Jul 10, 2017 Public Utilities Board on 2017-07-10 9:00 AM

public utilities board meeting to order. It's nine o'clock and we have scheduled work session prior to the regular meeting so we'll just jump right into the work session with item A which is to receive a report and hold a discussion on the proposed electric ordinance for fiscal year 17-18. I believe Jessica Rogers is going to take this. Good. Good morning board members. I've got a very quick presentation on the electric rate review for our proposal for FY 2018. So we'll go over pretty quickly our very small number of changes only two rates within the actual rate book is where you'll see that one percent decrease and that's achieved by doing a decrease in our ECA rate and a small increase in our TCRF rate and I'll go over those and more specifics as we go. I'll go through a couple of our average customer billing so you'll be able to see what our customers will see on their bills and we do have one minor change in our residential time of use in the structure of that it's very minimal and then we'll go over the next steps and what I will say is that you'll see a lot of changes in the in the red line version of the rate book and you'll probably go what do you mean you're only changing two rates. Most of those changes were clar ifications and consistency changes we were trying to standardize language and be consistent in definitions throughout the rate book so the majority of changes that you'll see are going to just be language clarifications. Okay in terms of the rates themselves the base rates are going to remain unchanged that includes the facility charge or usage charge all of those are going to stay the same as they were from previous years. We'll have an overall one percent decrease to the rate schedules which is accomplished by having a reduction in the ECA rate. We're proposing that rate I'm not sure the exact date but we'll be coming back with those separately and the percent decrease you'll see in the few examples that I give will actually vary depending on the rate class that you're in and then there's a very small small less than what is that ten seven ten thousandths of a cent increase in the TCRF for our KWH customers. This is an example of our average residential customer and what you'll see here is that they'll have about a dollar and thirty three cent decrease in their bill which is just over one percent and the only lines where you 'll see those changes are in that ECA rate you'll see that go from thirty six dollars and ten cents down to thirty four dollars and ten cents and then the very slight increase in the TCRF. This is an average general service small customer and they'll see those same two changes now you will see at the bottom that the TCRF rate does vary by rate class in this case they have a slightly different rate than the KWH customer sorry then sorry this one's the same sorry this is a KWH customer so they'll have that same TCRF rate but you'll see again that adjustment in the ECA and the TCRF for about a one percent reduction in their overall bill. This is an average general service medium customer and their bill will go down by one point three percent about eighteen dollars and again the only place you see the change is the ECA and the TCRF and there's where you'll see one of the TCRF rate changes that's slightly different and then our average general service large customer will see a reduction of just under six hundred dollars about two point four percent and again the only places that you'll see those changes are in the ECA and the TCRF rate. So are there any questions? Yes ma'am would you give us an example of like what this customer would be in Denton and the various ones rather than just... Sure our general service large customers are going to be those customers that are I believe over I believe it 's over a thousand kill one megawatt type of customers so the the city the universities large manufacturing WNCO target those those types of customers are all general service large customers. And then the others what? General service medium are going to be slightly smaller it's going to be not maybe some industrial but not necessarily a big industrial. Just give me an example. I couldn't tell you one off the top of my head. Okay. Sorry. Okay what would what would mine be just a family using? A residential. I realize that would help which one of these does that? Oh that first one. Okay. The residential. Okay thank you. Sure. Okay any other questions on the rate impacts? And the larger percentage decrease for the large is that to get it to cost of service is that? It actually is based on a different type of charge so our larger customers have demand charges and so that's where you're seeing a different impact. Okay. And offset a little bit by the TCRF rate is it higher? Yes their TCRF rate is applied based on their demand not on their KWH usage. Okay any other questions? No? Okay the one minor change you'll see in the residential time of use rate we did have this set up in last year's rate book it hasn't been implemented yet. We expect it to be ready for implementation in January of 2018. As we've gone through the implementation we realized that we needed to make sure that the rate schedule and the way that this rate was applied matched with the way our metering system works so you'll see that there are changes in the times and they're very small. They 're one minute changes so what used to be 7 a.m. on peak is now 7 o 1 a.m. a little switched on week so that's just to match how the metering system reads and we want to make sure that when we implement this that our metering system and our billing system match and so we're able to process the rate. Okay our next steps will be coming back on the 24th with the rate ordinance for your consideration and then in August we'll be going to the City Council and then September we anticipate the council will be reviewing and considering the rate ordinance so I'm happy to answer any questions you have about the changes. Questions? No? Don't hear any? See any? Okay thank you. Okay next item we have is B and Dr. Kenny Banks is going to lead us in that discussion. Talk about water, wastewater and miscellaneous fees ordinances. Good morning everyone. Real quickly want to walk through the the water, wastewater and miscellaneous fees. As you're aware we're doing a zero rate increase this year and so the bulk of the fees are going to remain the same so our residential and commercial rates are going to be unchanged from the prior year. The water tap and meter fee ordinance if you recall we went over that during the May 22nd 2017 PUB and got a recommendation for approval on that. I'm actually scheduled to take that forward to to council on July the 18th for the council approval and so we've included it in the red line just so that we incorporated those changes that we're we're suggesting that y'all recommended for approval. The wholesale rates we are making some slight adjustments on. The WW wholesale rate is the wholesale treated for the upper Trinity regional water district and basically we're recommending a 3% increase in that based on