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.