Board Meeting

June 23, 2025

Transcript

Describer:

Board Meeting Agenda

Monday June 23rd, 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. Public comment period. (Three-minute maximum per person).

IV. 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. Any board member may move an item from

the consent agenda to the meeting agenda at this time.

A. Consider: approve the May 19th, 2025, Work Session Meeting Minutes.

B. Consider: approve the May 27th, 2025, Board Meeting Minutes.

C. Ratify claims for payment including check numbers 29150 – 29186

and electronic payments issued from May 14th, 2025 to June 11th, 2025

totaling $1,244,934.75

D. Consider: approve Revised Employee Handbook

E. Consider: approve Layne Well A-1 installation change order request.

F. Consider: approve Layne Well LDA-1 installation change order request.

G. Consider: approve Castle Pines Metropolitan District Storage Tank

Agreement

H. Consider: Delegation of authority to District Manager to approve terms

and execute Temporary Storage IGA with Highlands Ranch.

I. Consider: approve Gittlein Farms Lease

Proposed Motion: I move to approve the items as presented in the consent

agenda dated May 27th, 2025.

V. Consider: approve Monday June 23rd, 2025, board meeting agenda.

VI. Consider: bid award for Lift Station Renovation Project-Scope A.

VII. Finance Director's report. Eric Harris, CPA. Finance Director

A. Finance Report Overview

B. Presentation: Accounts Payable, Transactions, Payroll

Process

Packet Page Number 1

VIII. Legal Counsel's Report.

IX. District Manager’s Report. Nathan Travis.

A. Presentation: Regional Water Supply Study Update

B. Strategic Communications Plan Overview

C. Update: Monarch Waterline Phase 3

X. Director’s Matters.

XI. Adjourn.

Board President Jason Blankaert:

Good evening, and welcome to the Castle Pines North Metropolitan District Board Meeting for Tuesday, Monday, June 23rd, 2025. Thanks for having the date. Correct. We, call this meeting to order, and we will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance.

All:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Jason:

All right. All right. Thank you. We'll, close out item number one and move to item number two. Roll call, starting with Jim.

Board Member James Mulvey:

Present. No conflicts.

Board Member Jana Krell:

Jana. Present. No conflicts.

Board Member Leah Enquist:

Leah. Present no conflicts.

Jason:

I am Jason present with no conflicts. And tonight we are missing. Tera. So we will go ahead and close out item number two and move to item number three. Public comment period. I understand there's nobody signed up and nobody online.

All right. Very good. Having no public comments we will close out the public comment period. And then, I understand Nate you want to say something before we do the consent agenda.

District Manager Nathan Travis:

yep. So I just wanted to follow up from the work session. Director Mulvey, you had asked about what parts of the, wells would be warranted and what would carry through that.

To be frank, we kind of have a lot of exposure, so the individual contractors will warranty the specific parts that they replace, or the components, like the programing that they touch. But none of the warranties will cover like a broader, well, failure unless it was directly caused by one of those functions. So if the programing was done incorrectly and that caused the well to fail, that would cover it because we don't have like Director Mulvey pointed out, we don't have any real answer to like this was definitely the specific thing that failed.

That does lead us with quite a bit of exposure. a lot of that is due to the age of the equipment. So we have a lot of parts that have been replaced at different times. The drives are, the drives and soft starts associated with these are anywhere between like eight and 15 years old. And so we can get more of those warranties in place, but we need to do like broader, equipment replacement to do it.

Which didn't give me warm fuzzies, as I'm sure it doesn't for you guys either.

James:

Okay. Question on that. we talked about exposure, but what is our exposure? Is it, I mean, since we don't seem to have, at least I don't get a sense that somebody is going to step up and fix anything unless, you know, literally, it cracks or breaks or starts leaking.

what equipment that we do have is not covered warranty wise, or what processes or systems.

Nathan:

So it's a little bit different on each well, site. so the drive replacement cost of those could run anywhere between like 80 and 150,000 and then downhole well equipment failures, are across the board, but so the the upper end is probably around like $250,000 per site.

That's about what we've had to have, where we've been spending to replace them or to fix the issues that we've had over the past few months.

Jason:

And there's no nobody else who can help troubleshoot this. That can give us more of a definitive answer on what's going wrong.

Nathan:

Yeah, we we we've talked to because we brought there's so many potential causes like there we've got like the programing issue. We've got operator error. There's the physical equipment, which is the that bypass contractor switch.

Those are the ones we're really, really sure on. So there are really sure more sure on. So that was well A5, A1 and A3. Those all had the same component fail in the same way. That would cause exactly the failure that we had kind of that downhole, motor failure. So those are the ones that we're, we have a pretty, a really high degree of confidence on that.

We fixed it with the bypass contactor, the, A2 and LDA one are the two that are on drives. Those are the ones that we're less certain on, were more likely due to the programing error and the ability to restart them manually quickly in the field. So we've narrowed it down to those four, roughly four potential causes. And we've taken steps to eliminate all of those.

But because we don't have we can't point to say it was definitely this one. That's where where the issue is.

James:

All right. what was the programing error then?

Nathan:

The programing error was the ability for the sites to be restarted too quickly in hand. So you want a about a 15 minute window. So if you have a a well go off line, you want to wait at least 15 minutes before you restart it.

So we had that built into the automatic restart. So a well wouldn't restart itself. after that 15 minute window, if you were doing it remotely or basically through a computer, we, it wouldn't prevent you from doing that locally. So an operator or somebody could sit there physically at the well and through the hand off auto switch, turn it off and then put it into auto.

It would bypass that. And so we put local timer like a physical timer inside the drive. So even if you are local, it won't let you do it until that 15 minute window passes.

James:

All right. That's like an interlock. And you can't bypass that. Correct. Okay. It.

Jason:

All right. I'll go ahead and, open up item number for the consent agenda.

I'm going to read through the, issues in this consent agenda. And then if anybody has any questions or, wants to, wants to remove anything, let me know. So item A in the consent agenda is to consider approve the May 19th, 2025 work session meeting minutes. Item B is to consider approve the May 27th, 2025 board meeting minutes.

Item C is to ratify claims for payments, including check numbers 29150 to 29186 and electronic payments issued from May 14th, 2025 to June 11th, 2025, totaling $1,244,934.75. To consider approving the revised Employee Handbook item E, consider approve. Lane will A-1 installation change order request consider approve Lane well LDA dash one installation change order request consider approved the Castle Pines Metropolitan district storage tank agreement item H consider delegation of authority to the District Manager to approve terms and execute the temporary storage IGA with Highlands Ranch and item number I consider approved the getting it get Gittlein.

Is that right? Okay. Gittlein farms lease. So we will open this up.

James:

Okay. I had, we had some questions about two things on here. And before we make a motion to to change the consent agenda, I'd like some questions or ask some questions and, specifically go on to the employee handbook and the, paid time off formulation.

When I compare it to what I see the rest of the state of Colorado, appears to be maybe slightly generous. and I wonder if we can have a conversation about that. And then,

Jason:

Jim, would you say your source and then tell us what it says?

James:

Oh, yeah. Sure. hang on. Sorry. No problem. I think I just lost it when we were talking.

Yep. See if I can find it again. But, why don't we? I'll find that. And then, you know, maybe we can talk about it, and then I'll just source. No, no, this, the. Yeah, we we were looking at some web pages before this, so. Hang on. Yeah. All right. so let me find that. And then, the second question had to do with, see, now, I jumped over here.

Damn it. All right. I kind of lost the bubble here. Hang on a minute.

The, The temporary storage tank agreement. I think I'm okay with that, but the question had to do with, have we done any kind of safety reviews and or, you know, keep out or am perimeter around? You know, we have several water pipes going adjacent to that area. And I just wondering if we've have, you know, properly mapped those, you're confident and whether or not they've been mapped properly, and then we have an appropriate distance from any of that infrastructure.

If we put in that second tank. So,

Nathan:

yeah. So, we do have we do have good mapping for the storage tank sites and the, and the piping that's there. the agreement is actually maintaining that distance. So in order to put their tank in, they will have to relocate at least two of those water lines. And so it's making the agreement make sure that the metro district covers that.

The not the North metro district, the metro district covers those costs. And so Lisa and Greg with Kennedy Jenks have been involved in all of those meetings to make sure that they meet our engineering standards and specifications, both with offsets, required easements and all of those things. We've had a lot of conversations around backup plan, so make sure that we're doing our phasing, to do everything that we can to mitigate the risk of one of those lines failing.

We've gone through and done some valve checks and valve isolations to make sure that we can get those things off line before we go in. That's been, really, really driven heavily by, Will Parker and Semocor, he has been very, very adamant and very, on top of that, wanting backup plans for backup plans. so we have paid a lot of attention to the safety aspect.

