Study Session
January 23, 2025
Transcript
Describer:
Special Meeting Work Session
Thursday, January 23rd, 2025, at 5:30 p.m.
7404 Yorkshire Drive, Castle Pines, CO 80108
I. Call Special Meeting Work Session to order.
II. Board discussion: Long term goals and strategies. Director Enquist, Facilitator.
III. Action items pursuant to discussion, if necessary.
IV. Adjourn
Describer:
The video starts on graphic with a white background and forest green letters which says “Castle Pines North Metro District Study Session January 23, 2025”. The meeting opens on a shot of all board members present.
Board President Jason Blackaert:
Good evening and welcome to the Castle Pines North Metro District special meeting. Work session. Today is Thursday, January 23rd. It's, 5:30 p.m.. We will call this work, the special work meeting session to order, item number two. Board discussion, long term goals and strategies. I'll, turn this over to Leah.
Board Member Leah Enquist:
Thank you. Jason. it's really good to see you all. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. And, I'm really excited to kick off the new year as a board. just starting to discuss and think through and prioritize our long term goals. So the way that I structured these slides to help hopefully facilitate this conversation is first, identify our long term priorities.
Describer:
On Screen:
PROCESS
I. ID long term priorities
II. Prioritization exercise #1
III. ID options to meet long term goals
IV. ID pros/cons of each option
V. Prioritization exercise #2
VI. ID next steps + owners
Leah:
And so after this I have a slide where I can capture all of those from the board. And then the second step will be to as a board prioritize those long term priority priorities slash goals. the next step is to then identify. So what are our long term options? as a as a metro district to meet those long term goals, what are the pros and cons of each one of those options?
Another opportunity to prioritize as a board. and then the last step will be, you know, based on our priorities as a board, what are the next steps? Who's going to do what? And do we have any target time frames to put against those just to make, this actionable? Any questions about the process? Okay. feel free to jump in at any time.
Describer:
On Screen.
Current Mission Statement
Provide sustainable, high-quality, clean, safe, reliable, on-demand drinking water, and wastewater services to the residents of Castle Pines North Metropolitan District at the lowest possible cost.
Leah:
And, I included this in here at Nate's, great suggestion. It's really to just ground us in our our current mission statement, and I think it's pretty general enough. But as we go through and we identify our long term priorities and goals. I think it is important that we one keep this in mind, but then also to like, perhaps revisit it, if we need to revise it to be more in alignment with, what we discussed today.
Board Member Tera Radloff:
Well, thanks for including that. And I think that's a great place to start, because the two things that jump out to me, I know this is going to surprise you. sustainable, which to me means renewable water, long term renewable water. And the other thing that jumped out at me is safe because it doesn't really matter. Like whether you're talking city role or any other role, people want to live somewhere that they feel safe.
So those are those are the two that are my my top, top priorities. Renewable Water I, I know I say it all the time, but the safe and I think we're addressing that with our water treatment plant upgrade. But just to kick it off,
Leah:
I love it. thank you for transitioning us right into the next slide, which is basically, you know, what are our long term priorities?
Describer:
On Screen. Slide Title "ID long term priorities + prioritization exercise"
Various boxes with labels as follows: Safe water, Renewable... Director Enquist will type in boxes as the board discusses these priorities.
Leah:
And I'm doing my best to capture them live here as we talk. pretty much any time I'm typing in front of a group, I misspell any word that can be misspelled. So I'm just going to go with that. I'll do my best and I want to, Yeah. so I captured safe water, I captured renewable, water.
And again, like, if I'm capturing any of these inaccurately, just speak up. But this is really meant to just be like an open forum. and I don't know, is there a way to, like, Tera can't see the water. She can't. Okay. I just yeah, she just can't see that very well.
Describer:
Board members discuss with crew to help other board members see the screen. Board members swap seats while the crew facilitates the new positioning so that Director Enquist can display her presentation on screen.
Leah:
Okay. Just so you. Would you.
All Speak:
So she she's actively typing. What makes sense? Are you. Hey, Tera. Jana. Suggestion we can swap because then that way you like, you and I can swap so you can see if you want to. Leah will be able to see it on our screen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I can also see.
For myself and then I can just. It's not a problem to draft. Your power. Right. Like I said, I'll let you know if it starts to dwindle. But I don't know if you be able to see. Okay. Thank you. I moved, and I.
Yeah. Okay.
So you know what? You can use that, what that says. And I see this right here by the heater. I'm very happy that. Okay.
Jason:
Okay. All right. Thank you. Leah. I'd like to piggyback on Tera, and I would like to say renewable water as well. other priorities I think we need to look at is staffing. I think we need to look at, maintenance. And when I say maintenance, I mean the projects that we have coming up, being, for one, the, Lift Station,
overhaul or whatever we're calling it. yeah, yeah. And then, having our budget done on time, I think is a priority, but I think we're in a better position this year than we were in previous years.
Tera:
Yeah, I might say finances or something. I don't know if we want to if budget is to finite because there are other things that we want financially.
We want those reports, monthly that show us where we are. I think it's thing. So I don't know. I mean, I don't know if we do more than one, but
Leah:
we can like if finances isn't accurate and we need to say two things to be crisp and clear,
All Speak:
and it makes it easy for a so budget. You got the budget.
Because if I have one for my audit.
Board Member Jana Krell:
We also have the audit. So if we run out of stickies we can combine it. But I feel pretty good about where we're going.
Leah:
Yeah, I can make more.
What else?
Jana:
I don't know what word I want this one to be, but, as a civil engineer, we have this joke that if we're taken for granted, we're doing our job well. So if you're turning on your water and you're not thinking about it, if you're flushing your toilet and you're not thinking about it if you're driving to work.
So we we want to fly under the radar. And so to me, we don't want people to think about us because we want to be that reliable and we want to be so.
Tera:
So is like consumer confidence is
Leah:
I put it just works. I don't know if that's accurate though. Like it just works and you don't have to think about how it works.
Tera:
Yeah. I mean I think there's a lot in that I think, you know, there's legs with reliability. There's like the communications piece. Right. Because it's we don't want to hear from people, but sometimes we gotta tell them what we're doing so that they know. But yeah, we're I think we're all saying no more, surprises or anything.
Jana:
We don't want to be on the headlines.
Yeah, we don't want to be. We don't want to be making news.
Tera:
Yeah, we want to see the news.
Okay. And that relates to the maintenance, too. So I mean, they're all kind of connected.
Board Member James Mulvey:
I guess, since you piggyback, I'll piggyback and A couple people touched on it, but, talk about maintenance, but maintenance and projects. Looking forward, it it's to me, it's two parts. One, I don't feel like, you know, we talk about projects, we describe projects, we don't status projects effectively. And I think that may go back to staffing.
Maybe not. but I'd like to, you know, have a forward looking plan that both describes projects and effectively defines the maintenance that's required every year. And then maintenance schedules for all the major systems. Looking forward, maybe. Well, capital improvements is like the separate thing, but I still don't have a sense of what things we need to be buying.
You know, like spare parts when we need to do major overhauls, maintenance.
Tera:
So is one capital improvement plan and one, project. yeah. Project.
James:
I'm sorry. I kind of walked around a little bit, but I kind of want to, like, give people a chance to two things
Tera:
like project status and capital improvement plan.
James:
And then, you know, layered on top of both of those is an effective means of communicating those projects, both in schedule and budget.
Tera:
So I would say communications is one of our because that's come up a couple times.
Leah:
Yep. And it comes here. I think one thing I think about is, streamlined ops. So thinking through like, are there duplicative government functions, that we could streamline, could we streamline by, you know, integrating with a larger district? But, you know, how can we streamline our operations?
It was one that I had, I also think, being proactive versus reactive, and I think that probably goes to what you're talking about is, I mean, you can't plan for everything, but how can we plan for the bulk of the business that we do so that it doesn't always feel like we're having to react and, and, you know, and quickly to and make informed decisions.
the other thing that I think through, too, is like a long term priority would be like a good reputation. I don't I don't know if if we polled the residents what
Tera:
I think that's the same thing that Jana was saying.
Leah:
There's two different notations. That like the same thing you were trying to say. Or do you feel like it's a little different or slightly different from what I.
Jana:
Yeah, sorry. This is a very casual setting for me, but, I'm thinking when I'm saying go under the radar, just be reliable, you know, not have to think about us, but having a good reputation to me, that's, you know, that we're we have award winning water. You know, we've got you know, when I went to see this, I told Nathan this, I want to see plaques on the wall for clean water.
That's a thing.
Tera:
Other things, other things like that.
Jana:
When we go to these water treatment plants, you know, there's awards lining the walls. And I said to Nathan, I want to I want to get one of those. So that to me goes along with the reputation
Leah:
another thing that I feel like I hear a lot is from a residents standpoint, like, hey, why don't we test for this?
Why don't we do this? And it's like, well, we're doing what we're legally obligated to. and so are there opportunities long term to go over that minimum bar? I don't know how to work
Jana:
above and beyond testing.
Leah:
Yeah. and I think that will hopefully dovetail into the reputation piece.
What else? How do we want residents to think and feel about the metro district? One?
Jana:
This one seems so basic, and I can guarantee we all want this, but. So maybe it doesn't need to be said, but no CDPHE violations like that.
Leah:
I was going to say no, but I don't do it.
Jana:
Do we put that on there?
I mean, nobody wants those. So.
Tera:
I think this exercise, you put everything down and then you go down. Yeah. Well.
Leah:
What else? Anything else. And we don't have to, like, force it. But I just want to make sure that I capture everything. Looks pretty good.
Jana:
This might be too in the minutia, but, I know Nathan discussed vehicles. And so when we're talking about staffing that went along with it of tools and equipment and vehicles was a part of that.
And then, Nathan, you can object to this one, but training is that okay. Training. So, you know, we constantly want any staff We have to continue to sharpen their skills and to obtain additional license or whatever. What certifications. So to me, training of staff.
