Board Meeting
February 26, 2024
Transcript
Describer:
Board Meeting Agenda
Monday, February 26th, 2024, 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 February 26th, 2024, board meeting agenda
IV. Consider approving January 22nd, 2024, board meeting minutes
V. Public comment period (Three-minute maximum per person)
VI. Parks IGA- Parcel Transfer Scope of Work and Fee Estimate- Jay Blackburn, Level
Engineering.
A. Action Item: Consider Project Proposal
VII. Communication Director’s report
A. Survey Results
VIII. Finance Director's Report
A. Ratify claims for payment including check numbers 28387 - 28423 and electronic
payments issued from January 18, 2024, through February 21, 2024
January February Totals
January Enterprise Funds $116,182.25 February Enterprise Funds $152,628.04 Total Enterprise Funds $268,810.29
January Electronic Payments (all funds) $25,274.59 February Electronic Payments $25,940.57 Total Electronic Payments $51,215.16
January Total Expenditures $141,456.84 February Total Expenditures $178,568.61 Total Expenditures for the Period $320,025.45
IX. Legal Counsel's report
A. Action item: 2024 Annual Administrative Resolution
X. District Manager’s report
A. Discussion: Study Sessions
B. Conservation Event- City of Castle Pines
C. SSO Violation Update
D. Action item: Castle Pines Parkway Rehabilitation Phase 1
1. Intergovernmental Agreement
2. Memorandum of Understanding
E. Action Item: Additional Budget Request
1. Interconnect Pump Station Electrical Drives
XI. Director’s Matters
XII. Adjourn
Board President Jason Blankaert:
The Castle Pines North Metro district board meeting. This is February. Monday, February 26th at roughly 6 p.m.. We'll call this meeting to order and start with the Pledge of Allegiance....
All Speak:
I Pledge of 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.
Jason:
All right. Thank you. The first item on the agenda will be consider approving tonight's board meeting. Agenda.
Oh, sorry. Yes. Let's do roll call. Roll quick.
Board Member James Mulvey:
Okay, Jim. Present. No conflicts and no conflict.
Board Member Tera Radloff:
Thanks, Tera. Present. No conflicts.
Board Member Jana Krell:
Jana. Present. No conflict.
Board Member Leah Enquist:
Present. No conflicts.
Jason:
And I'm Jason, like I'm present with no conflicts also. Now let's move on to the third item. And the third item would be consider approving tonight's board meeting agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as presented.
Board Voting All Speak:
I will second. Okay. Having a second. Let's move to vote. Approve. Approve approve approve. And I approve as well. So this moves us on to item number four. Consider approving January 22nd board meetings board meeting minutes. Thank you.
Tera:
Dyslexia. I'll make a motion to approve. and I do have a couple changes.
Jason:
Okay, so let's hear those now.
Tera:
so on the public comment, Steve Dawes, it's actually d a w e s not d is an dog s so that's a misspelling. And then, down. I mean, they're very well done. There was on page four, there is a, there a paragraph that says Mr. Travis remarked that he sent out checks earlier that afternoon for the design review process.
I think those are fees to the state. correct. So I think that might clarify that a little bit. and as getting ready to send the first round of business submission. So just change the fees and instead of checks, if that reads more clearly, other than that, I think they look really good.
District Manager Nathan Travis:
Yeah. Can I think if we put that as fees to, Colorado Department of Health and Education specifically, that'll make that clear. so CDPHE.
Jason:
All right. We have a motion out there to approve the, January 22nd board meeting minutes with the, changes that, Tera has asked for. do I hear a second? I second the motion with the approval or with the changes that Tera proposed? Great. Having that. Let's go to a vote. Jim.
Board Voting All Speak:
Approve. Tera. Approve. Jana. Approve. Leah approve. And I approve. So we will pass that and close that number four and move on to number five here.
Jason:
we have a three minute, public comment period. Is there anybody signed up to speak? And anyone online? No. Not having anybody to comment. We will close out item number four and move on item number five and move on to item number six.
The parks IGA, parcel parcel transit transfer scope and work fee estimate by Jay Blackburn Level Engineering.
Nathan:
Yep. Great. Jay is here. He's also got, no Nathan, Nate
Describer:
Jay Blackburn Level Engineering Off-mic:
It's an introduction of Nathan, from Level Engineering but we cannot understand what he is saying.
Nathan:
so yeah they're going to they're going to walk you through their proposal. I've also got, a couple things to address. And then, the other thing I wanted to, well, a couple things, for the board, if you have any questions about the sanitary sewer violation process.
it occurred to me that Jay is the one that has been running that project. So if you have any direct questions that you'd like to ask. and then he also has a, just a small update on the, fine that we're going to be getting from the state as well.
Jay, It's all you, there's a little Did you press a little guy? Beautiful!
Jay Blackburn Level Engineering:
Check. All right. Thanks, Nate. I will start with the Parcel Transfer project and, just run back through our proposal we had sent in a week ago for your review prior to the meeting. So the general idea of the project is that the district owns approximately 105 parcels throughout its district area, many of which are parks, open space, recreational type facilities, and the district owns utilities within a majority of all of these parcels.
When the parcels are transferred or need to be transferred to the the town, there's a number of things that need to be done to ensure one it's done correctly and that to the district's future needs are addressed as well as the town's future needs. So in total, it's essentially an exercise in survey utility locates and easement design. So we've broken those different scopes out in this proposal to give a little bit more detail as to what specifically goes into each one of those tasks, starting with survey.
Essentially our baseline scope of work is to provide a land survey plat for each parcel such that it can be recorded at the county offices, and that signifies a transfer of property along with the deeds. The. The idea with survey is there may be additional work in in addition to those land survey plats which could be necessary to identify title, work, title, commitment, existing easements, things that may have encumbrances or other impacts on the district, and their utilities.
So on a parcel by parcel basis, will work with Nathan and our our team to identify what makes the most sense for each project and try and avoid any additional work that may not be needed for parcels. As we go. In terms of utility work, you know, we have, a GIS system that is the basis of really what the district owns in terms of their utilities across the board.
However, it's not an exact map of all the utilities. And so we feel utility locates and potholing will be necessary in certain locations to determine, in fact, the utilities are where we believe they are. There's no conflict with existing utilities, etc.. So we'll work with the surveyor and the utility locator on our team to essentially provide that that baseline scope of services for all parcels and add the additional title work utility locates other things that may be needed to be confident with that work on parcel by parcel basis.
And then within kind of my scope, as the engineer would be to look at the results of these surveys and utility locates and provide easement layouts for which they can be recorded and become permanent access and utility easements for the district. There's also some other details in here which may be beneficial for the district to consider and act on at this time, such as establishing a survey control network.
Essentially, the surveys that are done in the district right now, depending on where they are in the district, have a different coordinate system, if you will. This effort would standardize all of the the survey requirements within the district such that all of the, existing information and future designs will all be done on the same survey control network, which simplifies things and makes for a better, more usable product.
the other addition or additional item, if you will, would be a design survey. So if there are parcels for which we know upcoming work is needing, topographic survey or other specialty things we might want to pick up, we can add those on a parcel by parcel basis. So we don't miss opportunities to get good bang for your buck on these surveys.
with that in mind, we had gone through all of the information to date and done our best estimate kind of what this bottom line number might be for a project like this. And with with the understanding some parcels will be as simple as just doing the land survey plat and recording it. And some parcels will require the full suite of scope to be able to to do that parcel transfer.
So we had done kind of just some estimating and, you know, averaging of what we expect to happen on this project. And that's where we had come up with that kind of worst case scenario, $1.9 million. if you look at it on a parcel by parcel basis, it comes out to about $18,000 per parcel. We expect, again, many of them to be well below that $18,000 number.
some to be well, more than that for the larger parcels. being that it's a large budget, we wanted to be clear about everything included here and get the district thoughts on, basically that that number and if needed, we're prepared to talk about kind of the priority parcels. I know Nathan and I have identified a number of parcels that, are priorities for either for a number of reasons.
But if the board was so inclined, we'd be happy to, you know, phase this out, if you will, such that we can start with a known smaller chunk of parcels priorities and kind of demonstrate we're able to hit that budget before we are turned loose, essentially on a, on the whole full scope, if that makes sense.
Leah:
I have a quick question.
assuming that you approved to do everything that is in the estimate in scope, what's the timeline for that in terms of like the level of effort?
Jay:
So it's going to be quite a bit of effort to get done. Obviously there's there's a lot of work to do, but with that in mind, our understanding is we have up to a year to complete all of the parcels based on the IGA.
Is that correct? Nathan?
Nathan:
so the current extension goes through the end of this calendar year.
Jay:
Okay. It's the end of 2024. Correct. Which is totally reasonable. And we're committed to meeting that schedule.
