[0:09] At this time, we're going to open the public meeting. 356 South McCulloch Boulevard, suite 103.

[0:17] The time is 5.30. Katrina, could you please call roll?

[0:22] Good evening, President Madero. Good evening, fellow members of the board, calling roll.

[0:27] Director Mahaney.

[0:28] Here.

[0:28] Director Vickers.

[0:30] Present.

[0:30] President Madero.

[0:31] Here.

[0:32] Director Perl.

[0:33] Here.

[0:33] Director Axworthy.

[0:34] Here.

[0:35] Thank you.

[0:37] At this time, I'll go ahead and entertain a motion to approve the agenda.

[0:40] I make a motion to approve the agenda can I get a second second all those in favor

[0:47] I opposed motion carries the public hearing is now open Katrina do we have

[0:54] any comments we do not have any in-person comments but we do have one who

[0:59] has emailed us if I can go ahead and read that off yes this comment came in

[1:05] from Dina McCracken. She starts with number one, what happens each year to the estimated

[1:11] ending fund balance for each department? For example, according to the Pueblo West Metro

[1:15] District Financials for the 2023 proposed budget, the Water Enterprise Fund had an estimated 2022

[1:21] ending fund balance of $41,307,090. And this year, the estimated 2023 ending fund balance

[1:29] is $28,724,199. However, in the 2024 proposed budget, the estimated 2023 use of fund balance

[1:38] is $0. Please explain. Number two, most departments are charged a utility fee for quote unquote water,

[1:45] yet some of these departments don't seem to have landscaping, lawns, and or areas that need to be

[1:49] watered. So why are they being charged this utility fee? It ranges from $500 per year for

[1:54] Community and Neighborhood Development Fund, $32,500 for Waste Water Fund, to over $300,000

[2:01] for Water Fund.

[2:03] Yet the Swimming Pool Fund is charged a water utility fee, and the Parks and Recreation

[2:08] Department only pays a $15,000 water utility fee.

[2:11] Number three, you've added additional personnel costs to the General Fund for the additional

[2:15] staff required for the new fire station, yet these funds should be allocated to the

[2:19] Fire Sales Tax Fund until which time Tabor expires, then they can be rolled over

[2:23] to existing funds. Remember the citizens approved the sales tax increase to fund personnel associated

[2:29] with staff in the new fire station in addition to building it. We the citizens did not approve

[2:33] of increasing the general fund to pay for these additional personnel costs associated with it. Do

[2:38] not place this expense in the general fund.

[2:43] Thank you. Thank you.

[2:48] So somebody going to address

[2:49] those?

[2:53] Mike's off. I just just said is somebody gonna answer those from the

[2:58] budget committee? You'd like to answer those? No, I said somebody. He said Joe's on the committee. I thought you wanted to answer them. I thought this was just a hearing to get

[3:12] response from the public do we respond to it now there's quite a few so I can try

[3:24] to answer individually now can you can you answer what you can but step up to

[3:34] the mic if there's

[3:40] ones that require some some time to put together nuts okay

[3:46] Okay, so start with the first one, would you?

[3:53] So the first question was what happens each year to the estimated ending fund balance for

[3:58] each department?

[4:00] Now remember that's an estimated fund balance.

[4:03] So the difference between estimated and actual could be quite a big difference.

[4:10] So we always start each new budget year with the previous year's actual fund balance

[4:16] And then we work our way down to the new estimated fund balance, for example, 2024.

[4:28] So like I said, we start with the 2022 actual fund balance, then we add estimated revenue

[4:37] for 2023 and estimated expenses for 2023 to start building the 2024 budget.

[4:46] The second question was, most departments are charged the utility fee for water, yet

[4:52] Some of these departments don't seem to have landscaping lawns and are areas that need to be watered.

[4:56] So why are they being charged this utility fee?

[5:00] Okay. I don't know what is being referenced there when they talk about a utility fee.

[5:06] Every fund or every department is charged a water fee.

[5:11] I mean a water bill, they're built so they pay a water billing for consumption.

[5:18] question. Miss McCracken when she references quotes water, she says that they're charged

[5:23] a utility fee for quote water and she references a $500 per year fee for or charge for community

[5:30] and neighborhood development fund, $32,500 for wastewater fund and over $300,000 for

[5:37] the water fund. Okay. And then she also mentioned swimming pools, didn't she? She says yet

[5:42] the swimming pool fund is charged a water utility fee and the parks and recreation

[5:46] apartment only pays a $15,000 water utility fee.

[6:01] Okay, I need a little bit

[6:03] more information to answer that question because I don't see it. Yeah, I'm not

[6:09] familiar with a utility fee. Yeah, I'm not either, so I would need a little bit more detail.

[6:15] Jim, do you have any idea?

[6:27] We can also follow up with Ms. McCracken and get some clarification, see what the reference is, and then probably provide a response after some research.

[6:43] Yeah. I have a question. She mentioned a $300,000 fee for the water plant. What's that entail?

[6:55] What kind of consumption?

[6:58] Not from usage though.

[7:03] We just need a little bit more information

[7:10] so we could drill down to what she's referencing.

[7:13] To some clarification, Ms. McCracken.

[7:17] The last item she references, she states,

[7:20] you've added additional personnel costs to the general fund

[7:22] for the additional staff required for the new fire station.

[7:25] Yet these funds should be allocated to the fire sales tax

[7:28] fund until which time Tabor expires,

[7:30] then they can be rolled over to existing funds.

[7:33] Remember, the citizens approve the sales tax increase

[7:35] to fund personnel associated with staffing the new fire

[7:38] station in addition to building it.

[7:39] We the citizens did not approve of increasing the general fund to pay for these additional personnel costs associated with it

[7:45] Do not place this this expense in the general fund

[7:48] Okay

[7:50] As far as

[7:52] Authorized positions

[7:54] We do have authorized positions in the general fund for fire staff and we have

[7:59] Authorized positions in the fire sales tax fund

[8:05] The fire sales tax fund is actually funding 21

[8:09] fire staff fire department employees. And those are new, correct? They're not new.

[8:15] From the six from the 6A. Yeah, they're not new though because we had them in

[8:20] last year's budget. I believe there was a difference in a little bit of the

[8:26] distribution where we added, I think we added six to the fire sales tax fund

[8:34] if I remember correctly. I think we yeah there's six new positions that are

[8:38] Firefighter EMT positions 2024. I'll clarify. I think a little bit of the concern there has been where do we eat these costs?

[8:47] Whether it's general fund or fire sales tax fund going forward. There's nothing saying that

[8:52] Requirement, you know, whether it's proof of general fund or fire sales tax

[8:56] I know our concern there is generally that any new positions would be on the 6a side rather than the general fund side

[9:02] But there's no no prescriptive right not to be able to put them on general fund

[9:06] And what we're concerned about and why we have kind of come to that conclusion and preparing

[9:09] the budget that way is that fire sales tax is not permanent.

[9:13] It is something that will have a sunset date.

[9:15] So we have to do our due diligence whenever we're talking about staffing up or having equipment

[9:19] facilities to be able to do that work.

[9:21] We have to be able to be planning and prepared for the potential reality that we will

[9:25] not have the fire sales tax.

[9:27] So if that sunsets, how do we maintain what we need to go forward?

[9:30] So that's just a different way of doing it.

[9:32] nothing necessarily incorrect of what she would be asking for nor how we did it

[9:37] and prepared it this way but there is a difference in style.

[9:42] Can I clarify that

[9:43] any further?

[9:47] And

[9:50] again if Mrs. McCracken would like additional

[9:54] information if she could just send us another note we'd be glad to clarify it.

[10:00] Thank you. I have no further comments.

[10:07] I guess we'll be moving on to board

[10:09] member and district manager closing comments for the public hearing. I'll start with Christian.

[10:14] None further from me thank you. Director Axworthy.

[10:18] None for me other than that you know we we had several meetings to put together this budget

[10:23] and it was a collaborative collaborative effort and I think it went really well this year.

[10:32] Vice President Perl. I have no comments. I want to thank everybody for the work they've done

[10:36] including our board members and our staff. The work you do every year on the budget I know

[10:41] It's a liberalist task.

[10:43] Seems like we've really done a good job this year.

[10:45] We're under green.

[10:47] I like that, so that's all I got.

[10:51] Mr. Fickers?

[10:53] I know I just thank the committees

[10:56] and the board for working on this.

[10:57] I am glad to hear that we are looking at the future

[11:01] for not having the 6A because there could be quite

[11:05] an impact if it happens all at once, so thank you.

[11:11] Director Mahaney?

[11:16] the number what was the number that she quoted 300 something for the bill for the

[11:22] water department she indicated 32,500 for wastewater and three over 300,000 for

[11:30] the water fund yeah under the water fund that

[11:38] shows an account for 2920 802

[11:45] water last year 323460 that was audited and budgeted the same amount and this

[11:59] year we're looking at 325,000 now

[12:07] that's just for the water utilities as I

[12:10] recall we at one time we used an awful lot of water the sampling stuff but now

[12:19] that goes back into the system so that's not a consumptive use it's

[12:24] not even a use. It's just a flow past the meter.

[12:33] Anyway, that's, that appears to be

[12:36] what she's talking about. Now

[12:53] I had a couple of questions. On the water, let's see where,

[12:58] I don't remember exactly, under water expenses, I expected to see a million

[13:11] 125,000 for the lease for water from Pueblo Water Board. Did we drop that lease or is that

[13:22] I couldn't find it any place doesn't show up

[14:03] And it includes the dollars that we come upon, the valuable water rights that we go ahead and purchase that.

[14:13] So, that's what those dollars are in there for.

[14:16] Yeah, that's account number, or GL code, 20TAC410TAC7425.

[14:24] Same page as that, 325,000 with reference, I believe.

[14:29] Just above it.

[14:41] okay that's so that's carried like it's a purchase of a water right no I'm at the

[14:52] the Board of Water Works lease that's it should be an expense every year that's

[14:58] that's contained in that figure

[15:03] So 3.6 isn't just for potential future water rights. Within that 3.6 is the water board lease.

[15:12] Well, I guess my confusion is when we buy Twin Lakes shutters, that's a capital expense. We're buying something.

[15:25] It's been a recent discussion go ahead

[15:48] Seemed like there's quite a difference between

[15:50] leasing water on a yearly basis and buying a water right or buying shares in something that is a

[15:58] Permanent asset leasing water from the board of water works is not a permanent asset

[16:03] It's an annual lease.

[16:05] It's all it is, and it shouldn't be thrown together, in my opinion.

[16:12] Possibly in the future we could break those out within that same tab.

[16:16] If I'm correct in stating this that due to the auditor's recommendation or sort of practice

[16:21] that is captured in the operating expense rather than capital because it's an intangible asset

[16:26] and because also it's an enterprise fund or is that anything?

[16:31] So accounting quickly say it because it expires too quickly. You can't appreciate it

[16:38] So it probably will continue to appear in the operating expenses, but in the future we probably break it out

[16:43] So you see the separation between here is the least portion of that and here is for future water rights

[16:48] That

[16:52] would make more sense to me fair enough

[16:55] Now there's one other small

[16:57] small. This is a thing with me. Every time I drive down industrial at 109, I look over

[17:05] there and I say, that building's still there. And there's people occupying it and fixing

[17:10] it up. And yet in this budget, it says that building was completely destroyed. Why do we

[17:17] keep using that kind of terminology? It isn't completely destroyed.

[17:24] well yes we sold it but it was not destroyed now for what we got for it I

[17:32] will admit it should have been considered destroyed we got a hundred and

[17:36] five thousand dollars for five acres in the building and water tap and a sewer

[17:41] tap but the building was not destroyed did

[17:47] we say it was destroyed somewhere

[17:49] yes I thought it was on page eight but I'm not sure I'm now this takes a long

[17:57] time you know I'm I wasn't here at the time but what I'm thinking is that the

[18:05] insurance company said that we couldn't occupy that building it was condemned

[18:09] and that we said you know buyer here's this condemned building would you

[18:14] like to purchase it and the selling price I believe was 99,000 so

[18:21] we didn't

[18:23] occupy the building so whatever the owner the new owner is doing with it we

[18:27] have no control over that. My point being why do we keep saying the building was

[18:33] destroyed it was not destroyed. Director Mania.

[18:40] I'm just looking to see if it

[18:42] says destroyed anywhere if you find it please let me know what I have been

[18:44] able to find is on our hit page 18 we state that on March 13th 2019 the

[18:49] facility suffered a total loss during a sphere bomb cyclone weather event now I

[18:54] don't know if total loss is just the insurance term for it if that's the

[18:59] apical one then that's the apple one but if you find the other part if you let

[19:02] us know we'll take a look at it

[19:24] oh the other thing I wondered about I guess

[19:26] we've decided for this budget proposed we're going to give a 4% cost of

[19:33] living increase across the board.

[19:35] Does that require board action?

[19:41] That was approved or presented in the proposed budget.

[19:45] And here we are for discussion.

[19:49] Is that the consensus of the board that we go back

[19:52] and change that?

[19:55] I mean, we have had no indication

[19:56] that we should pull that out of the budget.

[19:59] So when we approve the budget, that would include that?

[20:03] Yes.

