Board Meeting
August 25, 2025
Transcript
Describer:
Board Meeting Agenda
Monday August 25th, 2025, at
6:00p.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 July 21st, 2025, Work Session Minutes
B. Consider: approve June 28th, 2025, Regular Board Meeting Minutes
C. Ratify claims for payment including check numbers 29270 – 29316 and electronic payments issued from July 17th, 2025 to August 13th, 2025 totaling $938,297.29
D. Consider: approve Revised Employee Handbook
E. Consider: approve Kennedy Jenks “Budget Amendment No. 3- Lift Stations
Proposed Motion: I move to approve the items as presented in the consent agenda dated August 25th, 2025.
V. Consider: Approve Monday August 25th, 2025, board meeting agenda
Proposed Motion: I move to approve the board meeting agenda dated August 25th, 2025
VI. Communications Director’s Report. Bryn Webster
A. Strategic Communications Plan
B. Project Status Updates
VII. Finance Director's report. Eric Harris, CPA.
A. Finance Report Overview
VIII. Legal Counsel's Report. Paul Polito, Esq.
IX. District Manager’s Report
A. Discussion: Well A6 Failure
B. Staffing Update: Field Services Technician
C. Staffing Request: Deputy District Manager
Proposed Motion: I move to approve the hiring of a Deputy District Manager
X. Executive Session: Presentation of Mineral Rights Evaluation.
Proposed motion: I move to enter executive session to develop strategies for negotiations and to instruct negotiators pursuant to section 24-6-402(4), Colorado Revised Statutes.
XI. Director’s Matters.
XII. Adjourn.
Board President Jason Blankaert:
Good evening, and welcome to the Castle Pines North Metropolitan District Board meeting. Today is Monday, August 25th, 2025 at 6 p.m. we will call the meeting to order and 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. Thank you.
We'll go to roll call here.
Board Member Director James Mulvey:
Jim. Present. No conflicts.
Board Member Director Tera Radloff:
Tera. Present. No conflicts.
Board Member Director Jana Krell:
Jana. present. No conflicts.
Jason:
And we don't have Leah. Oh, she's coming..... Hi, Leah. We're doing roll call, and you're up.
Board Member Director Leah Enquist:
Oh, sorry. I didn't hear that. Leah Enquist present. No conflicts.
Jason:
Thank you. And I'm Jason. Present. No conflicts. Okay, we'll go ahead and close out
Roll call. We'll move on to item three, the public comment period. Do we have anybody wishing to make comment? Steve, if you'll give us your name and address, please.
Steve Dawes, Castle Pines Resident:
Steve Dawes 5703 Jasper Point circle. minor point. But as you know, I'm a kind of a stickler for detail and I didn't notice this until I just got here that you have an executive session scheduled for today in which it says that, it's to develop strategies for negotiations and to instruct negotiators pursuant to section 24-6-402 per.
And for the Colorado statutes, having litigated these cases a number of times, I can tell you that that notice does not meet the requirements of the Open Meetings law, as you have to identify the specific subsection that you're meeting on. In addition, if you're reading on that, I would suspect that it's either going to be 4A disposition of property interests or 4E-1 negotiations.
You know, as I said, it's a minor point, but, as I've explained before, there are lawyers out there who charge 4 or 500 bucks an hour to sue for minor things like that. And it's easy to fix the other part about it. And this is a comment I'd like to make, having observed several executive sessions, you can't use an executive session under the existing law, particularly the city of Aurora case, to poll your members to give instructions to your negotiators.
So Aurora got in trouble because they were trying to settle a case. And in the executive session, they polled the city council members and they voted for whatever the vote was on that particular negotiation. And the court held that there was a violation of the meeting, open meetings law, because you're essentially making a policy or decision in executive session.
So I would encourage that When you have this executive session, you have your discussion. When you come out, then you, make a decision about what your negotiations are. As I said, there are small points, but, you know, you don't want to get some nasty lawyer involved suing a thanks. Thank you.
Jason:
Thanks, Steve. And then, Yeah.
Legal Counsel Paul Polito, Esq.:
Paul. Yeah. happy to address it. I do appreciate the comment. As a former litigator, I can definitely appreciate that. When I drafted the language for this executive session, I looked at the statute itself. Sometimes I just do that from time to time to make sure that, everything's on track. And I did look at it.
You do need to reference the specific subsection 4 when you're noting, in an executive session, but you don't need to note the subsection following that as long as you note what the executive session is for with sufficient particularity. So I noted that, that's why I put that this executive session was to develop strategies for negotiations and to instruct negotiators, that's language from the statute itself.
So this does need the requirement that being said, if the board, I think subsection E was the section that Mr. Dawes reference, which is the correct section, if you want to Director Blankaert, if you want to move under that section, when we enter into executive session, you certainly can. It's not required. But you can move under that subsection E wonderful. Thanks Paul. Tera
Tera:
Yeah. It was what is subsection E?
Paul:
E is for determining positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations, developing strategy for negotiations, and instructing negotiators.
Tera:
Thank you. I know that the I think the way that the city does it, they typically enter that I mean, they see their motions that way. I don't know if they've changed, but I think it does make it a little bit clearer and kind of reminds everybody what the parameters for the discussion is.
But that's just me.
Paul:
And I certainly that, you know, I'm happy to include that specific subsection going forward in case there's any sort of confusion. Anybody seems like good practice. So, obviously that moving forward there's no confusion.
Jason:
Sounds good. Well, we plan on doing that from here forward. Yeah. Thank you. And do we have any other, anybody else up for public comment?
Leah:
All right. I have a follow up question. I appreciate
District Manager Nathan Travis:
Leah. Hold on, hold on one second. Corby, is there anything we can do about her volume, her and Jana were both, almost impossible to hear.
Leah:
Does it help if I sit a little closer? Okay, I can sit closer. Paul, my follow up question. was that different language than we typically use?
Paul:
No, it's the same exact language. The only thing that I changed this time was actually removing the the specific subsection to the subsection. so to Mr. Dawes credit those as timely catch. That is the first time I've done that, which again was intentional, but it is causing a bit of a stir. So I will stop doing that.
Leah:
Thank you. and Mr. Dawes, if you want to handle our meeting notes, we would take you.
Oh, I can't hear anything.
I don't know if you guys can hear me, but I can't hear anyone speaking in the meeting.
Tera:
He said for a small fee, I relayed your because he can't hear you. You're very quiet. But he said for a small fee.
Describer:
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 July 21st, 2025, Work Session Minutes
B. Consider: approve June 28th, 2025, Regular Board Meeting Minutes
C. Ratify claims for payment including check numbers 29270 – 29316
and electronic payments issued from July 17th, 2025 to August 13th,
2025 totaling $938,297.29
D. Consider: approve Revised Employee Handbook
E. Consider: approve Kennedy Jenks “Budget Amendment No. 3- Lift Stations
Upgrades
Proposed Motion: I move to approve the items as presented in the consent
agenda dated August 25th, 2025.
Jason:
Okay, okay, we're going to go ahead and close out the public comment period and we're going to open up item number four, which is the 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 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. So I will go ahead and make a motion. I move to approve the items as presented in the Consent Agenda dated August 25th, 2025. Second. Great.
Paul:
I'm sorry if I can interrupt for a moment. I apologize for this. I did slightly edit the work session minutes. There was just a minor error as to the time it said 6 p.m. I change it to 5 p.m. that's in the packet in front.
That's the separate work session Minutes are in front of you right now. So you are looking at the updated correct ones, but there was that minor change. I apologize for jumping in, but, if I would, I revise to remove them from the consent agenda and approve the consent agenda, and then the minutes separately.
If that makes sense.
Steve:
Okay. We have a motion that's been seconded. Paul. How do we do that?
Paul:
I would go ahead and vote no on it and then remake the motion.
Board Voting All Speak:
Yeah. Very good. We'll move to vote. Jim. No, Tera. No. Leah. No. Jana. No. I vote no as well. So that does not pass.