Thank you. and we can always bring the you know, the handbook isn't it's not a pressing issue. So we can also pull it. And I could bring that back at the next study session. And we could look more at the comps that I had, and then look at the ones that you had and bring it back again another month.

Jana:

I forgot to send you my, my red lines of it and but all of mine, like I said, they're not content related, so it wouldn't be in reason to not push it forward on behalf of that.

Jason:

So, Jim, should we bring this back next time? it's okay if we do.

James:

Jana. So when you look at those accrual rates, are they similar to what you're, you know, kind of seeing

Jana:

they looked normal, but I was actually trying to pull mine up right now. If you would like a comparable before the end of this meeting.

James:

Yeah, that'd be great.

Jana:

I'll look look into that real quick right now.

James:

Yeah. We'll we'll do that. the specific stores that the state broke out 1 to 3 years and then 4 to 5 years. and again, I'm having difficulty finding it because we jumped around just before the meeting. But, Unless Jana has something that, you know, is comparable, my concern would be, you know, I think somebody start now with almost six weeks vacation when they first walk in the door.

Kind of looks that way.

Nathan:

Yeah. And part of that is the we we do trend higher because we also don't break out paid time off. We don't break out vacation from sick leave. So we have like a blanket PTO. Castle Rock has six PTO and then like two administrative days a year. And so there's a lot of variability in how different utilities implement those.

And so ours is more of just that one lump PTO figure.

James:

Okay. In general, what is sick leave per year or is it accrue? I mean, you know, other towns and municipalities where it sounds like they break it out into two separate buckets. But

Nathan:

yeah, let's bring it back at the work session and I can bring up I've got, I've got a breakdown of I think 10 or 15 other utilities in the area.

but I don't I'm not gonna be able to find that quickly

Jana:

if it makes any difference. Aurora just went away from breaking them into two buckets because people were holding on to sick for a decade plus, and so Aurora was having to function as a bank. And so, that kind of was something where they were recognizing that we have all these employees that have thousands of dollars worth of sick leave.

We're going to do away with this because you guys are getting sick of that kind of concept. And so anyway, so I, I think I would lean more towards one bucket anyway. Okay. Okay.

James:

then I'll make a motion. just so we have a chance to review the numbers again to remove, the employee handbook vote from the consent agenda.

Nathan:

And I don't think it requires an emotion. You can just pull it up.

Jason off-mic:

Just do the one sentence with that exception.

James:

Okay. I make a motion to accept the consent agenda with the exception of the employee handbook.

Board Voting All Speak:

I'll second that. So, having a second, we'll move to vote. Jim, I, Jana, I will approve. I approve as well.

Jason:

So the consent agenda passes, and we will table to consider approving the revised employee handbook for, for our next meeting. next item is to consider approving the Monday, June 23rd, 2025 board meeting agenda. Shouldn't this come before our consent agenda?

Nathan:

It does comes after the consent agenda, because you need to have the opportunity to move something from the consent agenda to the regular meeting agenda.

Jason:

Okay. All right. So.

We'll wait on the motion to approve that.

Jana:

I'll make a motion to approve the Monday, June 23rd, 2025 board meeting agenda.

Board Voting All Speak:

I'll second. All right. Having a second. We'll move to vote. Jim. Approve. Jana. Well, I approve, Leah. Approve. And I approve as well.

Jason:

No. You did. That's fine. It's Jim was going to do it, and I was going to do it. And there's going back and forth. All right. item number six, we're going to consider the bid award for the lift station renovation project.

Scope a, I understand. Lisa, are you with us from Kennedy Jenks I am hi, guys. Welcome,

Lisa Vance, PE Kennedy Jenks:

welcome. Thank you. so I, I think we included the bid tabulation. I don't know if you guys have had a chance to look at it. We had three bidders. actually.

Nathan:

Hey, Lisa, sorry to interrupt your. We're having trouble hearing you on our end.

Lisa:

Oh, gosh. let me adjust my microphone to make sure it's on the right thing.

Is this any better for?

Nathan:

keep talking a little bit.

Lisa:

All right? I'll just speak. Oh, there you go. Now, we got you there. Oh, gosh. All I did was switch it off of this mic and back onto it. so we had three bidders and all three contractors, do this type of work and do a really good job. So it was a really good turnout, I think.

Describer:

On screen. Packer page number 67. Project: CPN Lift Station Upgrades Project Scope A, Owner: CPNMD, Bid Date: June 17, 2025. Job Number: 2246035*00 Bid. This is a Bid tabulation which included An Engineer's Opinion of probable costs, and bids from T. Lowell Construction, Brannon Construction and Iron Woman Construction companies. It is an itemized quote describing 64 services for lift station 1 and 5. Analysis of the bids are discussed.

Lisa:

T. Lowell was the low bidder, except for Kennedy. Jinx actually won the job. I'm gonna have to go rent some equipment. so too low was the was the low bidder? we I did find one issue with their bid in some of the concrete work we had. Sidewalk and curb and gutter per linear foot. I think they bid it as square yard.

And so we talked to them about that. They said that they have no problem honoring. They did make a mistake. They have no problem honoring that price. they are excited to do the project and they want to move forward, even though they have that mistake in their bid. so yeah. Are there any questions?

Jana:

I don't think so. It seems pretty straightforward. but I see what you mean, that the engineer's estimate is significantly lower than the the other three, but all three are good contractors, and they're close, especially, contractor one and contractor two. Brannon and T.Lowell. yeah. T. Lowell we're we're close.

Lisa:

Yeah. I have some thoughts on our estimate.

And I think the biggest one, the biggest thing is the fact that we're seeing a lot of variable, pricing right now. And also, just like, delivery times are so far out, especially for generators, pumps, skids, even manholes, which is crazy to me. I guess there's only one, precast concrete company now in the Denver area.

So we're seeing a lot of things with long lead times, and my hunch is that, you know, if we're waiting a year for a generator or a pump skid and, you know, subs or have having to re mobilize for traffic control and things like that, I think just overall pushes prices up when your project extends that long. because contractors are trying to mitigate their risk, you know, prices changing over that time frame, like, you know, if they were to get a pipe later on in the project, I don't think those original prices would be honored.

so I think they're just trying to mitigate mitigate risk. And I yeah, we didn't bump ours enough, bump ours up enough for that type of risk, I guess. And I just think things are pretty uncertain right now. but yeah, all three of those contractors, especially those two like you mentioned, had good numbers.

Jana:

Lisa, I, I did have a question about, item 43, which is the Gorman-rupp package lift station, because you guys, did an estimate of 300 K.

So is this a brand? Is a Gorman-rupp a brand? So then how did we not know specifically

Lisa:

Yeah Gorman-rupp is a brand. Yeah, that's the pump. the pump type that the district likes for their lift stations. because they're easy to maintain for the actual operators. You don't have to have someone else come out.

Jana:

Sure. But, Lisa, my question is that one is more than 400,000 off.

And so that feels like something that how come not across the board that lift station package isn't universally priced.

Lisa:

So we got pricing from them from Canyon Systems, the local rep, I think it was probably two years ago, honestly, because it was before we started our CDPHE, approval process. And I don't think we circled back around with them to get new pricing.

The other thing I'm thinking is different is the contractor including more time for his crew, when that is being delivered and set and getting prepped for that pump skid. I don't know that we've bumped that number up enough. So those are the things I think happened on that.

Jana:

Okay. And I think both of those are things that happen.

So old numbers plus they had more install in there okay. Thank you Lisa. No more questions from me guys.

Jason:

Does the board have any other questions? We've been looking at this project for quite a while, it seems like so I'm glad to see it finally getting underway. So many years. Yeah, it's been a while.

Lisa:

So, it's way too long, but it'll be good.

Jana:

Yeah. I do have one more question about what we're approving. I we were approving base bid. Plus all the alts are we doing because there's an additional.

Lisa:

Yeah. We've played around with how to do that. I would approve the entire amount just because the contractor has to get his bonds, in place. And he could we could do the base bid and not do the add alternates.

But then if we need to using the add alternates, he's having to bump up his bond amount. either way works, but so it's up to you guys.

Jana:

Do we have enough budget to do the base bid plus add-alts? Okay.

Lisa:

And hopefully we don't even need those Add alternates. We've just learned from a lot of these projects that it's good to have a price up front on those things.

Oh, one more, thing I thought of. Sorry. On the cost difference in Serena Drive and Hidden Point Boulevard. There's 24 inches of cement treated subgrade underneath the asphalt, and we were kind of struggling with, like, what kind of unit prices to use through that area? Like, well, will they have to jackhammer to trench? How wide will their trench be?

you know, how much is that going to cost? And I think their numbers were quite a bit higher for, trenching through that cement treated subgrade than what we had. So I think we underestimated that cost to just an FYI.

