Board Meeting
February 24, 2025
Transcript
Describer:
Board Meeting Agenda
Monday, February 24th, 2025, at 6:00 p.m.
7404 Yorkshire Drive, Castle Pines, CO 80108
I. Welcome. Call meeting to order. Pledge of Allegiance.
II. Roll call. Determination of quorum. Disclosure of potential conflicts.
III. Consider approving February 24th, 2025, board meeting agenda. *Any board member may remove an item from the consent agenda at this time.
IV. Public comment period. (Three-minute maximum per person).
V. Consent Agenda: The items listed below are a group of items to be acted on with a single motion, second and vote by the Board to expedite the handling of limited routine matters. The Board has previously received information on these matters and/or discussed them at a prior study session. Proposed Motion: I move to approve the items as presented in the consent agenda dated February 24th, 2025.
A. Consider approving the January 23rd, 2025, Work Session Minutes.
B. Consider approving the January 27th, 2025, Board Meeting Minutes.
C. Ratify claims for payment including check numbers 28961 – 29089 and electronic payments issued from November 21st, 2024 to February 14th, 2025
D. Consider approving District Manager Review Process.
E. Consider approving contracts/proposals presented at the February 19th , 2025 Work Session:
• QP Services, 2025 Collections System Maintenance Proposal
• Kennedy Jenks 2025 General Engineering Proposal
• Distribution System Resources, 2025 Maintenance proposal.
VI. Hearing: Appeal of penalty assessed. 6271 Kenzie Circle, violation of District Rules and Regulations Article 17.2.2
A. Presentation of evidence. Nathan Travis, District Manager
B. Presentation of evidence. Charles Packard, homeowner.
C. Discuss and consider: uphold, modify, or vacate assessed penalty. Proposed Motion: I move to (uphold, modify, or vacate) the penalty assessed against 6271 Kenzie Circle for the violation of District Rules and Regulations Article 17.2.2.
• Pursuant to District Rules and Regulations Article 18.4, written notice of the decision will be sent by certified mail within fifteen (15) days of the hearing. The Board’s determination shall be the final District action.
VII. Discuss and Consider Semocor Operations Staffing Contract. Will Parker Owner.
VIII. Communication Director’s report.
IX. Finance Director's report.
X. Legal Counsel's report.
A. Hidden Pointe MD inclusion update.
XI. District Manager’s report.
A. AWWA ACE presentation announcement.
B. Customer Service Specialist, new employees.
C. Well A2 update.
D. Asset management update.
E. SL RAT collections system maintenance review
XII. Communications Director Proposals.
A. Executive Session, Communications Director proposal discussion. Proposed Motion: I move that the Board enter into Executive Session pursuant to Section 24-6-402(4)(e), Colorado Revised Statutes, to determine positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations regarding communications proposals.
B. Discuss and consider: Communications Director Proposal, if necessary.
XIII. Director’s Matters.
XIV. Adjourn.
Describer:
The video starts on graphic with a white background and forest green letters which says “Castle Pines North Metro District Board Meeting February 24, 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 Metropolitan District. Board meeting tonight is Monday, February 24th at approximately 6:00. And we will begin the. We will call the meeting to order and begin with the Pledge of Allegiance.
Describer:
The board members and the audience rise from their seats and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, as the camera pans from left to right from the board to management staff to the audience and back to the board. When they are done, they sit down again.
All:
I pledge allegiance To the flag in the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Jason:
All right. Thank you. We will, can continue with, item number three. Consider approving the February 24th, 2025 board meeting agenda. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Yes. Well, let's back up a step and we'll do roll call.
Board Voting All Speak:
Jim. present. No conflicts. Tara. Present.
Board Member Tera Radloff:
And I just want to mention it's not a conflict because I don't have any financial interest in there, but, we got two proposals for communications and one of the, proposals was from catalyst. Catalyst Public Affairs, and I do serve on the Douglas County Community Foundation board with Sarah Goodwin. She volunteers to do the communications there.
But I just want to be fully informed.
Board Voting All Speak:
Thank you for that. Tara. Jenna here. No conflicts. Leah. Present, no conflicts. And I'm Jason. I'm present with no conflicts.
Jason:
Having done that, we will close out item number two and move on to item number three. Consider approving the February 20th 24th Board Member agenda
Tera:
Protocol question. I would like to remove item B from under the consent agenda.
Do they do that now or do I do that at consent agenda?
Legal Counsel Paul Polito, Esq.: Off camera.
And you do that at consent agenda and you can move it to right after the consent agenda if you'd like. Okay.
Jason:
So hearing no objections, we will approve tonight's board meeting agenda.
Board Member Jana Krell:
I'll second
Board Voting All Speak:
okay. Having a vote. We'll go. Jim. Approve. Tara. Approve. Jenna. Approve. Leah. Approve I approve as well.
Jason:
So we will go ahead and close out that mean that portion. And we will move on to item number four. The public comment period. The public comment period is designed to share your thoughts and concerns with the district, but it is not an interactive discussion.
If you'd like to give public comment, please sign up on the clipboard at the back of the room, which I think it's already been done. And if anybody is attending virtually, please type your name and address in the chat feature to be placed in the queue. It looks like we've got, Steve Dawes. Who would like to speak? Steve.
Jason:
Welcome. And I think, you know, the push the button. And if you can give us your address, please.
Describer:
On screen. Steve at the podium.
Steve Dawes, Castle Pines Resident:
Steve Dawes 5703 Jasper point circle. just briefly like to address the board about contracts. I initially got interested in this one, considering the board's approval of replacement of water lines under monarch, and I was told that there were deficiencies in the construction design, but apparently no remedy was made against the people responsible for the deficiencies.
one explanation given to me was that the county had building inspector had approved the installation. But of course that doesn't excuse Nonperformance, so I don't know why that would be a consideration. In any event. and getting interested in this, I noticed that when CRS people, I guess dropped out or retired and went on leave and you had to hire a new firm.
I asked Nathan for a copy of their contract and initially thought they didn't have one that was just done by email, and then he found one for me, but it was unsigned. I pointed out to him that there's a termination provision in that contract that requires notice, be given a termination, and presumably he's taken care of that.
and I've heard that there's also some, concern that his employment contract has expired and, and needed to be renewed as well. So I took the liberty, if I may approach the dais.
Describer:
Steve leaves the podium to pass out paperwork to the board and then returns to the podium.
Jason:
Go ahead.
Steve:
There should be seven copies. Enough to go to, Nathan and Council over here.
One of the documents is, drafting contracts, and it's been prepared in February 2022 by the Colorado Special District Property and Liability Pool. You are, of course, you know that you're a member of that pool, and they have a risk management division that's important for questions and training as well. I thought it might be worth at least making that available to you.
If you don't want to read it, fine. There's a recycle bin somewhere. But one of the considerations in here that you'll find is their, suggestion that there substantial authority, that indemnification provisions and contracts are not enforceable against special districts and other governmental entities, I raise this because in looking at the materials you have submitted to the that have been submitted to the board, there's a number of contracts submitted for approval, many of which have indemnification provisions.
So for your consideration you may wish to think about whether or not, those should be negotiated out of the contracts. And in addition, there's some other authority. In fact, the second handout is an article by Cedar and Vanderwall. I don't have a date on it, but it's not too old, I don't think. And it talks about the unenforceable, indemnification provisions in contracts. That's all I had. Thank you that's all I had.
Jason:
Great. Thank you. Mr. Dawes. Will, look over your information here. Okay. anybody online?
Okay, we will go ahead and close out the public comment period, and we will move on to item number five, the consent agenda.
Board Member Leah Enquist:
I have a quick question. Yes. thank you for sharing this and bringing it to the board. I would be curious, Paul, probably not necessarily right now in this forum, but just like at some point, like a response to that comment to the board.
Paul:
Oh, yeah. I'd be happy to.
Jason:
Okay. Thank you. Okay, great. We'll move on to the consent agenda. I understand there's a change to the consent agenda.
Board Member James (Jim) Mulvey:
Hang on a second. In reviewing the meeting notice or meeting minutes from January 27th. the presentation by Michael Penney, has some erroneous numbers in it, and we like to pull that in, correct that.
It had to do specifically with the approval, of mills for the North Metro district and, and a couple comments in there.
Tera:
So I move to approve the items on consent agenda, except for item B, and have that pulled out separately.
Jim:
I second that okay.
Board Voting All Speak:
Having a second. We'll go to vote Jim. approves this change and the agenda as modified.
Great Tera. Approve. Jenna. Approve. Leah approve. And I approve as well. With those changes.
