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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-01-08 - MinutesCity Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes January 8, 2008 Page I of 5 Member Aldermen Mayor Dan Coady Ward 1 Position 1 — Adella Gray V10 Ward 2 Position l - Kyle rt Cook CityAttorney Kit Williams � 1 Ward 3 Position 2—Robert Ferrell Ward 4 Position 2 - Lioneld Jordan City Clerk Sondra Smith ARKANSAS City of Fayetteville Arkansas City Council Water & Sewer Committee Meeting Minutes January 8, 2008 A meeting of the Fayetteville City Council Water & Sewer Committee was held on January 8, 2008 at 5:15 p.m. in Room 326 of the City Administration Building located at 113 West Mountain Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas. MEMBERS PRESENT: Alderman Kyle Cook, Chair; Alderman Lioneld Jordan; Alderman Robert Ferrell; Alderwoman Adella Gray STAFF PRESENT: David Jurgens; Gary Dumas; Ron Petrie; Tim Conklin; Kit Williams; Sondra Clerk (for part of the meeting) OTHERS PRESENT: Stephen Davis, Davis Business Planning (representing Elkins) Alderman Cook called the meeting to order. Approve Minutes Alderman Jordan moved that the minutes of the Water & Sewer Committee meetings held on December 11, 2007 and December 19, 2007 be approved as submitted. Alderman Ferrell seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. 2. Decentralized Sewer Administration Agreement with Washington County Alderman Cook introduced this item and said that City Attorney Kit Williams was available to answer questions about the language of the agreement. Alderman Ferrell asked if the assumption of this agreement is that the City would do the billing and collection of the $2 monthly fee. David Jurgens said the County bills directly to the RME (POA or other similar entity) and the RME bills the lot owners. The City is not at all involved in the billing process. Kit Williams said with this agreement we are trying to keep the City out of the monitoring of community sewer systems. The County already has the people and the procedures in place and is doing this in the unincorporated area now. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes January 8, 2008 Page 2 of 5 Alderman Cook asked about the financial obligation of the City in the future, particularly the definition of "administrative costs". Kit Williams drew the Committee's attention to subsection D which says the City cannot be further financially obligated (over the $2 per month homeowner fee) without the consent of its governing body. The City Council might agree to raise that fee but probably would not agree for the City taxpayers to subsidize the monitoring of one of these community sewer systems. He believes the language of the agreement protects the City. Alderman Cook asked what happens if the City says no to an increase requested by the County. Kit Williams said he assumes the County would stop monitoring that particular system and it would be up to the City whether or not to monitor it. But he said part of the reason for monitoring these systems is to avoid long term costs in the future, making sure the responsible parties do the maintenance when they should, etc. David Jurgens said somebody would have to do the monitoring and someone has to provide governmental oversight on these systems. He spoke of the bonds that were created and made to the County when these systems came into existence and the risk of those bonds not being transferred to the City. Having one person from the County dedicated to doing this monitoring was deemed by the staff to be more efficient and to provide more protection to the citizens. Kit Williams added that the City then does not have to create more ordinances to cover the monitoring of the systems. The County already has these ordinances. Alderman Ferrell mentioned that we have only one of these sewer systems presently in the City and asked if there is a second one coming. Tim Conklin said there was one planned development that never went forward. Kit Williams said it is his understanding that we are going to pass an ordinance not allowing these systems in the City limits. David Jurgens said new ones within the City limits will not be allowed. He said that we will however eventually be annexing more of the systems. Alderman Ferrell said the City should not have any surprises on the number of people that the County has to monitor. He said an area with a decentralized sewer system would come through this Committee before being annexed. David Jurgens said we haven't typically brought annexations through this Committee but we could do that. Kit Williams said whether or not an area has such a system could be an issue to be considered in an annexation decision. Alderman Cook asked for confirmation that the "governing bodies" mentioned in the agreement are the City Council and the Quorum Court. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes January 8, 2008 Page 3 of 5 Kit Williams confirmed this and said it is his understanding that the Quorum Court has already approved this agreement Alderman Jordan asked what happens if one of these systems starts to break down. Kit Williams said the bond guarantees that if there is a problem there is money to fix it. David Jurgens said the County would be the holder of the bond. Alderman Ferrell asked for confirmation that it is the County's responsibility to inspect and ensure that the POA's keep a current bond in case of problems. David Jurgens said he isn't sure if the County does the inspections themselves but they do ensure that the inspection and maintenance take place. Kit Williams said in the future we will hopefully have a sewer main go close enough to the one decentralized sewer system in the City to require the system to tie on to our sewer system. Alderman Ferrell moved that this agreement with the County be forwarded to the City Council with recommendation to approve. Alderman Jordan seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. 