Board Voting All Speak:

All right. Do we have any other questions for Lisa? All right. Hearing none. we'll consider a motion to award the bid. So I'll, propose a motion to award the bid. for lift station renovation project, scope a. I'll second that. Going to a vote, Jim. Approve. Jana. Approve. Leah. Approve. And I approve as well. Thank you again, Lisa.

Jason:

Thanks, guys. All right. We'll close out item number six, and we'll move on to item number seven, which is, our finance director's report with Eric Harris. Welcome, Eric.

Financial Director Eric Harris:

Thank you. Good evening. Board. on page 86, you'll find the financial report that includes your April budget to actual numbers as year to date budget actuals. as a reminder, these are all transactions on a budgetary basis.

just an important note I want to carry forward now that we are presenting financials on a for April or a budget actual for April, we actually do have some operational data in here are billable usage for for May. So you get kind of a sneak peak, if you will, on, so what revenue numbers could look like are tied to next month's, financial numbers.

Describer:

On screen.

TO: Board of Directors – Castle Pines North Metropolitan District

FROM: Eric Harris, Elevated Clarity (EC)

DATE: June 23, 2025

RE: Financial Report – June 2025 Board of Directors Meeting General Fund Activity

As of April 2025, the District recognized $593,413 in property tax revenues received from Douglas County and $24,982 in specific ownership tax revenues. This represents 60% of the budgeted property taxes from the District’s mill levy year-to-date. This is a higher percentage than compared to-date in 2024 (54%).

Enterprise Fund Activity

Billed water usage in the month of April 2025 was 30,472,000 gallons, a 19.42% increase from water usage in April 2024. Cumulatively through April 2025, the District has billed 10.00% higher operational flows than in 2024.

So what you see is $30.4 million, a 30.4. million gallons, for eight for April, and then 61.3 gallons billed for May of 25. one of the big things I've been working with Nathan on as he's kind of going through our the property owner meter list. And so we're trying to kind of batch together and look at what meters need to be replaced.

A Total Billable Usage in gallons table from 2022 to 2025. Highlighting the month of May showing May

2022 84,723,000 gallons

Cumulative 183,782,10 gallons

2023 37,307,000 gallons

Cumulative 123,685,000 gallons

2024 44,494,000 gallons

Cumulative 124,816,000 gallons

2025 61,357,000 gallons

Cumulative 149,713,000 gallons

Water services revenues (volumetric charges) for April 2025 were $145,451. Wastewater services revenues (volumetric charges) for the same period were $154,355. Wastewater service charges are assessed and set based upon the winter usage for individual account holders. As it relates to May usage activity, there was higher than anticipated usage than in the prior two years. District Accounting revised water revenue upwards from up from $2.996MM to $4.044MM to account for this usage trend. We believe that this is as a result of a warmer than anticipated April, which led to property owners turning on irrigation earlier than usual.

Eric:

So what you see is $30.4 million, a 30.4. million gallons, for eight for April, and then 61.3 gallons billed for May of 25. one of the big things I've been working with Nathan on as he's kind of going through our the property owner meter list. And so we're trying to kind of batch together and look at what meters need to be replaced.

So essentially everyone's kind of more or less on a meter that's, you know, relatively newer, if that makes sense. So that's something we're looking at because, losses for utilities can range in between 5 to 10%, you know, depending on, you know, what type of meter there is. And at the age of the meter and, just nuances associated with the system.

So that's something, Nathan and I are continuing to have conversations on, as he's working through that meter list. and so what, you will continue to, regarding budget variances, what you will see is, we're still seeing variances associated with our general fund and CTF fund to account for all this City of Castle Pines activity leases and things of that nature.

Describer:

On screen. Packet Page 93. Castle Pines North Metropolitan District STATEMENTS OF REVENUES AND EXPENDITURES WITH BUDGETS BUDGETARY (NON-GAAP) BASIS December 31, 2024 Actual, Budget and Variance Year-to-Date Actual, Budget and Variance Through April 30, 2025. Eric Explains and highlights.

Eric:

and then starting on page 91, you'll start seeing some more broad variances associated with pay, payroll. the district did have a budget for two additional FTEs. So you're seeing, obviously that budget variance associated with payroll. in addition, when the budget was created for 2025, there was not, monthly spreads that we could find in the file.

So that's typically something that's done. So what we can do is basically trend property tax, you know, property tax budget through for the year, payroll for the year, you know, considering onboarding for certain people. Obviously you don't. Nathan wasn't anticipating in November to hire two people and started January. So we are you know, we're incorporating that, into our budget process for 2026 for all of our revenue and expense items.

in addition, you're still seeing a lot of broad variances on the wastewater collection, water distribution, repairs. And you'll see those line items as well. And, a lot of those are the HOA repairs and things of that nature that we've talked about in prior meetings. in addition, I've been talking to Nathan about all the electricity usage.

So we're obviously not high electrical usage for the wells this year. So he's trying to optimize that as much as possible for operation staff. So just something for us to be aware of that we're looking at, couple of the upcoming projects or current projects we're working on right now. we are targeting to have the draft of the 2024 audit distributed to you by the end of June.

So we've cleared all of our number of things, with the auditor. And so they're just working through creating that draft for us. So as soon as we get that, we'll get that out to the board. And we're anticipating to have that in our work session for July. and then, approval at the July board meeting after that.

So something else that we're working on, we've also kicked off our, cost of service study with Bartle Wells, kind of working through a lot of the initial assumptions, operational usage by tap by account. Looking at the tier set up, we are anticipating to have an additional additional work session in the coming months to discuss kind of inputs and assumptions as we work through that.

Obviously, you know, do we want to put more of a focus on fixed fees versus volumetric charges or changes to tiers? Some of the things that we're considering is, the board, or PCWRA is considering debt service in the future. So that makes sense to potentially have more of a fixed charge on our reused rates to it for the golf course water delivery.

So just some we just want to make sure we take into account all the assumptions as we look to more of a change, not a substantial change in rates, but to make sure we account for all those things as well. so that's something that we've started working on as well. we've also we're, we've started our budget process, so started building our budget templates for 2026.

That's something we want to kick off July 1st. so that's something we're working internally. additionally, we should have our mineral rights valuation the next 30 days. So working through a lot of assumptions with that consultant to, make sure, we can get a correct valuation. There are a lot of wells that are out there within the, boundaries of, the farms.

So we want to make sure that that's all taken care of and accounted for in those valuations. another project we're working on right now is implementing a new payroll system for the district. So we are anticipating the roll that out this next month. There's some more details in the financial report, but just want to make you aware of that.

And that will of course affect any board members that board member compensation as well. So, just be on the lookout for an email invite for your employee self service, if you will, to update any sort of pertinent details. and then I guess, as mentioned, we talked about this in the work session, but there are some pretty high, checks this month to account for repairs.

so just wanted to make those of note, but, those are highlighted in the packet as well. are there any questions regarding the financial report for this month?

Jason:

Nathan, go back to the, electricity. You we're going to have a discussion with core, regarding our bill and maybe getting an adjusted.

Nathan:

Yep. I'm still working on getting that meeting set, and, it's been a lot of phone tag and email tag for the last couple of weeks.

Jana:

I'm going to ask a really basic question, but do we ever consider solar panels to help offset some of this for the wells?

Nathan:

We haven't looked at it. The biggest problem that we have there is ground. we just don't have a lot of open fields adjacent to, well, sites.

Jana:

We don't have the space, the real estate for them.

Okay. no, just a thought. Because if we're talking about high electricity, I think. Could you even offset it some on this building or on this facility? Because nowadays you can do different situations where you're leasing the solar panels. And so I don't know.

Nathan:

Yeah. We're something we can I can definitely do a little bit digging on

Jana:

I don't know a lot about it.

So but just something that I don't know if the board was interested in looking into that.

Nathan:

It's a it's certainly a question I could ask.

Jason:

Okay. Do we have any other questions for Eric?

James:

just get a quick one. we since we have, it seems like a large amount of emergency repairs and things like that, how do we code that?

Because, Yeah, I'm just wondering how we track an emergency repair versus regular overtime versus, you know, straight time kind of thing.

Eric:

is this time for labor or just general expenses associated with, essentially labor. Labor? right now, we are not tracking it on our side for labor. There might be another invoice. I'm not sure how Semocor charges their time for anything.

I'm not familiar with. I think it just goes to one line item associated with operational support. Right now, it's trending a little higher versus what we had in the budget. it's something that we can certainly start looking at.

James:

I just I get the feeling we should at least understand whether it's contractual or emergency or whatever.

And, and I'm sure we can go back through the paperwork and dig it out, but it would be better if we put something in place upfront. I'm just thinking, because two years from now or, you know, maybe an audit situation, you're wondering, You know why we spent this and for what? Right. And if there's some coding we can do that would make it easier.

