Call to Order:
Welcome: Darton, President
Present/Quorum (yes): Darton, Todd, Clint, Matt, Morris, Gini, Paul, Dave (Manager). Guest: Armen Yousoufian, Bruce Clayland
Consent Items
Approved? – Contents and order of this Agenda: Approved
Approved? – Minutes of June meeting: Approved. Also minutes of May meeting which had not been voted on last month: Approved.
Information Items
Guest Speakers comments (if any): None
Board Member : None
President’s Report (Darton):
- We will be dedicating the Filtration plant at noon today as advertised to our community.
- Todd brought up the suggestion that we resume in person board meetings. There was mixed opinions regarding this so it was decided we would have both options available to the board and community. Next meeting Dave and whoever chooses to will be meeting in person at the DWA building and zoom will also be loaded for those who choose this option.
Manager/Operator Report (Dave):
- There seems to have been miscommunication about the start of the Filtration dedication, some notices said 12 some said 12:30. We will be there at noon to meet any attendees. Dave said thanks to Paul for allowing us to use his mower to keep the site looking good. He mentioned that the new plaque looks really good.
- Dave says the plant is operating very well. He has had a few complaints about sulfur smells. This is a result of still trying to balance the chlorine residuals. When the chlorine is not properly stabilized there is a chance of sulfur coming through. This should improve as he gets things fine tuned. Paul mentioned that this issue of sulfur smells has plagued the Sandy Shores water for a long time and if we can’t get it fixed we can add the sulfur scrubber that we have already considered. We were hoping we would not need it…
- Todd asked about the water leak that someone had reported. Dave explained that it was not technically a leak but rather a blocked filter. It was fixed and everything has been functioned since. Paul said that there is a dry well in addition to the catchment pond so if there is too much water that passes to the dry well we may want to add more piping to the pond. We will keep an eye on it.
- Dave said he hooked up 2 water shares and has been speaking with a reserve share holder who is looking to go active.
- Dave has been spending most of his time at Sandy Shores this month.
- Dave brought up the issue we’ve been discussing of non-residential account designation. Our By-laws and Policies are somewhat unclear and now that we are upgrading our water plan with DOH we need clearer definitions. During the reworking of our Small Water System Plan we have found 10 accounts that should be classified as non-domestic. At the moment only one of them, the Dockton Park, is classified as such. We are planning to have our By-Laws reflect the wording and definitions used in the DOH documents. We also want the wording in the By-Laws and the Board of Directors’ Policies to match so there is no confusion. We will continue using the term “Non-domestic users” for residential customers (as is used in the By-Laws so we don’t have to vote a change of term) and use “Non-domestic/Commercial users” for the commercial customers who are billed the higher rate. We will also copy The DOH examples of Non-domestic/Commercial businesses: A. Recreational services and/or transient accommodations (camp sites, RV sites, hotel/motel/overnight units). B. Institutional, commercial/business (school, day care, industrial services, multi-family dwelling, etc). At this time we do not plan to change the rates charged for accounts that have been reclassified except the Fire Department and Century Link accounts. We reserve the right to do so in the future if needed for any reason including changes in the usage at the property. Any new services will be categorized with the new designations.
- Dave will put together a letter to be sent to accounts that will be reclassified explaining all of this, send it to the board for approval or changes, and then once voted approved, send it to the account holders. A copy of this letter will be filed with all the accounts who’s designation has been changed for documentation.
- Todd asked how things were going with Ben Dahle and the Water Plan. Dave said he was going to be meeting him next Friday.
- Gini asked if she was supposed to make changes to the Board Policies to reflect the rate changes we enacted. Yes she should.
Committee Reports:
Finance Committee (Todd):
- Todd said this is the Annual financial Report! The June income is up $16K+ which is not surprising considering this is the high usage time.
- Operations Fund: Our end of year is exactly where we expected, revenue is at 101%. Staffing came in exactly where expected. Business Operations were a bit over due to legal fees relating to the Franchise lawsuit and IT expenses. System Operations were low at 55%, so way under our budget, but this will go up in this new year because of the Filtration plant. We also budgeted for the Small Business Plan we are doing with Dahle but haven’t been billed yet. It may be that the bill will come in lower than we have budgeted because Ben was able to use a lot of information we had already compiled. Taxes are at 53% primarily due to the Franchise fee not hitting yet. We did transfer the $30K to the System Replacement Fund as required. We ended up with $28K in the Operations Fund. Not bad considering we expected to have 0!
- System Replacement Fund started with $210K and got $30K transferred in from Operations. We ended up with more money in the account than expected because we ended up not doing the Manzanita/Hake road work due to no access.
- Capital Improvement fund: Started at $267K, added $88K income, and $250 funds from the Kitsap loan brought us to costs of $695K. We expected it to be $578K but the budget for this was formulated long before the final figures for the Filtration Plant came in. Todd said that he had budgeted low because he didn’t want us to overspend on this project. Considering it all, we have done well. On the flip side, we are in the hole for $90K and will have to fill it. We bring in about $90K from Capital funds and we have other options as well.
- Contingency Reserve Fund: We began at $109K and ended with $104K. We had to make an emergency purchase of a pump.
- Our current book value is $278. Estimated book Balance is $304K. Actual total cash is $337K.
- Armen raised his hand and asked what was going on with the Franchise law suit and whether other water districts on the island had joined it. We weren’t sure what other districts were doing.
Water Production Committee (Paul):
- Paul said we have gotten the final billing for the Filtration project and have approved it. The changes that came in on the project were under what we had budget for which is almost unheard of.
- The quotes we have gotten so far for fencing have come in over what we expected: $27-33K. Todd asked do we really need to get such a big commercial level fence that will be so pricy? Couldn’t we get something that is of wood and less commercial that hopefully would also be less costly? Dave said he has a couple of more bids coming in and then we might want to talk about it again.
CIP and Planning Committee
- None
Old Business / Carryover Items
- None
New Business / Discussion Items
- None
Other Business
- None
What did we decide?
- Dave will put together the new writeup for the Board Policy on domestic, non-domestic/commercial designations. He will also write up a draft of the letter we will send to customers who’s accounts are affected and send it to the Board for approval or changes. The board will vote to send it at that point.
- Once approved, Dave will send the letter to the affected customers with the next billing.
- Gini will update By-Laws with our new rate structure. She will also make any changes necessary to the wording of the Director’s Policies to reflect the new terminology Dave is creating.