[20:04] OK.

[20:06] Yeah, I think the accurate way to say is we presented the budget the proposed budget with that 4% increase

[20:10] And it's up to you to decide whether you want to prove it in the budget with that in it.

[20:21] That's all I had. Thank you

[20:23] Thank you. I

[20:26] Have no comments except for thank you to staff and everybody that worked on this budget committee

[20:31] appreciate all your hard work

[20:47] Anybody have anything else I'd like to add to the public hearing? Questions? All

[21:01] right,

[21:01] this time I'd ask for a motion to adjourn the public hearing. So moved. Take a 10-minute

[21:08] break. Second. And then go into the regular meeting. It's been moved in second. All those

[21:15] in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We're out of the public house.

[30:39] The time is six o'clock.

[30:43] I'll go ahead and ask Katrina to take roll, please.

[30:47] Good evening. Again, President Madero, fellow members of the board calling roll.

[30:51] Director Mahaney. President.

[30:54] Director Vickers.

[30:55] Present.

[30:55] President Madero.

[30:56] Here.

[30:57] Director Perl.

[30:58] Here.

[30:58] Director Axworthy.

[30:59] Here.

[31:00] Thank you.

[31:01] Thank you.

[31:03] Invocation.

[31:04] Brother Bob couldn't make it tonight, so if everybody could bow their heads

[31:08] and just have a silent prayer.

[31:10] Thank

[31:32] you everybody. Next we'll go on to the Pledge of Allegiance. Christian, would you please lead us to

[31:43] the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[31:58] Thank you Christian want

[32:02] to item E approval of the agenda can I get a motion

[32:08] can I get a second second it's been moved in seconded all those in favor I

[32:16] opposed motion carries moving on to citizens comments do we have any online

[32:22] we do not have any online thank you citizens comments first up we got

[32:28] Rodney Thompson if you would come up to the

[32:38] Okay, so you don't want to in the okay

[32:41] We got Samuel parole

[32:45] Step up and state your name and address and I'll start the timer

[32:50] Sam parole 32 jib Sam way Pueblo West

[32:53] Long long time resident been a member of the business community here in Pueblo West since 2007

[32:59] I wanted to come up here and publicly thank all of the public West Metro district staff and applaud them

[33:07] As I continue to work more and more and more hand-in-hand with them whether it be

[33:11] Calling the water department on the water bill had the pleasure of meeting with Jim recently

[33:18] Have multiple meetings with Christian brandy everybody Jessica

[33:23] uh you guys have an incredible group of people um and Pueblo West has an incredible group of people

[33:29] so thank you thank you thank you directors

[33:38] comments i'll start with joe

[33:49] sam since you're here are you our landlord at 63 spalding say

[34:00] am i your landlord at 63 spalding

[34:03] Yes. Yes. I'm the sole member of DGP 63 LLC. Yes, I am.

[34:11] Have you ever considered selling that piece of property to the district?

[34:16] The reason I'm interested in that, if we owned that property, we wouldn't have to pay sales tax.

[34:21] But my paying rent, in effect, are not sales tax property tax.

[34:26] In effect, the rent reflects property tax.

[34:31] Have I ever considered selling that property? Would you that is that the question?

[34:39] Would you consider?

[34:44] Yes, I would in recent meetings

[34:47] I have given information on a number that I would potentially accept if

[34:53] Pueblo West Metro district would want to put in a purchase contract. Yes, I

[34:59] Have not received a letter of intent or a contract to purchase that property at this point in time though

[35:05] I was reading through the original lease that the old lease that we I guess that we're still under and

[35:11] It had a

[35:12] Opportunity to buy in it the new one didn't appear to have that is there a reason for that?

[35:19] Yes, the first one through negotiation with staff attorney at the time Harley and district manager Nina

[35:27] We essentially had 98% of everything done

[35:30] at the 11th hour. Harley asked that to be put in in hindsight. I should not have done that,

[35:39] but I didn't object at that point in time. So, yes, there was from the 2020 to the expiring

[35:46] 1231 of 2023. Yes, there is a first writer refusal for purchase to now tenant Pub West

[35:54] Metro district yes would you be against having that in the renewal lease that

[36:00] we're going to approve yes I would be against that it's not in the renewal

[36:04] lease no why would you be against it that doesn't mean you can't buy the

[36:10] building from me if you want to you can still buy the building from me if you

[36:14] would like to and if you would want to put in a contract for purchase I would

[36:18] go over that but to give publicist Metro district a continued first writer or

[36:25] refusal. In my side of this, there's not necessarily consideration for that. There was not consideration

[36:33] for that. There was not an increased lease, rental payment in the beginning. It was a 11th

[36:39] hour throw in. I should have declined it then, and I didn't. The new lease that will be

[36:46] presented in front of you does not have a first rider refusal in it.

[36:52] okay that's my questions thank you I don't have any I don't have any at this

[36:59] time

[37:05] I don't

[37:17] have any comments I just got a statement that I'd like to read but I'm

[37:22] going to pass out some stuff to the board members real quick I

[37:37] apologize to

[37:38] everyone for not being at the last meeting as I was very ill that night

[37:41] It appears I missed quite the meeting.

[37:45] On August 28th, an action item, J3, the board voted unanimously 5-0 to approve the updated

[37:52] DM position description as written.

[37:58] On October 23rd, it was brought back during a presentation and re-voted on during the

[38:05] presentation for specific reason of DM residency.

[38:08] see. What concerns me is that if a board member or members had these issues and concerns,

[38:15] why wasn't it brought to the attention of the whole board back in August? With that

[38:20] being said, I think bringing it up to revoke when that wasn't the intent of the item

[38:25] is a real tragedy and very disappointing. Let me explain. At the June 26th meeting

[38:33] this year, I heard a board member say in public session that an SDA conference he attended,

[38:38] the best takeaway was when Ann Terry, the SDA director, spoke about board unity and cohesiveness

[38:46] and how boards are made up of five members and it only takes three members to carry a vote.

[38:52] He stated that a board member, as a board member, you may not always be on the winning

[38:56] side of a vote and how important it is to get on board with the majority.

[39:00] party. Move on and work as a team. What surprises me is that I thought we had done that when

[39:08] we voted in August 5-0. Yet here we are again voting on things that we're already decided

[39:14] on. We're at a real crossroads here. Isn't this the same thing that happened with the

[39:20] fire truck? Was I not chastised for that? Why is it okay for certain board members

[39:26] to do that. I'm also convinced that certain board members have issues with

[39:32] other board members personally and feel the need to speak at board meetings

[39:36] without first talking to the board members they have an issue with and

[39:40] asking those questions and getting all the facts. We have citizens coming and

[39:45] speaking at the podium that seem to be planted by board members. One of the

[39:50] most challenging challenging things I've dealt with since becoming

[39:53] president is trying to work cohesively with board members who have personal

[39:58] vendettas and blinders on. I personally looked into the issues of 63

[40:04] spalding that continue to be brought up time and time again and I shared with

[40:10] you guys the facts on my findings with the packet I gave you and ask now that

[40:16] you have all the facts can you please lay this to rest or professionally

[40:21] voice your concerns now. We need to work together and put our feelings aside and

[40:27] emotions to the side so we can do what we're voted to do. That's to serve this

[40:32] district and be a voice for the people. We have to do better. Let's quit the

[40:38] crap and get back to work. That's all I have.

[40:44] Now we'll move on to special

[40:46] presentations. First one is discussion on water rate study and procedures for

[40:51] for approving rates presented by Jim Blazing.

[41:01] Thank you, President Madero, members of the Board,

[41:04] Jim Blazing, Director of Utilities.

[41:07] What we have in front of you is our rates

[41:11] that we are looking to go into 2024 with

[41:15] based off our financial consulting services FCS group.

[41:20] The title of this says Water Rate Study

[41:24] and Procedure for Approving Rates.

[41:26] We, if you could get to the first page please.

[41:31] We threw out a procedure for the Board to review, and we'll do this first if it's okay.

[41:39] Board discussion of potential rate adjustments, that's what we're doing now.

[41:45] The public notice of the rate hearing, the public rate hearing, December 11th.

[41:51] the Board of Directors decision on rates December 11th and to implement the

[41:57] rate adjustments in January of 2024. So that was our recommendation for the

[42:05] site assist procedure for approving rates. So if we could go to the next page

[42:10] please. What we have here is our proposed rate adjustments for classes of

[42:18] our water customers, and we have the increases that we're proposing on the right-hand side

[42:27] of the spreadsheet that would represent the increases for these different classification

[42:34] of customers. Some of the rates would be a minor adjustment, and for higher users

[42:42] it would be a larger adjustment.

[42:45] So we worked through this again with the recommendations of FCS, our consultant, in which the Board

[42:57] approved for the five-year plan by the FCS group in April 24th of 2022.

[43:05] So we're at our third year on the rate adjustments.

[43:10] And I stand before you for any questions.

[43:15] Questions from the board? I'll start down with Brian this time.

[43:23] I just have one question that's probably on the mind of all of our community members.

[43:28] So what is the increase planning to fund? Why are we increasing?

[43:34] Okay. We're seeing increases basically in a lot of our materials, a lot of our chemicals.

[43:41] levels. We're seeing those increases. Just to that question, I did some research. Average

[43:50] costs of our materials have gone up to about 15 to 20 percent. I looked at the engineering

[43:57] news record of construction costs for November and it's 6.9 percent. Our PVC products are

[44:05] 6.7% our cast iron fittings went up 4% and our chemicals ranging again from 15

[44:15] to 20%. So we're trying to get the the rate increases to help our O&M and also

[44:22] fund capital.

[44:27] That's all I had. I just wanted to remind everybody what that

[44:29] discussion was all about that. Thank you. Jim, just a question. If I remember correctly from last year, we took a slight increase in our lower rates, but we didn't increase as much as FCS recommended, we increased, is that right?

[44:53] Yeah, we were a team here, yeah, yes, director.

[45:00] Local FCS came in late 2021, so it was two years ago and presented rates and went back

[45:05] to the drawing board and came back in March of 2022 with the adjusted rates. And they were

[45:14] slightly lower than I think first presented in 2021.

[45:17] They presented in November, but that was before we propagated the lease for waterworks.

[45:23] But if I recall, last rate increase we took, we didn't exactly follow that template

[45:28] to the letter. I think we took less of an increase than we recommended. And our last

[45:34] increase was readiness to serve only. What we're proposing here, what we're proposing

[45:42] and what FCS proposed as an increase this time for 2024 readiness and consumption both.

[45:49] I agree with that. I just want to give one record that we didn't take as big an increase

[45:55] initially I was recommended by SCN. Thank you. That's all I have. Dr. Rickers, if

[46:14] you could turn the mic on please.

[46:19] You want me to go to jail?

[46:26] All right, so on the front page you have the residential with 20,000 consumption.

[46:33] Well any of them, are these going up per 1,000 gym or is that the overall cost?

[46:41] Are you talking about on the right hand side the increase?

[46:44] That's overall.

[46:45] That's overall.

[46:45] So it's minimal per 1,000.

[46:49] That's what you're saying.

[46:54] And those three classes, the 5,000, 10,000, 20,000,

[46:57] those are examples that we picked out just because we know

[47:00] there are customers in those classes every month.

[47:03] So that's an example of the 5,000 consumption.

[47:06] If you have 5,000 gallons of water consumption,

[47:08] your water and sewer would go up a combined $3.55 per month.

[47:17] So those three are just examples of 5,000.

[47:20] Yeah.

[47:22] Well, I can understand that a lot of this

[47:23] This is caused by inflation, which we've had a big increase over the last two years.

[47:30] Yeah, inflation rate from the CPI was 5.3.

[47:36] Right, Karen?

[47:37] It was 5.3 for the CPI.

[47:43] Any other questions?

[47:48] No, these water rate increases and the rate is to serve increases.

[47:55] Those were set up three years ago, two years ago.

[48:00] with FCS our consultant Joe or Dr. Mahaney.

[48:08] At that particular time we were experiencing a huge growth rate and we thought maybe we'd run out of water at that time.

[48:18] There was quite a discussion over the water resource fee.

[48:22] And to

[48:27] the layman if you say well the last water we bought how many houses with

[48:33] that satisfy and so forth if that's the case then we paid near $60,000 for a

[48:43] share of Twin Lakes that will supposedly support two point homes or some we

[48:51] We plan a half acre per residential home per year.

[48:54] Yeah.

[48:55] And Twin Lakes usually yields 1.1 on the average?

[49:01] I don't know.

[49:03] I don't know.

[49:03] Yeah.

[49:05] So you could run up a number of the water resource fee up

[49:09] in the $30,000 range.

[49:12] Now is this a separate, the new recommendation

[49:14] on the water resource fee is quite a bit lower than that.

[49:18] Is that a separate from the rates or yes? Yes, the water resource fee is attached to any new customer that comes in

[49:26] Those dollars are put aside for water resources

[49:39] What they looked at was the cost of us purchasing water and

[49:44] Tried to go out in the future and see what that would cost

[49:48] And as you suggested, we've paid anywhere between 60,000 or 68,000 per acre foot.

[49:57] Recently it was 50,000 per acre foot.

[50:04] That's what the water resource fee is designed to cover for new customers.