a cost of service. We've got some upcoming transmission projects in 2018 that are going to have an influence on that cost of service and you see that reflected in the current rate versus proposed at the 3% across the board for for the WW rate. The wholesale raw is a contractual agreement with the upper Trinity and you'll notice that the two values are the same but we have an asterisk there. The the value is modified based on the Dallas water rate of that particular year and so their current rate is 0.9120 per 1, 000 gallons and this is 85% of that number which is what we're contract ually obligated to provide. We do expect that number to change but we won't know that until a little bit later in the year and so we just wanted to know that this number will likely change but it's uncertain at this point how much. It will be 85% of whatever Dallas adopts. And then the wholesale raw water pass through the WCL rate is basically for the Lake Chapman water pass through through Lake Louisville for upper Trinity. Basically that number is adjusted again contractually by the consumer price index every year. It's based on the CPI as of June 30 but we do not get that that information until almost a month later and so those of you that have been on the board a while we bring both of these values back after we have the information and provide it to you when that information is in hand and we've done those calculations. So just want to note that those two will change we just don't know by how much at this point. And that's pretty much it for water. We happy to answer any questions on water or we can move on to wastewater. I don't see any questions. Okay on the wastewater residential and commercial rates are also unchanged from last year. Schedule CWM which is the dyno dirt products. We actually have a product or a it's it's really a waste product from dyno dirt called the the overs. Basically what this is is when the yard material is shredded up it's run through a 3/8 inch screen. The larger material that doesn't go through that screen is then essentially a product that they don't use for any further processes in the in the mulch and basically it is stored on site. Every now and then it'll be used for a few odds and ends issues associated with solid waste but for the most part this is just simply a waste product. We actually have a an interested party for buying this from us and so we did a cost-to-service analysis very quickly. This material is moved from the composting operation which you can see kind of up here where those windrows are at over to this large area that is on the right of that green pond. If you can see that area right there essentially that entire section is nothing but piles of this overs material that has been accumulating for years . It cost us a dollar eighty seven per cubic yard to actually move that material from one side to the other and so we are proposing two dollar per cubic yard for loaded at the windrow sites. So that is the modification for CWM. We did a substantial revision to the collection and transportation services the SWP fee schedule. That fee schedule used to be administered by solid waste and was moved over to the pre treatment department a couple of years ago. We did a cost-to-service analysis on it this year. There were fees for engine categories that were relatively dated. I think the concept was to try to charge for engine category based on the concept of which engines emit more air pollut ants. The latest engine category that is in there, the newest one that was in the current rate was 2011 and most of your truck cycle now has got to the point where those trucks are in the higher tier values anyway. There's no real justification in terms of the cost of service for that that particular fee so we simply removed that fee for the engine category. Restaurant oil and grease have been there's some changes that have occurred through the Texas Health and Safety Code that removed the ability to actually permit the oil and grease category. This is for separately collected oil and grease. This is not grease and grit trap waste. This is material that would be collected inside the facility. So we removed that particular category. Container fees the same way there was a change legisl atively made that will not allow us to permit a container as a municipality and so we removed the container fee. There were a couple of language changes like one of the categories for example was that municipal solid waste and recycling services were one of the categories that we would permit. We're the only entity municipal solid waste that can provide that service for the City of Denton so there wasn't any real reason to have that that language in there. We also had a section in there that referenced non-city of Denton. Non- city of Denton within the context of that code was intended to say everyone but the city. We got a lot of permitters or permittees that we got very confused about that as to whether it meant they were a business that was within Denton or a business that was outside of Denton. So we don't treat them any differently whether they're in the city limits or outside of the city limits and so we just decided to remove that language to remove that ambiguity. And then fees were reduced based on the cost of service analysis. If you look at the code we had a category at one time that had a smaller fee that was for small operators those that only haul four less times per year within the city. Basically through our cost of service analysis our fees were reduced to approximately what the small operators were paying anyway and so we basically just removed that small operator category. So now everyone's paying the same fee and it's a much lower fee than it was. So if you look at the annual application fee the current rate is set at $500. Cost of service analysis would suggest this should be around 200. The service fee per vehicle which was tied up in part with that engine category you paid a larger fee depending on how old the engine was in your truck. Basically with the removal of that engine category fee and the addition of just the service fee we were able to reduce that from 1,000 to 3,000 to 400 and then the waste manifest per book of 100 stays the same at $40. As I said we eliminated the container fee and the right-of-way use fee is basically a small fee that was established to cover a container that would exist in the right-of-way. If we can't permit the container we can't really control where where that container is. That's issue number one. Issue number two is we we haven't had instances of the containers that are regulated under this program under the right-of-way anyway and so we we eliminated that fee. So the red line versions that you that are included in your backup reflect all of these changes you'll notice that SWP has the bulk of the changes with our wastewater rate schedule this year. That's it for the wastewater side I'd be happy to answer any questions on those. Questions? I know we've we've seen the budget but then I don't if the number was there it was small or the change but the impact on the budget of these of the permit fees