And we will remake the motion. So we'll move to approve items as presented in the consent agenda dated Monday are dated August 25th 2025, with the exceptions of the work session minutes and the board meeting minutes.
Paul:
Just the work session minutes.
Jason:
Just the work session minutes. Okay.
Board Voting All Speak:
So second go ahead Tera second. Thanks. All right. Having a second. We'll move to vote. Jim. Approve. Tera. Approve. Leah. Approve. Jana. Approve. And. Then I move to approve the July 21st, 2025 work session minutes as not in the packet, but as presented to us, prior to the meeting with the change of time. Thank you. Great. I second that having a second one move to vote Jim approve.
Tera approve. Leah approve. Jana approve. And I approve as well. The motion passes.
Jason:
With that, we will go ahead and close out item number four. And we will open up item number five.
Board Voting All Speak:
I move to approve the board meeting agenda dated August 25th, 2025. I'll second that and we'll move to vote. Jim. Approve Tera Approve Leah. Approve. Jana. Approve. And I approve as well. Item number five. Motion passes.
Jason:
We will now close out item number five, and we'll move to item number six, the communication director's report with Bryn Webster.
Up first, the strategic communications plan. Welcome, Bryn.
Bryn Webster, Account Manager, Sigler Communications:
Thank you. And my see if I can set this up without hurting the mic. And my coworker Chuck is going to actually lead this to start.
Chuck Montera, VP Sigler Communications:
Great. Thank you Bryn I am Chuck Montero with Sigler Communications. with me is my colleague Bryn. Today we're going to talk to the board about, a couple of things. We're going to start off with, just some high level summary of, the communications plan. And then Bryn is going to talk about work product that we've completed, over the summer.
And, the communications plan is, we submitted that to Nathan, I believe, right at the beginning of June. And.
Describer:
On screen.
Communications Plan: Goals & Strategies
Communication Goals
• Increase public understanding of CPNMD's services and value
• Build community trust through transparent and consistent communication
• Encouraging two-way communication and feedback with residents
Objectives and Strategies/Tactics
• Improving website and social media outreach
• Strengthen event engagement + conservation outreach
• Foster collaboration with city and chamber
• Evaluate customer satisfaction (surveys) and building trust and understanding for future projects/collaboration
Chuck:
I'd like to just kind of go over some of the, top tools and strategies that we had in our communications plan. I hope that, the board has been able to read that, and then we would love to address any questions that you may have after we're done, presenting to you. But one of our primary communications goals was to increase the public's understanding of the district's services and the value that you provide, for those services.
Another major goal was building community trust through transparent and consistent communications. And, a third goal that we had was encouraging two way communications between your customers and residents and the district. And, so when we, defined our objectives and strategies, one of the primary objectives that we have is improving the use of your website.
And by use, I mean in the consumer experience, we want to make your website as user friendly and as informative as possible, Bryn is going to actually talk to that a little bit later. We wanted to strengthen your event engagement and conservation outreach. You have very good and aggressive conservation programs, and we want to make sure that your residents, your customers are very aware of those and hopefully take advantage of them.
It was event engagement. You just had a couple of great events here in Castle Pines. The, the splash, the summer splash program, and also the, party in the park. And at both of those events, we were able to not only talk to your customers, but give information. We had a, fact sheet on concert, your conservation programs.
We had a, infographic on what not to flush, which is very important as it comes to, wastewater and, another, handout on your capital improvements and, so we want to make sure that you're taking advantage of your community events and getting out the information that your customers require. We also want to foster collaboration with the city and the chamber.
And you already have very good relationships with both the city and the chamber. One of the things that my colleague Bryn was able to do was include a couple district specific questions on the, forthcoming, city survey. So we're very excited about that. And the final point is, we want to, evaluate the customer satisfaction surveys, so that we build trust and understanding for future projects and collaboration.
So my colleague Bryn developed a survey with with the help of Nathan. We need to set benchmarks so that we know where we are a year or two, three years from now compared to where we are today. So that survey is going to help provide those benchmarks for us. Okay. Regarding some of the communications, messaging, this is just a snapshot.
Describer:
On screen. Communications Plan:
District Messaging
We are continuing to prioritize operational excellence, including necessary upgrades
We are prioritizing transparent and timely communication on projects, costs and more
We are listening to our customers and working to improve
We are investing in our future
Chuck:
Again, I encourage you to read the entire report. We have a lot more messaging than what we have on this slide, but one of our primary messages was continuing to prioritize operational excellence, including the necessary upgrades you need to make to your infrastructure. We are prioritizing transparent and timely communications, projects, including both the costs and the the, what those projects entail.
One of the other message that we want to convey is that we're listening to your customers and working on improvements that are recommended by your by your customer base. And that that goes back to that two page, two way engagement and communications. And the third, I'm sorry, a fourth, message is that you are investing in your future.
You're doing the necessary upgrades and, to, to basically, you know, whether that is inclusion with another system or just making sure that your systems are running as best they can. We want to make sure that that your customers understand that you are indeed investing in the future. And with that said, I'm going to turn it over to Bryn.
She's going to bring you up to date on work product that we've produced over the summer. Yeah.
Bryn:
So obviously the communications plan touches on a lot of different things that we wanted to accomplish. And, these are some of the key things that we decided to start with this summer.
Describer:
On screen. Communications Accomplishments:
Summer
Finished communications plan
Project status sheet
Finished website audit + made it ADA compliant (added DocAccess
Leveraging events: 3 new handouts/graphics
Annual + summer/fall city surveys
Bryn:
So addition to finishing the plan, we created a project status sheet, which hopefully each of you have been able to take a look at.
It kind of lists what the key projects are start date and date, current status, something that Nathan can update regularly and you can refer to if you have questions or receive questions about it. We also finished an audit of the entire website, and we worked with Nathan and Streamline to make it ADA compliant. This included a lot of PDFs, which we use Doc access and a couple of other methods trying to figure out what was the best way and, just the most economically smart way to do that.
We, as Chuck mentioned, leveraged a couple events, and then we also had the two surveys, the one with the city and the one that we are doing ourselves.
Describer:
On screen. Ongoing Communications Pieces: Summer
Quarterly News (Spring) (highlight: projects, conservation + rebates, hydrant flushing)
24 social media posts on key conservation topics, projects and events (boosted one)
4 monthly ads + first story in Castle Pines
Connection (highlights: conservation messaging, rebates, text alerts + enews)
2 (bimonthly) bill inserts (highlights:
conservation/rebate, text alerts, enews)
Bryn:
And then some of the ongoing communications that we've done recently, we did the Spring eNews, as you'll see in a lot of these bullet points, we highlighted a lot of the same things to try and get those messages out in different ways for a surround sound effect.
So we talked about projects. We talked about conservation rebates. We talked about hydrant flushing in the spring. We also did about 24 social media posts. A lot of those are on conservation topics, projects, events. We put money behind one of those to see how far we can go and get some additional people to follow our pages. We also did four monthly ads in Castle Pine Connections, and our first story with them should be in September.
And we also highlighted, again conservation rebates. Also the text alerts and E-news sign up so people know how to find more information about the district. And we also did a couple of bill inserts for doing these bi monthly sort of sometimes we're doing monthly depending upon what the information merits, on the same topics as the others. Chuck's going to talk about our next comms after.
Describer:
On screen. Communications Efforts: Up Next
WEBSITE REORGANIZATION - CRISIS COMMS PLAN REVIEW - NEXT QUARTERLY ENEWS (SUMMER)
Chuck:
So we are going to undertake a website reorganization. Bryn is going to leave that on our team. And we received a lot of good, we did our stakeholder surveys, before we developed our communications plan to help inform that plan. And we got a lot of good feedback from the stakeholders that we did survey on ways to make the website more user friendly.
So we're going to put those comments into action. we're also going to review your crisis communications plan that Nathan has shared with us. And we're currently right now working on the next quarterly E-news that will go out probably within about a week. And, it will be, we're calling it the the Summer 2025, newsletter.