Eric:

I, I can't say specifically, but I do believe that Susan does code time and materials different and, emergency repairs different from what it is the, regular maintenance, if you will. So I can go back and look at that and make sure that we're tracking that consistently in our system. Yeah. Thank you. You're most welcome.

Jason:

Great question.

Any other questions? Okay. Hearing none we will go ahead and close out the financial director's report the finance director's report. And we will open up the legal counsel's report. Good evening. Paul,

Eric:

I do have one more item on number seven. Oh, sorry. Mind, I think. Thank you very much. So just wanted to, continue kind of our little,

Describer:

On screen. rules

TO: Board of Directors – Castle Pines North Metropolitan District

FROM: Eric Harris, Elevated Clarity (EC)

DATE: June 23, 2025

RE: Work Session Report – June 2025 Board of Directors Meeting

Topic – Accounts Payable Transactions & Payroll Process

1.) Accounts Payable

a. Financial Controls Policy

b. Monthly Payables Process

i. Operation and Maintenance & Capital (District Managed)

1. Office Manager Codes Invoices and Enters into Accounting System

2. District Manager Reviews and Approves

3. Office Operations Manager Processes Payment and District Manager Sign’s Check

4. Positive Pay is uploaded to Bank

ii. Capital (District Engineer Projects Manages)

1. Pay Applications and Lien Waivers

2. Project Manager Reviews and Approves

3. Office Manager Manually Codes Invoices and Enters into Accounting System

4. District Manager Reviews and Approves

5. Office Operations Manager Processes Payment and District Manager Sign’s Check

6. Positive Pay is uploaded to Bank

c. Electronic Payments

i. Regularly Scheduled Payments

1. Accountant codes and posts payments in Accounting System after reviewing support

2. Bank Account is monitored daily for postings and positive pay rules

2.) Payroll Process

a. Time Entry & Pay Schedule

i. Senior Office Manager approves Time Cards (Manual)

ii. Employee Cycle - Twice per month; Paid on the last day of each cycle

iii. Board Member Cycle – Once per month; Paid on the last day of the month.

iv. Elevated Clarity Processes Payroll in iSolved.

b. Third Party Administrator

i. Remittance of Payroll Taxes (State & Federal)

ii. Payroll Forms

c. PERA and Tax Contributions

i. District Employees are excluded from Social Security Taxes and pay PERA

ii. PERA Members (Employees) Contribute 9%

iii. PERA Employers Contribute 14.88%

iv. Employees pay 1.45% to Medicare

v. Elected exemption from Colorado FAMLI

vi. Special Districts are exempt from FUTA

d. Benefits

i. The District Utilizes Group Medical Marketing for Medial Benefits

Packet Page Number 115

ii. Benefit Programs

1. PTO

2. Healthcare & Dental Programs

3. Optional Life Insurance

4. Optional 401k Plan with 3% Match

3.) Conclusion & District Impacts

a. We are currently implementing a new Payroll System (Gusto.com) to streamline the payroll process and automate the workflow for time entry. We expect that this system will be live with the July 15th pay day. Benefits of the new payroll system include:

i. Lower Monthly Costs

ii. Employe Self Service Portals (Improved User Experience)

iii. Automation

iv. Higher Quality Information

v. Readily Accessible Tax Information

b. The District will continue to manually complete member contribution reporting to Colorado PERA.

c. The District should annually evaluate benefit programs in the 4th quarter.

Eric:

I wish I could say there, you know, dinner and learns. Lunch and learns what have you, but just a couple of minutes of your time just to briefly discuss processes on accounts payable transactions and payroll transactions for the district. I have a brief kind of memo in the back of your packet on page 115. and the overarching theme for accounts payable is the financial controls policy that the this board did consider and approve in recent board meetings.

So I want to kind of keep that in mind as we review kind of processes. associated with kind of transaction approval, if you will. We have kind of two, several different batches of what we would consider kind of payables. One of them is operation maintenance or capital that is district managed. and that that would be essentially invoices come in the door.

Office manager codes, district management review manager reviews and approves office operations manager process of the payment. The district manager does sign checks, and we do bring those to the board for ratification on approval at that time. And that's for, once again, standard kind of operational contracts, firm commitments or capital that the district does manage. we have a separate project or a separate process for capital, that a district engineer manages, and that would be Kennedy Jenks.

Lisa, more specifically, where there's pay applications, lean waivers and things of that nature. So we do interject her into that process. So we get quite a few eyes, if you will, on any sort of transaction that the district is moving forward with by the time it does get to this board. So, once again, we do make sure that there are adequate segregation duties as we review all these processes.

And in addition, with all of this, we do have, of course, positive pay that is uploaded to the bank to clear payments. lastly, we do have electronic payments and these are more of utility payments, things of that nature that do occur on the district's bank account. So, just very, you know, briefly, that is the process, if you will, for the accounts payable.

We do, as a component of coding. Nathan and Susan do check that it was budgeted for as well. We have the appropriations to take care of that. Molly and myself, we do on the back end review all those payments. Once those are processed, and we do perform the bank reconciliations and post to the accounting system as well.

So once again, we're it's kind of a collective effort, if you will, to manage the back office for the district. second to kind of briefly interjecting to the payroll process, the district does currently have, four employees. And so, we do have a time entry and pay schedule, that occurs for our hourly employees as well as PTO process.

as far as things work their way up through Nathan for his approval. And then we do have a payroll system currently running, that's ran out of, a system called I-solve. the district does have, and this is very common, a third party administrator to manage all the remittance of all the payroll taxes that have to occur.

so that that is good. And we are going to continue that process once we move into our new payroll system. They also process all of our payroll forms as well. and then we do retain copies of those as well in the district files. as a component of our payroll process, the district is a member of PERA, as you probably well know.

And so in those subset, in those sub bullet points, what you will see is the contribution percentages. So it's simply put, for the districts, 4 employees, they are excluded for paying into Social Security. But you opt into PERA as well. And then the district pays the employer portion of PERA. additionally, the this board, this district did elect the exemption from the Colorado Family Act.

So we do not pay into that. however, we do offer, the FMLA obviously under state statute and then districts are exempt from, federal unemployment taxes as well. from a benefits perspective, the district does, have a third party, managing their health benefits and the health insurance policy for the district's employees. And so, we we try to renew that in November, December to get the costing for the next year.

So one of the assumption or one of the, recommendations I have is perhaps sometime in the fourth quarter, and I believe I saw this in the handbook policy is just consideration of at the board level as it works, to look at benefits at least once a year for the district employees. so the benefit programs are PTO, health care, dental programs, optional life insurance.

And then there is an optional 401 K plan with a 3% match, as well, that's administered through PERA. So like I said, we are currently working through a new payroll system. It's called gusto gusto.com. I've implemented this with a number of clients. And I also use this internally for our company as well. the good thing about this is you have there's lower monthly costs, there's employees, self-service portals, kind of an improved user experience, which doesn't exist right now for Nathan and his team.

You know, we have to process payroll and email pay stubs every single payroll period. So very, very manual process. I use gusto as well. Okay. Yeah. Hopefully your experience is very good as well. a lot of automation, higher quality of information, as well as more readily available tax and reporting that we can get out of it. so that will allow time cards to be maintained, electronically and have that work flow management as opposed to manual time cards that are currently being done by Susan and her, her team.

and then, the district will continue or we will continue to still manually complete member contribution to PERA. and then like I said, I would recommend the district just continue to have an annual evaluation of benefits in the fourth quarter with that renewal, so that we can get good pricing or consider alternative programs at that time.

So really, all that to say is the district has a, a good process. We're going through a payroll change or payroll system change, and we hope to have that implemented for the first payroll period, first pay date, if you will, for the third quarter, which would be July 15th. in general, are there any questions on anything related to the payables process or accounts payable process or the payroll process?

Jason:

Does any of the board have any questions? Hearing none I don't think so. Eric, thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Sorry for stepping on your toes earlier. We will now close out item number seven and move to item number eight, the legal counsel's report. Paul.

Describer:

MEMORANDUM

TO: Castle Pines North Metropolitan District

FROM: Seter, Vander Wall & Mielke, P.C., Kim J. Seter, Esq. and Paul Polito, Esq.

DATE: June 23, 2025

RE: Legal Status Report for the June 23, 2025 Board Meeting

UPDATE REPORTS ON MATTERS IN PROCESS

MATTER: INVESTMENT POLICY UPDATE

Status: Legal counsel is currently reviewing and updating the District’s investment policy, in coordination with H2 Advisors, to ensure legal compliance and best practices for public fund investment.

Action: None required at this time.