because quite a bit of percentage reduction in those things. Right right we we we anticipate at most it's going to be a $20,000 differential it will still meet cost of service but the unknown at this point is that we think that a lot of the operators who would only permit one truck because of the large fee associated with that truck will very likely permit more than one and we've got a we've got signals from them to suggest that that'll be the case. What they had a tendency to do just to save money was to put their newest trucks into this area so at most we're looking at a about a $20,000 differential but we may come very close to breaking even depending on how many people end up permitting more than one truck. I know it's it makes it complicated when you get into the engine sizes and all that but any consideration for CNG discounts I guess for lack of a better word? We did not look at that. We did do a survey of other entities that permit haulers within the Metroplex and and what we found was that the rate structures were very similar to what we put together. They're basically just a an application fee, service fee per vehicle without any qualifications and manifest so we didn't run across that. We could we could certainly look into into doing that if if it's something that the board wishes us to pursue. Well and especially if we have a CNG facility out there that we could sell them. They can fill up while they're here. Right. Any other questions? Miscellaneous ease is pretty easy. So that's it for this particular session. Our section I'm also doing the the solid waste so if we want to call that one I'll be glad to present. Very good. Item C is to receive report and hold discussion on proposed fiscal year 17-18 solid waste in recycling department rate ordinance. Again on this one with the zero rate increase all rates and fees are remaining unchanged from the prior year. We made a couple of small editorial changes within the rate ordinance itself. Basically the references to the general manager of solid waste have been changed to director of solid waste and we added some text to the special waste category section to clarify that the charges for disposal of special waste there were a couple of categories in there that had to be examined. One was could the landfill accepted to what were any permit related issues that we would have to contend with. Basically there was no reflection of language in there in the current code for cost of service and so we wanted to be sure that we reflected for that special waste category where the director is setting that rate that we have to look at all of our permit conditions and disposal categories but also base that rate on a cost of service. That's it. Okay any questions? You want to go with the red line version? I'm just kidding. We can. No no no. I have it right here. It's okay. No questions? Okay thank you. Thank you. All right that concludes the work session on the rate ordin ances. Again these are basically in support of the budgets that we've already made recommendation on and we'll see those again in final form later this month. Into the regular meeting we have I'm sorry oh we do I'm sorry yeah I was got kind of interested in this we were talking about this and before so item D we're not concluding the work session I'm sorry. Ryan Daske. This is the receiver report total discussion provide recommendation for lighting maintenance agreement with TexDOT 35 Express project. Good morning board members and thank you for your service this morning. For a second there I thought I was going to get out of giving this presentation. I'm happy to do it. So I am gonna ask for your direction this morning. We have a couple of options as to how highway 35 is lit as we go through Denton so that can be continuous lighting or safety lighting. Those those are our two options and of course I'll explain more about those. So we're close to finishing the 35 Express and they'll install that lighting there at the end of the summer and so we have some some costs that we'll show you for these and again there are two options so it's safety lighting versus continuous lighting. So the safety lighting is required as a minimum we can't do any less than the safety lighting and as you can see there it'll have 114 lamps those are just the the street lights that you that you're familiar with and 56 wall packs the wall packs refer to those lights that are installed under an overpass. The costs associated with safety lighting is paid by TechStot. We're estimating that that'll be just over ten thousand dollars per year but again that cost and that's the cost of maintenance and operation so the energy that goes into those lights and the cost of maintaining and repairing them . So ten thousand five hundred dollars but that is our estimate but that would be paid by TechStot. Our other option is to do continuous lighting and as you can see there's significantly more lamps there's more street lights associated with that and we estimate that that would cost twenty thousand six hundred dollars per year and that cost would be the city of Denton's cost if we decide to go with continuous lighting. So I want to show you a little bit of what this would look like. Here's just a few examples here's one of continuous versus safety lighting where 35 meets scripture road and as you look at these there's not a huge difference between between these two at least that's how I see it there's certainly more lights on that top image with continuous lighting but the safety lighting there's a lot of lighting as well there on the bottom image. At other points it would look quite different so the where 35 meets 380 you can see the continuous lighting does just that it offers continuous lighting along the road whereas safety lighting only offers it at those points of intersections and things like that so there's significantly less lighting there on the bottom one and here I added one more image of continuous versus safety lighting to show you that sometimes it's somewhere in between where there's some continuous lighting on there on the right side of safety of the safety lighting but then to the left side you just you lose a lot of that lighting so I 've even got more examples if you want to see them later but those I thought would give you some idea of what we're talking about between these two options. So here's a few of the benefits of one versus the other of course the safety lighting is there's monetary savings there we would not be paying that $20,600 per year. The continuous lighting it mostly comes down to safety it's safer driving conditions and then also there's an issue of continuity where the cities to the south of Denton have decided to do continuous lighting and so there would be perhaps a noticeable change if you drove through Denton from some of those cities to the south. Just a little more information about these these two options of where safety lighting is required there at interchanges intersections and other points of hazard whereas continuous lighting is what you would expect it's uniform illumination. I think we've already gone over some of these some of these