Jason:
We will, move on now to item number six. The hearing. We've got a hearing to appeal. the a penalty assessed at 6271 Kinsey circle.
Leah:
Sorry to do. We revisit item B before we go on to the next one. Like, if we pull it out separately, how does that work?
Jason:
I think they pull it out and then we bring it back up. Next meeting, next board meeting with the changes.
Paul:
We can certainly do it that way. Okay.
Jason:
Okay. We will move on to item number six again. the hearing to hear the appeal of penalties assessed at 6271. Kinsey circle, violation of the District Rules and Regulations, article 17 .2.2. So, Nathan, up first with the presentation of evidence.
Paul:
And if I can just give a brief introduction, to the board here, just setting some, some standards for, for how these sorts of hearings go.
So, the district is able to enact certain rules and regulations governing hearings of this type. the district has not at this point. So, general, due process and, fairness requirements control. So essentially what that means is you'll hear, Nathan give his presentation, he can provide evidence. the property owner has the opportunity to cross-examine, Nathan, if you'd like to, you also have the opportunity to cross-examine the homeowner, if you'd like.
and, the evidentiary rules are relaxed here. You're not making any sort of evidentiary calls here saying anything like that. you just, you're deciding what the weight of the evidence is due. like what What weight to attribute to the evidence rather than making evidentiary calls. okay. And, with that, Nathan, you can go ahead and present, your evidence and you'll have the opportunity to cross-examine.
Nathan:
Thank you. So, this is regarding, 6271 Kenzie Circle. we recently had a technician, during a visit for a zero usage find, a water filtration system that had been installed in a way that, fully bypasses the water meter. and so that's what got it on our, on our radar, so to speak.
Describer:
On screen, but not included with the packet:
6271 Kenzie Circle- Charles & Brandy Packard- Timeline
Started getting zero reads with 4/30/24 reading
Emailed Charles 8/6/24, he called and said they had some plumbing work done so maybe why the meter is no longer working, work order created
8/6/24-Wyatt spoke with Charles regarding appointment, not able to this week, possibly the following week.
8/16/24- Charles is checking with his wife with a time that will work for her.
8/21/24- Assuming meter was not working, Matt installed new meter, did not notice it was by-passed.
8/31/24- new meter on 8/31 Non Read List, new work order created 9/4/24
Estimated 10,000 gallons for 8/31/24 bill
Updated work order 1/2/25, now getting zero reads
Matt hung tag on door 1/15/25
Matt met with Charles 1/22/25, noticed meter has been bypassed by both irrigation and house service with the installation of the reverse osmosis system
Nathan:
So I have a quick timeline of events here that I'll go over and then I can get into the actual violation. so for the address on 4/30/2024, we, for the read date of 4/30/2024 , we started getting a zero usage report, meaning that we had stopped getting, showing water usage at that at that address.
eventually on, 8/6/2024
We had reached out to the homeowner. they let us know at that time that they had some plumbing work done. And so that might be why the word me by the meter was no longer working. we spoke with them ultimately file, ultimately followed up with, work order, which was scheduled on August 21st. Matt, one of the court technicians went out, did not notice at that time that the system had been bypassed.
And so he went ahead and replaced the water meter. after the new meter was installed, it was still on the non read list. So we did another work order. After that we hung a door tag on 1/15/2025 and 1/22/2025. Matt went back out to the residence and that was when he noticed that there was a, installation that had bypassed the water meter.
Describer:
Nathan scrolls to a picture of the homeowner's water pipes, and he describes the installation.
Nathan:
so it was just come out a little bit. So he did take a couple photos of the installation there. and so you can see, see if you guys can see the cursor. Yeah. So right here is this is the water meter. So anything below this is, is unmetered. So when he arrived he found that this had been installed.
It went through the water meter bypass up and around tight end above the backflow preventer. And so all of the water that was coming into the home was skipping the water meter going around through that bypass. And so we weren't recording any usage, pursuant to our, I apologize, pursuant.
Jason:
Can I just ask a question real quick? you say anything that goes into the house, the low that meter is not getting.
Nathan
right. So if the if the water doesn't physically flow through the water meter, the meter won't register it. And so because he made this because of this connection was made prior to the water meter, okay. The flow would come in through the street, go through this T.
Jason:
So the stub out for the for the external water, for the irrigation water. That's at the bottom left hand corner. So that was done after the fact to we think
Nathan:
so the irrigation connection. I don't know if that's necessarily captured in this, but my guess is that this blue pipe goes to goes through the irrigation, which is why it would be shut off in, in winterized in.
Jim:
Nathan. Yes. Actually, if you in go back to one picture down, I think, you know, this goes a little wider shot. if you could just wiggle your mouse on where the water actually comes in the house.
Nathan:
Yeah. Which is that very bottom there. Yep. So the water comes in through the house.
Jim:
That's the main shut off right above it.
Right? Correct. Okay. And then what's directly above there's a little little line teeing off there.
Nathan:
so this next little device is the pressure regulating valve. This is the water, the line that was installed for the water. Water treatment system.
Jim:
All right. Thank you. Yep. So the water would go come in through the street. This is the penetration into the foundation, through the water purification system around the water meter, above the backflow preventer.
And then on into the rest of the home. so our rules and regulations. I just want to read exactly what that says really quick. So this is, councilman North Metro district Rules and regulations, article 17, subsection two, dot four. I'm sorry, 2.2. so it reads unauthorized connection or water use any person who has made an unauthorized use of district water or an unpermitted connection to the district district's water, sanitary sewer or stormwater system shall be penalized a minimum of $500 plus any cost incurred by the district and any other outstanding fees or charges, including a reconnection fee if possible.
Describer:
On screen:
Date: January 24, 2025
Charles Packard
6271 Kenzie Circle
Castle Pines, CO 80108
Subject: Notice of Unauthorized Water Use
Dear Mr. Packard
We are writing to inform you of a serious issue regarding your water service with
Castle Pines North Metro District. As you are aware, a recent service call to your home has
revealed that a water filtration system was installed at your property bypassing the water
meter, resulting in unauthorized use of water. Based on our usage history, this system was
installed between March 31, 2024, and April 30, 2024.
Water theft is a violation of District regulations and undermines the integrity of our
water supply system. The district is authorized to seek fees, penalties, charges, and
disconnection as provided in Section 17.1 of the District's Rules and Regulations, including
the specific penalties noted in Sections 17.2.2 and 17.2.4.
As a result of this violation, and pursuant to our regulations, your account will incur the
following charges:
• Minimum fine for unauthorized use: $500.00
• Estimated unbilled usage for 90,000 gallons: $447.30
• Cost for a new water meter: ($212.00) crossed out
• Labor costs: ($150.00)Crossed out replaced with $75.00
Total Amount Due: ($1,309.30)Crossed out replace with $1022.30
You are required to correct this issue prior to February 28th,2025. During this
period, you must bring your account current and allow a representative to conduct an
inspection of your water service. Please note that failure to comply within this
timeframe will result in the immediate disconnection of your water service, and
additional related fees totaling $250.00. We urge you to contact our office as soon as the
correction has been made at 303-688-8550 so we can inspect the water meter and ensure
compliance.
Evidence, including a summary of the estimated water usage, and photos of the
illegal installation have been attached to this letter.
You have the right to a hearing regarding this matter and the opportunity to appeal
this decision. Detailed procedures for hearings and appeals can be found in Article 18 of
the District's Rules and Regulations. We encourage you to review these procedures if you
wish to contest any aspect of this notification.
For your convenience, you can access the full Rules and Regulations of Castle Pines
North Metro District by scanning the QR code below:
We appreciate your prompt attention to this urgent issue, and we look forward to resolving
it.
Nathan:
and so it doesn't list anything about, intent or anything like that. My position is to uphold the rules and regulations. So pursuant to those, after briefly touching base with council, we drafted and then emailed as well as, sent through certified mail. this notice of unauthorized water use, basically restates, that we, we found a connection that had bypassed the water meter and then goes into a little bit of detail in terms of the fine structure, that we used to place.
So let me zoom in here for that. and so you'll notice there's some adjustments here. And I'll kind of walk through those. so Susan and I are, office operations manager went back through to look at the, historical usage to the property as well as the monthly budget, which is what we generally use when we estimate a bill.
Describer:
Nathan on screen:
Nathan:
So we went back through and estimated the usage for each of the months that we didn't get a you get a reading came up with a total of about 90,000 gallons of usage, and then used our lowest billable rate for 2024 and ran that out for a total of $447.30. I included an accounting of that when we sent it out.
Describer:
The transaction history for this person's property is on screen.
