Library Board Meeting – June 2024

Video Description:
Library Board Meeting – June 2024

0:00
Okay, all right.

0:01
I’ll call the meeting to order your roll call. Yes. Tom duster. Roger Lang Yeah, Renee Davis here Dan Wolford. Can Hewson Kevin Bowden here, Pope Bartlett here, Christopher. You’re Heather McIntyre’s here Joe mahal ski here and Holloway valenta. Here and cheerio quorum. All right. We start with approval previous month’s meeting. Any questions or comments about me to approve. Second. All right.

0:43
Second, all in favor say aye. Are you great Julie hearings?

0:53
Do I need to speak up? We got Jeff. All right. Done. Good.

0:57
Okay. All right, Kevin, you got a report for us?

1:03
Yes. The Lions Gate this morning was 707 CFS. The home 25 years historic average is 557 CFS for the state. There’s currently no call on the safe brain. And the column the South Platte River is sterling number one, which has a priority date of December 31 of 1980. Ralph price is full and spilling. And union reservoir is currently has a gauge height of 27.7 feet, which is about three tenths from being full. So it’s only 200 acre feet down.

1:53
Just quick question for us how much

1:56
20 Earth in terms of kJ eight acre feet 12,007 28 Totally. So let’s just add a little bit the Select same brain of reservoirs at the end of May we’re at 90% of full same time last year. They were 91% up full. So about the same place where we were last year, so.

2:29
Okay. I guess we’re on the public invited record. special presentation.

2:45
Dan, can you see the presentation? I can. Thank you perfect.

2:56
My name is Jamie Samuel, and I’m one of the founding members of scambler St. Brain Creek, which is a citizen action group dedicated to protecting our open spaces, specifically our riparian areas. And we are going to all of our boards when the council tried to get our open space sales tax made permanent. So I won’t go too long and only have 30 minutes. It shouldn’t take that long. So our Lamacq open space sales tax, it was approved in 2000 was a point two cent sales tax, which means it was two cents on every $10 spent, you’re currently paying that. It was extended in 2007. And it’s set to sunset in 2034 Unless it’s extended further. And I’m here today to ask that you make a motion recommending to city council that they support a permanent extension of the open space sales tax on November 2020. For about so why I’m gonna move you down. So this, like I said, it’s not a new tax. This is not an additional financial burden on residents. There is precedent for having a permanent open space sales tax here in Colorado. Lafayette voters overwhelmingly voted to make their open space sales tax permanent in 2018. I believe it was 82%. And then Adams County in 2020 also overwhelmingly made their open space sales tax permanent. Having a permanent, reliable funding source is important given the explosive growth that Walmart has experienced in the last few years. And the increasing challenges of wildfires and water scarcity due to climate change. So why now? It does sunset in 2034. So why are we asking now? That’s because this is a presidential election year. That means that there’s going to be a greater voter turnout, so we’re hoping to get more people to actually tune into this and vote answer now. longtime residents are concerned about Grand Rapids Don’t think now, if we wait, then there might not be anything to acquire or maintain. And having a permanent revenue revenue stream allows us to, or allow city staff to do some long range planning for the parks and acquisitions, maintenance, etc. So why are we asking for your support. So open space funds go to a number of different things. But specifically for you. It’s acquiring water rights to keep water in our rivers and creeks and enhance stream flows. healthy functioning riparian areas do provide a wildlife habitat. But it also works to decrease flooding, we have that terrible flood in 2013. So having healthy riparian areas helps stabilize banks and slow floodwaters. So in the event that we have more floods, which we probably will open space sales tax money will help to to make sure that the damage is not as bad as it was in 2013. protecting the health of LeMans watershed which provides our drinking water so specifically, but Rob preserve Ralph price reservoir up there. And it also goes toward managing our forests to protect forest health and prevent forest fires. So we have done outreach to the public have 962 and counting signatures on our appeal. We’ve done Earth Day, we’re going to be doing Juneteenth, we’ve done our walk, so a number of different avenues, and we’ve collected signatures from people. We’re also going to the different advisory boards. So we’ve already been to parks and recreation, and they unanimously voted to support the recommendation to council. And we’ve been to sustainability. And they also unanimously voted to support it. And we’re going to the transportation advisory board on July 15. And we hoped also given a unanimous recommendation. So again, we are asking that you make a motion today recommending to city council that they support a permanent extension of law to open space sales tax will then have Ember 2024.

7:08
questions concerning?

7:17
You know, I hate to be a spoiler, but I don’t I don’t think it’s our purview to approve things like this. I just don’t think it’s in our business.

7:30
Oh, well, I’m not asking you to approve that. So I’m asking you to recommend to city council that they go ahead. And I

7:36
have a problem with doing that. Okay. I just not that we wouldn’t support it. But I just don’t think I think city council needs to make the decision and I just not comfortable making a motion to approve. I don’t want to be

7:54
I guess I see it as you providing advice. You’re advising them that this would be a good idea.

8:02
I remember other instances of other organizations coming. And I’m certainly willing to have my mind changed here. But I think it’s a time that the same conclusion was made in those instances as well where waterboard saw a disconnect or something between our business that we have at hand relative to kind of making recommendations that are outside that kind of things that we have on our list, I suppose. And I don’t I don’t know if others recall it differently or not. But I do seem to remember one at least one or two years ago or something where we came to the same conclusion, I thought where it was decided that as individuals, we were happy to help. But it’s as a waterboard, maybe, maybe not. Not falling under that umbrella. And so I don’t know Can other do anybody remember such instances? I don’t remember I’m sorry. I think there was back in my notes.

9:13
I don’t remember because I don’t think it was on the board at the time. But I’m also was on the board for tenure. And this doesn’t actually seem out of character to things that we would be asked about. I think we are a public venue so it’s good to hear about it. Come on back and might have so it’s good to hear about it and good to talk about it. I also think that like when we’re talking about watershed health that does Spark is something that feels to me very close to our mandate. I know we spend a lot of time and energy worrying about button preserve and looking for public support there for various things so it to me it does feel like a fit

9:59
Yeah, Like I said, I’m, I’m open to discussion. So, Dan, you got your hand raised?

10:09
Again, from my perspective, I certainly see our role as advising counsel. This whole process. And the open space program certainly has implications for waterboarding for the general public. I believe it is our place to make those recommendations, especially since this group of which I’m part of to provide that insight and make those recommendations. Roger, I would say it’s no different than the Parks Board, or sustainability dork or the transportation board. Open Space works collaboratively with these groups. And I think it’s a plus plus across the board, whether it’s any of these individual organizations or or Council or the community. So I do believe it is our place to make some recommendations to council. Well,

11:14
I’m just saying, I’m uncomfortable with doing it, because I just don’t think it’s in our business. I, you know, coming to us to ask for a recommendation on a vote I just a little bit uncomfortable doing that,

11:29
well, it’s not really a boat, it’s just getting it on the ballot. So other people can vote. So. So we’re not saying one way or the other whether, you know, council should support it, just that it gets put on the boat, so that are put on that

11:45
success when 2034. And why are you wanting it now?

11:49
Like I said, it’s a presidential election

11:51
year. And that’s the number one thing. So that asking for maximum input, right? Because if

11:56
it doesn’t get on the ballot this year, we still have a chance to put it on the ballot in another four years.

12:02
So so in the instance that we were to vote in the affirmative of supporting City Council.

12:14
Yeah, we’re not asking you personally to vote for it. Yeah.

12:17
Just I’m just curious about like, about whether or not that said at some point it’s turned into waterboard supports the teacher. Right. So those are two different things, right, that we support that there should be a ballot measure for the public to vote, relative to we support a public we think you should vote or vote yes. For this.

12:43
Can’t see that it’ll be any different than sustainability, or Parks and Rec. I

12:46
mean, no, no, I’m just I’m just wondering like how it would get Frank,

12:51
are you planning on coming back and asking for us to endorse

12:54
it? Once it’s on the ballot, we just want it on the ballot.

12:58
So it’s not, it’s not like coming back with the endorsement of the ballot?

13:02
What’s the problem of getting on the ballot now? I mean,

13:08
while we’re trying to shore up all of loose ends, making it basically a no brainer for city council to grind

13:15
up two signatures or

13:19
signatures, this is not a formal petition, this is an appeal. So we’re presenting it to city council, we’re actually going to be going to 25th to city council and say, hey, you know, we’ve got this, we’ve got the, you know, recommendation from these boards. Do this, please give us?

13:47
What are you presenting to city council?

13:55
Our answer now, right. Yeah, it’s kind of a tight turnaround to to get things on the ballot. And there are other moving pieces, other things that we don’t we think that this is pretty, pretty easy sell. We have not had to twist anybody’s arm to have them design they are you willing and ready and willing design? We have some city council support already, but obviously they need to make it you know, make the motion to put it on.

14:24
I don’t have a problem with that. I just have a problem saying you should move forward City Council.

14:34
Well, we’re we’re City Council’s voting.

14:36
They’re just just for them to make the motion to put it out.

14:44
So city, city council’s only job here was to say yes, we should put it on the ballot so that we can vote on correct.

14:52
We’re not asking city council to vote for it. We’re not asking people to vote for it. Obviously we would prefer that they voted for it but We just want to give them the opportunity to vote. And we think that like Adams County, like Lafayette, they will overwhelmingly support it because it’s not a new tax. They’re already paying it. It’s actually less than many other municipalities.

15:20
Anyway, I want to make a motion.

