July 19, 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: Ed DeBor, Wallace Reeve, Peter Bourne, Dana Wildes and Tim Sargent
Staff: Craig Myotte, Jim Fontaine, Penny Jones and Linda Osgood
GUEST: Mary Ann Wilson
1) PUBLIC MEETING:
No members of the public were present.
Mary Ann attended to update the Trustees on the status of the properties that they authorized to be sent to tax sale for unpaid electric, water, and sewer bills. Mary Ann stated that going forward, the Trustees should try to coincide their tax sale with the Town’s. The Town accounts are turned over to counsel in November of each year so she would need our active lien list by June 1st.
2) CURRENT PRIORITY PROJECTS:
The Board reviewed the list of current priority projects.
3) MANAGEMENT REPORT:
Crews finished connecting Johnson to our 34.5 KV system for an emergency tie-in. CVPS is planning an outage later this month that will also affect Hyde Park so we are looking at tying in Hyde Park also. This could open the door to wheeling services. VELCO is currently surveying our transmission system for a possible fiber optic line. The hydro plants are ready for FERC site tours and inspections.
Allan Newton has finished the survey of the 9 acres of land we wish to exclude from the 33 acres to be sold with Zackwoods.
The issues with finishing construction at the WWTF will need to come to a head. Well #3 will be back on-line tomorrow. Well #2 was able to carry the full system load while #3 was down. NATGUN is finishing the outside of the new reservoir tank and electricians are busy tying in their work. Richmond Street water project starts tomorrow and the bids on Union Street are due Friday.
Trustee Wildes asked the status of bringing WWTF operations back in-house was. Jim stated that United Water has one year left on their contract but we could end the contract anytime with 90. The Board agreed that a Trustee should probably attend Johnson’s next Board meeting to discuss joining forces on WWTF operations by sharing operators to reduce costs.
Penny has been receiving a lot of complaints on the new water/sewer rates, especially from Jersey Heights. Most people are not happy with the customer charge. Penny is pleased with the good communications with our new insurance agent Poulos.
VELCO is looking at changing the allocation of equity calls that would have a negative impact on MW&L. Unfortunately, they are looking at the last two years which contain the CVPS loss settlement. Craig was pleased to announce that VPPSA offered the power supply director position to Brian Callnan. FERC has two site visits scheduled in August. We have reached settlement with two customers involved in a billing mistake involving swapped meter numbers.
Trustee Bourne asked if CVPS’s equipment failures had any impact on us. Those failures dumped Johnson and Hyde Park but we were okay.
4) APPROVE MINUTES OF MEETING HELD JULY 5, 2010:
On a motion by Trustee Bourne, seconded by Trustee Reeve and unanimously approved, the Board approved the minutes of the July 5, 2010, regular meeting.
5) DISCUSS POWER SUPPLY ISSUES:
Craig reviewed the power supply expense summary for May. We are $90,000 under budget through May 2010.
Craig reviewed a summary he prepared showing an option of borrowing money now to finance the hydro improvements. If we go for the full amount of financing, we would need PSB and voter approval. Financing would allow us to take advantage of and lock in current low interest rates. An important missing piece is how much we will lose in generation during upgrades. The projects have a relatively short payback period. The borrowing will put an immediate upward pressure on rates. The Trustees believe it is important to proceed with the engineering design work regardless of the financing plan.
On a motion by Trustee Bourne, seconded by Trustee Wildes and unanimously approved, the Board moved to take the funds from the Zackwoods sale to-date for engineering of the hydro improvements.
Craig reviewed various general terms of the new Hydro Quebec contract. The Trustees stated Craig should visit Hydro Quebec to discuss other possible options.
6) DISCUSS SEWER ORDINANCES:
Jim should have a final draft of the sewer ordinances for the Board for their August 16 meeting. The Chairman mentioned that the Selectboard reacted favorably to our presentation at their July 12 meeting. Their only concern was forcing people to connect which we found a compromise on. The Chairman also wanted to verify that we make no distinction between residential and commercial with our sewer rates and that the only difference between the two is in allocation fees.
7) OTHER BUSINESS:
We are receiving quite a few customer complaints on the new water/sewer rates. Penny proposes a press release, or series of press releases, in a Q&A format. Village users saw a significant increase.
We have received a number of requests for exemptions to sewer charges due to “special use” of water. One such request is from the Country Club where most of their water is used for irrigation and never reaches the WWTF. Trustee Bourne stated that if CCC wanted to pay for the second meter and reader, we can meter the line going to their irrigation separately. Trustee Wildes stated that if they are looking for a special rate, we need to begin gathering usage data. The Trustees agreed more data needs to be collected before we start establishing special rates. The Chairman stated that the new ordinance needs to spell out if a second meter is needed.
Bruce Tomlinson wants to water the soccer fields and would like a donation from MW&L. The Trustees discussed the request and agreed to make the donation.
On a motion by Trustee Sargent, seconded by Trustee Reeve and unanimously approved, the Board approved using $300 from the Amy Wade Fund to cover the cost of watering the soccer fields.
8) EXECUTIVE SESSION:
At 8:00 PM on a motion by Trustee Bourne, seconded by Trustee Sargent and unanimously approved, the Board went into Executive Session.
At 8:13 PM on a motion by Trustee Bourne, seconded by Trustee Sargent and unanimously approved, the Board came out of Executive Session.
On a motion by Trustee Wildes, seconded by Trustee Sargent and unanimously approved, the Board agreed to accept an option agreement on the Patnoe property and exercise the option within 15 months from the date the option is signed.
9) ADJOURNMENT:
At 8:14 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