benefits so I won't repeat those but as I mentioned those are the two options the safety lighting or the continuous lighting option and we would ask that you give a pass recommendation along to City Council regarding these options. Question? On the safety lighting it would be text- dot paying for the lighting correct? Yes ma'am that's right. Okay and I noticed on 380 at that intersection yes ma'am you're not just going to have it's not going to be like driving from Denton to Sanger you're going to have the intersection lights for 380 also reflecting on that so it wouldn't be just totally dark and just the safety lighting. Yes ma'am safety lighting would there was the comparison of the number of lights 114 lamps still with the with the safety lighting. Right but if you have an intersection you've got existing lights on the on the intersection like 380 that's the one I can pick out best. I see. I know of all the lighting that's there so it wouldn't be just those safety lighting you would be getting you'd get the reflection from that on 380 going west so it wouldn't it would augment the safety lighting. Yes sir no that's right the those are the two different options but the continuous lighting would include everything that safety lighting would have but more. No that's a fair question and it's one that we that I understand that we asked text out as well but but these were the two options that that we were presented with. Yeah that was question I had is yeah if they're paying for the base the base model and we want the upgrade then why wouldn't we just pay the difference and that may be the difference I don't know. Galen do you have anything to add on that? Sounds like you 've already asked. We did we asked them that and it's you know the answer we get policy this is our policy this is how we do it you take this option or that option and there's really no in between and Larry Larry pushed him on it Larry said hey you know if you're gonna pay that minimal amount anyway just add some more lights and go ahead and pay what you were gonna pay for and let us pay for the extra yeah that's not in their policy. Do you have any statistics on how just have safety lighting that can would affect that's opposed to continuous ? That's a very fair question I can look into that or I can mix them up on the spot if you prefer. An educated guess might be okay if you feel qualified. No ma'am but I don't and so I'll look some up and send those back to the to the board. I think that would be important. In one of your slides you had said about law enforcement what is their opinion on these two it do they see continuous as being the better? Y'all are asking great questions these are just these are excellent questions what other questions? Galen or Larry do you know if we if we solicited any input from from law enforcement? In general they support the more lighting because it's it's becomes not just a safety thing but also a security thing and just being able to see what what's going on along the highway and no one can hide in the dark. Yeah. As far as residential areas I mean has there been any complaints from other cities that have had the continuous lighting as far as the lighting impacting residential areas that are close to the highway? I'm not I'm not aware of any but I mean I'm sure oh we have one more. And I looked through the design that they had in the residential areas they had shields on the back of the light so they try to prevent the light from hitting the residential areas from that standpoint so they do plan on knowing that there's residences there and they're going to avert having light hitting that area. Well I think the regardless of I guess the numbers I mean you're it's got to be safer it's got to be from just from a continuity standpoint of as you head north you know all of a sudden the lights go out and didn't I don't think anybody wants to have that. The you know the question is I wish that it was a just paying the difference between the two because you know ten grand is kind of a no-brainer you know it's but it is what it is. That's their policy. My understanding is that DME would cover that cost of maintenance and the cost of the energy. I'm sorry thank you for the for the correction this so the city would pay the cost of the energy and and DME would cover the cost of maintenance and operations. It'd be a general fund cost. And just one more question are they energy efficient lamps? That's another good question. Does it Jerry do you have some information on the lamps? It takes a village. They plan for 150 watt high-pressure sodium we did question them about LED and they said that's just not an option right now you can have that but of course it's always something that we can always entertain later with them to say can we change these out to LED whenever we get to that point and know which LED bulbs that we're going to use within the city of Denton. Thank you. If that could be done later could safety lighting be tried and if it proved not to be satisfactory at all could it be could continuous lighting be installed? Larry do you know if that's a policy policy thing again if they install the whole thing is textiles paying to install the lights. Yeah they're paying for the lights one with the other. If they pay for safety lighting they move on and go to their next thing they're not going to come back and add the other lights so that would be at our expense that would be a money-loser compared to this. Yeah a big cost. Thank you. Okay all right any other questions? We have a recommendation on the safety lighting versus continuous lighting to council. Sure. In terms of traffic count, obviously the areas we're going in. More people seem to be coming from Oklahoma and other places down there. 35 is going to get worse or better. I don't know what the cost of cleaning up accidents are in city services for all of that. Compared to ten years ago versus now traffic count. Is there any projections on just saying I'm leaning towards a continuous lighting because I 'm thinking not just today. Right that's true. No I don't think so. Yeah that's a good point. To the north. Yeah. Yeah that's seen that. Well you know I think regardless if it's a truly more safe and it's you know we although it's going to get safer than it is now while it's under construction but it's still a $20,000 per year is a small price to pay if you can avoid one accident. Right. I mean that to me and so I'm that's kind of where I'm leaning. I'm leaning to the continue. I don't like that they're not going to split the difference but I'm more in favor. Yeah their capital cost up front is probably double I'm sure or not quite double but pretty close so I'm sure that's the reason. I'm not trying to defend text. But I'm I can see their point that they're paying a lot more up front for it. True. Yeah. Yeah . All right is there a motion then to make a recommendation? Motion and second. Any other any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed same sign. Okay thank you Brian. Appreciate it. I told you it was a good item. I can't believe I almost skipped over it. Okay now we're going to the regular meeting. We have consent agenda items A, B, and C. Or there any members of the board that would like to have any of these pulled for individual consideration? A please. Okay item A is pulled. Okay any others? Okay hearing none then is there a motion to approve consent agenda items B and C? So moved. Second. Motion and second to approve those two items. