm the one who did all the research and read all the 4000 pages of how to do it. And, you know, so they don't they don't even know that. They know it needs to be done, but they may not know when it was done before. And every homeowners who have lived there 20 years say it's never been done.
Okay. Thank you. I will seek I will seek to send them to you.
Jana:
Well, Janet, thank you so much. We'll discuss that. Okay. And, and we appreciate you being here. Thank you very much. Thanks for the time.
Thank you. Nathan. Item number six is the bid award for the Yorkshire Water Line replacement projects. Nate.
Nathan:
Yep. so I think we have, Lisa Schwien with Kennedy Jenks on zoom to kind of lead this one in and answer any questions. But we received the bids. Let me get this pulled up, and I apologize. Lisa are you are you there?
Lisa Schwien, Kennedy Jenks:
I am here, thanks for having me. Can you guys hear me? Okay.
Nathan and Leah:
Yeah. All right, so does it. Go ahead.
Leah:
I'm just trying to follow along in the packet. Is it the... All I have is the bid opening summary for the tank rehabilitation program. But on the agenda? It says the Yorkshire Water line replacement.
Nathan:
Did I put the wrong one in there?
Jana off-mic:
No, you got it right. Oh, okay. We got a breakdown and the totals.
Lisa:
It was in the PDF that I received. emailed to me.
Leah:
I. Kim gave me his. But I don't have.
Nathan:
How bizarre. Yeah. And so we did get, we did receive it Looks like one to, six qualifying bids, of those Diaz Construction Group with a base bid amount of $858,025 with an add-alt amount, which is, for $81,506. We've, Kennedy Jenks has experience working with them before.
We did call and ask some follow up questions for that add-alt amount that specifically for, above ground water line bypass. So if we can get this thing fired off and rolling in November, which is what it's looking like, I will obviously require us to, figure out a way to bypass that above ground where water lines won't freeze.
And so that was really mostly driven by that, by that line item. And so it's separated out just because it depends highly on the project timing. But if you have any questions, I will let you throw those toward Lisa or myself.
Jana:
Lisa, I did have one question, so I reviewed the, the bid tab sheet and then the, detailed bid breakdown, and I.
Yeah, I always am concerned with contingency when it comes to construction, and I didn't see any in there, so I just wanted to confirm. Is there any additional funds for unforeseen construction activity, if any, comes along during the project?
Lisa:
Yeah. So we really try to capture that under the add alternate items, just based on our experience and based on similar projects, past projects.
So, for instance, if the city wants us to use some flow fill, you know, we have a lot of utilities in the trench and it's going to be hard to get compaction and have the street, you know, not sink later. And they come in and say, hey, we want you to use flow fill. That's why we put that item in there just to make sure we have some money for that.
And then same thing with asphalt. If we find more than six inches and they have to remove ten inches, then there's a way to pay them for that. yeah.
Jana:
So, Lisa. Oh, all of bid alt-1 are just unforeseen things with quantities and line items that may or may not get used. It's not an additional scope.
Lisa:
Yes. Cool. Yes. That's. Yeah. you know, normally we award the contract based on the base bid amount and then the add alternate, costs, if we use any of those items, would be in addition to that base bid amount, we could award the contract if you guys want to, on a combined cost, like add the two numbers together.
That would be the worst case scenario. We would come in under the contract amount, you know, that type of thing. So it's kind of it's I go back and forth on the best way to do that.
Jana:
I'll defer to Nathan on that one. I'm not trying to change the way you guys do things. So
Lisa:
a lot of times we don't end up using those items.
Just so you know. So. But we have a price for them if we need them, which is nice.
Jana:
Leah and Jim, any questions regarding the bid tab?
James:
none here. Thanks.
Lisa:
Yeah. So we got five bidders, I guess. And I'm. I'm the engineer's, probable construction cost. And I was kind of right in the middle of everybody, so that's good. I don't want to be a low bidder and win the job myself. So. Yeah, and we we worked with Diaz and, really liked him.