Jason:
Nathan, all this is, pretty much required by our IGA, isn't it?
Nathan:
not all of it is necessarily required by the IGA. So, you know, creating the local plan coordinate system, if I said that right is not a requirement of the IGA, but it is something that will have heavy impacts, on not only our future projects, but really any engineering project that's done within the city.
and so those are the kinds of things that we can make, you know, we could pull them back. We're not required to do them, spending the money while we're making this in this current effort. And we already have contractors mobilized. We already have people on the field already doing a lot of that work can be, cost savings.
Should we be required to do that in the future? some of the, you know, the, like the elevations, those things aren't really necessary. The IGA really just requires us to do it, to do a survey for, you know, the property transfer. So we need to know where the property lines are. We need to do design easements on all of the existing infrastructure.
Those are things that we can't get out of those or that we need to push through the IGA. and then there are just opportunities to capture more data. And so when we're looking at things like especially our, you know, like our lift station design and like our, our spill response, like, those specific sites would have a high value to take that extra step and go through and get the actual, you know, elevation change difference.
I have been in, even before we even initially reached out to level engineering. I have been talking to the city about this. Michael, Larry and I have had a lot of conversations. so they are willing to pay for half of the cost that would. That money will basically come out of, as I understand it, would come out of the the chunk of change that we gave them, for capital projects.
So that would be that money being reinvested. And so we're only going to be on the hook for roughly. Yeah. Well, half of whatever we decide to do and everything that is done has, benefit to both organizations ultimately. So, you know, if they have look at specific properties for stormwater usage and analysis and they want a little bit of a tighter, design easement or anything like those would those would be options.
I think that their inclination is mostly to try and, use this to get through more of the bare minimum in addressing those things kind of as they come up. And so the the number that's represented here, as I understand it, the 1.9 is assuming that we have to do absolutely everything to every every parcel kind of gets us into that.
So there's a lot of opportunity to pull back off of that 1.9. and then our 50% responsibility for, for that. and I did Michael has seen this. He got it as soon as I did. I think we I think it's fair to say that we both had a little bit of a sticker shock on it.
but it also wasn't something that drove him away from, you know, wanting to wanting to go down this, this path.
Jason:
What did we budget for this? we budgeted. ...And here I debated whether or not it would be worth going back to my office to grab this sheet really quick. so we had we had budgeted, $92,000.
And so that was and I think it was supposed to be 100. It didn't get captured on the wastewater side, which is, what I missed on that. But, I mean, I had never done anything like this at all. So I was like, well, we'll throw $100,000 at it. and I think that, you know, once, once we really got into, in sort of working with Jay and the city and actually, like, got a bigger handle on just how big this project actually is.
It's just not quite as simple as my, you know, approaching budget season wag estimate was.
Jana:
Okay, I have a couple of questions. So when I see the design survey I know, Nate, you said something that some of this is for future topo stuff. And then I see Sue locates that assuming goes along with the design services because that wouldn't have anything to do with the plat.
Right? That is correct. So there are multiple parts of this that Michael wouldn't split with us right? I mean, why would he be splitting like a topo in a Sue investigation and like the level D mapping stuff if that's for our capital.
Nathan:
Right. And so those are things that we can, but we'll have to look at on. Just working through this process in this program.
So there may be sites where you know that that type of survey could benefit both of us, where there's an existing lift station and existing stormwater, especially if they have, you know, capital projects, things like that coming up. there are, not many, but a couple things that we're going to be doing, on, parcels that don't have city involvement so we can peel those out.
The easiest example of that is Lift Station five, which currently sits on, you know, hidden point, hidden Point property. But we need to define an easement that we can ultimately turn into a, into a parcel like so that one could go to us. But really the amount of overlay is, is really, really heavy. So it's the city wants ownership of the property we need to have are defined as defined easements for our utilities.
The city needs to have those easements all put in place. And so the vast majority of it is a lot of heavy overlap.
Jana:
And, the datum benchmark part, the network, that's just a very small item that 20,000. That's that. Correct? Correct. Okay. Yeah. Okay. and did I'm sorry to make you feel defensive, but did we look at any other costs or any other because I think it seems like I think sticker shock too, you know.
Nathan:
Right. Yeah. And so we and so Jay we had, you know, we, we directed level to kind of go forward and put this proposal together. there isn't anybody else we'd really talk to about it, with the exception of Kennedy Jenks. We did have conversations with Kennedy Jenks about pulling this together for us and kind of getting us proposal.
The reality is they just don't have, they just don't have the manpower to do it. and so really getting that, that lift in place, especially and especially with levels, seemed like a really logical person to talk to at first, just because they're already doing so much work for us on the sanitary sanitary side that there could be some overlay, we could.
Absolutely. Like, you know, look at bringing this kind of thing to other firms. I think that it's, going to be difficult to get a it may be difficult to get like an actual, like true comparison. Or if we wanted to put this in a bid or contract, those are things you could things that we could look at.
Jana:
Thank you for putting this together.
I just have I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask these questions.
Nathan:
So yeah, yeah, I don't I don't disagree with you. And so this is you know, it's also an area that I have very, very little experience. And, you know, I know what the terms are, but I've never done a, you know, a massive, large real estate transfer that involves easement defining and all of that kind of stuff.
So, I can try and find
Jana:
we'll just reading through the scope, it appears to all be there. So for me, I have no concerns with what they're including and the light items. And so I think it's more that when I got to that page, I thought, oh my gosh, I didn't expect that. But it all is in line with what I would imagine would, be part of the legal process for land acquisition.
Jay:
On in the spirit of that question, just, we had true North, survey and mapping identified as the the ideal surveyor for this being that he has a very long history of working in the the district here, knows it well, and already has kind of a leg up on any other surveyor who might otherwise come in and try and do this process, as well as our utility locate sub UCS.
Who's, you know, I've worked with in Douglas County for ten years and I, I would choose no one else. And they're very cost competitive. We're happy to put some other numbers if you wanted to see like another table from other competitors for sue rates, but I'm confident they're going to be very,
Jana:
I don’t need. I don’t need to see any other comparable tables. to see any other comparable tables.
But and then also, I did want to say I feel good that it's a not to exceed meaning, like we'll get charged what it actually cost us. Okay. So then if it comes in under, it's going to be a cost savings to.
Nathan:
Yeah. And true. True north is as has been a partner for the district for a really long time.
That's Bill, Buntrock, Buntrock. Buntrock, You never pronounce the last name. He's done. He's worked out here for, basically everybody. So he's done a lot of work with the initial developments, working for developers. He does a lot of work for Kennedy Jenks. He's done a lot of work for the city. he really is kind of like the go to guy for this region.
And then also, part of that is, you know, just survey availability right now is incredibly low. and so Bill, even being able to get us on his schedule for a project of this size has a lot of value in it. Anyway, when we were doing things for like, the lift stations and talking about surveyors, Kennedy Jenks was reaching out to a ton of them.
Bill was really the only one that even said, like, yeah, I can get to you sometime this year. and so there's also those considerations just around like contractor availability or
Jason:
so going back to the sorry, going back to the budget, what, line items do you propose we cut to get to this number?
Nathan:
Yeah. So that's the question that we can look at.
So the and maybe that's, some we can have as part of the discussion when we're talking about the VFD is that I'll still come in. I didn't find any really readily available items that we could nix. So this would be, at this phase, you know, we it's it's difficult to tell whether it would actually require a budget amendment because that's, you know, we can we can allocate the funds.
And as long as we don't go over the total amount filed with DOLA, we don't have to do an amendment. so there's a couple things, that don't immediately offset the cost but already help. one of those is the, that we'll also talk about today is the monarch, Rehabilitation Project. so for that one, we had budgeted, $3.25 million is what we had budgeted for that one.
the and the expected costs are in there. I can look them up and we're actually looking at spending, you know, with the contract already awarded and getting ready to put a shovel in the ground, we're looking at spending like 2.6 or 2.7. so there's a few hundred thousand dollars that said, sit in there. the wastewater side were doesn't necessarily apply a bit like we're not going to we won't hit that three point whatever million dollars that we budgeted for the last station renovation project this year.
and so as we go through and bid all of these other projects out, it'll just be kind of like a little bit of a wait and see to see if we can capture that over the course of the year. rather than canceling a capital project, we can we can certainly look at it. I just didn't have any that were, really that easy to nix for 2024 that aren't dependent, that other projects down the road aren't dependent on going off, if that makes sense.
So like the filter pilot and filter or the filter pilot program. We can't really cut that back, because that would stop us from being able to do our filter project. Next year would be a good example of that. When we're looking at, you know, re drilling well, A5 possibly looking at another site or replacing that well, that weed shape that we shelved from last year, we can't really accomplish that in 2025 unless we get the well vault, well vault rehab program put in place this year.
and then a lot of that stuff becomes dependent on the way that we've scheduled our, asset management. So a lot of the things that we're building out to get our asset management so we can do our capital forecasting, is also relying on us to do these capital projects this year so that we can update that asset management registry so that we can get a better understanding of our capital outlay requirements moving forward.