15:22
Yeah, I moved that we recommend to city council to put this on the ballot for everyone else to vote on. Or second.

15:34
I’m happy to second.

15:41
On favor? Hi. Hi.

15:51
I will say that I would like it to be very carefully printed. Right. Did I I don’t think that it should be framed as the one report supports the ballot measure at this point, because I do think that we need a broader discussion about what our board does such things. But I do I think it’s I think it’s okay to say to city council that waterboard is in support of the public. Right on this. So that would be my only choice.

16:19
I’ll say I sounds like you got four eyes. Right. Okay, good.

16:36
Appreciate your time. Thank you, Jamie.

16:43
Maybe you’re worthy of our future, whatever on our future discussion of whether just rather Yeah, comments about whether or not because like I said, I remember a conversation before we had the I can look back at my notes to see what that conversation was actually. So anyway, it may be chatting about such things. Give us some idea of what to do in the future.

17:11
Yeah, I guess I’d say before, something like this comes on our agenda. Let’s discuss it before it gets on our agenda. Okay. Okay. Discussion, okay. Very good. Any agenda revisions or submission of documents? have none. development activity, none. And none. have been waiting for this little while. Caching oops, caching.

17:47
So I’ll kind of queue it up a little bit here. There’s actually three three items underneath the general caching loop today. First off is our quarterly cash in lieu review talk talked in the past about the parent unique out helping project a lot of units that power without anyone were not successful in selling all five units they were successful, successful in selling three to five really?

18:31
What would you explain that

18:34
to two of the units the high bidder wants a metropolitan to the northern board and they’re not sure they’re not allowed metropolitan.

19:00
device is worth it and will toxin I believe. And that’s pretty easy to know where the waters right now, standard,

19:16
so to speak. So there was obviously demand for the units. What? So they were unsuccessful in selling them not because there wasn’t demand, but because the board didn’t approve the

19:27
buyer. The board did not approve, and I believe the Board may even think about that further northern board, but they’re not. They’re not there yet. Okay. At any rate, those did sell for about $40,000 a unit. As you may recall the last time we said two years ago, the most recent sale had been $30,000. Or excuse me, 3 million versus for Nigeria. As such, the then we’ve brought in the past. Change, expected future change order costs when you got firming project, we currently have that cost 18,500 and about another $1,000 and change orders per acre foot. So that would bring that to 95. Which is really not a huge increase on some for the project of that scale. So between the confirmed sales for PRP, and the expected windy gap, project costs, and those are those are actually not those Fermi project costs have not been realized yet. But we’ve been projects been doing a Forward Look at any potential change orders. And that’s really the best estimate right now. So all of those come up to 59,625 per acre foot when you had the 40 in the 19. So this point staff would recommend the board consider based upon our current criteria of using the windy gap firming project is the metric for cash. revising this to 59,006 25. One thing I have to ask a lot of people, obviously are interested in knowing where this might go and might be. Management, the city and planning departments and developers, you know, this is probably is going to be pretty close. And I don’t expect any big jumps in the future. Because we are really close to feeling like we’ve got real final costs for the Jimmy Hall project. And even if there’s some change orders significantly chop it out. And I don’t I don’t know of any other windy gap sales that will be coming out anytime soon. Your RPA indicated they might wait as much as five years, before they put those two units back on the market. Although product might be launched, it’ll be a while before they put those back on the market. And so I would expect this this price to stick. Which is really what a lot of the conservative biases, often we will change. So at this point, we feel the market indicates I shouldn’t be.

23:04
So you know, for see costs down the road from affirming part of it. Like a year from now, you know seeing a cost going in? Or you don’t know really, they’re coming in? And we obviously don’t know, your I mean, there could be a possibility costs will come in within a year’s time that might adjust this number.

23:27
Yes, absolutely. And certainly there will be continuing change orders as you’re working on a project of that massive scale. We are done with almost everything on on a reservoir project that is more unknown. You know, at this point, we know you know the rock isn’t going to change, you know, the foundations done. In fact, just finished the foundation on that saddle there are the foundations are done. That’s the real critical part of the dam. Never knowing what that’s going to be like the processes is well established now, about two thirds of two thirds the way up on behind the dam, two thirds of the way completed the project. So most of the most of everything is pretty well set. So let

24:25
me just ask you say you say next year so I want to share and then share ourselves when we use that to adjust this.

24:39
If it were just one chair, I think the board would want to look at what they just sold it out versus just one to one unit coming out. But yes, board could certainly but

24:53
that’s really the trigger that part of this is of this cost share so you out trying to pin you down at once here, so but something we’re gonna have to look at. So that’s got two factors in this thing in that six year selling costs, completing the project.

25:16
And I would be concerned on a similar note, if they don’t sell the shares for another five years, are we still keeping up with where cost may be? But that’s maybe a problem for another time?

25:28
No, I think that’s a good point. Yeah. I mean, it’s not everything stays the same. And water doesn’t cost more than me. Well, these two indicators, and kind of makes you feel like it’s frozen now. In a way, even though prices might be going.

25:50
I think it’s a problem for next year, but I think it’s good to say that we’re not committing to changing it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don’t

25:57
say never. Again.

26:02
I was just gonna say that, like, my, I think, you know, when when I first came onto the board, we had lots of discussions about cash in lieu, immediately. And I was lost the whole time, practically. But, but nevertheless, I was trying to keep up. And I remember the language being something like connects to kind of like, something about the next reasonably foreseeable acre foot of water, right? Like, how much is that thing going to cost? Right. And the question that I have that may inform some of this discussion is like, at what point do we need to be? What would we do if suddenly we needed? Right, if suddenly we needed? You know, I don’t know how many 100 a foot of water or something. But suddenly, we needed a whole bunch of water, some water, right? What would we do would be? What would I mean, I think, to some degree, I mean, we probably try to conserve, we try to try to do some other things, right? We’re bait and we’ve locked ourselves into thinking about okay, well, what’s the market price of some of this? Windy gap water, right? And so, so and I’m fine with that. Don’t Don’t get me wrong. I’m, I’m on board with that decision, right? I don’t think we should start calculating how much it costs to conserve water or something like that instead, but, but what I’m saying is like, at some point, our mindset will shift to like what the next project is, or something right, that there’s going to secure the next allotment of water that we need into the future or something. And I’m just kind of curious, like, when we might do that, essentially, or whether legit the next time that we needed water, whether we participate one of these options, right? Whether that’s like a realistic sense of how we actually get get water or not. Right. And so I guess I’m wondering about like, what trigger point do we start thinking about, like, other parameters that might inform these discussions? To that

27:55
point, where you can enlarge button rock, I mean, there’s several options. If we want or need more water pump back, that’s another option. I don’t know that I’d be clear, there are things on the table that we can do, if we need to.

28:17
But opening this discussion to those really complicated these factors, I would imagine.

28:21
Well, I mean, again, this is me speaking to the history, and I wasn’t here for the last big raise, and the change, but prior to that we had a different means of calculating the rates, it’s possible to do it different ways. There is not one, one reasonable way to do this, there are many reasonable ways to do this, as long as we’re reasonable about it, and get people warning, we can do a lot of things. So I just, I don’t know that we need to worry about next year’s calculation as much as we need to worry about this year’s calculation.

28:59
Yeah.

29:02
Well, I think you might be getting into this next minute as far as our scheduling the timeframes are so I think that’s one thing we want to kind of firm up when and how, and in my thought process from it’ll be a year from now, before we actually tie into this thing if we firm this thing up. Now. The assumption I think, is if we go ahead with this, it will actually go to city council with the idea that the effectiveness will be the first of next year. Is that Is that correct? Everybody understand that way? Yeah, so anyway, I’m gonna be getting ahead of myself. But anyway. So Ken, what are you looking forward for us to approve this amount or do you want to talk about the other things you’re gonna take this piece at a time? I’d like to, yeah,

29:56
I’d like to take a piece of it. I think we’re Ready, least staff is ready to make a recommendation to the board. We said that caching the price of 5646 25. And whatever we do with the rest of the issue items, all right, I think I think we can tackle that one.

30:20
Okay. Anybody have any concerns and Danielsville? They’re good about this proposal from staff ticket to 59 625. You got any questions or comments there? No,

30:33
I think it makes sense. This is what our expenses are to do it. That’s kind of been the direction that councils given us to come up with. So I would move that we are second way. If you’re already making that recommendation, Roger, but I would recommend that we approve this staff’s recommendation at 50. United States 25 per acre foot.

30:58
Any other comments for? I’ll take that as a motion, Dan? Sure. And somebody want to make a second? Yeah.

31:16
Uh, yeah. Comfortable with everything. I’m good. And I do I want to suffer. I think we’ve been patient in the sense of like, waiting for the pieces to fall into place to have a good rationale for, for any number that we settled on. And I’ve appreciated that, that we haven’t put the cart before the horse here. We waited for the numbers, we got them. We have an approach. We implemented it. And now I feel like uncomfortable result. So okay,

31:51
so it’s been a motion in a second, all in favor, signify by saying aye.