[50:10] well what is the current or the budgeted projected water resource fee going to be

[50:18] for 2024 I don't have that right down in front of me I'd have to I don't know if

[50:24] we have that but yeah it's it Joe if you're director Mahaney if you look at

[50:32] the proposed right here yeah it's from 2851 to 2960 for a water resource fee for

[50:46] 24 so that's pretty much in line with the last purchase of water that's what we

[50:53] try to do yes sir it includes those last dollar purchases from 2023 yeah

[51:04] so

[51:05] So Jim what is the the connection charge of the the 29 or 25 933 which is going to 26 152

[51:19] 2960 of that is for water resource fee. What's the other? How do you break out the other that

[51:26] connection charge money go for represents a PIF and represents tap and meter fees that go along

[51:33] with it.

[51:35] Is it based on actual costs of what it costs us to implement those? Yes.

[51:39] Uh huh. Yeah, we drill down on our tap fees specifically for labor equipment

[51:45] outside services. Okay. Thank you. Have no questions. Thank you, Jim. Thank

[51:54] you.

[52:00] Special presentation number two. Employee of the quarter, third quarter.

[52:05] Gary V. Hill presented by Jessica Pinky.

[52:14] Good evening, President Madero,

[52:16] fellow members of the board. I am Jessica Pinky, a director of HR, and I am happy to

[52:22] introduce or present to you our employee of quarter three, Mr. Gary Veehill.

[52:27] Unfortunately, he was unable to be here tonight, so I do have his picture for you

[52:30] up on the TVs. Gary was hired on December 9th of 2019 as our facility's

[52:38] maintenance technician. Gary was nominated by Scott Amos, our facility's

[52:43] lead. Scott nominated him for his vast knowledge and always going above and beyond the job expectations.

[52:51] Scott shared that Gary always has a positive attitude no matter the job or the situation.

[52:56] Scott also shared that Gary is always cracking jokes to lighten the mood when there is something

[53:01] stressful going on to help deal with the situation and Gary quote improves our team morale.

[53:08] so congratulations to Gary we're very excited for him. Moving

[53:20] on to action

[53:20] items action item one 2023 resolution approving a two-year lease renewal

[53:26] agreement with DGP 63 LLC for office space presented by Christian Hine. Good

[53:33] evening Board of Directors Christian J. Hine and firm district manager for

[53:36] Pueblo West so I want to say thank you for Sam for being here tonight being

[53:40] prepared to answer any questions or offer any additional thoughts to some

[53:44] the conversation. Just to go over it yet we have a new lease agreement set to take place

[53:50] in 2024 and on for two years. With that you have in your packet the previous lease agreement

[53:56] plus the new one that's being proposed. Just to go over a couple questions that came up

[54:01] from last meeting to clarify or make sure everybody has the same information. One

[54:05] of them is a termination penalty was a question of whether we paid one based on

[54:10] certain stipulations or situations in that lease is an agreement to pay for the full amount

[54:15] of the two years of the lease if we terminate for any other reason than non-appropriation.

[54:21] To say also if it's a non-appropriation termination penalty then it is for three months or 21,000

[54:26] total.

[54:27] To clarify a question that came up last meeting about whether it was multi-year or

[54:31] why it is not multi-year, it is not multi-year and the reason is because we have that

[54:35] that termination or out capability.

[54:38] I misspoke at the last one and just clarify,

[54:40] thinking it was either extending or actively extending it,

[54:43] it's actually actively declining or terminating it

[54:46] that makes it not multi-year.

[54:47] And then, I know there was some discussion

[54:50] about a possible purchase or discussion for proposal

[54:52] for purchasing C3 Spalding

[54:54] and whether there would be any terms

[54:56] within the lease agreement that might be associated

[54:59] with that and for the record,

[55:00] we'll have a conversation if we do pursue the path

[55:03] But there is no language within the current lease and consideration of that

[55:06] if there's anything wanted to negotiate for the purchase of it or that's rent costs or trying to come to a certain

[55:11] negotiated terms, they'll be part of the actual purchase

[55:14] Just to clarify some of the significant changes or or or some of the more meaningful changes within the lease between the old one and the proposed

[55:21] current or new one

[55:23] It has been updated include all the current lease space in the building

[55:25] It's a change of about 2.9 percent increase from 6,800 per month to 7,000 per month

[55:31] And that's held for the two years

[55:34] We there's an update for the deposit required because at first the deposit was for only the space that we occupied then

[55:39] Now it is for the total of space

[55:43] Replaced as you had a question about it earlier director Mahaney

[55:45] They we removed the right a first refusal at the Lesser's request

[55:49] We added a non disturbance at our request to make sure if that you know

[55:53] The building was ever sold in the future that it would not disturb the agreement that we have

[55:56] existing for the term of that agreement and then option to renew is required in

[56:01] 90 days to line with both there and our requirements whether it's for the budget

[56:04] or for planning for new tenants and that kind of categorizes the substantial

[56:08] changes and that's up for you for presentation and discussion. If there's

[56:13] anything that I'm gonna add Sam or any other discussion.

[56:19] Perfect.

[56:21] So field any

[56:22] questions. Thank you Sam for being here to answer any of these questions. I'm going to start with Joe.

[56:30] I thought you said it was for the entire building? No just updated for the least space that we have

[56:37] now. In the original one it was maybe five or six office spaces in the conference room.

[56:43] Now it's for the actual ones we've forgotten since the amendments have taken place to include

[56:47] one one six and a couple of the other ones that we have recently gone through the amendments

[56:51] for so it's not the entire building it's the space we currently have everything

[56:55] with those last two in the West Hall three yeah three yep there's a map in

[57:02] your packet on the back any

[57:07] other questions Joe Bill questions looking at

[57:16] the original lease just question for clarification I see that the rent the rent started at 1650

[57:27] in December of 2020 it went to 2850 and then increased to 3250 2021 but there were no

[57:37] increases at that point how do we get to 6800?

[57:47] So the the original lease we were

[57:51] Our goal was, at that point in time when I purchased the building, there was a very chopped up building with 11 different leases at very strange terms in the world of real estate.

[58:05] So our goal was to attempt to get Pueblo West Metro District in a similar location at that point in time. It was the east.

[58:14] So, some of the original space was, and this is November, excuse me, this is October 2020,

[58:21] East 108, East 107, East 109, East 113, East 114, and East 115.

[58:29] There was a lease that was coming due in February of 2021.

[58:37] That was for the space East 1112.

[58:40] I made the business decision at that point to offer that directly to Pueblo West Metro District and not the tenant that was in that space.

[58:48] It was a very new tenant, a very short-term tenant. I did not feel that that tenant was going to be a long-time business decision.

[58:55] So the original negotiation had a couple stair steps into the original space.

[59:00] And then after that, there has been five addendums to then add space as many of those other leases expired and that tenant chose not to renew their lease.

[59:16] For instance, March of 2021, the large room where finance is now housed, West 116, I offered a renewal.

[59:28] I shouldn't say a renewal because when a lease expires, it's a new term. We could call a renewal

[59:34] But it's a it's a new negotiation new lease. So I offered

[59:37] That lease at that time to then current tenant of West 116 that business declined

[59:44] And then I then immediately offered Pueblo West Metro district the exact same

[59:50] Terms for that space and that has happened now

[59:54] five times since the original 2020 but the 2020 lease we did have a

[1:00:00] We had a staggered initial group of offices because we were trying to accomplish seven offices,

[1:00:09] but one of those was not perfect. And we were doing a lot of shuffling. I had two tenants

[1:00:15] that were in the east side of the building that we really wanted Metro to be grouped geographically

[1:00:21] with, moved them over to the west side, and then we had an addendum in April of

[1:00:28] 2021 for room West 114. The business owner at that time, he gave me about 60

[1:00:35] days notice that he was not going to renew his lease, offer that same term to

[1:00:39] Pueblo West Metro District, and then we were East 1110 and 111 was June of

[1:00:45] 2022 and then the most recent addendum that was September 1, 2023, Pueblo US Chamber of Commerce,

[1:00:53] they approached me and said that they had found what was considered much better space for them.

[1:01:01] And one of the conditions of them, their lease actually ran through February 28th of 2024.

[1:01:09] four, one of their conditions to let them out of their lease

[1:01:14] would be is if Metro wanted to take that space over,

[1:01:18] which you guys voted on at that point in time.

[1:01:20] So as of nine, one, 20, 23, West 115,

[1:01:24] and then that front, we call it reception area

[1:01:28] was added at that time.

[1:01:29] So that's the original lease in five adendems.

[1:01:31] So we've had adendems all along the way.

[1:01:34] Five total.

[1:01:35] All right, thanks.

[1:01:36] this side questions no questions referring back to that meeting last

[1:01:47] meeting there was a comment made a continuing comment to be made by one of

[1:01:54] our directors alleging that I am the landlord and I own the property at 63

[1:02:00] defaulting and I want to rest that finally as I've done numerous times in

[1:02:05] past have recused myself every time and then the more any time this lease comes up I have made it

[1:02:13] public that I do not have a financial interest in 63 spalding my son owns 63 spalding in its entirety

[1:02:22] it's all so hopefully director Mahaney you can

[1:02:27] will understand that and quit saying in public record that I am the landlord and I am the

[1:02:33] property owner. So I think I rested that, Carl. If I haven't, maybe you could help me with that.

[1:02:41] And I do continue to recuse myself and I will recuse myself once again tonight when this comes

[1:02:47] up for a vote. Just a little bit of sophistication on your understanding. The landlord is the LLC.

[1:02:58] Sam Proll is the sole member of that LLC and based on the representations I've heard, you have no financial interest in that building.

[1:03:10] Thank you. And I will precude myself once again when this comes up.

[1:03:15] Thank you.

[1:03:18] Questions? I have none.

[1:03:25] If we did decide to move forward with the purchase, would we still have to pay the $21,000 penalty

[1:03:38] for early termination of the lease?

[1:03:40] If you would like to put forward a purchase agreement, we can have some specific language

[1:03:45] in that purchase agreement.

[1:03:48] But in laymen, no, I mean, if we come to terms, potentially on a purchase,

[1:03:57] obviously, as the,

[1:03:59] we were talking about your language for continued ownership, or excuse me, continued lease with new ownership,

[1:04:07] If you being 90% occupying the space and then as owner occupy, no, we would probably have

[1:04:20] language or I would assume we would have language towards the end of that purchase contract

[1:04:24] that that lease would terminate.

[1:04:29] So that would be one of those parts of the negotiation.

[1:04:32] Yeah, if they're I mean if we have an executed purchase agreement then

[1:04:38] Then yeah, you turn is it for that's exactly no you would I mean at that at that point no

[1:04:45] In layman, I don't think you would be responsible for the full two-year lease payment on top of

[1:04:50] Purchase agreement, but we could solidify all that within the language of a potential purchase agreement as well

[1:04:55] Thank you.

[1:05:04] So I guess we'll vote now

[1:05:06] Can I get a motion?

[1:05:08] to pass resolution approving a two-year lease renewal agreement with DGP 63 LLC for office space.

[1:05:20] Can I get a second? It's been moved in second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

[1:05:30] Abstain. Any abstentions? Abstain. Abstain one.

[1:05:37] Action item two, 2023 resolution approving an

[1:05:40] an easement for electric and communication lines.

[1:05:43] Pueblo West Metro District presented by Sean Winters.

[1:05:48] Good evening, President Madero, members of the board,

[1:05:52] Sean Winters, Engineering Manager.

[1:05:55] Tonight I'm here presenting a request

[1:05:57] from Black Hills Energy for a permanent easement

[1:06:00] to accommodate some existing infrastructure

[1:06:02] near Kimball Drive.

[1:06:04] This infrastructure does lie on district property.

[1:06:08] We've established that the value of this easement

[1:06:10] is approximately $1,700 and we are recommending approval of the easement and the consideration

[1:06:16] agreement submitted by Black Hills Energy. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

[1:06:22] Thank you, Sean. Questions from the board? I'll start with Brian this time.

[1:06:25] Any questions?

[1:06:26] Doug?

[1:06:27] None.

[1:06:27] Bill?

[1:06:28] None.

[1:06:29] Joe?

[1:06:30] Wow. No questions.

[1:06:33] At this time, I'll entertain a motion to approve a resolution approving an easement for

[1:06:39] Electric and Communication Lines, Pueblo S Metro District.

[1:06:43] So moved.

[1:06:43] Can I get a second?

[1:06:45] Second.

[1:06:45] It's been moved and seconded.

[1:06:47] All those in favor?

[1:06:48] Aye.

[1:06:49] Opposed?

[1:06:50] Motion carries.

[1:06:52] Thank you.

[1:06:56] Action item three, considerations

[1:06:57] of adjustments for Blackwell Water Main Extension,

[1:07:01] presented by Jim Blazing.

[1:07:05] I said Jim, not Jeffrey.

[1:07:11] Thanks, Jeffrey.

[1:07:15] Good evening again.

[1:07:16] Again, President Madero, Director of the Board, what we're asking for here is an adjustment

[1:07:25] to how can I explain it, what was explained to the developer, customer who was here, Mr.

[1:07:32] Thompson, on his inquiry to get a main extension to his property on Blackwell.