Tera:
Looks like there should be a fancy corporate word for that. Like level of something like,
Leah:
like CLE or whatever for a level of something staff or continuing legal education.
like center those which accredits this is great. What what else? Anything else. And the next step will be then like vocal vote.
Jana:
Okay. Yeah. I want to focus on the infrastructure now. So I want to say I want us to have, I don't know how I want to say this, but I want I don't want to what would be the opposite of aging infrastructure that is constantly breaking? Like, well, that's the maintenance.
James Off-mic:
Yeah, because I come in here all the time and I'm not sure.
Yeah, the age of five, the age of systems. I think we should be actively trying to identify which. Sorry, I think we should actively try to identify those types of things so we know what we need to plan for, like two year increments or five year increments, or
Jana:
then I'm potentially of two things. So I want to say quality infrastructure.
So infrastructure that has 25 plus years of life left. And but then to what Jim is saying, I know Nathan has commented on this before, but, what is it called when you have your asset management and you know your life, like what the life cycle is of, hey, next year, Jim,
Leah:
that asset inventory. But I think we kind of I think we have that.
Oh that's that's yeah.
Nathan:
Perfect Amortization works. yeah.
Jana:
Well said. So something that would tell us when that cycle was coming up and if, hey that pipeline that needs to be on our radar. So.
James:
Great. And that I think there I think that goes with your no violations and no broken water pipes and no missing valves and, you know, or valve handles and that kind of thing. It's like we should get on, you know, get everything on a list and identify what needs to get replaced. I totally with you on that one.
Jana:
Again, I might be redundant, but state of the art. state of the art treatment. But I'm already seeing that with the green sand, like, so, that's an example of a proactive like, let's try this. So I like state of the art treatment for water. Our water facility.
Leah:
Anything else? And if we have more than three things, that's okay. more stuff.
Nathan:
I do have a thought around the state of the art, and I'm not entirely sure how to, capture this in a sticky note. I think that, rather than using my approach on all of these things, has never been to try and get the best technology.
My approach has been to get the right technology. So there's a lot of applications where we don't need a state of the art controller. We need the controller that's best suited for the task at the right price point. And I don't really know how to balance that with, you know, we don't want to go full blown state of the art.
We want to make sure that
Jana:
I agree. I agree with that. I'm not trying to. Also, I don't think the our metro district needs to be trying things out that haven't been vetted before, but, but still, I want to see us saying, well, you know, when we go to other water treatment plants, why aren't we doing that?
And Nathan say we are, we're about to, you know, that kind of
James:
as far as equipment, you know, things like software and equipment and management stuff. one of the things I see, you know, in my current role is when you pick software, you pick systems that aren't actually industry standards. It makes it more difficult to hire. And if you have an emergency where you have to leverage another district or have somebody come in and, you know, do something temporarily, it's much more efficient and easy for somebody to step in when we have similar identical systems to other municipalities in the local area, if not statewide.
And I think that should be a goal as long as it doesn't, you know, excessively drive cost. If you have a solution and you're picking one or the other, I think it it makes sense to kind of even if it's quote unquote, maybe not the latest and greatest, but if it's something that's in common use, I think there's a lot of benefit when you look at those kind of options.
Nathan:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think, a lot of what I'm hearing here too, is there's a lot of opportunities for me to work on, really just consistently communicating where we're at with a lot of those. So, like, that's, our, our, well, vault rehab project that we're doing right now, that's a key driver is getting a lot of these, like, bizarre, off brand pieces of equipment that we can never find parts for, and, like, unifying those parts and kind of standardizing all of our, well, sites with equipment that's more readily available.
so, yeah, this is this is great. I'm, I'm really enjoying this
Tera:
because I was going to say, it does seem like there's an assumption in this that we don't have any of these things or we don't
Nathan:
I don't yeah, I don't I don't feel that assumption. I think that it's I think that it's, you know, whether, you know, if it's if we put something on this list and we're already doing it like, that's great that it should still be on the list.
yeah, I this is really helpful. Actually.
Jana:
I think that's a good point Tera. I didn't think of it that way, but I do want to make sure that anything I've said, it doesn't mean that we're not doing it. It means that's important to me. Yeah. and then I did have another one, and I just lost it. Hold on.
James:
It will come back.
Leah:
Did I capture yours?
Tera:
I think the very positive thing about this is I look at all of those and they absolutely support the mission statement. And they're there to me. I could you know, it looks like some of them are sort of overlapping in my mind. They are. But but yeah, I like that they are.
They're all in line with our mission statement.
Leah:
So I'm still thinking about it.
Jana:
It's not going to come back to me because now it's the worst I know. But I will chime in if I can think of it, because I actually thought it was important. But right now I can't.
Leah:
I'll put a placeholder for Jana. This. This is Leah. Oh, God. Yeah. Don't. Is it
Jana:
purchasing guidelines!
I want we've we've gone back and forth about some documentation, but I'd like to. That one is one I feel comfortable saying. We've made a we've made a big step. But I want to see that get finalized of, spending, spending parameters and get that official.
Nathan:
and then Leah, this is probably fairly nitpicky and going back, but so the, the sticky note that you have for streamlined ops, I really like that.
How would you feel about just removing ops from it? That's more of just an industry kind of thing. So when we talk about water districts, operations is very separate from like administrative or whatever. I think streamline kind of captures the whole organization.
Leah:
Sure. and then, you know, another thing I'll say is there's a lot of really great stuff here, and I know we're going to just try to keep it manageable in our top three, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't focus on some of these, especially those I think, that are like low hanging fruit.
that would be easy to, to implement. so I feel like this is a good improvement list overall and things to think about. Anything else? Okay. so the next up, everybody has three dots. and I figured we'll just go one by one. and then you pick your top three priorities, and I'll move the dots to those.
and then the, the ones with the most, those will like as a board, we can consider those like a good draft of our top three long term priorities. Tera, do you feel comfortable starting
Tera:
safe water, renewable water, finances.
Leah
Okay. Jana, where is finances? I have.
Jana:
I'm in a purposely choose one to balance, so don't think that those three things are not paramount. Okay, so, so with that, mine is going to be no violations.
All Speak off mic:
You want to say? Something that would be helpful, Sure. I'll make a similar to.
Jana:
All right. Hold on. I want the redundant, redundant government.
Leah:
that was the streamlined. Yes. Streamlined.
Jana:
And then, I want the one for, infrastructure.
That's maybe it was lumped in with that, then maintenance done for the maintenance, and
Leah:
we had the amortization or the asset amortization.
Jana:
Oh, it was that it was that because up to me, that's what I mean, is that I want to, in it, you know what? It does overlap with proactive versus reactive because that is why I would like to see that.
So I think that's I think that's fine.
Leah:
Okay. Jason
Jason:
okay. So my three are, well, safe water. I think a lot of these things that we're asking up here cannot be done by one person alone. So we need to address staffing.
And then I would love to see no violations.
Leah:
You're up. Jim.
James off mic:
renewable.
And, forward looking plan based on projects. so for getting something like. I feel like I'm just talking to live next door over here, but, and then I guess the third one,
Jana:
May I make a suggestion? Leah, could we have five?
Tera:
So I think. Yeah, I just think it'll take a lot longer, but. Okay.
Jana:
Disregard.
Leah:
Well, how about this? Let's.
Tera:
Because again, we have this list. We're just trying to prioritize. It doesn't mean that we're getting rid of any of this. They're taking copious notes too.
Jana:
Five not needed
Nathan:
and I think something that we can something else that we can look at to like something that even with the votes have already been made, that jumps out immediately to me, right as we're looking at safe water and no violations, those two are inexorably linked, right?
Yeah. Like so I think we'll be able to kind of condense anyway,
James:
and I guess I'll throw one in at no violations as well.
Leah:
Okay. I'm going to go no violations as well. I'm going to go streamlined. And then.
I'm going to go proactive versus reactive. So. We have a tie I'm okay having our top four if that's okay. Which would basically be no violations. Safe water renewable water and streamlined.
Tera:
Because I think again a lot of those things can fit into that bucket. Yep.
Nathan:
Yeah. If you wanted to stick with the top three model, I think you could even do like safe water and like no violations.
Describer:
On screen. Slide Title ID Options; Pros & Cons; Prioritization Exercise, Leah will explain and fill in this slide as the board discusses.
Leah:
Yep. Okay, guys, this is I think this is the meatier slide. first slide was more to just ground us and get us, like, thinking about where what our goals are in the future and then any options that we start thinking through again, they should support those goals. so I think the best way to do this is go through all the options first, and then kind of go through, and list out the pros and cons that we know, some we might not know today.
And I think that's that's okay. So for example, you know, an IGA with the city for water and wastewater, you know, if Michael Penny is going to come for the next meeting, hopefully he would provide more information to help populate those pros and cons. So again, it's just what we know today. And and when we think about next steps, it could just be we don't we don't know enough information.
So what are our next steps to get that information that we don't know and that we need. so with that I'll just again, kind of open forum, one that I'll just throw out there to, to kick it off would be to keep the district like the metro district, as is like just kind of business as usual. What we're doing today could be an option.
Jason Off mic:
For doing all of these, which
Leah:
I figured we'll go through all the options first and then for each option we'll do like the pros, you know, like all in one place. And then the cons all in one place for that.
Jana:
How does this translate from the previous slide.
James off mic:
Yeah, that's where I was.
Leah:
Oh no sorry. So sorry options would be.
So thinking through things like you know keeping the metro district as is this is a different topic. Yeah sorry different topic. So it was more the first slide was to ground us in like what are the things we want to accomplish. like our goals and our priorities. And then this is like our options as a metro district to accomplish those.
and so like merging with Parker, merging with Centennial, merging with Castle Rock and evaluating, closures. Just it's whatever those that so like staying keep the metro district as is
Jana:
or the dominion discussions you know kind of things like that. Like where are we going as a metro district. Is that what is that what you're looking for exactly?
Jason off mic:
I don't know that we can talk about that amendment. Okay.
