Board Meeting
August 26, 2024
Transcript
Describer:
Board Meeting Agenda Tuesday, August 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 August 26th, 2024, board meeting agenda.
IV. Consider approving the July 22nd, 2024, board meeting minutes.
V. Public comment period. (Three-minute maximum per person).
VI. Communication Director’s report.
VII. Finance Director's report.
A. Consider: 2023 Budget Amendment Resolution.
B. Presentation of the 2023 Audit Draft. Rubin Brown, Andy
Anderson & Russell White.
i. Consider: Approve 2023 Audit.
C. Ratify claims for payment including check numbers 28730 - 28798 and electronic payments issued from July 19, 2024,through August 21, 2024.
July Checks $252,065.88
August Checks $598,440.64
Total Checks $850,506.52
July Electronic Payments (all funds) $26,868.07
August Electronic Payments $19,630.19
Total Electronic Payments $46,498.26
July Total Expenditures $278,933.95
August Total Expenditures $618,070.83
Total Expenditures $897,004.78
VIII. Consider: Engineering budget increase amendment for the Lift Station Upgrade Project. Kennedy Jenks, Lisa Schwein & Greg Sekera.
IX. Presentation and Consideration of Third Pary Supplemental Environmental Proposal/ Agreement (SEP Program). Level Engineering, Jay Blackburn.
X. Legal Counsel's report
A. Graham and Propst Immunity act Notice, RE: 791 Briar Ridge Court.
B. Consider Service Plan Amendment Authorization.
C. Parks Trails & Open Space IGA. Assignment of Cell Tower Leases, “Batch 1” Property Conveyances.
• Requested Motion: I move the board authorize the President and Secretary to sign conveyance documents of the properties identified by the Attorney as Batch I in his Status Report as authorized by Section 32-1-1001 (1) (f) of the Colorado Revised Statutes and deliver them to the City of Castle Pines pursuant to the Parks, Open Space and Recreational Facilities IGA upon approval of final documents by the President, District Manager and Attorney.
XI. District Manager’s report
A. Consider: Monarch Waterline CIP budget increase request.
District Manager, Lisa Schwien & Greg Sekera.
B. Discussion: Finance Policy Draft.
C. Bank account fraudulent charge, implementation of “positive pay” in response.
XII. Discuss necessity of September Study Session.
XIII. Director’s Matters.
XIV. Adjourn.
Board President Jason Blankaert:
All right. thank you for waiting. good evening and welcome to the Castle Pines North Metro District board meeting. Today is Tuesday, August 26th, 2024. It's approximately ten after 6 p.m., and we would like to call this meeting to order and begin with the pledge of Allegiance.
Describer:
The board members and the audience rise from their seats and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, as the camera pans from left to right from the board to management staff to the audience and back to the board. When they are done, they sit down again.
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. All right Thank you!
Jason
All right. We'll, move on now to roll call. We'll start with, Tera.
Board Member Tera Radloff:
Present. No conflicts.
Board Member James Mulvey:
Jim. Present. No conflicts.
Jason:
And I am Jason Blank. And I am present. No conflicts. We're awaiting. Oh. Is Jana. I'm sorry, is Jana online on?
Board Member Jana Krell:
I'm. I'm on and just awaiting arrival. Sorry for the delay.
Jason:
Okay, so Jana's present conflicts. Jana?
Jana:
No conflicts. I also think I saw Leah online, too. Jason.
Board Member Leah Enquist:
I'm here. Oh, great. present. No conflicts.
Jason:
All right. Thanks, Leah. So we got a full quorum here. Let's move. on then to item number three, which is consider approving the August 26th, 2024 board and a board meeting agenda. And consider approving the July 22nd, 2024 board meeting minutes.
Tera:
I move to approve the August 26th, 2024 board meeting agenda as presented in our packets and the July 22nd, 2024 board meetings as presented in our packets.
Jason:
We have a motion. Do I hear a second?
Board Voting All Speak:
I'll second. Second. Thanks, Jim. Okay, having a second. We'll move for a vote. Tera. I. Jim. I. Jana. I. Leah I. okay, and it's an I for me. So we will consider the motion passed and close out items three and four on the agenda. We're gonna open up item five now, which is a public comment period. we will allow three minute, comments from the anybody who is either online or in person.
do we have anybody signed up to speak?
Would you state your name and your address, please? I'm sorry, could you turn on your mic? Thank you.
Describer:
Steve Dawes a frequent attendee, rises and comes to podium facing the board to the right of audience seating and to the left side of the board, near staff seating which is adjacent 90 degrees to the board and to the audience.
Steve Dawes, Castle Pines Resident:
There we go. Steve Dawes 5703 Jasper Point circle. your sign up sheet doesn't have a place to sign up to speak. You've changed the sheet, so. Oh, I was invoice number one. Number two? the board packet wasn't published online at 5:00 when I checked, and it was published between 5 and 6.
So I've had ten minutes to go through 117 pages. fast. But I'm not that fast. So I'm requesting that somebody make the effort to publish the board packet sooner in the day. And it begins with an agenda that says it's for Tuesday. And I think that is still Monday when we have the board meeting. So that's my only request.
Jason:
Okay. You're right. The board meeting gets to say Tuesday on it. Thanks for catching that. And, yes, we will pass along to Nate to please have these, board meetings, packets available with a little bit more, allowance for people to be able to read them. Do we have anybody else who would like to speak?
Person Off-mic:
I would.
James-on zoom with audio issues:
I wouldn't mind making a comment to that effect if that's okay. Jason.
Jason
Sorry, Jim what was that?
James:
is there anybody else wanting to speak? And I'll... I'll wait till they're done.
Jason:
There's one more person that's going to speak, but what did you have?
James:
just, completely agree. I prefer to do that. The last couple couple meetings that we're, we're getting these packages, and the packages are getting updated essentially right before the meeting.
So it's a little frustrating because I go through one and I get to take another hour plus to go through it again. And, you know, it's just time consuming. I understand some of these things aren't done until later in the day, but really good to make an effort to get it in, you know, Thursday or Friday, if possible.
So we're not doing this last minute all the time on Monday afternoon. It's not effective. It's not efficient. Yes. Nathan, are you with us tonight?
Nathan:
Yeah, I am, I apologize for the, late notice on the packet. I was almost positive I had it up last week. so it was showing it, just, one file that Bailey had posted, so that's that's my mistake. I'll make sure to get the packet posted. What I sent out to you guys.
Jason:
Guys, can we do anything about the audio? I can't, I can't. Well, I can barely hear, and it's garbled. I can't really understand.
Nathan:
let me see if I can get on Bluetooth.
Tera:
No, because the speaker must be pointed that way. So you guys hear I'm just fine. But our our members that are online or anybody who is using online, we we can't hear them. Yeah.
Jason:
Nathan, could you say something just so we can hear audio?
Nathan:
yeah. Test one two.
Off-mic speaking:
Yeah. also, things I can try attaching to
Leah:
This is. Leah, can you hear me? Okay. Jason.
Jason:
Leah, we can hear you. Great. Okay. because I can hear Nathan. Really? Well, it's like a fellow, online participant, but it sounds like it's probably not translating well to those in the room.
Jason:
I think we're tweaking it right now, so it might be getting better. Okay.
Nathan. Nathan, you say anything?
Nathan:
Yeah. So any better?
Jason:
That's better. Jim.
James:
Good to hear too. Okay.
Jason:
Thanks. Thanks for being patient. sorry. Could you introduce yourself and your address, please? I'm sorry. There's a button in the middle with a voice, head that looks like he's very good.
Alexandra Cosma, Castle Pines Resident:
Okay. my name is Alexandra Cosima, and I live at 6500 Braylen Lane, Castle Pines, in the Taylor Morrison Timberline community.
I am here today to speak about the quality of the water I moved. I'm a Denver native, moved out east for about ten years, and then moved back with the reputation that I knew from being a Denver native of Castle Pines, wonderful schools, wonderful community, has so many great things to offer. except for the water that I bathe my children in, the water that we drink, the water that when my children have fevers, I put them in the water and it's brown.
and I would like to figure out what we are going to do about that. I've had multiple conversations for a few years now with Nathan at the Metro North Metro North Water District. and I'm not seeing progress with my water. we went as far as a boil notice last spring. that's the second boil notice in, I think 48 months.
We've been there for three years, so in three years we've been on two different boil notices. that means we can't take showers. That means when my kids have pinkeye, I can't put a warm compress on their eyes to take the pink eye off of them. I take it incredibly personal. it's. We're tax payers. We're educated.
We've worked extremely hard in our lives to provide clean water, nice home, nice community. and I would like some answers as to why the water is brown and why we keep going on a boil. Notice.
Jason:
Nathan, do you have anything you could add to this?
Nathan:
yeah. I mean, I've had the opportunity to to speak with this resident, multiple times.
I'm happy to continue those conversations. I don't know that I have, you know, anything new to add? Obviously, having the, two boil notices inside of the time frame that she noted is unacceptable. I don't think that anybody at the district has said otherwise. we are actively working on replacing our filtration system at the water treatment plant where, we finished up the pilot stage on that and are going into design and are looking to hopefully start building relatively soon in the next year or so.
you know, we're working on the liquid ammonium sulfate program process right now at the treatment plant. That's a current ongoing capital project. So we do have a lot of, different things that are going on, to try and address, specifically the, the occasional discolored water issues that we've been having. you know, encourage a resident to, you know, anytime the discoloration shows up to not hesitate to give us a call and we'll do what we can to, you know, do any like, short term mitigation that we need to while we, work on some of these larger kind of long term capital projects?
Jason:
Are we having any other questions from that? community?
Nathan:
nothing. Recently, we, you know, we had, some of the more persistent flushing or persistent discoloration there during the boil. Notice, was over in that area. and we've gotten a few calls, districtwide that were directly related to flushing processes, as part of our normal maintenance.
And, I mean, that's that's nothing that's going to go away, you know, once a year, even with the new filters and all of that stuff, we're still going to have to do a system wide flush, specifically to get the, excess iron levels, taken care of. The, excuse me to get the, you know, just the excess iron that builds up in the system over the course of the year.
So we're still going to be doing an annual flushing program. that could potentially cause that, but we haven't seen a heavier call load that I'm aware of from that area.