So that is in the works as we speak.
Describer:
On screen. Measuring Our Results
Spring News average open rate (63%) and above average click-through rate (8% vs
3.5% average previously).
Established Google Analytics to track ad, bill insert and handout url views. Initial data shows click-throughs to rebate program pages in July-August at 20+ clicks each.
Text alerts signup promos (in social posts + bill inserts + ads) resulted in 140 new signups in June-July.
Summer/Fall surveys + city survey for more input.
Brun:
And obviously, the other important question during all this is how is it performing? So, one of the things that we checked on was obviously that in spring rates, open rate, which is 63%, it's really average with the past e-newsletter. So that's actually very high compared to an average e-newsletter open rate. So we are pleased with it.
We actually also received almost double the amount of click thrus as we have with past year newsletters. Part of that may be that we are, putting the text alert sign up promotion at the top of the E! News. And we've noticed that that has been a high of interest. People really want to know when there's an emergency notification, so we'll keep it there for a couple of our next newsletters.
As a result. We also implemented Google Analytics in the back of streamline. It's not automate automatically there. So we had to connect it. Initial data shows that we've had go click through to the rebate program pages on the website, about 20 clicks each. Through the different efforts that we were doing. And as I mentioned, the text alert signups have done very well.
We promoted them on social on bill inserts and ads, and we had 140 new signups in June and July to that specifically. I think a lot of those were from the bill inserts, from what I can tell. So that's a great way to know. That's our number one communication method. And then the surveys that we're doing will hopefully give us more information on that.
I can tell you of the first couple we got from last, Saturday, same thing. People want text alerts. They want newsletters. So those will continue to be our key sources of information sharing. So any questions.
Tera:
Yeah. And that has to do with measurement because I noticed that okay. Let me back up. And first of all say thank you.
You guys are doing a wonderful job. I think, it's really encouraging to see the trust that is being built and that we are able to reach more people and that we are communicating as we so desperately have wanted to connect in the past and have not done a really good job of your bill Insert the last one I saw was really well done.
This communications action plan that's in our packets really well done. Your your, situation analysis is really spot on, but it has to do kind of with the measurement because I noticed there have been, a couple of places where you're saying that we need to do some measurement. And for the baseline, is there any way to tell, like how many of our because we have all the email addresses.
Right. You have to because you receive a bill, we have to know do we have any any way to measure kind of the adoption rate from who we know we have? Like
Bryn:
You're saying, the adoption rate between
Tera:
Sorry for our for our you know, for our can you tie that back to who our customers are? Do we have everybody receiving information in one way or another?
Is there any way to kind of go back and assess that like on page.
Bryn:
So I think I know we've captured information in different ways. So I know in the past that some people, when they sign up, Nathan, you may have to correct me when they sign up for Daupler. They also sign up with an email sometimes. So we have some people's emails.
Tera:
Correct? Yeah. So maybe that's it because like on page it's in our packet page 64 I don't know what, but you're talking about you know, established strategic communications calendar. It says, you know, proactively promote emergency alert sign ups. Is there any way to tell how much of our customer base is already signed up for emergency alerts?
And that would be, you know, I think the Daupler says promote ease. Newsletter sign up and Daupler sign up more quickly. And again, how do we do? We know what percentage of our customers are actually signed up?
Bryn:
Yes, yes, I understand now. I think Nathan has an answer for this. Okay. Can I get you to mute your mic for him?
Nathan:
So, yeah. So we we do know. So we, are able to download that out of the Daupler system and compare that to our customer base. One of the things that Bryn and I need to circle back around on is I have, also pulled out a list, so I know what that gap is and who isn't signed up.
And so we do want to try and figure out some targeted direct marketing or mailing specifically to those residents. The largest gap inside of that is actually not even necessarily individual customer accounts, but actually the multifamily units and townhomes where we have one one account information, that's all the information we have. We need to reach out to the other residents.
So, I do have a Excel file that breaks that out.
Tera:
Thank you so much.
Bryn:
Also, I would just say that's part of why we did it on social media as well and tried to get and the ads try to share it in different ways so that it can hit some of the people who don't get bills. But yes.
Tera:
Nice. Thank you.
James:
Question I have. Oh sorry. Oh go ahead Leah.
Leah:
It just had two quick things. number one I echo, everything Tera said. So thank you. just really happy to see the work in the efforts. And then the second thing I'd like to reiterate and ask, I had made this request earlier. It looks like it wasn't implemented in your packets for the comms reports.
Can you please use a different font? That font is really difficult to read. with the typography and the spacing. so that would just be a personal ask. It would be a lot easier to consume. I concur
Bryn:
That specifically the strategic communications plan?
Leah:
In my packet it's it's it's everything okay.
Chuck:
Monserrat. We've actually had this discussion.
It will be changed.
Jason:
Jana, did you have any questions? No, none for me. Thank you. Jason. Great. Jim.
James:
Okay. oh. I was going to make the same comment on the font. It's really hard on the eyes. and the second thing was, maybe this is, for Nathan, that little, four page thing. I think you said Sigler put that together.
Nathan:
You're talking about the talking points document. Yeah, yeah. Yes.
James:
Okay. just want to thank you for that. That was something that was. I, in my own personal opinion, was really needed. a summary, super helpful. and, I just created it, so thank you.
Jason:
Was that something that was handed out with the party at the park?
James Off-mic:
paper copies with the results on the slide?
Nathan:
Yeah. So I sent those to, the board and staff as well ahead of that, the party in the park project. But that's something we'll keep updated and get out to you guys.
Jason:
Great. Thank you. All right. Any other questions regarding the communication director's report?
All right guys hearing. Then we'll close out this section. Thank you very much for coming tonight. Thank you all. Okay. We'll open up item number seven the finance director's report with Eric. Eric.
Describer:
On screen TO: Board of Directors – Castle Pines North Metropolitan District
FROM: Eric Harris, Elevated Clarity (EC)
DATE: August 25, 2025
RE: Financial Report – August 2025 Board of Directors Meeting
General Fund Activity
As of June 2025, the District recognized $967,268 in property tax revenues received from Douglas County and $37,635 in specific ownership tax revenues. This includes $13,210 in delinquent property taxes collected. This represents 97.8% of the budgeted property taxes from the District’s mill levy year-to-date. This is a slightly lower percentage than compared to-date in 2024 (99%).
Financial Director Eric Harris:
Good evening. Board on page 71, you have the financial report. I hope I hope you had a chance to review it. What I would like to do is kind of, delve into three different items within this report.
One being I want to provide a high level overview of where we're at so far going through June 30th. And then we, underwent a significant project of, reworking, repackaging your financial statements that would like to walk through and detail what those are for you and how that's going to be incorporated into our budgeting process. Then, once we understand how those financials are to be read, we'll go into some expense variances.
If that works for you this evening. So, high level, we're almost fully collect on property taxes. Once again we're looking at arrears. So this is June 30th of 2025. And we get kind of a sneak peek if you will, going into July. So what you have is you have the numbers, for your operations, your enterprise operations, water service revenue, approximately $82.6 million.
Describer:
On screen.Enterprise Fund Activity
Billed water usage in the month of June 2025 was 82,618,000 gallons, a 20.70% decrease from water usage in June 2024. However, while comparing to records from the past 10 years, the District billed more water than it had in prior July months, which is reflecting a higher revenue stream in the third quarter.
Total Billabie Usage (Gallons) Table (Highlighted) Eric Describes
July 2022-105,870,004 Cumulative-400,776,104 2023-82,846,000 Cumulative-252,270,003 2024-111,770,000 Cumulative-340,862,000 2025-116,398,000 Cumulative-348,729,000
Eric:
82.6 million. Excuse me. Gallons. we're tying to the June financials, the June revenue numbers. And then in July, you actually have 116 million gallons that were flowed. And that was a significantly higher volume right there. So just want to be aware, in July and August, the district essentially bills almost 40% of its water service revenue.
