PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY DISTRICT #13
Minutes of the March 11, 2009
Regular Session of the Board of Trustees

The Board of Directors of Public Water District #13, Jefferson County Missouri met in regular session at 7:10 p.m. on March 11, 2009 at the Lake Tishomingo Community Center, Hillsboro, Missouri.

Roll Call of Directors
The following Directors being present or absent as indicated:
	Name	Present/Absent
	Marilyn Meyer	Present
	Rich Hirsch	Present
	Rick Lippitt	Present
	John Hindrichs	Present
	Ken Jost	Present

Also in attendance was Mary Leiweke (sewer cmte), Janet Hirsch (JWH, LTPOA Board member), and Tim Robbs (TR, Taylor Eng.).
Approval of Agenda
Motion was made by John Hindrichs and seconded by Ken Jost to accept the agenda. On voice vote, all Directors were in favor of accepting the agenda.

Approval of Minutes of Past Meetings
The Minutes of the February 25, 2009 regular session meeting were emailed to the Directors prior to the meeting. Motion was made by John Hindrichs to approve the Minutes as written. Second was by Rick Lippitt. On voice vote, the Minutes were approved.
Treasurer’s Report
Marilyn reported that as of Feb. 11, 2009, PWSD #13 owes:
•	Hillsboro Title for title commitment: $200
•	Taylor engineering: $58,270.41 (billing is 70% complete)
•	Floyd Norrick: $7830 (last bill received on Feb 28)
On the Norrick bill, we were billed $360 for the January, 2009 period for work on easements.
RH: I thought we finished the easement work in Dec?
JWH: We did get an email from FN in mid-Jan. about the temporary electrical easement. Floyd responded to an old email from Traci Newberry (MDNR) that used the subject "temp. easement." That's probably what he's charging us for.
MM: We sent out his termination letter on Jan. 22, so this should be his last charge to the District.

Old Business
Administrative issues
Resolution for election
RH read a resolution that directors for subdistricts 1 and 2 would be elected at the April 7, 2009 election. The resolution is attached. Motion made by Rich Hirsch to approve the resolution, seconded by Ken Jost. On voice vote, motion passed. Since there were two openings and only two candidates filed with the County Clerk for the election, the election will not be held. 
Legal Service Agreement 
This was postponed until the April meeting.
Files from previous attorney
RH: I sent a letter to Mr. Norrick (FN) on Feb. 12, 2009 requesting the return of PWSD#13's files. I made a follow-up telephone call on Wed. Feb. 4 and spoke to Mary, FN's assistant. She said he would be in later that day and that I would hear something on Wed. or Thurs. Having heard nothing, I called on Fri. Feb. 6 and again spoke to Mary. She seemed surprised FN had not called me back. On Mon. Feb. 9 I emailed our attorney, Bob Sweeney, asking him to recommend a course of action. As of today there is still no word from FN regarding our files.
Review of documents to be mailed before Apr. 4 public meeting
Easement agreement, Cover letter, & Brochure
JWH handed out the latest draft of the electrical easement agreement. The document was discussed. The only major change was from "owner must provide the electrical circuit" to "owner has the right to provide the electrical circuit." This change was made because at the March meeting, the Board decided that power for the effluent pump would primarily come off of the electric meter base, rather than a homeowner-installed circuit. The revised document was sent to Bob for his approval. 
TR: My only concern is, suppose we have a contractor ready to install the electric circuit and the homeowner comes out and says, "Wait, I'm going to install that circuit". At what point does the homeowner lose the right to install the circuit?.
JWH: The electric circuit will have to be installed by a given date we will specify in the rules and regulations.
RH: I would strike the whole paragraph from the easement document. As I understand it, the purpose of the electrical easement is to allow us to put a control box on an owner's house. I don't think this paragraph helps us or hurts us, so why not leave it out?
MM: Maybe we should ask Bob if "the right to provide" language will be a problem and accept whatever he says.

JWH distributed the latest draft of the cover letter. It had been changed to reflect the electrical hookup options. The document was discussed and revised. 
JH pointed out that the phrase "or use an existing circuit" did not require a circuit that was dedicated (not shared). Also, as it was stated, the circuit could simply be an outdoor receptacle. 
TR: How about changing it to "or use an existing dedicated circuit that meets or exceeds the District's specifications."
KJ: How about adding "it is imperative that this electrical circuit be installed in a timely manner to avoid delays to the construction schedule?"
Those and other changes were made.

JWH distributed the latest draft of the brochure. It had been changed to reflect the electrical hookup options. The document was discussed and revised.

Other discussions
JH:  When Ameren UE (AUE) says that a house's electrical service must be brought up to code, does it mean just changing the meter socket or putting a whole new panel in somebody's house?
TR: When I talked to the AUE guy the first time, it wasn't about going into the house and changing the panel.  It was about going into the house if the meter base was too low or too high or the wire was too short. But that would be as far as you would go into the house.
TR: The primary option, hooking the effluent pump up to the meter base, is the worst case and we will have to define what "bringing up to code" means. We really don't have a choice. Whatever AUE requires is what we'll have to do to get power to the pump.

