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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes_GUS_03.15.2005 Minutes of the Meeting of the Georgetown Utility System Advisory Board and the Governing Body of the City of Georgetown, Texas Tuesday, March 15, 2005 The Georgetown Utility System Advisory Board of the City of Georgetown, Texas, met on Tuesday , March 15, 2005. Board Members Present: Jack Hunnicutt, Patty Eason, Robert Kostka, Kendall Young, John Gavurnik Board Members Absent: Doug Smith, Larry Brown Staff Present: Jim Briggs, Jana Kern, Michael Hallmark, Glenn Dishong, Mike Mayben, Micki Rundell, Laurie Brewer, Tom Benz Minutes Regular Meeting Board may, at any time, recess the Regular Session to convene an Executive Session at the request of the President, a Board Member, the Assistant City Manager, City Council Member, or legal counsel for any purpose authorized by the Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551, and are subject to action in the Regular Session that follows. Regular meeting called to order by Gavurnik 2:03 p.m. A. Board nominations and election of Vice-Chair and Secretary of the Board. Jim Briggs Discussion: Briggs presented the item. Each March after everyone has been appointed to the Board, the By-Laws state that we need to select the officers for Vice Chair and Secretary. Do we have any nominations? Action: Motion by Eason, seconded by Hunnicutt to nominate John Gavurnik for Vice Chair. John Gavurnik accepts the nomination. Approved 4-0 (Smith & Brown Absent, Gavurnik Abstaining) Action: Motion by Kostka, seconded by Gavurnik to nominate Jack Hunnicutt for Secretary. Jack Hunnicutt accepts the nomination. Approved: 4-0 (Smith & Brown Absent, Hunnicutt Abstaining) B. Consideration and possible action to approve the minutes from the regular Board meeting held on February 15, 2005 Jana Kern Discussion: None Action: Motion by Eason, seconded by Kostka to approve minutes as written. Approved: 5-0 (Smith & Brown Absent) C. Review of the Project Progress Report and timelines (including but not limited to items listed). Michael Hallmark Discussion: Hallmark presented items: Wolf Ranch Lift Station: Complete with concrete on the wet well. Completion time should be July 2005. 13th Street Rehab: We have about four water connections to complete. Once this is done we will be able to finish up on the paving (some paving has a lready begun). Schedule to complete the connections is by the end of this week if all goes well they will begin paving the following week. When this project is complete would like to have a dedication. This was an extensive quarter cent project, and we would like to thank all the neighbors for being patient while this work was being done. 2004 Street Overlays: Gabriel View and Northwest Blvd. are complete. Still need some drainage improvements at Williams Dr. and River Bend - We will need to coordinate this with the State. Once this is complete we will be able to pave street. EARZ Phase 1: This is complete. We are waiting to do the final walk through. Airport Road Rehab: Paving is complete from Lakeway to Vortac. They are still doing some final grading in the ditches and we are planning on opening this up on Monday March 21, 2005. We will still be doing work between Vortac and Berry Creek Blvd. We will not be closing down a lane while this work is being done. They will be using flaggers for traffic control during construction hours. When construction is through for the day, the road will be opened up to normal traffic. Berry Creek WWTP: This is complete. We have a few items that were on the punch list that we need to finish up. Association of Wholesale Customers (AWC): Briggs present this item. The front memo is about contract negotiations. LCRA has attempted to make contact with several customers concerning their wholesale power contracts. Some of the small cities/ towns are concerned on what is going on. At our next meeting we will have an Executive Session to discuss power supply issues. The back of the memo you will find the text of a BILL that has been filed. This impacts Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA). I wanted to let you know that this BILL is out there. Q by Gavurnik: Is the City of Georgetown taking a position on this BILL? A by Briggs: Not at this time. AWC Membership voted last week to partner in attaining an independent attorney.The attorney will be Brian Cassidy. Mr. Cassidy will review the BILL and give a recommendation in regards to it's impact to the customers. As more information is available it will be shared with you. Action: None D. Consideration and possible recommendation to enter into an agreement between the City and Operations Management International for the replacement of Backwash Recovery Unity filter cartridges at the Southside Water Treatment Plant for $65,000.00. Glenn Dishong/Jim Briggs Discussion: Dishong presented the item. If you recall from our tour that we had a couple of weeks ago, we mentioned that some of the work that needed to be done at this site was the change out the back wash filter because they were reaching their end of life. What these filters do is take the back wash water from the main skids and further filters the water to help minimize the amount of waste water that we are putting down sewer system. Q by Kostka: As I look