32:00
Okay, thank you very much. The second half part of the casual conversation we wanted to have is the scheduling. And so in the waterboard right up, we propose a schedule. One of the one of the issues that we’ve been hearing about for some time now is, is unique, kind of started uniquely with Ashley Lu. Once you know, once waterboard makes the recommendation, we take it to the next available council meeting. It’s passed by resolution which makes it basically passes immediately, as opposed to an ordinance which takes two meetings and a public a public notice. And then the 10 day waiting period. And all that. So happens pretty quickly after waterboard makes a decision. And in some in the development community have said, we understand the cost goes up. But for us, we’re trying you know, it takes us a while to bring projects to fruition. You know, we need time to react to that. The second half of that kind of from the administration standpoint is, is common. When we do see a rate change, you know, if we if we do a water rate change that’s approved, but it’s usually effective January 1. And so the request was that we make arch cash and loot change of a predictable in terms of time, a little more time between the recommendation and what it becomes effective. And then also get it on schedule and in line with other types of fee changes and usually increases. Cash flow is really unique in that we actually met many times, not just go down as well. And so if we go down the point wants to do a senator but anyway. But no, one option we thought so our city code requires waterboard review, at least quarterly. Sometimes it’s actually been more than quarterly, there was a period where CBT was just going crazy. And when CBT was one of the metrics used on a board ask that we review more than quarterly just kind of track that. In this case, quarterly is more than sufficient because when the gap in the culture changes changed that much. And honestly, it’s been two years. It’s been a little over two years now since the last change. So it doesn’t concern me that we We have a set schedule. What we would propose is now we can go in and change city code that just requires two ordinances. But what we would what we’d suggest, at least staff would be more comfortable, at least continue to review cash flow quarterly. And that way if some weird, you know, some wild comes up, you know, you’re not saying, or we’re gonna wait till next June. Oh, we would we proposes the normal quarterly meeting in June, is when we waterboarded make the recommendation to council, we’d be able to take that we follow rather than we normally kind of push it up on the agenda, get it. We have a sort of unwritten rule of three months to put an item on the council agenda. And we can push it a little bit down, we normally push cash in lieu. But we would follow that three month rule. So we at waterboard would review it in June, make a recommendation, we take that to city council in September, which makes it a little easier for us to get it through the city attorney’s office and get it on the agenda and get everything done. Council would make that determination in September and make it effective on January 1, that gives the development community a full six months to be prepared for it to get either not a struggle water or pay their current caching movie. You know, it does take longer than that for development projects to move forward. But, but that gives them plenty of time to plan ahead. So staff is recommending that we basically reveal quarterly, and you certainly certainly can make recommendations anytime. But we would normally just review it know where we’re at, and then make a recommendation to Council Review in September and make it effective on January 1,

37:04
you know, in fairness to the developers, and I’m not trying to be overly fair, but I think the predictability that say you’re gonna be a cache of loot change is gonna happen the first year. To me, that makes a lot of sense. I think what we’ve done, there’s been some surprises and people graphs about the app. And if that makes sense to do that. Let’s decide on it in June, is there gonna be any changes, just say it’s gonna be going forward? We’re gonna try and make it effective. Any changes affected the first of the year? I don’t want to run with that. I think that’s reasonable. And that’s basically what you’re suggesting to us. So how about any other comments with what they’re proposing?

37:49
I like the idea of continuing the quarterly review. I think that’s actually really essential, because we have just following it this last year, it’s been following it like we’ve really had a lot of information, a lot of changes. And if, if we hadn’t had those stepwise changes, I think we would feel I would feel under informed and a little bit like, what where’d this come from? So I think quarterly is powerful. I’m understanding your timeline of working back from the September meeting, you know, September gets the January 1. And we’ll come back from that. But I’m also going to point out Scott’s not here. Because June and summer meetings on this board are typically a little less attended. So I’m not opposed to June. But I think it’s something maybe we should put an asterix and this is a next year problem I want to discuss this year. And that is, I think we should be thoughtful about that and see how it goes. Because if we end up with short boards, I want to make sure we have maximum boards for approving this. Approved today without here. Obviously, we’ve got a quorum. But I want us to keep it in mind because we’re kind of putting all of our eggs in the gene basket. And if three people go on vacation, you don’t have a meeting. Yeah. I mean, it becomes, I guess, the July meeting, but it’s one of those things. I think we should be smart about that. But other than that, like

39:12
I thought those were awesome. Points. And everything here that we said I I completely agree with and I do very much would be adamant about still discussing it quarterly, just to kind of like, okay, that’s where we’re at. Even if it’s no, no vote, no decision, nothing. It’s just where are we right now? Right? Because back in that in, you know, packing an entire year’s worth of like change or something into one discussion, especially if it’s in the summer would be way too much. And so, you know, to be cognizant of that, right? Like even something what would that be? Was that March I guess you’re in the March discussion. If we’ve come to some kind of like, you know, we have some data points that we can work with And we’re all kind of in the same, you know, same realm or something. And I don’t know how remote voting or something goes, if you’re not going to be absent or something I do. But but maybe we could, if nothing has changed since the last time we talked about it in March or something that maybe would be a quick little approval or something. But, but when it’s all said and done, yeah, I think it’s important to discuss periodically, but I think the the schedule that you’ve laid out is great.

40:35
Yeah. Comments.

40:39
I’m on board with this process. I think the timing is good, especially as the city approximate with this June month, cities are looking at fees and revenue streams and that kind of stuff. And certainly making the recommendation in June gives our ability to have conversations counsel, if needed, based on that recommendation. So I like the way staff is laid out this process. Okay. Yeah. Sorry, Chris, I

41:07
was just gonna say that, I think that you have the option also to call special meetings if we can’t get coral on one day. So you could do the following week or a couple of weeks out. So that’s good to know.

41:19
So does the June timeline to then lead into a September city council meeting? Is that? Is there a buffer room in there? So for example, reading about if we weren’t able to going on until July, you’d still be able to get it on? September? 2, there’s a little bit of like, leeway or something. Yeah. So that would be another.

41:41
Yeah, the other thing, can goes without saying, but the firming thing, keep us apprised of cost some stuff. Because that’s probably going to be the lever that adjusted. In my mind, if there’s no sale for a year, there’s no sales, but you’re gonna have to keep this up to date on that. So yeah, no, will

42:02
will absolutely keep you up to date on any you know, other entities may do something. Okay. No, no, no. All right now, but ya know, minhang? Certainly, certainly,

42:15
we got another year to look at things. So we want a motion on it.

42:21
I don’t need a motion unless you want to change the code. No. That’s never fun. All

42:30
right. Fair enough. So we’ve really what you’re saying gives

42:34
me the direction I need on that. Thank you very much. And then the final item was our cache, the overall cache review process, I just wanted mostly to give you an update. So what we’re going to do, and in each one of our cash, every quarter, we’re going to any other month that we bring this item before the board, we’re going to kind of stack the communication, we’re going to re replicate the information that we have already given you so that when we’re done, we have a full and complete picture, mostly for those that are not on the board or not in here. We feel this is going to be a really good kind of historical perspective, and get a lot of so we don’t have much new information this month, because we’re at a point where we need to get some studies done and get a bunch of research done. What, for example, we need to like to get the actual money we’ve spent for cash move all through the program, because I do hear some different. Not Not every people would like to know what the money was spent on not just what did we collect? Or was it spent on it? And so we’ll continue to do that we’re going to get additional information. You know, what some of the other cities have never liked to follow what other cities you know what other people are doing, it’s unique to Loma but it’s still good to have that information. So as we put those studies together, we’ll continue to feed that into the to the Water Board packet into water board. And again, we still were hoping to get most of this all together by early next year. And water board wants to make any changes in the program at that point or recommend anything you can do

44:31
that. You got ain’t getting returns that somebody will say, We gave me about 12 questions I answer, and you’re just cash in lieu before he answered all our questions.

44:44
I don’t because we’re making the recommendation based on our current criteria. And honestly, we while I’ve been around about once every 10 years, we change I mean change the criteria and We had the last 10 years we had a criteria that was just the funding project, because that’s where the money’s going to right now was a reasonable criteria. We changed it now call it in the 2020s. Prior to 2010, about 2010, for about 15 years, we used CBT, primarily. But CBT is the older took off. And so it doesn’t bother me that we do or don’t have some other things. I think we’re very, very well founded and criteria we’re using right now. And I think it’s a very good criteria. Again, because that’s where the money’s going. Right now. Cash flow is going to pay for the loans

45:49
that you’re gonna sell it. So yeah,

45:52
I think we can sell. Yeah, very good.

45:55
I think I think it’s fundamentally very solid while we’re doing all these questions, you know, like, should there be cash? And that kind of bothers me a little bit? Where that’s going, but anyway, I just don’t want? I hope, not somebody saying you didn’t complete all in discussion. So we’ll see. Okay.

46:23
So that’s all I had on cash lose?

46:25
I did I have a question? Actually. The document here is just sprinkled throughout is it has been expressed or some other other diplomatic classes, voice type language? Is there? Is there a universal identity that we can fill in the blanks with their like, who is expressing these? Sometimes it’s developers, I would imagine, sometimes it’s others.

46:56
Actually, it came down to us from the city manager’s office. And the way to say it wrong. City has a Can you think of the name of the title person, this kind of looking over the sugar mill tire, larger Sugar Mill, called stem? Project, Development

47:25
Coordinator,

47:26
Development Coordinator, there we go. That person was very concerned about what cash cash flow would mean to the Sherman profit project. Why? Because during Western sugar when they were going bankrupt, so they’re water off. So you’re sitting to you’re uniquely sitting with a very large personal property with no water rights at all sitting on it. And, you know, yes, it will impact them a little more, until you look at what it actually cost per unit. And that’s some of the information we’ll bring back to the board. But it’s not much. I mean, the per unit cost is in a still, even though cash in lieu, maybe in a certain area, it’s still far less than many other places.