KJ:  On the drawings you brought that show how each house will be connected to the sewer, are they negotiable with the owners?
TR: I would say, within reason they are. If we lay out a route that's 250 ft and they lay out a different route that's 280 ft, that's probably okay. But if their route is 400 feet, they'll have to pay for that extra 150 ft.

RH: Tim, did you ask Donna about giving rebates for homeowner's that install their own electrical circuit?
TR: Yes, she said that grant funds will not be used for rebates.

RL: Someone asked me if he could keep the tank and pump he currently has. They're relatively new.
TR: We can possibly reuse the tank, but not the pump. An aeration pump is low flow, low pressure. Our pumps are high flow, high pressure. We may be able to use the existing tank if it's a relatively new, 1000-gallon concrete tank and we can verify that it's solid. We'll have to decide that for each house. If the old tank is usable, we'll just pull the old pump out and put the new pump in. The new pump has adjustable mounting brackets to fit a number of tank configurations.
RH: Will the district be responsible for replacing that tank if, in the future there is a problem?
TR: It would, if the homeowner signed over the ownership of the tank to the district. That will have to be worked out. The tanks we will install will be concrete.  We've talked to people about the composite and fiberglass tanks and we've not had a lot of good feedback on those tanks.
JH: The District will have to certify any tank before it is reused.
TR: Yes. We will have our inspector out here. He will probably go ahead of the contractor and check out the old tanks. We also talked about taking out the old tank and installing the new tank in its place, if there is a lot of rock.

JH: We should remind people that they need to have their gray-water lines tied into the sewer system.
TR: It's very difficult to tell if a homeowner has a gray-water line. We need to get that information from the homeowner. We should put into the brochure that those lines need to be tied into the sewer line. If tied in later, the homeowner will have to pay to connect. 

Funding Update
MM reported that the District received a letter from Joe Boland, Director of MDNR Financial Assistance Center telling us that they have received our application for Clean Water Stimulus Funding. Funding of our project will be based on priority points. We don't know if the priority point calculation is based on the new or the old formula.

New Business
Public meeting planning
An outline was presented:
•	Introduction of the District engineers
•	Engineer's presentation about collection system and WWTP
•	Explanation of easement agreement

JWH: I think the engineers are going to be the main presenters at this meeting. I don't think the board should set itself up as technical experts. We've got experts who can answer questions and describe the system. The board members should be acting as the hosts. Marilyn should be running the meeting and she should introduce the sewer and LTPOA board members and guests.

TR: Let us sell the system first. We'll tell them what we're doing and try to get the homeowners comfortable with it. I'll try to have the Orenco folks bring a pump and pump vault. 
MM: If you can't get the real thing, bring pictures.
TR: I'll also bring the most recent connection maps for table- or wall-mounting.
JWH: We'll have an overhead projector and a multimedia projector with a laptop input.
TR: I would prefer to use the multimedia projector.

RH: One purpose of this meeting is to make it easier for a homeowner to sign and return the easement agreement. Owners will have seen the easement agreement before the meeting, but they won't know what we mean by an "electrical connection system," for example. So I think we need to have someone walk the homeowner through the agreement and explain it in some detail. Also, some of the "It is understood" paragraphs may need to be explained. I think Bob is the best one to do this with help from Tim.
JWH: Ann Schatzman will be at the Apr. 4 meeting to notarize the easement forms. The forms must be notarized to be recorded by the County Recorder of Deeds. Only the homeowner's signature needs to be notarized, not a District director's signature.
RH: I'd like to have Ann introduced early, so if people don't want to wait until the end of the meeting, they can just sign their easement agreement and leave early. 
TR: You don't want to make people feel pressured that they need to sign the easement that day.
MM: We may want a handout available that describes the three options for the electrical connection. 
RH: One problem is that we may not have enough specifics to make a handout worthwhile. At this point it may be better to just tell them the three options verbally.

TR: We should have index cards available for homeowners to write questions and write down problems with tank or lateral line placement. Answers can be posted on the website, in the newsletter, or delivered to the person that asked the question.
Mary Leiweke said she would bring the index cards.

The Board decided the best way to handle questions was to address them at the end of the presentations. 
The evening of Saturday March 21 was selected as the date to assemble the mailing. 

Wednesday April 1 was chosen as the date to finalize what we will do at the Apr. 4 meeting. We will meet at 10 a.m. on Saturday April 4 to discuss the plan for the 11 a.m. meeting.

Attorney’s Report
There was no attorney’s report 

Engineer’s Report
There was no engineer’s report
Adjournment
There being no other formal business to come before the Board, a motion to adjourn was made by Rick Lippitt and seconded by John Hindrichs at 9:14 p.m. Motion passed with all Directors in approval.

Respectfully Submitted,

Rich Hirsch
Recording Secretary

Approved this 13th day of May 2009.

___________________________	_________________________________
Secretary	Chairman
May 13, 2009