Jana:
That's fine. That was just an example of one of like,
Tera:
maybe it's higher level, like merge with another district. Yeah. Wholesale. Look at. Yeah. Wholesale water. Look at, you know, other entities and you know like the next level down which is naming the.
Jana:
And then Leah, we could even just say merge with merger with another town.
Another one. Another water district. Sorry. That's specific.
Leah:
Do we think there would be value in breaking them up? Buyer like legitimate options only because like that might shift the pros and cons depending on which metro district we're talking about.
Jana:
Just my $0.02. I think we keep a high level right now.
Leah:
Keep it high level. Okay. Merge with another.
All Speak:
And I mean there's kind of finite options here. So is wholesale water on there. Yeah okay. That's the second one. What if we didn't know if I did a white background with. No. It's okay. Yeah okay. and then, you right in between I know. Okay, I know how to use. I need to get us a better projector.
See if that helps. Hey, there we go.
Leah:
I know I just can't type when it's in that mode.
any other way. I can't think of any.
Jana:
That's all I could think of, too. Because if we're keeping them high level and not going down in the weeds, to me one of those four is, I mean, because keep the metro district as is, it's one of these.
So yes. Okay.
Nathan:
There another possibility that I don't think we've ever actually, discussed would be it would be there are some scenarios where we could split services. Right. So we could theoretically join with another district as a water district and then stay a sanitation district where we just keep those kinds of services in
Tera:
because nobody wants our wastewater.
Nobody, nobody wants our shit.
Nathan:
Well, this the, the actually the actual kind of potential advantage there would be that we would get on some level potentially to keep that. Right. So you could, you could move your water into another district, you could stay a sanitation district and then have some type of ownership over those, reclaim rights. And that could be a revenue stream that supports.
Tera:
So what is that called again?
Nathan:
Split something. Service. Yes. Yeah. Service of the Division of Services I guess would be a way we could look at it. and we did have some internal conversations about that earlier on in the Parker, transition. because at the time and well, I guess still now the wastewater Enterprise Fund carries a debt and the Water Enterprise Fund does not.
And so in order to dissolve a district, you can't own anything and it can't owe anything. and so that was something that was briefly talked about, through that process
Leah:
and okay. Like that I'm just making this a little bigger.
Tera:
So these are the options that are supposed to I still don't understand how this is tied to the other side.
These are the only options to accomplish the things that we just prioritized. Or how are these related.
Leah:
It's more like as we think through. So for example, we said a priority was safe water. So let's I'm just throwing this out there. an idea with the city that's not going to get us to safe water. So then then we need to be thought like then, then we've got a disconnect between what we say is important to us and what we're thinking about doing in order to achieve that.
does that help?
Nathan:
And one, I guess kind of more glaring One, is regional partnerships.
Jana:
And what would that mean could do?
Leah:
Is that different than the wholesale?
Nathan:
it can be. so a wholesale agreement could be a standalone agreement for us to directly purchase water from another district. what we're currently working through with the, RFP in the Stantec project is actually looking at, you know, a lot of different things.
But one of those is like forming a regional water authority. and there's a lot of ways that that could look, inside of that is we say, you know, four independent entities that have some combining or transfer of, you know, specific assets or specific water rights to the control of a certain authority for everybody to use.
Jana:
What I'm picking up on that, though. Not though what I'm picking up on that is Leah. It's like staying as a metro district as is. But then there's a branch of wholesale. What. So it's it fits under that. So but it's still a metro district as is. And then these are the branches. I don't I don't know how to do that.
Leah:
But for the region,
Nathan:
I think I think I think that makes sense if you lose as it. So if you have keep the metro district then as is.
Tera:
But I don't I don't like that as is either, because we don't want to keep it as it is, because we're going for awards and zero CDPHE.
Leah:
So it would be a what's a better way to articulate that then, which is basically like we we don't do any
Jana:
maintain the district.
Leah:
Would that be appropriate.
Nathan:
So and then we could put that inside of the pros and cons list. Right. So yeah maintain the district. And then a pro of that could be, you know regional water partnership something.
Leah:
Oh instead of calling it out separately okay.
James off mic:
The big pro is we, are we fit?
Leah:
Like, I feel like we've captured all of the options, but are there any other options?
Yeah. Okay. okay. So maintaining the district, the regional water partnerships, what other
James:
sort of pro is like, focus on renewed, focus on renewable water? Because that was one of our things on the previous page. I think it dovetails with a few of those things, but I'll let you guys, if we go back to that page,
Jason:
I think maintaining the district, we have a little bit more control over costs.
Jana:
And to add to Jason, we have more control over in general, the future
Tera:
of infrastructure, the delivery mechanisms, the for sure.
Leah:
Cost etc..
Any other high level pros?
Yeah. And that's like again this isn't like hopefully this is a living I don't know, like it should be.
Tera:
Let's say that this is one and done because obviously I mean, I'm somebody who's going to walk away from this and I'm going to continue process and stuff's going to come, you know,
Leah:
and this was also meant to like capture all of the information to, so let's say, like, if you can think of something right now, that's okay.
so I'll move on to cons, but if you think of other pros, let me know. I think one con would be,
Jason:
aging system. System.
James:
And I think, like in the cost to maintain. That's also, you know, you you strive to you've just I think we've described ourselves as a small or a medium water district in the past.
Nathan:
Yeah. It's it's kind of an amorphous term. So it's hard to nail down, in terms of strictly in terms of the average size of a water district where a large breakout. Okay. But that that can kind of like shift the perspective, I think, a little bit unfairly, because when you're looking at the sum total of water districts, the vast majority of them are like campgrounds or single hotels.
And so we're not really in there. you know, we're we're a mid-sized community water system would probably be the most accurate way to say it,
James:
okay, then it, it really that my comment goes to, you know, it's, it's costs related, but it's also, you know, if the, the cons are I think if we did merge and didn't mean, you know, if we maintain as is, then we have fixed costs related to our facilities that we can't spread over.
You know, we can't leverage other facilities, we can't leverage other towns, we can't, get economies of scale, so to speak. That's.
Tera:
Gonna say, help me understand how that's the cost as a con, because the cost to maintain your system is going to be the cost, whether it's no matter who owns it.
James:
So, so I think but I was, I was thinking, you know, if you, if you didn't maintain the district or we merged, then, you know, essentially you could mothball facilities, you know, they'd still exist, but you're not maintaining them or you maintain them at a lower level, as
Tera:
do we have that many facilities that we could mothball them.
James:
We're I'm specifically talking about water treatment. You know, lift stations are pretty much fixed, and you can't really get rid of those or you can't do the job. But I'm saying, you know, the only thing that you can leverage really would be the water treatment facility. If you got water that was clean through the pipe and didn't have to go there, that's all.
Nathan:
Yeah. And so there's a couple of, I think, kind of ongoing examples that I could give there that once you get into much larger system. So for example, we we have maintenance and repair contractors. So when we have a main break, we call somebody else, you know, we're paying a private business who is making a profit off of us.
you have to get to a pretty a very substantially sized system before you can bring those things in-house. But once you do those costs per like per event go dramatically down because you want all of the equipment you're on the staff, you're, you know, paying literally what it cost to fix that main. And so when you go with those larger utilities, a lot of those types of functions, can get driven down.
Tera:
Thank you guys. I appreciate you putting in context.
Leah:
I added one just and we haven't taken a poll of the residents in a while and things may or may not have changed, but maintaining the district I put, that's not what our residents voted for. It's kind of,
Jason:
I don't know if I go that far because only a thousand people voted to go for inclusion.
So that was the whole vote. so it wasn't that people didn't vote for it. The thing is, it's not that they wanted to see go away. They just saw an opportunity to go to a bigger system.
Leah:
Yeah. Okay. So I'll just put like the vote was for Parker. Okay.
Jana:
Okay. Have some Cons. let me make sure I'm on the right topic, and I'm thinking of maintaining a district.
We were understaffed. but then to add to that, you don't have to type this. But we do have difficulties in hiring and maintaining staff just because of being a smaller district, less opportunity for career progression. so and then, this is counter to what the pro is, but, as a district right now, we don't have a plan for renewable water, so.
But you know what I'm talking about. I don't I don't think that needs to be in the cons because we would pursue one. We would develop one. Okay. Yeah. Remove that thought.
Tera:
Okay. So just a comment and about, sort of the vote and the whole Parker thing perpetuating that I think does a disservice to our residents because, not only was that quite a while ago, but that when that, when that December date came and the contract didn't go through, there is no Parker deal and anything there is no Parker deal mean that that was it terminated at the end of that on that December.
So, I think the other thing that I would say for that is we don't know how much turnover has been here. Not only was it not, wide section of our residents, you know, anything anything that we do in the maintaining or wholesaling or anything, we have to start from square one.
Leah:
Oh, absolutely. So I hear you.
I want to keep it as a con. you may not agree with it, but I want to keep it, happy to think through a better way to articulate it. but, I mean, I, I don't agree that I. Hold on. Let me finish, please. I don't agree that, perpetuating it is a disservice because it's just stating a fact, and it's the most current information I have to work with.
And as a board member, that's that's why I ran. and so for me, I still see it is a con based off the most current recent information that we have. And to your point, it could be different. And I think that's something to talk through as a next step. like, do we want to try to get a pulse from the community to see where they're at?
Because it might be different.
Tera:
That would be a long way down because they don't have anything to vote on. We would have to see what it was that they would be voting on, which, by the way, anything we do is going to have to be voted on.
Leah:
All right. Yes, I agree, but I mean, I'm just saying until then, like it's a fact.
That's what they voted for.
Jason:
I think you could put on there that the citizens voted for a, including into a larger district and leave it at that to,
Jana:
to show support to that. When Jim and Leah and I, we sat here two years ago and we did the round robin questions, that was actually a question brought to us, right, that we all had to answer.
And so to me, why was it still being asked then? Like,
Tera:
that's my point because people don't understand that there is it was a it was a contract that had a deadline and the deadline wasn't met. So that that, you know, and that's why I'm saying I think it perpetuating. I like the way that Jason phrased it, but perpetuating the Parker thing, the Parker thing, there is no Parker thing.