Actually. It's a small company. They just kind of go all in with all their resources and get the job done efficiently, and and they do a good job. So, I have no problem, you know, with them at all. So I was excited to see them bid it, actually.
Jana:
Great. Thank you. Lisa. with that with. No.
I'm sorry,
James:
I have just one. Lisa, based on the timeline and going into, I think we said November start. If we award this now, is that correct?
Lisa:
Yeah. We kind of we kind of. Can we have a little bit of play with that? I mean, they told us that they have a crew that could start in November and they have they would have their materials in November.
And I know that you guys just had a line break, again in that street. So, you know, we were kind of pushing to get it going, knowing, though, that we'd have to do a lot of the roto-mill and overlay asphalt work in the spring. You know, we'd have the patching done on the trenches, but we'd have to wait on the finishing touches on the asphalt, and we'd have to protect those temporary water services, from freezing things like that.
Like it will make it a little more difficult. But we were just kind of pushing to get going on that, to avoid any more water main breaks. But there is a there is an option to wait. They were open to waiting until spring on the whole project, he said, as long as he places his order on pipe materials before the end of the year, the suppliers willing to honor the prices on his pipe materials, he said, we would just need to be worried about asphalt prices going up.
James:
Yeah, that was sort of my question. it's sort of twofold if if we start now and then we, you know, your your plan is to finish in the springtime. What is the impact if, if we don't start now and we push it off to the spring? And for the most part, you've answered that question. I'm just wondering if there's anything else there, like if we.
What is, you know, if we have an above ground or bypassing water. Is there any other potential issues with doing that? You know, over the winter time? I mean,
Lisa:
It's really just going to be there piping on, on, you know, kind of laying on the ground that they're bypassing with the that could possibly be damaged or, maybe someone service all of a sudden doesn't work because that piping has frozen.
James:
Yeah. I was thinking that as well as snow removal and things like that, like, you know, looking at experience and, kind of leveraging your knowledge here, is there any potential issue with that, you know, type of, you know, the process that you're, you know, you foresee here that we're going to end up with, you know, their equipment, their pipes damaged or frozen, and then we have other issues on top of that that caused damage in the neighborhood from leaking pipes or burst pipe.
Lisa:
Yeah. I mean, I'll be honest, we try not to, provide temporary water service. We always try to parallel the old water line with a new one and leave that old one in service. And then we don't have to worry about this sort of thing. But we have a section from Castle Pines Parkway to, I think it's about 1800 feet, where we we don't have room.
There's just no room to parallel the old one. So we're going to have to remove and replace. And that's what that's what's kind of driving this to, you know, having to provide some temporary water feeds. So I don't have a ton of experience doing this over, over winter time, especially, the contractors seems. Oh, he seems pretty comfortable with it.
He said he's done it, a few times, and they just found ways to keep things from freezing. I, I think he seems interested in waiting till spring just to not have to deal with all that, but, I just I don't know what the situation is with your line breaks and how much that's costing to repair those.
And, you know, things like that kind of weigh in on, on this.
James:
And that was his second part of it. But, if you don't have a, you know, an estimate of that, then, I guess we'll just, you know, I finish my question there, then just leave it alone. Best recommendation. It sounds like contractor wants to wait and
you sound like you don't let me put words in your mouth, but would you prefer to wait based on what the contractor saying and...
Lisa:
He, Yeah. So I, I feel pretty comfortable moving forward, but I'd be fine with waiting to I didn't we wouldn't have to worry about that stuff. But I feel like he's competent in handling those types of issues.
James:
I mean, the only thing I care about is these people have water, and they're not. They're the replacement line or they're temporary lines. And I freezing and breaking on them. And I mean, that's a nightmare in the middle of the winter.