So that's just we all know this. This is the irrigation season, but just want to call that out specifically as well. So that ties to the higher revenues that we have. And we we've incorporated those trends into the projections that you have in your, in your financial statements. And so those were just some high level items associated with that.
We are, we and therefore, we actually have about $1 million in accounts receivable as well, tied to that right now. So that's just something for us to look at. Again, looking at your financials that are on starting on page, 76.
CASTLE PINES NORTH METROPOLITAN DISTRICT BALANCE SHEET
BUDGETARY (NON-GAAP) BASIS
December 31, 2024 and June 30, 2025
Audited Actual 12/31/2024 and Unaudited Actual 6/30/2025 See packet page 76 for details. Eric describes.
Eric:
We Molly and I underwent a significant project over the last few months just to add more clarity, if you will, to your financial statements so that they're easier to read, easier to understand, easier to make financial decisions off of, and so that this is, what we're doing, essentially what happened before is everything was deconstructed.
And by deconstructed, what I mean was, is, the district may receive an expense, let's say a standard operating expense. They would bill 65% to the Water Enterprise Fund, 35% to the wastewater fund for most indirect expenses. And then we would aggregate those or the process has been to aggregate those into a combined water and wastewater. And then knowing that some of those items were technically, I would say, general governmental expenditures and some of those maybe like the district's audit payroll, some of Nathan's time, some of his time, maybe water time, some of it may be governmental time.
And so we want to make sure the financials tied to that a little bit more. And so that's that's the idea. So now we actually, your financials, we're, starting next year after we clear the budget will be a lot more simpler. You'll have two less pages within your financial statements. But I would like to, have Molly introduce Molly to go through, the process and the flow of funds, if you will, through those financial statements.
Molly Janzen, Accountant:
Thank you. Good evening. So we provided quarterly financial statements in March and the format of those financials was similar to what you see here. But what that had that these change, the change in here is to actually rather than having those indirect costs or overhead costs included in the water and wastewater fund as direct costs, those are recorded in the general fund in total, so that you can see the whole operation and what those costs are.
And then in the water and wastewater fund, we charge an indirect cost rate of 15%, to recoup, to cover some of those costs that are in the general fund, in addition to the revenue coming in from the water in the wastewater fund to cover those costs. We also have property taxes recorded in the general fund. So the differences in last year's audited financial statements, you actually saw, a transfer from the general fund into the enterprise funds to cover some of their costs.
Describer:
On Screen. Packet Page 77
CASTLE PINES NORTH METROPOLITAN DISTRICT
STATEMENTS OF REVENUES AND EXPENDITURES WITH BUDGETS
BUDGETARY (NON-GAAP) BASIS
December 31, 2024 Actuals
Actuals, Projected Actuals, Budget and Variance through June 30, 2025
Summary (All Funds)
Molly describes.
Molly:
So it's it's a switch and thinking. So I'm going to just walk through high level the financial statements. And then Eric's going to go into a little bit of detail. So the first page that you see is the balance sheet. Pretty straightforward. So this just gives you a snapshot of where we were at 12/31 with your assets and liabilities and fund balances, and where we were at June 30th.
So you can see that we're fairly consistent with where we were six months ago on that front. This is entity wide. So you will not see this broken out into general fund water fund wastewater. We do that at the end of the year when we need to break out fund financials. But for these quarterly financials we just keep it all in one balance sheet.
All right then starting on the next page packet page 77. we're going to come back to this page. This will be a one page summary of your entire district's financial operations. And this this will be important after I go through a little more detail. so we'll skip to page 78 of your packet, page three of the financials.
Describer:
On Screen. Packet Page 78
CASTLE PINES NORTH METROPOLITAN DISTRICT
STATEMENTS OF REVENUES AND EXPENDITURES WITH BUDGETS
BUDGETARY (NON-GAAP) BASIS
December 31, 2024 Actuals
Actuals, Projected Actuals, Budget and Variance through June 30, 2025
General Fund
Molly describes.
Molly:
This is the district's general fund. On all of the fund financials you're going to see the same columns represented. You're going to see the 12/31 audited actuals. So those now that our audit has been completed we can call those audited actuals. Those numbers will not change 2025 adopted budget 2025 projected actual. This is where we consider the actual, which is the next column through whatever quarter we're looking at.
Whether it's March, June, September, and we project for the rest of the year based on the trends we're seeing. And it's important to do this throughout the year because something that we saw in March, the trend might have changed. So we want to do this quarterly. The budget through column is we actually look at the specific line item for revenue or expenditure and consider whether it's a one time expenditure.
So a great example is insurance. So what you'll see on the insurance line item is that the budget through is the entire budget for the year. Because we make that payment once and then we're done. Where your utilities and things like that are going to come in every month. So we're monitoring. We thought we were going to be at a certain point where, where do we think we're going to end up?
And then the variance is just to show you where we're at over, under where we're projecting to be over or under that budget. So the general fund, what you'll see is that we budgeted property taxes, specific ownership taxes and Treasurers' fees, and then our transfers to water and wastewater. So all of those dashes that you see in the 2025 adopted budget column means that we did not budget for these costs.
in the original 2020 type adopted budget. Because we are recommending moving these costs into the general fund, we will, at a different point, be recommending that we amend the 2025 budget. We don't want to get into a situation where we haven't adequately budgeted for these costs, but it is a shift from how we presented the budget and how we adopted the budget earlier.
Then you go into so that whole first section of expenditures.
Describer:
On screen. Packet Page 80
CASTLE PINES NORTH METROPOLITAN DISTRICT
STATEMENTS OF REVENUES AND EXPENDITURES WITH BUDGETS
BUDGETARY (NON-GAAP) BASIS
December 31, 2024 Actuals
Actuals, Projected Actuals, Budget and Variance through June 30, 2025
Conservation Trust Fund
Molly describes.
Are the totals that or the expenditures that would move to the general fund. No these are the general. Sorry, I'm getting myself confused. So that's the general fund. Then if we'll go into we have the conservation trust fund, this is the where we just run the Conservation Trust quarterly revenues through this fund. And those get remitted to the city.
Describer:
On screen. Packet Page 81
CASTLE PINES NORTH METROPOLITAN DISTRICT
STATEMENTS OF REVENUES AND EXPENDITURES WITH BUDGETS
BUDGETARY (NON-GAAP) BASIS
December 31, 2024 Actuals
Actuals, Projected Actuals, Budget and Variance through June 30, 2025
Water Enterprise Fund
Molly describes.
Molly:
Now that they've taken on the Parks and Rec. then the next two funds are the water and wastewater fund. So this is where I was getting confused, because as you see, all of those expenditures that you saw in general fund were recorded in the water and wastewater funds at 65% and 35%. So when Eric talked about the streamlining of these financials in future years, what you would see is all of those line items that are reflected here would disappear, because once we get rid of that.
12-31-2024 audited actuals column, and if we amend our 2025 board budget, then it it consolidates the financials. So basically, what you end up with in your water and wastewater fund is really just looking at those revenues and expenditures that are very specific and directed toward the towards those activities. The other thing that we tried to incorporate to make it easier to understand these is to add in some sub totaling, so that, it makes it clear what type of expenditure you're looking at.
Before they were all just line items and it was very difficult to determine is this a monthly cost? Is it an annual cost? What what type of cost are we looking at. And those subtotals are then what are used to give you the summary information on that one page summary sheet. So that is the water in the wastewater.
Now I'm going to go back to that summary sheet and just kind of point out how everything ties together. And then I think Eric's going to go into a little more detail on what we're seeing in these financials right now. So that summary page was.
Page two of the financials packet, page 77.
Describer:
On Screen. Packet Page 77
CASTLE PINES NORTH METROPOLITAN DISTRICT
STATEMENTS OF REVENUES AND EXPENDITURES WITH BUDGETS
BUDGETARY (NON-GAAP) BASIS
December 31, 2024 Actuals
Actuals, Projected Actuals, Budget and Variance through June 30, 2025
Summary (All Funds)
Molly describes.