at this I noticed that OMI gets a 15% mark up on cost, how do we insure that OMI is out getting the lowest cost for these filters. A by Dishong: The filter cartridges are a proprietary product - so there is only one vendor. OMI typically does not charge us for their labor. If they need to call in the vendor for any services there would be an additional charge. Q by Gavurnik: On these provisions - limits of liability - have these been reviewed our City Attorney. A by Dishong: This is the standard language that we have used with OMI. Action: Motion by Eason, seconded by Young to enter into an agreement with Operations Management International for the replacement of Backwash Recovery Unity filter cartridges at the Southside Water Treatment Plant for $65,000.00 Approved: 5-0 (Smith & Brown Absent) E. Consideration and possible recommendation to approve additional scope of service for the contract between the City of Georgetown and ElectSolve Technology Solutions and Services, Incorporated to provide a GUS Operations Central Database. Mike Mayben/Jim Briggs Discussion: Mayben presented the item. The purpose of this project is to establish a central data depository where data can be shared and reported on by various operational systems with GUS. This system will allows us to get all of the data that is in with Utility Billing along with the data in AMR so that we can access that in all of our Engineering platforms. Some of our bigger customers like to know what our reliability statistics. At this time we can get them this information but it is very rudimentary in the way we have to do this. We have an extraordinary amount of data out there and with the central data depository system we will be able to bring it all together much more quickly and efficiently. We also feel that this will save considerable amount of staff time with in the AMR department. At the present we run monthly data files for our engineers. Then we ship those files off to them. Although this is not current data, it is data for the last 30 days on usage & trends within the utility. With the new system, we can set up access for our engineers/consultants that need this information. They will be allowed to access the engineering data base and be able to get real time data, and the models will be able to be keep current. Q by Hunnicutt: What is the actual deliverable for this sum of money? A by Mayben: We get a data warehouse. This is area that sits back in our AMR room. There will be one interface to g et into our data warehouse. Action: Motion by Hunnicutt seconded by Eason to approve the additional scope of service for the contract between the City of Georgetown and ElectSolve Technology Solutions and Services, Incorporated to provide a GUS Operations Central Database. Approved: 5-0 (Smith & Brown Absent) F. Discussion and possible action to provide City Council with input on the 2005/06 budget. Laurie Brewer/Micki Rundell (this is a come back from last months meeting) Discussion: Rundell presented item. We went line by line, board member by board member, Eason abstained - she will give her input at the Council level. The attached input sheet contains the individual board members suggestions.This was not an official action of this advisory board and does not constitute a vote of agreement on this list as a whole. City of Georgetown 2005/06 Budget Planning Process Advisory Board Input Community –wide Questions 1. What are the top three issues facing Georgetown (as a whole) in the next five years? Control growth Affordable housing Recharge water Rejuvenation of downtown Transportation Plan for sewer west of I-35; control on-site septic 2. What changes should the City consider in terms of improving service delivery, operations, customer service, etc.? Active downtown/merchants Incentives for suggestions by employees Improve use of technology to improve services; builders struggle – meter on loop faster Attend to/assist small business communication No IVR System Board-specific questions 3. What are the top three issues facing your board this year? Spend dollars wisely Provide community input Meet demands of growth for utilities Revisit Impact Fees/hook up Control costs Partnerships for sewer outside ETJ in San Gabriel basin Unfunded state mandates (EARZ) 4. What are your board’s top three budget priorities for the Council to consider in the upcoming 2005/06 Budget? Budgeting for areas in need of repair (EARZ) Cost savings/economize/cost effective operations Continue electric purchases Impact fees and impacts on affordable housing Unfunded state mandates Quality for capital improvements Value engineering 5. What would you like to accomplish as a board over the next five years? Quality growth Growth – protect ground water Ensure pollution control as priority Green energy applications/renewables program developed (workshop – Austin Green Energy) Develop water acquisition distribution plan to serve city for next 20 years Develop environmental protection program Control costs/City expenditures vs Outsourcing Regional wastewater system Hybrid vehicles Motion by Gavurnik, seconded by Kostka to adjourn meeting. Meeting adjourned at 3:47 p.m. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 03:47 PM. Approved : Attest: _______________________ ________________________ Doug Smith - Chair Jack Hunnicutt -Secretary