[1:07:41] During that discussion, there was a miscommunication explained to him regarding the need for fire

[1:07:50] hydrants on that main extension.

[1:07:55] I'm here to see if we could have a departure from that because there was a miscommunication

[1:08:03] on our part to allow a total fire hydrant assembly and three days of traffic control that would

[1:08:15] be related to this main extension job. The total cost of the material and the traffic

[1:08:23] control would be approximately $4,700 for that. The fire hydrant assembly is material

[1:08:31] only. Questions

[1:08:37] from the board? Start with Joe.

[1:08:42] I was trying to look through real quick the board

[1:08:44] package the printed thing we have here somewhere in the board package it mentioned that Blackwell

[1:08:52] went from Purcell to some other street he runs parallel to Purcell the map that you sent

[1:09:00] I think it's correct it's right there director the proposal is to tap off black

[1:09:11] well and Platteville I'm sorry Platteville and black well is to tap or cut a

[1:09:18] T in at that point and run the main extension north to the property of black

[1:09:25] well about 800 feet about that yeah on that is a requirement for a fire

[1:09:32] hydrant and do again from internal miscommunication I'm here to ask if we

[1:09:40] could let the fire hydrant go for its material and help with the traffic

[1:09:47] control on Platteville and a total of $4,700. Any other questions Joe?

[1:09:59] Are we

[1:10:00] setting some kind of a different precedent in what we've been trying to

[1:10:03] enforce on this? This would be different than what we would if the

[1:10:10] the plans were presented to us, and we would have required that of a developer.

[1:10:16] Again, through miscommunication, we are trying to

[1:10:23] get this completed with the donation of the hydrant and traffic control.

[1:10:29] So that's what you're asking, you're asking to donate the supplies to make this happen?

[1:10:33] Yes.

[1:10:34] Okay.

[1:10:35] Now, is Blackwell one of those streets that hadn't been accepted by the county?

[1:10:39] are they going to improve it or where are we that I don't know about that if

[1:10:47] the county has accepted that for improvements I'm here just to see if it

[1:10:51] does get done that we would be able to donate the hydrant and traffic control

[1:10:59] yeah just to add a little bit to it we do think it's unique circumstances or

[1:11:03] situation here so as to not set a precedent with others that would

[1:11:06] normally come forward and find out what is required of them to develop

[1:11:09] beforehand and as far as the road that'll be an ongoing conversation with the

[1:11:13] county as for what they require in that improvement but it will be their

[1:11:16] responsibility to define that question yeah so this is some assuming that the

[1:11:25] developers was paying for most of that he wasn't told that he would have to

[1:11:31] have a hydrant so what what I believe he was told was that the district would

[1:11:38] supply the fire hydrant and then after a series of issues we want to stand by what

[1:11:47] he was told so we don't go further with any problems so this isn't anywhere near

[1:11:58] what the cost is to run a sewer line in the water no sir it's just the cost of

[1:12:02] a fire hydrant from the main to the hydrant and traffic control on Platteville

[1:12:06] Do

[1:12:10] I have any questions?

[1:12:14] Brian?

[1:12:15] I guess only the question would be where's the closest fire hydrant from where they want it.

[1:12:20] To this?

[1:12:23] Somewhere over on Gantt's board, I think.

[1:12:26] So it's needed for sure?

[1:12:28] Yeah, the fire department would require one.

[1:12:31] Okay.

[1:12:32] Thank you.

[1:12:33] I have no questions, just a comment.

[1:12:35] I just think we've got to do the right thing.

[1:12:37] so at this time I'll entertain a motion to consider of adjustments for blackwell

[1:12:46] water main extension it's been moved seconded second moved and seconded all

[1:12:51] those in favor aye opposed motion cares thank you thank you

[1:13:02] item number four

[1:13:03] update to same-day water service restoration for non-payments presented

[1:13:08] by Jeffrey.

[1:13:14] Good evening President Madero, members of the board. I came to the board, I think

[1:13:20] it was in September, looking to perform same-day service restrictions for non-payments on a

[1:13:28] trial basis. The board granted that for two cycles, two billing cycles and I am glad to

[1:13:35] report it went quite well. Didn't have any of the drama we normally do. It was quite

[1:13:40] nice in the department. Some of the numbers we had the first shut off day

[1:13:45] after the board approved that trial was October 4th there were 61 shut off for

[1:13:51] non-payments of those 22 paid before 2 p.m. so they avoided the overtime charge

[1:13:57] there were seven that paid after two so they were kind of turned on more after

[1:14:01] 5 p.m. and that went to cover the the staff cost after five and two

[1:14:07] actually said well I'll just wait till the next day and not pay the $40 so some

[1:14:12] of those people chose to do that too. On November 1st there were 44 shutoffs of

[1:14:18] those 20 paid before 2 p.m. and 3 paid after 2 and none of them waited till the

[1:14:24] next day and all these numbers don't add up to the total number of shutoffs

[1:14:27] because some take a few days some take a week to pay sometimes so it went

[1:14:33] quite well so we have a recommended resolution to do this on a permanent

[1:14:38] basis the board has any questions I'd be happy to answer thank you Joe free

[1:14:42] questions from the board I think I'll start Brian this time no questions Joe I

[1:14:53] have none either at this time I'll entertain a motion to update the same

[1:14:58] day water restoration

[1:15:00] Water service restoration for non-payments.

[1:15:04] So moved.

[1:15:05] It's been moved. Can I get a second?

[1:15:07] Second.

[1:15:08] Moved and seconded. All those in favor?

[1:15:11] Aye.

[1:15:12] Opposed?

[1:15:14] Motion carries. Thank you, Jeffrey.

[1:15:21] Item five, board consensus regarding the second November meeting presented by Katrina Peter.

[1:15:29] Good evening again, board.

[1:15:32] The Board of Directors is currently scheduled to hold a second regular scheduled meeting

[1:15:36] on November 27th, 2023.

[1:15:40] Our district officers will be closed on November 23rd and the 24th in celebration of Thanksgiving.

[1:15:45] Last year in 2022, the Board did vote to cancel the second November meeting.

[1:15:51] The two years prior to that, there was a second meeting held.

[1:15:54] So this year, we just wanted to get Board consensus as to whether or not you would

[1:15:57] like to hold that second meeting or cancel it in light of the holidays.

[1:16:02] Questions from the board to start with jail or

[1:16:08] condoms. I don't have any comments

[1:16:09] on that.

[1:16:12] Do we, we don't have anything pressing the way that needs to that

[1:16:16] requires a meeting? Do we have anything at this time? I can't think of anything.

[1:16:19] We don't have planned or scheduled for December and cover not

[1:16:26] having a

[1:16:27] meeting. I thought we discussed that, but I guess we didn't, I'm not having

[1:16:31] I would do whatever the board bled or I would tap meeting if we need to, so it makes no difference to me.

[1:16:39] Same, I'm indifferent.

[1:16:41] If there's nothing pressing then I'll say no.

[1:16:44] We do have a meeting December 13th though.

[1:16:47] December 11th is the next board meeting afterwards.

[1:16:50] Okay, so yeah, this is anything we might have done on November 27th.

[1:17:00] We can do in December at the regular meeting.

[1:17:04] So you guys OK with not having the board meeting for November?

[1:17:11] Thank you.

[1:17:12] Do we have to vote on that or Carl?

[1:17:15] I don't believe you have to.

[1:17:17] I think just dispensing with the public notice

[1:17:20] and probably putting out a notice saying

[1:17:22] that in light of the holiday, the board will not

[1:17:26] be having its second meeting in November,

[1:17:28] but we'll resume with the December 13 meeting.

[1:17:31] I will get that taken care of.

[1:17:32] Thank you.

[1:17:38] Item six, so resolution designate in the public area for posting of meeting notices for calendar

[1:17:44] year 2024 presented by Christina.

[1:17:49] So this item is a basic end of year housekeeping item.

[1:17:53] What I have done is created a spreadsheet that outlines all the upcoming meeting dates

[1:17:59] that would normally be scheduled for next year.

[1:18:02] There were two meeting dates that landed on a holiday.

[1:18:04] those meeting dates are marked with an asterisk and I selected the next date

[1:18:11] so that the Tuesday following that holiday as a date that we can hold the

[1:18:15] meeting so this is just to outline the dates for next year's meetings and then

[1:18:20] also dictate that 63 Spalding will be the marked location in which we will

[1:18:27] publish all these meetings and and have them available for inspection. Typically

[1:18:33] what we do is we have a marked at 63 spawning as the dates in which all the

[1:18:37] meetings will be held for the year. We'll be having that posted on the website as

[1:18:40] well. Yes. Thank you. Questions from the board? Start, Brian. No questions. No.

[1:18:49] You guys are

[1:18:50] making my job easy. All right, at this time, I'll ask for a motion to approve a

[1:18:55] resolution designating the public areas for posting of meeting notices for

[1:19:00] calendar year 2024.

[1:19:03] Can I get a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. All

[1:19:08] those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. On the

[1:19:18] discussion items J1 update to the Metro District personnel policy presented by

[1:19:23] Jessica Panky again

[1:19:30] directors I am Jessica Panky director of HR and I have in

[1:19:37] front of you an updated policy and I'm really excited about it so first thank

[1:19:43] you to my committee that worked with me for many many hours and reviewing it

[1:19:48] and putting in their effort for it so you have a copy of the presentation of

[1:19:55] course. The next document in your bundle there is our current policy. And I tried to make

[1:20:02] this as easy as possible because I needed to understand it to explain it to all of you.

[1:20:08] So what I did is I went through that policy. Anything black is in the new policy, nothing

[1:20:14] has changed. Red has been modified or removed. The second document that you have in there

[1:20:22] is the with the new recommended change. But again, they are going to if we don't change

[1:20:29] it they'll just wait till April or May.

[1:20:33] The other change that I am suggesting in the policy

[1:20:37] is I just added a line under the PTO policy that all PTO hours must are do we want to

[1:20:45] add Juneteenth in and have 14 holidays. I did include Pueblo County's holidays

[1:20:51] on this slide. Without the half days or the early release days, they have 14

[1:20:57] holidays, but they have a few extras in there that they leave early.

[1:21:04] We currently

[1:21:04] observe, oh go ahead, you had a question? You said Juneteenth is one that's been

[1:21:12] recently added. Federal holiday in the last few years. State also.

[1:21:20] So we used

[1:21:21] to have Columbus Day a few years ago we put out a survey to staff and they said

[1:21:28] they would rather have Colorado Day over Columbus Day so that is kind of our

[1:21:34] give for Columbus Day. What I didn't realize when we did that is originally

[1:21:38] when Colorado Day was in the policy they got it the first Monday of August.

[1:21:46] Currently how the policy reads is it's August 1st which this year was a

[1:21:50] Tuesday so we just thought we could go back to the previous policy how it was

[1:21:57] before if we kept Colorado day we would maybe potentially move that to the first

[1:22:03] Monday of August so we don't disrupt the work week with coming in on Monday and

[1:22:07] then we're off on Tuesday.

[1:22:13] We have 13 holidays I did some research private

[1:22:18] corporations they are have from nine and a half to 12 typically yeah and I did

[1:22:26] send the policy out to staff most of the comments that I got back was about

[1:22:30] the holidays and they want all the holidays that was no shock but I

[1:22:37] figured y'all should know that one person even emailed and said yeah throw

[1:22:42] Columbus bit day back in there too. So just keep that in mind. Okay. The next

[1:22:48] slide I'm talking about holiday pay. So how our current policy reads is it states

[1:22:54] employees get eight hours of holiday pay. We do have some employees that work

[1:22:59] 10-hour shifts, 12-hour shifts. So those who work 10-hour shifts either work

[1:23:04] extra throughout the week, take PTO hours to receive a full paycheck, or they

[1:23:11] are just short for that week. So I am recommending that we change the wording

[1:23:15] to we will pay them in accordance with their regular scheduled shift at their

[1:23:20] regular pay. And that's the only change under holiday pay.

[1:23:27] Next slide. Small

[1:23:29] change under bereavement, it's all the same. We do get a lot of questions about

[1:23:33] aunts, uncles, cousins, stuff like that. So we just added a line that in the

[1:23:38] event of a death of a near relative, employees may take PTO or unpaid time

[1:23:42] of PTO is exhausted to attend those funeral services and near relatives

[1:23:47] include employees, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and any other close relatives.

[1:23:52] So just adding some clarification for staff.

[1:23:59] Next change we added a line to the

[1:24:02] emergency and non-emergency closing. So again it all reads the same. We just

[1:24:07] add a line at the end. Additionally the district manager has the authority to

[1:24:11] declare a non-emergency closing of district offices on a case-by-case

[1:24:14] spaces where they deem appropriate in their sole discretion.

[1:24:19] So a quick good example of that recently was this year we had 4th of July fall on a Tuesday

[1:24:24] and what we learned just heading up to that was that public county and City of Pueblo were

[1:24:29] taking that Monday off they were going to call for non-emergency closing essentially.

[1:24:33] We did the same thing ended up reaching out to the board directors and just letting

[1:24:36] them know that that was the intent asking for any feedback for that.