Molly:
And again this is just a one page summary of all of your district's revenues and expenditures starting with the General fund Conservation Trust Fund and then Combined Water and Wastewater Enterprise Fund. So kind of taking a look at how operations are doing, here in so if you look at the numbers that are in these summaries, they tied to the subtotals or totals on the more detailed financials.
So if you're looking at the summaries and want more information, you can always go to those detailed sheets and get it. You can see that for the general fund, the expenditures that we have that we are projecting total expenditures is about 2.4 million. Again, we adopted a budget because we didn't we didn't know we were going to have these expenditures here.
That's a lot less. So we would need to amend the budget. I point that $2.4 million number out, though, because if you look down below at the combined water and wastewater enterprise funds and look at the total operating expenditures moved to general fund, the 2025 adopted budget was about 2.4 million. So overall, with these general overhead costs, we are coming in close to what we thought we would.
It makes sense because these are expenditures that are typically more they're easier to predict than, say, repairs and maintenance, that kind of thing. So that's the general fund snapshot of that conservation trust fund. It's just that in and out to the city. And then you get down into the combined water and wastewater enterprise funds. Again, there's a lot more detail on the following pages.
But I think what's really helpful with this is that you can see right away we're projecting that operating revenues bounce to 7.2 million. Our operating expenditures, including the indirect cost that that goes to the general fund, is about 7.2. So overall our operations operating revenues are covering operating costs. Well we know they're not covering is your capital costs.
And so that sticks out here too because that's in your non-operating expenditures line item. So that is what's creating that that decline in the fund balance. So I think this this one page gives a nice snapshot. It also shows you with your operating expenditures how most of the line items are lining up with what we budgeted.
You can see that for repairs and maintenance that one is coming in over budget and you can if you just follow that line item, you can see the actual through. June 30th was 1.4 million total for last year was 1.4 million. So you can see why why we trended that projection up to to be higher because we know that's going to be higher.
Eric:
Perfect. Thanks, Molly. So, just wanted to step back for a moment and, see if there's any questions from the board. But really, what we did was we use guidance from the OMB, Office of Management and Budgeting that allows for 15% of a associate constitutes a de minimis charge. That's allowable. And so not knowing anything else besides how to allocate that overhead right now, we're defaulting to that right now.
We can monitor and change that in the future. And it actually could be a great budgeting tool for us in the future as well. How are we doing on our indirect overhead allocations. So what the the big shift we're doing in summary is versus up deconstructed transactions that are booked between a 65 and 35, split operating and non operating expenses within each water and wastewater fund.
We're looking at indirect direct cost first indirect costs in capital as well so that we can go to a specific line item. And you as a board can look at how much I guess in us as a management team of this district for you is how much is the district spending, say, on its overhead, and how is that going to be allocated across the board?
So, once again, are there any questions about the new format?
Tera:
No, I like it because the sub funds will just show those direct costs.
Eric:
Correct. There's one exception to that. Right now we can do payroll. The district has just hired their first employee. So we're looking at see how should their time be booked. It is a water service technician. So yes, we should book almost 100% of his time.
We're working with Nathan how we should book that time in addition to that is Semocor. We are charging them specifically 65 and 35 split right now as a direct cost. Besides, that is just direct charges that are being booked directly to each fund. And so we defaulted to looking at every account that was split. So there are some exceptions.
So if you go and look at the general fund you may see some small tools and things of that nature too. Yes that's water and wastewater activity. Those may move off in the next run of these financials. We just have to work with Nathan to see how we ensure that we put those where they need to go.
Jason:
Jana, did you have any questions?
Jana:
No. Thank you. Jason.
Jason:
Leah. Okay.
Eric:
Wonderful. Thank you. and then just diving in Molly had a number of these right now, but the story is kind of how it has been this year. We're looking at hired, R&M and distributed repairs that are happening. And so, you know, I'll probably keep saying this at the next meeting. And so we're all well aware of those.
We've worked with Nathan to identify what those projections are and the bills that we haven't received yet. And so those are incorporated in our projections as well as the timing associated with capital spend as well. We did receive the latest pay application from the city as well for the monarch, capital expenditure. So we did get those incorporated.
And we do have Kennedy Jenks reviewing those as well. Nathan has been coordinating that review. And so we just have to keep on, we try to try to get those incorporated as soon as we get those information. And there is a significant lag, but we, we and then we also have several accruals for, invoices that we did receive in this latest payables run, even within this last week that we were able to catch and put those back in June as well within these financials.
So that is the story right now of the financial position of the district.
Jason:
Wonderful. Thank you very much, Eric, for all your hard work. We'll go ahead and close out the, finance director's report and we'll open up item number eight, which is the legal counsel's report with Paul. Paul.
Describer:
On screen. MEMORANDUM
TO: Castle Pines North Metropolitan District
FROM: Seter, Vander Wall & Mielke, P.C., Paul Polito, Esq. and Kim J. Seter, Esq.
DATE: August 20, 2025
RE: Legal Status Report for the August 25, 2025 Meeting
UPDATE REPORTS ON MATTERS IN PROCESS
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. Counsel has made final revisions in response to board direction at the July 28, 2025, board meeting. The following language was added after the August 18 work session.
10.2 Smoking
It is our objective to provide a smoke-free environment within our organization. Smoking, vaping, and the use of nicotine products is prohibited in all District vehicles, all District buildings and within 25 feet of the main entrance into the building. Employees may smoke, vape, or use nicotine products only in designated outdoor areas. This restriction
applies to all employees and visitors, at all times, during business and nonbusiness
hours.
Action: Consider approval on the consent agenda or by separate motion.
Describer:
On screen. MATTER: DEMAND LETTER TO CASTLE PINES TOWN CENTER METROPOLITAN DISTRICT NO. 1
Status: CPNMD invoiced Castle Pines Town Center MD No. 1 on May 12, 2025 for unpaid
anniversary fees due on the 4/28 anniversaries for 2022–2025, totaling
$354,315.72. The demand for payment was sent on August 20.
Action: No action required.
Paul:
Good evening. Board. The legal packet is on page 98 of the board packet. First item, the employee handbook update. Kim, went through the changes with you at the last meeting. He did make that one change to the, the smoking policy, within vehicles. And he noted that, within the report itself, he added the language under 10.2 for smoking, and that was the only change.
And with that, the board could entertain a motion to approve the employee handbook consent. Nevermind. Was on the consent agenda. My apologies for that. So no action is required. The, demand letter, to Castle Pines Town Center was sent out on August 20th. We will, of course, keep you apprised as to any communications we have with them.
Describer:
On screen. MATTER: RESEARCH RE RECOURSE FOR WELL FAILURES
Status: At the July 28, 2025, board meeting, the board requested legal input as to potential District recourse for multiple well failures at District wells A1 and A2. District counsel reviewed all pertinent Layne agreements and met with the District Manager
to discuss same on July 30, 2025. Layne’s agreements all possess an identical Guarantee and Liability clause, providing a 12-month warranty on labor supplied under the contract, and passes on any warranties provided by the manufacturers of materials or equipment furnished under the contract. Once a third-party report is completed, the District can assess liability. If the labor is deemed defective, the District can demand the value of the installation work, or the difference between the contract price and the value of other similar installation work, from Layne Co for the preceding 12-month period. If the materials or equipment is deemed defective, counsel will discuss Layne’s “pass through” warranty from the manufacturer(s) and will assess the manufacturer’s warranty(ies) for recourse.
Action: None required at this time.
MATTER: RULES AND REGULATIONS UPDATE
Status: The Board requested the District’s rules and regulations be updated to account for
more limited district functions regarding parks, trails, and open spaces. Legal counsel is currently revising the District’s rules to account for more limited operations, as well as to update administrative enforcement requirements regarding backflow program. Counsel is planning to present updated rules and regulations at the Board’s August regular meeting.