Tera:
As you taper off, Nate, we we can't hear you, so you have to be louder and on your microphone.
Leah:
So what I heard Nate say, in closing, was that, he hasn't noticed a higher call load from that area. in general. Okay. And and I and I know this may or may not be part of our, you know, regular president section, but, would it be okay if I addressed the resident directly?
Of course. so my name is Leah Enquist. Apologies. I'm in my car today. but I just wanted to thank you, number one, for showing up. I really welcome the involvement. And, you know, number two, just thank you for your feedback. and just trying to relate is a resident and and a mom to three little kids.
I hear you and have the same concerns, which is part of why, I ran for the board. you know, myself out there, and and I think being on the board, I get more access to information, and I understand the why. but man, is it still so incredibly frustrating. Especially the back to back boil notices.
so I just wanted to apologize. I mean, I know it's I just want to apologize. It's it's really frustrating. and I guess I would be curious, like, is there information that you're looking for, or you know, answers that you're looking for that you haven't received yet? You know, just trying to think like, how could we keep you in the loop or give me the information that you're looking for and that you need?
Alexandra:
thank you for the apology, but I'm not looking for an apology. I'm looking for my water to be clean and clear and I'm looking for, merger with Parker Water is what I'm looking for. this Metro North water district from the little research, I plan on doing more with my time. it's it's not something that I am interested in continuing to have as, an entity providing water to my family.
Nor are my neighbors. you've had our neighbors, and, I mean, we've we've been in tears, literally. and I just I would like to see, a merger with Parker Water. And it's my understanding that it's been a bit of, there's lots of layers, to that merger, and I, here to state on record that that's where this water district needs to go.
Jason:
Thank you very much for your input. We will have to limit this to three minutes. We've got a full agenda tonight. So. But thank you and keep working with Nathan. and hopefully he can get a resolution for you. Okay. Do we have anybody else online or signed up to speak?
Okay. Not hearing anybody. We're going to close out the public comment period. And we're going to move on to the communication director's report.
Communications Director Bailey Budnik:
Good evening. Good evening. looking at the communications report from the last 30 days, are there any questions right off the bat that you have or areas you'd like to focus on?
Tera:
Well, I don't have, I have questions, but, I see a lot of, positives in here. one that we are communicating, I think much more, and many more, mediums and more often in a more detail than we have in the past. I thought it was very positive that, our, water quality report views went up that our slow the, flow program is getting a lot of traction.
That's exciting. I read through all the detail of our communications that went out on our water quality report, and I thought it had a lot of detail in it. And I thought, you know, that it was covered really well. These are the things that are on our website. Yes. Correct. Yes. As well as been communicated via social media.
Yes. Okay. and So I thought all of the detail in there, was really, really good. I also want to thank you for attending our community events and reaching out to our residents. I know that it was, you guys got got really, really rained on, but I hear that there was really good interaction with the public.
And I appreciate you guys putting yourselves out there. and, I just want to assure everyone here that we do have good water. I mean, we have good water coming out of, our aquifer and, while these reports, I think were very well detailed in here about what happened with the boil water and the timeline and the detail.
So, I to join this board, because I wanted to see the Parker, inclusion and because I was worried about the boil water notices and whatnot. But I will have to say that in my tenure, on the board and with the information provided, the improvements that I know that we're making, that we've, completely rebuilt our water treatment plant.
you know, I drink the water here. I have full confidence in the water, and I'm not somebody who would, say something like that unless I were, convinced. So I do appreciate all the communications that you're doing. Again, I think this is much more robust than we've ever done in the past. It's much more transparent. And, I just wanted to say thank you, I appreciate it.
Jason:
Thanks Tera. Jim. Did you need did you have something you want to chime in with?
James:
Yeah. echoing what Tera said as well. definitely improving, the communication side and really appreciate it. same reasons I joined as well. I was as you know, Jan is probably in the same boat as Leah and and Tera and I, you know, again, we drank the water.
We see some of the issues. and I'm pretty encouraged by all the things that have been put in place in the last year and a half, two years as far as the filtration updates, the updates to the facility itself, water line replacements that you know, in a word, we're probably overdue. and one of those boil notices was direct result of unfortunately, a problem during hooking up the new water line.
that was just a contractor mistake, but it still counts. And we get it. question. I had, as far as communication was, in last minutes, there was, you know, we talked about, doing a test communication to ensure everybody to communicate, community can be reached in case of an emergency. Not poking on this.
I just wanted to know if you guys had started that, or if you're still in the planning stages of looking at that process and just seeing where you are. So just a quick question on that.
Nathan:
Yeah, I've actually got an update for you on that. I'm glad you brought it up. Jim. so Susan at our office got all of our customer information sent over to Daupler.
Daupler has integrated that. they told me I got the email last Thursday or Friday that they were kind of in the final stages of that. And so we'll be looking to do some testing, probably in the next week or two. Perfect. Thank you.
Jason:
All right. Great. Thanks, Jim. Any of the other directors have anything they wish to say?
All right. Hearing none. And did you have anything further?
Bailey:
yeah. That's it. It was just really great to be out at, party in the Park as well, and was a good turnout. It was. And one of the things, too, that Nathan and I were realizing while speaking with community members is they're really excited to talk about water, but sometimes you just don't know or they don't know the right questions to ask or, you know, dependent on even if they stay in the Castle Pines community or move elsewhere.
What should you know about your water district? So that's something else we're working on. That's how to stay an informed citizen. And what what questions should you be asking to make sure that, you know, the district is, is, upholding the right resources and everything?
Jason:
Yeah, that's a great point. So thank you.
Tera:
I wanted to add that, the water cart was such a hit that somebody from Castle Rock water reached out and asked if what we were doing with it or if we had plans.
So kudos to you and Nate for getting that water cart, because apparently it's very, very much a hit. And, so good job on that.
Bailey:
That's awesome to hear. Any other final questions.
Jason:
I think that's all we will go ahead and close out. Article number six, the Communication Director's report, and we'll go ahead and open up the finance director's report.
we'll start with, Phyllis, we have, a budget, to 2023 budget amendment resolution.
Phyllis Brown, Community Resource Services of Colorado (CRS):
Hi. Good evening. Phyllis. hi, Nathan. do you see the, I'm looking for the budget amendment in the packet.
Nathan:
I think that was one of the things that I forwarded, separately. Yeah.
Phyllis:
Well, and then when we look at the audit, we could see the budget amendment amount. So I can point you to that page if we want to use that. Hold on.
Describer:
Jason was having trouble hearing Phyllis.
Phyllis:
Do you guys have the budget amendment right available? Or if you have the audit available?
Jason:
Phyllis, can you give us a second here? We got audio issues. Oh, okay.
Jana:
I think Phyllis is a little, fuzzy on the virtual and also. So it might be maybe a headset connection.
Phyllis:
All right. I just turned my headset off. Is this better?
Board Members:
Much better. That's much better for I know better for the remote people, too. Yeah. Okay.
Legal Counsel Kim Seter, Esq.:
And, Jason, if, I just heard that the resolution is not in the packet, but if Phyllis will just tell us what the numbers are that need to be changed, will, circulate that resolution after the meeting in the next in the coming days?
Okay. It was just a number ten. She's going to give us. Okay.
Phyllis:
Okay, let me pull that up.
Okay. So we're amending the general fund. Budget. And the storm drainage fund budgets need to be amended. the primary reason for the budget amendments are due to the amounts that we ended up paying for the IGA expenditures for the Parks and RECs and the conservation trust fund in the general fund and the storm drainage Fund. The amounts that we budgeted that were not budgeted, that we paid for the IGA.
So the the general fund budget was $6,113,853, and we're amending it to 12,127,623. The storm drainage fund was budgeted for 95,500, and that was anticipated for January through March. Activity. And the budget amendment expenditures is 1,413,800. And when we go through the audit, we can look at the the totals in more detail.
James:
I got it just, so let's just work, do that really quick. I'm writing that stuff down. So which which part? Just go through the couple numbers you just read.
Phyllis:
Okay. The general fund budget was 6,113,853. And the storm drainage budget was 95,500. The amended General Fund 12,127,623, and the Storm Drainage Fund amended 1,413,800.
James:
Thank you got it that time.
Tera:
So the general fund doubled. And what is this due to
Phyllis:
primarily to the parks and open space and IGA expenditures that were not budgeted for the total amount when the budget was prepared?
For both for both funds, general. So the IGA expenditures and we could look at the audit, but we budgeted 7.6 million for that and then 2.6 million for the park. We're not budgeted. And so we added that in the budget amendment, once those amounts were determined and paid.
Tera:
So my question for my board members is do you want to, move this forward? Is there a time constraint on this? Can we, postpone this to the future when we can actually look at this? Because I guess it wasn't in our packets.
Phyllis:
And I'll just say that we can look at those numbers in the actual audit when we go through the audit. So you can see the budgeted, you can see the amended budget and you'll see the actual numbers. When we go through the audit. And then maybe you can determine if that's enough information to be able to say you can hold the budget hearing and approve it.
Kim:
Alternatively, and correct me if I'm wrong, Phyllis, but we don't. We wouldn't need to approve it tonight. We could do it next month. typically you you're supposed to do your budget amendments before you expend the funds, but that's already gone. And it, it happens often. the only reason I think probably Phyllis would like to do it is so that it matches with the audit that you're going to look at tonight, but there's nothing wrong with holding that off until next month.
Phyllis:
Okay. And we just confirm with Andy that we could file the audit prior to that. Or would that audit have to be filed after the budget amendment?
Andy Anderson, Rubin Brown:
I believe Russ is in the room as well, and he can probably speak to it, but I feel like, you know, we probably wouldn't be presenting, an amended budget in, in the financial statements at that point if it's, not formally approved Russ.
Are you able to speak to that as well?
Russell White, Rubin Brown:
Yeah. Normally before we go final on the on the audit, any last minute, budget amendments get approved before we finalize the audit. So if you want to take a look at it this week in detail or next week, that's fine. You may have to have a special session to, approve that budget. But the information we have is incorporated in the the draft that, we sent out this afternoon.
So we, I hear what the attorney saying, but practically, you have to approve the amended budget for 23 before we can file by 9/30 of 2024,
Jason:
if we, if we see your presentation tonight, will that clear up some of this?