So there's a lot of, kind of daisy chained, to use a super loaded word in the boardroom. but, there's a lot of projects that are kind of daisy chained on it. the good news is that the projected water ending fund balance, with all of the existing capital projects on the, on the books, is still, 3. $39.7 million.
so even if we expanded the budget and added a couple, I guess there wouldn't be capital cost, but added some professional service expenditures to cover this project, the capital cost to cover the other projects. We're really still not hurting that like long term, fund balance, kind of our war chest that we have built up.
Jason:
Phyllis, do you have any input on this budget problem?
Phyllis Brown, Community Resource Services of Colorado (CRS):
Nathan said just what I was looking at and thinking right when I was, I was going to raise my hand, but that I do think you have a good, healthy ending fund balance to be able to accomplish that project. And the capital projects.
Jason:
Okay. Thank you.
Nathan:
Yeah. Hey, Phyllis. you're mumbling kind of, garbled again. I can't remember what we had last time.
Phyllis:
I think I took my, You know what? I have to turn this off.
How about that?
Nathan:
Perfect. Yeah. So if you could, if you could run through that again for us, that would be. That would be great. So the question was, how does how do you feel this fits into the budget or how can how can that be accommodated?
Phyllis:
Yeah, I said I agreed with what you said because I was going to raise my hand to say the same thing, that there's a healthy ending fund balance.
so we should be able to absorb that. And the capital projects planned using some of our excess fund balance. And if we went over, we would require a budget amendment.
Nathan:
yeah. Also worth noting the easements, the, the the defined and recorded easements were also one of the items that Parker was requiring for inclusion. I think it's safe to say that if we're going down that road, at any point with, you know, Parker or another entity along those lines, should those opportunities present themselves, this is something that is going to need to be accomplished to really approach and bring ourselves at the table with that utility easement.
The defined utility easements, where they were missing in our parks and open space, was one of the one of the hard line list items that Parker had had noted.
Tera:
So just I'm going to just to make sure that I'm on the right page here. So they're just presenting today. I didn't see this as a as a contract there. So it would be a not to exceed number. This is something that we are required to get done as part of our inter governmental agreement with the City of Castle Pines, in order to complete the actions that both boards have taken to turn our, everything but water and wastewater over to the city.
It's it's part of the, And our attorney can confirm or deny this is part of the legal transaction that has to be done.
Legal Counsel Kim Seter, Esq.:
Yeah. And I would phrase it a little differently. I think this work needs to be done more for us than for the city. We could transfer the parcels, but we need those easements and we need those locates before we ever transfer anything.
So it's more important to me for us than it is for the city. Thank you.
James:
Quick question for you. I guess, Jay, really to you have in your budget estimate and again, I, I just want to understand, Lee asked you a question about timeline. You answered it. But what is this burn rate? You know, what is your burn rate for management?
Is it eight months, ten months? 12 months? I mean, you kind of is, kind of assuming it's 12, but I'd like to hear you say what it is.
Jay:
Yes, I would put that together, assuming it's it's burned over the length of the entire duration of that project. So 12 months, if we're if we're at the point now, it needs to be done by the end of 2024.
We could call it ten months, I guess, for the burn rate.
James:
second one is and this again, I'm I know I'm being a little picky here, from a budgetary estimate. And I do these all the time. My own, you know, not this kind of thing, but, your basis of estimate and your methodology, you know, specifically quantities, estimated quantities necessary for I think the surveys are, are relatively straightforward, but things like utilities and stuff like how did you estimate these numbers?
again, reason I'm asking is some of these are very large numbers. And I would like to understand how you got to them, the specific items, that are kind of listed out. You know, I don't need you to go row by row, but I'm talking more broadly. did you do any preliminary work? Did you review what's already there?
Is there a spreadsheet someplace where you used to generate these and you kind of tick through a bunch of items that I got that I got that, I got that, and that's how you generated this or was this something else?
Jay:
somewhere, somewhere in the middle of those options you presented in that we did go through line by line and look at what we anticipate to be reasonable for all of these different line items.
So, for example, if we're talking about easements and we've estimated 86 easements are needed, that's the 105 parcels minus 19, which is the number of parcels I had identified with Nathan from overlaying sorry, overlaying the GIS maps with the parcel maps to identify. Are there even any utilities within these parcels? And for 19 of those the answer was no.
So that's where we were able to say, okay, it's unreasonable to think we're going to need a an easement for a utility that doesn't exist and try and get these numbers to where they were a little more reasonable than absolutely throwing the sink at every parcel, if that makes sense. And then where, where applicable, we've used the estimated unit price just as an average.
So for design survey, you know, we have 60 design surveys at 3500 each. That was our best guess, knowing that some design surveys may be as quick and easy as just calling locates and picking them up for a thousand bucks, and some may go the full distance and be a $10,000 design survey. So it's hard to know exactly how that shakes out for each parcel and what that total average looks like when we're all done.
But we think our estimate here is conservatively done so that we should reliably be within this budget. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome.
Jason:
Okay. Anybody else have anything else? Okay. Great. Thank you, Jay, for your presentation. We really appreciate it. Nathan in the memorandum, you said there is an action item to consider the project proposal.
Nathan:
yeah. So the considering the project proposal would basically be a lot like allotting the funds, to the budget so that we can move forward with level engineering running as project management and, get rolling on this.
the, actual split there. I was doing some quick math, would be rough, roughly an increase to the existing water budget of about $558,000. and then we would have a budget line item for, one second, the wastewater side, of about $350,000. So we split that the same way that we split any expenses that cover both utilities with that 65/35 split.
And so they increase the the Enterprise Fund for water would be an increase of $558,000, plus the $92,000 that we've already budgeted. And then a new line item for the wastewater side for $350,000. and that will, more than cover our, our half of the projected costs at the worst case scenario or at the not to exceed number.
Jason:
Okay. So do I hear a proposal or a motion for a proposal to fund?
Tera:
Or don't we have some other budget items to discuss further down, or is this it?
Nathan
There's one other we need to discuss too. We can we can table it and talk about them both together, if that makes sense. Which could we do? Some getting lots of head knots.
Yeah, we can absolutely do that.
Jason:
All right. Very good. We'll table that for a little later. Just conversation tonight and we'll go ahead and close out the item number six.
Kim:
Jason, before you close that out. is hidden point considered in here. You know, we're still talking to them about their including into the district, which I assume then, we would transfer whatever land there to the city as well.
And so. Yeah. So who owned their pipelines or. Yeah. So hidden. yeah. Hidden point.
Nathan:
the city doesn't, we don't have any land that we own and hidden point that we would transfer to the city. there is a lift station that we need to, at a minimum, get an easement defined for, the actual lift station and then the expansion, of that site.
realistically, I'd rather define a new parcel and take ownership of the parcel. there is property that the city may consider taking over, but that would be a transaction between the city and Hidden Point Metro District or the HOA, depending on, the parcel that they're talking about related to stormwater and trails. But that would that would be outside of us.
Kim:
Okay. There may be some additional funds there also. I don't know, but it's possible. That's all.
Jason:
Great. Thank you. Kim. Okay. we'll go ahead and close out then. item number six and move on to item number seven
Nathan:
before we move on really quick. you're. No. You're fine. I just wanted I just wanted to give Jay a chance to update you really quick on the sanitary sewer violation stuff.
Jay:
Okay. So real quick. Yes, we did get a correspondence email from CDPHE this afternoon. Their question to us was, would you prefer to have a meeting in person or via zoom to discuss the determination regarding the settlement for the sewer overflow? So I had wrote back in coordination with Nathan. We're wanting to meet in person, waiting for availability back from the state.
It's my understanding they should be available the week of March 18th and so we'll plan on attending that and we'll have more information following a meeting. But the email did not mention a number for fine amount or any real details. It was just kind of reaching out to set up a meeting. So we'll have more info next month
Nathan:
and then we will include you on the invite.
as the board representative. And also, Kim Seter's office,
Jana
should we be concerned that they want to meet to tell us the fee? Okay,
Jay:
I'm not so sure I would be concerned. I think it's just in the sake of being as clear as possible with what that all says and having the opportunity to ask those questions, you know, can we do it this way?
Can we do it this way? And hopefully walk out of that feeling better than just seeing a number of the fine? Yeah, great.
Tera:
And I appreciate you guys meeting in person because I think that's a lot more, conducive to getting good answers and clarity. And then there's no delays and zooms and phone calls or whatever inferred rolling of eyes or facial expressions.