Nathan:
So this is just the transaction history for the property. the numbers listed in black are actual readings. So those are where we got actual water meter readings. the numbers, listed in red are the estimated readings that you can kind of see. There's a couple right here where the. We had estimated 10,000 gallons. that's something that we'll do is to kind of like, help nudge a homeowner to call us back when we're having some sort of zero usage as we'll do an estimated reading.
and so the budget for that month was 18,000 gallons. So we, we did an additional 8000 gallons, calculation. So this December and. Right. Or how we got to that, estimated use over that time period from 4/30 to, the end of January of this year. initially I had also, billed for the cost of a new water meter since we had replaced one, as well as $150 in labor costs at a, rough estimate of $75 in labor for each trip.
based on the rates that same report charges. the resident, when I sent this out, the resident had emailed me back, and he had pointed out that had that there was actually nothing wrong with the water meter, so no damage occurred to the water meter. Had our technician noticed that the meter had been bypassed, we wouldn't have replaced it.
and it's a meter that we can still use. So the homeowner didn't feel that it was fair that we were charging them for a new meter when the meter was actually functioning fine. and so it was part of, for lack of a better term, kind of a settlement offer. I pulled, the cost of the new meter.
And then I also cut the labor costs in half. So we still had one trip out there that would have been unnecessary. And then, you know, kind of taking ownership for the part of missing it the first time. and so and you can see those adjustments here that I made and sent to the homeowner. so the original amount due that we had placed, plus the $500, minimum fine.
So the original amount that we had sent out was $1,309.30, with the adjustments were now at $1,022.30. So after we sent that, sent that out, we had our email exchange. I did these reductions. That's when, the homeowner asked to go through the hearing and appeals process. And that's where we are today.
Leah:
Thank you. Nathan. Well go ahead.
Sorry. Quick question. if I'm remembering my dates correctly, off the top of my head, it sounds like first noticed. And of April 1st contacted beginning of August. help me understand kind of the the lag, like the the timeline lag. Yeah.
Describer:
Nathan periodically shows pictures of the installation throughout this discussion while everyone describes the installation. It is the installation of a reverse osmosis (RO) system but it splits off before the water meter and comes back after the water meter, while still running through the meter. A wider view of the system also included all the filters, and although the whole system still worked, it seems the reverse osmosis system was redirecting water away from the water meter so that it was not reporting any water usage. The owner corrected the issue immediately once informed, although the first time a technician can to inspect the issue he did not recognize that the RO system could have been the issue, he replaced the meter thinking the meter was the issue. This summary explains what the board is seeing in the pictures of the install.
Nathan:
So that's a process that we have been working on internally to kind of streamline. And so we really needed to because of, not because of unauthorized use, but because of those like zero usages.
since that time, we've, we've put a new system in place to like, just better track these work orders. So now we have, like, pull all of them. really, it was just an operational inefficiency that we weren't doing well enough and that we're taking steps to correct.
Jim:
quick question. Is the meter really reuse? You know, can we reuse that?
Nathan:
Absolutely. Okay. That downstairs.
Jason:
All right. Any other questions for Nathan? Thanks, Nathan. Hello, Mr. Packard, you'd like to respond. Sorry. It's the, Got it. Thank you.
Charles Packard, Castle Pines Resident:
Good evening. I'm Charles Packard. Thanks, board members, for hearing me. I live at 6271 Kinsey Circle. as, Mr. Travis alluded to, I'll go through a timeline that I have as well.
My wife and I first, received a notification in our door stating a tech. He had access to our basement to check the water meter again in January. I called that day, and we arranged the time for someone to come out of the house on 1/22. this was the second time in about approximately five months that it happened.
the original visit was in August. representative arrived, and inspected our reverse osmosis system and said, and and set up the tech. said that water meter was not functioning properly and replaced it. He felt the water was traveling through the line properly. We didn't the line still went up as, Mr. Travis showed you.
We didn't bypass the line. The line still kept going straight through the system to the water meter. so when that tech came out and saw the property, he thought the water meter was broken. we've been paying my wife and I've been paying our water bill on a consistent basis. whenever we get a bill, we pay for it.
So we figured it was correct in our eyes. As soon as that was rectified in August, on January of this year, the same representative, 20 on January 23rd, the same representative came out again to visit the property and thought the setup looked good as well because he said, once again, the line, the vertical line from coming in from outside was still going to the meter.
he said we wouldn't be getting water pressure based upon the, pictures submitted. That's what he told me. He goes, I don't understand why, you're you wouldn't be getting water essentially in the house if it was incorrect. he said, I'm going to go get another water meter and change that water meter out. And I thought that was really kind of odd.
I'm like two water meters. Not reading properly doesn't sound right. So at that point, I was with him that night and we went through the process. He's like, let me turn, the water meter off. I mean, I'm sorry. The the reverse osmosis system. Off I went upstairs, turn the water on. He said, this is obviously now the water meters working.
and at that point he realized that something was wrong and we were about to replace a second water meter for no reason. he told me it was a very serious violation. He said I was gonna have my water turned off in a few days if I don't have it rectified. that next day, I actually had, our contractor come out, and he fixed the issue.
I will say that, I received an, an email from Mr. Travis the following day stating that we were in violation. We were stealing water. I disagree with that statement because we've been paying our bills on a regular basis. It might not be the correct amount, but we've been paying the bills. We've granted access every single time anybody's ever asked to come to our house.
I sent pictures to Mr. Travis on 1/24 showing the resolution. unfortunately, he said that still didn't meet satisfaction because there were two stubs. It wasn't a full straight line going up to the to the meter, but all the lines were completely cut, at that point. And we had fixed it and resolve the issue when having the the flow above the meter essentially.
we have since then fixed those two t stubs that were down below the meter. we fixed those about a week and a half ago. so we feel like we're in compliance at this point. I will submit pictures to Mr. Travis, and I have those here. If you'd like to see those. we feel that we weren't necessarily stealing water.
We feel like it was just an error. There's nothing in the R&Rs that say, this is where the stubs need to go in. And this is how it needs to go and be like. According to the rep, the tech came out twice. He was ready. He installed one water meter thinking it was the water meter. He was going to install a second one as well because the way he saw it, it wasn't a violation until we turned off the reverse osmosis system.
I'm humbly requesting that you dismiss the $500 fine on our behalf. I agree that we will pay the $447.30, in water that we, as an estimate, owe. It could be higher. It could be lower. And I appreciate the estimate, but I request that the $500 fine be waived. And I'll take any questions that you have for me as well.
Jana:
I have a quick question. So and maybe this is even for Nathan. So what did his bill look? What did the bill look like that he was paying each month? If it was a zero read.
Nathan:
so it would have been essentially the bill for the same amount every month. It just wouldn't have had any usage variation. So we do have the minimum the minimum set fees.
So there there's definitely a bill that gets generated for the monthly wastewater charge. The base fees for all of that. And then there just would have each bill would have said zero for usage, and then there wouldn't have been an additional.
Jana:
So the bill would have said zero. Correct. But then there's there's the sewer fees. And then the other stuff. Okay. Okay.
Nathan:
then just to point out, so this is, a photo, that the, Mr. Packard had sent me the day after and he got everything disconnected. I didn't I neglected to include that, but I did want the board to know that he at least remove the wastewater connections. And then, you know, there's just some kind of, like, technical things that needed to be changed here.
But this was. I mean, within 24 hours, he did have the system reconfigured.
Tera:
So first of all, I want to say thank you for coming tonight. and based on all of the communications that I've seen, you have been very responsive. And, I don't know you, but to me, it does not seem like you had intent, to steal water.
So, I do appreciate you coming. And I know I, for one, would support not, you know, waiving the fine because I don't I don't think you were trying to bypass. I think you were just trying to do a RO system.
Charles:
Thank you.
Jason:
How did our techs miss this twice?
Nathan:
they missed it once. the first time they went, they got it the second time that he went out.
I don't have a great explanation. The technician that went out is, really, genuinely a great operator and, a great employee. They do a lot of good work from us. They're also still relatively new. So they haven't they don't have a huge breadth of experience, in the industry. So I more than likely it was just a lack of experience.
These types of installations aren't things that we come across very, very, very often. So it's nothing that would have necessarily jumped out unless he knew what he was looking for. and it was really the additional work that he did when they went back, where he kind of just stepped back and realized kind of the more the, the impact of the installation of the water system.
Jana:
I have another question. Sorry. I do believe that you did not know for the record, but, it is confusing why the person that installed it would have put the T below the meter. Like even that makes me think. What were they thinking on that? Because clearly we need to go beyond the meter and then have the T.