Russell:
It it might clear up some of it because the layout is we'll have the original budget and then the amended budget, and you'll be able to see the information that Phyllis is referring to in this, in this all has to do with the conveyance of assets to the city, on the parks, the open space, in the stormwater, on those IGA's.
So just remember this footnote number ten has all the juice of why we have to amend the budget when we get there.
Tera:
So then can we, postpone that until after the audit and maybe ratify the claims since the audit is next, do that and then we'll ratify the claims.
Jason off-mic:
Let's do the presentation. Yeah. And then maybe from that.
Russell:
Yeah. Because what we would have got teed up right now I've got Andy, waiting to present the, the draft audit report, and, we can go. There's 46 pages, but I'm just going to hit some of the. I'll call it the. The highlights are spotlights need to be spotlighted. And then the last pages, page 44.
That's the required supplemental information. Has the updated budget information. And it has what I call the, the variances. And this is, this is important because this is what the state is looking at. The required supplemental information and the other supplemental information, page 44 and 45 and 46 So.
Jason:
okay, why don't we why don't we put amendment number seven A on hold for a second?
Why don't we do the presentation and then we'll see where we're at back. Yeah. Okay. All right.
Andy:
And I can share my screen if, you're able to allow me, to share it. It looks like I can't share right now.
All right, we're working on that. Give us a minute.
Can you try again?
Andy:
Looks like it's still still blocked. Andy. Yeah. I can maybe rejoin as well. Well, I don't know. So you're correct.
Jason:
Nathan, you might be the, presenter on this. Can you see if you can give him access to Share Screen?
Nathan:
I am not the meeting host. But I can play with that. I just joined with, the CPNMD individual account.
I think that needs to be,
Andy:
looks like I can start sharing now. Okay.
Describer:
On screen. CASTLE PINES NORTH METROPOLITAN DISTRICT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS DECEMBER 31, 20231
Russel:
All right. good evening, everyone. I'm Russell White with the CPA firm, Rubin Brown. I'm the engagement partner on the 2023 financial statement audit. Andy Anderson is the manager. We started this process back in January, February with, Phyllis and Nathan, on the audit. We started field work in July, and, we got some of our final information, Friday evening.
So, we, updated our information this morning, and you should all have, a current PDF copy, that we sent to all of you or Nathan. To all of you, around 1 to 2:00 this afternoon. So on, pages one through four. That's pretty much what we own as a CPA firm. Reuben Brown, this is your audit opinion.
Describer:
Independent Auditors' Report
Board of Directors Castle Pines North Metropolitan District Castle Pines, Colorado
Report On The Financial Statements Opinions
We have audited the accompanying financial statements of the governmental activities, the business-type activities and each major fund of Castle Pines North Metropolitan District (the District), as of and for the year ended December 31, 2023, and the related notes to the financial statements, which collectively comprise the District's basic financial statements as listed in the table of contents.
In our opinion, the accompanying financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the respective financial position of the governmental activities, the business-type activities and each major fund of the District as of December 31, 2023, and the respective changes in financial position, and, where applicable, cash flows thereof for the year then ended in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.
Russell:
It's four pages. And, the good news is it's a clean opinion, unmodified. So the information that's presented there is materially correct. So we, give a, a clean opinion on that. So opinions based on what our audit procedures are, what you as a board and, what CRS does to help give us that information so that we can confirm, test and verify that during our, audit field work, process.
Describer:
On screen. CASTLE PINES NORTH METROPOLITAN DISTRICT
STATEMENT OF NET POSITION December 31, 2023
(With Comparative Totals For December 31, 2022). The Budget is shown but it extends to several pages and it to detailed to describe. Please contact Nathan for access to this document. Russel highlights important information.
Russel:
moving on to pages five and six. this is like the full accrual set of financial statements, for a government. We've got the general, general wide government activities and the business activities. So total assets, for, Castle Pines North Metro is about $179 million at the end of 2023. And comparing that to, the end of 2022 was $188 million.
So we have a $10 million decrease in the fund balance or statement of net position also decreased about $10 million. Again, this kind of relates to the conveyance of the assets related to, the storm, stormwater, parks and the open space. So if we go to page six on the statement of activities. what's new this year again, is this conveyance of assets to the other government, to the city.
And you'll see a number in there for 11,269,406. So basically, this is the, the district basically transferring its responsibilities and its assets to another governmental entity. And this is the appropriate, reporting that went, from a, a line item standpoint. It's a special item. So, you can track this information because, Phyllis and
Nathan, provided us with the IGA agreements that have these numbers in it that that roll up to, prove out this 11,269,406 number. So when you look at the change in net assets, on page six, you'll see that in 2022, the district was very did very well because they had some one offs of selling some water rights.
So they're like net income or change in net assets was a positive $23 million. But in 2023 it's presenting a loss of $7.8 million. Well, you're kind of asking what happened. Well, if you add back that conveyance of $11 million, the district actually had a net income or positive, change of $3.4 million. So when you look at that from a continuing operations standpoint, if we hadn't passed or haven't conveyed those assets, cash and, property over to the city, continuing operations would have been, a lot more.
But when you back that out, $3.4 million, it's not presented on the financial statements. I've just kind of let you know from a board standpoint that the 7.8 million that you're looking at is not as grim as it looks like, because we've got $11.2 million that we're conveying to the city. It's a one time item, and that won't be there next year.
So when you look at page six is conveyance of assets again? we'll get to footnote ten. But footnote ten is a very detailed footnote that, Phyllis and Chris put together that summarizes the IGA agreements and ties, that information, that narrative information back to this $11 million number. Moving on to page nine. the government funds, you'll see that conveyance of assets again of 10,333,905.
on the financial statements and then on, page 13, you'll see the storm drainage of a 1,440,000 so again, when we get back to footnote ten, you'll see that detail of where those numbers, that narrative is. moving on to, page 15 on footnote number one. You know, the first paragraph last ends. I just want to draw your attention to that word.
Again. We're saying the district is in the process of transferring storm drainage to open space and parks, to the city. So again, footnote ten is, the biggest, the biggest change from last year. moving on to note three, on the fixed assets, last sentence, last paragraph. you should see, $935,000 of assets actually being conveyed to the city.
And again, we just plug that in there to let you know that in those dispositions of $944,000, $935,000 of those were basically transferred over to the city. moving over to footnote number four, it's, I call it the debt footnote. And as you can see, there's no debt on the books for the governmental entities. So when we're transferring this, this, these assets over, last year we got 2022, we got rid of all the debt with, the COPs.
And and you can see this year, we're winding down the government fund, so there's no debt there. And then when you look at the, enterprise fund, kind of the water fund, you'll see there's just $2.9 million of debt. So in the last 2 to 3 years, we had substantial debt on the books. And with the the convenience and the pay down of, of that debt, you can see we've made a lot of progress there so that that's a that's a really good sign.
Describer:
On screen. 10. IGAs With The City
IGA Regarding Transfer Of Stormwater System And Necessary Property Rights
The District and the City entered into an IGA regarding the transfer of the District's stormwater system to the City (Stormwater IGA), effective January 25, 2023, which includes stormwater infrastructure and associated improvements, equipment and real property interests that are necessary and sufficient in order to maintain and operate the stormwater system within the boundaries of the District.
The Stormwater IGA also provides that the District transfer all available funds in the Storm Drainage Fund to the City to ensure the City has adequate funds to defray costs associated with the ownership and ongoing operation and maintenance of the stormwater system. During 2023, the District recorded the conveyance of assets to the City in the amount of $1,400,340 as required by the Stormwater IGA. There were remaining funds due to the City of $24,377 which is included in due to other government in the statement of net position as of
December 31, 2023.
IGA Between The City And District Regarding Operation, Maintenance And Transfer Of Recreation Properties
The District and the City entered into an I regarding the transfer of the District's parks, recreation, trails and open space assets Parks and Recreation IGA), effective March 31, 2023, in order to provide for the transfer of the responsibility for the ownership, operation and maintenance of the parks, recreation, trails and open space assets from the District to the City.
CASTLE PINES NORTH METROPOLITAN DISTRICT
Notes To Financial Statements (Continued)
In accordance with the Parks and Recreation IGA, the District is to convey to the City all real property, buildings, fixtures, easements for parks and trails infrastructure and interests therein related to the recreation properties that are owned by the District. The District expects the conveyance of all such real property interests, facilities and fixtures to be completed in 2024.
The Parks and Recreation IGA also provides that the District transfer all 2023 available parks and recreation funds to the City to be used for the operation and maintenance of all parks and recreation properties for the benefit of the District taxpayers, the community of Castle Pines and for all persons using such properties.
Per the Parks and Recreation IGA, during 2023 the District transferred amounts for park improvements, conservation trust funds and general funds attributable to the District's operations mill levy and miscellaneous revenues less $650,000 to be used for 2023 water and wastewater expenditures). The total conveyance of assets to the City recorded by the District during 2023 of $11,269,406 is comprised of amounts related to park improvements, conservation trust funds and general funds of $3,606,890, $500,033 and $7,162,483, respectively. Of the $11,269,406, $8,904,964 was paid in cash to the City, while $935,501 of net book value of assets. In addition, there are remaining general and conservation trust funds of $1,428,941 due to the City related to the Parks and Recreation IGA which is included in due to other government in the balance sheet and statement of net position as of December 31, 2023.
Russell:
so we of have to footnote ten, which is on page 42 and 43, you know, again, spotlighting that. And I'm kind of, you know, keep on hammering hammering that away. But we're spotlighting this because we're, identifying the transfer and the convenience of the storm water system, the recreation properties and the open space. So you can see the breakdown of the 11,269,406, $8.9 million is cash paid to the city that transferred over, net book value of the assets transferred to $935,000.
And then that last piece, the 1,428,941, payable to the city that's recognized and that that sums up to that 11,269,406 so that footnote does a really good job of summarizing the convenience of assets to the to the city. And again, I'll repeat it a second, third, fourth time. This note note ten ties back to the information that I've kind of kind of regurgitated a couple times back into the financial statements.
All right, moving on to the budget on page 44. the the general fund, the general General government fund budget. So what Phyllis has been, telling us, with, her information is that the budget has been updated to reflect the changes regarding the convenience of assets to transfer assets based on the three IGA agreements or two IGA agreements.