Of course. I appreciate you guys doing that in person. You're welcome.
Jason:
Thanks, Jay. Appreciate the welcome. Nice to meet all you guys. Yes. Nice to meet you as well.
Nathan:
Okay. All right. Did anybody else have any other questions about the SSO violation stuff? Cool. All right Jason, you can you can can we close item number six now before you close that item number six.
Jason:
All right, so the long anticipated item number seven, the communication director's report.
Communications Director Bailey Budnik:
Hello, everyone.
There we go. so in the communications report, in front of you, we outlined the communications that went out, through mid-January through mid-February on part of the district's behalf. And that also includes the different types of formats, whether it was email, social media, billing, anything in that regard. And then also a part of our communication foundation for the first quarter is to take a community survey and just what the citizens are feeling, how they want to be communicated with, what topics that they are interested in, and how we can kind of been proven that sector.
So, if you don't have any questions, kind of on those first few pages, we can dive into the community survey.
Json:
Yeah. Let's dive into the survey.
Bailey:
There you go. All right. So we asked five questions in the community survey. And this went out through the website billing inserts, social media and also, through the connections, ad for February. And we saw the most responses through the billing inserts. but yeah, the five questions that were asked was, you know, what was the best way to receive information from us?
Can you name any capital projects that we're completing this year? with one being completely ineffective and five being highly effective, how would you rate our communications to our customers? What do we do best? What communication can we improve on? So in the findings, most people prefer to be communicated through billing inserts. and then also email.
So with that it's very telling because we previously for billing inserts haven't included much information. I think in 2023 there was information included like every other billing insert. So in 2024 we're aiming to really put all the information in top product or top topics that we're, focusing on in that as far as email, we are committed to sending out 1 to 2 emails per month.
So that's the main kind of February update, monthly updates with everything. And then also just some smaller things that we are touching on. that might be more focused, whether it's, you know, a video project on the capital projects or whatever is going on in that. and then as far as social media, we just started, you can see kind of all the metrics in the report.
But January was the first month that we've had a social media presence. So that's been really telling that there is an interest in gaining information through that. And I think there's a sector of the community that would prefer to, you know, just see a post on Instagram or get updated through that way that they didn't even know that we were on that platform.
So now that we're on there, I think, we're very excited to see how that can grow with over, in January, we had 17,000 impressions through Facebook and Instagram, and you can also see that that was all through, located in Castle Pines area, which is, really powerful.
Jason:
How many emails do we send out in the batch?
Leah:
That's going to be my question. What's the survey response rate?
Bailey:
Yeah. So emails there's about 1500 subscribers to that. So you can see that I think the opening rate was 62%, which is astounding. Usually for open email rates it's around 20% for a normal business or brand. so that's just really great already seeing kind of that health in the communication that people are looking for that.
So, we hope to increase that number and, you know, keep it consistent.
Leah:
What was the completion rate though so far for the survey? 84 participants. But but so I'm looking more for a percentage. So like how many people received it versus how many people completed it?
Bailey:
we do not have a direct way to see how many people received it.
I guess it would be. How many?
Leah:
All right. How many, how many people did you send it out to and how many people completed it? Yeah. And you could you could get a percentage.
Nathan:
Yeah. So we we sent it out to, our everybody that receives a water bill. So every resident got it. So it's rough. I'd have to go back and look at the number of bills we sent out.
It's a little skewed, but roughly 3400. and then we, you know, we sent it out in multiple, multiple veins. So it's it's difficult to tell.
Jana off-mic:
But I mean, the whole community.
Nathan:
Yeah. Yeah. Everybody had an opportunity to look at it. I mean, my rough math has added, like, what, a 2.5% response rate.
Bailey:
Yeah. And this is an ongoing survey that will be out there for two more months.
as we round out the quarter. And then we'll be sending out another one at the end of the year just to see the comparison.
Leah:
I'm not surprised. It's low best. Pretty low. any like what are you going to do to try to I mean, I'm guessing reminders or we needed to bump that up.
Bailey:
Yep. Definitely. So in you know, the latter half of February, March, we're doing more communication on it and also sending it out through a targeted ad through the Castle Pines area, through, Nextdoor app and then Facebook and Instagram
Nathan:
and then Bailey, I'll get you I'll get you the total number of service accounts that we have officially from Susan.
and then that way, that's a number that you can start tracking. and that response rate.
Tera:
So, and I was like, I'm on page one of seven where you said question number one. And what's the best way for you to receive information from us? And then I see the billing inserts and email and website and social media and but in the answer choices I didn't see, I thought I heard you say we also did print in the Castle Pines connection, but it doesn't look like they had a way to answer that.
Was that a free form question or did you like I guess what I'm asking is, did you cover all the ways that we sent the survey out?
Bailey:
Yeah. So I guess billing inserts also was, you know, physical copy, traditional news. So.
Tera:
Oh, so billing inserts are direct mailed. Yes. Yep. And then the, then the connection would be what, a QR code.
Bailey:
it's published once a month and the connections. So and then there's a QR code that links to the survey. Right. but that's we don't know exactly how many people, you know, read that page in the connections report, which is unfortunate,
Leah:
but but it sounds like to your question, Tera, I'd like that channel was just missed in the survey.
Tera:
Well, that's what I'm asking. Yeah. Is it is there a QR code in the ad? So, question it's, one number one, what's the best way for you to receive information if the choices were billing inserts, email, website and social media? But we also placed an ad was there was there answer choice of say, newspaper print and
Bailey:
I guess, yeah, there wasn't that.
But there was the QR code, which we can take the data to see how many people use that QR code. Right. So
Tera:
just because, I saw another, the county communications today and they're, they're saying they're a lot more people are doing, you know, print now depending on your demographics. So I just want to make sure that we're capturing, especially if we're paying money to place an ad.
so we need to get that data and incorporate that option. I think
Bailey:
definitely we've had QR codes on the last three connections ads that we've ran. So we can get that data, right.
Nathan:
Yeah. And we can we can also up the surveys not locked either. So we can we can update it. that's an answer choices right into the yeah, that's an oversight on my part.
So I generated the the list of potential, ways to bring it in. And the, the print media was definitely an oversight on my part.
Tera:
Great. And then, I also had a question on, oh, the, the, graphic that you could put in here for us. Yeah. I can't find it again. Yeah. Where. Oh, okay. So on your page, your Instagram, Facebook page, you gave us a bar chart of impressions.
But I don't have a legend on the chart, so I'm not sure what that chart is telling me, because there's two bars for every, age group.
Bailey:
Yeah. So those two bars represent gender, so. Oh, blue is male. Red is female. Okay. Thanks.
Tera:
So I love that. Thank you for doing on this. It's really exciting. I love that you had narrowed it down, that you have a focus for what you're trying to accomplish with this campaign.
So transparency, citizen knowledge and fostering trust with a district I love that. but I also noticed that there were what I consider consistent, themes in there for us to help with citizen knowledge on look like, you know, I don't know when we're going to be doing our rate survey, but there seem to be kind of a consistent, question about what we charge for water and how competitive it is.
seem to be a, a few around our billing and the communications and clarity on our billing, as well as the timeliness of our billing and, the receipt of the the notice that your bill is available. I guess, if that's online. I thought all our bills were mailed directly paper, but I don't know. and then it seems for the future, there is a, there was a pretty consistent that people were looking, to find out more about the quality and the future of the Castle Pines water sources.
So those were some things that we thought we could, make note of and really key into for our future communications. And then you answered, I think all the rest of my questions about how long the survey is open. It's for another couple months. And, but it's great. It's great place to start and, and knowledge that we didn't have before.
So thank you.
Bailey:
Yeah. No problem. And then also just to address kind of those main themes that we saw through the survey response. So we're planning on doing an infographic video, some, you know other types of posts to show people how they can all, you know, whether they can pay online or set up an automatic withdrawal, you know, all the options that they have.
And that will be you know, spread throughout all the different mediums. and then with that as well, Nathan and I were discussing just how the water quality report will come out in June to everyone. And then just reminding them that, you know, the past 2022 report is also on the website to be cited. So really kind of showing them, okay, this is how you can read it.
If you're looking for this specific information and everything.
Leah:
I have a comment. I think just piggybacking off of what Tera said, I think what would be helpful for me to see and I don't know about the other board members, but, the qualitative feedback that was captured, you know, I heard you talk about themes, but also looking, parsing through that and determining what's actionable, what's not actionable.
And for the feedback themes or, you know, feedback pieces that are actionable. what are we going to do to address that specific theme? Like, I would love to get to that level of detail. So it's almost like an like an action plan.
Bailey:
Definitely. Yeah. And then also just in the report, so in every outlet we do, you know, the next 30 day plan.
So that includes some of those action reports. And then Nathan and I today included what was in this survey for our, you know, next, 30 days after that and including that. So perfect.