Jana:
Understood. But I
Tera:
and to keep perpetuating and bringing up the name of that particular thing is, I think, confusing because why did that not go? If we remove that? Yes.
Jana:
If we remove reference to church one dog, would that feel better? Because then okay, are we good with that? Then chair does that. Thank you. Okay.
Leah:
I mean I think the other thing too is I'm viewing this as a way to collect information, and then we kind of synthesize it afterwards.
All that to say, like I do think we want to be careful. I think there's a fine line between policing somebody else's point of view and asking for clarification, and so that we can, you know, make sure that we're really clear in what we're trying to say. but again, all that to say, like if you have a pro that I don't agree with, like I'm still going to capture it as a pro.
Any other pros or cons for maintaining the district?
Okay. wholesale water provider. And this is the one like I'm stuck on this one just in terms of understanding.
Jason:
So this would be similar to what we're doing right now. Who we buy our water from Centennial during the winter. We'll just continue doing that. Our plant's not running right now. So that's buying wholesale water.
Leah:
But yeah. But also just like I don't know if I can ask.
So you know, I, I think it's different
James:
I can you describe that deal with Centennial because I thought we were getting our water and they're treating our water correct. And we pay them a price to do that. But it's our water,
Nathan:
right. Exactly. Yeah. So the centennial idea, we have, a thousand little over 1000 acre feet of storage in Chatfield are to, our renewable and our reusable water.
Right. Gets deposited into Chad Chatfield reservoir. through the IGA they treat our water for us, put it in a tank that we can get it in, and we pump that water to the district. that agreement does have, windows of service, so we can only contractually only take that water, in the winter in our low peak months.
And that has a lot to do with centennial capacity. And so that's a little bit different than when we're talking about a wholesale agreement. the I think. It's kind of illustrate that I'm going to talk about Denver water a little bit. So Denver Water has three extraterritorial service options. Basically they've got tier one, tier two and tier three.
the first tier of that is the wholesale water provider. And so it's where the district will come to them and say, hey, we need water. You know, for whatever reason in Denver will create an entry point with a master meter. And then Denver is selling that water to the other district. As with that other district, being a customer of Denver Water, there are other service agreements or more about like maintenance and meter reading and the level that Denver water takes over.
But it it's at its core that wholesale agreement is you basically become a customer of another water district. It's called the it's called being a secondary system. Okay.
So the, the RFP and so the, the RFP that we're well, the RFP is already out, but the study that we're doing with, Highlands Ranch Water, the Village and Dominion is very, very high level. So what that is looking at is there, and we'll have an update at the meeting on Monday as well. But they're they're taking a high level overview.
They're beginning stakeholder interviews. They're going to interview each one of those utilities separately. They're going to look at their assets, their infrastructure. And then they're going to ask what that utility specific needs are. They'll combine all of that into one document. They'll look at several potential options, and then they'll kind of give us, potential paths forward. And so that could be a number of things that could be secondary systems.
It could be bulk water sales, it could be combining of water resources. so that's it's the purpose of that study is to find out what the potential options would be between those four entities.
Jana:
So is it safe to say that that document will do some of the due diligence that we're looking at right now, like it'll give us some deeper dives into some of these pros and cons?
Nathan:
it certainly it certainly will. with, you know, heavy focus on what the possibilities are just between those districts, something that we're going to need to do, much sooner than later. And this, the the it's got a ridiculous name. It's the northwestern Douglas County regional Water supply reconnaissance study. I know, so it'll be.
That's a really good first step toward what we really need to be doing after that, which is creating an integrated water plan. And so, which is something that we'll have to do. Sands moving into another district. Right. So if we did include with a larger district, that would be kind of the end all be all right. the integrated water plans are really like, making sure that you're taking, taking advantage of any potential multifaceted approaches.
Right. So we could be in ultimately in a regional water, authority with those other districts and invite other districts along the way as well as say, if we don't include with Parker one of the options that Ron and I discussed our last meeting was that wholesale. So maybe we're going to have this, this authority to help with some of our supplies.
And then we're also going to be in a wholesale agreement with Parker Water and Sanitation District. And then, you know, we're targeting and aiming for orphan water rights in wise, which don't exist. But as an example. So you'd have, under that integrated water plan, you're like looking at kind of a holistic, multi-faceted approach to solve the same problem.
Jana:
Forgive me, but is that if is the integrated water plan what we're calling what we're doing right now,
Nathan:
this would be a step before the integrated water plan. And so integrated that would be the next. Yeah. Right. So we get there and we have some options. We say, hey, we're going to do this. It's not going to be 100% of our needs.
let's also look at the other options to back. It's kind of like backfill that like how can we, you know, if if we approach Parker and inclusion isn't an option, well, how can we get involved with their regional plan? Like how can we get involved with the South Platte Renew renew plan? How can we work with Castle Rock and our wastewater treatment plant or, you know, any number of options?
Jason:
So should we take wholesale water, just off of there? I mean, is it not feasible?
Nathan:
No. Wholesale wholesale water is a very real possibility. especially if Parker would be the most likely just kind of fit for that. Different sources. Correct? Yeah. So we'd have. Yeah. Wholesale water from Parker is is potential.
Jason:
So didn't we have another, section up there about.
Yeah. The Division of Services. Oh, maybe that's not that's not. Yes.
Nathan:
And I mean to Jim to Jim's point, earlier about like looking for opportunities to shutter facilities, there is a real possibility that we could get to a place through an integrated water plan where we probably wouldn't want to actually, like, permanently close the doors on our water treatment plant.
But maybe we move to a position where we're maintaining that as an emergency backup source, so we keep it functional to a level that we could use it if we needed to. And then we're taking the majority of our water through renewable resources, through like an interconnect in a secondary system with Parker, you know, maybe we augment our agreement with Centennial through the regional partnership, whatever else,
Jana:
Leah though, this wholesale one.
Still it fits under maintain the district.
Leah:
That's what I was going to say. It feels like a sub. Yeah. So.
Nathan:
Oh I see as a separate one.
Jana:
Yeah. Yeah. But it still does. So that's why I'm saying it's BS. Leave it here for now. But as we digest this information it might need to convert to maintain the district.
And then here's our additional path forward.
Nathan:
I mean, it would be an absolute pipe dream, but there's nothing to say that us becoming, I guess, a, an outside shot as a potential pro for maintaining the district. if we became All Stars through whatever all of the, like, our integrated water plan, there's a chance we could become a water wholesaler, too.
there's a lot of things, at least geographically, where we sit, where if we ever got to a point where we were able to get more renewable water than we need, those pipes flow both ways.
Leah:
Yeah, okay.
Tera:
so that should be an A pro. Yeah.
Nathan:
It's it it would be an absolute long shot. The pro.
Tera:
revenue source there would.
Leah:
I'm appreciating this piece. Okay. Because some of these options I got, I didn't think about or I didn't know they were option like splitting or services. So, it's helpful for me to just understand, like the art of the possible. Any so for the if, if we were does. Yeah. I think it's tricky talking about wholesale water provider separately since it's more of a sub.
But what are the primary some pros of that. Like why would we do that. if, if we don't like need water, would that help with our renewable water.
Nathan:
Or it could. So we'll stick with we'll stick with Parker is a potential wholesale provider. because honestly, that would be the most likely partner. So, into into, you guys can't move around on me.
I keep wanting to call Tera, Leah because that's the nameplate. so, so to, to Tera's earlier point, right. Like, we're we're at, we're we're at ground zero when it comes to things like inclusion. Right. there's a lot of different things that could happen between now and reengaging with Parker and a potential inclusion. And so there's nothing to say that they would even really actually be open to the idea when we go approach them.
Parker does have, the South Platte Renew project coming online is very expensive. They're looking for partners. it's, you know, best case scenario, 20 or 25 years out. But. So if you went to a wholesale agreement with Parker, we connect, you know, put a metering vault under I 25 and start taking that as a water source.
as Parker becomes more renewable, so do we. By extension,
Leah:
that was going to be a follow up question, like, could we just even from speaking with Brian, he was very passionate about the, you know, South Platte project. would there be a way to leverage that without, like, formally including. And it made me think, like, wasn't there a partnership recently announced between Parker and Centennial for that?
Nathan:
I don't maybe I don't know, I haven't I haven't heard it.
Leah:
It was it was like it was recently and it was in the news and it was like a big partnership between Centennial and I. I remember seeing that being like, oh, like I wished I had no idea. Like it would have been great to have been part of those discussions.
Nathan:
Yeah, I'll have to. I will have to call Sam and see see exactly what happened there. but yeah, something, something like that. And so, you know, Parker and then you're really you're placing some faith and understanding in the other utility. Right? And I think that I do have a high degree of confidence that Parker has a, a really good path.
it's a an expensive path, but they've got a good path toward going to renewable water. Right. Parker has their own renewable water goals and their own renewable goals, and targets. The industry standard is landing somewhere around 80% renewable, 20% nonrenewable as a target. and so Parker is not going to want to damage their own efforts there. Right.
Like they're not going to agree to wholesale water if doing so is going to prevent them from being able to hit the renewable water. Target partners at Parker renewable water targets that they need. And so you're really leveraging their, their, their project by basically paying by the thousand gallons.
Tera:
So I don't know what that is whether that's not a priority or it's dependent upon access or and certainly cost is a con.
Nathan:
Yeah. I think it can be. and so in Parker, Ron specifically has has mentioned that that would be a likely, a likely suggestion that Parker would make. He doesn't have a high degree of confidence, at least in our conversations, that his board is going to want to try the inclusion thing again. and so that wholesale agreement would be a way to leverage that.
And so you really have we'd be looking at those cost benefits. Right. And so if we're going to be paying significantly more money for the water coming in, how do we like what areas can we reduce. Right. Like if we if we get to a point where we're meeting our full demands through a combination of our Centennial interconnect and purchasing from Parker, you know, that's when we do things like start to, you know, shut down the water treatment plan or keep it at a minimal level and look at what facilities need to come online.