Lisa:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You know, I think we can award the project to Diaz. And if if they're not able to start the first part of November, maybe at that point we make the decision to hold off, if something comes up in their schedule changes, that happens a lot.
My other thought is, though, we have a contractor who's ready and willing and we have, you know, we have a crew that has availability and just it seems like in the market right now that's pretty valuable. And to not move forward right now, you know, who knows what happens in the spring to,
Jana:
So, Lisa, Lisa, I work in, infrastructure construction.
And so to me, the next two months are very next even three months, you can still get a lot of work done in those months. So. Right. Asphalt has a certain temperature. It has to be laid at. And I think it's 45 degrees and rising. So we're not talking about lack of asphalt till maybe January, February, March. So I feel comfortable saying you can get a lot of work done in the next three months.
So do you. So for me, I feel like if this was January, I would say the cost of winter protection for all of this is going to outweigh waiting. But, I mean, today was a beautiful sunny day and I would hate to see us not not start if we continue to have good weather, but I recognize it could snow as well.
So it's Colorado.
Lisa:
I agree, that's why I was thinking if they really can start in November, let's go for it. if they are delayed for some reason, which does happen, maybe we decide to wait. But either way, I think we could award it.
Nathan:
Yeah. And just to briefly answer your question in terms of cost, I'd have to go back and do a year by year breakdown.
But we've had oh, 8 or 10 breaks on that. And the price range on those is anywhere from like 10 to $80,000 each. So it really just depends on how badly it breaks, how much of it takes the road with it. Each one of those comes with its own service outage and all of that fun stuff too.
So I think that, you know, if we if we've got the window to move on it now and we've got a contractor that's relatively comfortable doing it, it's worth moving forward in that direction just because there's so much liability on the back end, both with water safety or system safety repairs, financial.
Jana:
Leah, did you have any additional questions?
Board Voting All Speak:
We'll then with no other questions, I'd like to move us for a vote to award to Diaz Construction with a start of as soon as November, if possible. I'll second it. All in favor? Aye, I I.
Jana:
Great. Okay. Next item on the agenda, item number seven, finance director's report. Phyllis, are you on?
Sadie, Community Resource Services of Colorado (CRS):
You have on Phyllis and Sadie.
Jana:
Oh. Hi, Sadie. Thank you for being here.
Phyllis Brown, Community Resource Services of Colorado (CRS):
Hello! I'm going to have Sadie go over the, claims for us.
Sadie:
Okay. We are going to ratify claims for payment, including check numbers 28106 through 28168, and electronic payments issued from August 25th through 2023. Excuse me. August 25th, 2023 through September 21st, 2023.
The General Fund Open space for August is $197.68 for enterprise funds. In August, it's $1,205.69 electronic payments for August were $25,347.92. For September. General fund open space was $56,595.29 enterprise funds, with $1,354,931.41. Electronic payments was $135,089.02. Totals for general fund open space is $56,792.97. Enterprise funds is $1,356,137.10.
For electronic payments, All funds is $160,436.94. Total expenditures for August are $26,751.29. Total expenditures for September are so far 1,546,615.72 for grand total of $1,573,367.01.
Jana:
Great. Thank you. Sadie, Nate and Kim, do we make a recommendation to approve the financials?
Nathan:
Yes. So you can ask for, you know, if anybody has any questions before you can approve them. And if no one does, you can, make a motion to approve.
Jana:
Okay. open for discussion. Mr. Mulvey. No questions.
Okay. With no further questions, I'd like to move to a vote to approve the financials for the September board meeting.
Board Voting All Speak:
I second all in favor? I, I. Great. Thank you.
Phyllis:
You want me to continue with the financial report?
Jana:
Yes. I believe we need new calculus. I think it's the update in the timeline regarding the 2022 audit.
Phyllis:
Right. And we did have a part of our package. It's under the financial packet. so the claims are up in the agenda and the financial packet is separate section just to talk about our taxes again, knowing that anything we get, we pass right through to the city of Castle Pines.