3. WSIP Update David Jurgens gave an update on the WSIP contracts. He said all the primary pipe is in the ground for the west side lines. We will be running water into the plant in May 2008 and processing effluent in June. He said EP -4 (Blue -in -Green oxygenation at Noland) is complete and the project has been closed out. He said the contract for wetlands mitigation is almost finished. We will end up paying them less than $6000. He said $140,000 or so will go back into the project contingency. a. WL 6 Channel Grinder Purchase David Jurgens said we received two bids on this purchase. He said we came in under our estimate and he recommends that the purchase be approved. Once it is approved, staff will immediately order the equipment. The intent is to have the vault designed and built when the hardware comes in. Alderman Jordan moved that this item be forwarded to the City Council for approval. Alderwoman Gray seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. b. WSIP Farmington Area Work David Jurgens said it has been discovered that there is a unpublished but official to Farmington flood plain map that is different from what both FEMA and the Corp of Engineers use. Because of that we had to move the lift station a little (about 200 feet). We also identified that parts of the gravity line were hard. Therefore to reduce costs the bid has been repackaged a little and the bid opening has been delayed until next week. He explained the changes in the plans. C. WSIP Easement Update 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes January 8, 2008 Page 4 of 5 David Jurgens said we will probably have to move forward with condemnation on the West Fork Place Subdivision, owned by Flying Monkey LLC. It is in foreclosure. d. Contract Legal Review — West Plant Construction Contract David Jurgens said a draft contract has been sent to Williams & Anderson, PLC and we should be hearing back within the next few days. Other WSIP Business Alderman Cook asked if there will be any kind of accounting review or audit of this project (WSIP) when everything has been closed out. David Jurgens said every single subproject of the WSIP is already being audited by the independent auditor. He also said that every RLF-funded (or partially funded) project is being audited by the independent auditor, by the ANRC and by EPA Region 6. Alderman Ferrell said the Audit Committee thinks it would be a good idea to do an audit of the WSIP after the entire project is completed. BKD has been asked to give an estimate on what that would cost with the money to come out of the contingency funds. David Jurgens said staff can put together something showing what we are already doing along these lines. Alderman Cook asked if we will get a final report from the auditor. David Jurgens said we get feedback from ANRC on all of their pieces. He doesn't know what kind of report the independent auditor provides. He said he is not opposed to an audit. Alderman Cook suggested having a discussion about this at the next regular meeting. David Jurgens distributed the updated rainbow sheet and reviewed it briefly. The bottom line number for the Fayetteville area project total remains the same. He spoke of the contract contingency and said the unlinked (not tied to any contract) contingency is $6,284,000. Agenda Supplement I. WSIP Farmington Area Work David Jurgens said the bid opening on this has been delayed until Wednesday, January 16, 2008. IL WL -4 Change Order Number 2 David Jurgens explained that this uses up most of the contingency on this contract. The biggest component of the change order is the rock that was encountered during this project. In the next couple of weeks he will bring forward a reconciliation change order which he expects will bring the amount above the contingency and will have to go to the full City Council for approval. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org City Council Water & Sewer Meeting Minutes January 8, 2008 Page 5 of 5 4. Sanitary Sewer Rehabilitation Proiect Update a. Farmington Area David Jurgens said the dig and replace portion of the Farmington sewer rehab is complete. Change orders 1 and 2 are no -cost and were attached to the agenda. This contract is expected to come in under budget. The lining portion of the project is about 80% complete. Alderman Ferrell asked for an explanation of pipe bursting. David Jurgens explained this process which involves threading a polyethylene pipe with a bursting head through the old pipe, thus enlarging the pipe. He said this process can actually double the size of the hole in the ground and involves a lot less excavation. b. Basin 15 and minisystems 2, 5, 6 and 13A manhole rehabilitation David Jurgens said these bids will be opening on January 23, 2008. The first bids came in higher than expected. Staff extended the contract time in an effort to somewhat reduce the costs. 5. 36" Water Line Improvements David Jurgens said all the Fayetteville work is done on this project except for cleanup. The work on Hwy. 412 is underway and should be completed in two to three months. 6. Water and Sewer Operations Study David Jurgens said we have been required by bond covenants to do a Water and Sewer Operations Study every three years. He said our City Attorney, HDR (the company who did our last study) and Gordon Wilbourn, our Bond Counsel all concur that we no longer have this requirement. It was required by the bond ordinances from 1985 through 1994. It has not been required from the 1999, 2002 and 2005 bond ordinances. Staff recommends that we no longer do this study. There is $165,000 budgeted for the study in 2008. Alderman Cook said though he is not opposed to not doing the study, he would like to look at it a little closer. David Jurgens explained some of the inspections and studies conducted by ADEQ, the Health Department and others that make this study no longer necessary. Water/Sewer Committee Meetines The Water & Sewer Committee will meet on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 at 4:30 p.m. in Room 326 of the City Administration building to discuss the Rate Study. The next general meeting of the Water & Sewer Committee was set for February 12, 2008 following the Council Agenda Session. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned. 113 West Mountain 72701 (479) 521-7700 (479) 575-8257 (Fax) accessfayetteville.org