You know, maybe we're not re drilling wells. We're identifying the five biggest producers that we need. And we slowly through attrition start to take, well sites things like that off line. there's a, there's a lot of different potential options kind of buried in that, for the high level discussion. That's probably not where we're at now is probably not worth it.
Tera:
So cost was a con. Availability was a con. Thank you. Yeah. Perfect cost as you
Leah:
I added one more con to the above. And again like you, the rest of the board may not agree with me on this one, but I think it's a con having half of the city on one per water provider and the other half on another.
even just from, our meeting with James Ecklund, he reiterated that that's a common thing. but like, he's my understanding is he's trying to encourage people to, to partner and consolidate where possible. and so, I mean, we're talking like calling different people, different systems different.
Jason:
I understand what you're saying there. I was building in Lakewood and they had 12 different water districts in Lakewood.
So I don't know if it's a con or if it's just part of business. And
Leah:
it's a con for me. for our city. it might not be for others, but, I did welcome his feedback and perspective there.
Any other pros and cons for, these two, especially the wholesaler?
James:
I have a question. some of the water presentations I've attended. sometimes when towns are, you know, essentially wholesaling water from, say, Parker, Aurora, one of these, I forget which one it was, but, they still had to, you know, it was contractual, but they still had to maintain their ability to, supply water to their town during, long term drought situations.
And to me, you know, if you still have to maintain that infrastructure and that ability to get your own water, in our case, it would be pulling from wells and things like that, or going back through Centennial. to me, you know, sure, it's a solution and it may be a good one and it satisfies the renewable water side.
but it also doesn't allow you to exit any of the facilities and any equipment you currently have. You would still have to maintain that from a long term basis. Am I understanding that correctly or, you know, do I misunderstand?
Nathan:
No, you're you're not mis. You got me with the switch there. yes. You are understanding that correctly.
you'll have you'll have significant, significantly reduced costs and that maintenance, you know, a lot of the things that we run are built on the, you know, the, the life cycle that we give them is assuming constant use. And so you'll see, you know, drastically extended life cycles on things like filters, you know, you can replace every 20 years instead of every ten years.
we have a massive percentage of our cost, in producing water is just in straight up electricity. And so you're saving those electricity costs because you're not constantly running your system. so you can reduce them. But it does become really difficult to maintain, or yeah, it doesn't become difficult. So you can reduce those costs, but you can't eliminate them I guess be the better way to put it.
another thing, as I was talking that I thought I was a a potential con for a wholesale agreement, when you brought up the contractual obligation, they tend to have, like, either sun sets or they have, what's it called? When you get to a point in the contract where you have to renew it? good.
Of that. But so there. Yeah, there's, you know, generally speaking, and, and they can be really, really long term. but nobody in those wholesale agreements that at least that I've seen says, like, we are going to sign this agreement and we will give you water forever, you know, inperpetuity. Yeah. Like it. Yeah. So there is a risk there.
it's also that, you know, and something that we look at in terms of, long term renewable water supply and water rights, as do you own those rights or are you leasing them? Highlands Ranch, for example, has great renewable water supply, but they don't have a large amount of ownership. Most of their water rights are leased.
And so that's, a potential exposure as well, am I?
Leah:
Jim, I don't think I wasn't sure how to articulate yours or where you wanted it, or where it made sense to have it.
James:
The con, the con was really that, you still are required to maintain your facilities, but at a lower level. So the pro would be you would save money on facility maintenance and, fixed costs like electricity and Hvac and all that stuff.
The con is that you can't necessarily abandon those facilities. you still need to maintain them at some level.
Nathan:
So, so maybe like, limited cost savings with facilities.
James:
Yeah. Yeah. You know, like I said, when I looking for something, I really just looking for something that, you know, if you can completely abandoned something to me, that's a win.
Absolutely. Just put it over there and you never have to think about it again. You don't have to pay people to come in. You don't have to paint the place. You don't have to heat it. and in wholesaling water, as far as I understand it, you still would have to have the ability to pump your own filter.
Your own?
Nathan:
Yeah. If if you're if you're doing a full wholesale position like that. there you go. Back to the Denver water tier. So the other two, outside of being a wholesale district, so a tier two contract with Denver Water is you, remain a metro district like you stay a district. But Denver Water, also does all of your meter reading and your utility billing.
So they sell you the water, they do the meter reading, and they take care of utility billing. And then the tier three is a full service contract. So you stay a metro district. But Denver water you you basically turn over ownership of everything to Denver water. So they you get pulled into their system and you kind of stay a district, in name only.
And that's actually, the same setup that we have with Hidden Point right now. So Hidden Point is a metro district, but we own all the wastewater or all the sewer lines, all the water lines the lift stations. We own everything, we operate everything. And so that's kind of that tier three model.
Jana:
this one could go. I mean, there's so many unknowns here, but with the wholesale situation, the infrastructure correctly might not exist yet from a wholesaler like it's not for all situations though, because for instance, Highlands Ranch Centennial, we have that infrastructure in place.
Parker. We don't, you know. Correct. Yeah. So it's was kind of like well it's both so but I want to say there might be a huge cost for infrastructure depending.
Tera:
And that's why I put cost as as a con there is a huge cost. I thought cost there meant we're buying from them and all levels of cost expense.
Jason:
Yep. Yeah. Okay. Nathan, even if we had a deal with Parker tomorrow, is it about ten years before we get actual service from them that during the inclusion? That was the plan, right.
Nathan:
So even after the date of inclusion, it would have been 5 to 10 years before that actual physical connection between the systems would have been made.
that could be if you're if we're talking specifically about a wholesale agreement that could obviously be sped up because we would be as a district responsible for installing, that infrastructure. I don't really know what that would look like. My, kind of wag at it would be your probably somewhere in like the 10 to $15 million range.
to get that metering vault, all the pipeline stuff connected and brought over entry point monitoring equipment. and I mean, that's in that's in today's dollars in very much a wag.
Leah:
Any other pros cons for these two?
Tera:
And then how do we capture the con? Where do we capture the con is that they may not be open. The openness of the arrangement I mean, all of these I think we just don't know enough. But potentially these are just
Jana:
I don't I don't think that would be a con because we wouldn't even explore it.
So, so if we were looking to wholesale at that point, somebody would have invited us to discuss it. So it wouldn't be a shoving down the throat of like wholesale to me, that's that's the way I would view it.
Nathan:
Taking you to the I'm sorry, I'm taking you to those meetings just because I want you to grab somebody and yell wholesale to me and be.
James of mic:
Ready to put you out. I guess my spark.
Jana:
IGA with the city. I want to go first on this one. okay, so maybe listen, before you type, because I might I'm going to start by just saying that some of the issues that we're having with staff, that staff already exists. So we have redundant communications, we have redundant we would have redundant finance, etc..
So to me, the number one thing is that what we're lacking in staff, they potentially could help with immediately. So to me I see a finance person and I see a comms person and that's and I see vehicles. So I see some of the gaps right there. And that's how this even came to me is that what are we trying to do?
Does that already exist?
then one of the next ones is guidelines. Purchasing guidelines, process guidelines. Those already exist that that framework has already been in place.
Leah:
If I'm misrepresenting, like what you're trying to say, like, as I'm typing like this. Correct.
Jana:
It works because what it's saying is that we don't have to reinvent a wheel that is already there.
Leah:
That was my main pro was like I was thinking about it in terms of the stream, you know, streamlining. We would be streamlining government. We'd be streamlining processes. We'd be streamlining, job functions.
Jana:
Can I see the word staff be added somewhere to the first bullet? Because I know it says functions. But for me that's the biggest, you know, the the people, the people that are going to be there, ready to hit the ground.
Leah:
Okay.
And this I feel like this is the one where I know, like, the least amount. In terms of pros.
Could it potentially help with reputation? I don't know, you be the face of the water.
Jana:
I don't know, I don't know about that one, but I do. I do want to say that I think that, the experience from that city manager, from his, you know, time in office to me, I feel good about that. His city management experience,
Leah:
maybe oversight from an experienced.
Yes. City manager.
And I welcome you guys for the cons, please. It's. I hurt my feelings. Bring them. One of the guys.
Leah:
Well, I'm particularly interested in, like, Jim. Tera. Like your thoughts? Just with your.
Tera:
You would have to prove that to me. I don't see any of that. They don't run water. That council was not elected to run water. They focus on roads.
They have plenty to focus on. Water is not a priority for them. And when you say staff, I have to wonder, is this the same staff that forgot to bill us? $1 million? So if you're thinking their staff is better, you're going to have to prove it to me, because I think we just got a better insight into our finances with what we've hired on our side than anything they can provide,
James:
long as you kind of crack the seal on that one.
when I sit back and I look at things like the, projects that we're supposed to be doing in that open space there, and the money that we're contributing to that and the loss of business in town that I keep reading about and seeing about our next door nearly, you know, a monthly basis. we don't seem to be able to manage those projects currently.
We're not effectively, you know, they're not effectively moving forward with things they already have on their plate. And they and frankly, they're failing and they have failed for multiple years now. So that's the other side of that coin. If you stand back and you look at what there should be doing and how they should be doing it, and their effectiveness at management, promoting commerce and building the business base up, I don't see it at all.
Jason:
And when you look at the roundabout that they just put in over on. Oh, God. Unhappy Canyon. So Castle Pines Village would not even let the city's contractors onto that site to move their water pipes. They insisted on bringing their own people in because they do not trust the contractors for the city,
Tera:
which is the same contractor that caused the issue for us.
So and, that was a fight with the city manager. They want to continue to use their, their contractors. So I just I don't see the things that you're seeing. I think that's conjecture. But again, we would I think we would have to do a lot of due diligence to see that. And another, con is that the metro district and, Paul, maybe you can weigh in on this.
We can't effectively go away. We can't just go away because the mills belong to the metro district,
Paul:
right? No, I mean, that's that's exactly right. And, also, you're adding another level of government to the district. Now we're having to go through the city to come to us, and it's just another level of, government that the community has to go through.