48:19
I’m sorry, I know, actually,

48:22
what you started with, and that is, I’m reading this, and there’s a lot of vague people out there saying things like staff is curious. And I would really like to remind everyone that this is a public meeting, they can come here and say it, because I have to come here and say it with my face and my nametag and whatever diplomacy I may have, but you know, so I, when you brought it up, I’m sort of glad because it kind of checked my I guess, I would like to know who’s saying what, and be responding to it. I’m okay with that. But they need to also kind of own it.

48:58
It helps with like, just understanding perspective, perspective, and like, I want to know who it is so that I know their view their viewpoint and, and I can say who they are right, like, in a way like, like, what this group of people says this, and this group of people said, like, if there’s multiple viewpoints here, this group of people says this, and this one has a contrary opinion, and I want to like weigh my perspective against what, you know where they’re coming from. And so yeah, that’s why I brought that up. And they, I, I’m, I’m interested because you brought it up can cost per unit that you calculated. That was because I have to sit down and actually do like calculation myself because I’m like that hands on that way, I guess but that that cost per unit is it’s supported in a way you because there were historical water rights on these pieces of property that was right. So like in their unique situation, it’s not going to be $2,200 or $2,300 a unit. But it’ll be much, much later because they don’t happen. Right. So So it’d be, you know, this, it’d be a whole lot higher, given that 70% of the deficit. Okay, deficit page by weekend,

50:27
we could bring in some estimates. Antonine, we could bring in estimates would cost.

50:35
But a large majority of it was passion, and not historical. Is that anyway, when it’s all said and done, yeah, I’d like to see a little, or even just even some, some examples, right? Like, what would it be in this particular instance? Right? Like, what is the cost per unit? And not particular? Yeah,

51:00
if you really do this, or this $10, if they have no water at all? Yeah. And they, they, the easiest thing for a developer is to write a check. To be real honest. That’s why they like ashes litter. So developer, if they have no water, and it’s three acre feet per acre, solder 50 mile now, if it goes up, it’ll be 180,000 per acre, and divide it by, you know, anywhere from 15 to probably 50 to 100. What’s the high density?

51:35
Yeah, yeah, certainly. The highest 77

51:39
years.

51:43
Stuck on

51:45
a higher density brings that number way down. Single, single family. Yeah. Well, we can bring that that’s really easy to bring that and it helps put it into perspective. That’s really, what we’re trying to do here was just hope, what actually happened?

52:03
Yeah. It’s so good that these types of like, but really data, in a sense are perfect. So

52:09
we’ll bring all that in. You

52:12
have to do it. Can Can I just interject a point. One thing was that I wanted to say yes, that we are seeing much higher density coming in now than we’ve ever seen in the past. So comparative to 1020 30 years ago, the cost per unit is changing. Just based on the technology coming in, so it may self adjust the average is probably not with that average, because it’s being shown. The other thing that I just want to interject, too, is that staff here is part of the city, and we’re all part of the city. And our job is to represent all the different parts of the city. Not to say that anybody couldn’t come in and speak. And that we would encourage them to speak. But but we really aren’t here to represent all of the different views at this point.

53:02
Speaking of density, I assume the developers are living within parameters you said for density?

53:13
Yes, they’re usually on the lower end of the spectrum.

53:24
What’s your question?

53:26
I just kind of curious about with the density is increasing considerably over what has been our guidelines, I would hope, are they pushing against our maximum density allowed? They’re not

53:42
doable in 2016, when we adopted the vision long walk that changed all of the density requirements. So there have been several, there have been products that have come in that we’re not dense enough. And City Council has turned them away until we really look at what they’ve done, to bring in more density to meet whatever their zoning requirements were. Anybody that’s coming in as co host.

54:13
Okay, any other comments for Can we discuss?

54:20
That’s great. Appreciate that. And we’ll continue to bring all this information back and keep looking at it. Very good.

54:33
Okay. Back with this exchange agreement. Yeah,

54:40
we have a horrid today. reasonably standard exchange agreement. As the Board may recall, our charter doesn’t allow us to sell water without a vote of the public but our charter does allow us to exchange water rights. And we don’t exchange water rights too often. We occasionally do. The last big kind of big one I recall is golden ponds. We exchange our Copeland Lake facility, reservoir itself, not all property for half interest in Golden ponds with the same brain and left on Water Conservancy District. We also we owned, independent reservoir, which is just south from the call lake. We exchange that for some CVT water and got a really good deal out of that. Because see, I was right before CVT went up. But what we have today is when Boulder County Fairgrounds purchased the property for the fairgrounds, that property was historically irrigated out of the Beckwith ditch. And the county got the both land and 1.66 shares of the back with a ditch. But today, it’s either complex itself and the parking lot. So there’s there hasn’t been irrigated for 30 years. But they do they do do still have those shares. Sitting there. Long month, you may recall, we just last year completed a Change Case for the bonus ditch which diverts out behind BestBuy over Dickens farm. We completed that change case. And our next change case we’re planning planning on doing is the back with ditch itself we we had owned in the late 1980s, we changed half of the food half the back with ditch shares, and we changed those shares at that time. And then we’ve been assembling chairs since then, as most Southside Longmont has grown, we now own essentially the entire edge. With exception. There’s the Boulder County Sheriff’s there’s one sheriff and believe it or not by the the Safeway store over here just kind of got left on that property in attics. Or mid 1960s. It was left on that property. And then there’s two small shares owned by developers who purchased them for historical. So essentially, the backward ditch will no longer divert water. Now in ditches hasn’t actually dirty water for 10 years. So that’s no change there for long month to be able to own the last little remnant shares, and take the entire ditch to water quality is very beneficial to us. In addition, there’s been a long standing community desire to get fish passage eliminated, by eliminating the diversion structure, they’re rolling ponds, you’re able to get fish passage and make a more natural channel through there. And changing all the water out of the ditch will help us do that. So we’ve been having a conversation with Boulder County, Boulder County has a branch of open space east of Longmont, south of well, east, east of Costco. Now to carry live on one, there are a lot of short on that. And that’s that’s actually fed by the board of stitch. So the county is really interested in getting a little bit more bonus ditch water for those properties. And of course, we’re interested in getting back with water for us. That gives the county what water they use on their open space, which is a benefit to them. So it’s much more valuable to them to get the bonus. For us the bandwidth is actually much more valuable to us, we were able to change the bonus shares and we use them downstream. But they couldn’t be moved upstream because of their location on the stream. And the extended period of time in summer when there’s zero flow that they’re there on return flows. And for us the back with ditches like this in your ditch, modern Japanese, basically the senior ditch so you always want to see so for us we get a more senior ditch we’re able to move at times some of the back with water up to our plants because it exists east west and Walmart I suppose bonus which is easy. So we get more functional water we get more senior water right. And we are able to further some of our community goals with protecting the river. So we’re doing just a straight acre foot for acre foot exchange with the county and what we do need to go To get approved resolution approved by City Council to approve an exchange, the county has already read to it ready to read all ready to sign and just go through that approval processes. So staff would make a recommendation board for recommendation to Council to approve exchange with the county for Walmart to get back. What’s yours?

1:00:28
So this is beneficial in the county with beneficial does?

1:00:32
It is yes, it’s

1:00:33
really a no brainer. Sounds

1:00:35
like we think so. Just interest me the goals that you outlined there that that are the benefits that we receive. There’s a couple of other people still in the back with digit sounds like so you said, there are

1:00:52
there there would be three others, but two of them are developers. So they’re just waiting to move their development process through and then they’ll dedicate it to the city in any breeze. Okay, so there’s just the one share, and we’re trying to talk to Safeway, but that’s not bad. Imagine, that’s not as easy as it sounds. But like

1:01:18
any of the things that you have planned, impeded by the fact that Safeway has that shares don’t

1:01:24
know, because it’s real clear, but it’s a legal precedent that the ditch company can substitute water in introduce which so long mod happens to own the south flat reservoir, which is driving down overrode its reservoir on the west side, just south of the creek. If you look out to the West, we were the self library where we own water rights in that we would put water into the for that one chair. Course The can use it because it’s a parking lot. at Safeway, they have a no where to irrigate is to be no way to get the water from the ditch to their property that was all taken out by development 3040 years ago. But if something happened, we could talk about that, in the ditch companies said that’s what desperately plans the head gate, the version down for the head gate at Golden ponds is rapidly deteriorating, the company is not going to pay a million dollars to rebuild that diversion structure. So the company says anybody wants water downstream, they’re gonna get it out of South Platte reservoir anyway. So that’s, that’s pretty well determined. So yeah, we’re not worried about any other county fairgrounds was the only one that we wanted to make sure we cleaned up at this point.

1:02:59
The other question, Dan, anytime.

1:03:04
You’re gonna go, Roger. Nope. Questions. I’m good. Thank you. Okay.

1:03:16
So, put forward a motion that we recommend to city council that they approve the exchange agreement as written, I guess

1:03:30
if you could make it in substantial form.

1:03:36
So in in substantially similar to what it is.

1:03:45
Second,

1:03:48
second, all in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Okay. All right. Fair enough. All right. I need from staff.