But we have collected, most of our property taxes. And when we get the payments for both taxes, which is primarily the specific ownership taxes we're still receiving, and any conservation trust funds, those are getting passed off to the city of Castle Pines, on a monthly basis. Water usage was more normal because we had a couple of months that were a little crazy that but, it only, increased 0.02.
So pretty stable from the prior month, which is kind of expected during the summer months. So here's my accounting audit and update stuff. Rubin Brown, we've been chatting back and forth, getting some more time on the schedule for them, and they're able to begin or continue work on October 9th. So we have a couple of weeks. I'll get some audits filed by next week and then, other audits and then get, because they're super busy too.
And they have a team ready to go on October 9th. So we provided most everything. We just have to tidy up the capital assets, which we will have done. So they could do their testing on the capital assets. And also, working on the sale of the water rights to make sure we've got that accounted for correctly.
And Nathan and I, I'll be chatting a bit about that because I had to do a little bit of research to go back to, oh, like 2008, 2009, to find information on when those were purchased. So we'll get that all squared away. The cost basis for those, will determine what the gain is. But the cash that came was over $18 million on those water rights that was available and that was paying that end up paying off those, participation notes.
Last year. So, items to note for the 2024 draft budget and, just to, make sure you understand the draft budget that is going to be sent just to the board, on October 15th, preliminary budget, that's required under state statute. So we're just going to take a stab at where we are knowing we haven't finished the 2022 audit, and then we'll have to true up some 2023.
But we've got a good idea. We know what we've spent in cash. So that gives you a good idea. It's just a matter of tightening up the fund balances and truing up some of the other accounts after we complete the audit. So. And I know Nathan's been working on the capital expenditures for next year already. That's that's his job.
And then also will note in the 2023 audit and the budget, the stormwater and the Parks and Rec were transferred to the city in March 23. So when you see the budget, you'll see that there's limited activity in 23 and you won't see anything in 24 on those. The other discussion that we'll have to have, you know, and we could do this after we've got the preliminary budget we were discussing, a couple of months ago about what the general fund expenditures would be versus what enterprise fund expenditures would be, because we can we allocate expenditures across funds.
So not having that Parks and Rec, portion in the general fund, we'll have to revisit how that works. Or I think one of the other discussions was, does there need to be a general fund or what? It just be an enterprise fund audit at that point so that that part is part? I just wanted to make sure we reminded ourselves that we have to, address that at some point.
The other big piece that most districts are, worrying about, and it's going to be a big, big stressor, is that the mill levy? You know, that proposition that we won't know till November whether that passes for a lot of districts, including the city of Castle Pines, who's also trying to get their election through to be able to get their mill levy so we could adjust ours if that doesn't happen, then we're going to stay status quo and and still pass our taxes off to the city of Castle Pines under that IGA.
But the timeline may be pushed back. I think some counties have already said we're not going to be able to get you your, assessed valuations and the mill levies won't be due till the end of December, and perhaps budgets won't be due till, January, which, which means a lot of districts might be preparing these mill levies over the Christmas holidays.
So it's a big deal for a lot of them for the, for our district. Not a big deal. In order, because we're not keeping those taxes. City of Castle Pines would be more worried. But I did want to note that the assessed valuation, which is part of what this whole thing was driven off of, is those valuations went way up.
And so the prior year was 209 million, and it's gone up to 288 million for the next year. So a 38% increase. And that's what's driving this change and how those taxes are allocated and what percentage needs to go for each category of assessed property. I included that proposition HH so you guys could look at that. It was attached actually to the, preliminary assessed valuation that we received from the county.
We've got your property tax schedule. And just those disbursements that you talked about is in there, and the water usage and the end of that packet has that letter to all Douglas County authorities from the county commissioners for your viewing pleasure. Any questions?