James:
And, I got a question and I just forget, we did the mill levy transfer, for parks, but our combined mill levy for water, you know, sanitary sewer drainage and parks was, what, before we transferred,
Nathan:
we were, you know, like it was 15.9 or 16.1, something like that.
James
Okay. And what was the breakdown we get? They took, it took 12.
Nathan:
Yeah. So for to keep the terminology correct, the city, the city has a voter, a new voter approved mill levy of 12 mills citywide to cover parks, trails and open space. Okay. We're, we have a mill authorization of seven mills. We've reduced to three point something on a annual voluntary basis.
James:
Okay, maybe a three point skip correctly. before the IGA, what was the total mill levy?
Jason:
Well, we had up to, like 19.
James:
No, no, I don't care. But up to what we're currently operating,
Jason:
we were operating at 15 or 15 to 16. Okay. And so then, we broke it down to that. We were actually running a development four, but we kept the five, the five, 5 or 7.
We kept seven, we kept the seven. But we're operating at four. Yeah. And they kept the 12
James:
okay. So it's 16 that total okay. And now we're five and 12 okay. Is that fair.
Nathan:
Yeah. That's it. Yeah. So we're we're operating with 3.5 mills. Okay. We're our authorization is seven and the city is 12. And taking all and fully taking their mill levy.
James:
Yeah. I guess, you know, if you listen to our, our town manager, promoting it prior to his comments were how much they were going to save and how they could reduce. And because, you know, they were a larger entity and economies of scale, to use that phrase here again, and have we seen that yet? And I think the answer is no.
So again, there goes to credibility. It goes to actually how are they going to do what they say they're going to do. And, you know, you can judge them by what actually is happening in town. So, you know, maybe it's not a big number, but I look at it is we're paying a lot for water. We're paying a lot of mills out to the parks and, you know, rec and stuff like that, and nothing's really changed.
So I'm wondering why it's more expensive, even if it's a slight change.
Jana:
I would like to see us ask all the or bring up all these with Michael here to to kind of see what his response would be. So I okay. No. Okay. But then now I'm going to respectfully respond to some of these cons. So I feel like the council like when this maybe I should start with this one.
But I don't feel like when people elect their council members, they're thinking, can this person take care of water? I think they're thinking, can this person take care of my town? You know, I don't think we're diving into what is council member So-and-so's experience with infrastructure? I think it's a town as a whole. And then to add to that, I also think a lot of our citizens probably don't even understand the metro district versus the city.
Like if you just ask the uninvolved citizen, okay, so when I'm reading these, I think that's not the majority. And then also to say water is not a priority will water is not a priority because they don't manage water. But would it be. No. But would it be if they had
Tera:
I don't know. And one of the concerns that I have with that is we have, potential for the, the majority of the board or whatever to turn over in this election.
The mayor is up, whatever. So the you know, the would it remain a priority if the council changed and gave a different direction? And I think that's a risk, and I think that's a risk with a lot of the positions that we're talking. I think that that of in our own board,
Jana:
water might not be or water wouldn't be their number one priority, but I don't think that they're just going to we're not just going to be pushed under the rug .
Tera:
right, But I'm saying that they wouldn't be their number one priority, which it is ours. We were I mean, the mission. I feel like y'all want to shirk your duty in this way. Shirk your duty because we were elected to do this, and provide safe water. And safe water. Safe again. People want to live somewhere that's safe. The city doesn't do that.
They contract that. That goes to the sheriff. They want their water to be safe.
Jana:
I do not think I'm trying to shirk my duties. I'm trying to make decisions that I think are best. So I hope you can see through that lens that I'm not trying to walk away. I'm trying to say what is best. and then so for the third bullet, I hate to say this, but say city not managing their own projects effectively.
I bet you people say that about us. You know that, like, oh, a water pipe. So to me,
James:
that's just honestly, that's our reputation. I really it's fair. So, you know, I just I think that's well but yeah. But you know, the reality is a little bit different when you get down to the details. But it's a fair assessment I think.
Tera:
Yeah. And then it's reputation. We're trying to get a better reputation and they don't have one.
Jana:
So, so then and then I also want to say in adding a layer of government in my head, this reduces a layer of government. So when okay. How what you know, somebody has a water issue they call the city. They don't say, do I need to call the city for stormwater or wait, metro district.
Tera:
Right. But if you call the city and the city has somebody answering the phone, whether that person gets paid by the metro district or whether the person gets paid by the city, it's still a full time equivalent. So to me, if it's it's not reducing, you're not like, well, I have a this and I have of that because the way that it probably looks like is, you know, you're thinking, oh, this is what I think you're thinking.
City manager and district manager. Well, Nate would still go over there because again, they don't have anybody that know water. So it's not I don't see how that's reducing anything if you're really just moving everything around and it's going underneath there. And then the city has to hire more people because they don't have anybody that does the billing and does the ad.
They don't have a billing system. I mean, but this I don't see the city hiring people
James:
with this is if we could do and inclusion or, and partner a significant partnership with another utility that would essentially set us up for the future, and we could dissolve the board and essentially become part of another water district, or that water district takes over.
And it was truly just maintenance of, you know, customer requests, customer questions, billing. Then I think it make it would make a lot of sense to do that transfer, you know, but I kind of, agree with the loss of focus and expertise. And, you know, we have a lot of questions. Sometimes I get on you, Nathan, a little bit, but you are engaged.
You are involved. I do appreciate the level of detail, you know, about projects. but at the same time, you know, I think Jason brought it up a couple times tonight that and I kind of agree. Last year we started talking about it is I think there's some help that needs to be provided. And, you know, how we do that I think is in discussion.
Jana:
That's all for background for me. Why did the metro district turn over storm and parks and open space?
Jason:
We did that, as a sole, trying to include it because when the city born was charter and Tera, probably knows much more about this. And it was understood that the this metro district was going to turn over those properties.
It took 15 years for it to happen, but that was it was the water was not one of them.
Jana:
Okay. So it was always part of a plan. Yeah. Yeah.
Nathan:
It's been it's been talked about on and off and various things have tanked it a few times. I think another key differentiation there is it's actually even to Jim's point.
Right. So if we're if we didn't inclusion with a Parker or a Centennial, we're going we're bringing our water system to an organization that has water expertise. everybody's feelings on how well the city is doing managing parks, trails, open space and stormwater aside, when we moved those functions over to the city, we were moving them to an organization that had a parks committee in place that had a stormwater manager that had was already already doing those functions.
And so it was combining of existing functions to an organization that was already putting infrastructure in place to handle them and manage them, as opposed to giving them something that is wholly new.
Jana:
Couldn't our board function as the boards you just referenced?
Nathan:
It gets a little bit more complicated after that. So, I mean, if the in order for us to fully we mentioned earlier the mill levy, if we want to do fully move into the city and dissolve the metro district, the city would also have to be willing to take on all of our debt.
on the wastewater side, and there's no real way to. And I'm sure Paul can correct me if I'm wrong here, but there's not room. I don't I don't know what mechanism would exist where we could dissolve the district and then put ourselves in our existing board in places like an advisory board. and even then, when you when you do that, we'd be in places as an advisory board that you're no longer in a voting position.
So you're now advising the people that are making the decision, but they're still in a in a place where they could do whatever they feel is right. I think it was a really positive comment.
Leah:
I wasn't just going to say there is a certain transitionary period that you can be in an advisory board. It's it's a very limited situation where that does happen.
I wouldn't rely on that.
Tera:
So in a nutshell, he wrapped it up pretty good. So there was synergy there because the city held Ridge Park, the metro district had parks. They already had people maintaining parks. There was a synergy there because there was they were also doing that. They're not doing water. And I know they think they're billing, but the billing that we do is far more complicated than just one straight stormwater fee.
So just it's it is, going back to kind of all the detailed, reconciliations that Eric talked to when he was when, Lee and I were talking to him about what they do, it's it's a lot more complicated than just sticking ten bucks on a statement and mailing it out to
Nathan:
and from from a finance from that perspective to I think it's, knowing what the city has in place as a, as a finance team.
Like they do have a fine, finance director, somebody to actually respect and think does I do think does a pretty good job in that role. But they don't have an extra full time finance employee sitting around twiddling their thumbs and doing nothing. And our, we really are, even though we're contracting that service with H2 now, it really is a full time employee workload that we're getting getting back.
It's it's pretty close to a 40 hour a week commitment. So I don't know that there's an actual
Tera:
getting back to saving money. It would be a full time equivalent, whether we're paying for it or whether the city is paying for it.
James:
the only other point I would make in, again, I think most people know my relationship to a council member, but I'm not referring to that one.
But I do talk to the other ones and they would have to vote and approve that. And the few ones I've talked to are hesitant to do so. yeah. and
Jana:
I think it's a valid yeah, it's still important that we allow all of us to kind of give some suggestions, because I don't totally have somebody going to vote if that's okay.
James:
So yeah, I mean, we can't you can't get inside their brain to exit. I've, I've have had conversations and and they express a little trepidation of absorbing this entity.
Jana:
It could be a moot point. Yeah, I guess could be so, but Oh go ahead, be sure. Yeah. Oh, I want to add another pro. I know we're hitting the cons pretty hard, but I'm not going to let go.
I'm saying I think when it comes to capital projects there, there is a streamlined process of you know, when you're redoing a road and you have all the infrastructure under there, if you own all the infrastructure versus like, okay, let's cost share with the metro districts, it would just be one process.
Just throwing me a bone, Jim. Okay, I validate a valid point like this.
Leah:
This it really this is a total hypothetical because I have the first time I met him.
James:
Do you remember what I said? And you were sitting in this chair and we were doing the end? No, you don't remember that. Okay, I'll remind you later.
Leah:
You can't just bring it up and then.