[1:24:39] This would just allow really specify that the district manager in those kind of cases

[1:24:42] would have that authority to do so. But hope for discussion.

[1:24:52] All right. So next slide is just talking about some new things that we added into the policy.

[1:24:57] What I had done is I had gone to employers council and downloaded their Colorado handbook

[1:25:04] to ensure that we had all the Colorado legal specific stuff. And this was this first one

[1:25:09] job related problems was actually from their suggested policy. We liked how it read as a

[1:25:15] committee, we felt it fit it fit with the conflict resolution type stuff within the policy.

[1:25:20] So we just left that piece in there.

[1:25:23] We also left a piece about confidential information.

[1:25:25] We have staff who have access to a lot of confidential information, a jar of finance stuff like that.

[1:25:32] And we have no confidentiality statement currently in the policy.

[1:25:36] So we did go ahead and add a section about that.

[1:25:39] and then we also added a section about data disposal and we felt that that fit

[1:25:44] with our records retention that we've been working towards as a district so.

[1:25:55] Alright, next slide.

[1:26:00] We are going to talk about telework, which we added a small

[1:26:04] section in there about telework. We do have some staff that occasionally work

[1:26:08] from home when needed, don't necessarily have offices for everybody, so I'm

[1:26:13] going to ask Christian to kind of join the conversation here and help with this telework

[1:26:19] discussion.

[1:26:20] Right now what we're proposing to put in there is empowering whether it's directors, managers

[1:26:24] to make those calls based on, you know, would that telework option allow people to work,

[1:26:29] whether it's hiring action or whether it's through the actual day-to-day operations

[1:26:32] that happen throughout the year.

[1:26:34] That's specifically empowering the district to have that ability to do so.

[1:26:37] It's not requiring telework, it's not saying that we will allow everyone to telework.

[1:26:42] That's what's proposed in the policy and now the questions and the thing that we're trying to study and analyze is would it either

[1:26:49] Allow us to attract talent for specific positions that are becoming much more

[1:26:53] Frequently used as telework operations whether that's or even remote work, but I'm here specifying telework

[1:26:59] Which if you're not maybe the difference telework is you are located close to your office

[1:27:03] You are have the ability to work in person. You were just able to also work from home the difference in remote work

[1:27:08] say you work from anywhere.

[1:27:10] Generally the big difference between those two.

[1:27:13] With that, whether you're talking about IT folks,

[1:27:16] finance folks, there are certain positions

[1:27:17] that have been allowed to either telework or remote work

[1:27:20] in either the private industry

[1:27:22] or even in the state government

[1:27:24] where it has helped them attract

[1:27:25] a higher talent pool for it.

[1:27:27] And the question comes up is,

[1:27:28] would that allow us to attract more?

[1:27:30] If it is a consideration of how much office space it is,

[1:27:33] could we utilize a pilot program to test

[1:27:35] if we took a certain division department or section

[1:27:38] and use them to telework and reduce their office space

[1:27:42] requirements that we currently have,

[1:27:43] and they were still successful, still as productive,

[1:27:46] they had measurable deadlines,

[1:27:48] could we compare that to what they've reduced

[1:27:49] with how much less it costs to actually house

[1:27:51] and space them?

[1:27:52] That's what we're talking about with the pilot program

[1:27:54] is maybe in the next year, having a discussion

[1:27:57] of taking maybe a six month pilot or test

[1:28:00] or trial program say, hey, we want this section

[1:28:02] to be able to work remotely

[1:28:03] or work in a telework environment,

[1:28:05] meaning they have that office space to use as they need,

[1:28:08] but they're not required to be in full time

[1:28:10] eight to five every day of the week

[1:28:12] and see what would that compare

[1:28:14] as far as productivity versus potential cost savings.

[1:28:17] So that's what we're looking for.

[1:28:18] And the only other thing is,

[1:28:19] typically we have a whole division

[1:28:21] that's pretty much currently out.

[1:28:22] I think we're going to experience that

[1:28:24] for the next couple of years,

[1:28:25] if not frequently, just because of the flu

[1:28:27] and now what appears to be COVID season.

[1:28:29] They got the facilities division essentially tested

[1:28:32] mostly positive for COVID

[1:28:33] and they have sickness spreads with folks like that.

[1:28:36] If you have one person who comes in who is sick,

[1:28:39] they tend to be in a situation where they are then having

[1:28:42] to be in person and they're around people

[1:28:44] and they have the potential to spread that sickness

[1:28:45] and while they themselves might feel great,

[1:28:48] be able to do their work.

[1:28:49] If that gets worse and somebody else

[1:28:50] it causes them to have to take into sick day

[1:28:52] or take that time off.

[1:28:53] So the only concern with if you have the ability

[1:28:55] to tell work, could it help reduce

[1:28:57] the amount of sickness you spread

[1:28:58] and the people who might have to take that PTO

[1:29:00] or time off in a loss of productivity then.

[1:29:02] so that's the thought behind it.

[1:29:06] Thank you, welcome. Questions?

[1:29:13] Here's the fire hose. Yeah, there's more.

[1:29:20] I'm just asking questions. Oh, about the tell-over. For this tell-over. That makes sense.

[1:29:25] Do you have any? Can we do board meetings from home? You haven't asked. And that's called Zoom.

[1:29:33] after a while you wonder if somebody teleworks for two different companies at

[1:29:42] the same time that can get to a point where a lot of traditional supervisors

[1:29:50] say if I can't see the white of their eyes they're probably not working so I

[1:29:58] guess that's

[1:30:00] Something that's coming into fruition, but I'm glad I'm not in a position to have to make that call with people.

[1:30:10] You are, though. You are.

[1:30:11] I certainly understand that sentiment. I'll just share a quick experience coming, whether from the military,

[1:30:24] just having the appreciation that I've never been located with most of my

[1:30:29] higher headquarters when I was in Fort Polk, Louisiana. My boss was in Fort Hood,

[1:30:32] Texas. When I was in Kuwait, my boss was in Alabama. Typically had to find a way to

[1:30:37] work and as long as managers, supervisors have accountable measures and

[1:30:40] they're sufficient in understanding what product they're trying to push, whether

[1:30:43] that's a finance team, whether that's an IT team, if they have those

[1:30:46] measurable objectives, a good manager, a good supervisor can determine that and

[1:30:50] see if somebody, whether they can see the lights of their eyes or not, is

[1:30:52] working or not, but that's just my experience.

[1:31:00] I think it's something that's coming.

[1:31:02] I think we're gonna have to take a look at it.

[1:31:05] I would, my concern would be that there would be measurable,

[1:31:11] there needs to be savings.

[1:31:12] If there's actually gonna be savings to the district,

[1:31:19] that's what we're looking for.

[1:31:20] So that they can do their job,

[1:31:22] they can be satisfied doing their job

[1:31:24] from a remote location.

[1:31:25] but then again it's there's got to be some benefit to the district with that

[1:31:32] said I know there's a lot of companies now that are telling their people to

[1:31:35] come back to work because that has been an issue with as Joe mentioned so I

[1:31:42] don't know what the balance is either and I think a pilot program might be

[1:31:46] something that would be something good to try but yeah I think there are some

[1:31:50] jobs that can be done from home but I don't think all of them can be done

[1:31:52] home and I don't think they can all be done from home all the time so but there

[1:31:59] should be a benefit as well to the district not just to the employee. Very

[1:32:05] fair very well put.

[1:32:10] Any questions on that? I share the same concerns it takes a

[1:32:13] special person to be diligent enough and responsible enough to do the work at

[1:32:19] home rather than do whatever they want. It's nice to work near PJs sometimes.

[1:32:27] There's other

[1:32:28] considerations you may want to look at, you know, things like project-based pay versus,

[1:32:32] you know, a salary or something like that. And as Bill said, not everyone or not every

[1:32:40] position is, you know, warrants it warrants telework, but that's all I have on that topic.

[1:32:48] We had these conversations, you know, during COVID, in RAC or COVID, I think the board of them

[1:32:55] said we were a lot on top of the teleworking thing, working from home.

[1:33:00] Although I think I've maintained there are positions I think that we could benefit from.

[1:33:05] It reduces our need for office space in a lot of ways and there are benefits to the district so I would certainly consider a pilot program under your direction Christian to see how that works.

[1:33:20] Sounds good. Appreciate it.

[1:33:23] The next couple slides are an information technology section and we are still currently reviewing this part.

[1:33:31] We actually have a separate policy a computer policy

[1:33:34] I did have the IT director review these and he did think that they would be good to have in the policy

[1:33:40] But I think it would be smart to review his policy and see

[1:33:43] There's any redundancies or if we just need to take those out

[1:33:46] So we will let you know when we bring this back in December if we decided to remove those or leave them in

[1:33:51] Or if you have any thoughts

[1:33:53] About that, please let us know

[1:33:56] Can we add a clause in there to remove the spam email tricks?

[1:34:02] And they would be very much against me doing that.

[1:34:06] I do hear that the HR ones get you sometimes.

[1:34:09] All right.

[1:34:11] Okay.

[1:34:13] So now a couple of things that we did remove.

[1:34:16] So we did remove a section that talked about compensatory time.

[1:34:21] After discussions with finance,

[1:34:22] finance, what this essentially does is anybody that works overtime can take those overtime

[1:34:27] hours and basically use them on another day, get paid regular hours instead of the overtime

[1:34:32] rate.

[1:34:34] Concerns with that could be if an employee didn't want to do that, they should, after

[1:34:39] talking with finance, we felt they should just be paid overtime.

[1:34:42] If they work the overtime, let's just pay them.

[1:34:45] In the few instances that it has been used recently, it was not used properly and

[1:34:50] And I just felt that that could get us into some legal hot water, so rather just take

[1:34:54] it out.

[1:34:55] So anywhere that it talks about compensatory time has been removed.

[1:35:00] We also removed the section about per request needed or PRN employees.

[1:35:06] We don't have any of these.

[1:35:07] We have not utilized these in our, in my history here.

[1:35:12] If we needed somebody as needed, we would probably hire a temporary staff, which is

[1:35:17] talked about in our policy.

[1:35:19] have

[1:35:23] any of the water enterprise, PRNs, part-time, PRN, we hire temporary staff typically.

[1:35:33] The next section is dress and appearance. You're going to see a little bit of red on that slide.

[1:35:38] We took out kind of the gender specific attacking is some of how some of us read it in the

[1:35:45] committee and just sort of left it open to where a department director has the

[1:35:51] call to decide if somebody is wearing something inappropriate it still has

[1:35:55] all the language in there for a director to do that. What this does is it stops

[1:36:01] HR from being the fashion police when we walk into people's offices.

[1:36:11] It still

[1:36:13] is specific about, you know, have to be professional, those sort of things. But we're leaving it

[1:36:19] up to department directors to use their discretion. HR is not in there every single day. And then

[1:36:25] I walk in there on a random Tuesday and I have to be the fashion police. So the other

[1:36:32] thing that we did remove is the extended PTO bank. We do not have an extended PTO bank

[1:36:37] anymore. So that is no longer. So we just took that section out.

[1:36:44] Okay, now we're

[1:36:45] talk about longevity and PTO.

[1:36:51] I'm going to bring Christian back into this conversation because

[1:36:55] we spent many hours going through this policy. What was it? Three plus hours Christian?

[1:36:59] Maybe more. Maybe more. And there was a lot of things that we got hung up on conversations on and

[1:37:05] longevity and PTO were one of them. So we wanted to talk to you about those.

[1:37:10] Yeah. So this longevity specifically is something we're looking for feedback or input

[1:37:14] from the board. Right now within our policy, we see on that current longevity is what we offer.

[1:37:20] Our intentions have been within the first quarter of next year to come forward and talk about

[1:37:25] different pay practices that will evaluate and calculate longevity pay within that process.

[1:37:31] But pending, you know, that discussion and whether it's approved or not, we still want

[1:37:34] to take a stab at what does it currently say and whether it needs to change if nothing

[1:37:37] else changed. Our current longevity, the biggest thing that I've noticed is that if you work

[1:37:43] here for over 30 years, you'll get equivalent of a dollar more an hour, which is, you know,

[1:37:49] something.

[1:37:49] But it comes into a question of, is longevity something we are offering because we think

[1:37:54] it is just an additional benefit, it by itself is just additional value we're providing

[1:37:58] or recognizing?

[1:37:59] Or is it something that entices people to want to sign on with the district because

[1:38:04] they see we have a good longevity pay program?

[1:38:07] Currently, I would say we are this more of the former.

[1:38:09] It's something that just adds a little bit of value, but it's not ventured with

[1:38:12] anybody's, you know, experience position or their experience within that position, it's

[1:38:16] not commensurate with a large increase for them, it's really just an added benefit.

[1:38:21] But if we do want to encourage people to be here for longer, then we may want to take

[1:38:25] a look at whether more sophisticated longevity pay practice or just evaluating what it is

[1:38:29] that should be within those confines, because at the end of the day I think we've talked

[1:38:33] about before, a dollar an hour to somebody, whether they're making 40,000 versus 100,000

[1:38:37] a year is the same number obviously, so that's pretty fair, but at the same time

[1:38:41] Is that what we're trying to evaluate now?