James:
Okay. just a couple of comments. great stuff. Appreciate it. and theme wise, I see a lot of people talking about cost of water and things like that, so that would be great to get out there.
I've attended Centennial Water, I've attended Parker's water presentations. it would be great to have a very simple comparison of what our water costs in comparison. water quality. It sounds like you're already on top of that. And same kind of thing if we're actually doing a comparison town to town to town, I think we have a pretty good story.
So to me that that's one of those things that I think is really easy to do and lay out there and to say our water is actually pretty good in and here's, you know, here's our water in comparison to, you know, the five surrounding towns or, you know, the rest of the Douglas County kind of thing. the other thing I think is really missing that I see in other presentations for other towns and other water districts is an overview.
And I'm not saying to do this, it's really up to you guys to kind of decide how you want to present the information. But when I sit in all these presentations, you know, some of them are multi-hour and they go into a tremendous amount of detail. I'm not saying go there, but, an overview of our projects, both geographically cost and timeline is what I see everybody else doing.
And, I push for that a little bit, but it would be nice to get that as an infographic. And first time you were here, we kind of talked about that a little bit. something like that. I think that is super user friendly and and easy to get at a glance. That's all right.
Bailey:
Yeah, definitely. I appreciate your thoughts on that.
And that's something we were discussing. for example, to in the last connections ad, we had a map of the Yorkshire Parkway and how is it going to be replaced with the highlighted areas and everything. So to that point, we're definitely focusing on just making this information very digestible and all in one spot for each project.
Jason:
All right. thank you for your, report. any other questions? Okay. We'll go ahead and close out the section and, we'll move on to the, finance director's report. Thank you again.
Okay, so, Phyllis, are you with us? I am, okay, there we go. Trying to find the page we're on. We're on page 29. Of the packet. So, do you want to do the. The payments are below that. So you want to do the. Ratification table later. Oh, it's up top. Hold on. Oh, there we go. Let's do the ratification of claims on page.
That's the first page. We have enterprise funds for January of $116,182.25. February $152,628.04, for a total of $268,810.29. So the electronic payments $25,274.59 for January and $25,940.57 for February, totaling $51,215.16 for total of January. $141,456.80 4th February 178,568.61, for a total of $320,025.45. And you'll notice that that looks different, than we've had that we had in 2023, because now we're applying all the payments as of April 1st due to the IGA, all to the enterprise funds.
So there's no more general fund line item.
Board Voting All Speak:
All right. Very good. Do I hear a motion to ratify the claims for check numbers 28,387 to 28,423, and the total expenditures. I'll make the motion. Great. Having the motion have second. I'll second. Great. Having a second. Let's go to vote. Jim. Approve. Tera. Approved. Leah. Approve. Jana. Approve.
And I approve as well. Thank you.
Phyllis:
Okay, we'll go back down to.
Way down here.
So our,
Billed our our tax revenues. Because now we're only getting that, percentage that we could because we gave away our, port big portion to the city of Castle Pines. So the total we've received through January is $12,571.31, and those taxes are allocated 75% to the water fund and 25% to the wastewater fund. And then, for the billed water usage was, 20,217,000 for a 23.53% decrease from water usage in January 23rd.
And then we added, the billed sewer usage these to bottom lines, we've added for this period the billed sewer use it usage was 19,530,402 for January of 24 versus 18,802,740 for January 23rd. So that was a 3.7% increase. also added your water and sewer revenues for the month of January, which was $515,939 for 2024 versus $532,296 in January 2023.
So that's a 3% decrease.
The property tax goodwill we've attached, showing our mill levy of the 3.5 total taxes to be received this year, $967,281.
The next page just shows you all your payments from the first page. And and then you've got your disbursements if you'd like to review those. also, I want to point out that we're working through the year end 23 while we're keeping up on 24. The audit is scheduled for April 22nd to begin. So that's that'll be, plenty of time to get us filed by July 31st this year, which will be lovely.
Jason:
Great. That's good news.
Phyllis:
And it will be, you know, the, audit will be in 23. Will be the same. But once we get through 24, it'll be simplified because of the general fund being gone. It'll just be the enterprise funds.
Any questions?
Jason:
I don't have any questions at this time. Does anybody else?
Jana:
I do actually, two got two quick questions on the property tax split 75/25 is that standard? Because I thought we kind of do 65 and 35.
Nathan:
So we do the 65/35 split is for budgetary reasons based on revenue received respective of each of those funds. it doesn't because of math, translate exactly to that to keep us inside of Tabor laws.
And so when we were looking at the the mill levies that the 7525 is different than the 65 and 35, because that's the split that we need to maintain to keep both funds under that 10% mark. And so the math just works. The answer is they're not really they're not.. Right .... Yeah, they're not directly tied to each other.
Jana:
and then also maybe I misread this, but under the enterprise Fund, why was there a 23% decrease in water for the month of January? I mean, January is not really a heavy water month as far as like watering. So item number two,
Phyllis:
you know, it. I mean, when you look at the tables, it really does vary from period to period.
and Nathan, you may be able to better to explain, but, you know, the numbers come out from the meter readings and get billed out based on based on those. Right. Yeah. Going to know before 2020 2022 was 20 million, 2021 was 18 million, 20 was 17 million. So 23 seem to be high compared to all the other years.
Jana:
And I don't need I mean, if we don't know the answer, that's fine. But that just seems like that. That's a significant I mean, we're talking about a fourth, less usage and that's not really weather related. So I was just curious.
Nathan:
Yeah, there's there's a few things you can go in, and I could go back and I'll have to. It would take a little bit more digging. the most likely, culprit there is, the spread. What my what my guess is, is that if I go back and look at the actual usage dates, there's a chance that,
Because of the way the the day we actually read falls. So there's a chance that, like, you know, maybe last year in January, it was on a 28 day read cycle, and this year it was on like a 32 or 33 day read cycle. It can kind of depend and I can give you a little bit of month to month variation that, you know, if you look at a full 12 month picture, you'll get a pretty good understanding of what was, what was produced in what was not.
we tighten that down a lot more in the summer. We try to stick to a much tighter 30 day read schedule, just because of the, potential overages that an extra two days of lawn watering that can cause, but February. January. It's not usually quite as tight. Especially when you figure in, like, when did Christmas fall?
When did those holidays fall? Where did that push us off our read schedule versus when they come in next month? But I could. That's something I can go look up and see when, our actual read dates were, I don't believe that we actually had a 25%, you know, reduction in production. given the, given an exact comparison to the time frame.
Phyllis:
Yeah. Especially because your, your revenue only decreased by 3%. So I think as we go along and this is one of my goals as well, is to provide you more financial information as we get caught up and we can prepare, set more schedules and analysis or, chart whatever you guys are wanting to see. We'll, we'll be able to have that data once we get through the 2023 audit.
to provide a lot more comparison information.
Jason:
Great. Thank you, Phyllis, for all your hard work. does anybody else have any questions? All right. We'll go ahead and, close out item number eight, the finance director's report, and we'll move on to item number nine. The legal counsel's report. you.
Kim:
Two action items in the, the memo. The first one is the annual administrative resolution, which I think you're probably all familiar with. it's just a list of requirements that are imposed on the board by statute. And this resolution causes you to, delegate that work to Nathan and I and Phyllis and whoever else really ends up doing it that way.
You've completed your job under the statutes when you sign this resolution. it also includes your place of publication. your meeting notices. so if you want to change any of those, we can do that tonight. If you want to leave things the way they are. The resolutions ready to be approved.
Tera:
So on page four of the resolution, item number four, I think that's the third Monday of the month. Don't we meet the fourth Monday of the month?
Nathan:
Good catch. Yes. Okay. There's a change. We've all been here the third Monday of the month. Tera, we've been trying to figure out where you are, but.
Kim:
We'll get that changed.
Jason
Okay, so we're looking for a motion to accept this.
Resolution
Kim:
to approve the resolution with the change.
Board Voting All Speak:
Well, I'll make a motion to approve this resolution. With the change that, Tera noted. Second. Great. Having a second, moved to vote Jim. Approve. Tera. Approve. Jana Approve Leah approve. And I approve as well. Thank you.
Kim
The second item is the, inclusion of 7053 and 7047 and 70412 Weston, lane.
those should be coming this month before the other district board for exclusion. So we can, if you want to schedule our inclusion. Not for tonight as it says in there, not for February, but for March or whenever you want to do it. And then we'll be done with that project.
Tera:
I mean, we can just give you direction, right, to add it to the agenda for the next meeting. Yep. Because they're meeting, I don't know if they already had it this month, but
Kim:
yeah. And we need to publish for it. That's why we need that little extra time. But we'll take care of that and scheduled for March. And then if something goes wrong and we can't do it in March, we'll just continue it to the next meeting.