1:04:05
Alex. Yeah, unfortunately, I apologize. Alex have a personal issue come up on the board meeting today. So I’m gonna finish yet for Alex and Alex today. So what we wanted to do, we’ve been asked to look at the possibility of increasing a little bit on our water rail program. We have to be real honest, we’re going to a rate study this summer. So I think that was a great study. Is there other ways of offsetting some of the some of the rate increase? We know there will be a rate increase? primarily driven by all the stuff Joe and Holly’s doing a lot a lot of you know a lot of work we need to do on the system to keep it maintain that asset and serve really good that we do that. So, we’ve been asked to do that. Then what we tried to do is kind of give the you know, write up a flavor, there’s a lot a number of different areas that we do water rental. We work with a school district. We have a historical leaseback program for properties in Annex dedicate your water beginning develop anyway, we have city owned properties. But really the majority, the biggest dollars we get is what we call our long term water rental water supply agreements. And that is because cost we charge for that is set by a rate study, which will happen with this other study. But it’s in the CIP, like right now $642 An acre foot compared to say if you’re some of the other programs where it’s, you know, 10s of dollars per acre foot. And that’s primarily because mostly the water is not fully consumed. And not fully consumable water. And so the long term end, and the biggest value is long term. It is mainly used by people who have augmentation plans. And when you have an augmentation plan, you have to be able to prove to the state that you’d have water for however long it takes your impact to the streams and pumps a well, it might take anywhere from one year to five years for that impact to finish in the stream. And so you have to show the state you don’t water five years out. And so that’s where our programs come in very valuable. We, we’ve been looking at the programs we have and one difficult team we have two reasons. But one difficulty we have in moving forward with much more. Certainly we’re going to staff is going to go out and try to look at the possibility of gaining additional waterfowl to help offset the impact of rate increases. But there’s couple areas that make it a little more difficult for Longmont to do. Now the authority to lease rate falls underneath our city charter 1.1, which basically allows us to lease lease water. But also, in code, we have a few restrictions that I wanted to just discuss with the board. We’ve not talked with our legal department yet and I didn’t even want to wanted to get in I wanted to get the reaction to input from the board. Before we talk about these two things. They are policy decisions we made in the past for very, very good reasons. But I guess we want to find out if they’re if we still want to continue that policy. The first is we have an area we call it the water supply review zone. And that’s basically an area highway 66 i 25. County Line Road, kind of like road record by Longmont and then highway 52 On the south, that area. It was urbanizing some of it is Longmont planning area that has been urbanized by other entities when she was in conflict with our planning or comprehensive plan. And so, in the past, we’ve said we’re not going to lease any water in the water supply research reviews, or to any entities who supply water into the waters supply reviews. I think that’s a very good way I would suggest in terms of the zone that we keep that we should at least in that area where we want to urban, we want to develop a more comprehensive plan. The way it was written though, is that it’s to any entity the thinking was well yeah, we ran into an entity and they say yeah, we’re gonna use it down by gun barrel that really frees up other water that entity that they might move into the water. That’s why we wrote fairly strictly but the effect is radically left hand or little tops and water district goes this serves at that area. Central wild serves Firestone which serves in that rosy area. Left hand water district serves in the south part of that. When you draw a box around so little Thompson goes clear up to Archons which is by Horsetooth reservoir. Left hand goes clear down to Alyssa Lafayette boulder on the South Central oil goes out to Corzine East Greeley. And so basically, if you’ve got, we can’t least anybody from horse to throw over the Broomfield from currencies that really no Continental Divide, which is really limited our ability to enter in the leases. So my first question would be that I believe I understand that policy, but we may want to consider changing it to we can’t serve in that water supply route, fuse them. But if little Thompson came and said, Hey, we need water. Up by Johnstown, you know, would we then be able to lease water? If we can show that it was going? It was not going in water supply? Never open up an area. I’m not worried. And we’re not advocating to do that or not to do that. Other than that would open up the ability to lease or

1:11:35
one of our major leases that we have today? I mean, certainly epic ones. Really,

1:11:45
honestly, there’s one big one. And that’s the one on the next issue. We’ll talk about that. It’s called Aw, water, actually, what’s your loanmart principles lived here and they they operate out of Fort Lupton. And they have a number of wells on South Platte River that they have to augment because they’re pull out a priority. And so they lease water from us goes down the same rain hits the Platte River over by Platteville, which is high enough up for them to get credit at Fort Lupton. That’s about 600 acre foot and he’s ready for it $100,000 a year. But it expires in 2028. And by so I’ll go ahead and go on the second. The second issue we have in our cover. Second language we have in our code is that we will list any oil and gas interests. Now. The NW water. We know they’re augmenting their wells, you could technically argue it’s not going to oil gas. But their wells they pump. Some of that water doesn’t go well gas. And we know that. And so by the current language says you can’t lease oil and gas and didn’t apply to existing, you know, we didn’t have to try to get out of that lease. But it applied to extension employees who will not be able to extend that lease that subhead of about $400,000 to the waterfront, we’ll have to increase water rates by $400,000. If that lease goes away,

1:13:34
why why is it that we can’t do

1:13:37
that? Because they served well?

1:13:41
When was that decision made that we wouldn’t lose oil and gas?

1:13:46
Well, let’s put on the books for probably at least 10 years. It has been on there for a while.

1:13:57
Council decision they’re saying was a

1:13:58
council made that decision. They did they directed staff to bring an ordinance saying that you can’t be someone else. And that I guess what we’re asking for example, you know, should we just not worry about leave that in place? Or should we consider you know, you make a decision and then 10 or 15 years later, is that decision sober? Is it still a good decision?

1:14:32
Well, there’s this leapfrogging process with the water right? I mean, we we’re not providing water directly to the oil and gas folks. But yet we’re providing water to somebody that does provide water to oil and gas folks, right. So and I mean the way that the policies are written here I don’t know if they’re big enough that you’ve kind of squeezed in with providing water to the people that provide the water, you know, or I mean, but I mean, there’s a spot, you’re provisions requiring an accounting of such water to prevent such use. Right. I mean, that’s, that seems like, sorry. But if you’re providing water to somebody that’s providing water to somebody, you need to account for that. And you’re responsible for the end place or the the end use. Right. Yeah. And so yeah, something would have to be done, I think in order to continue with this particular agreement. And that’s a, that’s a, I was gonna ask, Who is that that falls into this long term? Lease category that does? Yeah, so that’s 400,000 Out of the 900,000 that come to the house about

1:15:44
half? Yeah. Another big chunk of that money 300,000 or so is central Colorado Water Conservancy District. And they’re like 95 90% Ag Water, they, their program is to augment our priority, agricultural weapons. So we’re okay with our lease with them. And that won’t get that will go away. So

1:16:13
there’s a there’s a NW, there, there. How much of their portfolio let’s say is related to it, I guess. Oh, I

1:16:23
guess it gets really squirrely that way. So when we first made the lease, or probably the first half of the lease was probably 90%. Gas. The water industry realized the oil and gas folks have money. So they charge pretty high rates, which drove the more gas industry away from water providers to ditch irrigation ditches, the originally had to take 2005 2010 and take bulk water out of fire hydrants, they needed that clean water to make their fracking fluid, then they learned how soon just probably a potted tree of raw water, use that. And then they even went further to where so then they were nice, and a lot of excellent. That was season. Like them, they went to ditch companies, this company says, Yeah, we want to make money. So this companies would lease in the water out of the ditch. And then by take by exchange CBD water and use that do the pitch, you can’t use CBD, oil or gas outside the district, but you can use the ditch water. Arguably, I mean, it got quite a waste. So oil and gas industry then started developing a lot of there. So there isn’t as nearly as big a market for the oil and gas industry, because they’ve developed their own water supplies a you know, they needed, they needed water. And so they they started building on augmentation programs buying buy and hold water rights. So they have quite quite their own system set up. But yeah, so you know, that probably, and we’re not going to eliminate I think that’s our community would not probably Gabby, if we eliminated they eliminated that. But

1:18:42
boy, are you basically saying we’re trying to reduce our lease agreements? No,

1:18:47
we’re trying to work within us to increase sales, we can increase what I’m doing, and we’re gonna try to do that. But there’s three big things that make it hard for us to do that. And I want to highlight all three of those and see if any one of the three what to relax a little, and maybe not, you know, maybe we’re fine. I, you know, our job is to provide water to the citizen in the long enough not, not anywhere else. So if we want to keep it the way it is. We don’t have a very nearly as big or robust water rental programs we’ll use partially because

1:19:28
but as we change our lease agreements or decrease the amount we will use, you’re talking about impacting the rate? Yes,

1:19:36
if we don’t, the lease of that water helps keep

1:19:44
I mean, naturally would. Wouldn’t we want to keep the rates down?

1:19:50
Yes, that’s what I’ve been asked to do.

1:19:54
That’s why I want to talk about I don’t know what anybody wants raised. hit water rates pretty significantly over the last, whatever 20 years. My take would be if we have a choice of doing something to minimize the increase in water rates. Why not? Okay, I’m just

1:20:15
that I think Ken’s got about to outline three things that say, here’s the reason. There’s gonna be complications, for example, is that yeah, yeah,

1:20:23
these three things. And the last one is really our own, between staff and waterboard. We used to do 20 year leases, and we decided that was a little help. Can any of us look out 20 years? So we we change that conversation with waterboard to 10 years? So we haven’t been entertaining any leases over the 10 years?

1:20:49
When did you decide that?

1:20:53
We probably decided that conditional 1005 2000 to 2005. And waterboard waterboard app. But it’s just, it’s just, I mean, there’s no code will change code or anything like that. The longer the lease is, the more people out there who are on law augmentation, because really the water way out, they would be more interested in a longer term lease.