MATTER: PARKS, OPEN SPACE AND RECREATIONAL FACILITIES IGA PROPERTY CONVEYANCES

Status: The Board approved conveyance of properties in all 5 Batches that have nearly been completed. Quitclaim deed documents related to the Parks, Open Space, and Recreational Facilities IGA property conveyances have been drafted and reviewed for execution. These deeds specifically address parcels without utilities within the District. The District is executing these documents. Counsel continues to collaborate with City counsel to finalize all necessary documentation to complete the conveyances.

Action: None required.

Packet Page Number 118

Castle Pines North Metropolitan District

Legal Status Report

June 23, 2025 Board Meeting

Page 2 of 4

MATTER: EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK UPDATE

Status: Legal counsel received direction at the May 19, 2025, work session to update the

District’s Employee Handbook, which was last updated in 2002. Legal counsel has reviewed and revised the handbook for legal compliance and for potential items subject to update.

Action: Consider and approve updated handbook.

MATTER: JAM RANCH INCLUSION REQUEST

Status: The property owner has requested inclusion into the District and has submitted the required documents in accordance with the provided checklist and form. The District manager and legal counsel met with representatives for Jam Ranch on March 5, 2025 to discuss the recently passed Renewable Water Resolution and its potential implications on

Jam Ranch’s proposed inclusion. Jam Ranch is moving forward with its development and desires to be included within the District. It is currently exploring the potential provision of water supply to the project using the properties’ current water rights through a potential future metropolitan district. Jam Ranch desires to include within the District for sanitary sewer service. The District Manager and legal counsel met with representatives for the Jam Ranch project during the week of April 28, 2025, to discuss the potential inclusion. Jam Ranch is currently assessing its options and will inform the District of its intentions once decided.

Action: None required at this time.

MATTER: CONSOLIDATION/INCLUSION OF HIDDEN POINTE METRO DISTRICT

Status: Hidden Point Metropolitan District (HPMD) Board advised Mr. Travis that it wants

to move forward with an election regarding inclusion at its regular election in May, 2025. A preliminary inclusion agreement was drafted and counsel revised the preliminary inclusion agreement based on discussions with HPMD’s district manager. Counsel provided the draft agreement to HPMD’s district manager for review. HPMD responded on February 16, 2025, with proposed revisions. Counsel met with Hidden Point representatives on March 11, 2025, to discuss inclusion terms. An inclusion agreement has been finalized. Hidden Point will be calling a board meeting to discuss and authorize the inclusion agreement. Counsel will present the inclusion agreement for CPNMD board approval following Hidden Point’s authorization of the agreement.

Action: None required.

Packet Page Number 119

Castle Pines North Metropolitan District

Legal Status Report

June 23, 2025 Board Meeting

Page 3 of 4

MATTER: SALE OF FARM PROPERTIES

Status: The District has received a contract and offer of $469,504.00 for “36.68 estimated mineral acres.” Legal counsel communicated with the potential buyer to determine the extent of “mineral acres.” This is a price of $12,800.00 per acre but counsel is not certain the buyer is offering anything for the surface rights. This offer is being revised and will increase substantially.

District personnel, including general counsel, water law counsel, district manager,

and financial manager, held a conference on March 18, 2025, to discuss ideal timing

and efficacy of potential sales of farm property, mineral rights, and water conveyance agreements pertaining to farm properties. General counsel and district manager will continue to update the board as potential sale opportunities arise.

Action: None required.

MATTER: REVISIT MEMORANDA OF UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN CASTLE PINES METRO DISTRICT AND CASTLE PINES NORTH METRO DISTRICT RE WATER RIGHTS

Status: We drafted a Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) between CPNMD and CPMD regarding the joint use of shared water rights as part of the effort to include in Parker Water. It was not executed once the Parker Water and Sanitation District inclusion was terminated.

We are revisiting the MOUs and discussing them with the water attorneys to ensure

clarity, proper documentation, and resolution and will restart discussions with

CPMD at that time.

Action: None required.

Packet Page Number 120

Castle Pines North Metropolitan District

Legal Status Report

June 23, 2025 Board Meeting

Page 4 of 4

MATTER: SERVICE PLAN AMENDMENT

Status: The intergovernmental agreements with the City require CPN to amend its service

plan to eliminate the District's Park and Recreation and Stormwater services. You

approved the petition at the August meeting. We will hold this until the Property transfers are completed.

Action: None required.

Legal Counsel Paul Polito, Esq.:

Good evening. Board. Well it's a pretty quick update today. Things have been pretty quiet on the legal front, which I think is a good thing.

I'll be going through the investment policy, with Mr. Harris. at some point later this week. I will present that to you at the next work session. And Mr. Seter is still going through all of those conveyances and subdivisions for all of those properties. with the city, that will be going on for a while, probably will be done early 2026.

but other than that, there's there's really not a lot of updates. If anybody has any questions about any entries within the, legal packet itself, I'd be happy to answer them.

Jason:

wasn't it part of our IGA that we were going to have those done by the end of 2025?

Paul"

I would have to ask, Mr. Setter about that.

I don't know, the,

Jason:

pretty sure it was,

Paul:

okay, fair enough. okay. Well, I'll discuss it with him. if something needs to be pushed up to get it done in 25, then, then so be it. but I'll make sure he's aware of that.

Jason:

Very good. Yeah. Does anybody have any questions for Paul? All right. Paul, thank you very much for your work.

Thank you. All right. We'll close out item number eight and move to item number nine. The district manager's report with Nathan, starting with a presentation of the Regional Water Supply Study update.

Describer:

On screen. Memorandum

From: Nathan J. Travis

To: CPNMD Board of Directors

Date: 6/23/25

Re: District Manager’s Report

Annual Flushing

• Holdover: Annual system flushing has started. Sigler is running point on communication. A press release was sent to the Castle Pines Connection, social media posts have been made, and the banner on our website is active with a link to information for customers. Residents are being notified via our text message system when crews will be working in their area.

PCRA Reuse Pond Project

• After presenting to the board regarding approval of funding through the State Revolving Fund, the Directors of PCWRA (myself included) voted unanimously to push back the decision to this fall to allow for more decision making time. Eric Harris will be in attendance of any relevant meetings, and I will bring any funding requeststo the Board for approval.

Regional Water Supply Study

• Stantec has completed the system-inventory lists for the various utilities participating in the study. These were presented to the participating entities for accuracy. The next meeting is scheduled in mid-June to discuss next steps, and review the responses from all of the utilities involved. The results of the study are anticipated to be completed and delivered in September of this year. The study is running on time, and on budget.

Staffing/ Human Resources

• Our HR firm has been notified that we will be posting for the Field Service Technician position soon. I have begun looking at purchasing a truck needed for the position. My goal is to have equipment procured, and the employee hired in the next 30 to 60 days.

• As presented at the May Work Session, I plan to seek approval to hire an Assistant District Manager with a focus on diversifying the skills of District employees. Specifically, I will be looking for someone with experience and education with Water Resource planning. This is in lieu of the planned Operations Manager Position. I anticipate to begin this process in August after onboarding the Field Services Technician position.

Conservation

• Holdover: The resource central contracts have been finalized. We are lowering our financial commitment based on the performance of these programs the previous 2 years and using those funds to augment our in house conservation rebate program.

CDPHE Lab Sample invalidation

• Holdover: CDPHE notified us at the end of October that several of the water quality samples we submitted to the State Lab in 2020 were "invalidated due to a lapse in quality assurance, going on to say "at this time there is nothing you need to do. The division will reach out to you shortly and go over the next steps for your system, if applicable"

It is worth noting that the samples in question (For CPNMD) are for copper, and Total Haloacetic. Acids (HAA5). Neither of these contaminants are a concern for our system, because of our source water, and relatively young system age. Several years ago, we stopped using the State Lab and have been using Colorado Analytical to do our water sample testing. The invalidated test results, although concerning, at a State Level, do not raise any concerns that our water was unsafe, as our levels are well below the water quality standards. We have never been out of compliance for copper, or HAA5. All our testing prior to the invalidated results, and since then have been well

below the regulatory levels.

Well Failure Updates

• Overall, there are several issues we have found that may have contributed to the failures including programming issues, drive and soft-start bypass contactor failures, and start-up procedures. We will have several contractors on-site as we bring these wells online including operations, engineering, and controls. As far as warranty for the work that has been done, unfortunately there is limited coverage for the repairs,

unless there is a direct issue with the equipment that has been replaced, or a failure is directly due to errors in the new well programming. We will be looking at further replacement of the electrical equipment, specifically the soft-starts or drive associated with each of these wells as part of our CIP in the next year or so.

• A-1: Well equipment is waiting for approval for reinstallation.

• LDA-1: Well equipment is waiting for approval for reinstallation.

• A2: Has been reinstalled and start up went great! We will pay close attention to the well as we continue to operate it.