Action: None required.
Paul:
And I did, I did discuss the potential well, failure course with Nathan. We had discussed a couple meetings ago. There was a question as to what sort of recourse do we have for these recurrent, well, failures? What what can we do about it? So I review the agreements with Nathan. We had a discussion, under under Layne's contracts.
They're all identical. They all provide a 12 month, warranty, essentially. So, long story short, to the extent it's labor related, we have recourse under that for the preceding 12 months. Any welfare and anything before that, we wouldn't really have any recourse on, to the extent it's a manufacturers defect and this will come out with that third party report.
Layne passes on any warranties from the manufacturer. So if that report comes back and it is manufacturer defect, we'll be taking a look at that and having a conversation with the manufacturer, and we'll handle that. So, at this point, we're just waiting for that third party report to come back to determine what the actual cause of the failure is.
So once that happens, we can make a decision. other than that, I'm working through the rules and regulations update. I I'll admit, my plan was to present it at this meeting is a little bigger lift than I thought. I will be presenting at the next meeting. So have that for your review. other than that, if the board has any questions on the on the legal report them and I'm happy to answer them.
James:
I think it was, 1 or 2 meetings ago, I, asked you about this third party report in this individual that were depending on to, I guess, be, you know, at least unbiased as well as qualified to do this work. And I was just wondering what you dug up. Yeah.
Paul:
So I did, I did go through the, the company.
They seem to be tied to oil and gas interests. That alone doesn't really concern me. It it looked like the type of work that they do was, was almost primarily oil and gas. I didn't really see a lot of experience with water wells, but as far as any sort of conflicts, it didn't give me any pause.
I so I was fine with it. The expertise was, was well situated with the problem we're dealing with. So, I was, I was happy with, with a third party. There weren't apparent conflicts from what I saw
Nathan:
To to augment that a little bit. The company is primarily oil and gas. The individual that is completing the port report has a more extensive background in water as well.
James:
Okay. If the, does this individual make any statements or certifications that, you know, he's going to be unbiased and is qualified to do this work?
Paul:
Not that I've seen. I well, I'd have to see whatever agreement there is, but, that's a that's a quite standard requirement, even even without any sort of provisions in writing.
But. No, I don't know for sure the answer to that question.
James:
Can we at least ask for some sort of certification? Yeah, absolutely. I'll, I'll contact them. And, we can put something in writing along those lines.
James:
And this is a combo question maybe to you and Nathan, but, you know, as far as status of that is concerned and, you know, what's the timeline?
Paul:
Nathan, do we have a timeline on the completion of that third party report?
Nathan:
We should have it in the next couple weeks. So they've pulled the equipment. It's been delivered to Wyoming. It's my understanding that the inspection has been completed. We're just waiting for the report to get completed. But I can I'll follow up and get a specific status update on that, but then email the board. And go ahead.
James:
Another topic that was discussed during this was, you know, since we can get into a situation where, you know, they say we broke it, we say it was, you know, defective. How are we handling what we received as far as equipment and its condition at that point in time and its performance and what the nature of the failure was?
I mean, all that should come out in the report, but I'm just wondering is, you know, what's the game plan here moving forward? Or, you know, we just sent them equipment back and, you know, now we've lost essentially custody of the equipment. And, you know, I'm just wondering what did we retain as records, photographs, performance data. You know, anything that was recorded on our end so we can look at it once we get their report back?
Paul:
I'm just so I understand the question. Is it, what sort of internal, internal reports are heard? Any figures that we have on the equipment that we that's under question? Is that the is that the question?
James:
Yeah, we we have a product that we were running for some period of time, a short period of time, and then it failed.
And, I'm just wondering, what were you recorded as the mechanism of the failure or the type of failure, and then the performance data associated with that?
Paul:
That a I would assume that Nathan can better speak on than I can. as to recourse as far as keeping the equipment versus money, that's a discussion we can have is as far as what the district as far as what's best for the district.
James:
That wasn't the question. Whenever I send something back to a manufacturer, we photo document, we have a data package that we have in our hand. And, you know, at the very least, we we know what condition it left in. Okay. What it looked like.
Paul:
I see. Yeah. I think Nathan could speak on that.
Nathan:
Yeah. So they did take photos of the equipment as they pulled it as, as far as the, performance data goes, that's actually something that we gained the capability of through the, well, vault rehab program.
So we have system pressures, we have runtimes, we have Hertz, we have the or we have the frequency that was running out at the failure modality, system pressures. We've got a bunch of data for both of those wells that we were able to, that we were able to pull. And so that was information that was sent to the third party tester, the third party evaluator, and that we also separated and kept as a package so that we've got it, for what it's worth, there were no apparent system anomalies, pressure spikes, anything like that on our end.
It just stopped producing water. Okay. Thank you.
Jason:
Jana, do you have any questions? Leah.
Leah, do you have any questions? Okay. Tera. All right. I guess we'll go ahead and close out the legal report. Thank you very much, Paul. And thank you, board. And we'll open up item number nine, which is the district manager's report. Discussion of, well, A6 failure.
Describer:
On screen: Memorandum Packet Page 102
From: Nathan J. Travis
To: CPNMD Board of Directors
Date: 8/25/25
Re: District Manager’s Report
AGENDA ITEMS
Well A6 Failure Updates (Agenda Item IX.A)
• Another well has failed. Over the course of a few days production began to slow on well A6 located at Monarch and Daniel’s gate. I have not yet received the proposal to pull the well equipment however we are fairly certain that this is due to a hole in the downpipe, below the check valve. It is also possible that the well casing was compromised by the leaking draw pipe, but we won’t know until we pull the well equipment and inspect the well casing. It is difficult to estimate a repair cost without knowing the status of the well casing but I anticipate repair costs to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000.00
Because we have three high producing wells, we have begun taking water deliveries through the Highlands Ranch interconnect.
Staffing/ Human Resources (Agenda Item IX.B & C)
• IX.B - We have hired a Field Service Technician. Their first day is Monday, 8/25 and I look forward to introducing them to the board and next month’s work session!
• IX.C- Included in the packet is my request to begin the process of hiring a Deputy District Manager.
• We have hired a Field Service Technician. Their first day is Monday, 8/25 and I look forward to introducing them to the board and next month’s work session!
Nathan:
Yep. So, right on cue and in the vein of continuing, well, problems, we had a third well, go down last week, so this as well A6. It is a, fairly significantly different failure modality than the other ones. So by way of information, this is a, Monarch Boulevard and Daniel's Gate Road. So that's where.
Describer:
On screen. AIMS Maps CPNMD
Intersection of Monarch Blvd. and Daniels gate Rd. Well Sites 6, A-6 and DE-6 centered on the map. Nathan describes.
Nathan:
Well, sites six said. So you can I can kind of zoom in a little bit. so this is where this well sit. So this well, was, running normally. It's been operating fine for a few years now. And over the course of a few days last week, we saw a significant drop off in the well production without any, any other system changes.
Describer:
On screen. A general graphic os a standard well. Starting from left to right at the top. The Well Casing descends into the ground, from a top layer to the Water Table, to the Perched Water Table, down to Layers of Clay and then into the Gravel Aquifer at the bottom of the graphic. On top of the well casing is the watertight well cap, connected to a power house where a pressure tank resides labeled #5. The top level of dire is label 1. To its left an open water source is depicted which essentially defines the water table line. Above the water table line is the Pitless Adapter which connects to the Pressure tank #5. The adapted descends down into the perched water table and is labeled #2. It continues into the Clay layer and connects to the Submersible pump, labeled #3. The pump pushes down into the gravel aquifer just above the Well Screen labeled #4. Nathan further describes.
Nathan:
So it there wasn't any change in how hard the well was working, discharge pressure that it was working against. And so this is, almost certainly a failure of the draw pipe or the drop pipe, depending on what terminology you want to use. So this is a very, very basic diagram of a Well, but you can kind of see there's the individual components.