Charles:
Yeah, I ask the same question. Right. And he said, well, the line still a tease out, but it's still there's still a line that was going straight from the wall or the basement straight through to the water meter as well. So he thought there had to be water pressure still going through the system. And that's why I detect that too, because the we never modified the line coming out of the house.
Essentially, it was still coming out and still there was still a straight line going to the the water meter. It was just kind of teed off, essentially,
Jana:
that t existed prior to the reverse osmosis.
Charles:
no, ma'am.
Jana:
Oh, the T was added
Charles:
from the best of my knowledge, yes.
Jana::
Okay. Yes. That still does feel like oh, put it below.
It's kind of confusing, but yeah,
Charles:
I'm sorry, I'm not. Unfortunately I'm not a plumber. And I'm like,
Tera:
no, none of us are customers.
Jana:
This was more for the plumber. Sure. Yeah.
Tera:
Yeah, that that would be my question. Did you do this work yourself.
Charles:
No no no no. Yeah. It would be a lot worse that happened.
Jim:
I mean, question for you.
Who was that person who Installed it, and then, was it, permitted connection?
Charles:
It was not a permitted connection. I don't know if I needed a permit for that, but if I did, I guess I need to get a permit. I guess that's a good question.
Nathan:
Yeah, that is, generally speaking, something, like a home. It's a system up for modification.
It generally wouldn't require a permit. so this falls, this this all falls under, plumbing code, which is actually the responsibility of the city. So we inspect the meter tree and installation when homes are first built, anything after that, kind of falls into their jurisdiction. but they wouldn't have had to pull a permit. There are a lot of things about this.
just from my experience in the in my 20 plus years of experience in the industry, they're very questionable in terms of a professional installation. the burn marks on the support structure are very unusual. You generally put flame retardant cloth behind there. the sweating on the individual fittings, it does not look like it's done by a professional or master plumber.
Same thing with some of the pipes, like some of this is like incorrect schedules for water lines and things like that. It there's a lot of things about this that, Even even like a journey if you're a journeyman plumber or beyond, this is pretty, pretty basic stuff. This is very like brand new apprentice style work.
Jim:
I mean, then these days they're mostly crimping connections for speed and reliability, even on copper.
So please answer my question. Who did the install?
Charles:
company name 303 Company did the nstall?
Jim:
Were they licensed plumbers? They are licensed, yes. I find it exceedingly hard to believe that they would do a T tap off prior to a meter and not notice it. but thank you.
Charles:
I just like to say, yeah, that the tech that came out didn't notice it either.
Didn't understand that as well.
Jason:
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Packard. Oh, you have one more.
Leah:
Oh, I was just going to say anecdotally, there's a lot of not great contractors out there who charge a lot for not great work. especially I feel like in our area. So.
Jason:
All right, board, after hearing, Nathan and Mr. Packard's testimony, we kind of got a feel from Tera where she would like to settle on this.
can we get opinions from everybody else?
Jana:
I would support removing the $500 fee.
Leah:
Well, I would also support waiving the $500 fee. The question that I do have for Nathan, though, is I know we had to estimate the amount of water used, and it sounded like we used a lower estimate or. But, it's that
Nathan:
conservative. We and we, we do that consistently. So it's consistent with the manner that we do all bill estimations.
Leah:
Okay.
Nathan:
Yeah. So it's the we we we're conservative when we do billing estimates. And then we put that all at the lowest here grade because there's no way we could know if they exceeded their budget in any given month. And that's all. That's a whole realm of guessing that we just really don't want to get into.
This is, you know, based on the expected usage for a property of that size in any given month and the previous usage history, and then we just kind of use the lower average on those.
Tera:
So I appreciate you explaining that. And as long as we are consistent not that what I want. So I'm going to move that we vacate the penalty assessed against 6271 Kinsey Circle for the violation of district rules and regulations.
Article 17 .2.2.
Jason:
Thanks. Tera but Before we do that motion, though, Jim hasn't had a chance to chime in here.
Jim:
Yeah. One more question for you. throughout this whole period in process, and there's three of us, three, people. what did you communicate with them and what was their response to this? What did they charge you for this work?
And is that work that costs for that? We're going to get refunded to you because obviously this is substandard, doesn't meet code, and it caused a violation. so I'd be interested in either seeing a receipt from those folks or some community.
Jason:
Could I stop you there for a second? I think that's out of scope of what we're supposed to be hearing about tonight.
I understand where you're going with that, but, let's, only deal with the fines, and, So where do you land on that?
Jim:
I'm concerned. And some of this doesn't make sense to me. I'll just say it straight. Doesn't look like a plumber, did it? and I'm concerned that, you know, stuff like this shouldn't happen, and, you know, I'm bothered by it.
Board Voting All Speak:
Okay. we do have a motion on the table. The motion is to, re, just vacate the $500. fine. Do I hear a second on that? I will second. Okay, having a second, we'll go to vote. Jim. no. Okay. Tera. Yes. We approve. Jenna approves. I'll approve it as well. We will vacate the, unauthorized use fine of $500.
Jason:
The rest of the fees are still collectible.
Nathan:
Yep. Okay, so following our rules and regulations, we'll draft a letter, noting the board's decision. we will send that to you within the next 15 days. we'll add the, whatever the total was for the estimated usage to the bill. And then we do need to schedule a time with the technician to visit house in person, just to make sure that we all.
Charles:
And I can send you pictures if you like. Mr. Travis.
Nathan:
Yeah. So both both would go. Yeah.
Charles:
Thank you for your time. Thank you.
Jason:
Thank you. And we will now close out the hearing, item number six and move open. move to open item number seven. Discussion and consideration of the similar operations staff contract. Will Parker.
Nathan:
Good evening. Well, hello. So the, the studies, and where my bookmarks go. Oh, it's because I'm just on the agenda. so at the, study session last week, and I've already had a chance to talk to Will and kind of relay some of the board's concerns, or questions. the board just had some additional questions around the Semocor monthly contract amount, specifically as it pertains to the number of hours that we're getting, from contract operators.
And so Will is here to talk about that or any other questions that you guys may have on the contract.
Jason:
Thanks. Will. would you, start off just by telling us we have this monthly contract amount? What is that to include?
Will Parker, Semocor Representative:
So, I didn't make a complete list. so what That is communications between, Nathan himself, engineers working special projects, on site, also, remote, remote monitoring, everything that it basically details and works with Castle Pines.
I think there was a general question. So 85 an hour, if we want to bring that up is a general placeholder. Usually we use for extra work that's approved by the district. It's not per se, just a contract number because contracts, you know, have everything filtered inside of that for business. but if we use that 85, and I'm guessing that was the one of the questions, I think.
Jason:
Correct. we did some quick crunching and, during our last meeting and, we don't think that we have somebody on site, to if you take that $85 an hour and divide it by the 28,000, that's 331 man hours of the month. So approximately to just over two people a week, for, for, what we thought was going to be on site personnel.
But I guess you're wrapping other things into this, and I guess that's the case. Then we kind of need to see what other things are being wrapped into this to make a fair judgment.
Will:
Yeah. so if we take that, the contract amount is 2840. so if we do 15 normal average hours, we do in the district on site is 15 to 20.
So at 15, we'll take the low number at 15. That's at the 85. That's 22 working days. That's 2850. So 28 050. if we take the 20 hours, but we're taking an average of 15 if we take the 20. So an hour back to the contract again is 2840. So we almost made that already. then on weekends.
Describer:
On Screen: This document is from a professional services contract which is not initiated. It is a summary of services and compensation.
EXHIBIT A
Scope of Services
and
Compensation
Scope of Services:
Contractor shall provide limited professional services to the district as set forth herein.
Contractor’s primary duty is oversight, operations, limited management, and qualified guidance.
Contractor shall serve as the Operator in Responsible Charge and provide requisite
qualified operators for the district’s water treatment plant, wells, distribution system,
collections system, lift stations, and related systems. This work is to be completed during normal
business hours. Contractor shall complete or facilitate all necessary and established maintenance
programs.
Contractor is responsible for ensuring that all state and federal laws and regulations are met.
Including but not limited to: Water Quality Testing, Annual Consumer Confidence Report, and
Sanitary Surveys.
On an as needed basis- Contractor also performs meter reading, meter maintenance, completes
work orders, and customer service calls, either in person, by e-mail, or by telephone during
normal business hours.
The contractor will perform on-call 24-hour support for the aforementioned systems on a time
and materials basis.
District shall be responsible to provide all other operating staff and personnel.
District shall provide Contractor with access to any and all water plant/system logs, records, and
files, whether paper or electronic. This includes all documentation required by federal, state, or
local laws, ordinances, or regulations and those kept in the normal course of business at
District’s place of business.