James:
I was wondering if we can get a, you know, one page simplistic breakdown. One of the things, you know, kind of thinking about is we have this huge increase in valuation. Our mills are set, but I would like to understand, you know, essentially how much money, really the delta between what we do with the IGA with, with the town and what we currently keep dollar wise, and how that compares to current operating expenses?
Basically, our bills and the money that we we would receive if the IGA is forward and how much the town would receive. And I know I can kind of dig that out of here, but I was wondering if you could just provide a quick summary on that next time we talk or something like that. Just so I know I don't have to mine the data, so to speak.
And I think that.
Phyllis:
Right and I know Nathan, we had that at one point. Right? Nathan. So we can dig that out. And, update it.
Nathan:
yeah. Yeah, we do with the, the general breakdown and like, the cost per mill and who takes what? Yeah, we would just need to update it for the new valuation.
Phyllis:
Okay. So I'll make a note of that.
James:
Okay. And, you know what I would like to see is a comparison between current and, you know, again, if, if we use these assessments what, what we would receive as well as what we would transfer to the town based on, you know, current mills and things like that and what the plan is, I think they're going to take 12.
Nathan:
So they're asking for 12.
James:
Okay. So basically using the 12 and then the remainder would stay with us at our current mill rate, not what we're approved up to, but our current use of mill
Nathan:
Or yeah or lower. So we'll have to look at those evaluations and make sure the the actual dollar amount that we collect in terms of mills won't necessarily change as much as it'll be us adjusting the mills that we collect to match what we can take since we're capped.
So the amount of money that we receive won't really shouldn't change much. We'll just adjust the mills in this case down, to make sure that we don't go over our 10% cap for the individual funds. Right.
James:
I just want to see the breakdown between the IGA and Metro, try to understand that. And I think people would be interested in that as well going into a vote on it.
Thank you.
Jana:
Great. Thank you Phyllis. Leah, any questions? Okay. No further questions. Do I need to do anything additional? Okay. Moving. Thank you guys for your patience with me as I learned how to be to lead a meeting. Item number eight is the legal counsel report.
Kim:
You have a copy of the legal counsel report in your packet.
Only two things to mention, the one is in the agenda. The district designation of the Turweston Lane properties. I did look at the maps from the county, and they are shown as being within Castle Pines Metro District and not within Castle Pines North. I've had to deal with the same situation several times in Cherry Creek, Cherry Hills Village.
Will probably end up doing an inclusion of those properties and an exclusion from the other district, so it'll take a few months to get that done, but it's underway. And then the other thing that is not in the status report is, I talked to Nathan this evening, and we will get to work on the sale of those lease properties.
And I think start out by possibly getting a, an appraisal to see what they're worth. And then in terms of how we sell them, I doubt we'll sell them the same way we did the water. The water was a bid process, mostly because that's going to be government's bidding on it. The only government that I think might be interested in the surface rights would be, Aurora possibly.
So it may be much cheaper and simpler just to have a real realtor take them under his wing. But we'll see how that works out. And that's it from me. Unless you have any questions.
Jana:
No questions for me. Other board members. Great. Thank you. Kim. Moving along to item number nine, district manager's report.
Nathan:
Yep. So there's a couple of things I wanted to cover, really quickly. And then I'll, get any comments or questions you have. First off, the top, my report mentioned some potential dates off in October. None of that's going to happen, so I'll be here.
You can ignore that. And then I did have, I, we we're still trying to get an on site meeting, so for a couple different reasons, I'm working on putting together a meeting with the Hidden Point Homeowners association. As well as probably a little bit further down the line there, Metro District board also. So they have, both a metro district and an HOA.
The HOA meeting specifically is we need to get easements for our wastewater, lift station renovation program. The way that current things are currently set up, the. We have one live station that's out there right now. It's actually sitting fully on HOA property, because we operate under kind of a service agreement with them. It it's not even in an easement.