Yeah. No, that's a sham. I just, I just I basically said if I, I, I, I so I, I can follow these pros and again I know it's a lot of these are hypothetical. It's probably that way for all of them. Like we're just doing our best to think through what the pros and cons would be. But I, I wonder, I would think, like if we did have an IGA with the city for water and wastewater, my guess is they wouldn't want to be in the business of water long term, and I wouldn't be surprised if they looked at integrating with a different district.
And would we have more negotiating power if that were the case? I have no idea.
James:
I think even when we were doing a candidate for am I, I said no, I didn't want to dissolve the Metro, but it wasn't necessarily it. There was a finite weather. Excuse me, let me start over. The rationale for me saying that at that time was my understanding of the condition of the facilities, the things we needed to do and what have you.
I was accepting of that responsibility to kind of do those things, fix things to a level and get it up to spec so that moving forward into the future, you know, we didn't have some of the things that I think Jana and I both talked about of, you know, issues with, you know, overflowing stuff, pipes breaking, what have you.
I thought I could contribute there, and I still think that that's our mandate is going forward, is to kind of get this thing. And we talked about it here. And on the other sheet of getting it up so that, you know, it's if it's, you know, it's a facility, it's a district that, you know, looking forward 25 years, we're set up for the future.
And I think, you know, I still think that, you know, okay, renewable water is a critical issue. But I also think the facilities are critical. I think we we look at those two problems, we answer them and we effectively move forward on those two items. and then we, you know, and part of that could be merging with another district.
But I think that's our mandate. And then I think when we get that under control, or at least moving in the right direction, then merging with the city or another entity, I think makes a tremendous amount of sense because I don't disagree with anything you said because,
Jana:
you know, but I'm not just tongue in cheek. I probably finding I understand it and then
James:
I agree with it, but I just I still think we have work to do.
And once once we can check the box on those couple of things, then I totally agree. Then just take it wholesale and move it.
Tera:
So again, I was just going to ask you, do you, do you think from what you've seen that we've made progress on those things?
Jana:
Such a good question. That would be the hardest thing for me.
So, so to say that I want to walk away is the exact opposite. It would. It's me saying what is for the best because do I enjoy this? Do? Am I passionate about this? Yes. I don't want to give this up. I want to be a part of this. And so that would be. So that's where I'm swallowing going.
But is that what's best for the future? And so please don't think it's like I want to walk away. and then do I think we're done now? So to answer that question, no, I want to see a lot of this through. I do
Tera:
I think our water treatment plant is going to provide really good, clean, safe water like never before.
I know you're jazzed about that, but when Jim was talking about the projects and the ones that need to be done because I don't know if you ever saw that reconciliation list that probably Jason and I saw when the whole deal fell through, there was a tick list of what needed to be done. And I would say we've probably fixed most of that.
Nathan:
We yeah, we're close in terms of, the checklist from Parker. a lot of it's actually being taken care of with the parks, trails and open space. IGA, in terms of defining all of the easements for the water lines that we didn't have easements on because they were on property we owned. So that was a big effort that we're coming up on.
I we have we've gone through the majority of the items on that list. The biggest the linchpin in that whole deal, though, was the condition of the lift stations and the sanitary sewer overflows. So yes, we have we've gotten through a lot of the items on that list, but the biggest one is one that we're I mean, we're getting ready to I mean, we're we're getting ready to go to bid this year.
but we're still about two and a half years out from project completion, to get that done. I do want to bring this back around to, Leah's original question, which was, as I understand it, do we have more, bargaining power if we move into the city? And I think that it's, kind of a two sides of the same coin there, double edged sword.
So I think that, yes, I think that that would bring us a certain level of bargaining power just because we've gone into a larger entity. I think the other side of that, to to throw on the cons list. How do I want to say this succinctly,
You know, I felt bad when it happened. Jana, earlier. Oh, then I forgot is. Oh, take a beat, take a beat and come back to it. The other. I think the other side of that coin is that we do run the risk of moving, especially specifically with the city, moving to an entity that would have tunnel vision.
So I think that if you go over, we. Yeah, we may have more bargaining power to include with Parker, but I think there's a much more like there's a stronger likelihood that that is going to be the only option that they want to look at. And if we go back to our, our mission statement, it's, you know, providing all of the, all of the great adjectives that are in there at the lowest possible cost.
And so we we have not yet proven that an inclusion with Parker is successfully meeting that metric. And I think that you they could miss out on a lot of opportunities. And so, yeah,
Jason:
Thank you can try to capture it, but if I need to adjust to capture accurate I think that's great. Can I recommend now?
I think we're pretty much done with this section. Can we take a five minute break? So, yes. some people can, have a break.
Jason:
Okay, we'll call the meeting concert and go ahead. Leah, let's continue.
Leah:
Okay, guys. Two more. We got this. I think this next one is another meaty one. and then the last one is probably not as meaty. So merging with another district.
Jana:
a lot of the pros are just going to match what we've said. So they could they could be a copy and paste a potentially, but they might even be a copy from some of the stuff from the wholesale water, too. So I think you're looking at two of those in there.
Leah:
Just go through it.
Yeah. I think one would be like economies of scale. Just like if we're going to include. My assumption is it's going to be with the larger district.
And then depending on which district, meeting our renewable water needs, I think that's fair.
All Speak off mic:
.........
Jana:
I think staffing, staffing is addressed to me, that staff and.
Leah:
Yeah, I was putting in like experience, but yeah, like experience expertise. I even just think, like, the infrastructure from, like the facilities.
Tera:
I was thinking that was a con because we're not, we're not connected. So to.
Jana:
Wouldn't we be using their water treatment facilities.
Tera:
Yeah. But how are you going to get water from Parker.
Nathan:
Yeah. So it has, it has the same it has the infrastructure.
Leah:
Well I would say it's, it would be a pro with the dependency. Yeah.
Nathan:
It has a. Yeah. And we can I think it could just exist in both because it's it's true for both. But there would definitely be capital. Well if it's I would put tent for a con potential capital expenses. Right. and we're we don't need to add the cities, but worth noting it. at least with the Parker deal or anybody, even with the even with the inclusion, part of that agreement required that it didn't cost any existing Parker residents a dime.
And so the, we're going to have the say our, our residents would bear the same infrastructure cost that they would if we did a, like, wholesale agreement with Parker where our residents are gonna have to pay to put that, put those pipelines in those connections and $10 million over 3500 versus that was part of that $36 million.
Leah:
And and I'm assuming like that would be like thinking about the infrastructure and like that would be a consideration with Parker. Right. Castle Rock.
Nathan:
Castle Rock would be even more expensive from an infrastructure perspective. We don't have any connections. And then Centennial, Centennial, we'd be able to leverage its existing infrastructure so we wouldn't have to.
Leah:
And do we know wise like I'm assuming the we talked to not like this current board, but like we talked to Centennial,
Nathan:
we did there.
So we and I can't remember who went to that meeting, but we did go talk to Centennial. we spoke with, Centennial. We spoke with Aurora water. We spoke with, Parker again, and we spoke with Castle Rock. Parker was the only one that had even a low level of continued interest. I can say that there are glimmers of hope that that might be changing or shifting.
Yeah. from the centennial perspective. So and we in our initial kickoff meeting, for the ridiculously long name study that we're doing, one of the it was interesting because Centennial had their, their district manager, as well as their in-house water rights attorney, on board. and their water rights attorney said a couple times that we under no circumstances want to take over services of another district.
And both times he said that their district manager, actually at Sam, actually pushed back a little bit and said, at this stage at least, let's make sure that we're not taking anything off the table. And so I think there may be some opportunity there. I have nothing to say after, another, thank you. Lee.
Jason:
Another con is it could potentially cost our, residents more money if we do an inclusion.
Jana:
On the flip side, could potentially cost our citizens less.
Tera:
Yeah, but really? So it depends. It depends on potentially. Yes, but not really.
Nathan:
Yeah. It depends. It depends on the inclusion partner. And one of the things, when Eric and I were going through, after the board comments and kind of reworking some of the comparison and that we did, we we really took a hard look at that.
How not only what districts are we comparing ourselves to, but how are we comparing them? And so when we the, the most recent one that we put out, when we actually took our actual average usage in district, instead of, using kind of an amorphous industry standard number, and that was the last chart that you saw where it showed the like $9 increase with an average average usage of about 10,000 gallons.
it shifted how much our, how much we pay compared to other districts. And so, that actually put about a $10 a month gap between our, our new water, our water rates and Parker's existing water rates. So, if all things being equal, if we moved into Parker with no additional costs, you know, we would absolutely get involved in their, their, renewable water.
But we're already at a $10, a little bit more than a $10 deficit compared to where Parker's at. Centennial is a little bit of a different story. They're still, less expensive than us. So, I do know that one of their requirements for inclusion is that, or even extraterritorial service, agreements. Is that the district that they are taking over, at a minimum, adopts all of their rules and regulations as well as their fee structure.
And so we would our residents would if we stayed, the district would at a minimum have to pay the centennial rate. and then if we stick around, we could add an additional monthly billing amount to kind of handle our administrative stuff. But so if we move to Centennial, it could potentially get cheaper. it's there's a lot of a lot of things to weigh
Jana:
it sounds like it's a stretch that so and the point that
Tera:
I think is valid there again, when I'm talking about staff turnover, the reason why Centennial was more open, they had a turnover in their district manager.
And if we're looking at Parker, they have an election coming up in May. They could turn over their board. They could have a change in staff. The and I think that's a potential risk of losing the progress that we've made for any of these. like, city council could turn over in, when is that? November. And again, that, you know, the staff could be changed.
Nathan:
So I think, you know, maybe something that doesn't have to be written down, but I think that that's a point worth keeping in mind is that as we're going through and thinking about all of these various options, to not think about them in terms of things will stay the way that they are right now. You know, there's going to be a constantly shifting landscape with a bunch of potential local big changes coming up shortly.
And so whether that's a pro or con, I don't know. But I think it's something to keep in mind is that you don't want to make, a long term, a long term investment with another entity because you really like the people that are there. Now,
Jana:
I don't think any of my, I think that's a good point.