Will:
So we do work remotely on weekends. checking the data on that. so if we do that, that's roughly three hours. At that rate, it's $1,000. So we get to that 29, 860 already. So we're already over the contract amount. So as far as the district that's not charged to the district on those total hours, if we were to do 20 on average hours in that week or day, I'm sorry, per day.
the contract, if we were billing, if we were talking on an hourly rate, would be 37,400 on a monthly contract. but we don't do that. Where we were running it off an average of 15, hours a day on behalf of Castle Pines. So. And guarantee, we basically guarantee it's eight or more hours on site or in the field, and others are working by emails by site in my stuff.
So, you know, we do have Mark, he's a higher paid, or ORC kind of type that we bring into. He works out here a lot for Castle Pines. So if we kind of crunched the numbers, Basically the difference between the two is $102,000 a year. we're on the latter of that. so we're charging that 15 versus 20.
And I hope all these numbers kind of make sense. But I'm throwing at you.
Jim:
Quick can I ask a question? speaking broadly, good, contract free and, good contract for you.
Will:
actually, this district is pretty large and financially, this is not one of the highest paying. It's I have other contracts that are three times smaller, and they their pay out is more.
Jim:
I was making more of, are you making money as a businessman here kind of thing?
Will:
yeah. I'm not going to. Okay. But yeah, there is that point to if I have other individuals in this district more time that are more senior, I'm probably almost pushing that that it's a push.
Jim:
Okay. Yeah, I appreciate it. And, you know, I think we were just a little confused about the numbers.
So totally appreciate you coming in talking to us and laying it out for. So thank you very much.
Describer:
On Screen. A continuation and end of the services and compensation summary which was up before.
District shall provide immediate notification to Contractor of any federal, state or local operation
violations, unusual conditions, alarms, out-of-spec readings, etc.
District staff shall provide daily telephone or e-mail updates on all matters requested by
Contractor to Contractor’s assigned operator.
Compensation:
Monthly Contract amount of $28,740.00 with a 2% annual increase and/or a review by
both parties for increase, subject to annual appropriations.
$85/hr. standard rate (8 am – 4 pm) for work outside the Scope of Services, as needed.
$125/hr. after hours / emergency rate (4 pm – 8 am) for work outside the Scope of
Services, as needed for on call.
Prior Provisions that have been removed from this contract:
$1000 per month for work within the Scope of Services (ORC Fee)
An average of 16-20 hours a week @ $85per hour for 4.33 weeks in a month.
$125/hr. for Managerial of needed service’s including but are not limited to: Work
by Semocor owner on by half of Castle Pines north metro district. i.e.: E-mails,
phone calls meetings.
Will:
Yeah, I, I hope I didn't just roll through that too fast. So and explaining it well enough. the other thing we did this year. So all of you know, I think you might have seen it in the contract, working with Nathan and, I think him punching me a little bit here and there felt like that way.
So. So what we did is we took out the ORC fee. that's a thousand a month. That's $12,000 annual. we also took out the managerial fee. that's actually not posted in there, but that was a that was a charge for the extra work that we, when we first came on, we were doing. So this year, what we did is we took that 1800, a month.
We actually took that out of the contract as well. so for a total of $33,600, we reduced our contract this year. we were requesting a 2% increase. with that 2% increase, the savings working back and forth with Nathan to the district is $33,060. This year.
Jason:
Great. Thank you for the clarification on that very much. anybody else have any questions for great. All right. Hearing none. We'll go ahead and close out the session. Thank you Will
Will:
thank you everybody. Yeah. Thank you.
Nathan:
So before we move to the next agenda item, I would ask that the board, consider approving the contract.
Leah:
I make a motion to approve, the Semocor contract.
Board Voting All Speak:
I'll second. Sorry. Okay. Having second, we'll go to vote Jim. Approve. Tara. I. Jenna. I Leah I approve. I approve as well. The motion passes.
Jason:
And so with that, we will go ahead and close out item number seven. And we'll move on. Item number eight, the communication director's report. Hi Bailey.
Communications Director Bailey Budnik:
Good evening. I first want to apologize for my voice. I'm getting over a touch of laryngitis, so bear with me if it crackles. But are there any area that you'd like to start with?
I don't think so. I think just a general overview would probably be sufficient.
Bailey:
Great, so this past month we really just focused on. So as you know, the 2025 budget, we received updated numbers. So we're getting that design, updated and created, furthermore, just with the election coming up, we've been, steadfast with communicating that as well as in the connection ad and then just over viewing Doppler notifications, and then you can see, yeah, the connection ad we touched on a bit of the election and then also we are starting up our conservation communication coming into the springtime. So.
Jason:
Bailey, we had a little bit of a break this, last Thursday. Was it Nathan. What kind of communications did we do and result of that?
Nathan:
So I ran point on those communications just because they were kind of rapid and, a little bit technical. and so we did, we did a physical posting of all of the affected, all all of the homes that were going to be affected by the service outage.
it was a little bit different. and one of the other, reasons that we didn't loop Bailey in is because it's in a bunch of town homes, we only have communication contact for, like, the management companies that run those. And so there wasn't and it was like 80% of the infected residents were. So we did a physical door posting on every home in there that directed them to keep track of our website banner.
And then I kept updating the website banner as we got, you know, kind of along through the process. and then we filled the phone calls, as they came in, we actually didn't have as many calls as I thought, as I anticipated. I think we got ten or so phone calls that came through. and then a couple people physically visited the site, but that's how we ran them.
Jason:
Okay. Thanks. Nathan.
Leah:
Did a Doppler notification go out?
Nathan:
It didn't because. Yeah, because, yeah, it was only the there's not very many single family homes over there. And so of the 80 plus houses, I think 10 or 11 of them were actually homes that we had information for.
Jim:
this comment, first, on your report, the, connection ad was great.
I assume both of you guys worked on it, and it was the sheet it showed as to previous month, but it you know, I got to see it and really like seeing it. And I thought, you know, it went to everything we were doing. So appreciate it. Good stuff. second thing Nathan with we were kind of going back and forth that, that whole issue.
And I know I was probably trying your patience, but I do appreciate the, you know, essentially the timeline and everything after everything was sort of resolved. so I appreciate that. You're probably losing your mind running around, but I do appreciate all the work you put into that and the fact that you some, you know, you summarized everything at the end and it was very useful and, helpful. So thank you.
Jason:
Is that summary on our website?
Nathan:
no, the summary is not on the website. That's something that we could clean up and, and put up there pretty easily. especially after we get on the other side of the project tomorrow.
Leah:
yes, I second that. The summary was super helpful. although the first couple, the dates were April.
So just if we are going to share that I would update the dates.
Nathan:
I caught that this morning when I was reading it.
Leah:
And that's not like, I know you were in triage mode, but it was more, That that would be a public no. That was meant to be. I don't know how things have been historically, but I did see that you like, contacted the city and the reps and included them all on the email, like so.
I thought that was great. and is that something that's historically been done? And if not, like, I would love to continue that practice.
Nathan:
we have done it occasionally. not to that level. And that was actually, a request from director Mulvey. And so I thought that was I mean, it's it's no extra work on my end.
It's just adding a couple more email address chains on there. I did speak with Michael briefly about it, and he was really grateful for for that as well. It's just kind of helped them be prepared for any calls that came in. It didn't seem like many residents actually reached out to them, but it just kind of gave them an idea of what was going on.
Jason:
All right. Very good. Any other comments about the Communication Director's report?
All right. Not hearing or seeing any. We'll go ahead and close out that section. Thank you very much, Bailey.
All right. We'll move on to the finance director's report. Good evening. Eric.
Financial Director Eric Harris:
Good evening. Board. in your packet this evening, you have, budget, revenue, budget, a statement of revenues and expenditures on a budgetary basis as well as our financial report. I want to briefly kind of go over these and talk about some budget variances and items.
We, you know, just wanted to discuss. but first off, I do want to, thank you for the consideration of moving certain items to the work session from a review standpoint and approving these items. I think it will be a good, cadence as we get this rolled out in future months. just a brief update on the transition we received, just under two weeks ago, district documentation to close out the fourth quarter for Castle Pines north of financial Close.
The district. So we've been working like mad to do that. And so that's why you in front of you, you just have, financials through December right now. And so, that's the update. So we've been going through we're implementing processes. We still have a long ways to go of things to implement, things to roll out from a monthly standpoint.
And buy, roll out, implement processes and procedures and things of that nature just to make sure the pull back office, works, fluidly between, Nathan and myself. a couple of notes. Just, as we walk through the financial report, property taxes were fully collected for the year. And as you probably already reported in prior notes, you did receive that additional money from the state, to account for that.