Okay,
Jason:
great. That sounds good. Anything left on the agenda?
Kim:
That's it for me.
Jason:
Okay, great. Thank you. Then we will close out the legal counsel's report and move on to item number ten. The district manager's report. Nathan.
Nathan:
All right, you guys have my report before I get into the agenda items. Are there any questions you have that I can answer first?
Already jump on and jump on it. Let's go. so the first thing I have is, study sessions, wanted to just kind of touch base with you guys and find out what your thoughts are on the necessity of these. So this is something that has come up from a few individual board members that have kind of just asked me about the purpose of them, like why we have them.
and it really calls into question whether or not they're necessarily needed on an ongoing basis. So when we're going through, you know, like the, Parker inclusion, it was really helpful because there was a ton of information coming in. certainly when we see new board members having them in place so that we can do, like the board work, like new board member workshops, those were really, really helpful.
you know, even approaching the budget season, it was nice to be able to utilize one of those as a budget workshop. I think one of the things that makes them the most they are they are most effective when the study session information provided at the study session is going to directly tie into the next meeting. we're in a space where I don't know that we have so much going on that that's really necessary.
So if we're talking about, like, outside presentations, board member, board meetings generally have been running about an hour and a half or so, which is reasonable. I just want to kind of get the temperature from the board on whether or not we want to continue having these as a matter of form, if we want to, you know, reserve the spaces and then like at the board meeting before that, determine if the next one is necessary.
kind of what you guys wanted to do. What I, what I don't want to do is be in a situation where I'm just trying to invent something to fill a gap so that I can get everybody out here an extra Wednesday. yeah. So I just want to open that up as kind of a discussion item.
Leah:
I think from my perspective, the ones that we've had, I found them useful, especially just being newer to the board and the onboarding piece.
but I do agree that it would be nice if they tied to the meetings, and I don't know if that's necessarily been the case. I wouldn't be opposed to keeping them on the, the calendar and then as a board deciding, you know, like for our next do we need to have a next study session. and, you know, being clear about what the purpose of that is going to be and how that ties into the following meeting.
I think if we can't come up with anything, then maybe just cancel it. But I don't feel married to that point of view. I'm flexible.
Jana:
I say we hold them and, remove them. If there's nothing. Please don't invent no, no meet to meet. but hold them so that we have it on our calendar. And when there is something fruitful to discuss, we've reserve that time,
Tera:
I'm in violent agreement.
It makes sense, I think, just because we're all so busy, it's great to have that placeholder. And as long as we can all kind of manage that and agree so that it just doesn't get over schedule because, we are water and wastewater. Now we've completed, a huge things with our intergovernmental agreement and all the stuff that really required a lot of state.
And the budget was huge. But, I'm I agree with what's been said, as you know, let's let's keep them and then let's decide, because there may be something that comes up. I know we have some things coming up that it's going to make sense at some point. But yeah, I don't think you want to be here another night.
And even though you guys have been meeting two weeks without me, I think I'll be okay. listen, you another day of the month.
Nathan:
Does it make sense to just have that as a standing agenda item then at the regular board meeting that just says, like, make determination the necessity of upcoming study session. Okay? Cool.
All right. so item B, the conservation event, we talked about this briefly at the last board meeting. so the city of Castle Pines has, is putting together, a meeting to kind of just talk about, water conservation for all residents of the city of Castle Pines. So through that, they have invited, myself.
they've extended that invitation to our board of directors. City council will obviously be there. And then the extend the invitation has also been extended to Ron Read. and Parker Water and Sanitation District's board since they do conservation efforts on the other side. And so it's the ultimate goal is really to just get kind of a comprehensive view from the city's perspective.
They're really looking for like, what can they do as a city to kind of help these efforts? I think that it's a really good opportunity for us to kind of showcase those conservation programs, really get those things out in public. and then Elizabeth Bowman with Resource Central, who manages, the accounts and kind of program administration for utilities is also going to be there.
Parker there's some overlap there. Parker does offer a slow the flow. they do not do the lawn replacement program, but she'll be presenting on all of those, Michael says that he's going to get me, the specific details as they, as they show up, but I know that it's more on that it is on March 12th that it will take place beginning at 5:30 p.m..
there will likely be some sort of kind of meet and greet for the council board, for the council and the individual boards. to do just that and then kind of get into the, the presentation side of like, what does what is Castle, the city of Castle Pines as a whole offer its individual residents for, for conservation.
And then what can the city do, moving forward from there,
James:
is that the library?
Nathan:
yes, I believe it is. Yeah.
Jason:
Well, unfortunately, I'm out of town that day, so I can't join you.
Nathan:
Cancel your plans.
Tera off-mic:
Or take us all with you.
Nathan:
Yeah. You're all welcome to join me. but. Yeah. so hopefully, a couple of other board members will be able to attend, and, report back.
Jana:
I think it seems valuable. And so we would just be attending to absorb the information presented,
Nathan:
correct?
Yeah. And it's also it's also just a good opportunity for, you know, three entities that are directly linked through the city to get together and just get some face time, put some faces to names.
Jana:
I should be able to go to, same
Nathan:
arm wrestle, whatever it is boards do when they get together. All right. Cool. yeah. So I will send that in that meeting or that invitation out when it comes.
And then I'll also post it as a regular regular board meeting for us. just so that I avoid all of those,
item C, I think we can, just forego since we talked about the, information that had come from the state earlier, which is information I did have, my planned update was that there's really no update, and we're a little bit of a holding pattern, but it sounds like we do have, a an upcoming, date to get some to get some answers on the civil penalties.
and then for action, for the action item, item D so this is, circling back again from last month, for the IGA and the MOU. So the intergovernmental agreement and the MoU, for the Castle Pines Parkway rehabilitation project, and so we were able to, get those completed. the city has approved them.
but that doesn't mean that we can't, make adjustments if we feel that we need to. It's really what we talked about. The district is going to be is proposing to pay 30% of the, estimated pavement costs. The total amount to our to CPNMD residents would be, 2.83 $2,833,215.45. there that's something that Larry and I are going to be looking at while we go through, talking with Lisa and Kennedy.
Jenks there are a few things that may not make sense for us to, necessarily participate at that 30% level. So we're going to look for opportunities to kind of dial that back and just make sure that we're paying for things that are directly related to us Jana go ahead.
Jana:
Where did the 30% come from?
Nathan:
30%, is based on the way that the panels are laid out inside of Castle Pines Parkway.
So what? Like how much would how much of the actual roadway would we have had to tear up if we went and put our water line in place? And so it comes out to roughly 30%. So even though we’re only looking at,
Jana:
that's what I was hoping yeah
Nathan:
like an eight foot trench. so if you look at it, you have the total width of the road.
We're actually closer to like 20% of the total width of the road that we'd be replacing. but the reality is, if we were going to actually do it, we'd be going to center line for the majority of it. Because of the Douglas County and city road specs. You can't just take part of a concrete panel. so we would be looking at roughly 50% if we did it on our own.
For those, and then the city's kind of peeling that back to get more to that 30% mark, which is actually more representative representative of the impact our project would have had.
these are, due to kind of an email flub. I had thought that I sent these out last week. I don't know if they just got to Kim Seter's office. I don't know if they just got caught in my email queue or what. I was looking for an unrelated email today and saw that they had just gone out this morning.
so he did. They did have an opportunity to review the old MOU, which is what the the old MOU, and IGA which is these are based on. so talking to Kim tonight and he can correct me if I'm wrong, that if you guys that if we did it is an option to approve the IGA and the MoU pending legal review.
So basically Kim could go through them tomorrow, make sure we didn't miss anything, there weren't any oversights and then approve them as they stand, assuming that there aren't any other issues. Is that yes correct?
Board Voting All Speak:
Okay, well, I'll make a motion then to approve the, IGA and MOU for the for this project pending legal review. And I'll second that.
Great. Having a second. Can we move to vote? Jim. Approve, Tera. Approve. Jana. I and Leah approve. I approve as well. So you have our approval on that? Kim and Nate.
Nathan:
Excellent. Okay, and then we are down to action item E, and so this is where we're going to circle back around to, budget requests. we have been having it take, take some good advice I got and remember to provide context. so going back to when we had the boil water notice, there were two primary driving factors that caused that.
So we were issued a boil water notice for, significant system pressure loss. So more than 30% of our system lost pressure, which is automatic, issuing, of that notice. aside from losing the dosing and chlorine capabilities at the water treatment plant, which is what caused us to turn on the interconnect pump station when we fired up the interconnect pump station, we had, all three electrical drives.
So if you're looking at equipment, you have electrical drives supply the power to the motor that drives the pump. So it's kind of like the, the regulating. these are called VFD. They're variable frequency drives. what that means is that you can speed them up and slow them down. So when you're talking about like, pump motor supply equipment, you either have a soft start, which is much more akin to a light switch.