[1:38:43] We're trying to increase enticement for people in positions or not so open discussion

[1:38:48] We haven't made any recommendations. I think for the longevity specifically

[1:38:51] We just kind of want to hear some feedback and thoughts on it

[1:38:57] So you're talking about already pay over the course of their employment. Is that is that what this so?

[1:39:04] Correct me if I'm wrong the way it gets paid out is once they hit

[1:39:07] Let's say that five-year mark then every year at that five-year mark

[1:39:10] they'll get that $600.

[1:39:11] So in the fifth year, they get $600.

[1:39:14] In the sixth year, they get $600 in the seventh year

[1:39:16] all the way up to the 10-year mark.

[1:39:17] And when we're saying that $1 an hour,

[1:39:19] we're just equating, sorry, in that 30-year mark, $2,100

[1:39:23] is the equivalent of, if they were to make it hourly,

[1:39:26] that's what it would equate to.

[1:39:28] Also, this is like a bonus.

[1:39:29] It's on top of everything.

[1:39:30] Yes, so they are paid out.

[1:39:32] Their longevity pay in December.

[1:39:34] And it is an extra amount that they get.

[1:39:37] So they don't see it like if they make, let's say, $20 an hour at 30 years, it doesn't change

[1:39:42] their hourly rate.

[1:39:43] They still get $20 an hour while they're at 30 years or more.

[1:39:46] At the end of the year, they get $2,100 as that bonus.

[1:39:50] The equivalent is if they were being paid essentially $1 an hour more after 30 years

[1:39:54] of service.

[1:39:56] So it's like a bonus.

[1:39:58] It is.

[1:39:59] And if we're just looking at it for an additional benefit, that can remain as it is.

[1:40:04] It's just does that make, you know, does that, I don't know, I'll describe it, does that pass

[1:40:09] the check of you work here for 30 years and essentially for that 30 years you're

[1:40:14] getting a dollar more an hour equivalent? Are we recognizing people who stay here,

[1:40:19] are we benefiting or rewarding them for wanting to stay here, or are we just

[1:40:23] looking for it to be that additional benefit? Well, they're getting paid,

[1:40:28] they're getting paid during the year, right? Yeah, but there's no other

[1:40:34] They raise this during the course of their career.

[1:40:37] So we have people who have been working here 30-plus years who are making less than their

[1:40:39] mid-range, which shows that there is nothing going to evaluate how long they've been here

[1:40:43] and whether they're getting compensated higher as they progress or being recognized for any

[1:40:47] value additionally to the district.

[1:40:49] It's legitimately...

[1:40:50] You talked about our early rate.

[1:40:51] We've got people that have been here for 30 years that are making less than their

[1:40:56] mid-range of their salaries.

[1:40:56] Less than the people that have been here for 15 years?

[1:40:58] Potentially.

[1:40:59] It can happen.

[1:41:00] And that has happened here is that once we start increasing that salary range as inflation or as we do a market analysis

[1:41:06] We have places where it compresses where somebody who's been here for 10 years is making the exact same as somebody

[1:41:11] We just hired and sometimes that person making who is just hard to be making more

[1:41:23] Just yeah the hourly rate we do offer this but it does not even in those cases does not equivalent

[1:41:28] equivalent, equate to a meaningful change, especially if there's somebody who's been working

[1:41:32] here 30 plus years, they're making less of their comparation, then somebody who could

[1:41:35] be hired tomorrow will be making more.

[1:41:37] That's happened all over Colorado, the minimum wage has gone up, this happens everywhere.

[1:41:44] So, but you're working on a plan to correct that, include longevity into your pay scale,

[1:41:50] correct?

[1:41:51] Do we need to have a policy, do we need to update or change a policy since you're

[1:41:56] looking at updating how the pay scale works.

[1:42:00] So what we're trying to do here is if that policy doesn't,

[1:42:03] if we don't create a new pay practice,

[1:42:05] as I've kind of started presenting,

[1:42:08] do we want to change anything within the current structure

[1:42:10] of longevity pay to account for what that pay practice

[1:42:13] normally would?

[1:42:15] If we, let's say we change something here

[1:42:16] and then we adopt a new pay practice,

[1:42:18] we would also revise this policy

[1:42:19] to remove the longevity pay.

[1:42:21] Right, because you're looking to introduce

[1:42:23] that new pay practice next year, early next year.

[1:42:25] Yes. After we review and take every position, identify what would that change be and then

[1:42:29] present it to the board to get feedback. That would be an impact.

[1:42:33] I can tell you, in private business, the business that I run, when minimum wage changes, I do allow

[1:42:40] it to increase, so I don't have a new hire that would be more money than the one on the current

[1:42:46] employee. And I think it's incumbent to keep your employees and keep them in their

[1:42:54] It's cost prohibitive to continue to turn over employees, I think we've identified that.

[1:43:01] Not prohibitive, but it's expensive. I mean, it costs quite a bit when you're replacing it over six months.

[1:43:06] And that's the concept that I think I like to take care of my employees.

[1:43:10] If we don't take care of our employees, there's no one who's going to be here to take care of our situation.

[1:43:17] I have to do support some outline regarding this pay.

[1:43:26] Absolutely.

[1:43:27] Yeah, I understand.

[1:43:28] I agree.

[1:43:28] Right now we have, operationally we've done a lot of correction as we've noticed it.

[1:43:32] The only concern I would have and why I think a pay practice will help solve that

[1:43:34] is that will formalize, regardless who's in the position,

[1:43:36] we'll know how people should be compensated

[1:43:38] and we'll reduce the likelihood that that would happen with a new pay practice.

[1:43:42] with longevity it is you know I understand there might be debate on

[1:43:48] whether longevity should be rewarded by itself I think there is intrinsic value

[1:43:51] the person who has been here a little bit longer knows the processes I think at

[1:43:54] the same time I've heard you know counter arguments that somebody who's

[1:43:57] been here too long has known how to get away with the system that they have

[1:43:59] presented to them but at the end of the day the biggest thing that I've

[1:44:03] learned is the military has a 20-year program before you can get the

[1:44:07] retirement, and they have identified that that 10-year mark is the cutoff.

[1:44:11] They know if you make it past 10 years, you're probably staying in the military because you

[1:44:15] only have less than 10 years to put up with the rest of it before you make that retirement

[1:44:19] system.

[1:44:20] And that 10-year ends up being what they want to incentivize people to get to before

[1:44:24] they start understanding that that person's probably already taken care of.

[1:44:27] They've made the decision themselves that they're going to continue with the military

[1:44:29] for 20 years.

[1:44:30] Obviously, if you've not heard the news or read, the military has a huge retention

[1:44:34] problem right now. And it's not indicative just because of longevity, there's a lot going on there.

[1:44:38] But with that, the big concern is if we do think longevity is important, if we do think having

[1:44:44] somebody employed with a district for a period of time, longer than two, three years, somebody who

[1:44:48] will bring value and continue to bring value to the district, do we want to incentivize them to

[1:44:52] at least get to a certain point where we can keep them? That's the general concept of

[1:44:56] longevity. So just outside of the pay practice, we might

[1:45:00] Uh, be able to get before you and be able to get approved. Um, do we want to take a look

[1:45:04] at what longevity pay is currently and then adjust if necessary if that pay practice is

[1:45:08] approved?

[1:45:11] I'd say not disturb the card if you're going to be updating it. But we're going to be looking

[1:45:16] at that early next year. I mean, if we're going to, if this is going to be two years

[1:45:19] down the road, then yeah, we probably need to talk about the longevity pay. But I mean,

[1:45:25] if we're going to be adjusting this anyway, then what's the point?

[1:45:27] Fair enough.

[1:45:32] PTO.

[1:45:33] PTO.

[1:45:35] Christian's still in on this one, but we did notice something a little off when

[1:45:40] we were looking at it so take it away, Christian. Oh yeah there's only one

[1:45:45] correction to it for some reason and you know we don't have animal body of

[1:45:49] history of everything that had decided why certain change were made but we

[1:45:52] noticed from the 10 to 14 year mark every other increment is by 40 hours

[1:45:58] or, I'm sorry, 40 hours for fire, full-time, sorry.

[1:46:05] Full-time is 40 hours, and then fire suppression math is...

[1:46:08] 48.

[1:46:09] 48, thank you.

[1:46:10] And then part-time is 20.

[1:46:13] For some reason, that's 10 to 14-year mark.

[1:46:15] It's almost half.

[1:46:15] It's actually, I guess, I guess 16-14 split or a 60-40 split.

[1:46:20] So we were just looking to correct that and increase it by what it is.

[1:46:24] there is one, if you're looking at the slide,

[1:46:28] correct me if I'm wrong,

[1:46:29] just the year 15 plus is not 480.

[1:46:32] It is 280.

[1:46:33] It is 280, sorry about that.

[1:46:33] It is not suddenly double in time off.

[1:46:35] I fixed it in our meeting.

[1:46:37] We checked it.

[1:46:38] We just didn't know it was,

[1:46:40] so essentially all we're doing is correcting for that.

[1:46:42] It's incremented by 40 hours

[1:46:45] instead of that weird half split.

[1:46:48] But this does still need to be evaluated.

[1:46:52] And this is vacation pay, is that, is that, this is PTO?

[1:46:57] Yeah, PTO is sick and vacation, all in one bucket.

[1:47:01] So we noticed a little bit of a discrepancy there, so we're discussing potentially making

[1:47:07] an update there, but we do need to get to both finance and have them evaluate what that

[1:47:11] would look like for the district to make sure that it's the right move.

[1:47:15] Do we have a cap on PTO accrual?

[1:47:18] So they can only roll over 80 hours to the next year.

[1:47:22] So

[1:47:25] anything that they do not use unfortunately is lost.

[1:47:29] We try to encourage them to use it.

[1:47:32] Is there like a minimum number of years that they have to work before they can cash it out?

[1:47:37] Cash out.

[1:47:38] You know, when they leave?

[1:47:41] Yeah, no, when they leave because we have it all in one bucket, we have to pay it out to them when they leave.

[1:47:48] But they can only crew so much, right?

[1:47:51] right yep questions

[1:47:57] thank you thank you have a great night so will we be going

[1:48:06] over this we can yeah we can schedule meetings we can do whatever I can make

[1:48:14] a bigger email at you you sound good thank you absolutely that's what you

[1:48:18] emailed me right um I sent you the very first version so if you'd like I can

[1:48:23] email it all out to all of you, so you have it.

[1:48:26] And you can enlarge your computer as you want to.

[1:48:29] Yeah.

[1:48:31] I'll get that out to you guys.

[1:48:32] Thank you.

[1:48:34] I do.

[1:48:35] I don't like looking at stuff on the computer.

[1:48:37] I like touching it and marking it up.

[1:48:45] I just have one more question.

[1:48:47] I'm so sorry.

[1:48:48] Okay, so on the PQ issue, we want to go to once a year on January 1st.

[1:48:57] How difficult is it to move to monthly accrual?

[1:49:01] Not very difficult.

[1:49:02] We would just set that up through Paycom and it would hopefully be an automatic thing.

[1:49:08] No, we did not discuss that, but absolutely open to it.

[1:49:11] I know some companies will issue the first year up front and then after that then the crew sum every month.

[1:49:21] Okay, that's a thought. Interesting. Alright, thank you.

[1:49:27] That protects you.

[1:49:28] Thank you.

[1:49:29] It protects you from people.

[1:49:30] That makes sense.

[1:49:35] J260 oversight committee member appointment discussion presented by Sean Winters.

[1:49:39] Good

[1:49:44] evening, President Madero, members of the board, Sean Winters,

[1:49:47] engineering manager. On October 24th, I attended a Pueblo West Road sales tax

[1:49:53] advisory committee quarterly meeting and one of the things that were mentioned,

[1:49:58] it was mentioned at that meeting, was that one of the committee members has

[1:50:02] not attended any of the meetings and so the committee was asking if they

[1:50:08] They could have Pueblo West reappoint that position.

[1:50:12] Pueblo West originally appointed that particular position,

[1:50:17] and they just wanted to know if you would consider that.

[1:50:21] The second thing that did come up,

[1:50:24] I did have one of the committee members

[1:50:27] whose term will expire at the end of the year

[1:50:31] wanted to know what the process was

[1:50:32] going to be for that new term.

[1:50:35] This particular position was jointly appointed by Pueblo County and Pueblo West.

[1:50:42] And they do want to continue with involvement with that committee if possible.

[1:50:50] So they were just asking for what the process was for reappointment.

[1:50:54] I don't remember there being a term on that.

[1:50:57] What was the process of selection?

[1:51:01] Was there any kind of evaluation criteria?

[1:51:03] I think we've got all the application names, and each board member recommended two names,

[1:51:09] and the one that got the most votes is how we went.

[1:51:13] We'll have to review all the applications, though, because we've got the whole packet sent to us.

[1:51:18] But I don't remember a term when it's on.

[1:51:20] I think that this was done for a stagger, so that you didn't have all of the members changing at the same time.

[1:51:30] I don't remember that at all.

