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Home My Public Portal About10-05-2017 Minutes WSAC Regular Meeting MEETING MINUTES WATER SEWER ADVISORY COMMITTEE Thursday, October 5, 2017 7:00 PM Town Barn 101 East Orange Street · P O Box 429 · Hillsborough, NC 27278 · 919 732 1270 Members Present: Frank Cohen, Volker Mittendorf, Aaron Butner, Arthur Sprinczeles, Saru Salvi, Dan Barker, Jenn Sykes, Daniel Rawlins Members Excused: Jim Parker Members Absent/Not Excused: None Staff Members Present: Eric Peterson, Daphna Schwartz, Jeff Mahagan, Julie Laws Guest(s) Present: Jenn Weaver (Town Board), Jackie Stonehuerner 1.1 Call Meeting to Order & Welcome to Guests Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by Chair Frank Cohen 1.2 Consideration of Additions/Changes to Agenda Add item 2.1.1 – Elect new Chairperson and Vice Chair. Dan Barker moved to accept this change, seconded by Saru Salvi, all in favor. 1.3 Consideration, Discussion and Approval of Past Minutes Frank asked that we amend the minutes to take change the wording in last paragraph of the fluoride discussion. Take out the exclamation mark from Dr. Day’s last sentence. Dan moved to approve the minutes with stated changes, seconded by Aaron Butner, all in favor. 2.1 Reports from Committee Assignments for Previous Months August 14 – Regular Board Meeting. Aaron was to attend for Arthur Sprinczeles, but was unable to attend that night. Jenn Weaver stated that changing the leak event coverage period was approved. Daphna Schwartz stated that the change would take effect once a new billing system is in place. August 28 – Board Work Session. Jim Parker attended but was not here tonight to give details. September 11 – Regular Board Meeting. Aaron attended but there was nothing to report. September 25 – Board Work Session. Saru attended this meeting. She was disturbed by the discussion between TOH and OC, regarding the wording of the contract for water and sewer for Old Hwy 86 near Davis Road. Jenn discussed the interlocal agreement and some of the concerns the Town Board had about the language of the contract. There seemed to be some inconsistency in plans between the County and the Town. Eric stated that the Town and Orange County may amend their boundary agreement. He suggested that Saru should call Margaret Hauth, Planning Director, to discuss. 2.1.1 Appoint New Chairperson While determining the date of the last election, it was decided to add an agenda item for every October to hold the election. 101 East Orange Street • P. O. Box 429 • Hillsborough, NC 27278 • 919 732-1270 x85 Artie nominated Dan Barker as new chair, and Dan was the only nominee. He was voted in unanimously, and will begin chairing the Committee in December. Aaron nominated Artie for Vice Chair, and he was voted in unanimously, to begin in December. Julie Laws presented Frank with a certificate of appreciation for his past 8 years of service on the WSAC. 2.2 Engineering Status Report Highlights Julie gave an update on the West Fork Eno Reservoir project. The NCDOT bids for Efland-Cedar Grove Road came in at $245K over the engineer’s proposal. Dam construction has been pushed back to February. Jeff Mahagan and Eric Peterson also gave information on this. Julie stated that flushing is now taking place and will last the remainder of the month. 3.1 Discussion on Water Conservation Jackie Stonehuerner discussed conservation needs. She believes that each person uses 100 gallons per day, which is not in line with statistics for Hillsborough. Julie stated that each person uses 1400 gallons per month, which takes the average back to around 50 gallons per day. Frank suggested placing drought penalty on website pages, not just in town code, and Julie will see that this is done. Eric stated that if we build everything we plan, we’ll still just be at 60% capacity, plus WFER Phase 2 adds 1M+ gallons. We have a lot of water, even though development is on the upswing. Julie can update Triangle/JLP on what we’re doing to conserve in a time of drought. Jackie wants us to continue persuading people to conserve all the time. Dan and Frank agreed that asking people to use less water hurts lower income customers. Our rates are based on debt service, not on gallons used. Frank stated that our community is already conservation-minded. Jenn Weaver stated she feels Jackie’s concern, but that we need a certain amount of money from the customers to maintain the system. Customers are already on a tiered system which encourages conservation. But if we can’t support the system, we would have to increase rates. Jenn Sykes suggested finding pockets of high usage. In effect, those areas with higher income/usage already subsidize our lower income areas. Aaron suggested we’ve discussed enough and the committee will keep a finger on the pulse. Dan said we have all the data we need to feel comfortable about our current capacity. 3.2 Update on Engineer/Utilities Director Position Eric shared the continuity plan. Will Baker will be returning November 1st as contracted interim Utilities Director. There will be an assessment center to select a new Utilities Director, and we may use Developmental Associates, headed by Steve Strauss, to run the process. WSAC will receive a survey, similar to the staff survey, to provide input about what is needed for the position. 3.3 Proposal for Reimbursement of Deposits Saru has looked for other systems that returned deposits. She found that most systems in the area have policies that require a customer to wait 12-24 months before returning the deposit. Frank suggested keeping the deposit indefinitely because of customers leaving us with outstanding bills. Most deposits are extremely small ($25-50). Dan suggested if we do decide to return deposits, we should wait at least 5-6 years as customers are probably committed to staying in town at that point. Saru said the standard is to refund deposits more quickly, but many pointed out that Hillsborough is not the standard. Dan stated that, in the past, we used this deposit account to pay overdue bills. If we decide to give back deposits, we should wait at least 5 years. Considering the small amount of 101 East Orange Street • P. O. Box 429 • Hillsborough, NC 27278 • 919 732-1270 x85 the deposits, Frank doesn’t see any value of returning deposits at all until they’re out of our system. Volker and Artie agreed. Saru was satisfied with this response. 3.4 Solar Power Ideas for Water and Wastewater Plants Aaron Butner discussed using solar power to run our plants. He will personally look into the savings, rather than using the Committee’s time and resources. Jeff volunteered discussing this with Aaron to share ideas. Dan thinks there may be a trade war in the next 2 years regarding China vs Trump. Jenn says the Board passed a resolution to use solar wherever possible, but there are no definite plans on applications. Dan was in support of the Committee doing their own resolution, but only after Aaron brings more information to a future meeting. 3.5 Policy Change for Water Leaks Daphna Schwartz reported that the Board responded favorably to the changes that were proposed, with these changes not going into effect until we have a new billing system online. 3.5 Fathom Update – CLOSED SESSION 4.1 Suggested Future Agenda Items for Upcoming Months • Continue discussing Fathom updates • Dan – bring back recurring agenda items • Solar power information, possible resolution by WSAC 4.2 Upcoming Board Assignments October 9 - Regular Board Meeting – Daniel Rawlins (sub, Arthur Sprinczeles) October 19 – Joint Board and Planning Meeting – Dan Barker (sub, Jenn Sykes) October 23 – Board Work Session – Aaron Butner (sub, Dan Barker) November 13 – Regular Board Meeting – Volker Mittendorf (sub, Saru Salvi) November 16 – Assembly of Governments Meeting – Arthur Sprinczeles (sub Daniel Rawlins) November 27 – Board Work Session – Jenn Sykes (sub, Jim Parker) 5.1 Adjourn Dan moved to adjourn at 8:55 PM, seconded by Jenn. Next Meeting: December 7, 2017