And why is that necessary? Well, the state of Colorado, they want to make sure that nobody's, over budget so we can do a budget amendment tonight or sometime this week when you want, when you want to look at some more detail so that we present to the auditor, the state auditors, a, positive variance instead of a negative variance.
And why is this important? Well, the state auditor, they read these reports about 30 to 60 days after they get sent into their, portal. And the first thing they look at is this, budget to actual and, and if it's a negative number, it's a unfavorable variance. the penalty as you get a notice from the State Auditor's office.
Is there any enforcement vehicle on that? It's just a piece of paper, but you're kind of on a quasi watch list to see what's happening next year. So you may that may start a paper drip of, budget. budget monitoring for you. So then we've got the OSI, other supplemental information on the other budgets, too.
But, if you can see the big, from the original budget to the amended budget, you can see where that information had, like, doubled. like Tera was recognizing, in that, budget on page 44.
Any any questions? on that. So we've got incorporated the updated budget that Phyllis, Phyllis has sent to us. And what we're waiting for is the approval so that we can include that in the 2023 audit report. if you want to approve that tonight, great. If you want to approve that later on this week or next week, great.
Kind of the urgency is what's make sure that we get the audit report filed by September 30th to the state auditor. and hopefully it includes the budget that Phyllis has included in here. If you have any changes that you want to make to that. So that kind of concludes the presentation of the audit report, kind of outline of things that I thought were really important from a report to governance standpoint, no issues, no material weaknesses from a internal control standpoint regarding financial reporting with, Nathan or with, Phyllis.
So, kind of in conclusion, here, once, the board looks at this and you approve it, we'll send out our representation letter. And that's basically kind of the finality of the audit. And once we get that sign back, we can stick a fork in it and send you the final PDF. And then, you can file that with the State of Colorado State Affairs Office.
That concludes my presentation. Any questions that you might have
Jason
thanks Russ. Let me open this up for questions to the board. Sorry, Kim
Kim:
Russ, would I be correct in saying what we're what we're really doing with the budget amendment is taking the 2023 budget and adjusting it to be the 20, the final budget? Yes. That's it.
Yep, yep. So that's the same numbers from this column changing them to the numbers in this column.
Russell:
We're just turn it up to the 4 or 5 items to get us in compliance with state, budgeting regulations. Got it. Thank you.
Jason:
Thanks, Kim. does any of the other board have any questions?
So hearing the presentation, I'm more apt to approve this tonight. And, and, just get this, delivered.
Tera:
So thank you, Russ, for the context. And it's always amusing to me how fast you go through the numbers, because you can tell you guys have been living with these for So long.
Russell:
I can go into more detail, but I'm just trying to give you the, the things that need to be spotlighted that were changed from last year to this year and kind of full context of what's been happening last 2 to 3 years.
And, you know, we're landing the district from a financial standpoint in a good place.
Tera:
Well, and that's what I think, you know, we are charged with. And I appreciate that. And, I certainly don't want to delay our audit any further because we, we really want to get caught up on those. So I'll make a motion to,
Jason:
Tera, before you do that.
Board Voting All Speak:
I can't see the people on line, so, Jim or, Sorry, I was going to call her Tera. Sorry. Leah, if either of you have any questions, you want to chime in? I'm all good. Thanks, Jason. Thanks, Leah. Jim. all good to, little shocked there initially, but he went through it nicely, so I appreciate it.
Kim:
And, Jason, before you vote on this, you should open a public hearing and see if there's any public that want to comment on it and if not, closes the hearing and entertain a motion.
Jason:
Okay. at the direction of council, we will open a public hearing. At this time, if anybody has anything they wish to speak on on this budget, please step forward.
Steve:
Steve Dawes previously gave you my address. Where is this audit report?
Jason:
This audit report, just came to us today. It's been in the works for a long time, but, the, final, audit report came through us this afternoon.
Steve:
Well, it's not in the packet that was delivered sometime between 5 and 6 tonight. And I don't think you should be voting on anything that the public hasn't had a chance to look at.
My view. Thanks. Thank you.
Jason:
All right. Anybody else wish to speak? We'll go ahead and close down the public, comment session. And we will go open it back up to, vote, to a motion.
James:
So hang on a second. Let's ask him if we can. Since the public didn't have a chance to review, is it going to be, are we going to get into any trouble here legally if we didn't have it out there in time for public comment and review it?
Kim:
The, the statute says that you should have it available at the district office prior to the public hearing.
James:
Okay, so then we should postpone this vote. So what we could do is postpone it and continue the public hearing. I think Russ said we'll need to wait. I think the September meeting should give us enough time that he can make an adjustment.
Well, he won't need to make an adjustment. Hopefully he can send that out as a final and then we can get it filed with the state.
Jason:
All right. That sounds like a good motion or a good plan.
Tera:
So I move to continue the public hearing to our September. I don't have the date next year.
September 23rd. Yes. I move to move this public hearing to our September meeting on Monday, September 23rd, 2024.
James:
I'll second one for you, Tera.
Jason:
Before we go, the rest of do you have a.
Russell:
I just want to make sure that, that's out there and if there's any possible edits that hopefully they're addressed before the 23rd meeting. So hopefully the public will give you some information and, the board and, the district manager and CRS and the attorney could look at that to see if, anything needs to be changed.
If not, hopefully that will be, a formal process of just, ratifying and accepting the, the audit at that time. If you do have something done, hopefully the public could have, their comments, to you by September 15th so that, that provides about a week to consider those. And, yeah, we can make the changes or not.
The changes. I'm just trying to, not create a logjam on September 30th for the state auditor and also for our firm to make any corrections at the last minute.
Jason:
Okay, so we should, close public comment on September 15th, if that's what I'm hearing. Yep, yep. Okay.
Tera:
I'll accept that friendly amendment to my motion.
Board Voting All Speak:
All right. I'll second the motion. Having a second? we'll go to vote. Tera. Hi, Jana. Hi, Jim. I Leah, I and that's an I for me as well. So we will continue this next month.
Leah:
Hey, Jason, quick question. Is that something where we would leverage our, like, communications director maybe to send out like to, to solicit feedback.
and with that target due date, I definitely think that needs to be posted. And, we do need to have a couple copies of it in the office for people who want to stop by and see it.
Kim:
Yeah. you want to post it on the website, and you could certainly have, a cover page that says, please provide any comments on or before the 15th.
Jason:
Does that sound okay with you, Jana? I mean Leah.
Leah:
yes. I think if, if it were me, I would probably want to know the best way to provide that feedback. Right. So, like, if it's through an email, make sure that email is included. just to make it as easy as possible for people to get that feedback to us.
Jason:
All right. Looks like our communications director is making notes. So I think this will be addressed.
All right. Having those sections closed out, A and B, we'll move on to section C and ratify claims, for payment, including check numbers 28,730 to 28,798 and electronic electronic payments issued from July 19th, 2024 through August 21st, 2024.
Tera:
So, Nate, I do have one item that I would like you to look at. Okay.
So there is, One of the items that we're approving is first rate fence and supply. But the account description, the, chart of accounts that it went to is miscellaneous expenses. So if you would take a look at that, just so that gets, accounted for in the correct place, I don't, I don't think it's probably miscellaneous.
It probably, probably has a, a better, place with more like expenses. So if you would take a look at that, I mean, it doesn't hold up the, the invoice or the payment, but it's more of the internal accounting. So if you would look at that, I would appreciate it.
Nathan:
Yep no problem. I'll, touch base with, Andrea and Phyllis and, get that one coded more appropriately or see if there's a better place we can put it, or I guess, see what would be the most appropriate place to put it.
Thank you.
Jason:
Okay, so I will go ahead and make a motion then to ratify claims for payment, including check numbers 28,730 to 28,798 and electronic payments issued from July 19th, 2024 through August 21st, 2024. Checks and electronic payments equaling $278,933.95 in July and August, totaling $618,070.83, for a total of $897,004.78.
Board Voting All Speak:
Second, thank you. Have an a second. We'll go to vote. Tera I Jana, I Jim, I and Leah.
I thanks Leah. I approve it as well. So the motion passes. We will go ahead and close out the, finance director's report. Unless you have anything else for us tonight. Phyllis.
Phyllis:
Okay. I would just point out that on pages. 20, starting on pages 20, we have our monthly report for the property taxes. we're at, 99.8% collected. our usage, reports are also there. We had a sewer bill, sewer decrease of 4%, and our billed water was up for July of 2024, 35%.
And then once we closed the year for, 2023, then we'll be able to, in full force, be getting our 2024 numbers tied out and then be able to start presenting financials in cash position on a regular basis. So I know we're all looking forward to that.
Jason:
Yes, we are and fortunately it's been a warm July so that, increase the water usage.
okay. Thank you very much, Phyllis. we will go out the finance director's report then, and we'll move on to, consider engineering budget increases, increase amendment for the lift station upgrade project is, Greg still with us?
Greg Sekera:
I am, can you hear me?
Jason:
We can hear you now, Greg. Thank you.
Greg:
Okay, good. so, Lisa's Lisa Schwien is also on the call. with, with me too, on this, but, essentially, we have an amendment for the lift station upgrade that we have presented to Nathan, and, he's asked that we present it to you as well.
And, So, so we've been dealing with as you, as you probably all know, a lot of changes in the last year related to the lift stations. a lot of it was generated by the cease and desist order that that the district received, which really had to really change our, direction on, on the, on the design of the lift stations and, we had to divide them.
It made sense to divide them up into two, two bit packages. So this last year we've been we've been proceed with all of those changes. under under our prior approved the budget for the project. But now, now we want to present this amendment because of all the changes that have occurred. And,
Have your approval on this. but really, there's been some significant design changes that were that are really outlined in our amendment, and we're happy to go over those answer questions. But essentially, we eliminated lift station number two in our design, which caused a lot of, changes to lift station one from a structural standpoint, from, having to upsize the pumps, which, caused, more Hvac design and electrical design.
we had to do to design the gravity line from lift Station 2, to one, which was out of scope, which caused a more survey, and environmental analysis. And it just kind of have snowballed from there. And then on top of that, we have a, we have to add a second, bidding, bidding, set of documents for scope B for the other lift stations.
so happy to answer any, any questions at this time, that if you have any questions for Lisa & I.