Let's just say that. Yeah,
Nathan:
I don't I don't think anybody's necessarily made that mistake. Okay. I figured it was worth saying.
Jana:
Okay. and then a pro, but again, depending on who we would merge with, it might potentially give us if it was Parker, which I don't have a dog in that fight, it would put one our town on one water system.
So that would provide the connection between the two sides of the highway that I think I hear people, are interested in.
Tera:
When people have heard that are interested in that, as city staff, I mean, I don't I don't see why that's truly a benefit. Because again, if it's going to cost more money, I don't see that as a, as a pro.
Jana:
Fair point.
Leah:
Anything else here? All right. Last one. Division of services. I don't. I don't yeah I was going to say I don't I don't have a lot of to add here. So I'd be interested in your thoughts.
Jana:
Or we might not even need to go down the rabbit hole. This is not anybody's.
Leah:
Yeah. This is a hypothetical, like or not a hypothetical, but like like we can we can skip it.
Tera:
Can we skip it? Can we leave it on there but not do the pros and cons and we want to come back and revisit.
Nathan:
Exactly. Yeah. So the this in the scenario under which that that would be the most likely scenario under which that would be beneficial is that if we've got a water system that is in fantastic condition, and a wastewater system that still needs a lot of work, we could move one while keeping the other at a relatively low cost.
That's really the only scenario, that that would exist. And so I think leaving the pros and cons blank is appropriate.
Leah:
Okay. I went back and forth on this a few times, but I think there could be value in at least doing like an a, an initial pulse point. So like totally open to feedback. But in terms of the prioritization piece, like maybe each board member just goes through and says like, here's here's my top.
Jana:
You think you can't already tell what of us, but you, like, take it home and do what you.
Leah:
Right. Well, but I was like, do we get one vote? Do we get two? Do we get it? So I was and maybe if we just did it,
Tera:
I mean, I'm kind of or we don't I don't know about that next up, because what I'm thinking is these all seem and to to Jana's point, I agree with her wholeheartedly is like what is really the best thing to do for our district?
What is the best thing to do for our residents? How do we get them sustainable, safe water at the lowest cost. So and again, any of these I think are deserve to be explored. And the next step is due diligence on each one of those. And then that that would be where we where the rubber meets the road or whatever you want to say is once you do the due diligence.
Because again, to me these are conjecture, right? We don't really have the information to do the pros and cons. So to me, due diligence at the next level, you know what? Whether that means, you know, setting up a steering committee or, you know, how we get to that next level. But to me, I would really like a data driven decision, and that needs a lot more detail than us guessing at what the pros and cons are, or at least the pros and cons are in our opinion.
Does that make sense?
Leah:
Yeah. And yeah. And and I'm with you. So where I was torn was number one. Like will we have enough information to like directionally indicate which which option might be the best long term option or do we need to, you know, gather that information. But then like the other side of me was do we want to explore everything or do we want to kind of prioritize and like if we prioritize and that means we maybe started off exploring 1 or 2 priority things.
so it's almost like, do we want to go deeper on fewer for next steps, or do we want to just kind of like breadth and explore all of them?
Jana:
I'm going to chime in only on the one that I am, vocal about, which is the city one. I feel like after Michael Penny comes, if you guys will still support that and hear me out, that's it.
Like, to me, that's the research I would like you guys to hear. So to me and then at that point, if you guys are interested, I, I at least shared what I wanted you to hear. And so to me then it's there's nothing else there it is my thought and then but that might be the same with some of these and some of these.
Tera:
I think my only point again is we really are starting at ground zero on any of these options. So maybe if we are, you know, again, if we want to prioritize, limit the number of, potential districts that we would seek inclusion with, because that might be like, if Parker's a nonstarter. Well, we don't need to do that.
But I think a couple of things, anything that we do, I want to see the data. I want to understand it fully. That's not just having somebody, you know, come and present a little thing. To me, that's a whole due diligence process that you would go through, like with a merger
Nathan:
at a certain at a certain point, I think, I think even with the list that we have now, I mean, water districts of any size tend not to do these things entirely in-house.
So, I mean, we're going to at some point need to bring in an outside firm that lives and breathes this all day, every day, and has a comprehensive understanding of all of the water rights in the region and who's doing what, and really, really take care of that. Due diligence piece for us there. We're not going to be able to, I think, get the depth of understanding that we need without really having somebody come in.
And that's where that's where we get back to that integrated water plan. That's really what that is, having somebody come in and we tell them in those initial meetings, like, these are the options that we have discussed internally. These are things that we would like to explore further. give them a contract amount, kind of work through all of that.
And we'd have to come up with a fairly comprehensive RFP and then send that out into the world and see what gets back and really allow those firms to come through and kind of give us, you know, the way that those plans come out is still you could do the initial study and then you'll get options A, B, C, and D, those will get presented to the board.
The board will say hey, A and D look more promising. Let's do it. Our next round of evaluation and pursuit in there. And that's when you start getting more specific cost estimates, timelines, capabilities.
Jason:
And so when the thing to do is we're going to hear out the city on Monday. Right. Yeah absolutely. So we've got that on the plate already.
And then we've got this agreement thing.
Tera:
That thing with the city is really just level setting the information is what I'm understanding. It's not we could make a decision based on what everyone's on. But okay we're going to decide on Monday. Jana wants an award and she wants to press the button. Well, I've been thinking about it more.
Leah:
Is like, okay, based on the information we hear, do we want to pursue this more? Right.
Jana:
That's that's my hope for it too, because I do not want to spend any effort time on something that's a nonstarter. So to me, no decision at all. This would just be us. Do we want to do we want to pursue this forward?
Let it die.
Jason:
So I don't think we pursue anything until after we hear the city, and then we listen to whatever this report is going to be coming out, because the districts we can't really yeah. Nobody's really able to talk to us right now because of different situations.
Leah:
Right. And that was going to be my next question. So in terms of timing, we've got Michael Penny coming in our next board meeting.
And hopefully like at that point we could be like, you know what, I want to hear more. Or if and that could help us like figure out what we're doing with that option, potentially eliminate one. the agreement that we're pursuing right now, when are we expecting to get that report?
Nathan:
August or September?
Leah:
Okay, so we've got a while.
So then my guess is like that detailed piece you were talking about where we're gathering more information. We probably don't want to do that step until September. Right.
Nathan:
Yeah. And so in the in the timing works out well. also because I think Ken Lee can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that August September timeframe, was also what Ron had told, I guess you and Jason in your meeting and when they might want to start engaging those and reengage them.
As well potentially.
Jason:
And this wouldn't line up if because we're going to have our budget done by August this year. Correct. So we'll be in budget session. Our budget season at this time. so that would be
Tera:
Eric, when are we going to have our budget done this year?
Nathan:
Yeah, Eric told me that he's going to have the audit, the comprehensive rate study and the budget done by the February board meeting.
He's he's ready to go.
Financial Director Eric Harris:
So what I'm hearing is a lot of things are going to be changing over the next several months. But, the objective we always have to get to is have a draft budget available to the board by October 15th, obviously. So. But we will have it done before then. A working draft for sure.
Jason:
All right. Great. That kind of gives us a timeline
James:
I think I actually like I actually like the confidence and a date. It wasn't it didn't feel a little squishy.
Nathan:
Hey you're going to you're going to love his board memo. The memo that's in the packet.
James:
one question. I mean, we talked about inclusion, inclusion, inclusion. And it keeps coming up and and none of that means anything to me unless you actually have, you know, people have interest in doing that with us, per se.
and something really simple that maybe you could do, maybe we do it as a board, or both is, you know, is there any, any way we can contact these people and at least get a thumbs up? Thumbs down? Are we are they even willing to have that conversation? And it sounds like you're kind of doing that, but is there a way to formalize that and get a read from those people?
Because that would simplify decisions and we don't have to do the work if there's literally I understand it's politics, it's elections. Things are constantly moving. But from, from a district's infrastructure standpoint, renewable water standpoint, their resources, they may just say, you know what, we're never going to be able to support you in this, you know, in this way.
So we like you guys, but it's not a possibility. And we could start crossing names off the list. Yeah.
Nathan:
And so we we have done that to some extent. We were able to pretty definitively cross off Aurora and Castle Rock as far as potential partners in that way.
Leah:
sorry, Nate, would you say, like, is that still the case today or that was the case back then?
Nathan:
that's that's definitely still the case today. Aurora. Aurora, to have any level of interest, has already put a policy in place that I'm looking to do here. So Aurora said, yeah, that would be great. Do you have 100% of your renewable water in place? so without that and without that option in place, Aurora is nonstarter.
Castle Rock, I'm Mark was pretty definitive that they've got their own stuff going on.
Jason:
Last time I talked to Mark about this a couple of months ago, he said the biggest thing to do is even if they wanted to, they would have to get a right of way through the village, and the village is not going to let them.
Nathan:
Right. So, and then, you know, Parker was pretty clear that there.
Open to it. But, you know, call me later. and I think that we can we can certainly. I mean, August 1st is as soon, as soon as we get that opportunity, we can we can reengage and make that connection. We'll also know a lot more about how Parker is structured at that point, as well. There's, yeah, there's a high potential for a lot of regional changes with this next election cycle.
So we'll have to see how that plays out as well.
Leah:
But I mean, it sounds like Parker and Centennial could be.
Nathan:
Yeah. And so the question I think with Centennial will largely get answered through the Stantec study that we're doing right now. I think that once we get to the conclusion of that, those options will be lined out a lot more clearly in Centennial to be able to make an informed, give us an informed answer at that point.
Leah:
Okay.
Okay, guys, now I have ten more slides to go through.
Jana:
Did Centennial change? Did Centennial change their name?
Nathan:
yes. You're right. I keep telling them Centennial. They are Highlands Ranch water, which makes so much more sense every day.
Jason:
Right? well, thank you everybody. I think this has been a great meeting. Very informative. And,
Tera:
Leah, we got a lot done.
Thank you very much for doing the framework and and guiding us through it
Jason:
so we can adjourn the meeting. Thank you everyone.