1:21:24
It’s 10 years is the max 10

1:21:27
years is the maximum right now. Our city code used to say 20 years, but city charter, it was amended. But now it’s three years. And I don’t think I’d be comfortable with a 30 year lease. But for the ride lease, we may want to consider a 10 year. Again, it wouldn’t happen unless the board looked at it and said we’re comfortable with that, and how we come up with it. But those are the three things is the water supply reviews on the no leasing oil and gas, and limited to tenure leases. So if we want to relax any one of those not asking for a recommendation today in terms of I want to go to council last month like that. But if if we want to relax any of those, then I would we would work. We’d look at the language that we would need to change other 10 years. We can say that right now. But the other two, we’d need to look at the language work with the legal department to come up with the revised language, then we would bring that back to waterboard for a review and recommendation to council. I didn’t want to I didn’t want to go through the whole effort. There was not appetite for relaxing any of that. What

1:22:46
staffs position, you think you think we should just leave it the way it is? You know, we need some input here.

1:22:56
If I would at least review it. I really want that knowing knowing that. That is the biggest impediment to leasing the water. And especially, you know, again, I would not get rid of the water supply your views on I would just better define it. That’s in my mind. That’s the big oil and gas. I don’t know I I just don’t think the community would have an appetite for changing that. Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff going on with oil and gas still right now. At the state level a lot of issues. So I guess for me, I would better define the water supply reason, narrowed down to be only zone, I would probably leave oil and gas that is is the 10 years I’d say we were the least entertaining. So I don’t have to say yeah, we’ll accept it that we were a little more free on that. I could make the team up. And I won’t guarantee it’ll come up. But that’s that’s kind of where I would weigh in on as

1:24:11
well. Yeah. If we don’t change anything, that’s a big issue.

1:24:21
Not a huge issue. I do believe it will have regular impacts will I think, well, we won’t be able to remember the end of the lease and we will be able to get some more releases like that,

1:24:31
which you said was 2028 which my goodness gracious, it’s like just three years from now. Yes.

1:24:39
The reason is our water rating studies are usually, you know, for four to five years out what what we’re setting we usually set I think it’s three or four years, four years,

1:24:53
generally four years we set and we’re looking at a kind of a 20 year window and we’re looking at the rates for the expected expenditures, we would definitely put the NWS

1:25:05
Yeah, it puts it right, right.

1:25:11
I was around for the location, area situation, remembering it all. And I’ve got to speak to it and say that we did actually intentionally define that as a mechanism of not letting somebody do a switch a room and just move their water. And so I’m not wild about that. I mean, I think the oil and gas for me is kind of a Yeah, no, thanks. No, no, no, no change there. But I’m not feeling wildly excited about changing the review area, either and the firmness of that definition. Kind of a stick in the mud. And, you know, I love low rates, or I love right and hurt on the rates. But this is one of those cases where it’s kind of like, muddy for values. And that just, that’s where that one aligns with me, I will say that the length of the lease, if we wanted to go for longer, I would definitely entertain longer leases, I’d be okay with that. That’s something What more can definitely do this. I don’t think a high regret, I think we could be a little regret change.

1:26:23
I wasn’t around for the water supply review zone discussion. And I’m, I’m still a little lost, admittedly, about exactly what those restrictions are, and what the rationale for them are. And so I I’d like to maybe chat about those a little bit more at some point in the future, to kind of further clarify this discussion for sure. I do foresee, you know, I mean, I could foresee a situation where even if we said, well, you know, water, yes or no within a particular zone, then we run into the same problem that we’re running into with the oil and gas folks, which is just well, we give some people some water, and then they displace that water for other water elsewhere, and now we’re back in the same boat that we were in, right? Or does it? Does it fit with, with the heart or the kind of soul of a particular regulation or restriction or, or policy? When people are just kind of moving stuff around anyway, and kind of cringy to me, I can put up appearances or something. My biggest question, though, is like, what, collectively? The the, all of the leases combined, especially the long term leases that apparently are more a question here. How much does that offset? Rates? Right? So you know, if ik, whatever the number is $4 on my water bill or something? And you do I pay without any of the leases at all? Do I pay 38? Or do I pay? Or I’m sorry, to pay 42? Or do I pay 65? You know, like, is there a way to get that number? Right? Yeah, we can get to the exact number. general tips about it.

1:28:19
dollar per euro dollar per month? No. It’s about $40. For overall water budget.

1:28:38
You know, so, so the amount of I mean, to me, and I know that these things add up, right, but like, the amount of effort that you put into a discussion is commensurate to the amount of impact that that, that the result will have, right? And so, you know, if it’s, if it’s 1% of your bill, if it’s 5% of your bill, and if it’s 50% of your bill, right, like, then I would scale the amount of effort that we put into this, I’d say to that, to whatever that is, I guess, but keep

1:29:10
in mind of that person, million dollars, half of them will still be actual incremental parts, probably 50 cents.

1:29:22
But are there changes that you liked to make? I mean, we don’t change anything. What’s the downside of that?

1:29:30
I don’t think there’s any downside at all. I mean, other than certainly a slight decrease, most likely decrease. It doesn’t mean if we push mechanically in these criteria, and still these, you know, first off after that is surplus water. You know, we don’t want to miss anything and we need so it’s a little hard to say For sure, yeah, there is an I don’t believe there is a downside, other than a slight, you know, slightly lower ability to lease water.

1:30:10
Are there other lease sees potential leases out there that would replace our current leases. So like, people calling you all the time and you’re like, oh, sorry, we don’t have any more leases available? Or is it? No,

1:30:24
there used to get a lot of calls, but we haven’t gotten calls for quite a while. I wouldn’t be very hard pressed to lease all six of the NW water very hard. By, you know, on the margin, I think bliss, a bunch of just dumped off. We just wanted to do, you know, do our best effort. And, and then, but on the other hand, we don’t want you know, we really felt this was a policy issue or what, what the community wants, we feel this is what the community wants these these restrictions. Other than the tenure, right? We might want to take the Lord’s Okay, well, the new app enter into the agreement, but slightly more convenient for you. If somebody wants it. I know Central

1:31:27
10 years there was a issue with that with my get my acronym out, but it was at a PRP, PRP or whatever. What is it? I’m sorry? The power folks that we have a lease with, right? There was a long it was a longer the Oh, yeah, okay. Yes, go? Yeah. Yes. Got it ties thing. For a long time. I remember him always mentioning this the length of this lease. And there was I can’t remember exact details. But we do have something there. That was a contention. Yes.

1:32:05
We have that exchange agreement as part of our water supply. The lease was a 75 year lease entered into about four years ago. So because about a 50 year lease, but it has a 15 year, opt out either party can opt out with a 15 year notice the other so tots and I told Dan what it is. And that’s really a 15 year lease.

1:32:34
And it was it was deemed as a benefit to us. Yeah. And so we needed to it’s really an

1:32:42
exchange. Yeah. And we exchange they give us CBD water. We give them a fluid.

1:32:50
So pit in our supply plan. We were counting that as real

1:32:53
water. Yeah, yeah. It’s 15 years. Right.

1:32:57
Yeah. And that’s that was the contention is how should it be counted? Got? No, was there in something apparently funky. Okay. And before the duration, it sounds like duration, but it was mostly that letter, not just supply

1:33:11
it a lot of water comes out of union reservoir. And so we still have that, whether it’s the effluent or immunity reservoir, we still have that water. And we could do a different type of change, or we can build. So we would, you know, part of the thought is, it doesn’t go away, water didn’t go away. We just a lot harder for us to use it. We’d have to figure out how to use that water in our system, you know, to exchange it for me to be able to use it. Anyway, hopefully I

1:33:49
still, if nothing changes, it’s not going to be the end of the world.

1:33:56
Not at all. I’m kind of hearing a little okay, if we bring something slightly longer in 10 years, I’ll try not to do 20 or 30. But, you know, some, but other than that, I think we’re if everybody’s okay with keeping the policies the way they are. We’ll we’ll go out we’ll see if we can lease more water. And if we can’t, we can always look at it again.

1:34:22
We’ll find that out. Dan, you’ve been listening. You still there? Yep. Any comments?

1:34:30
No, I’m good with not much of this. I know. There are certainly advantages to a tenant to have those longer leases, especially when they add property, capital equipment, investments on those properties. So I’m good with monitor.

1:34:47
I don’t I don’t have a problem with something longer than 10 years longer. Okay. I mean, you just cited fiasco. I mean, that’s a long lease. I think he’s in favor of I mean, good for both of us. So I don’t have a problem with that, but we don’t change anything else. I don’t have any problem with that either. Okay, cool. Anybody else? All right. Do you get an answer from us? Did you get an answer?

1:35:17
I did? Yes. No, I absolutely did. Yeah, that’s exactly what I wanted. Just the conversation is very helpful to

1:35:23
me. All right. Are you still here? Boy, you’ve been awfully quiet today.

1:35:34
Do you want to hear from the special guests first, so they can have their like full presentation? Because I can present in a different meeting, if you’d rather. Do you want to hear from our special guests first, because and then we can postpone my presentation. I want to make sure that they have enough time to well, your conversation,

1:35:57
you think they should go first? I don’t see anybody arguing that. Well, we do that.