Jana:
Greg, I have some questions. okay. I have quite a few questions, but let's start with I understand having to make a second bid packet. You know, you have to duplicate the efforts you've already done. but what part of this process created the second the need for the second bid packet, it was the cease and desist or what was the.
Yea. Cease and desist with CDPHE.
Lisa Schwien:
Greg, this is Lisa Schwien I can I think I can answer that pretty well. We talked to Nathan about and Jay actually about dividing it into two scopes, and we talked to CDPHE about it to get some things rolling quicker, I guess, to satisfy their timeline that they wanted to see so that we could go out, go out to bid sooner on three of the lift stations and get construction going on those while we're working on design and approval on the other ones.
So that's kind of what drove that.
Jana:
Okay. I can understand that. So it was at the request of, Nate, in order to keep the project moving then.
Lisa:
yeah. And really, our contact page for the season, this first order really wanted they want to see things moving quickly. So
Jana:
and but, so as I read through this, I see the redesign of the gravity sewer.
Can you kind of summarize the need to for a redesign? Because that's not really that's not really related to any kind of two packet. So what's the thought on that.
Lisa:
Right. So when we originally, scoped the project, there were a lot of unknowns. And our idea, collaborating with Nathan was to eliminate Lift Station two or see if it was even possible.
It was more of a study, by taking the gravity flow to lift station five. So we did, survey that alignment, and we looked at elevations and existing utilities and all that, all that good stuff, and realized it wasn't it wasn't a great option. But we wanted to look at, going from lift station 2 with a gravity line to lift station one.
So we, we had to shift direction on that, because, you know, feasibility of going to five, what just wasn't there. so, yeah. So a lot of this, a lot of this, I guess, is a better definition of the scope, like understanding more what our scope is after we finish that analysis or study piece.
Jana:
That makes sense, Lisa.
Because when I look at the original contract amount at 83,000, and then I see change order one for 377,000 more and then another 175, it feels like, whoa, did we not scope it initially? But I think what my mind is kind of wrapping around is that this was we're adding scope as we go based on our findings from the original contract.
And then even the second or the first change order.
Lisa:
yeah, exactly. And I think it's it's definitely going to be worth it to eliminate that lift station. It's it's taken a lot of work to figure out a way to do it. But one less lift station will be, really beneficial. So I think we're all pretty excited about it.
But yeah, it's taken a lot of work to get there.
Jana:
And then I also and I'm sorry for all my questions, but, so I see additional utility locates and survey. Did the limits of the area change to as as we progressed?
Lisa:
Yeah. We surveyed a corridor from lift station 2 to 5 thinking that that was our best option.
and we did locates and survey and I think we may have even done a little bit of potholing, and with some preliminary design, realized that that was not going to work. We still hadn't given up on the idea of eliminating lift station 2, Nathan, you know, so go ahead with the survey from 2 to 1.
Let's see if that would work. because it it seemed like it may actually work better, at the time. So yeah, we had to add another corridor of survey and utility locates.
Jana:
And this will be my last question. But Lisa, has all this work already been performed?
Lisa:
No. we have we are probably at 95% design on scope A, and we're at 60% on scope B.
so no, we're not we're not finished yet, but a lot of the extra analysis type work has been completed.
Jana:
Nope. All that answers my question, because I'm happy to hear that it hasn't all been performed because it's good to bring these things up before they're already done, and the money has already been spent, so I have no additional questions.
I feel great about, Lisa and Greg's info.
Jason:
Great. Thank you so much for your questions. Those are awesome. Jim, do you have anything?
James:
yeah. This is sort of a basic one to sort of tie a knot around it. Lisa or maybe Greg. if you guys, if we eliminate is list station. And again, it was a long time ago, and I and I might be able to dig up the notes from it, but, could you just sort of talk to, in broad terms, eliminating the lift station and, what that saves us versus what we're spending here and then going forward, you know, basically looking for a payback time and
what we're really saving here when we eliminate this list station, just kind of talk. if you could
Lisa:
on a, on a general level, the maintenance and, upkeep of the pumps and replacement of those pumps every 15 years, things like that, obviously you save on that, but in my mind, it's more of a, it's more of a benefit that, you know, we're protecting the district from liability.
We're protecting environment from possible spills. you know, it's it's more than just how long would it cost savings take. and, and, you know, you're saving, like, if you do have spills, you're saving the cleanup money and the, you know, all that stuff. So it really it really is a benefit. I have we didn't do an analysis on the, how long it would take to get the money back out of it.
Nathan:
I did do some kind of quick numbers. when we first started looking at it, one of the drivers on that was, it's a little bit hard to, completely quantify because I'm looking at, you know, what? It's costing us to maintain a 30 year old station versus what? It would be a brand new one. but generally speaking, it would.
It pays for itself in about one life cycle. The station's about 25 ish years.
James:
Okay. Appreciate it. and that's with all these additional maybe growing and all these additional changes and pump upgrades and, and what have you, that you still think you're going to recover that in a life cycle, it still makes sense is all I really need you to say.
Nathan:
Yeah, it it definitely still makes sense. I mean, in geographically with Lift Station two gets driven a lot by that one too. I mean, it's it was going to be a very challenging site to bring into compliance in terms of like, sanitary sewer overflow protection. there was a lot of not a lot, but there's force main work that needed to be done in there anyway.
the wet well condition. So it was going to be one of the, the larger, replacement. So the lifts, it wasn't when we'd be able to just bring in compliance as it sat, we would have had to basically scrape it and build a brand new life station there. Anyway, I haven't I haven't really looked at that since, I got the kind of initial numbers on it, I don't know, like a year, year and a half ago.
so I don't know the direct impact that the added cost would have. I'd have to go back and see which which estimate I was using, but I can't imagine it would be much out of that kind of same time frame.
James:
Okay. I mean, we're we're talking about a couple hundred grand here to fix this, at least on the engineering side.
okay. Thanks.
Jason:
Thanks, Jim. Do you, Leah, do you have any questions?
Leah:
Okay, well, I do not. Sorry. My. Yeah. No.
Jason:
Okay. Thanks. Leah. All right.
Tera:
so what was the impact to the schedule?
Greg:
boy, that's been pretty significant. I think. I think one of the biggest reasons for divide this up into two packages was lift station three, the design and the approval. And, and the, much more significant upgrades to it was going to really, take a long time. And that's, that's when we all said, well, let's, let's do these two lift stations first.
And, and as a separate package. So, I mean, I guess I would just throw a number out, like at least probably a year by the time we would have gotten approvals from the state and finished the design on, lift station three. Thanks, Greg.
Jason:
Greg or Lisa, do you have anything else for us?
Lisa:
I did want to point out this is just through bidding. So if the district wants us to do engineering services during construction, inspections, things like that, that's not in here. I just want to be.
Greg:
And and and the reason why we didn't include construction is because we don't we don't know exactly when it will be. It will go to construction based on final approval.
So, equipment delivery times, our contractor schedules. So we can't we usually like to hold on that scope of work until we have a better idea of a construction schedule.
Jason:
Okay. Thanks, Greg. I will go ahead and make a motion then to, increase the budget, the engineering budget for the lift station upgrade project. job number 2246035.
This is Leah. I second, that motion. Okay. Having a second. We'll go ahead and move to vote. Tera I approve Jim. Approve. And Leah. And I approve as well. So the motion will pass and we will close out. Item number eight and move on to item number nine. It's presentation and consideration of third party supplemental environmental proposal slash agreement.
The SEP program level engineering. Jay, are you with us?
Jay Blackburn, Level Engineering:
I am, yes, can you hear me? Yes. Welcome, Jay. Thank you. Board.
So the SEP project is a supplementary environmental project allowed by the CDPHE folks in lieu of essentially paying the penalty for the sanitary sewer overflow, which occurred last July. So we've been working with the county, as well as CDP, to investigate potential SEP projects such that the district can apply plus or minus $130,000 in penalties towards a local project that's going to counteract the damages from the sewer overflow.
So the the main project we were interested is a Douglas County funded project that is intended to restore habitat and stream banks throughout East Palm Creek. It's been ongoing for about three years and has been phased out to accomplish several different sections to date. When we presented our, our proposal for the third phase of this project to the county, as well as our, our state representatives, they said, yes, this is going to be possible and would essentially result in a single payment from the district to the project coordinator for that $130,000 plus or minus that $130,000 will be utilized to construct the art and design improvements for this third phase.
So, you know, there's old cars, debris, things that we don't want in the stream bank and the stream throughout East, Creek. You know, it happened over time, but we're we're hoping these funds will be able to restore about a quarter mile to a half mile of of these Pump Creek and provide increased habitat as well as stream flow functionality, you know, hydraulic type type stuff.
And so it's, just south of Castle Pines on East Pump Creek. it is the same water that would have been related to the sewer overflow. And, at this point, we have I should I should say the county has submitted a proposal to the state for this project and is awaiting the board's approval of this project to proceed to the next step, which involves signature of final documents and the like.
Jason:
Great. Thank you. Jay. I think we're all kind of in agreement that we want this project to move forward, but, we will, make a motion as it.
Jana:
Jay, I had a quick question on the project budget on page six. Just the table where it goes over the, the cost, because since I had a chance to look at this earlier, that was one part I didn't understand. So which of these numbers is the one we're paying?
Or Is that not am I am I oversimplifying it? Actually,
Jay:
my understanding is it would just be that plus or minus $130,000 per year per the board,
Jana:
because the match funds was, the match funds. Oh yeah, concerned me that we were doing some kind of over match or or, you know, putting in additional beyond the 130. So that's, where that has the asterisk ACP funds from the flat iron at Aecom.
Okay. So that's saying that's where that's coming from. Okay.
Jay:
I'm not 100% sure of the agreement there is between the state and the county funded projects, but there is a match involved from the prior work such that, okay, okay, governments can provide this is matched elsewhere.
Jana:
Okay. But thank you for clarifying. So the 130 thank you. And and just reading through this I had no other questions.
It looks good. Thanks. with that, I will make a motion to approve the SEP funds. of 130. Hold on. Will I flip $130,978? to put towards the SEP project as presented. Kim, did I say that right? Okay.
