August 2, 2010
MONDAY 6:00 PM
Water and Light Office
The meeting duly noticed and warned was called to order at 6:00 PM.
PRESENT: Trustees: Wallace Reeve, Peter Bourne, Dana Wildes and Tim Sargent
Staff: Craig Myotte, Jim Fontaine, Penny Jones and Linda Osgood
ABSENT: Chair DeBor
GUEST: Mr. Kevin Fitzgerald
1) PUBLIC MEETING:
Kevin Fitzgerald was in attendance to discuss his proposal for the Gristmill & Creamery buildings. His proposal contains a restaurant, local market, ice cream parlor and historic park. He is currently working with Bill Rossmassler for Brownfields funding. LCPC has agreed to fund the Phase I environmental assessment and may have the funds for Phase 2 assessments if needed. Future liability is a big concern but if you complete the Brownfields process, the State will cover 90% of any future liability. The property appraised at $60,000 and assumes no environmental encumbrances. The Trustees are interested in getting a Purchase and Sale Agreement done as soon as possible. Craig verified that there were no issues for Mr. Fitzgerald with the sewer main running through the property.
On a motion by Trustee Sargent, seconded by Trustee Wildes and approved by all present, the Board authorized Staff to deal exclusively with Kevin Fitzgerald and his project as described. MW&L counsel will prepare a Purchase & Sales agreement.
2) CURRENT PRIORITY PROJECTS:
Tabled. This item is only discussed every other meeting.
3) MANAGEMENT REPORT:
The emergency interconnects for Johnson & Hyde Park on the B-22 line are completed; neither interconnection is energized yet. The recent storm wreaked havoc on the transmission line to Stowe by breaking three poles and tipping another over. This line was out of service for one week until repairs could be made. A distribution pole on Scribner Lane in Stowe was also broken along with many wires broken from trees and branches.
VELCO is close to completing their survey of the 34.5 KV subtransmission line for a possible fiber optic line. Site tours for FERC relicensing were held last week. Generation is down due to lack of water in the river. We did not run Green River at all in July and even took Plants #1 & #2 offline this past weekend.
Richmond Street project is starting and should be completed in 45 days. Union Street project needs to be awarded. At the WWTF, the major remaining item is the quality of the grass for a portion of the project. The current status is not acceptable and the contractor will be asked to remedy the situation. It may require chemically eliminating the clover and reseeding next year There are only 2-3 items left on the punch list at WWTF.
Penny handed out AR and AP graphs along with our SQRP filing for the Board to review. She is drafting up a FAQ on the water meters for an August bill stuffer. Sewer cash flows are not good due to short revenue in June when we switched to the metered billing. Trustee Wildes asked if other municipalities treat their electric department, water department, and sewer department as three separate businesses and Penny replied we have to keep them separate. Jim pointed out in that MWL is unusual in that we bill water and sewer on a monthly basis.
A claim from the water meter project was discussed. During the water meter installation process, one basement was flooded. MWL hired White Magic Cleaning to mitigate the chance of mold etc. and then submitted the bill to East National (subcontractor on the job) for reimbursement. East National’s insurance company settled with the customer, however a portion of the settlement included the cleaning bill which amounted to $2,895. The customer stated he was not informed at the time and declined to pay a portion of the settlement to MWL. East National and MWL appeared in Small Claims Court and the judge ruled in favor of the defendant The decision was based on the testimony that the defendant was not advised of any liability to MWL by the insurance company and it is not reasonable to request payment after the fact. MWL is considering its options to recover the payment.
Craig recently conducted the FERC Scoping meeting that included representatives from FERC and various State agencies. No one from the public showed up. The State came up with a list of additional studies they would like conducted.
4) APPROVE MINUTES OF MEETING HELD JULY 19, 2010:
On a motion by Trustee Wildes, seconded by Trustee Bourne and approved by all present, the Board approved the minutes of the July 19, 2010, regular meeting.