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed same sign. Okay for individual consideration item A . We have Chuck Sears from DME. I think the best way to approach this is just what are your concerns and questions? We have some pictures and some things we could show. I would like to address your concerns rather than a broader scope. I guess I did not recall that we were doing GIS over there. Yes ma'am . I was on that committee about the wall and I remember the photos the drawings of having the the lines and everything initially. So I'm refreshed my memory please. City Council approved that I believe in November of 2014 prior to the discussions on the wall. The wall discussion came about as an after question a question after the initial decision on it. Okay and. Yes ma'am your memory is certainly correct. We the City Council approved this the site for the Hickory substation and at the time that they approved it they also asked that we have an aesthetics committee to consider the aesthetic treatment of that and at the time we as an organization were unaware of the GIS substations largely. I'm sure Chuck knew about him in that time but it wasn't something we were pursuing. It was only when we started talking about Eagle substation that we became more aware of the GIS substations . I'm sure those of you who were on the board at that time remember those those discussions and it was after we decided to do GIS at Eagle that we said well let's do it at Hickory at the same time and so we applied the the treatment that y'all come up with in that aesthetics committee back to the Hick ory substation as a GIS substation. Okay thank you. I recall the discussion here at PB was the the cost increase because of taking the lines underground and just the GIS technology in general was was quite a bit. I don't know I think the recommendation here was not. That is correct. But when it got to Council they they looked at the cost and they felt like the the benefit outweighed the cost. So I tell you the pictures look great. I think it's I think it looks very understand it's expensive but you know it is a very attractive building. Well the reason for that was that that was a gateway enter to the city and that's that's why the wall came up and and it was a people from this committee and also the community that arrived at that design. So yeah. Just to give you being that I like show and tell so much. Kim we have three pictures there that you have. Right there. This is what the concept that was selected for a look and that is the GIS substation. If you look at and kind of the center of the taller building there that is the GIS equipment building itself. If you can imagine that oh we're estimating about a 60 by 80 foot building as opposed to about a 150 by 250 or 300 foot area for outdoor switch gear that would do the same thing. Thing we can't predict here is exactly how big or how tall might be a few feet more or less one way or the other. But I think we have another more interesting picture that that's nice looking by the way. This is what it looks like out there today. The substation is going to go right in this area right here and that's where that wall that you just looked at would be placed. But what I would like you to see is what the impact of that's going to be. Yes and of course that shows the older above- ground substation gone. We have the transmission poles over here that are going to be behind the service station and then proceed to the north and west and south by the way. But it's quite a shocking difference. It is. That's we got that and I just wow that's something else. Any other questions? Well I think we set a new standard for I've always said there's no there's no way to make a substation anything but ugly. But I stand corrected. There is not a decorative wall been directed for the Eagle substation. It'll be our standard concrete fence. There will be there's a transmission line going right immediately past the station. That will drop in underground but it'll be inside the station that the underground that just facilitates making the connections to the station much easier to do that little piece. So it won't have quite this. Quite the same effect. Quite not at all. It still be a little bit less than it could be but it won't be this dramatic. All right. Steps down. Okay very good. Any other questions on this item? Is there a motion to make a recommendation to go forth with the professional services contract between the city and Kirkpatrick architecture? I move approval. Motion. Second. Second from Allen. There's still four of us here. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Same side. Okay thank you. Okay next we have item A under items for individual consideration which we have the Public Utilities Board meeting minutes of June 26 2017. These have been distributed in advance and now if there's any any changes, operations, corrections to these minutes? Hearing none those will stand approved as submitted. Item B is to consider recommending adoption of an ordinance authorizing the city manager or his designee to execute an advanced funding agreement in an approximate amount of 2.8 million dollars between the state of Texas, TexDOT and the city of Denton regarding water and wastewater utility improvements along foreign to market 2181 in relation to their widening project between foreign market 2499 and Lillian Miller Parkway. So at this time Chad Allen, Chad is going to lead the discussion on this. Good morning I'm Chad Allen I'm in the capital projects department. My subject is like you said the FM 2181 utility relocations advanced funding agreement. TexDOT is about to widen Teasley Lane. Yay I'm so excited about it. As part of that project we have to move our utilities out of the right -of-way or up against the TexDOT right-of-way and to work with TexDOT in order to move the utilities we have to enter into this advanced funding agreement. We have to give them money up front. They're gonna hire a contractor and they're gonna move our utilities. So the action item is like you said to consider recommending and adoption of an ordinance that executes this advanced funding agreement. It's between the city of Denton and TexDOT. It's about our reloc ation of our utilities and in the amount it's going to be approximately 2.8 million dollars. So here's an overview of the TexDOT scope. TexDOT is going to widen FM 2181 Teasley Lane from down by Corinth where FM 2499 is up into Denton to the north where Wind River Lane is. They're gonna go from a two through lane road basically what it is today to six through lanes three in each direction. It's gonna be terrific. They're gonna do signal improvements throughout the project limits at many of the intersections. They're gonna replace the roadside ditches with