• A3: Well Equipment has been re-installed, startup scheduled for 6/23/25.

Capital Project Updates (for additional information please refer to the engineering report)

• Monarch Phase 3: Due to the condition of the existing 14” waterline on Castle Pines Parkway, we were unable to complete the loop to Sherman Street. This prohibits the constructability of “phase 3” at this time. Instead, this work will be added to the scope of the Castle Pines Parkway Rehab project scheduled for 2026. While certainly not ideal, we don’t have any other viable options.

• Monarch Waterline Phase 2: Water line work is well under-way, and the waterline portion of the project is still expected to be completed by early July. There was a leak on the existing line caused by the construction of the new waterline. This was not the fault of the contractor, rather a flaw in the installation of the existing

waterline. Although no one is at fault in the sense of a mistake being made, it is our financial responsibility because of the flaw in the existing water system. Aside from the additional man-hours from our operations team. It looks like we will be able to use contingency funds already in the contract to cover the additional expenses, mostly related to getting the excess water out of the job site. We estimate that we lost between 50,000 and 60,000 gallons of water. No residents were impacted, however, to facilitate the repair, and move forward with the project the Bramble Ridge Pool did not have water service for a day.

• Filter Rehab Program: Proposals have been evaluated for the Pre-construction services, and we are seeking approval at this month’s board meeting.

• Well Vault Rehab Project: We have completed the final walk-through on this project. This project will standardize equipment at all our well-sites, replace outdated components, increase security for our wellsites, and rehabilitate aging concrete in 3 of the vaults. This work is primarily on metering and control vaults

downstream of the wells themselves.

• Holdover: Documentation and Asset Management: AIMS completed uploading the data to our asset management system. The following task will be evaluating equipment’s useful life cycles and setting depreciation curves. This is incredibly exciting and a massive leap forward in our capital planning and forecasting.

• Lift Station Rehab program: Plan set A – Lift Stations 1, 2, and 5 has been advertised for bids and bids will be opened on June 17. Plan set B – Lift Stations 3, 4, and 7 is at 90% design level. Site applications for Lift Stations 3, 4, and 7 are in review with CDPHE. We are being held up due to the need for an additional easement for lift station 6, Kim Seter and I are working on getting in contact with the Montessori School to

accomplish this.

Castle Pines Metropolitan District Tank Project

• Holdover: Castle Pines Metro is in the design phase of constructing a new water tank near our Treatment Plant. This will require relocation of the two large diameter water mains that feed our tanks. This will be completed at no cost to our District. CPMD will work with Kennedy Jenks to approve the design changes to our existing waterlines. We will also inspect the construction of these lines; those costs will also be the responsibility of CPMD.

Website ADA Compliance

• Holdover: We are working with Sigler to ensure that the website is up to date and meets all ADA standards. Additionally, our board meetings are now broadcast with closed captioning.

JAM Ranch Inclusion

• Jam Ranch has indicated that they would still like to pursue inclusion or service agreement for Wastewater services only, a meeting was held on April 28th to discuss this. Due to the renewable water requirement set by CPNMD, they have indicated their intention to form their own metro district for water services. The

meeting will be attended by legal counsel, district engineering, JAM ranch representatives and myself.

Upcoming Days Off (I will not be in the office)

• June 27th: I will be out of the office to attend the next course for the Certified Public Manager Program.

Nathan:

Yep. So I wanted to give you guys, just kind of a quick update on where we're at with the northwestern Douglas County Regional Water Supply Reconnaissance study.

Describer:

On screen: Slide 1 - Northwest Douglas County Regional Water Opportunities Progress Update CPNMD Board Presentation 6/23/2025

Nathan:

So we had, recently had a meeting, with all entities involved. One of the things that we asked them, Stantec to do was to put together a brief PowerPoint so we could bring it back to our board, let you guys know where we were at. So today, we've had three meetings as a whole. the kickoff meeting was just designed to get everybody in the room talk about potential individual goals, what we want to get out of this, go over what individual?

Describer:

On screen: Slide 2 - Project Update

• 3 Group Meetings

- Kickoff, System Inventory Discussion, Regional Opportunities Identification Workshop

• Entity interview on potential future assets for regional water opportunities

- Water supply, storage, treatment, and conveyance

- Approximately 40 available assets

Nathan:

The second meeting was, about the inventory discussion that was much more driven toward, hey, what does everybody have? And then the most recent one was, let's see how. These individual assets could be combined or used jointly. So through that we identified about 40 available assets.

Describer:

On screen: Slide 3 - Summary of Collective Assets for Regional Opportunity including Water Supply Need, Available Water Supply, Available Storage, Future Storage Site, Available Conveyance, Available Water Treatment, & Available Water Reclamation

Color coded for СРМ, CPNMD, DWSD, HRW, Nathan explains.

Nathan:

and this is just a really, really high level overview. so there'll be obviously a much more detailed report, but this just kind of is a visual representation of all of the potential individual opportunities and assets that everybody has.

So this includes available current available capacity and storage capacities, future planned reservoirs. That doesn't mean that there are reservoirs that are going to be made, but they're ones that have already been discussed and could be put in place different water sources when those water sources hit. So timing's a lot of that. One of the things that we've had a lot of discussions about are, WISE water so Highlands Ranch Water and sand, as well as Dominion are both members of WISE.

We aren't. Those water deliveries come in the winter time when nobody needs them. So we're having discussions about how can we utilize those or retime them. So how can we move?

The availability of that water to a time period when the individual, entities could use it. One of the things that was a benefit that came, out of this, a really, really clear, is that there's a lot of infrastructure already in place that could be utilized for more short term, benefits. So we really started breaking this down by what are things that we could do either now in the short term kind of medium term, next 5 to 10 years or, you know, ten, 20 years down the road.

And so.

Describer:

On screen: Slide 3 - Regional Water Opportunity Identification

Workshop Takeaways

• There are many "4-win" opportunities

• Opportunities are modular and could build on one another

• All entities have assets to contribute to regional opportunities

• Outstanding questions on timing and need

Nathan:

Sorry about that. And so really what we're looking at is, identifying 4-win opportunities, just meaning opportunities that benefit all four districts that are currently involved in this study, we found out that there are a lot of opportunities that are very, very modular. There's a lot of different things that could be done and would set the stage for future things to be put together.

Everybody does have available assets that are potentially useful in putting together either a water authority, individual IGAs between members or IGAs, storage agreements, conveyance agreements, those kinds of things. So one of the things that we're currently working on leading up to our next meeting is really kind of diving into that timing and need. So in other words, who needs what water and when.

So I appreciate your patience. My DayQuil is running out on me. I.

Describer:

On screen: Slide 4 - Potential Regional Opportunity Summary with several note boxes.

From left to right the boxes read:

Multiple entities have both available reusable return flows Ranch and conditional water rights on either the South Platte River or East Plum Creek

There are multiple potential storage sites such as East Plum Creek Reservoir, Sharktail Reservoir, Penley Reservoir, amongst others

Existing and expanded infrastructure could be used to deliver water supplies from Chatfield Reservoir to all entities

Ownership in existing regional projects (WISE, Reuter-Hess, etc. could be used to access existing and new water supplies

Nathan:

Don't really have a lot of other color to add to this slide. I'll let you guys go through and kind of read the individual boxes, but this is really just pointing out that there are different ownership rates that everybody has. There are, multiple potential storage sites, and there are a lot of, available reusable return flows, both immediately, especially for us and the village.

And in the future, for Dominion Water in Sand.

Describer:

On screen: Slide 4 - Next Steps

• Further define regional opportunities

• Develop criteria to evaluate regional opportunities

• Apply criteria to prioritize regional opportunities

-Targeting mid to late summer

Working towards technical summary report and presentation

Nathan:

So next up from here is to continue to dive in and quantify and quantitate those potential regional opportunities. We're going to develop an evaluation criteria between all of the other members. So in other words, we're going to prioritize what we want to get out of this. Use that to create a numerical evaluation system so that we can start to go through and eliminate or elevate the individual opportunities that we have.

And then we're really going to be working toward a technical summary. And report presentation. And so that's kind of the final document at least of this first pass. And that is still on track to show to be completed, in late August or September. And that is all I've got. There's with the various NDAs and stuff in place, we're still very high level, so I don't have a lot of details that I can provide at the meeting, but I want to at least give you guys a feel for what we've been working through, and where we're at with things.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Leah:

I Have a question. and we may not know the answer, and that's okay. first though, like, this was really helpful. I really appreciated the PowerPoints. It was easy to walk through. you kind of kept it high level on each slide. So I just really appreciated the presentation. My question. So we have the Douglas County Water Commission.

Do we know if or how they would be involved in something like this?