You get all or nothing, or you have a VFD, which is kind of like a dimmer. You can you can adjust the power up and down when, when the, when the interconnect pump station or a couple hours after the interconnect pump station was turned on through our emergency agreement with Centennial to supply water with our treatment plant, we lost, the same component in all three drives at the same time, even though two of them weren't running.
so we made, we made repairs. Everything seemed like it was going okay. this last year, the really the last, like 2 or 2 months or so. those issues have started to show back up. We haven't lost all three of them at the same time, but we have definitely lost our drives and had to get, operationally creative to make sure that we were still supplying water to our customers.
the following through that we use, Gilmore has done a ton of work for the district for a long time. They're kind of our first call. Anytime we have an electric electrical issue. So we called, Gilmore Electric out to go do an evaluation and look at them. and that is the the document that I have, included in the packet was basically their evaluation.
And what needs to be done, 13 years is not an exceedingly long time. We we certainly like expect to get 15 to 20 years out of drives, especially in that condition. It's definitely on the shorter end. there's a few concerning things with the manufacturer we have in there. currently, rather than trying to replace what we have.
So this is definitely a significant upgrade. at least the equipment that we're looking at now. I, as you guys know, I also sit on the Plum Creek water line from Plum Creek Water Reclamation Authority board. they have the same manufacturer has supplied drives for their, recent plant update or recent plant expansion. Those drives are two, three years old and they are experiencing some of the like basically the exact same issues that we're seeing in our drives that are, you know, 13 years old.
And so I know we don't want to put ourselves in a position where we're just trying to continually limp these things along. They are incredibly critical assets. This is how we get water six months out of the year comes through these drives. Gilmore was also able to identify a few issues that I don't really understand. around, like like I'd have to look at the report really quick.
because I have the short term memory of a goldfish sometimes. ...... yeah. So it's, furnishing and installing to two drives and then, the, the other issue that we have is the active harmonic filter feed. that's something that isn't there. Now, I don't necessarily understand the exact technicalities of it because I'm not a commercial electrician.
but we're also getting some signal signal interference from these motors and drive systems that are interfering with our valve operation, which is also getting us some, some tricky hiccups. the, you know, roughly $500,000 that they requested, or that they're proposing for this project is expensive, but it's also right in line with what those would typically cost.
So, we're not at the trigger point on this yet. We have a couple other electricians that we use that I definitely want to get them to look at them and give me a proposal, specking the same equipment. And then I have a meeting on site this Friday to, kind of just verify all of the things that Gilmore is telling us.
So, Kennedy Jenks. what their in-house, their in-house electrical design guy is going to meet me out there on Friday to kind of go through this whole system. it's going to be a staggered meeting. So at the beginning of it, I'm just kind of like, let him know it'll be me. one of our operators and, Kennedy Jenks.
So I want them just just us to walk through, tell them what's happening, let us get their view of kind of what they think is going on, what it might need. and then Gilmore will be invited to show up to the second half of that meeting to walk them directly through that process so that we can kind of get some downtime with just us, to have those discussions, and then they can listen to what Mike has to say and kind of work through that.
Gilmore has been fantastic for us. I have absolutely no reason to believe that they'd be trying to sell us something that we don't need. this is their. Their bread and butter is water and wastewater treatment plants, industrial facilities. So they they do a lot of work. They're incredibly good. But at the same time, trust but verify.
So we'll, we'll do some legwork to make sure that their recommendations are what our engineering firm but also recommend.
Jana:
Do you know if any other agencies are using that Alan Bradley drives?
Nathan
Yes. Yeah. So Allen Bradley is definitely on the top of the line. We do. We use we use a lot of Allen Bradley equipment, all of our data system.
It's Allen Bradley. but it's, it's a very common drive, in the, in the industry. Okay.
James:
you may or may not know this or and they may be not diagnosed, but you talked about some of your valve or switch equipment also being affected. is that conducted emissions. Is that coming down the power line itself or is that radiated through the air that's affecting it, or do we not know
Nathan:
as as I understand it down the power line itself.
So it’d be an inline harmonic filter.
James:
So the filter itself is adequate then it's what I'm hearing.
Nathan:
It doesn't exist. So that was one of the things that Kennedy Jenks was actually caught off guard by when we were looking at this, is that there is no harmonic filtering on any of it already.
James:
Okay. So that would be something additionally, we need to purchase in the future.
Okay. And as far as, what it sounds like a generic manufacturing defect or failure, of these variable frequency, you know, drive equipment, has that been actually identified? Is there any kind of industry notice? Is there anything out there that because if you know, we're having and and other people are having it, it seems obvious that we should be talking to the manufacturer.
Nathan:
And yeah, nothing that we can nothing that I have seen. I can certainly ask, Gilmore to look into it. Kennedy Jenks I know that PCWRA has gone pretty deep on those drives with, manufacturer. one of the things that was really disconcerting back when we got the boil water notice is after we had this issue, we were able to get it fixed.
the manufacturer we brought in, another electrical engineer, Kennedy Jenks, looked at it, and then at Sun Valley Electric, all of them, when they looked at it, they could tell us what had broken. No one could tell us why, including the manufacturer couldn't. No one ever got to a point where they could explain. This is why all three of these pieces of equipment lost the same part at the same time, even though two of them weren't actively running at the time.
and so that's that piece of it has been, a little bit uncomfortable. I don't really want to go back in with the manufacturer. They can't tell me why they have something broke or continue or continue to fix that thing, but I can certainly look and see if there's been any kind of industry release, if they've put out any information on it.
I think that's an avenue worth pursuing for sure.
James:
I just want to make sure that something we don't have in our system is, is there's an additional there's something else there that we don't understand, that we're going to put a brand new drive in and, you know, and set up and we're going to blow that one too, because simply the way it's wired or it's not properly filtered, you know, you're not decoupled properly.
So if it's a noise issue, you could just burn out the next thing you put in there, right? One after that, the one after that. So I think you have to go a little bit deeper to try to understand what's going on here.
Nathan:
Yeah. And so that's part of and I'm not sure the, I know Gilmore spent a good level of time there, but that's exactly what, I want to make sure that's exactly what I, I want to bring Kennedy Jenks to make sure that they did.
Look deep enough at it. And it's, it's an area of the industry that I will readily admit. I'm speaking a language often that I don't understand entirely. It's just something that I haven't, haven't specialized, haven't.
James:
Feel free to call me on. So. And you got another one over here. So I think between the two of us, we can probably cover you.
Jana:
Okay. This is a really dumb question. Do these things come with any kind of warranties?
Nathan:
Yeah, they do wear out of the warranty on the existing drive.
Jana:
So do they. So if this product. So the old one's called a Schneider. Wait. Hold on I can't find it. The old the current VFD that we have, if it doesn't make it to its usable life, do they buy it back or anything like that.
Yeah. So you didn't make it to 20. So we're going to give you a again I'm just
Nathan:
yeah we're outside of the warranty. So there's I think they had a 5 or 6 year warranty on them, which isn't which isn't fantastic for equipment like that. And then the useful life projection is something that, you know, manufacturer kind of gives you a bandwidth range.
that depends on all kinds of stuff. But yeah, the, the useful life projection for like, the capital and probably the capital improvement, is not directly tied to the warranty that, that I'm aware of.
Tera:
So what do you need from us to run this down? I mean, obviously this is critical. This is mission critical for us. but we're, cautious about repeating, you know, a circular error like this keeps breaking.
So I feel between. What? Kennedy. Jenks, you think you will be able to get sort of the maybe root cause of the failures so that we don't put in brand new equipment and have the same thing happen.
Nathan:
Right, exactly. And so the the ask is that this is, you know, going kind of tying back to the budget. This is an un-budgeted capital expense.
We did not, you know, back in July, August, anticipate needing to replace all three of these drives before the end of their useful lifespan. and so it would be a an additional capital budget item that we would that we would be looking at adding, in roughly.
Tera:
Well, I'm only one of five, but it's not optional for me.
I mean, again, this is this is what we do. And this is critical to our operations. And I hope I never hear operationally create this again, especially when this is I mean, this is one of the biggest concerns that our community has. And this is, you know, an Achilles heel. It's one of the reasons why there's a lot of, you know, mistrust from the community.
I mean, this is we have to get this right, I don't. Right? Yeah. We'll see how this optional.
Nathan:
Yeah. When we when we talk about, like, scoff ratings, which is like a consequence of failure, you've got an X and y axis, which is, you know, how critical is how critical something is and then is current condition.
And then you make a determination on when you're going to replace that, this thing, these drives or pieces of equipment that we have identified as solid tens on on both sides. So they're they're pieces of equipment that we would want to regularly replace right around there, 75% expected expected lifespan. anyway. And so we're kind of in that, in that area.