underground storm drain and they're gonna build sidewalks all along the road on both sides throughout the project limits. It's gonna be great. As part of the project we have to move our utilities out of the road or at least up to the edge of the TexDOT right-of-way. TexDOT requires this so that's what our work is. We're also going to install some new crossings across the right-of-way. We may have to lower some of our water and sewer lines to avoid conflicts with the new storm drain there that TexDOT is building. So as we've been working with TexDOT to design our utility relocations we've identified reimbursable utility adjustments. Those are utility adjustments that TexDOT is going to pay for and then we've also identified betterment. So I'll talk about the reimbursable utility adjustments and the betterments on the next couple slides. Some of our utilities were already outside the TexD OT right-of-way. We had negotiated with property owners. We had gotten eas ements. We had built our utilities outside the TexDOT right-of-way but now they've decided to widen their road which it's going to be great. We want them to do that but their new right-of-way sort of takes over our existing easement and it forces us to move our utilities. In that circumstance we get reimbursed for all of the design costs, the new easement costs, and the construction of that work. So those are reimbursable improvements. Non-reimbursable improvements are where the utilities were just in the middle of the road. They've been there for decades. We were already inside TexDOT right-of-way and new TexDOT rules require that we move those utilities outside the right-of-way. In that case we have to pay for that work 100%. Those are non-reimbursable utility adjustments. So what we do is we design our plans and we work with TexDOT to calculate on a percentage basis what's reimbursable and what's not reimb ursable. For this project we've calculated with TexDOT that about 12% of the wastewater adjustments are reimbursable. They're going to give us money for those and about 81% of the waterline adjustments are reimbursable. They're going to pay for that. The rest of the work we have to pay for. We've also talked to TexDOT about making betterments. There's some situations where we have a utility line out there and we're redesigning lines in the area and we choose to make a waterline greater diameter line or we want to add a crossing at a certain location across the road and we make that choice. It's not really necessary because of the TexDOT work but we choose to do that. That's called a betterment and TexDOT will not pay for those betterments. So the advanced funding agreement that you've seen in your backup is a draft and we've set out the terms and conditions in the agreement and we've coordinated with TexDOT and agreed to the terms and conditions but the numbers in the agreement right now are still estimates. But as far as the terms and conditions go we are paying for the non reimbursable costs. We're paying for the betterments and then we also pay for barricades, mobil ization, and contingency. Those are just things that are associated with almost every construction project and TexDOT asks us to put those in the agreement on a percentage basis. So right now the draft agreement says that we're going to send a Tex DOT a payment very soon in the amount of around 2.8 million dollars. Again these are estimates. They're based on construction cost estimates that we put together so that's why the agreement is still called a draft but tomorrow TexD OT is receiving bids for the project. This is really about to happen quickly. Bids come into TexDOT tomorrow. So over the next week they're going to be reviewing the bids, making sure they know who the low bidder or the best contractor is. They're going to select the contractor and then we're going to take those actual bid prices and put them into the agreement and calculate a final number. Again the number that's currently in the backup is an estimate. Tomorrow and within the next week we're going to determine the final number that's in the agreement. And then on July 18th we're going to go to City Council and try to process and get them to approve this advanced funding agreement for this project. This project's being funded by water and wastewater bond funds that have been set aside in past years. We've been anticipating this project and working with TexDOT. We're so glad it's about to happen so this money has been set aside previously. And I'll be happy to answer any questions you have. I have one for clarification. Okay. Advanced funding is advanced funding of the estimated total cost or it's an initial funding and there could be more cost? That's a very good question. So let me go back to the appropriate slide and then I'll answer that. So right now we have a draft. It has an estimated number. Tomorrow we get b ids and over the next week we're gonna have the final numbers. And the way we've negotiated this agreement with TexDOT, this fourth bullet point here says, oh I'm sorry the third, and I forgot to mention this earlier, shows that we expect this to be the maximum payment. We're gonna make them make one payment up front and then we don't expect to have any other costs associated with this project. There's only really one situation where we might have to pay more and that's if we choose at sometime during the project if the city says, oh you know what we want to make a certain improvement out there, there's already work going out there, we choose to add a change order to the project. In that case we would have to pay for that. But if nothing like that changes, if we don't go through the effort of doing anything like that that we choose to do, this should be the total lump sum payment that we have to pay. Yeah that was a, sorry Lily, I just, the, so they they bear the, I mean they bear the cost of any escalators in the final contract of cost increase because I'm assuming this probably is not gonna be done by the end of the year. It's gonna take, there's opportunity for cost increases as we go but that's a good good point that this will be the max. That's, once we get the numbers. Yes sir, that's really how we try to negotiate it. This is sort of different than they do all their other agreements so we have worked hard to make sure that that's the case. Things could happen during construction that things that we don't anticipate and this contingency cost right here, this five percent contingency cost is sort of how we're gonna pay for a portion of that but it's limited which is really good for us. That's good. The percentages of the reimbursable cost, 12% on wastewater, 81 or so percent on water. Kind of, can you kind of give an idea of is, if we're paying for 90, basically almost 90% of the wastewater adjustments, I mean is, how does that, how does wastewater adjustments compare to water line adjustments? Okay. Is it cheaper, is it just a fact that it's more in the middle of the road and... That's exactly the case. It's not about how much it costs, you know, maybe all in all they're both $150 a foot when you account for everything or less than that but