So we need to get that site, put in an easement. And then we need to widen one other one to let force main or a sanitary force Main and a gravity line go through. My initial talks with them have been, nothing but positive. They seem like they're more than open to the idea. It really doesn't have any additional impacts in terms of the infrastructure that's already there.
It'll just be more construction time, things like that. The other, kind of longer term idea out there, this will be a, probably a broader discussion to have after the first of the year, one, especially once we have a better idea of what the sanitary program is going to do. And with the City mill levy stuff that we were talking about is potentially looking at moving the HOA or, I'm sorry, the Hidden Point Metro District and actually doing an inclusion agreement with them to pull them into Castle Pines North Metro District
fully it has it has a bunch of advantages. One, it makes other inclusions for us with another district easier going further going forward, if that's a path that we go. And then for the residents out there, assuming that the city's mill levy does pass, they're currently not assessed our mill levy in Hidden Point. So we charge them a 25% surcharge on all of their water and wastewater, but they don't get hit with our mill levy because they're not inside of Castle Pines North Metro District.
They are inside the city of Castle Pines. And so they would be assessed that 12 mills, their current, their current metro district, I think they said has like a 7 or 8 mill, in place. And so getting that additional 12 on top of the seven, eight, 7 or 8 that they're paying on top of the 25% surcharge that the surcharge that we get them really just wouldn't serve them well.
And so it would and I've had some very, very high level brief discussions with Michael at the city to but there's a an opportunity there to possibly look at moving, getting rid of their metro district and also downsizing the amount of, open space, especially stormwater that, the HOA has to take care of. So it's all very, very early on.
The the much more important part right now is just getting the easements in place. That's what we need. I just wanted to give the board a heads up that, you know, first part of the year, we may be looking at trying to do an inclusion with them while they actually, you know, move actually real property and maintenance stuff over to the city of Castle Pines as well.
It's just something that our board, their board in the city would have to have a lot more lengthy discussions about Jim.
James:
You just said a reduction of their open space. Is that going? It would go to the city. Okay. That's all I really wanted. Thanks.
Nathan:
Yeah. So at this stage, everybody has said they have interest and that's about as far as it's come.
Jana:
So right now that HOA is maintaining their own storm sewer?
Nathan:
Like many like many HOAs are. Yeah. So there's a there's a lot of homes that have, you know, if you've got a clubhouse with a storm pond next to it, there's a good chance that the HOA maintains that. Or if you have some green space. So individual HOA do and commercial properties in general have storm sewer that they maintain.
Jana:
So for that inclusion, would that have to go to a vote to the hidden point residents?
Nathan:
I'm not entirely sure what that process would look. Yes. But yeah.
Jana:
Or would it just be a vote from their board?
Kim:
No it would, it would be a vote from their residents. Unless I don't know how many residents there are, if it's a small enough number and we can get them all to sign all of them, then we don't need to have the vote.
Nathan:
There ya Go.
All right next on my list. I may get back to.
My right page here. And so the other, question was, so we had and unfortunately, neither of them are here tonight, but Jason, Tera and I did meet briefly with Dominion Water. It was something we talked about briefly at the end of the last staff meeting. And really, we've reached a place where what I would like to do is, with the board's permission and just basically extend an invitation to Dominion.
Their district manager's name is Andrea Cole, and then have her come to us, at a future board meeting or study session to do a presentation. They have some water rights management and some, long term renewable water management solutions that they'd like our board to consider. Right now, at this point, it seems more prudent to invite them and then do at least that initial discussion, inside of an executive session.
Part of this process would require the signing. It would require the signing of a, like a confidentiality agreement to protect critical information around individual utility assets. And so for that reason, they want to at least do that initial presentation and executive session. but with the board's approval. that's something that I would like to move forward on and see when they might be able to come, you know, October, November, first part of the year.
Jana:
I don't have an issue with hearing them out through an executive session. Jim, Leah. No issue. No issue.