1:36:06
Can you guys? Yeah, that’s fine. Others pulling up the quick presentation here. So I’m Joel Hall, ski engineering operations administrator. And Holly along with the senior civil engineers here also, we’re seeing give a couple of updates on a couple of projects. So I’ll be talking about the forebay. And then also planners water treatment plant, Holly, we’ll be talking about the Mersey, Ferny pipeline rehab, just a couple of challenging projects that we’re taking on right now. So just a couple of pictures you can see here. So on the left is the picture of the the reservoir, the forebay. Nelson Flanders is kind of to the lower, lower right corner, that same picture, the treatment facility. So basically, the forebay was put into operation when Nelson Flanders was constructed in 2005. And it’s never really been taken down since that time. And we started to notice some algae coming into the planet, not too much taste and odor issues, more operational issues, and it’s clogging some of our equipment. So when the facility was constructed, there is a form of a bypass pipeline that goes kind of more on the south side of the, of the reservoir and into the plant, so that we can take it down. Again, it’s just different operations than what we’ve been used to out there. So it was operationally challenging, we don’t have the storage of that format. And that format also allows us to, you know, paste the flow coming into the planet a lot easier. It mixes all of our raw water sources. So it’s just a really nice feature. So basically, for the past two months, we’ve been in this bypass to drain it. And you can see on the right hand side there, just a snapshot of some of the algae that we’re seeing in there pretty much covered the entire bottom. So it’s fairly extensive. And it’s been dried out now a couple of months. But in the meantime, up along the north side of the forebay, there’s a supply ditch there. And there’s also a feature of the of the forebay. At dam structure, a toe drain, that toe drain is supposed to intercept any leakage any water. And give us some sign that there’s some sort of an issue with the forebay. We do have some seepage up on that north side, we’ve had it for probably the past 10 years. But there wasn’t anything coming through that toe during so even in the yearly inspections by the state dam engineer, you know, something to keep an eye on make sure that we weren’t saturating the northern side of that dam slope or anything. And we were carrying that water away, but we didn’t think it was coming from the forebay. Well, since this was the first time we took it down, and since it was first operated, that seepage did go away. So we notified the state engineer, and we’re currently working on solutions. If you go to the next slide, so there were a couple of holes. And you can see the one on the right fairly significant, basically the design of the forebay there was a 16 inch clay liner when it was first constructed. So you can see that 16 inches is that on the right hand side that show handle and everything. It’s probably you know, three to four feet down. And on the left, it doesn’t really show that one’s not quite as deep but a couple of feet deep, where it definitely goes through The claim minor. So we don’t know if these are the only issues we’re kind of in the process of investigating it with our consultant. But this is just a big challenge for the for the operations up there right now dealing with, you know, without being able to use the forebay. For our, for all the reasons we have been using it. And we’ll we’ll see, we’re, we’re actually out there tomorrow to investigate these holes, dig to see what the the the underlying subgrade is like, and how the water is being carried away. There’s some short term improvements we’re looking at making to so that we can put it online in the short term that the state engineer is okay with. So, you know, we’ll probably be providing more updates as we get further along with this. But just one of the challenges where we took it down for algae, and we found that there were, you know, some of the causes for for some of the leaks out there from this forebay. So, got to take care of them.

1:41:05
So how long has this been out of commission, two months now?

1:41:10
Two months, and so again, not the most ideal time period to be doing this, you know, with the runoff and everything that’s, you know, snow melt, our peak demands, obviously go on through the summer time, but it’s also we’re learning a lot about facilities operations, what what it can do, we just have to be more in tune on a daily basis of, you know, turbidity, and everything coming in from the, from the raw water sources, because we used to be able to attenuate all those in the forebay, whereas now it’s kind of coming more directly into the facility. So

1:41:48
putting that back in operations, somewhere in the future, or

1:41:54
else you want to Yeah, let’s see what we find. We’re having discussions with the state engineer right now, on doing some near term improvements on the north side, where that seepage was some less expensive options that they’re comfortable with. So that we can continue to evaluate, we would like to fill this after we repair these holes and just see what that did to the leakage. And take it step by step because the long term solution may be, you know, a little bit more expensive than what we’re doing just in the short term. But this is a jurisdictional dam. So there is some risk to the facility, you know, if there were some sort of a break, you know, the facility and there’s some, there’s some downstream residents too, as you get closer to highway 66. But you know, it, we’ve had this leakage for 10 years, it has steadily gotten a little bit worse over that time period. But we’ll see what we find as we continue to investigate.

1:43:01
But any questions while you’re applying, resolve the issues as you see them? And, yeah,

1:43:12
we’re working with a consultant in the state, you know, dam engineer, so we’re working as a team to try to figure out the best path forward, take it step by step, figure out what’s going on with all the geotechnical information in here. You

1:43:28
know, this is not directly related to this, but I have to ask the question that we kept hearing about changing the capacity of the plant. Is that something that is kind of on the sideline, or anything?

1:43:45
So the expansion project, so that has been delayed because of the cost escalation? So again, we had the original estimates from our consultant to expand Nelson planters. And the reason for that expansion. The driver was really Asset Management way ganas is another plant that we have that was built back in the early 80s. That has structural issues and operational issues. So we’re, you know, basically take that capacity, so build that plant at Nelson Flanders because Nelson planters was always built with expansion in mind. So it was replacing existing infrastructure. Again, Gasperini Nelson Flanders. Again, the original estimates were in the $50 million range back in 2019. Again, through what we’ve seen in the economy from 2020 to 2023. We’re in design for that and saw in real time because we had we were doing that project delivery design build. So we had a contractor in the room with the consultant the engineer costs increased have basically the same scope and project to $97 million. So similar percentages of what we’re seeing on other projects, just this one is such a huge dollar amount that percentage really ballooned. So Montgomery tank, which is at the corner of North 53rd, and highway 66, was another parallel project we were wanting to take care of, we can still afford that project. So Council kind of, we did a CIP amendment in November last year, to move a lot of money from Nelson Flanders into Montgomery tank to take care of that project. First, see where we stand after we get that project completed, and see what additional funding we’re going to need for for, you know, Burton getting that weight. Yes. capacity over to Nelson plan. Yes.

1:45:51
still usable.

1:45:54
Is it usable? It’s it’s still sits on your line, it’s there. You know, we do need to put some money into it to make sure that we haven’t operated that since 2011.

1:46:07
You wouldn’t put my we weren’t we hadn’t

1:46:08
been putting money into it, because the decision was made to put the capacity over at Nelson Flanders. So we’re juggling a lot. All right. All right. And then Holly will talk about her project, the nursing pipeline, landing burger. Yeah.

1:46:28
So in addition to the warming down, I’ve taken down the foresight frame pipeline, for lining project and this project. It’s actually a fairly short section of pipeline, about 1600 feet, and it’s located near the intersection of Highway 36, and six, near Lyons, it’s actually aligning project instead of an open cut replacement project. And as you can see from this aerial, it’s because there’s just a lot of stuff that we would have to deal with, we have to deal with CDOT right away, we’d have to deal with a creek, you’d have to deal with ditches. We have property owners who have houses, we have large trees, we have potential endangered species. So there’s just a lot of things that we would potentially have to deal with. And so that’s why we do a lighting project, which is an interior. Interior we have. Next slide, please. Here’s the design. And the difference between kind of replacing digging up replacing all of the pipeline versus how we’re doing it. Now. We have three different excavation sites, we can click. So the great thing is, is that we only have three excavation sites, these are permanent pits, as part of the project, we do have to to temporary pits, because we have some problems with the pipe that we figured out, we have to actually dig down to an external repair. And one location, we’re not able to do a robot internal repair at that location, there is another place where we have a 24 inch tee, we have actually cut that out. And I’ll show you a slide or picture that excavation site in a couple more slides. But if you’re, you’re gonna, but as you can see from the previous slide, the whole idea is to really reduce the amount that we’re actually disturbing in this area. So your next slide. So how do we know that this pipe is bad? Last year, we actually did. We dug down in our mid pits at the middle pit, that center pit, we cut a window into the pipe, we send a robot camera upstream and downstream. And the goal is to figure out whether or not the line would be a good alternative, as well as to try and find cracks and holes like you see on the right hand side. So we know that this pipe needs help. And that that lining is hopefully going to help prevent things like on that on the very right hand side. So this was taken while the pipeline is down. And so that’s just groundwater reentering basically water that whenever this pipeline was operating at 90 pounds, basically would have been just shooting out of the pipe. So once we took the pipeline down the water that we that was exiting our pipe whenever it was under pressure and online just started coming back in. And next slide. In addition to that interior inspection, we also have our property owners in this section of pipe we’ve had three different leaks surface within the last few months. Nice ponding pooling, you actually see some nice bubbling action there on the surface. So we know that this pipe really does it does have a lot of holes in it and that they’ll mining project is this going to be really helpful for for this section of pipe. Next slide. We’ve been doing this project for since roughly the beginning of June, it’s going to be about three months long. So hopefully, kind of like Jim was talking about coming back and telling you about the forebay. In a few months, hopefully, I’ll be able to come back and give you a little more information as we progress through the project, just a few slides to show that the size of the excavations that were our permanent excavations that we’re dealing with, as well as just a look within those pits as well, what we’re doing the one like the one with the yellow, that is actually one where we welded on a flange, that’s one of our permanent pits. And so that is where either the liners getting coming in. Basically, we have the three pits, and the liners are going from the initial pit or the beginning pit to the middle pit. And then we have a second liner that’s going from the middle pit to the to the final pit, we’re not able to line an entire section at one time, we got to do it in two sections, because it is a 24 inch pipe. So there are limitations scope link that we can actually line at one time. And then the rightmost photograph is where we actually had to cut out a 24 inch T, we’re not able to line through the T so we had to cut out the T and put it in a straight section of pipe. And that’s we haven’t gotten that far on the project. But we are we are making progress. And hopefully next time, I’ll be able to come back and show you some pictures of our robot that’s gonna go in and grind down, we have plugs within the we know that we have holes, they’ve been plugged in the past or they’ll go in and grind down those plugs. We also the robot will also go in and grout holes to prevent water for water that’s coming in now that will go in and grout those those areas, hopefully be able to give you some of those photos as well as lining actually being installed. And

1:52:23
so generally projects at NUS at the same time.