the way this number is calculated, the 12%, basically is what I tried to describe earlier, our wastewater lines, unfortunately, they're just in the middle of the road. 80% of them are in the middle of the road. We have to move them according to the new rules and we have to bear the brunt of that cost. A lot of our water lines were outside the existing right-of-way in easements but then Tex -Ot widened the right-of-way and took over our easements. Well, in that case, they pay for it. So a much bigger percentage of the water lines were already outside the right-of-way. Unfortunately, the sewer lines were mostly in by a much greater percentage. So our 2.8, the majority of that's going to be wastewater adjustments? Yes, sir. So is the 2.8 million net of reimbursable expenses? Yes, the 2.8 takes into account what Tex-dot pays for. So the 2.8 is what we owe. The overall total was more but a lot of that was reimbursable costs like we saw on that last side so we subtracted those amounts from the overall number and that 2 .8 is actually what we owe textile. The actual number is much higher. They pay for a lot of that and again they pay for the design, acquiring new easements, and construction of that reimbursable work. Because this is the perfect time to improve if it's gonna be all tore up. Are there any other locations besides these two that you've identified for betterment? Have you looked at everything to make sure that we're making the betterments we can while it's going to be torn up? Yes, ma'am, we have. We looked at our master plan. We looked at our overall water and wastewater goals for the city. We thought about all of those when we were doing this project because we don't want to come back later and re-cut up the road. We're not going to do that. We don't want to come back later and even work in this area again. So we've looked at all of those and we've only identified a couple of betterments. I assumed you did. Okay. It's gonna be painful but it's gonna be great after this happens. So the anticipation is that the actual roads will start being built in January? So the bids come in tomorrow. Over the next couple of months, TXIL will work with their contractor and get them on board and get them mobilized. So that'll be September and then they'll start with the utilities first because they're underground. So they'll probably start with the sewer and then the water and then they'll start working on the roadway. So you're right, it could be into next year. Probably will be when the road is done. I mean when the road construction starts but the overall project which includes our utilities is going to begin very quickly. Bids come in tomorrow. Did they say how long they thought that the roads would take to be completed before the project is done? I'm assuming it's a couple year project. I don't know. A couple of years. I would imagine. Two, three years possibly. Looks like they've already started clearing a temporary construction easement along there. I think you 're probably right. Our utilities aren't the only ones that have to be moved. Typically franchise utilities get out there faster and so there's already been work happening in the corridor. Okay. Any other questions? No? Then is there a motion for item B? Move approval. Approval. Motion approved. Second. From Lill ia. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Same sign. Okay. Motion passes. Thank you Chad. Appreciate it. Okay. Item C is consider recommendation of an ordinance accepting competitive proposals to award a contract for the excavation and construction of landfill cells 3B, C, and D at the City of Denton landfill in the amount of three approximately three point four million dollars and Ethan Cox, Director of Solid Waste, is going to lead us in this discussion. Good morning. Morning. I'm going to try to get us jacked in here. Bear with me. [inaudible] I apologize we're having some technical difficulties here. We'll do it the old-fashioned way. , all right. Well, I apologize for the delay. So once again, my name is Ethan Cox. I'm the Director of Solid Waste. The item you have before you this morning is for the development of some landfill cells. We're recommending a proposal or recommending a contract with Hammett Excavation for the development of those cells and so very brief presentation this morning. I'll kind of walk you through the the ins and outs of the agreement and then I'll be happy to stand for any questions that you might have. Just a little bit of background on our facility. Most of you are very familiar with the landfill located at 1527 South Mayhill Road. We have about 152 acres worth of land out there used for refuse disposal today and that land is divided into approximately six phases and that is further subdivided into what we call landfill cells. Typically there are multiple cells in each phase and as we dispose of waste we have to keep an eye on the rate at which we're disposing of waste and the consumption of those landfill cells and we have to plan ahead to make sure that we have new cells available whenever an old cell is getting close to being completely full. Today or as of last fiscal year we processed about 250,000 tons of refuse and that comes out to about 380,000 cubic yards of waste. We have three cells currently active today. The cell capacity for those three cells is about 2.1 million cubic yards. Back to the previous slide we are disp osing about 380,000 cubic yards per year so that puts the estimated life of that type of airspace to about six to seven years and we're closing in on just the sixth year of these cells and so we're getting very close to these being completely full. Our estimation today is in November 2017 we're going to be about 90 to 95 percent full in those cells and that's a critical date because the cell development as we put new cells in the ground it takes about four to four and a half months and so we're here mid-July that's going to put us if we start today about mid-November on those new cells being available to us pretty much a transition from our existing cells into the new cells immediately happening thereafter. Whenever we go through cell development I provide a little bit of a cross-section here this is from the National Waste and Recycling Association. This is pretty indicative of the the type of landfill cell that you'll see at our facility if you come out and visit us. They're not necessarily going to be doing all this workforce but I'll kind of guide you through if you'll follow my mouse. Essentially what we ask of the developer is that they dig out about 550,000 cubic yards worth of soil and then they're also going to be responsible for laying a lot of these liners here that you see at the bottom of the cell. So there's going to be a compacted clay liner as well as a drainage layer, a geomembrane liner. They're also going to be installing some sumps which is essentially for the leachate collection. Leachate is a fancy word for the water and liquids that contact the waste out at our facility. Because we run an enhanced leachate recirculation system they're also going to be installing some pumps for us which essentially