So the district did fully collect on all their property taxes that they certified. the district had a considerable increase in their water usage, year to date and year to date for the calendar year of 2024 compared to 2023. had some, good discussions in here as Nathan today as we kind of investigate, you know, those differences of variances between actuals year over year and basically what that it compares to is a seasonal usage, for how, the lower or the lower usage that occurred in 2023, 2022 and how winter usage is factored into your sewer usage rates.
Describer:
On Screen. Total Billable usage table (gallons) December Highlighted
2021 18,294,000 gallons, 2022 29,684,000 gallons, 2023 17,116,000 gallons 2024 20,563,000 gallons with a cumulative to the end of 2024 of 640,563,000 gallons of billable for 2024.
Water services revenues (volumetric charges) for 2024 were $3,578,737 compared to $2,596,718 in 2023,
representing a 37.8% increase. This increase was due to higher usage levels compared to 2023, additional
customers reaching higher tiers, and more connections to the system. Billable usage increased by 28% during
the same period.
Wastewater services revenues (volumetric charges) for 2024 were $1,582,556 compared to $1,607,656 in 2023,
representing a 1.5% decrease. Wastewater service charges are assessed and set based upon the winter usage for
individual account holders. H2 is currently investigating the reason for the variances based upon the prior year’s
revenue.
The following table summarizes year-to-date accounts receivable and revenues activity:
Eric:
And so, was fully able to work through and, identify those of the variances, at least the overall standpoint, on why the water service revenues were up compared to the wastewater service revenues were down comparatively to 2023. So we feel comfortable from that standpoint as we walk through that. So what you'll see is you have approximately 641 million gallons of water usage that were billable for the 2024 calendar year.
Describer:
On screen. It is a year to date accounts receivable and revenues table with an ending balance of $576,013 at end of year 2024 with a Revenue balance of $8,414,122, payments were $6,955,531 for 2024. Then "The District’s Water and Wastewater Funds have notable Revenue Budgetary variances for the Fiscal 2024 Year." Table is shown of a Combined account and the variances of each cost, revenue, royalty, interest and fees. Notable are the Renewable Water Investment Revenue which dropped by $332,300 and the Wastewater Connect Fee which dropped by $173,652. Continuing there is another table of variances of operational costs which the most significant variance being the IGA Expenditures at a cost of $501,722.
Eric:
and as you continue to walk through the report, you'll see certain summary charges related to your accounts receivable as well as the district's cash position. an important note on top of this is we did walk through, certain budgetary variances. and we Nathan and I revisited the budget process and how it was done.
Under the previous financial consultant. We found several, things that we will change and incorporate in this upcoming budget, preparation year as we look at 2026 that we'll start working on around July 1st. for instance, there's a couple of things that are, you know, from a budget standpoint, you have a inverse correlation for wastewater connect fee versus the water connect fee for this year.
the district should at least have an absorption rate for those. But, it looks like those may have been just placeholder budget items that were calculated based, not even based on a rate. So we we found several of those items. And we're going to make sure that those are remediated as we look at this upcoming budget year.
Describer:
On Screen. Accounts Payable Activity The following table summarizes 2024 year-to-date monthly disbursements summary: Disbursements & Claim Summary (unaudited) From 11/23/23 to 2/14/25 total disbursements were $19,177,743.46. District Staff and Consultants presented $4,175,691.54 in expenditures for review at the work session held on February 19, 2025. These expenditures were brought to the attention of the Board for consideration of ratification at the Board Meeting held February 24, 2025. The amount of presented disbursements is larger than presented in prior months due to the fact that the District did not have a December 2024 board meeting and did not consider approval or ratification at the January 2025 board meeting. Within the current disbursements, there are several notable items presented for the Board’s consideration.
Eric:
but we feel very confident the district has, its processing bill pay correctly. You know, we have, the bank accounts reconciled. you know, we're implementing those, monthly processes, if you will, to make sure that we have, current financials are in management report for you as the board. and, the following section is just a brief narrative on the accounts payable process that you consider doing your consent agenda, as noted in the work session, there's a pretty high dollar amount of, accounts payable, if you will, that was considered.
So you'll note that, when that's all said and done, you'll start seeing certain changes in the financial, packet as we implement certain closing reports, hopefully driven more systematically out of the district's accounting system. But we'll start incorporating those over the coming months. but what's what's nice is I know that has been absent from your board packet the last couple of months is that you do have a, financial, financial statement for you for, for consideration.
so we feel comfortable with that. additionally, what you have is, our internal transition plan of things that we're working through. we still have a long ways to go, and we still expect we'll get that through that over this upcoming month. But just want you to know that we're tracking, many of those things that have been requested as well.
without going details in the lead on by line item. We can certainly do that at this meeting. but are there any questions that you would like me to answer, considering the financials?
Jim:
Not necessarily the financials. because in our talk before the meeting, you were kind of telling me the status of things. So I'll wait until you've had a chance to still get further along with the data.
but you did indicate, relationship between water usage and, like a sanitary sewer rates and things like that. from a very top level. And you may not be able to answer this, but between winter and summer, those the water usage should be the same, except for what people are putting on their lawns for irrigation and things like that, and maybe additional, slightly additional use in the summer for maybe pools or something else.
But, does the data make sense to you at this point? Have you had enough opportunity to kind of stare at it yet, or is it still too early for that? Yeah, I want to make sure that we again, we're we're looking at water usage like, you know, water mass flow in. It's got to be equal. Water mass flow out minus a little bit of storage.
And but from a very basic standpoint does it make sense. And is the bills matching the water flow rates kind of thing. I'm basically want to understand if we have, you know, systemic leakage in the system that's substantial. All systems leak. I get that. and does the data make sense to you at this point?
Eric:
Financially it makes sense.
The way I look at these numbers is, you should be able to bisect this by price and volume. And by price, I mean your rates. And by volume, I mean how many accounts are on the system or how many gallons of the district is utilized. We have not yet, being it's been less than just under two weeks.
We haven't had enough time to, you know, dissect that data. We will. I currently, do not have access or our firm does have access to CUSI, the district's billing system. So that function is still being performed by, that consultant and will continue to be under that consultant. but we will be implementing controls, and we will be analyzing the 2024 calendar year to make sure those inflows and outflows make sense, accounting for any losses.
Jim:
Of course, I appreciate it. That's kind of what I thought you were going to say. But of course, you know, I want to put a bug in your just to, you know, as we move forward next month or two months or three months when you have a chance to absorb all that, that things track and they make sense. So thanks. You're welcome.
Nathan:
And Jim, to that end, also, we do and I think we're starting in about a I can't remember the day. Maybe we'll could help me out, but we do annually, an acoustic, which is a really sensitive leak detection equipment. We do the entire district once a year on an annual basis.
every main, every service line to make sure that we're as tight as we can be on that. So we'll we'll do that this this year. And then one of the things we'll need to do, at some point to that end is also make sure that working for a, comparing our production numbers with the billing system.
And so we'll get all of that taken care of as well.
Jim:
Okay. We we're going to get a description of how that works today. that's actually a whole other different acoustic technology. But for the, sewer line inspection, I do have a video for you tonight.
Leah:
I just wanted to say thank you. I feel like we threw kind of a lot at you right when you started. Gave you ambiguous. Can you show us insights? And I really like how you laid it out with sections and and paragraphs and data to support it. and to me, it tells a story. and so it feels more meaningful because I can, I can track, track it a lot more easily.
So I just want to say thank you.
Eric:
You're most welcome.
Jason:
Any other questions for Eric? Okay. Thank you again, Eric. And, we'll go ahead and close out the financial directors report. Thank you. We'll now move on to the legal counsel's reports. Good evening. Paul.
Legal Counsel Paul Polito, Esq.:
Evening board. So we have a couple items today. I will refer you to the legal status report.
it's the first item under the homeowner bypass of water meter. I just have a small update on the consolidated inclusion of Hidden Point. we did receive, revisions, from the Hidden Point District manager, in February 16th. just going through those to ensure that it complies with service plan. And, I'm looking at certain election provisions and make sure we're okay there, but, should have it for consideration at the next, study session.
after we, approve the final form with with the hidden point district manager. And so, that will be up for board consideration at the next study session.
Nathan:
Presentation at the next study session, consideration at the following board meeting. Thank you.