Nathan:

That's not a discussion that we've had at any of the meetings, but it's something that I can I can bring up. Part of the question around the Douglas County Water Commission is we still don't have a really clear idea of what their authority is or what they're doing or what their goals are.

there is a survey that they have sent out that they have asked area utilities to complete. South Metro Water Supply Authority has also asked if we're going to do that. And that's really largely what we did with the first step of this quantifying our existing assets, our water sources and our water needs. So that's currently being worked through by, Gina Burke with Jen Water.

Semocor is working on that. And then Austin, we have Austin with our our water rights attorney is also looking at that. So I really just don't have a feel for what role the water Commission's going to play short term or long term.

Leah:

Yeah, I'm with you. but I was thinking, you know, James Eklund is on the water commission, and he has a lot of deep experience.

And as we get further along, and if it made sense to get his input, I think that'd be a bad thing. I know I would value it, and I'd be happy to broker that.

Nathan:

Yeah, I can, absolutely. You know, reach out to James of. And it's probably not the worst thing in the world to do anyway, I, I would like to get a better understanding of what the Water Commission's objectives are, what their long term goals are.

trying to help clear up some of that, that murkiness. but I think James would be a great point of contact for that.

Leah:

Yeah. I just want it to feel like we're trying to coordinate all I would want them to feel like we are trying to coordinate with them and not trying to go off in a direction, that they're not aware of.

Jason:

Okay. Any other questions regarding the, presentation hearing? None. We'll move on to the next section, Strategic communication Plan overview. for the purposes of tonight's meeting, I don't really even intend to go into this. I just wanted to let the board know that had been completed, give you the opportunity to start reviewing it and going through it.

Describer:

On screen. STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS PLAN Packet Page Number 125

Compiled by Sigler Communications - June 5, 2025

I. Situation Analysis

Castle Pines North Metro District (CPNMD) provides essential water, wastewater and storm water to the residents of Castle Pines, Colorado.

In recent years, the District has undergone significant leadership transitions and embarked on critical infrastructure upgrades to address long-standing system challenges, particularly related to aging water and wastewater infrastructure. These efforts have improved operational reliability and laid the ground work for future system resilience-but they have also required consistent, transparent communication with residents about disruptions, time lines, and benefits. The capital improvements have also necessitated rate increases.

CPNMD operates in a context of high public expectations and scrutiny.

The com m unity values timely in formation, responsible fiscal management, and a forward -thinking approach to resource sustainability. Past challenges--including system issues related to deferred maintenance, and the proposed but ultimately discontinued... Nathan advises.

Nathan:

I think that it is really, really well done. you guys have a couple meetings to kind of dig into this, generate questions, come up with things, and then, at the board meeting, your next board meeting, I have to look at the schedule, either the next board meeting or the meeting after that, we'll have our quarterly report from, Sigler.

And they can go into it in more detail. But I just want to point out that the document exists, and I'm I think it was really well done.

Leah:

I do have a quick comment here. I agree, I am really happy with our communications firm and the approach and, their output. If this is just me, feel free to disregard.

I had it was really difficult for me to read the font. this like that's

James:

Yeah, I'm not a big fan either.

Leah:

It's not a, it's not a standard font. and it just like the spacing made it really difficult to digest. And so I was just thinking if anybody else had the same issue, like perhaps they can use a different font.

Nathan:

That I can do.

It's it's interesting. Yeah. I even looking at it on here, I can see exactly what you mean when you print it out and like have a physical copy, which is how I read it. It makes a lot more sense. Better. Yeah. This is

Leah:

it felt the same to me. Like all caps. Like I felt like I was getting, like, yelled at.

And it was really hard to focus on, like the con, like the substance of it. Anyways,

Nathan:

communication via forest.

Jason:

All right. Any other questions regarding the Strategic Communications Plan overview. Hearing none we'll close out that section and we'll move on to the update on the monarch water line. Phase three.

Nathan:

So this is the repair work that we were planning on doing.

this year. Bear with me here.

Describer:

On Screen. A Map of the CPNMD detailing its pipelines and components. This is an active map, as Nathan moves across it, it changes often, opening up detail as he zooms in and out. There is no way to describe the map as he is explaining it to the board. Please contact Nathan Travis, District Manager for any specific information you would like to know about this map and its depictions. This map will be continually referenced for the rest of this event. Nathan will describe it.

Nathan:

And so we we talked about trying to include additional work with the monarch project to kind of shore up the system vulnerability we have that caused the last boil advisory and almost gave us another one, a key component to make all of this work. So we were looking at installing, you know, replacing some line work in this intersection, which is Castle Pines Parkway and Monarch, and then installing some valve and going south, a key component to being able to do that this year was what we've been calling the Sherman Street Loop.

And so right here, this eight inch water line that it shows coming across and connecting to the four 14 inch does not actually exist. So we felt we went looking for it a few months ago, dug up that area, found out that that water line had never been put in, even though it's on the stamped as built drawing.

So we it should be there. So in order to do that work this the problem with that is, is any time we do any work around in this intersection, we have to take out service to this I apologize mapping mappings going a little bit slow but to this entire area. So down here off Norfolk exit are all of these townhomes.

It's 120 plus houses units. They get taken out of service. And so we can't really do any of this until. This Sherman Street line has been put in place. So we have,

Jana:

But there's two connections. But what about the connection on the East.

Up go. Yeah. So we have a looped system there. We can there's no loop that's not connected.

Nathan:

help me out here. Know the intersection where it's a, Go north right there. Go. Are we looking at the blue lines? We are. Okay. Just making sure. there. So if we're closing over to the West, can't those neighborhoods get the access from right there

Nathan

because of the existing valving,

We can't. And so one of the things that we're working around is like the valves that are existing that aren't currently holding. And so theoretically, we should be able to that because we have. So the valves we're looking to repair or replace are the ones that would allow us to do that isolation. We don't have that back, that back up.

Jana:

So you can't isolate. You said it's Sherman Street Sherman right. So you cannot you don't have the isolation valves in place at Sherman to be able to keep the water flowing from the other side.

Nathan:

We don't have a water line in Sherman. yeah. So this water line that loops the system does not exist. Got it. And then what about this is a stub that was never connected.

Got it okay I follow. Yep. And so we looked at two two things. We looked at first. Hey let's dig this up right here oops I apologize and connect this stub. There is a very, very expensive looking row of trees that sit here. That's kind of a very decorated hedge line, right where this line terminates, or right where the alignment comes in this line there is I mean, it could not be more centered about a 45ft pine tree that sits there and then back under.

This is also a bunch of resident lighting, sidewalks, telecommunications and electric. So this really isn't an option to dig this up and make this connection. It would be insanely disruptive. And so the plan was while the city has everything torn up, we were going to go through and go ahead and do a wet tap so we can tap this pipe and make this connection without having to shut service off to everybody.

Run the water line, across the road. They were going to let us do a temporary pad. The city was going to let us do a temporary patch, and then we'd be have open trenching under the street that's been currently torn up. And that was all well and good until we got this water line fully exposed. So we had previously done some potholes to look at it, make sure the condition was acceptable.

Everything looked great. So we further we literally dug this thing up to do the wet tap. And so one of the things that you do, it's like a, kind of a chain scraper that you run around the outside of the pipe to really, really clean it up. Once we got this fully exposed and started to run that landscaper scrape around, we found that this pipe, Oops! Wrong one, was in absolutely terrible condition.

Describer:

On screen. A picture of a section of a pipe which has been rusted and has potholes on the surface of the pipe.

Nathan:

So this is a picture of the actual pipe that is that is in the ground. And so you can see this like deep pitting, there's really knows no surface in here that we can trust. And so one of the issues that we would run into is we felt that we had a really, really a high likelihood of failure on that wet tap.

So the wet tap would go in. And there was a really, really good chance that this is going to split the pipe somewhere else. It's going to debirth somewhere else. There's really nowhere on this section of pipe that we could confidently tap into. I keep clicking the wrong button down here. ductile iron. This is a ductile iron.

Describer:

On screen. Another picture of a pipe with even more deep pitting next to 3 electric lines, both running in parallel. Nathan describes further.

Nathan:

And so we talk about the we talk about corrosion breaks and corrosion resistant, electrolysis, corrosion. This is exactly what we're talking about. And so I thought this picture was, very, very telling. So one, this is the this is a three phase electric line. It's called the concentric band. So there's a ground wrapped around the outside.

Without getting too into the weeds, this line and this water line were installed at the exact same time. Usually what you'll see with concentric band is it tends to degrade really, really rapidly in the ground. That's why they don't use it anymore. Because in everybody's homes and every business, the water line is grounded to the electric line. It's a matter of code.

It creates a cathartic cell. And so what we what happens is our water line starts to eat itself alive and in order to save that electric line. And so that's why you end up with a concentric band electric line that looks brand new, right next to a water line that is in much worse condition, than it than it remotely should be.

