Board Meeting Minutes November 7, 2019
North Fork Special Service District
Monthly Board Meeting
November 7, 2019 at 7:00 pm
North Fork Fire Station
Board members present:
Stewart Olsen, Keith Payne arrived at 7:03 p.m., Dr. Steven Minton arrived at 7:04 p.m.
There is not a quorum present, there for no agenda items will be voted upon, informational items only will be presented.
Staff members present:
Stephen Miche-Public Works Director, Emily Johnson-District Clerk, Aubree Durrant-Public Works, Ryan Taylor-TO Engineering, David Marsella-Fire Chief
Public Present:
Chris Storbeck, Channey Poulsen
Proceedings:
September’s 2019 Monthly Meeting of the Board was brought to order by Stewart Olsen-Vice Chair at 7:00 p.m. There is not a quorum in attendance, only informational items will be presented.
Public Comments
– None
Informational Items:
#1 Fire/EMS Report
– Fire Chief David Marsella presented. FEMA grant reimbursements for interns’ classes has been received. The average call volume is comparable to the prior year. Chief Marsella and a crew of 2 were deployed for 16 days to California for fire severity. During the deployment engine 113 experienced mechanical issues and was not in commission. The engine is now fixed, he will have to return to San Bernardino, California to retrieve the engine tomorrow. He was given an estimate of approximately $3,000 for the repairs. The diagnosis was a sensor near the cam shaft was not working properly. Chief Marsella is anticipating the billings to be approximately $47,000-$48,000 our net revenue forms the fire being approximately $30,000 expenditures.
#2 District Clerk Information
– Emily Johnson-District Clerk presented. The 2018 financial audit is completed, Squire was scheduled to attend the board meeting to report on this but since there were not many board members in attendance Squire will present in December. Emily stated all 3rd quarter transparency reports have been submitted and accepted by the State and Federal governments, no tax payments will be withheld. Emily has been working closely with Aubree Durrant and Stephen Miche of the water department to find any “missing water” due to improper account setups during the initial Caselle conversion. In some cases, there are meters being read that are named “master meter” which should have been attached to a customer account for payment of water conveyance and usage. The District Clerk’s goal is to go through each individual customer account when updating the County property values for 2019/2020 and cross-referencing customer Caselle accounts with the Public Works master information list. This will be a time-consuming process.
Budget approvals/adoptions including the 2019 amended budget and the 2020 budget will be made at the December 2019 monthly board meeting as a quorum was not available to vote this evening.
Stephen Miche-Public Works employment contract is ending this month so a closed executive session will be necessary to address renewal of his contract and year end personnel evaluations at the December board meeting.
The District Clerk reported she is still receiving a lot of calls regarding the Provo Canyon Adjudication. She is referring people to NFSSD.org to view the video posted which was made by the Utah State Division of Natural Recourses explaining what the adjudication is and how the District is handling water shares as a municipality. She reports there have been a few calls regarding the 2019 Water Moratorium. The Moratorium should be added to the December agenda to be voted on for continuation or discontinuation of the resolution 2019-1.
The District Clerk has been working with Caselle and Secured Instant Payments to produce a paperless billing option. This is up and running and notices are being sent in the paper billings to property owners informing them that their statements can be viewed online and encouraging all to “Go Green” with paperless billing.
The NFSSD.org website has had some additions, the public and Board are encouraged to visit NFSSD.org and navigate through it so they are aware of the information and resources available such as forms, meetings, resources, current events, announcements and social media.
A homeowner had a large leak at their stop and waste on their side of the meter resulting in a $1,466,040.00 gallon leak during June and July of 2019. The District Clerk will send out an email to all board members to review and address the home owner’s billing concerns.
#3 Water/Waste Water Report
– Stephen Miche-Public Works presented. Stephen explained that the water State Adjudication that is taking place in Provo Canyon requires some expertise. Stephen is going to utilize the District Engineer-Ryan Taylor of TO-Engineering to assist in this process. TO-Engineering is familiar with the North Fork District water shares and obtained information and experience during the proposals for the District’s well. There is some paperwork that TO-Engineering can assist in completing to assure it’s finished correctly and in a timely manner. Stephen feels it’s a straight forward process, but if legal council is needed, we will refer to Lee Kapaloski-Legal Counsel.
Stephen presented a handout titled “Monthly Water Usage”. The red line in the chart represents the current year. It falls in line with the usage trend, but there is a lot less water use.
There is a broken meter that may be affecting the usage measurements. The pumphouse will be going online soon and is equipped with a brand-new meter so replacing the broken meter would be an unnecessary cost. Due to this, the unaccounted water may be inaccurate, and a chart is not being presented for November.
Leak on Elk Drive – started out at 15 gpm and grew to 120 gpm. Able to fix within a of couple hours because of backhoe and skilled staff readily available. Had we called a contractor to have this fixed, it’s estimated a $3,000 bill and increased loss of service time would have been incurred.
Aspen Grove Pumphouse –The new generator is installed, all of the pumps are in, we are waiting on getting everything wired. The water tank is in operation and working in conjunction with the new water tank.
Stewart Spring Redevelopment – we found the location of the collection system. A team rooted, fixed the leak, and installed a clean out in one lateral. Two additional laterals were added with one producing 5 gpm and the other 1.5 gpm; These new collection laterals will be monitored for quantity and quality through the winter before adding them to our supply. We also increased the height of the overflow in the spring collection box which increases the water level in the new water tank. We still need to clean and test the collection tank before bringing this spring back into service. There is need to install the meter on the drain line so we can calculate total water we collect from the spring. Next year, we would like to redevelop the upper portion of this spring and waterproof the entire concrete lid of the collection tank since we found out that it leaks.
There is drain that connects between Daylight to Brickerhaven. In late October the North Fork water department did a routine check on this drain and the valves were closed. The following day during a consultation between Aubree Durrant-Public Works and David Boshard-Water Consultant and former North Fork Public Works director David comment it was odd not to hear the water running due to the amount of water that should be going through the drain. Upon inspection they observed no water was draining. Public works personnel went to the point of diversion with a key and found that the valves had been changed/moved. As soon as this was found, the Brickerhaven Water Master was informed that they there could be a chance of contamination and North Fork Public Works set a lid with a lock that same day, so these valves are not assessable to be tampered with. Pictures will be uploaded to the cloud with proper labels in Public Works Dropbox file. It’s unknown who tapered with these valves.
The height of overflow was increased in the spring box, the spring water will be tested before bringing it back online. The lid of the box has crack that need to be waterproofed to avoid contamination. A membrane covered with dirt (the dirt will protect the membrane from the sun) may be a fast and cost-effective solution. Stephen will report back to the Board on the progress of the fix.
Stephen stated a lot of time has been spent on water rate studies.
Ryan Taylor-TO-Engineers stated the submitted waste water plans to the State, they have comments and some questions. Ryan is working with them to get answers to them. They recommended the capacity be raised. Ryan asked them to put this in written format to present to Sundance. Flows are down due to the weather. Stephen stated he would like to do a cost study to assure staffing costs to run the Waste Water Plant not being absorbed into water funds. He will review and make recommendations to the Board soon regarding this matter.
#4 Community Water Committee Update
– Chris Storbeck stated the Community Water Committee has not met since last board meeting. They will meet again at a time when the Board recommends.
At 8:08 p.m. Stewart Olsen motioned to end the November 2019 Board Meeting. Keith Payne seconded this motion, all voted aye. Meeting closed.
- Minutes noted and recorded by Emily Johnson-District Clerk.