takes that liquid pumps it up this hill here and we spray that back on the working face. The reason why we do that is that allows for advanced degradation of the waste pack. It also generates some additional gas that we collect and turn into electricity. Most of the rest of this that you see on here is outside of the scope of this project but if you drive around the landfill you'll typically see these features out there as well. So this development that we're talking about here it is for three cells spanning about 18.8 acres. We believe at the end of this project that we'll have the ability to access about 2.4 million cubic yards worth of airspace and again at our current rate of fill we estimate that that'll take just over six years for us to fill up that airspace. In your AIS I believe we said six to ten years the interesting thing about this development is this is happening parallel to some other cells that we have and so as these cells start to become filled up then that also gives us the the airspace in between those cells just kind of imagine a V in between there and so that accounts for those extra years that we may be able to gain by this development . This is a photo of our last landfill cell development very similar to what you saw on the previous slide. This liner right here is actually the drainage layers I understand it. This is an old cell over here kind of give you an idea of how these are positioned and then you also kind of see a sump right here where the liquids actually pooling right there so as this gets developed this is kind of a snapshot of what we'll see on the ground. What we we issued a request for proposals for this project about 200 and some odd firms responded we had or we sent it out to 200 and some odd firms six firms responded as qualified bidders of those we really narrowed it down to two finalists and what we believe is the best value is with Hammett Excavation not only were they the lowest bidder they have a lot of experience in the industry performing this type of work and most importantly as I mentioned earlier they were the most responsive in the project timeline as well. The award that we're recommending to you today is for 3.48 million dollars and we are budgeted about four million so we do think we'll have a little bit of savings if all goes well through this project. So that's pretty much it for the presentation. Next steps is you know if you recommend this then we'll take this forward to the City Council next week and then begin work shortly thereafter if they approve it as well and with that I'm happy to stand for any questions you might have. Have we worked with them before? It's my understanding this is the first time that we're going to be working with Hammett Excavation. They do have several decades of experience in the industry and they came with some very solid references as well. Okay questions? Just as a matter of curiosity I know we're when I see 90 to 95 percent capacity on the cell we're using that kind of kind of press the panic button a little bit but I know we get we're four months out but we are picking up capacity from our mining operation aren't we and some of the old cells? The mining operation has not started yet and so and when we do start mining then if my answer is correct and I'm going to look over here for some nods or some shakes of the head it may be 10 to 15 years before we actually get to use that land space. So they may affect not this one or the next one maybe the third down. Exactly that's correct. The biggest thing with the landfill development is these start getting full the area up on top is really the thing that we've got to be concerned about. There's not as much room to turn around because you're essentially coming up to form a peak up there and so we do have some ability to run a little bit long on this but time is kind of of the essence as you alluded to. What effect does recycling have on the timeline of these 7 to 10 years? It has a very big effect and the more you can divert then that's just less cubic yardage going into the landfill and I was looking at some figures the other day I think we're at about a 30 percent diversion rate thereabouts between 30 and 40 percent and so that is definitely something that we are very focused on at our facility especially as this region continues to grow we 've got to do our best offset and make good use of our airspace that we have available to us. So we're at 30 to 40 percent right now in recycling? That is I believe it's within that range it has been growing the last two to three years our staff has undertaken a lot of efforts to not just increase recycling but we also have our building materials recovery operation and a number of other things that we do out there to divert as much material from the landfills we can. What is our overall goal as far as recycling goes? I believe it's 40 percent is that correct? 40? We're getting very close. We talked about the mining some time ago is there a particular reason we're not proceeding with that? With the new city manager one of the things that we're taking a look at with a lot of these projects is putting together performance to make sure that the financial analysis and the workup on the project is sound basically just checking our math and sharpening our pencils on that so that is something that we are in the progress of dealing with mining right now we believe with the air space gains that is going to shake out for us and that's certainly something we can circle back and provide the public utilities board with some additional information once we're complete with that. Our estimation right now is that if all goes well we will be looking to break ground on the mining operation sometime this fall. We have most of the equipment there's still I think one big piece of equipment that we're waiting on from the manufacturer but outside of that it's really just making sure that we understand how this process is going to work how we're going to track its effectiveness and that we 're making the appropriate decisions with the financial component of this as well as the operational component. I noticed the the bids on from from the two finalists were very very close and what I think what I heard was that really the the time the delivery it was a big factor absolutely in the one that you're recommending Hammett. 134 days compared to 200. All right any is there a motion then to make a recommendation? So moved. Second. Motion second to recommend approval of to approve Hammett excavation any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed same sign. Okay thank you. Thanks Ethan. Item D which is the ACM updates. We don't have any specific reports there we do have several items that are marked as complete. Certainly add anything in the future to that that the board has that they want us to look at. Anything to add at this time? No. Okay concluding items any any inquiries from the public or public utility members on anything that we might want to see in future agendas? No. Hearing none is there a motion to adjourn? Moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed same sign. Thank you.