This darker line is the weld casing. And then inside of that this blue line is the draw column. So it or the draw pipe. So it sits inside of that weld casing. And then down at the bottom you have a submersible pump that obviously pumps the water up. So what we are almost certain is happening is there is a check valve right here.
I on this inside, draw pipe and there is more than likely a hole in the side of the weld draw in the side of the draw pipe. So the pump is running fine. It's producing water like it should, but that water is being redirected or diverted out the side of the pipe and then back down into the aquifer, rather than being pumped up to the top.
The good news is, that's a relatively simple fix, if that's all it is, and we pull it out, we just have to replace that section of the draw pipe. The unknown variable in all of this is if this leak damage to the well casing. Then things can get a little bit trickier. So if it damages the well casing enough, can actually render the well unusable.
We can, you know, try and raise the pump level. There's some repairs that we can do, but we really just won't know until we pull the equipment and we're able to TV the well to see if there's any damage to the casing or any impact on the casing. We have had this, a very, very similar break at, well, A4, and we were able to repair that one.
That was in 2020, I believe.
Tera:
And when are we pulling it?
Nathan:
I don't have a schedule yet. I'm waiting on the proposal in the schedule, for this, for them to be able to get out and pull the, well equipment.
Jason:
Anyone have any questions? Jana. Leah.
Tera:
So, what are we doing in the meantime?
Nathan:
For this one, we're just waiting. So we are, with the warm temperatures. And until the last couple of days, a lack of rain. This did put us into a situation where we needed to, engage our interconnect with Highlands Ranch Water and Sanitation District. Highlands ranch has been great to work with and kind of an emergency basis.
It doesn't appear that they're going to be charging us. Are, they have the ability to charge us, like $8 a thousand gallons for this water. Since it's outside of our contract agreement, they are able to produce the water. So far, they we only need to take a little bit right around one MGD to make up for that.
Well, 1 million gallons a day production for that. Well, and so right now, they're billing that at our normal contract rate of $2.60 per thousand. So, not a huge impact on us right now, luckily. but we do need to get it corrected as quickly as we can. The other advantage we have is that, we're moving late in the summer.
Demands are going to start dropping off pretty quickly over the next few weeks, so we should be able to go back on our system until the normal time to run the interconnect.
Tera:
And they didn't have any. They didn't. Highlands Ranch Water didn't have any kind of turn up charge for that emergency. No. Nice to have a friendly partner.
Jason:
Okay. Any other questions regarding the, Well failure. All right, Nathan, we can close that and open up the staffing update with the field services technician.
Nathan:
yep. So real quickly, I just wanted to let everybody know that we did hire a field services technician. Their first day was today. I will have them come by next month at the board and introduce themselves to the board.
I thought day one was probably a little bit of a stretch to also drag them out in front of a board meeting. so they'll be spending their the better part of the next month, month and a half, shadowing Semocor, four operators. So whichever Semocor operators are in district, they'll just be hanging out in the same truck, getting brought up to speed on that and getting brought up to speed.
Just learning our system. day one was great. They obviously know what they're doing. Really engaged, asking a lot of great questions. And along with that, we have also given notice to, CRS for, the for the discontinuation of the service for the billing account specialist. Allison. And so her last day will be October 10th. And so that gives, our new employee and our staff two full billing cycles to get through, for training, backup system backup.
And then Allison will be on her way. And that is where we are at.
Jason:
All right, questions?
James:
Yeah, it's been bugging me, and I was thinking about asking it. How does well casing get damaged? Is it just the high pressure leak and it erodes? Yeah. And what's the worst casing? It is. is it like iron or is it concrete or steel?
Steel. Okay. All right.
Nathan:
Generally speaking, you don't. I don't expect to see any damage on the well casing. I just can't guarantee it. a big influence in that, especially, is if you have a well that has a lot of sand. So that's what happened. Well, A4 is we've got that high pressure discharge. A4 was allowed to run for months and months and months, by the previous operator.
And that's what damaged it. If you have sand infiltration, that obviously like drastically increases that scouring effect as well. We don't have a lot of sand issues with we've never had screen problems. So I don't anticipate a weld casing issue, but it's still possible.
James:
Okay. Yeah I hear the those wells humming when I walk my dog my early mornings.
okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Jason:
Okay, great. We'll close out the staffing update. Thank you. Nathan. And, we'll move to the staffing request.
Nathan:
Yep. So I've included in the packet. This isn't anything that you guys haven't seen, at some level before. So the next phase, of staffing that I'd like to do is I would like to get permission or approval to move forward with starting the process of hiring a deputy district manager.
That is a slight title change from assistant district manager. It comes with, some kind of implicate. There are some implications with that job title that Make it make it more clear that it's, you know, somebody that is also there to back me up when I'm not gone. So it's it there's not a real difference.
But I've been told by a few people that deputy district manager is a better fit for a job title for what we're looking for. Other than that, the only real changes that I made to the business justification was an inclusion. I included a brief discussion on the hiring process. So Jennifer Vollmer with IGL Denver will post the position.
Let me get down to that really quick. hey, there we go. so Jennifer will post the position, like we have similarly. And then I do I do anticipate this is probably going to take us a little bit of time to find the right person for, for this job. And then, I also have an interview committee that I've identified as myself.
Describer:
On screen. Recruitment & Selection Process
To ensure a transparent and competitive hiring process:
• Advertising & Applicant Management: The position will be advertised and managed by Jennifer Volmer with IGL, who will coordinate posting, applicant tracking, and candidate communications.
• Interview Committee: Candidate interviews will be conducted by a panel consisting of Eric Harris, Nathan Travis, and Andrea Cole (District Manager, Dominion Water). The selection panel may be altered, to accommodate scheduling conflicts if necessary.
• Selection: The committee will identify the top candidate and present a
recommendation for appointment to the Board, following the established
procedures for new employees.
This process ensures that the District attracts a qualified pool of applicants and that the
selection process is fair, thorough, and aligned with organizational needs.
Nathan:
Eric Harris and then Andrea Cole with Dominion Water has also indicated that she'd be willing to help us out, depending on, scheduling availability. And then I've also had a brief discussion with Sam at, Highlands Ranch Water, just to make sure that I have a viable back up in the thinking between that third position is one, obviously, that'd be working with me primarily.
Eric has a large amount of experience, and he was gracious enough to agree to do this when he saw his name in the report. And, then Andrea and Sam, really just I thought it would make sense to choose somebody that we have an active partnership with, to be included on that interview committee, somebody that's got a little bit more experience hiring this type of position.
But also they're going to be presumably working with them more over the next few years. So I'm happy to answer any other questions that you may have before I ask for approval. Officially.
Tera:
Just remind me who IGL is because it's not mountain states.
Nathan:
Yeah. IGL is the, human resources firm that we've used for, I think three years now, a little more than three years.
Jason:
Okay. Jana or Leah, do you have any questions or comments?
Jana:
I I'll have a few. okay. So, Nathan, how. Okay, I'm just taking all this and, how does this line up with what you see as the, the future of the district?
Like, does this, this project start a second in command for you when you're not here and then but this fills some voids in what, you feel like the district currently has?
Nathan:
Yeah. And so a big part of this was a shift away from the operations manager position that we were originally looking at around this time next year.
And it also has a lot to do with succession planning to make sure that if something happens to me or I leave, that we have somebody to fill that. So it it definitely gives us some much needed support. The, background that I'm going to be looking for is somebody that has, obviously a decent amount of experience in this industry.
And then I don't want to be incredibly narrow, but my preference would be somebody that has, a good understanding, especially locally, but of, water rights, because that's, obviously a primary objective for the district is continuing to work on those renewable water sources. And so having somebody that has that specific pedigree to kind of fill some of those, knowledge gaps would be, extremely valuable for the district.