[1:51:31] Okay, so if we could look into that double-check. I'm looking at the I

[1:51:38] Didn't see anything in the bowling was describing. I'm just looking at the IGA right now

[1:51:41] I'm not sure if there's I did stumble

[1:51:44] Onto the committee members

[1:51:45] I can't remember if it was on the Pueblo County site and I do believe that this one position does end at the end of the year

[1:51:51] But well, she was she the jointly appointed one or was she the one that was from she was jointly jointly appointed

[1:51:59] It's we just say to the county saying this is one we recommend that them

[1:52:04] Send one to I think they're just less over day first. It's just a read-off the

[1:52:09] IGA members of the oversight committee shall serve until a they resign committee be they are moved from the committee by the entity

[1:52:16] Which appointed them or see they are no longer residents within the district

[1:52:22] I'll try to find cement she's good on that I thought

[1:52:29] different things. The one has joined the appointment. She thought she had a term

[1:52:34] in it. There's no term in it. Second one is the one that hasn't showed up to

[1:52:38] meetings. I don't know how you guys want to approach that. I don't think if you

[1:52:42] don't have the time and you can't make it, I think we need to do something to

[1:52:45] replace it. Get a new person in that position. I don't know if we can use

[1:52:50] same applications that we got from the last round or we should put that

[1:52:53] back out and see if we can get some new people. John, do we have a record of, you

[1:53:01] gotta recall each board member submitted two names and one that got the most out of

[1:53:07] the five directors was appointed. We have a record of how many down the line, third

[1:53:14] and fourth. Why not just appoint the next one in line that got the most votes?

[1:53:20] From my perspective, you know, those candidates that were available back at that time may

[1:53:26] not be available now, and some people who might want to be interested now might not have been

[1:53:32] able to back then, so it would seem to me like it might be more fair to repost for those

[1:53:51] positions.

[1:53:53] Should we should we have that committee try to reach out to that person?

[1:53:57] I think that would be the best order protocol, and then once we receive that letter in the nation, then we move forward with the advertising.

[1:54:06] I would like to advertise and get some new people.

[1:54:09] You're not there, and I think we can't get rid of them, but...

[1:54:13] They haven't showed up for one year.

[1:54:18] That's my understanding.

[1:54:20] Yeah, that's just a vacancy.

[1:54:28] There's more to the story, but we'll just leave it like that.

[1:54:34] So what's my what's my direction on that post it post it after we get a resident I'd like

[1:54:42] to get a resignation letter from to give the benefit of the doubt there's some issues

[1:54:48] that I'm not going to ask for a resignation, have the committee ask for a resignation and

[1:54:53] then post it.

[1:54:54] Okay.

[1:54:55] How long do you wait before you don't get a resignation?

[1:54:59] Five?

[1:55:00] Five, ten minutes?

[1:55:01] Yeah, fair enough.

[1:55:02] If I could make a recommendation, since it does state that the removal process is either

[1:55:06] they resigned, they're removed by who reported them, or they're no longer residents, perhaps

[1:55:10] reach out to them, or direct the committee, or ask the committee to reach out to them.

[1:55:13] And if we don't hear about the next board meeting, have the official removal of them

[1:55:17] and notification posted or application posted.

[1:55:19] How often do they meet?

[1:55:21] Once a quarter.

[1:55:22] So we would be asking them to do that before their next meeting.

[1:55:26] We would ask them to reach out to him,

[1:55:28] put that resignation forward.

[1:55:30] If we get that resignation, great.

[1:55:31] That allows them that opportunity to do so,

[1:55:33] if not by the next meeting.

[1:55:34] They'll be meeting again in January.

[1:55:35] Correct.

[1:55:37] Yeah, I believe the next quarterly meeting is in January.

[1:55:42] That may change to February.

[1:55:44] where a, I don't recall if they had a discussion for it,

[1:55:47] but just on the time of coming back

[1:55:48] and getting the report ready,

[1:55:49] they may have delayed it a month before they did again,

[1:55:52] but I don't recall.

[1:55:53] We'll confirm it.

[1:55:55] Thank you.

[1:55:56] Thank you.

[1:55:59] J3 RFP 2023 W-002 on call engineering services

[1:56:05] for water waste water utility projects

[1:56:08] presented by Jeffery.

[1:56:11] Good evening again.

[1:56:12] So this RFP, every couple years the Utilities Department puts out an RFP to get proposals from interested engineering firms to do various projects.

[1:56:23] This list that was included with our RFP included water and wastewater treatment engineering process modeling, water system modeling, master plan updates, conservation plan updates, pumping treatment.

[1:56:38] meant there's a pretty broad scope of work included with this.

[1:56:43] And what it helps us do is not have to get pricing and quotes

[1:56:46] and come to the board probably close to hundreds of times

[1:56:50] over the course of a couple years.

[1:56:53] So after this RP was posted, the department or procurement

[1:56:58] got six responses.

[1:57:00] JVA Consulting Engineers was the highest scoring.

[1:57:03] They scored 281 points.

[1:57:06] second place was 261 points and that's three staff members scoring them

[1:57:11] individually and then sending those scores to procurement so it's not none of

[1:57:16] the three staff members that are scoring this know what the other two did so the

[1:57:21] department is recommending going with JBA consulting engineers right now it's

[1:57:25] a discussion item there was a included resolution but we will come back in

[1:57:30] December for approval if there are any questions now though I'd be happy

[1:57:34] answer them. Questions from the board? Start with Joe.

[1:57:42] There's no reason you guys don't have any

[1:57:44] problem with JVA. No, we've never had any problems with them. Have you had any problems with the

[1:57:53] public or anybody involved? With the public. Well, I'm not sure what you mean. Sorry.

[1:58:07] I guess they don't deal with the public then at all. When they make presentations,

[1:58:12] It's always in-house with the utilities people.

[1:58:18] They have presented at board meetings before, but it's not very often,

[1:58:24] but not general just

[1:58:26] open public meetings, if that's what you're asking.

[1:58:33] What's the value of the RFP?

[1:58:36] Some of the scopes or work orders I put in the staff report, they range from about

[1:58:41] about $80,000 individually and there's no set limit, there's no minimum either, they're

[1:58:48] not guaranteed work. What we generally use them for now is the water looping mains that

[1:58:52] you heard me come back for construction approval for. That's because the on-call services

[1:58:57] already did the design for. They've done some water modeling for us, GIS mapping,

[1:59:08] pressure

[1:59:09] common one is the water looping stuff the water mains they're

[1:59:16] the current they

[1:59:18] are the current one yeah since 2020 yes the last one was 2020 with three years

[1:59:22] renewable this one is potentially 2024 and two years renewable so through 2026 so

[1:59:30] in the course of a year do we pay more than what we're allowed to for by

[1:59:38] statute? I mean do

[1:59:43] we have to go by each individual project? I mean don't Jack

[1:59:46] put something out the bit if it's more than $60,000 or do I go up to $120,000?

[1:59:52] More than $30,000. More than $30,000. Okay so what I'm saying is that you

[1:59:56] can't just blindly give them a $80,000 project.

[2:00:00] Without putting out the bid.

[2:00:02] Before, I think the biggest ones before were 60 because that was the district manager, I guess, spending limit, but I put 80,000 here because potentially for inflation through the next couple of years.

[2:00:18] I know, but still, if it's a 30,000 before it has to go out the bid, the district manager can't overrule that.

[2:00:27] So you can have a general contract like this, as long as the scope of work is included, if

[2:00:34] you don't deviate from that, you know, within the RFP, you can have multiple projects.

[2:00:40] But they can't, you have multiple projects, but the project itself can't go over the

[2:00:44] spending limit without the state law kicking in saying you have to put it to ARC to bid?

[2:00:49] It's usually an RFP documentation, usually about 10%.

[2:00:54] I mean, the question you pose is an interesting one,

[2:00:57] which is what is the scope of this project?

[2:01:00] Is this project for on-call engineering services

[2:01:03] or do we need to bid out the actual contract

[2:01:11] for each individual service?

[2:01:13] This is sort of in the nature of an omnibus contract

[2:01:17] to pick up not large projects but ongoing projects that the water team would have

[2:01:26] that we're going through the contracting process is consumptive of a large

[2:01:34] amount of staff time where going through the process does not at least in

[2:01:40] theory give value to the district and so that a contract like this for on-call

[2:01:48] engineering services as long as it's closely circumscribed in terms of the

[2:01:55] services that are available and the amount that would be paid should be

[2:01:59] proper. Yeah I just want to make sure all our

[2:02:02] ducts are in a row. I think I mean we can certainly address that in the

[2:02:08] resolution. But your question is a good one. What are we, what are we bidding for?

[2:02:14] We've got the bid that's already gone out. We've got scoring that's already been

[2:02:18] done. We can take one more look at it, but the resolution should be tailored to

[2:02:22] make sure that it falls within appropriate staff statements. So there's

[2:02:27] one thing I just need to bring up. I hate to be a stakeholder just but I

[2:02:31] know we follow a lot of the same roles with what I do and what you

[2:02:37] I know the evaluation criteria cost has to be the highest percentage score.

[2:02:46] I don't set those parameters.

[2:02:49] Procurement sets the regulations.

[2:02:51] Isn't that in our regulations?

[2:02:53] Procurement regulations?

[2:02:55] I don't think it's in the regulations now.

[2:02:58] My understanding was that for RFPs-

[2:03:00] You probably need to look at that.

[2:03:02] Yeah, my understanding was that for RFP's request for proposals that pricing was submitted separately. It was my understanding

[2:03:11] RFP should have a contract value

[2:03:16] But yeah, so I know when I when I put out an RFP and I utilize the scoring criteria

[2:03:24] Costs has to be the most weighted item in the evaluation criteria

[2:03:39] any

[2:03:45] other questions thank you j4 utilities department grants update

[2:03:53] presented by Jeffrey yep I just wanted to come give the board a quick update on a

[2:03:58] few grand opportunities that we've had without getting too technical the lead

[2:04:04] and copper rule revision that will take effect next year forces us to have an

[2:04:10] inventory it's basically one huge spreadsheet of every service line that

[2:04:14] that we have that is labor intensive so we apply for a grant and we've heard preliminarily

[2:04:21] that it was successful that the state is setting us up with the purchase order and that would

[2:04:28] be $36,000 so that's fairly imminent even though we haven't gotten official word.

[2:04:33] They have told us that they're preparing that documentation.

[2:04:36] After the first of the year, we're also going to apply for what is called a Water Supply

[2:04:45] Reserve Fund Grant, and that will help fund the engineering and design portion of the

[2:04:50] mobile home area that we're budgeting for design for next year.

[2:04:55] So right now, that's looking like the entire cost might be around $300,000.

[2:05:01] So we'll probably ask for a grant of around $200,000.

[2:05:03] You could ask for up to 75%, but you're more likely to get more money if you do it a little bit lower, so maybe 66%.

[2:05:09] But we'd probably come to the board with another update with an ask, ask the board for what we should ask for officially after the first year.

[2:05:18] But that's what we're planning to do. It does slow down our process and design because we have to apply in February, beginning of February,

[2:05:26] but we won't find out until July if we're successful. So that's what we're planning to do. And that's what we've done so far.

[2:05:33] So thank you just want to give the board an update questions comments

[2:05:38] Good job. Yeah, thanks. Thanks

[2:05:45] J5

[2:05:47] Board of Director compensation presented by Joe Mahaney

[2:05:52] as

[2:06:03] I understand it we get

[2:06:05] $50 for every board meeting scheduled board meeting that we attend and we could be paid as much as a hundred

[2:06:15] So long as the total for the year doesn't exceed

[2:06:20] $2,400, is it, Christian?

[2:06:25] You

[2:06:29] know, considering the,

[2:06:31] we're going to give 4%

[2:06:33] cost of living increase

[2:06:36] to all of the employees,

[2:06:40] but the Board of Directors are still sitting here

[2:06:43] at 50 bucks a month,

[2:06:44] or 50 bucks a meeting.

[2:06:48] You guys are leaving us out.

[2:06:50] We want to raise, or I do,

[2:06:52] I can't take it for yourself.

[2:06:55] Fair.

[2:06:56] So I appreciate Katrina that prepared a little bit of a staff report with some of the context

[2:07:02] and some of the analysis.

[2:07:05] Joe is correct.

[2:07:06] Right now is set at $50 per meeting.

[2:07:10] The two stipulations within the statutes as you can't, as a board of director member,

[2:07:14] can't make more than $2,400 in a year or more than $100 per meeting.

[2:07:18] meeting. We typically have 23 scheduled meetings per year for the regular meetings. One of those

[2:07:25] is usually as we just did tonight. Taking off, that's the November one. So for 22 regular

[2:07:30] meetings and we have sometimes between maybe an average of five or more special meetings

[2:07:38] throughout the year. The breakdown of some of that, apologies, one other fact to it

[2:07:43] is right now the Board of Directors does receive a compensation in accordance of $30 per month

[2:07:51] for travel arrangements. This is not a reimbursed expense for actual expenses, so therefore it

[2:07:56] is calculated as part of that overall compensation. So with that, the analysis that Katrina was

[2:08:04] so kindly did showed the average of meetings in the past was at 3 years, was about 31 meetings

[2:08:10] per year and did a little bit of a comparison of how much could that equate to for the rate

[2:08:16] of pay for meeting if you included that $30 a month for the travel arrangements or if

[2:08:22] you took it out and what that equate to.

