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HomeMy Public PortalAbout02-06-2020 Minutes WSAC Regular Meeting Utilities Analyst Julie Laws 105 E. Corbin St., PO Box 429, Hillsborough, NC 27278 919-296-9630 | julie.laws@hillsboroughnc.gov www.hillsboroughnc.gov | @HillsboroughGov Water and Sewer Advisory Committee Minutes | 1 of 5 Minutes Water and Sewer Advisory Committee 7 p.m. Feb. 6, 2020 Town Hall Annex Board Meeting Room, 105 E. Corbin St. Present: Dan Barker, Paul Cough, Daniel Rawlins, Saru Salvi, Jenn Sykes and Barry Weston Absent: Barry Hupp (unexcused) Arthur Sprinczeles (excused) Staff: Utilities Director Marie Strandwitz Guests: Commissioner Robb English and residents Al Carnevale, Chelsea Logsdon and Pat Logsdon 1. Call to order and welcome of guests The meeting was called to order at 7 p.m. by Chair Dan Barker. 2. Agenda changes and approval None. 3. Minutes review and approval Minutes from regular meeting on Jan. 2, 2020 Motion: Member Jenn Sykes moved to accept. Member Paul Cough seconded. Vote: Unanimous 4. Reports from Board of Commissioners meetings Meeting on Dec. 13 Sykes attended, determined no water and sewer topics were on the agenda, and did not stay for the entire meeting. The noise ordinance was the main topic. Joint public hearing with Planning Board on Jan. 16 Barker attended and said no large projects were discussed regarding utilities. Work session on Jan. 27 Member Saru Salvi attended and said the board discussed comprehensive and sustainability planning for the town for the next 20 years. Planning Director Margaret Hauth said the town will need to build more apartments due to the population trend, which would change density and the town looks at water rates. No committee has been formed for the planning; the discussion is focused now only on the format for how the planning should be carried out. Barker suggested that the Water and Sewer Advisory Committee should be very visible ahead of the committee being selected. Barker, Salvi and Sykes will speak with Hauth soon. Utilities Director Marie Strandwitz stated that the hydraulic modeling project of the wastewater collection system could help determine projections for the plan. Water and Sewer Advisory Committee Minutes | 2 of 5 5. Updates A. Utilities Status Report Highlights Strandwitz discussed a notice of violation regarding not providing the Consumer Confidence Report (quality report) to the state until August, although it was distributed on time (in May). The town was not notified that the report should be uploaded to the state by July 1. Staff became aware when the notice was received. The West Fork Eno Reservoir is now full, and staff will keep it at the Phase 1 level until road work is completed on the Phase 2 expansion. Strandwitz will be lifting the proclamation for voluntary reduced usage. Bids have been received for the road projects related to the reservoir expansion. The winning bid came in at $2.4 million, which is below the true bond of $3.215 million. A request for qualifications has been published for evaluation of the River Pumping Station. The evaluation would determine whether the pump station could be rehabilitated or whether it should be moved from the river for better accessibility for collection system staff. The only way to reach the station currently is through the Wastewater Treatment Plant. A request for qualifications also has been published to upsize a 2-inch water main on McAdams Road. Water modeling confirmed the town needs a booster pump station at New Hope Creek and Old N.C. 86 to receive water from Orange Water and Sewer Authority through the existing pressure zone. Currently, the flow only goes from Hillsborough to OWASA via gravity. Since transferring OWASA’s 16-inch main line to Hillsborough, the Exchange Club pump station cannot be used due to pressure changes. There is also a need to complete all crossover connections to existing systems. Strandwitz provided a brief update on development projects around town. B. Drought Policy and Capacity Chart Barker suggested moving this to the June agenda so Strandwitz can better focus on budget work for the upcoming fiscal year. 6. New and schedule-based business A. Spill summary for Calendar Year 2019 Strandwitz discussed one spill, which occurred in March 2019 off Faribault Lane and spilled 6,900 gallons into a tributary that feeds into the Eno River. The town received a notice of violation four months later and responded within the required 10 days from receipt. She said she assumes this has been closed, but no official documentation has been received from the state. B. Presentation of alternate rate models Strandwitz explained to the audience what this discussion is about and how the committee is looking at ways to change or add additional blocks or tiers for the town’s rate structure. She explained that the committee would make a recommendation for consideration by town staff and the town board and that the recommendation would be thoroughly investigated by staff and outside consultants before board consideration. Barker presented his “Dan-Calc” model scenario. In his scenario, business customers could have a different calculation but higher base rate. Barker’s plan highlights more savings in future years. Water and Sewer Advisory Committee Minutes | 3 of 5 Salvi stated that she assumes the out-of-town pipes are newer and that older in-town pipes are the ones breaking more and costing the town more money. She feels this should be a justification that in-town and out-of-town rates should be equal. Member Barry Weston stated one of the goals should be to help lower income people and asked how the different models would help with this. Barker said residential users legally have to be charged the same rates (a discounted rate cannot be provided due to low or fixed income or for other circumstances). Sykes said making rates the same penalizes the small user. She also said a lot of single, low-income users would be hurt by any kind of increase. Commercial users and customers with larger families get a much better deal. Sykes decided not to present her model scenario at this time. There was a discussion about sharing each other’s models and how that would be considered under public meeting laws. Strandwitz will inquire with the town attorney. More discussion and tweaking of numbers continued. Cough shared that UNC has a dashboard with rate ratio/differential for other small towns. He will share this with the other members. The City of Mebane was discussed, and Barker said Mebane’s geography is different from Hillsborough, as is Durham’s, which has a huge customer base. He noted the town cannot