1:52:30
Structure one of the ramifications when they sent me permission.

1:52:37
So again, operationally without the forebay it makes operations more difficult at the planet, we do have three other sources coming into the plant. The original fun was why would we take this down during peak flow in the summertime? Well, we have all of our sources available in the summertime, whereas in the wintertime, we don’t. Okay. So that’s why we are doing it now. Just because we have some redundancies that we wouldn’t have in quote peak winter time period. But yeah, just makes things a little bit more operationally challenging at the at the treatment facility. But we have some good good operators and we’ve changed some programming around to for how we’re operating right now. And we’re using some island dish so we haven’t used and those pumps and we’ve made some improvements to that system and the flow here which is working really well for giving us good flow data. So there’s some positives that have come out of this learn good good a good learning experience.

1:53:39
So you are going to come back at another date. And that’s when you’re sure you’re going to take mine

1:53:46
I think towards the end of summer would probably be best when we are done with the North Sea marine project and we should we should really know where we’re at what the path forward is on for bed that one too. And I can also hopefully give you a good update on Forest Park

1:53:59
and got a lot of good things coming in. So I think we’re

1:54:03
gonna make it really busy.

1:54:10
So towards the end of the summer, August September timeframe.

1:54:16
Any questions? Dan, any questions?

1:54:25
There Roger, I’m good. Thank you.

1:54:28
You’re coming back to Longmont dam they’re all summer don’t worry about it. Okay, anything else? So hopefully you want to check it out

1:54:51
to go all right. So just wanted to come and update you guys that we had our first annual hopefully Daniel Lanois Water fair. Whatever is kind of boggles my mind

1:55:22
No, it’s the one pager the presentation. Yeah. That’s okay, I’ll start talking. So um, we basically decided to host something similar to the Water Festival that we used to have with the fifth grade in this in the school district. But we wanted to make it a community wide event. We’re going to intergenerational folks, and aligned with the city’s commitment for Responsible water management and stewardship. We wanted to create something that educates the community about where our water comes from, where it goes, and why we should care. So our main goal is to, like I said, an intergenerational event based on the statewide water education action plan, and the city of Walmart’s water efficiency plan. We also really wanted to get feedback on our efficiency plan, update, and I wanted to try something new. And by not doing like a community open house and kind of getting it as like a family event and then getting folks who are already at that family event to give us feedback on our update. We also wanted this to be not a regular resource fair, we wanted it to be focused on it’s not another I said to you, oh, she emails, no worries. I’m focused on hands on kinesthetic and art focused learning. So we integrated some local artists and performances including an Aztec era water blessing, local inter interpretive dancing, and African drumming. And again, our main objective is to educate attendees about global water Colorado water law, Mount water and water conservation and how folks can interact with water in a more in a more efficient way. So our main goals, the increased knowledge of local water sources, watersheds and their relationships we have I have a photo so I’m going to keep talking but I do want you guys to see that Yeah, I know you’re gonna head there no worries. And then on this one pager, we’ve got our short term outcomes, the increased knowledge of local water sources and their relationships, those types of things and then on this third page is the learning objectives that we identified as a team it’s scroll down

1:58:08
it’s not me

1:58:17
yeah

1:58:25
here’s the presentation. I found it Okay, thank you so much. So we identified a handful of learning objectives and then strategically selected partners to educate the the attendees on each station that those handful of learning objectives sorry, you’re good I gotta share so jam can see

1:59:04
and our theme was journey waters journey from mountain to home. Here are some images the about you know, the Aztec yo dancing and water blessing, really hands on kinesthetic learning. Got a watershed example on the bottom left down there. And then the bottom right is my favorite, the CVT system, so the kids are carrying water through the outlet tunnel. So that’s pretty cool. Next couple of slides are short term outcome increased knowledge of local water sources, watersheds and their relationships. We have a giant interactive mural of the Stanford watershed where folks can draw what they think live in the watershed and be a part of actively being in the watershed. Excellent. increased knowledge of human behaviors impacting global water, health and constant nation. Very interactive models we had keep it clean partnership and the city of Longmont floodplain management that was their slide for the station. increased social capital really wanting to get folks together in one place. One of the highlights is that we have between 400 to 500 people attending the event, which is double what we expected. So definitely achieved that social capital goal. Increased time at local watersheds, we held the event, Dickens farm nature area, so the kids got to get right down into the water, it was high flow. So we didn’t let them get in the water. But we let them look at it. increased knowledge of how waterside across vocations and cultures, we really wanted, you can go to the next one, we really wanted folks to understand that. Water is a global phenomenon that connects us all. So how other cultures value and participate in water. Water in their cultures is important, important goal. We can glaze over these because they’re in our one pager. But these are just all of our event partners that we have their next couple of slides will just skip over these. Every back one so sorry, every everything was translated and we had Spanish interpretated interpreters live at the event. So if any families wanted, needed a language Justice Assistance, we had those there, that they could follow them around to each station. We I hire grassroot art organizers to help me plan it. So it was really grassroots and really feel fueled by community and cultural influencers, which is really special. And I think why it was such a success. One of the cool things that we did was, we did some data collection before the water fair. So our two critical water issues we wanted each person to walk away knowing was what percentage of Earth’s freshwater is available for use, and what what watershed do we live in. And the light blue is what folks answered in April at Earth Day. And then the dark blue is how folks answered correct way after the water fair. So we can see that our education impacts were successful. These are just highlights, like I mentioned, between four and 500 attendees, all the languages spoken by family, mostly English and Spanish. But we also had Russian Hebrew, Mandarin and Portuguese speakers, the average age of kid and there was age seven. And we we created these scavenger hunts for folks, each each family got the scavenger hunt, then they came in. And like I said, each state should have a learning objective. So they were able to track their learning objectives through the scavenger hunt. And then the last page of the survey, it’s also highlighted on the back of this one one pager was where we collected data. So what percentage of freshwater is available for use, what watershed do we live in, and then other demographic information, which is how we got the average age and which languages they speak, and 68% of attendees contributed to the survey. So that’s definitely 68% contributed to the survey, which is extremely higher than most participation in public surveys.

2:03:52
You know, that’s huge.

2:03:55
And then here are just some highlight photos. One of the cool things is it’s an I just wanted to highlight the partnership that we can have when we collaborate with art and science. I just feel like it’s much more impactful. And so the top left is the sculpture of how 115 gallons, which is the gross gallons per capita per day in Longmont so people can actually visualize that we’ve got our artists are as Taqiyya water blessing. And then the two dot matrix are what I collected at my station. Just for our efficiency master plan, update on what types of rebates folks most want to see, and then what type of landscapes they would like us to pursue most and as you can see, well we got a wide range of feedback on our rebates, which is great, but the landscape choice was a clear landslide winner for zero scape waterwise landscaping. So now we know that when we decided to update our design standards and codes that are Um, the public is in favor.

2:05:03
Okay, it was this. This was June

2:05:06
9, last weekend, two weeks, two weeks ago. And we’re working. It was a Dickens farm nature area. I didn’t tell you before, because the permit didn’t get approved until like the week of. So I was slightly scared. It wasn’t going to happen all the way up until like the Monday that happened.

2:05:28
She was not very fun to be around

2:05:37
it was a little stressful. But I feel like this is a testament to the success of taking no.

2:05:49
I mean, I mean, you had double the 10 minutes that you expected. While no one while not really advertising.

2:05:58
We were doing some community outreach, but I have to be extra careful.

2:06:03
So it was

2:06:05
because you didn’t have the right. Story.

2:06:12
But still really good. It’s fantastic, right? Yeah, yeah. No,

2:06:15
it’s annual. And next year, we have a little sooner than then advertise it. Maybe I mean, plan for a lot. loads more people.

2:06:25
Yeah, yeah. And I think, yeah, I mean, like I said, it was double what we expected it to be. And it didn’t feel like it didn’t feel crowded. A lot of the feedback, we asked for a lot of feedback. And some of the feedback was like, even though there was so many people there didn’t feel crowded. Because we got we were outside and we were in nature. And I think people were cycling through pretty quickly. So it was yeah, it was better than I ever could have imagined it to be. And honestly, I attest that to partnering with the local art artists to help me plan it. Because they were really if I played it, it would have been like a seminar. Like slides and maps, but like this was so great. You know, the kids and the hula hoops. And like, everything was really hands on. And I think the kids learned a lot. So it was super fun. Yeah, thanks.

2:07:30
All right. That’d be nice. Other questions for him? Good job. After five, just yeah, you want to shoot for me? Next time. All right. I think that pretty much covers it. Just

2:07:54
wanted to note the July meeting, we may cancel that we don’t have any action items. Yeah, that’s only three weeks away. So

2:08:06
why don’t we go just cash and take a month off. When it is okay. Well, you’ll let us know. Let me know. Okay. I just wanted to give you a heads. Anybody else have any comments or when? Dan anything else is good. All right, we need to adjourn

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