Jana:
Okay. So this so, I mean, I'm just trying to remind myself. So we talked about an office manager, but then we kind of pivoted to this. So this is going to cover that. But also this position will have a pretty good idea of the operations and management. I mean, they're kind of going to wear that hat too.
Nathan:
So under this format, will Parker with Semocor way to continue to be the primary operations manager.
Jana:
Okay. So there would be no change in the Semocor, relationship right now.
Nathan:
Correct? Yeah. And so that's something that's a good point. We may when we look at the Semocor contract next year, Will was charging us, I think somewhere around 18 to $2200 a month for those operation manager duties. He did pull that out of the contract this year, but I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to add that back in next year.
We can also look at and this is probably more of a 2027 approach, but we could also look at bringing in an operations manager next year directly to fill that gap. But that's just an analysis that I haven't done in terms of FTEs and need availability. I haven't had a chance to look at that.
Jana:
I, I also thought that we kind of talked about somebody with an engineering background.
So but when I'm reading the requirements, you are looking for somebody with with that
Tera:
I'm sorry. So. Oh so I noticed that it did that she's asking. She's what? That we were looking for somebody with a technical background and she wanted to know in the job description that is does it have an engineering focus. Is that the question?
Jana? I'm sorry. It's really hard to hear.
Jana:
You know, it is. And I'll talk as loud as I can. But so in the position requirements, it does say an education or background in water resources, environmental, civil engineering, etc., etc.. So you are looking for somebody with with more of an engineering, background. Am I reading the right. Yeah, yeah.
Nathan:
And so that's where I was like, I left it a little bit open to kind of a diverse background skill set. So it's really that water resource planning, water resource degree that I'll be mostly focused on. But, you know, there's a lot of different areas and somebody with that pedigree could come from. So I just tried to keep the qualifications a little bit more generalized.
Jana:
Okay. Because that's one of the bullets. But then I also see the Colorado law and the special district governance. Okay. So okay I think that's all my questions guys.
Jason:
Great. Thank you Jen. How about you. Do you have any questions.
Leah:
I do I do I don't know if anyone will necessarily be able to answer it. But I, I think the qualifications are great.
Is is it would it be typical for somebody to have like all those things in their background? Or are we looking for a unicorn?
Nathan:
I think that that's probably something I can make more clear in the job description that, I'll have to do a little bit to word that. So I'm not necessarily looking somebody with all of those qualifications, but, you know, one of those areas or a combination of those areas.
I can make that more clear in the job description.
Leah:
I mean, are there people out there like realistically that would have all those things? Because if, if, if there is a pool of those candidates like that would be great. I'm just not sure if it's a common combination of skill sets
Jana:
and can I weigh in on that? That was part of my question because I saw the, familiarity with Colorado water law, and then I saw Civil engineer.
And so I see like, well, those are two different things, like one and maybe they do exist, but I feel like when it comes to water law, as a civil engineer, I rely on my partners more in the legal category, and vice versa. You know, somebody who might be really privy to law might not have any experience in water resources.
So I thought that was interesting. And I did note that too. But that's why I was asking more like, what are you leaning towards? What kind of educational background are you leaning towards here?
Tera:
Right. And I do think, I don't know if there are a pool of candidates out there, but sorry, was it? I was just going to say, I don't know that there's a pool of candidates out there, and I don't know Andrea's background, but I think she is a law school graduate and an engineer.
So she probably, I mean, there are people I don't know, there's a big pool of people and probably not at that price.
Lea h:
Yeah. so what I was going to say was, as a board member, it would be helpful for me to understand and how you would prioritize those skill sets. So, like if you're looking at candidates and those are pretty diverse skill sets, like, what are your top three priorities?
Nathan:
So I think it's the top one. The main priority is, well, generally speaking, I when I look at bringing new, new employees on board or bringing staff on board, I'm very much a culture first person. So you can have somebody with all of the qualifications in the world, but if they're not going to match the the general workplace culture, if they're not going to have the, you know, some of those in more intangibles,
It's probably not best to bring somebody on at your in an organizational level. And so that's kind of a hiring mantra that I've followed for a long time now. In terms of actual qualifications, I think that the largest gap we have, at least on staff, is that water resource, water resource management, perspective. So that's kind of my priority is to find somebody with that background.
But if, you know, if we had somebody that came in with, like a civil engineering background, a PE background that also has a bunch of great ideas or has a lot of experience in leadership or district management or vice or deputy district management that would also be really helpful. One of the challenges, I think, with a position like this for an organization our size and I don't want to say that you can't really be picky, but I think that because we have the because we are the size that we are, everybody that is on staff, generally speaking, has to wear a lot of hats.
And so really specifically targeting one one qualification over another, one can put you at a little bit of a detriment. So I do want to stay kind of open and fluid through that selection process. But one culture fits. Two water resource management. Three would be that civil engineering background. And then those can kind of shift depending on the individual applicant.
Leah:
Thank you. That's really helpful.
Jason:
Great. Do we have any other questions. So there is a proposed motion here. I'll go ahead and make it I move to approve the hiring of the deputy, of a deputy district manager. Second, having a second, we'll go to vote. Jim.
James:
I'm going to vote no here. And it's it's not. It's it's simply because I think we just need to do a little bit more work on it. And I'd like to see, along the lines of what Leah said. I'd like to understand the skill set and how you see them plugging in, and then I'd feel more comfortable to saying yes later on.
So sorry about my statement, but it's in now. Right now.
Jason:
All right. Tera, I Leah.
Leah:
I don't know. I'm I am generally really supportive. One thing that I don't understand, I get, I. Sorry, I didn't know we were going to go right to a vote. otherwise, I would ask more questions. so my misunderstanding, how would this impact, like, are any of our future strategies? so that's the piece that I feel like I don't necessarily understand.
And likely because we don't know what our future strategy is. And so for, for me, thinking through like how staffing, when we don't have a future strategy, is is tricky. And so if I have to vote no because I don't know, or if we go back to discussion, I don't know how that works.
Jason:
All right. Jana,
Jana:
I'm a no, but a no, not yet.
So, similar to Jim, I, I had previously discussed with Nathan more of, like, a district engineer role to kind of film fill that. And I know that's the direction it's going, but it's very vague in my opinion. So I'd want to take that down. And I'd also like to know more what role this would weave into the district with, Nathan's skill set.
And, so it's I'm not there yet.
Jason:
All right. Very good with that. The motion fails, so we will, I'll vote. I'll vote Yes. I think that we do need somebody in here to be a backup to Nathan. I think this is our first step. Is just giving them the time to start looking for somebody. And that there will be several spots down the road that we could object to.
Somebody that we don't think would be a good fit for this. So I think, we do need to do it. but the motion has failed, so we'll, move on and, maybe bring it up again at a future board meeting.
Okay, so having that, we will close out the district manager's report and we will go to item number ten, executive session. So the executive session is for the presentation of mineral rights evaluation. I moved to enter executive session to develop strategies for negotiations and to instruct negotiators pursuant to section 24-6-402, subsection four, subsection E of the Colorado Revised Statutes.
Board Voting All Speak:
Second. Having second, do we have to vote this? Okay, Jim. Approve. Tera. Approve. Jana. Hi. And Leah approve. I approve as well.
Jason:
So are we going to give the online? Are we doing a separate zoom call for this or. Okay.
James:
Are we going upstairs?
Describer:
On screen. CPNMD Board Executive Session Please Stand By
Paul:
The board has exited the executive session. No action was taken during the executive session. all conversations stayed within the bounds of the executive session. And at this point, we can. The board can entertain a motion to exit the executive session.
Board Voting All Speak:
So I propose that we exit the executive session. I'll second having a second. We'll go to vote Jim.
Approve. Tera. Approve. Jana I Leah, approve approve as well. We will go ahead and close out.
Jason:
Item number ten and we'll move on to item number 11. Director's matters. Do any of the directors have anything they would wish to say?
Hearing none. We'll go ahead and close out Director's Matters and we'll move to item number 12, which is to adjourn. Thank you. And have a great evening, everyone.