Paul:
I also wanted to note something that, is not on the agenda, but, Mr. Seter asked that I mentioned today. there is a bill, in the Colorado legislature, the House, that at this point is, is undergoing changes. But I felt like it's it's worth a mention here. so the bill is a House bill, 25-1211.
and it's it is proposing to enact a provision that, the, the water and sewer district has to provide service, to, to a property owner if the district is capable of providing that service. It's very vague as to what that means. and that's, that's a major concern that we have is, what does it mean if you, if you, you know, are able to provide that service or not?
we're keeping an eye on it. And, we'll keep you updated as to how this bill finally lands.
Jason:
Thank you for the heads up there. So. Any other any questions?
Tera:
Would that render will serve letters like not necessary.
Paul:
It's tough to say. Potentially. probably. Yes. Yeah, I would say it does. it also raises the question of what if two different entities can can provide service and it.
Yeah, it's it's a mess
Jim:
in question. you may be able to provide service, but later on you may not be able to provide service. So is there a timeline or future state that you have to satisfy as well?
Paul:
At this point, you're completely unclear. but it's yeah. Fair question.
Jim:
I mean, kind of flies in the face of what we had a resolution on, and we've discussed a couple times now that, you know, we need to provide an avenue to renewable water resources.
And this essentially says that what we did our resolution on a few weeks back is null and void if the state steps in. I'm not saying it is. It obviously be had this discussion, but you know, it feels that way to me at this point.
Paul:
It certainly does raise the question. I mean, if a district enacts a resolution that requires 100% renewable water sourcing and then somebody wants to include within the district, do you have the capacity if you're only providing that renewable water sourcing it?
It's an open question. but that's that's part of the problem. That's the main issue we have with this is it's so unclear. but. Well,
Tera:
and while we're on that topic, then, because we do have in your report two different ones that are inclusions, the hidden Point and the Jam Ranch and those would we we passed our 100% renewable water, I think, at our last meeting.
So how does that affect the hidden point and the Jam Ranch?
Paul:
as well, in regards to this bill again remains to be seen. But just discussing
Tera:
not even the bill, but discussing inclusions with us because we did pass that on our last meeting.
Paul:
Yep. So that is actually something I wanted to. That was the last thing I was going to mention today.
So that's that's good. I was going to recommend that for, so first off to, to back up. it, it would apply to both Hidden Point. Jam Ranch would both have to show a report that they can source all of their renewable water. all of their water from renewable sources. Obviously, it doesn't make sense with hidden point.
so what I was going to propose is, just a very small amendment, to the, to the renewable water resolution. requiring just mentioning that, any, any properties that are already being served are waived from the requirement.
And that's my legal report. Does anybody have any questions?
Jason:
Okay. Go ahead. would we need to make an amendment to that, or can we just make a decision that's, you know, separate from the resolution?
Paul:
You need to make an amendment to the resolution.
Jim:
I thought that's what you're gonna say. Thank you. Yeah.
Paul:
Are you going to draw that up and have it ready for us, then? Absolutely. Okay. Then I can provide that. The next board meeting.
Jason:
Okay, great. Wait. Did you have a question?
Leah:
Mine was. Oh, sorry. Mine was the same as Jim's. Okay.
Jason:
All right. Very good. Well, seeing no more questions, for Paul, we'll go ahead and close out the, legal counsel's report, and we'll move on to item number nine. The item number 11, the district manager's report.
Nathan.
Describer:
On screen.
XI. District Manager’s report.
A. AWWA ACE presentation announcement.
B. Customer Service Specialist, new employees.
C. Well A2 update.
D. Asset management update.
E. SL RAT collections system maintenance review
Nathan:
All right. I'll go through the agenda items and then, if anybody has any questions, specifically about my about my report, I can answer those. Sorry, I can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Here. so the first thing we have up. So. Ace. ace, ace is the largest water conference in the world.
And it's hosted by the American Waterworks Association. it changes its location every year. this year, it is, being hosted in Denver. So it'll be at the convention center. with that, Kennedy Jenks, and Castle Pines North metro district, specifically, Alex Page and myself did submit an ad, an abstract for presentation at Ace to discuss, the work that we've been doing in our water treatment plant and the efforts we're making to regain public trust through that.
out of more than 2000 submitted abstracts, we were accepted. So we will be presenting, ace this year. so that is incredibly exciting. I'm really looking forward to it. So I'll get more information as that comes out to the board. certainly anybody that wants to go would be welcome to attend. I can get some registration information out along that as well along those lines as well.
we have hired and brought on staff, both of our customer service specialists. Jennifer, goes by Jen actually started today. She is fantastic and ready to go. and I'll get both of them at a future board meeting to make themselves known and get an introduction. Our, job share. Her job share? it's Jen and Kim.
So Kimberly starts, next Monday. So they're each going to start by doing a full week just for training. And then they'll settle into, their alternating schedule a couple of weeks after that. well, A2 we've talked about this one a few times. It's, currently listed in the budget, for a capital replacement. if necessary.
So this is the one that broke the drive shaft to the. Well. we've been doing some further investigating in that we did get a proposal from Layne, who is the contractor that's been doing all of the work on that. I have not brought it to the board yet. I think I'm hoping it'll be ready to bring, at next month's study session.
We. Because we're using the same, wanted to keep continuity with the same contractor. I didn't want to just run with their proposal. So I turn their proposal over to Kennedy Jane so that they could do a pricing evaluation. look at some other alternatives. And also just kind of open that conversation on some other potential, causes just to make sure that we don't spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars, put this well in the ground and have a break again.
so we've been having an ongoing conversation between Semocor, Layne, Kennedy Jenks and myself really just troubleshooting and going through that process. the the overall reaching good news there is that there's nothing at this point that indicates that we're going to need to re drill the well. So, that'll be, a substantial reduction from the current capital project that's on the books.
I think we had 1.5 or $2 million in there, and that'll be closer to a peak of, yeah, about 200,000. depending on the the path we decide to go.
Jim:
Quick question. Or really just a request. Well, a to just for people here and listening. could you describe the location of that? Well. yep.
Nathan:
So. Well, 82 is on Monarch Boulevard south of Castle Pines Parkway on the east side of the road.
really between Castle Parkway and the school on the east side, you can see it. There's a driveway that goes down to it. There's a bunch of piping laying on the ground next to it. And right now, all the well casing stuff.
Jim:
It's been there for, I think, a year and a half now, probably, or so on and off for sure.
Yeah, that was the one. We delayed a few like a year or something.
Nathan:
so the one that we delayed two years ago was, well, a five that one is over further on the north end of the district. and so asset management update. I let you guys know that last month we had completed the asset hierarchy and that that has been turned over to, aims for integration.
I got notification last week that that integration has been complete so that asset hierarchy has been loaded into our asset management system. the next step is to set a meeting. Eric will be involved in this process, which is really setting useful life for all of that equipment depreciation curves and all of that is a fancy way to say, well, know how much stuff costs, how good, what the condition is.
And now when we need to replace it and how much it's going to cost to replace it. And we'll be able to project that out, very loosely up to about 100 years into the future. But we'll be using it much more, targeted in the 5 to 10 year capital planning range, because
Leah:
that is my question. Related to what's happening over here is like, when I understand our system is very old and it's been neglected for a while, but at what point are we going to get on the front end of anticipating things that need to be replaced before they break and cause issues?
Nathan:
Yeah, it'll it'll be a sliding scale. So it'll just be as time goes on, we will become more and more proactive and less and less reactive. realistically, we'll never get to a place where we're predicting 100% of the things are going to go wrong in the system. but we've already seen, and this is probably something that once Eric has less on his plate, we could put together some financial time.
But if we went back and looked at five years, just five years back, how much we were spending on waterline breaks and emergency plan repairs and all of that, and compared it, compared it to where we are today. We're in we're already in a much, much better position than we were even a few years ago. and so for the break that just happened this last, this last weekend, we're we're already in talks with Kennedy Jenks to turn that into a capital projects and fold that into the work that we're doing with the city on Castle Pines Parkway and Monarch.
So we'll have a, and a little bit of an integration there. We probably won't be doing a project with the city on that one, but we'll, have to we'll have to incorporate it with those projects just from a timing perspective to make sure that we we can put it in in a way that makes sense and supports other projects.
So we'll we'll the answer is we'll get better over time as we have been.
Leah:
I have a question related to that. and I probably won't articulate it well. So hopefully you can understand what I'm trying to ask. So it sounds like you mentioned once a year. We do like a, for lack of a better word, scope to look for leaks of the system. How come something like that wouldn't or didn't catch the the fact that the area's not moved?
Nathan:
So, so the leak detection survey won't tell you if anything is looped or not. It'll just tell you if a leak is present or if it isn't. yeah. It's there. Just there are two. There are two separate functions. The the way the there's the way the leak detection work is you take two very, very sensitive microphones, put them on like two fire hydrants, and then that information gets sent to a receiver.