Board Voting All Speak:
Second. All right. Having second, we'll go to vote. Tera. I, Jana. I, Jim. I. Leah approves and I approve as well.
So this motion passes and we will allocate those funds. I guess we should have asked. Nathan, this was in our budget, right?
Nathan:
Yeah, we've got it covered.
Jason:
All right, very good. All right. We will go ahead and close down the, presentation. Thank you, Jay, and
Jay:
you're welcome. I'll just add real quick. I'll make sure to get this over to the state tomorrow so that they can start working on the final documents. you guys should see those within a week or two here.
Board Voting All Speak:
Perfect. Thank you very much. Thanks to you. Thank you. Jay.
Jason:
Okay, we'll move on to the legal counsel's report now. Hello, Kim.
Legal Counsel Kim Seter, Esq.:
before Jay leaves, I want to point out that they've been working on those, property transfers into the IGA, and his people are just doing a fantastic job.
Jasin
So it's great to hear. And thank you for that.
Jay. You're Welcome.
Kim:
the first item, the Graham and Propst Immunity Act notice. The only reason I brought this before you is, we had submitted this to the insurance carrier. The insurance carrier denied the Propst claim. the attorney then came back and asked me if that was also our denial. I started to say yes, but then I realized when I say yes, it's just telling them you're going to have to sue us.
So I thought, I better clear that with you first, inevitably that's what will happen. And then we'll submit the claim back to the insurance carrier as a lawsuit. but I wanted you to know that before, before I do that,
Jason:
how much was the claim for? I think it's about $25,000. And what would it cost to defend?
Kim:
Well, we'll we'll we'll submitted to the insurance carrier, so won't cost anything. Okay. And you've already paid the deductible on it by the initial claim. but you will have a litigation case. Right. Yes. If you're okay with that. That's what I'm going to do.
Jason:
Any, questions from the board?
Jana:
I'm going to trust that that sounds right. Okay. I mean, that doesn't concern you or. I mean, no, this is standard,
Kim:
the only thing that concerned me is I didn't want you to see the district's name on a lawsuit without you knowing it was coming. so essentially, what's happened is we submitted to the insurance carrier.
The insurance carrier denied the claim. So it's an initial claim under the Colorado immunity Act. we now, give notice to the property owner that the insurance carrier denied it. That's our denial as well. then they have, I think, 180 days to bring a lawsuit if they want to collect. They already have an attorney. So I think that's what's going to happen.
Jana:
But it's not guaranteed that they will pursue a lawsuit. It's not a guarantee. No, no. Okay, okay.
Kim:
And if they do, I'll immediately turn that back to the insurance carrier as a covered lawsuit.
Jana:
And why would the insurance carrier provide, reimbursement or why would they cover the cost of the lawsuit, but not the cover of the claim?
Kim:
Well, they they researched the claim and then denied the claim. You have, coverage for liability as well as spills and things from your system. So they've denied liability for the spill, but now they're going to have to provide a defense for the lawsuit and indemnity. Okay.
Tera:
So I appreciate you telling us before before I appreciate you telling us that that's just not a way for our attorney to earn more money by billing us for a lawsuit.
Kim:
Actually, that's why I turn it back to the insurance company right away, because then they don't make anything. All right, that takes care of that one. the second item is the service plan. Amendment authorization attached to my status report was a very preliminary draft of the petition. You may recall into the IGA with the city. This has to be done by December 31st.
I again just wanted to get your authorization to submit the petition. Probably not until November, but, it is required under the IGA. the draft will ultimately look something like what's attached to my status report. And I'd like to submit it just whenever we're ready. So I'd like your authorization to do that.
Tera:
So I didn't see that in the packet. Where was your attachment? Oh,
Kim:
it's I think it's the first thing behind. No, it's not, it's the second thing behind the. It's behind the petition for inclusion. Draft.
Tera:
So because I was looking for a service plan and couldn't find it, it's kind of related to the next one where
Kim:
it actually looks like it says resolution of the city.
Tera:
Right. And my question with that one, the resolution of the city is, one of their Whereas's says that, something to the effect that, as the district's governing body approved their, their service plan, something about us being wholly contained.
And they, they, they can approve our service plan, but the best of my recollection is they can't. It's actually Douglas County.
Kim:
Correct. Okay. And that that is actually in the, the narrative in the status report that I need to make sure that that goes through Douglas County first. and essentially all we're doing is we're taking our old service plan, which included Parks and Rec and storm drainage and removing that power.
So you will no longer have that power.
Tera:
Right. And so is this the service plan then? No, no. Is this because I couldn't find our service plan and I don't remember where I remember I don't remember it read it several years ago obviously. But I did remember that. Yeah yeah yeah, yeah. And the county is who we have to submit to,
Kim:
correct.
And the original service plan I can't find either. I have found an amended and restated one that was done like a long time later. so that's kind of what we have to go with. The county doesn't have it either, but, we'll go through. I don't think we'll redraft it unless the county wants us to do that.
We'll just include this resolution saying that those powers are removed. Part of the reason I want to do this now and just have your authorization, is I kind of want to wait until most of those properties are conveyed, just in case something goes wrong. I want you to have the power to to do something with it as a, as a stormwater and and, parks district, just in case it's hard to see that anything could go wrong.
But I'm a lawyer. Something can always go wrong.
Tera:
Well, I just want to make sure the city knows that they can't approve our plan too.
Kim:
Yeah, they haven't seen this.
Tera:
So they may want to remove that Whereas.
Jason:
Jim or Leah, do you have anything to chime in on this?
Leah:
I do not.
James:
No, Jason I'm good.
Jason:
All right. Very good. Then I think we should, make, I don't think we make a motion, but we just give a directive to you to go ahead and, pursue this. Yep. That's fine. Okay. Thank you.
Tera:
do we need to make this a motion?
The motion for the. You already did for removing that.
Jana off-mic:
We needed to make a motion.
Kim:
The next motion you do need. Yeah. Okay. Under C. so that is we've received the first batch of property transfer documents, and, we're trying to match those up with the deeds. And, I wanted you to go ahead and approve the transfer of those properties.
The properties are listed in the status report. And then once you've addressed that motion, I'll discuss one further possible motion with you in that regard.
Jason:
Okay. I'll make a motion here to, I move the board, authorize the president and secretary to sign the conveyance stop conveyance documents of the properties identified by the attorney as batch one in his status report, as authorized by section 32-1-1001(1)(f) of the Colorado Revised Statutes. And deliver them to the City of Castle Pines.
Pursuant to the parks, open space and recreational facilities IGA upon approval of final documents by president, District manager and Attorney.
Board Voting All Speak:
And I will second Jason's motion. Have a second. We will go to vote. Tera. Hi. Jana. Approve. Leah.
Approve. Caught her Sleeping. Jim. Approve. And I approve as well.
Kim:
an item that's not on here. this morning I received the second batch, so if you would like. I don't think you you probably want to look at all these piles of documents if you would like to make this same motion, but state instead of, identified by the attorney as batch one, you can say subsequent batches.
And then as they come through, we can just process them. And if there's any questions, Jason. Nathan or I can bring those up and bring them directly to you separately. It's up to you.
Jana:
Okay. With that, I make a motion to move the board, authorize the president and secretary to sign conveyance documents of the properties identified with the attorney as subsequent batches in his status report is authorized by section 32-1-1001(1)(f) of the Colorado Revised Statute and deliver them to the City of Castle Pines pursuant to the parks, Open Space and recreation Facility, IGA.
Upon approval of final documents by the president, District Manager and Attorney.
Board Voting All Speak:
I'll second that, I second that. Oh. Thanks, Jana. Thanks, Leah. All right. We'll move to vote. Tera. I, Jana. I Leah. i, Jim. I. That's an I for me as well. So that motion passes.
Kim:
Thank you. That was a ton of work. You just did. other than that, you have my status report, and I don't have anything else that I need to have an action on.
Jason:
where are we at with the farm properties
Kim:
we have? I've received three proposals to purchase, and they're all kind of in a similar range. we still have the oil and gas attorneys trying to pull together what exactly we own. I talked to each of the three, individuals that proposed and told them that we have other bids and that the problem is we can't quite pin down exactly what we own.
And that I was considering suggesting to you that we put out a proposal that says, tell us how much you'll pay us, and you figure out what we own. And they said, that's probably a good idea because it's a very difficult system to navigate. So, I think at the next meeting I may propose that to you. it feels a little uncomfortable, but if there's three different entities looking at it, well, we can put in there as part of their response.
They need to tell us what we own and then put a bid on it and we'll see what we get.
Jason:
What if there's gold?
Kim:
What if there's gold?
I think they're drilling
Tera:
gold, not mold.
Kim:
They're drilling around it to get to the oil. So.
Jason:
All right. Very good. Thank you. We will close out the legal counsel's report. And, Nathan, are you hanging in there? I am all right. Welcome. I hope you're getting better.
Nathan:
plugging right along. it's really just more of an inability to sit down in any one specific spot, so that's been fun.
but for the meeting, I, before we before I jump into the agenda items, does anybody have any general questions about the district manager's report?
Jason:
Nathan, can I interrupt you for a second? Do you have another microphone you can use?
Nathan:
I have tried, is that any better? If I pulled my laptop up and kind of yell at it,
Jason:
yelling at.
It's a little better.
Nathan:
All right, so I will just try to talk loud, I apologize. so, does anybody have any general questions about my report before I get into the agenda items?
Jana:
I do I have one quick one. So, I see that you have a bullet for the September study session. and so I know you also sent us an invite to go to the Castle Rock water plant tour, which they slightly overlap.
thoughts on that?
Nathan:
we can I mean, we can we can move the study session however it then we also don't necessarily need to, have that as study session. We could always push that to the September board meeting as well. so this one ended up pretty heavy. But
Jana:
to the other board members, was anyone planning on attending that?
Because I had interest in it. And and responded today that I would go but then realized that overlap. Is there any way we could maybe just shift the meeting by about 30 minutes or something, so that those that wanted to attend that could still make study session, because I think it's a small overlap of time.
Jason:
I think Nathan's proposing just scratching the study session.
Nathan:
Or we could we could do both. And the we also have discussion, making the decision around the study session as a later agenda item to.
Jason:
Could you repeat that, Nathan, please? we also have, discussion in discussing the September study session as, later agenda item after my report.