base its rates on the same models other towns and cities use. Mebane and Alamance County’s water supply from the Haw River also flows into the Cape Fear River Basin, which doesn’t have the same stringent requirements that the Neuse River Basin has. Strandwitz also discussed the UNC dashboard that benchmarks all utilities in North Carolina. Barker discussed the numerous pump stations that Hillsborough has for such a small town, which is due to the terrain. Salvi inquired about putting a cost of service between in- and out-of-town customers. Barker indicated this would be very difficult to separate out. Salvi indicated she was not told by her real estate agent about Hillsborough’s water and sewer rates and wondered about a way to let potential buyers know about the high rates before they consider moving to Hillsborough. Someone inquired about options such as regionalization. Barker stated that in 2006 the town evaluated regionalizing with Durham for wastewater treatment, but it was not deemed worth the effort for the cost. 7. Public comments Pat Logsdon, resident and business owner, discussed the small usage customer. He said it seems that the small business or $10-an-hour worker pays for a much higher amount of water than what they actually use. He said he uses only about 300 gallons per month at his business but still has to pay the minimum amount of 2,500 gallons of use. He said the town now has determined that he has a parking lot, so he also has to pay for runoff and sewer that is not hooked up. He said the owner of the property is on a fixed income, but his former water bill of $13.40 suddenly went up to $40 a month. He stated that lots of people are reeling from these high bills. He asked how much more debt and construction of facilities and lines will customers have to pay for? Barker explained two more recent projects: how water tanks help with pressure in the various zones around town and how the reservoir expansion was necessary to complete at this time to keep the permit from expiring. Logsdon asked why the small user has to pay such a high minimum. He suggested making the per-1,000-gallon rate over the minimum higher and decrease the minimum for the small user. Barker gave some history of how the rates grew so high and so quickly. He said this is the first time this committee has considered having a rate structure analysis and told Logsdon he’s here at the right time to help with the process. Water and Sewer Advisory Committee Minutes | 4 of 5 Logsdon also spoke concerning his daughter hardly being able to pay rent, much less the increasing water rates. Barker suggested Logsdon attend planning and town board meetings to address the whole picture related to the cost of living in Hillsborough. He also advised that Logsdon sign up for town emails and meeting notifications. Logsdon stated that with regard to utilities going up again, $5 to 10 a month seems trivial, but it really makes a difference over time. Barker shared that Hillsborough’s utilities operations are paid solely by utility bills and that funding is managed independent of other town government funds. The General Fund does not subsidize the Water and Sewer Fund. In the past, the town has received state contributions if a grant proposal was submitted. Most grant funds are unavailable now with cuts at the federal and state levels. Strandwitz said that town strategizes maintaining the infrastructure it has and not going into debt unnecessarily, but the town is held to strict water quality standards by the state. Discussion turned back to Barker’s rate model. Member Daniel Rawlins stated that months of discussion came with this and brought about the UNC School of Government rate model that is being analyzed now. He said it is good to hear from customers and to get other ideas. Barker discussed how water from the Hillsborough area cannot be discharged in an area outside the town’s river basin. Strandwitz also discussed the urban service agreement between Orange County, Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, and Durham and rules for rural buffers that will not have public water and sewer. Barker said the committee is finding that although water is twice expensive out of town, the consumption is not much different, and that everyone is already using personal conservation because of the high rates. He said the committee might not even come up with a rate model that’s better than what the town is already using, but the committee will look at it from every angle to make this determination. He said the committee is meeting on a regular monthly basis now to attack this issue. Al Carnavale said he likes living in this town, although the recent survey was hard to answer. Logsdon added that he likes living here because it reminds him of growing up in upstate New York, but he just has problems with the water bill rates. Strandwitz said the Water and Sewer Advisory Committee is a good board and the members will do their best to recommend the very best version of the model they can come up with to finance and utilities staff and the town board. An outside consultant likely will be used to make a recommendation on the feasibility of the recommendation. As for reserves, the town is trying to keep savings for any emergency expense. Carnavale also spoke about having a sprinkler system that gets billed every month even if not in use. He said he was told it was cheaper to pay the bill every month than to connect and disconnect the meter twice a year. He said he would like to see this change in the rates. 8. Future agenda items A. Continued presentations and discussions of Alternate Rate Models (March) B. Customer Skip Rates: Daphna Schwartz (March) C. Water Sewer Assistance Review Fund: Daphna Schwartz (March) Barker said the reports for items 8B and C could be paper reports rather than requiring Finance Director Daphna Schwartz to attend the meeting. D. Emergency Preparedness Update: Marie Strandwitz (March) This will be the Utilities Department’s top priority for next year. Barker asked Strandwitz to send out a packet of what’s been accomplished this year. Water and Sewer Advisory Committee Minutes | 5 of 5 E. Budget Retreat Topics: Group (potentially March) Barker stated that members should look at the utilities part of the budget, reading online ahead of time. The budget retreat is scheduled for Saturday, March 7. 9. Upcoming assignments for Board of Commissioners meetings A. Meeting on Feb. 10: Daniel Rawlins (Arthur Sprinczeles, substitute) B. Work session on Feb. 24: Paul Cough (Jenn Sykes, substitute) 10. Adjournment Motion: Chair Dan Barker moved to adjourn at 9:20 p.m. Vote: Unanimous