Nathan:
Kim do I need official action on that. Okay, cool. That's all I had to directly call out, go ahead.
I'm sorry. Yeah. No. So the executive session, what happened inside of this meeting, and then Kim, or whichever, person from his office is there would write some sort of letter following executive session that basically says we did all the things we were supposed to.
Jana:
Nate, would you also mind giving us an update on the violation?
Just. Yeah. High level overview.
Nathan:
Yeah. we are plugging right along. So far, everything that we have submitted to the state, has been accepted. We have submitted our initial response letter, which was basically us taking responsibility for, the spill that had happened. We've resubmitted all of our contractor qualifications and our everything that all of that was approved.
Our spill response plan was due. I can't remember if it was due this coming Friday or last Friday, but it went out last week. We haven't gotten any comments back on it, but we were working with the state as we develop that to make sure that it had everything in and that they were looking for the spill response plan.
And specifically, should we have another sanitary sewer overflow? What is our written response to take care of that? So that is in place. The remediation plan is moving forward. So with that, we've begun soil testing. Well, we have all the soil samples, soil and water samples downstream of the station Three taken. We do not have results back, yet, but so far, everything is is plugging right along.
The state's happy with the work that we've been doing. Everything's been getting turned in on time, and then we're marching right along.
Jana:
Great. Thank you. And for the other members, I occasionally am a fly on the wall in those meetings, and they seem to be going really well. So I hear positive things and think, you guys have good consultants on board for that one. So. Okay. That number nine, number item agenda, item number ten directors matters.
Nathan:
So, so so sorry to jump in.
I did I did have one more thing looking through this that I forgot. I did just want to confirm with everybody that we moved our study session next month to October 11th for the board presentation. I had originally had it in here to on my, at least on my report to kind of potentially discuss moving that.
But since we're sans two board members, Phyllis, Sadie and I were already planning on it anyway. I think we just move forward with that plan, but I just wanted to clarify that for. Yeah, and that'll help Terrence and Corby.
James:
So, October 11th to what time?
Nathan:
Study session start at 530. But at the time is whatever We can set it up for you guys.
But, yeah, right now, October 11th at 530.
James:
Okay. Yeah. I just want to confirm, thanks.
Leah:
And then just to validate the board meeting is still on Monday the 23rd.
Nathan:
Yep. Yeah. So the the study session will be the budget presentation on October 11th. And then the board meeting won't change. So yeah these are the 23rd okay. Perfect. Yep.
Jana:
Great. Thank you. number ten directors matters. Leah. Jim, you got,
James:
Just, a question for, Nathan. you showed me a preliminary copy of your schedule and things like that, and I'm just wondering if that appears anywhere on the website or.
Nathan:
Yep. So if you go to the, actually, just today, I moved it to the main banner.
So I link the capital project. But if you go to the capital page on the right hand side, you can click on timelines and where you go.
James:
Okay. I like it. And I had one more question. or really comment, packet wise for 20 on the day of the other meeting to me, wasn't acceptable. And I just wonder if we can kind of get that at least a day ahead of time.
Nathan:
Yeah. So the so the remainder of the packet was sent out last Friday around noon or so and then I sent out the additional one when I got legal. And generally speaking, I try to I we get an email reminder that goes out Monday, I ask for the packet information. This was just a situation where some stuff was backed up.
Kim:
All right. I actually take responsibility for that one.
James:
Alright we'll yell at you.
Jana:
If you hadn't, I was going to throw you under the bus Kim. because I apologize, Nathan. Nate did his part. Yeah. That's right. So,
James:
I just yelled at the guy who sent it.
Jana:
That that's Mr. Seter. that's. It's unacceptable to get them the day of.
Kim. I agree. Yes. Leah, anything additional to add? I have nothing as well. Thank you guys for being here, I appreciate it. And, I make motion or make motion to adjourn or adjourn the meeting. Okay. Second, all in favor? I. I. Thank you guys.