Jana::
I still can't hear what he's saying.
Tera Off-mic:
So he's just said that we do have an item on our agenda at the very end, that for determining whether we want to have a study session,
Jana:
I follow Tera.
Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry, Nathan, there's just parts of it you can't hear, and I apologize, but I'm following. Okay?
Nathan:
Yeah. I apologize for the technological difficulties. Guys.
Jason:
Okay, let's, we'll just go through your report, starting with, monarch water line budget increase.
Nathan:
yeah. So the city is looking to move forward with extending the waterline project, on monarch right now, the scope is, set to stop just a little bit past Glen Oaks Avenue.
They are looking to extend that to Bergernot Trail. we were able to, pretty much capture the same pricing that they're looking at this year. both Lisa and Greg and ESI were able to, get some kind of cost estimates together for that. that as well as our 30%, percent share of the schedule A so for, for a lot of reasons, saving on mobilization costs, being able to capture, you know, this year's pricing and really be able to get a chunk of waterline done that we were planning on doing, next year.
Anyway, I think that it makes a lot of set. Go ahead.
Jason:
If I understand the city's planning on going forward with this regardless.
Nathan:
Correct. Yeah. And so that and that really does, Increase the, the need for us to, to go along with them, so it'd be looking at, an additional funding allocation for that project of about $950,000, with a projected total contract amount right now of 906,553.
Tera:
What I'm not clear on is if you're asking for a budget amendment for this year or next year, what what are you asking?
Nathan:
I don't know if it's, I think that's probably more of a question for Phyllis. I don't know if that's a an overall budget amendment. but I'm asking to spend, an additional 950,000 and part of it.
And I wish I had the, the the current numbers dialed down. I'm not sure exactly, where we're at with the, current contract amount. and I don't have that in front of me either, but. So basically, what I'm looking for is to get permission for the funding to extend the project from Berger or from Glen Oaks to Bergernot Trail.
Tera:
And I would be more interested in seeing those numbers that you talked about. So understanding where we are currently and, you know, if that was within our budget line item or what that looks like, because
Nathan:
it won't be. Yeah, it won't fall within the existing budget line item. We don't have enough funds budgeted to cover it.
Lisa Schwein, Kennedy Jenks:
Nathan, one thing I would just want to point out quick is, this this would just be a construction added construction cost, right?
You already had phase two of the waterline design budgeted, with the project that we started, correct? Yeah. So I think your 900,000 might be high.
Nathan:
Okay. I just went from the numbers that you that ESI had gave me and then the what the city gave me for their schedule A.
Lisa:
Oh, sorry, I forgot. We owe partial on their scope too.
Okay. Sorry.
Greg Sekera, Kennedy Jenks:
Yeah, it looks like 30% for the for the road part. The real participation.
Lisa:
That's my fault. I forgot about that.
Jason:
And, Nathan, if we let this, If for some reason we decide not to do that, then next year we possibly going to be spending a lot more money to get this done.
Nathan:
If we didn't do it, it becomes a lot more complicated for a lot of reasons. if the city redid the went, you know, the city moved forward without us, they would continue to do the road.
all of that would get done. And so we would be in a position where we either need to just kind of stop the water line where we're at and call it good enough. Or when we did move forward, we'd be doing it with a significant amount of money, more money spent on roadway construction costs. And we'd also be ripping through a brand new road to do it.
Jana:
I have an additional question that possibly Phil has just answered, and I didn't understand, but so we were anticipating this cost and but the the ask is to move it to 2024 from what we were anticipating to be spending in 2025. So this isn't coming out of nowhere. This is just to move forward and then, okay, if that Phyllis, can you confirm that that sounded correct or Nate, you can also confirm.
Nathan:
Yeah, that is correct. Okay. We were Planning moving yeah 2025 scope to 2024.
Jana:
And so the ask of 950 is that has a little bit of contingency because we're anticipating about 906. Is that where it's kind of rounded. Is that where we're coming up with that number. Correct. Okay. Just confirming I wasn't doing the math wrong. Okay.
no additional questions for me.
Phyliis:
Okay. I I'll just point out that, you know, you don't have to amend the budget for a line item adjust. So you just have to look at the expenditures in total and would amend if you thought you were going to go over that total expected budget. So once we get the financials, prepared, we'll be able to look at that more closely to see if we need to amend or should amend the budget before the end of the year.
Tera:
So how do we know we have that money?
Phyllis:
Well, we we have a healthy fund balance. So we do have enough funds. It's just a matter of how much we've allocated because we are anticipating a carry forward for like the water fund, $40 million. So we do have funds
James:
and when we, we need to, you know, approve that and let you guys know, obviously that would be great, but it sounds like we need some information or am I incorrect on that?
Nathan:
Yeah, I mean, we we're on a pretty tight time frame on this one in order to, in order to get this project done. we're, we're really looking at, you know, kind of just keeping the contract contractor on site and moving forward. So they've they've already wrapped the scope for the existing water line. They're working through paving. and so they're we're looking at, you know, breaking ground on this in a matter of, you know, the next couple of weeks.
Lisa
Oh, sorry, I was going to tell you guys, they finished up the water line all the way to Glen Oaks and backfilled it. And I think they started on roadway the end of last week, on that section of roadway, all the way to Glen Oaks. And one of the guys told me they anticipated a month for that.
So so we wouldn't start on the water line until that section was done and they could open up traffic, go in that direction. Okay.
Jason:
So, Nathan, if we don't do anything tonight, there's a good possibility we would have to come back for another session and vote on this. Correct?
Nathan:
Yeah, correct. I mean,
Yeah. Correct.
Jason:
Does Anybody have any more questions, Jim or Leah?
James:
Well, I mean, it's just real simple for me. I mean, one, it makes a lot of sense. We we essentially approved it going forward and into the next year, you know, for you really stuck to the original plan. But the only the only data point I think we need or is, is from Phyllis to basically tell us, you know, do we need to to amend our budget or is it just a line item change and we're moving money around or, you know, what is the process here?
I'm not quite clear.
Phyllis:
Are you if you're asking for about the budget amendment, you know, you could you could change the line item in the budget. anytime you'd like. We don't have to file that with the state. As long as there's total expenditure, stay under the total expenditures amount.
James:
Okay. I mean, and then I'll go back and ask the same question.
Do we know that or is that something you would have to go and look at this week or something? We could vote on it next time we meet. Like if we change that line item to cover this, does that put us over?
Phyllis:
I don't until we know the actual we don't know. So you'll come up with the dollar amount you want to add or change.
And then once we prepare the financials we'll look at the total expenditures to date. Then we'll have to estimate what we think it would be for the the end of the year. And then if we need a budget amendment we could file at that time. and if that's before the end of the year, then that would be that would be appropriate.
But might you file the budget amendment once you identify that you've gone over budget. So you have to do those and that in steps. So it makes sense.
Nathan:
So I guess the question that kind of comes with that is does would the result of that answer change the vote. So whether it's a line item, line item adjustment, that sits within this year's budget or it requires an upcoming budget amendment, would it requiring a budget amendment change it to a no vote?
I guess from where where I'm sitting, I don't. I hate to use this terminology, but I, you know, given all of the, given all of the factors that are kind of sitting on this, the timeline, the cost savings, the kind of dual projects going on, I don't know that if I mean, if we're going to do the water line extension or.
I don't know how to say this, but I kind of almost feel like we're we're a little bit hemmed into it, you know, if we if we need to get this water line done, the city's going ahead with the roadway project.
Jason:
Nathan. Nathan, I also think that, the community has been, very patient with having Monarch shut down as long as they have.
And if we have to come back next year and tear up the road again and spend more money to do it, I think that's going to reflect very badly on us. So I really encourage the board to just get this done.
James:
Yeah. I was with you. Jason, too. I was just trying to I wasn't even worried about that end of it.
I was just more of the mechanics of how we go forward here and can we go forward. That was all I was asking about, not whether or not it was. It made sense.
Nathan:
Got it. I understand the difference. Thanks,
Kim:
Mr. chairman, I think the the motion that you want to consider is, whether or not to accept the bid number.
DRL223467 from elite Surface infrastructure dated 12.21.23. And if you choose to do that, then, Phyllis will tell us eventually whether there's a budget amendment required. I suspect there won't be, but if there is, we can take care of that. At that time.
Jana:
Okay. Thank you. Kim. I think this is, financially the responsible thing to do, and we were planning on it anyway.
just so with that, I would like to make a motion to, accept bid number DRL223467. Am I saying that right, Kim? Yes. And to, move those move forward with those spending of those funds.
Board Voting All Speak:
Then I second that motion. All right. Having a second, We'll move to vote. Tera I Jana approve.
Jim approve. Leah approves. I approve as well. So that motion will pass.
Jason:
And, Nathan, we can move on to your next discussion of financial policy draft.
Nathan:
yeah. This one. I don't necessarily think we need to spend a lot of time with it tonight. I know with the audit, Phyllis hasn't really had a chance to kind of go over this.
I haven't had a chance to talk through it with Kim, either. one of the things, along with the rules and regs updates, it's been on the books this year is putting an official financial policy and procedures on the books. so this is the draft I've been working on for the past few months. It's, pretty heavily.
Research is based based on pulling neighboring districts and talking to, and finding out what they're doing. I've reviewed financial PCWRA's policies and procedures. They're actually in the middle of doing an update as well. and so and I don't know that it's a pretty a much thicker document that I had originally anticipated. So, I'm certainly open to any comments that anybody has.
but I think it might be wise to, just give it a little bit more review time. before we look at kind of any, any kind of adoption on it.
Jason:
I agree,
Tera:
I agree, I do have some comments, for you and I can just do those one on one. I've read through it once, but I would like to read through it more.
Nathan:
All right. So if there is anything else on that, the the other next thing I had on the agenda was, really more of a heads up for the board. a couple weeks ago, about maybe a week and a half ago, we did have a, potentially fraudulent charge come across our bank account. it was for $2,400 and some change.
It looks like it may have, more likely been somebody just put in the wrong, account number when they did a, did a draft, but we had, we had a charge for $2,400, come across our account. Susan was able to catch it immediately. We refuted the charge, and we're able to stop everything. what we did do coming out of that was we met with, citywide, and we have some designated financial services reps.
so we met with them, the day after the or within a couple days of that happening to kind of talk through their recommendations. and so we're moving to a positive pay system. it had a fairly nominal cost. I think it was like $14 or, per account for something like that. That'll basically stop this from potentially happening.