We know the speed of sound in various pipes that we put in the distance between those two transmitter transmitters, the type of pipe, the diameter of the pipe. And then those just listen. So leaks tend to happen inside of a very specific frequency band from an auditory perspective. Both of those microphones listen inside of that auditory band and then they'll actually give you a if a leak is detected, it will tell you where it is usually within about 18in to 2ft.
it's not the the disadvantage of that, of that type of survey is that it is a snapshot. So we take it takes about two weeks every year to get through it. It will absolutely tell us if there's a leak at that time. But if something breaks after that, there's no active way for us to catch it. Using that, targeted survey.
one of the things that we have looked at in the past and we'll continue to look at, is we can do a deployable network of online correlators. basically, we could have we could map our system out, put these things all over the place, and then they would just constantly listen. And then it's if there's a leak detected, they could send us that information back.
it's relative expensive for those systems, but they have been getting substantially cheaper in the last ten years. So we might be reaching the point where the cost of that technology is getting low enough that it would make sense for deployment in a system of our size,
Leah:
and that may or may not tie into my last follow up question.
we were not here when our original system was installed, and it sounds like a lot of, sometimes what we see in the ground doesn't always match what we have on record. Is there a way or is there a need to map out, like how things are actually exist under the ground, or is that just happen when we have to dig them up for like there's an issue or
Nathan:
a combination of both.
So there's certainly some things that we're doing proactively, especially with this year. We have, I think about 80 or so valves that we currently have on our asset registry that we're not exactly sure where we where they are. half of those, it's just an update. We know that they don't exist. Their hangovers from old mapping or development changed or got had and got removed.
and so we do have a plan in place that's part of the summit contract to really go and definitively either find those valves or remove them from our system. So there are some proactive things that we can do. And then certainly if we come across something just through our normal course of business, like this neighborhood not being looped, that lets us know that we need to do a little bit of exploration and then we can make a change.
So it's it's a combination of being proactive and intentional, reactive as we come across those issues.
Jim:
really a comment, maybe a question. as you look forward and this is just putting us, you know, I, I hear the questions and I'm listening. and I guess we would be looking through your recommendations going forward. And, you know, we we have a potential to do some real time monitoring. I think we are doing better.
but you know, what things, what technologies do we need to leverage as we go forward in the future? And what can we afford to implement those kind of things? So just to put it in your head to start thinking about that stuff so we could reserve moneys in future budgets to maybe implement some of those things and, and again, get us out of the reactive mode and get us into, you know, you know, doing some forward, you know, thinking about what we need to replace when we, you know, it's a common theme here.
So I won't be to death. But, I think that would be fantastic if we get to that point, even partially, you know, even a partial solution sometimes is still worth doing, you know? So just put that in your head. Thanks.
Nathan:
And then, like middle school, we get to watch a video. So, at the, study session last week, we were talking about the, services contract for the auditor, equipment that we now use to, monitor and our, wastewater collection lines. And so about ten minutes into writing a summary of how that works, I was it occurred to me that they probably have a video, and they did so.
Describer:
On Screen. Video Narration.
Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, info since is the manufacturer of an award winning product called the Sewer Line Rapid Assessment Tool, the Sewer Line Rapid Assessment Tool, or Sl-rat, is a portable tool that uses sound waves to rapidly assess sewer line segments for blockages. Used by hundreds of utilities worldwide. The SL-rat increases the operational and maintenance efficiency of a collection system by helping to prioritize more expensive and time consuming efforts, such as CCTV or cleaning, depending on conditions.
It is typical for a two person crew to collect anywhere from 10 to 20,000ft of data per day. The sl-rat come as a set and are placed on consecutive manholes. The transmitter produces sounds while the receiver listens. The sl-rat is extremely easy to use, requires no flow contact, and will generate an acoustic inspection score in three minutes or less.
Let's see the SL-rat in action.
Describer:
The SL-Rat is a steel rectangle with curved edges made to span across a manhole. Its sense crosses the rectangle like an H with a sensor which points down into the manhole and a gray controls box that points up into the air. This is the text on screen. Step 1: Place devices on consecutive manholes, On the controls box it has 3 buttons and a digital screen. Step 2: Indicate Pipe length on the receiver. Step 3: Push Start, tones begin to be transmitted. Step 4: The test will automatically stop after the assessment is complete.
On Screen. Video Narration.
The result is good for this pipe segment with an inspection score of eight. Inspection scores range from 0 to 10 zero, indicating a fully blocked pipe, and ten indicating a pipe with significant surplus capacity to carry additional flow. Common obstructions affecting the acoustic inspection score include grease, debris, clumps, roots, protruding taps, misaligned and collapsed pipes. The same obstructions impacting additional flow at the end of the day, the operator uploads the acoustic measurements stored in the sl-rat receiver.
The data is pushed to a secure cloud based web portal called the sewer Line Data Organizer, or SL dog. Using the SL Dog Portal, the measurement data can be validated, visualized, and analyzed. Operator field notes can be added to enhance the data, and the results can be readily exported to industry standards such as CSV, ArcGIS, Shape, or Google Earth files.
In the example, the SL Dog portal is being used to visualize the day's work by exporting the data to Google Earth, different colors are used to highlight the acoustic inspection scores, as illustrated by focusing on pipe segments. Scoring less than five potential problems can be quickly identified. Instead of scheduling resources to clean and CCTV this entire neighborhood, the Sl-rat enables prioritizing resources to areas with the greatest need saving time, water, and money.
Avoiding cleaning clean pipes. Video ends here.
Audio from an additional video Nathan stopped:
Great.
Nathan:
All right. were there any other questions about, district matters report to this evening?
Jason:
Is that SL-rat Is that a system that we would purchase, or is that a system that
Nathan:
that's the system that the contractor uses,
Jason
that the contractor uses? Okay.
Jim:
That's the 130 4K we spent. Correct? Yeah. Okay. All right. it looks great. Thank you.
Jason:
All right. Any other questions for Nathan? All right. Hearing none. We'll go ahead and close out the district manager's report, and we'll move on to item number 12. The communication director proposals. So at this time, I move that the board enter into executive session pursuant to section 26-6-402(4)(E). Colorado Revised Statutes to determine positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations regarding communication proposals.
Paul:
I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think you, mentioned section 26-6-402. It's, 24-6-402(4)(E).
Jason:
Thank you. I didn't mention that. So, yes, 24-6-402(4)(E). I'll second.
Paul:
At this point, if, if the board votes, on a two thirds majority to enter into executive session, then we'll enter into executive session.
Board Voting All Speak:
Okay. Having a second, we'll go to vote Jim approval. Tera approve. Jana Approve and Leah approve and I approve as well. So we will enter into executive session now.
Describer:
On screen:
Board Executive Session Please Stand By
Paul"
Board is a city executive session. And the sorry. And the communication stated within the range of matters within section 24-6-402(4)(E).
Jana:
I would like to make a motion to, direct Nathan to continue coordination with the two, firms that have presented proposals.
Board Voting All Speak:
I'll second that vote. So having a second, we'll go to vote. Approval. Tera approve.
Jenna, I, Leah, approve. I think we should just all do it at once. Next time. Well that's an I for me as well.
Jason:
okay. we will go ahead and close down item number 12 and we'll move to item number 13. Director's matters. Does anybody have any matters they'd like to discuss?
Tera:
I'm just gonna make it quick. So I just wanted to say thank you. I wanted to say thank you to Director Enquist. She did a lot of the work around our, district manager review process, a lot of heavy lifting, and it was done well. And I do appreciate all of that. I wanted to say thank you to our staff.
I think you're doing a great job. the whoever did the notes while the the data that we're going to revise was incorrect, kind of boiling down all of the data from our study session with everything. I mean, they did a really, really nice job with that. Very grateful that we have. Eric. I feel like even in the short time that he's been here, we are so headed forward on such a great path with our financials and with our finances.
And, if I forgot anybody, I'm sorry. Obviously, our district manager. Thank you for, what you're doing, but, just wanted to say thanks.
Nathan:
We appreciate it. If you've been watching a lot of award shows this week, just curious.
Paul:
So the last thank you for your comments.
Jason:
So anybody else have any comments?
Jim:
I would, but then I'd be accused of saying the same thing.
You should go like that. So, just on this week again, I just repeated, Nathan, nice job. good communication and I, I did appreciate it. So thank you.
Jason:
All right. Anybody else have any comments? Well, I would like to thank everybody as well. (Laughing), so on that note we will close out director's matters and adjourn the meeting, thank you everyone.