We do, we do we do this on purpose with water lines a lot. We'll put a sacrificial anode in the ground to protect the water line. In this case, the water line is the sacrificial anode connector protecting the electric line. All of that to say, we're really just not going to be able to do this project the way that we had hoped to and get this kind of like higher level, more immediate need replace all of these valves in place.

So this is all going to get pushed into the Castle Pines Parkway water line, replacement that's already planned for next year. So we'll do it as part of that project. The downside to that is is it really just kind of leaves us a little bit exposed there for the next 12 months or so until we get that that broader project in place, we can't since we can't tap into this line, we really need to fall back on the new line installation.

So when we come through with the new water line somewhere along this alignment, we'll get to this point and then we'll tie this in. We'll bring all that online, and then we can go ahead and move south and do the valving. but there's just really no way to safely construct it this year. We're going to have to wait and phase it into a larger project.

Jana:

Nathan. The stub out that was installed but not connected. Do we know the condition of it?

Nathan:

It's probably exact, but it's going to be as bad as the pipeline,

Jana:

so there's no reason in discussing. Why don't we go ahead and cut down a pine tree for it? Right. It's we're going to find this and

Nathan:

we've seen this line a few, a few different times, all the way up to deer clover.

We've had it exposed for break a number of years ago. Everywhere that we have exposed this thing, it's been in pretty horrible condition. And so that's why we had done the original, like, hey, let's pothole it, spray it down, and really, really look at it. it wasn't until we started scraping it that we found out how bad it was.

Jason:

Okay. Any other questions? I guess we'll chew on that one for a while. thanks, Nathan. We'll go ahead and close down the, district manager's report, and we'll open up number ten, the district. director's matters.

Jana:

to circle back. Nathan, could you give us an update? I know you only touch on a few of the things in the directors matters, but are in the district manager's matters.

Could you discuss the staffing update? I know, it says that we're looking to hire 30 to 60 days out. It's. The job is posted or about to be. You need approval for anything on that?

Nathan:

no, I don't need any additional approval. the vehicle search has been a little bit difficult, so I've been in contact with Jason's contact.

I've got HM Brown looking, really just trying to find the the truck that's the right fit. There's a lot of, very expensive 2500, 1500 vehicles that are readily available. the used vehicles that I've been able to find so far that are more in line with the type of vehicle we're looking at of all had higher mileage than I want to get ourselves into.

So, right now the biggest holdup is that vehicle search. We really need the truck in place before we can get an employee in, but I've we've got some some feelers out.

Jana:

Okay. So we have a budget for that to procure that equipment. And then, and we're starting with the field service technician. Correct. Okay. I think that was my only question that we didn't.

Nathan

the one thing that wasn’t included, talking about Wells, the only well, update that wasn't included in the packet was, A3. We did start up on that well, today, and it went great. Everything went swimmingly. motors, behaving well. The production is actually a little bit above what we anticipated seeing coming out of it.

we got the contactors replaced before we started up, electric controls and pumps and operations were all on site this morning, and it's it's looking good so far.

Jason:

All right. Anybody else have any matters they'd like to discuss? All right. Hearing none. We'll, close out director's matters and we'll move to item number 11 and adjourn the meeting. Thank you. Everyone.

Describer:

On screen. CPNMD Standby for Extended Meeting slide. The board members had additional questions about pipeline placement and future project, so they extended the meeting so Nathan could answer those questions before the public.

Jason:

The city's project and how we're going to interface and move our line next year.

Nathan:

Yeah. So the city's doing. I always have to play eastbound monarch this or eastbound Castle Pines Parkway. This year. They're going to be doing westbound Castle Pines Parkway next year. And so for our phasing purposes, what we'll do is we might even fire off a little bit ahead of the roadway, but we need to set so this water line from this valve north, this is all brand new.

From this valve to the east, this is all brand new. And so this is the line moving to the west that we need to replace with the city. And so they'll do this roadway work next year. And that's when we'll do the water line. So we'll have to come in here, set a new T that'll set roughly right about here.

Connect to this side. Connect to this side. And then we'll run, a brand new water line this direction. And so we'll have to get to this Sherman Street connection with the new water line. And then that's when we will install this line. we'll look at the we'll look at the cost phasing. My guess is that will that'll probably be cheaper for us.

and also better for public relations to not cut open trench this across what will be the brand new road. So we'll probably come over off the Sherman Street exit, dig a pit, and then we'll do a directional bore under the new, under the what will be the new roadway. And then we'll connect it to the new water line.

Once we get this connection instated charged, then we can go start chasing these valves to the south. And so really we're going to be end up replacing this valve holds the holds okay. But we're going to install a new line valve here. one on either side of this actually for isolation will install a new line valve here will replace this one because that one doesn't like to hold all the way.

We'll have to replace all four valves at this intersection, and then we will have to install, right in here. We we're not going to install a permanent valve here, but will install something called a line stop that'll will be able to put in place like a balloon. You inflate in the pipe. It's what we did up north to fix that irrigation line that broke.

But we'll install that just for construct ability.

Jason:

Going back to Sherman Street. Why aren't we laying the pipe now on the part that's already dug up?

Nathan:

Because it is insanely difficult to hit that right elevation. So we don't know that we can get the pipe set at the exact same level. And so we want to eliminate one of the two variables.

So if you think the x and y access we're we're going to have the alignment down. But we're not going to know exactly where that pipe sits. And that's something else that a directional bore allows us some flexibility. There were a lot of utilities. So we did pothole through there and and shoot a bunch of elevations. But I mean, we had in that little stretch, there was like 7 or 8 things that we had to get around.

Leah:

and so going to the south, like that line and the valves, I think you said they don't look like they're under the road. Like, so would that entail pulling up concrete?

Nathan:

Yeah. These ones will have to pull concrete up to, to replace. And which road is that. Is that this is monarch or. I'm sorry. Yeah. Monarch drive south.

So, and that's Buffalo Ridge. Yeah. Buffalo Ridge Elementary sits right here.

Leah:

So is that is that the piece that was already done?

Nathan:

It's not on the it's not on the city's current plan for roadway renovation. It's been

it's like so what, they already. Yeah. okay. Yeah. This is south of Castle.

Leah:

Got it. Okay. are we going to try to coordinate there?

Nathan:

They don't have a roadway replacement scheduled, so over the cost. That's what we're going to do. At least right now. We're going to do point repair. So we're going to replace those valves where they sit if the city does at some point in the future, do a full roadway replacement, then we'll go in and we'll do the water line with it.

But that's not on their current schedule. So we just need to get this little system liability out. on a broader scope, one of the things that we'll be looking at with our long term capital project is really realistically, from this point, so from this intersection all the way up to our tank. So if you take this out to the wider view, I'm going to turn off the aerial or this will take forever to load.

So there are these are our two tanks they set up by the country club in the village. They're like literally by the country club. we have two water lines that run all the way down there. So we do have some decent redundancy from the tanks to our water treatment plant. The bigger issue that we run into in the longer term exposure is coming out of the water treatment plant.

So from this point north to, really anything past here, if we have a break or a rupture on that water line, it's, it's a boil order. Like there's nothing we can do. If we have. We have to shut that line off. We turn off water to the entire district. So the long term consideration for that and right now, probably going to be targeting in that like 5 to 10 year ranges.

What we really need is an additional storage tank on a in a different part of the district that helps mitigate that, so that if we have those tanks go off line, we can feed water out of this to another storage tank. We do have a site identified for that. and I already gave one of our directors a brief heads up on this because it lands literally in his backyard.

Jim. So, yeah. And so this, this parcel right here. So you can kind of you can see how we have these dual water lines running down the street. This water line doesn't have any taps on it. And that's intentional for a zone break. So these two lines stubbed up into this open space. And I'll turn our aerial back on is designed for a future storage tank site okay.

And so that's the longer term goal is we really need to put another storage tank there right now and and help. Castle Pines Metro is unwittingly doing us a favor by doing an almost identical project right next to our treatment plant. So how that phases out will give us a really good idea of what that like, at least the in today's dollars, what something like that is going to cost.

But we have a considerable amount of room back. There would be a mostly buried storage tank. So the resident impact would be I didn't press that button relatively low, but that's that's a project we really need to put in place. and it feeds well with the interconnect pump station too. We could have the interconnect pump station feed directly into that one, and it would give us some really, really great system redundancy.

And so that's kind of the ultimate plan to make sure that we can avoid those, low pressure turned off too many houses, boil orders.

Leah:

Thank you. I didn't mean to reopen the meeting, but this was really helpful to me, so thank you.

Jason:

It was helpful. Thank you so any other directors matters? Hearing? None. I will again adjourn the meeting.

Thank you everyone.