That was the only draft, that was made. We didn't have any other ones come across and really, it'll just, require us to review payments before they get released rather than allowing just a straight EFT to come out of the bank account. but all of that was already in place, and I can try to answer any other questions that you guys have around it.
Not sure that I'm doing the best job of explaining it, but.
Jason:
I trust you working with the bank is, sufficient here. Thanks for keeping a heads up on that. and then you have on here the rate study is that, moving forward?
Nathan:
yep. The rate study is moving forward. we, it was kind of pending the audit.
So the last kind of, or the, dump of information that, they need to, do the rated at the rate study update was really kind of dependent on the 2023 actuals going through. So now that we're, getting closer to, getting all of that stuff finalized, we can send that over. they did say that they don't necessarily need the finalized and approved 2023, that as long as we're fairly confident that the numbers we're using are, not going to really go anywhere, that we can get that over to them.
So I think that I'll, I'll verify, with them in the next couple days. But I think that the information that we have should be sufficient to, get that, get that study completed and hopefully have it at the September board meeting.
Jason:
Okay. And, just skipping through a couple things here. Daupler was brought up earlier. Do you want to expand on that at all?
Nathan:
no, just it's it's a good thing. So we've got we're getting ready to do the testing for the emergency or the emergency services. So what this will let us do is outside of our normal, kind of mail or email list or let us use account, billing account information to directly notify residents in case there's an emergency.
one of the biggest, pieces of feedback that we got coming out of that boil notice was like, well, you've got our phone number, you've got our email. Like, why didn't you send something out? things like reverse 911 and those other methods were a little bit delayed. And so, yeah, we're in the final stages of getting that ready to go.
it'll also let us do much more targeted notifications. So if we have a waterline break that's going to take just a neighborhood out, it's, really kind of simple, task to go into the app and put in some basic information, and then we can just send out a notification to those residents would be directly impacted. so I'm glad to see that coming online.
And like I said, we should be seeing some testing come out in the next couple of weeks.
Jason:
All right. Very good. regarding your, Special Districts Association conference in Keystone, if, if you have an agenda or something you'd like to share with the board. And so if anybody's interested in maybe catching some of that, if they could see what the topics are, that would probably be helpful.
Nathan:
Yeah, I can absolutely get that to you.
and then I also have, an email I need to send out. That's just the updated SDA 2024 board packet, board member info packet. So I'll get that sent out, the next couple weeks, but I can or in the next couple days. But yeah, I can absolutely get some, agenda items pulled together for the, Keystone Conference.
It's a it's a good one.
Jason:
Great. Does any of the board have any other questions for Nathan?
Tera:
So, Nathan, I don't have any questions. That you have on your report, but I do have a question. considering the public comment earlier, and, I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit, about our water quality.
Nathan:
Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, we we work really hard to stay transparent. with that water quality, we, we follow and meet or exceed all state, standards.
So we do, you know, 20 or so monthly bacteriological tests. We've got a pretty robust sampling schedule there, that, that the state provides to us to let us know what contaminants we need to, test for and wind all of that information gets included in our annual consumer confidence report, the 2023. The 2024 report, covering data from 2023, was just released, at the end of June.
So that went out, and, billing email or we have, those available at our office. and so we, we really are making sure that we hit those metrics in terms of, in terms of overall water quality. We, you know, when we're especially when we're on our deep wells, we've got really great source water. the downside of that does come with that increase, that kind of increased, amount of iron.
That's a really high iron, heavy source. and so we're iron is a tier two contaminant. And so it's, EPA kind of breaks contaminants down into two categories. And that second tier ones that don't have, known acute or, long term public health impacts. They, they have negative impacts on the esthetic quality of the water. And so even though the discolored water that we've, that we've been dealing with, really since the formation of the district, even though that doesn't fall in the category of something that could cause public harm, you know, even when we're looking at our filtration evaluations and our filter pilot studies and our, treatment processes and our distribution management
processes, that's something that we're still working really hard to fully mitigate. So, apart from just kind of meeting those baseline requirements, you know, we we want to have, a public that has a high degree of confidence in their water, and we want to go in above and beyond those standards where it makes sense to do so.
and, you know, I just I continue to encourage, you know, residents as those, as those issues come up, you know, please, please hold us accountable if you think that there's, areas for improvement and we'll we'll stay open and listen to them. But, I mean, we we've done a lot of work over the past 3 or 4 years to really, really try and increase the reliability of our system and make sure that we continue to deliver safe, reliable water.
Leah:
And thank you. This is Leah, thank you for that. I know for me personally, it's just been really helpful to to have you as a resource and to be able to ask questions. so my follow up question would be, why does it why does it seem like it's sporadic? You know, like in some locations and not in others?
Or it comes and it goes, any sense like why that happens in general?
Nathan:
Yeah, a lot of there are a lot of factors if we're talking just about, discoloration. One of the things that we have been, that we have not really been dealing with the last year or so that we did have a problem with, before we did the kind of first round of major upgrades that the treatment plant would be kind of getting these, like, burps out our filters, so our filters would boil or, just meaning that they'd release air, or we'd get a little bit of breakthrough that would kind of let some of that iron loose.
And so one of the if we're if it's coming from the treatment plant, which again, isn't something we've been dealing with in recently, then really just how close are you to the treatment plant has a huge impact. Like how close are you to that first tap? tends to be, more negatively impacted. Other than that, it gets driven by a lot of different factors.
So if you're at the end of a cul de sac, you're more likely to see it. but, the iron buildup happens more extensively in pipelines that don't have as much flow. So ends of cul de sacs, longer dead ends, those can those can create those, those types of disturbances. so, yeah, I guess there's a, there's a lot of a lot of factors, but really it's just the biggest ones probably.
How close are you to the treatment plant and then how, how often does the water in the pipeline in front of your resident or in front of any given residents get turned over to kind of allow that buildup to happen more?
James:
Yeah, I'm Nathan, a comment on that and everything you said it is awesome information. But one of the things I see on Nextdoor sometimes, as well as people aren't doing normal.
And again, this is hot water, but people aren't doing normal hot water tank flushing. And I think sometimes we might be seeing some of that as well.
Nathan:
Yeah, that's a that's a big part of it. I'm glad you brought that up. You know normal, normal water. So we've got we've got kind of back it up a little bit.
So there's, you know, soluble iron inside of the our source water. When we add chlorine to that, it causes that iron to fall out of solution that gets big enough that our filters can grab it. And then we add more chlorine as our primary disinfectant dose post filter. we don't get all of the iron through that process.
We don't get 100% of it. And so some of that iron stays in solution. and then as it kind of goes through the system with time, which is kind of why it's, it's more, prevalent in cul de sacs and things like that. But so the longer that water stays out in our system, the more likely it is that that iron will kind of accumulate that that additional iron precipitating out that process is drastically sped up by heat.
And so when you're inside of a water heater, that process is, is accelerated. and this is something you'll see in any distribution system, really anywhere. The, the actual, mineral constituents might change a little bit. but so for that reason, like once a year, it's really recommended that once a year you flush out the water heater to get all of that stuff out.
when residents call us, to let us know that they're seeing some discolored water, that's actually the first question that we ask is, we asked them to run their hot water and their cold water independently of each other. more often than not, it's only in the hot water. And flushing that water heater will solve it out.
And so that's, that's a really great point.
Jason:
Thank you for addressing that, Nathan. Does anybody else have any questions for Nathan?
All right. We'll go ahead and close out the, the district manager's report, and we will continue with the discussing the discussion of a necessary discussion of September study session, jeez. Nathan, what? Did you have anything on an agenda that you wanted to, do with us?
Nathan:
really just leading into, budget session? I wanted to review, kind of like, some staffing things and then just go over some general contracts for services that we, that we have been using.
and I think that, just with the board meetings kind of heavy, I thought it might be good just to sit down as a, as a board and, myself to go over some of those things, because it's in the realm of kind of like contractual, staffing stuff. I was hoping we could put that in a study session and then do it, inside of an executive session.
But I needed to, I need to let Kim weigh in on that. it's nothing that necessarily has to happen inside of us inside of a study session, but, it would it made sense to me to be kind of a standalone. even more of a workshop, for lack of a better term.
Jana:
So we usually start study sessions at 530. And that Castle Rock tour was 4 to 6, but I wanted to attend. So my request is if we do move forward with the study session with the board, consider, starting this study session an hour later at 630. If we anticipated that, wouldn't throw anybody off.
Tera:
Well, so, Jana, if I may, I also reached out to Castle Rock and they were.
Their reply was really nice, and I didn't get a chance to connect with Nate on it, but they said that we are welcome any time and they may do a tour for us. So maybe what we can do is have Nate reach out to them and see if maybe there's a better time that we could come. Since we have a study session.
Nathan:
Yeah, I can I can do that. I'll see Mark on Wednesday for the board meeting. I can certainly talk to him about getting that set up. He was, Jason and I did a tour there. Oh, I don't know, a year and a half ago. And he was he was very accommodating, so I'm sure that's something we could do.
Jason:
Yeah, I think you might get more out of it if it was just the board instead of the public and the board. But, but it was I did do it with Nathan last, last year, I think it was. And, if you haven't met Mark. Mark is an amazing person. is so knowledgeable. And so it's really a lot
Jana:
great.
That would work for me, but they are feeding us dinner also. I'm just kidding.
Nathan:
I'll make spaghetti.
Tera:
I'll buy you a hotdog.
Jason:
All right, so it sounds like we do need a September study session for to discuss budget issues. Is that what I'm hearing? Nathan?
Nathan:
yes. specifically professional service contracts and staffing.
Jason:
All right, so we'll leave it at that. We'll do our study session. What there's going to be on 18. Thank you. So we'll do it for September 18th.
All right. we can close down then item number 12 and move on to item number 13. Director's matters. Do any of the directors have anything they'd like to discuss?
Jana:
None for me.
Jason:
All right. I guess we have, learned all we can learn tonight. We will go ahead and close out item number 13 and adjourn the meeting. Thank you.
James:
Good night.