5) APPROVE LIENS:
On a motion by Trustee Bourne, seconded by Trustee Wildes and approve by all present, the Board approved a lien on the 35 Portland Street property owned by Blockhouse, LLC, in the amount of $173.36.
6) APPROVE FINANCING FOR STOWE VELCO SUBSTATION EXCLUSIVE FACILITIES:
When the Stowe substation was originally built, Stowe signed on to pay for all exclusive facilities in that substation even though others connect to the substation. Stowe threatened to charge GMP and Morrisville for wheeling services that would have defeated the purpose of Morrisville buying the line section from GMP. Through negotiations, Morrisville, Stowe and GMP reached agreement on how the costs of the exclusive facilities should be allocated among the parties. Morrisville’s share of about 16% equates to a payment of $198,059.72. In addition, Stowe received significant pressure from the DPS to settle this matter ASAP as part of their rate case settlement. Morrisville’s funds will be held in an escrow account until approved by the Trustees.
On a motion by Trustee Bourne, seconded by Trustee Wildes and approved by all present, the Board agreed to pay $198,059.72 for the Stowe VELCO substation exclusive facilities out of the Green River funds.
7) DISCUSS POWER SUPPLY ISSUES:
We are showing a positive variance of $57,000. We are hoping this trend will continue as we budgeted no generation from Cady’s Falls and it was never de-energized. Craig is having a hard time assessing how our power contracts are performing versus the market from the current VPPSA summaries. Duncan Hastings has asked VPPSA to verify our findings on possible power supply and transmission savings from functional consolidation.
8) DISCUSS SEWER ORDINANCES:
Tabled.
9) OTHER BUSINESS:
Craig had a recent meeting with two Boys Scouts who are working towards their Eagle badges. They have offered to help clean up Zackwoods. Craig forwarded their proposal to Sue Premo. The scouts found significant illegal dumping on one side road and did not believe cleaning the site much good, unless a gate is placed across the road. It was suggested a gate owned by MWL no longer in use on Diggins Road be moved to this location.
The Board reviewed a letter from Stowe Electric in which they opted to drop out of future discussions on functional consolidation. Craig wants to see if Hyde Park is still interested while Hardwick and Johnson might reconsider now that Stowe is out of the picture. Trustee Bourne agreed that we needed to still look at consolidation with Hardwick and Johnson. Hyde Park can join but must choose another representative who does not work for Stowe Electric. We need to get a commitment from Johnson and Hardwick one way or the other. Trustee Wildes stated that most of the comments from Hyde Park’s public meeting were to stay a public utility.
Rock Art Brewery is planning to move to a new location. In 2001 MW&L sent a letter to ANR providing Rock Art 1500 gallons of sewer allocation at their present location. Jim believes the allocation is normally tied to the site, not the customer. The owner of the new site can apply for the required reserve allocation at that site. MWL is willing to work with Rock Art on the actual sewer allocation, as a significant amount of the water usage goes in to the product, not to the WWTF. An engineer for Rock Art asked MW&L to consider transferring the 1500 gallon allocation from one site to the new one and then they will add to it. Jim does not believe the allocation should be transferred, but rather the site owner reserve the necessary allocation Rock Art’s current State discharge permit is for 3500 gallons and this will need to be reconciled. The Board agreed that Rock Art could not transfer sewer allocation from one site to another.
10) EXECUTIVE SESSION:
At 7:48 PM on a motion by Trustee Bourne, seconded by Trustee Reeve and approved by all present, the Board went into Executive Session to discuss contracts.
At 8:00 PM on a motion by Trustee Wildes, seconded by Trustee Bourne and unanimously approved, the Board came out of Executive Session.
11) ADJOURNMENT:
At 8:00 PM, on a motion by Trustee Bourne, seconded by Trustee Reeves and unanimously approved, the Board adjourned the meeting.
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Wallace Reeve, Clerk