But the possibility of failure right now is much, much higher. And so and I mean, when these things go down, the consequences are fast and heavy.
Jason:
I think we're going to need to work on our budget a little tighter next year so that we can anticipate.
Nathan:
Yeah, I think the, the, the biggest line, the biggest thing that we're missing in our budget, to address that going forward, I'm glad you brought that up.
and especially as we're going through the rules and regulations update there, can there's some room in there to address that from a financial policy. So there's things we need to look at in terms of financial reviews. like, you know, spending limits. There's a lot of things that we need to look at. One of the things that I think would be helpful to be included in that, that is fairly industry standard, is carrying a minimum percentage of oh, now all of a sudden the word is left me,
I just out of this, I can go. But basically having like a reserve fund that is always at a minimum level that's included in your budget. So if you know, the 1% is pretty common. So we have a 1% held as part of our budget for unforeseen circumstances. And then hopefully most years we never touch that. But we you know, we carry whatever that minimum, that minimum balance balances so that we can not have to worry about adjusting the budget as a whole.
these decisions would still come to you as a board to allocate those funds, but we would base we would have that money in reserves available to us as part of our or as part of our functioning budget.
Jason:
Phyllis did you have something to add.
Phyllis:
Are you thinking contingency? Yeah. Contingency.
Nathan:
Thank you. Yeah. yeah. So so building in those those hard line contingencies moving into 2024 or, you know, I suppose that's something that we could do as, that I imagine would require a budget amendment.
But if we wanted to include a contingency in this year and then allocate those funds out of that, that's something that we could also do.
Jason:
Okay. So you need a motion to, add an additional budget line.
Nathan:
yeah. So for this one, it would be, an additional capital expense of, a, you know, $500,000. To cover Kennedy Jenks engineering fees, that kind of stuff.
Jason:
So we're looking then tonight to have, additional we're looking for a motion to have additional, budget lines for 1.5.
Is it 1.5 million for the,
Nathan:
no. So it would be let me go find
Jason:
or half. So about million something.
Nathan:
Oh, no. It's so for the for the level engineering project for the, town parcel for the town parcel transfer scope of work in fee estimate, would be an additional $558,000 in the Water Enterprise Fund.
an additional $350,000 in the wastewater fund and then $500,000 in the Water Enterprise Fund for a capital improvement for the interconnect pump station drive replacement.
Phyllis:
Are you talking about adding that to your budget so that you do a budget amendment, or just reallocating expenditures because you can reallocate expenditures from line item to line item?
Nathan:
Right. And so so part of the issue was I didn't see anything that was readily identifiable to directly cover these costs. I think doing adding them now, as you know, expenditure approvals and then as the end of the year approaches, we can see if we need to do a budget amendment or if we can capture those cost savings prior to, next year's budget, if that makes sense.
Phyllis:
You know, typically typically, I don't see that we add to the line items during the year. I think you would just accumulate your costs as you go. For all expenditures. And then as you go along, you'd be able to say, hey, we're going to go over, we want to do a budget amendment.
Nathan:
Okay. So in that case I'd be asking for expenditure approval for these.
Then and then should we need to make a budget amendment to accommodate that at the end of the year, we could go that route.
Phyllis
Right. Because we'll just add the line items as the actual expenditures.
Nathan:
Okay. Yeah. So I'm looking for approval for additional expenditures. Then, and then we can address the overall budget when it gets to that point.
Jana:
Okay. I think you're going to have to help me through this one if I don't say it right. But, I would like to make a a motion to approve. No, wait to approve the expenditure expenditures of $1.4 million, 500 for the, the VFDs, and then, right around 900 for the survey work. Did I say that right, Kim?
Or enough? Close enough.
Nathan:
Yeah. And then it will end. Will allocate those to the individual funds appropriately.
Board Voting All Speak:
I'll second that motion. Can we have a vote now, Jim? Approve. Tera. Approve. Jana. Approve. Leah. Approve. I approve as well.
James:
Can I just make a quick comment? Yes. when we get through this, and I guess Gilmore Electric's going to be responsible for doing the installations and things like that.
Nathan:
ultimately. So they'll the will I don't want to automatically pass this off to them just because they did the evaluation. But so whoever we select from
James:
but I guess going back to the beginning here, I would really like to understand the, the failure mode.
Nathan:
Yeah. If you're and especially with your, your background and your expertise, if you're we're meeting out there Friday, I can send you the meeting invitation.
if you're at all available, it'd be great to have you out there.
James:
We're not going skiing to go.
Nathan:
Shhhh! We Talked about this. We can go right after. but, yeah, the meeting is set for, Bear with me one second here.
1030 a 10:38 a.m. at the lift station. You and I could even just meet here, you know, about 1015 and then roll down there 1030. Yeah. So 1030 at the at the site. If you want to meet here. 1015. We could ride down or you follow me out. 10:15 a.m. Metro. Right.
Nathan:
If we we can add one more without turning it into a meeting.
James:
Yeah. And turn it into a meeting, but feel free pile on. yeah. Sounds good. I'll do my. I'll get back to you, but I think I can in, at least listen in.
Nathan:
Yeah, I appreciate that, Jim. Thank you.
James:
Yeah. And, you have to be careful because you might talk yourself into a Formica, for the whole system, you know, especially when you're setting around, criticalities of ten.
Yeah. This one's got a lot of attention in my place when you're in that range. So.
Jason:
Okay, Nathan, I think that's all of my report. Okay, we'll go ahead and close out. item number ten, the district manager's report, and we'll move on to item number 11. Director's matters. Does anybody have anything?
James:
A, just a comment.
last week, or maybe it was a week before Castle Rock is is, I guess, developing some new water or holding ponds and things like that. and I was just wondering if you knew new about what they're doing. They're, like, devoting a significant amount of, property, I guess, for capturing surface water or something like that. I don't know if you heard about that.
Nathan:
And if you could talk to that for a minute. I can get more information to speak on it, more on a more informed level. But there's a lot of moving parts in terms of Castle Rocks. They're building some, reservoirs, diversion structures. There's a lot of moving parts, related to like, the ARPA dollars and how they're going to be pulling potentially wastewater up.
And some of that money's getting a little bit. complicated. I'm going to see Mark on Wednesday at the at our normal PCWRA update. And he usually gives us kind of a high level overview. I can definitely dig down and see, exactly what they've got planned, but I don't have a really deep understanding, most of my conversations with him are focused on PCWRA business.
And then, we've also had much, much more, more, more conversations in depth when it comes to, like, their surface water, potential treatment processes and, direct direct potable reuse. but I can get a, I can get a better understanding of exactly what they're looking at, for those, for those projects and, and report back for sure.
James:
Yeah. Thanks. It was just informational. I was kind of interested in what they're doing. And if there was anything here that we should be looking at as well. And then, both Ron and, what is it, Merlin? they've both been sending me texts and things like that. Just see if they could get Ahold of you. So,
Nathan:
Yeah, Ron and I have been trading emails back and forth trying to get a scheduled time. I haven't heard anything from, Merlin yet, but, Ron, I seem to keep missing each other.
James:
Yeah, maybe they have those guys in. We talked about it before you went out for a little bit. So it's a good time to maybe bring that back up.
Nathan:
Yeah, absolutely. I Ron had reached out, wanting to get together for, you know, like a coffee or meeting just to kind of get updated while I was out. I replied back to him when I got in on Monday and I haven't heard back last Monday. I haven't heard back from. Yet.
Jason:
So is there a Dominion update?
Nathan:
nothing. nothing yet. So, Centennial, she still needs to, Andrea still needs to touch base with Centennial and kind of really get, their own feel for things. So they've been Centennial is just been really, really busy. At the beginning of the year, they had a pretty significant rate increase. And they've been dealing with, some FOIA requests and things that have come out of that.
Nothing that is going to, that I anticipate is going to show any kind of like negative light on Centennial. It's just been a large staff and resources list they've lift. They've been spending a lot of time and effort on that. so I'm hopeful that Andrea will be available to come and speak to the board, and give the give the presentation that she, she did in, March.
but it may be it may be April. I, I met with her last, last Friday and she was going to give me an update when she was able to sit down with, CWS the district manager and kind of get us, get us moving in that direction. there's, there is definitely, whether it's real or not, I'd I've definitely felt kind of a sense of urgency in wanting to get those things moving forward.
Andrea seems to share that, and so I will I will update you guys with information as I get it, and hopefully we'll be able to get, started, or at least evaluate potential options there much sooner than later.
Jason:
All right. Thank you. Any other matters? Okay. Well, we'll go ahead and close out. item number 11, and we'll move on to item 12.
Adjourn the meeting. Thank you everyone.