[2:08:24] So with that, correct me if I'm wrong if I'm reading it, somewhere between the $80

[2:08:32] per meeting depending on whether you kept that $30 a month travel allowance was kind

[2:08:38] factored in to make sure that you could still continue to do those 31 meetings per year

[2:08:42] without risking or too much risk to having meetings that you would be expected to attend

[2:08:48] without pay.

[2:08:51] If you look at the last page of that staff report, it actually has a breakdown.

[2:08:55] So if based on the average of 31 meetings per year, if that $30 monthly travel allowance was to

[2:09:03] be kept, then you could potentially go up to $65 per meeting and not risk having not

[2:09:10] be paid a meeting if you kept it at 31 meetings let's say for instance we were

[2:09:15] to go 32 33 meetings I think it was in 22 the board of directors actually held

[2:09:21] 36 meetings so you do run a risk of potentially not being paid for a

[2:09:26] meeting but you could go to up 65 if you kept that travel monthly travel

[2:09:30] allowance if you went without that monthly travel allowance you could

[2:09:33] potentially go up to $75.

[2:09:40] Questions from the board, Bill?

[2:09:44] I don't have any questions.

[2:09:48] And I don't think any of us are here

[2:09:50] because we make exorbitant amounts of money.

[2:09:55] But with that being said, the $50 has been in place since at least

[2:10:01] 2006 that I can recall.

[2:10:05] But we're doing 80, right?

[2:10:07] In essence, we're getting $80 a month.

[2:10:10] If you drop the $30 and go to 75, we're taking a pay cut.

[2:10:16] If you attend both for the month, it would be $130.

[2:10:20] I think it's $50 per meeting and then $30 travel allowance.

[2:10:24] Correct.

[2:10:25] Oh yeah, there you go.

[2:10:29] I

[2:10:32] certainly

[2:10:38] didn't run for this full seat in the paycheck.

[2:10:42] I think I get $46 every meeting put into my account.

[2:10:51] At the end of the year, I donate it all back to the Parks and Recs so that they can put on an employee appreciation party.

[2:10:58] So if for some how I get out voted with this field and put on a better party this year,

[2:11:03] I'll give it all to Carol as well, like I have the last five years.

[2:11:07] And I certainly won't support or raise from the board of directors.

[2:11:15] I think we're put in these positions to lead and to serve, not to serve ourselves, that's

[2:11:23] just my opinion.

[2:11:25] Anything that I make from the board goes directly to Carol and also to the fireworks.

[2:11:33] How do I say it?

[2:11:36] No.

[2:11:37] The processing fee.

[2:11:39] Processing fee.

[2:11:40] Thank you.

[2:11:41] So that way we can take donations and stuff online.

[2:11:45] I too won't support that, but...

[2:11:48] This is just discussion, right?

[2:11:49] Yep.

[2:11:52] So, we knew what the pay was when we signed up.

[2:11:57] I don't think we should just change it to benefit ourselves, but that's just my opinion.

[2:12:05] So, I guess it'll come back to the next meeting or table

[2:12:13] it.

[2:12:14] What do you guys want to do?

[2:12:15] I guess get a consensus.

[2:12:17] Yeah, just to see if we're going to bring it back or not.

[2:12:24] I guess I'll just leave it to Jill on that.

[2:12:30] If I decide I want to make it a motion, it will be at the next meeting.

[2:12:36] So this was just a discussion item.

[2:12:39] Correct.

[2:12:42] On the J6 follow-up discussion, admin building committee and scheduling future work session.

[2:12:48] Christian Hyde.

[2:12:49] Good evening again.

[2:12:50] So, just to follow up, at the last meeting we had a discussion item to talk about administration

[2:12:56] building committees, some of the topics we had kind of encountered during it, and get

[2:13:00] a little bit of initial feedback from the board of directors about what we had found

[2:13:04] and what we were looking for as far as guidance.

[2:13:06] We're bringing it back mostly for discussion, including full board, and as far as meeting

[2:13:11] with the administration building committees since then to go over some of the facts

[2:13:14] figures and a little bit of the analysis we have been doing up to that point.

[2:13:18] with that. The first thing I kind of wanted to get, whether buying or just

[2:13:24] discussion about is we contemplated whether it would be valuable to have a

[2:13:27] work session with the full board and a compliment of mostly the full senior

[2:13:32] staff to really discuss and you know get feedback from hey how much this cost

[2:13:36] what does it really mean for us how does it affect us operationally what is

[2:13:39] it that we want what is it we think you want to be able to discuss you

[2:13:43] know at length and detail some of those kind of concerns or comments

[2:13:47] that have come up since we've talked about a future administration building and just starting

[2:13:52] off with that if there would be any discussion or interest in doing so and having that work

[2:13:58] session.

[2:14:00] I think it's important that we have a work session and go over options, concepts, ideas

[2:14:08] with the full board.

[2:14:13] Is there any opposition if rescheduled a work session?

[2:14:16] So what that would look like is to clarify, there has been a request to be timely and put energy behind this, looking for progress, decisions, and idea of a plan.

[2:14:29] We've contemplated whether we could do something before the end of the year, but that would look like probably a special meeting sometime within the next six weeks that we've got.

[2:14:38] With that, I don't know the availability. I understand we're towards holidays, we're towards pretty busy times of the year,

[2:14:43] but setting aside maybe an hour and a half to be able to have a work session

[2:14:47] is that something that we could potentially foresee before the end of the year

[2:14:50] with people's schedule?

[2:14:54] Yeah, I'm good with that. I would like to have, if it's possible, some

[2:15:01] Contractors there as well. Possibly have them bring some conceptual ideas of what a new building

[2:15:08] could look like versus retrofitting 63-spalding and adding to it versus plan C, DE, or whatever.

[2:15:18] So that we know exactly what we're talking about. I mean, otherwise we're just talking

[2:15:23] about cost. And if cost is the only thing driving us, then of course we should go with

[2:15:28] the cheapest option. But if we're looking at, you know, expanding on that Pupilus brand,

[2:15:35] that's a totally different concept. And we could do that without an enormous amount

[2:15:40] of cost, but it's still going to cost more than taking an old building and trying to,

[2:15:46] you know, squeeze everybody in.

[2:15:51] So is it possible to get local contractors or designers

[2:15:55] to draw up something?

[2:15:57] Actually, I talked to a couple just to get some input

[2:16:01] and see what they could come up with.

[2:16:05] So I have reached out to a few to see the conceptual costs

[2:16:11] that they're looking at.

[2:16:12] Because we're just shooting in the dark.

[2:16:14] We've got some, you know, Christian did some research

[2:16:18] looking at costs online.

[2:16:21] but I personally think we can do better than what what these are are saying

[2:16:29] especially for the size of building that we kind of determined that we need we've

[2:16:34] come down from 15,000 especially if you incorporate people that aren't going to

[2:16:40] be working at the office you know if you're doing some of this tele telework

[2:16:46] which I think the whole board should have input you know talking about and

[2:16:50] And seeing what what size building we actually need with we may be able to get a building down to 9,000 square feet 10,000 square feet

[2:16:58] We did we did trade for a nice piece of ground up on Civic Center for that specific purpose or

[2:17:04] Something like that. So I think that would be something that we should you know diligently look at

[2:17:09] I mean not just say oh, it's too much and we can't do it. Well, I think that's the purpose of the work session, correct

[2:17:16] Yeah

[2:17:17] to have all of these out.

[2:17:19] Now, getting contractors there, I'd probably have to...

[2:17:24] I don't know if you probably talked to a chairman or something.

[2:17:26] I want to make sure we're not doing nothing.

[2:17:27] The only concern generally we would have

[2:17:29] is we don't want to provide an avenue for somebody

[2:17:32] to have an unfair competitive advantage

[2:17:34] when it comes to that conversation

[2:17:35] that might come up with us going out for the bid.

[2:17:38] Having folks, you know, whether they tend to say,

[2:17:39] comments to just provide information to the board

[2:17:42] or say, hey, within my three minutes time, you know,

[2:17:45] I'm somebody who does this for a living here is kind of my thoughts on it or what you're looking for

[2:17:50] But we might have to have just a conversation of whether we would allow them to participate in that work session at face

[2:17:54] At the level we might be looking for them to do which provide a little bit more like valuable information as far as if you're

[2:18:00] Looking to do this conceptually this might be what it costs

[2:18:02] Or this might be how we look or what the limitations might be if you're looking at this piece of land versus this piece of property

[2:18:09] So we might owe you an IOU on how that might work out and whether we could do that within the next month or so

[2:18:14] that you might have heard, thank you.

[2:18:16] People are sure, definitely understand the interest there.

[2:18:20] So that would require a special meeting then?

[2:18:22] Are we trying to get a date?

[2:18:24] Yeah, if there's a time within the next six weeks

[2:18:26] that works for all.

[2:18:28] And if there is, it sounds like there is an interest,

[2:18:31] not to jump the gun there,

[2:18:32] but to have that work session then, yeah.

[2:18:34] Would we also have the results

[2:18:36] of the survey that was put out?

[2:18:38] I think so.

[2:18:39] I believe we put that out for the goal was two weeks.

[2:18:42] I think within the next, you know week we'll have that finalized

[2:18:49] dates anybody

[2:18:53] I'm in favor of a work session

[2:18:57] Just

[2:19:01] make sure you're on time Joe joint meeting on the 19th 13th 11th,

[2:19:11] so any of any other time

[2:19:13] I would prefer not to do it on Christmas Eve or Christmas

[2:19:27] I would say

[2:19:37] I've removed myself from the Civic Building Committee out of a bunch of caution.

[2:19:43] I traded with Director Madero so you shouldn't plan this work session around my schedule.

[2:20:07] I believe that's appropriate director prole in keeping with absolute transparency and

[2:20:18] scrupulous avoidance of even the appearance of any impropriety that does

[2:20:23] make sense to me so I think that would be appropriate and it's one fewer meeting

[2:20:30] that you have to attend. It's not fair. I'm gonna re-cheese myself as well so I

[2:20:36] cannot have to know. So December 8th? I have a does rock management meeting

[2:20:42] 10 to noon on the 8th, so anytime around that I could do it.

[2:20:48] 10 to noon?

[2:20:49] 10 to noon.

[2:20:50] It probably would be a hour.

[2:20:51] Is it local?

[2:20:52] It's a Zoom meeting.

[2:20:57] What do I have the 8th on?

[2:20:58] What do I have?

[2:20:59] I was going to ask you, I don't have that.

[2:21:01] That's a 13.

[2:21:02] It's a Zoom too, isn't it?

[2:21:04] Yeah.

[2:21:05] We might have tentatively-

[2:21:06] Friday the 8th.

[2:21:07] I think-

[2:21:08] I was looking at November, sorry.

[2:21:11] I thought the December 8th was for the counties meeting that they might need prior to,

[2:21:16] but I'm not sure.

[2:21:17] We could follow up.

[2:21:17] Friday the 8th of December work for me

[2:21:24] preference be for morning or afternoon December 8th morning for me

[2:21:30] First thing morning shoot for 8 a.m. That way if there is something that comes up at 10 that would give time to

[2:21:35] No, it's I was looking at the wrong. Okay

[2:21:38] You can you can go nine. Give you a chance to get in there 830. Okay, not nine o'clock December nine o'clock

[2:21:47] Okay, we'll schedule that the only other thing I wanted to bring up for admin

[2:21:51] building committee kind of this out order was sorry the updates just you know

[2:21:55] share the general consensus and discussion we had at the last one we did

[2:21:59] hear that at the time seems that the board is more interested in building

[2:22:02] new or looking in building new with that there has been comments or

[2:22:05] considerations for what that look like as far as building what might be the

[2:22:09] priorities there whether it is cost whether is branding whether is

[2:22:12] marketing, whether it's location, and then considerations even for, you know,

[2:22:16] currently with being in a lease, is it more cost-effective to make a purchase

[2:22:19] offer, depending on the timeline associated with building that future

[2:22:24] building. So those conversation topics came up. I'm just gonna update that on my

[2:22:30] apologies. Committee reports, but thanks for for helping me out with that.

[2:22:36] Absolutely. But yeah, that's all. Just if there's any other discussion about

[2:22:39] Otherwise, we'll plan for a work session.

[2:22:41] We'll definitely bring our information

[2:22:43] and our folks to be able to either answer questions

[2:22:45] or help guide the discussion

[2:22:46] or help understand where you all might have us

[2:22:49] working towards figuring out some answers

[2:22:51] or some thoughts to it.

[2:22:52] And then other than that,

[2:22:53] I just look forward to the discussion.

[2:22:55] Thank you.

[2:22:59] J7, By-law Revision, presented by Christian Hyde.

[2:23:03] This one's real quick.

[2:23:05] Just confirming the timeline with it.

[2:23:07] That's generally what we said.

[2:23:08] I think we might be maybe a week or two behind.

[2:23:10] behind though we have built into that timeline some time for ketchup, but we did get initial comments from some

[2:23:17] There are some additional folks who have already notified me that they either didn't have an opportunity to look at it or due to some

[2:23:23] Recent changes, they'd like to take another look at it

[2:23:25] But we are starting to collect that and then we did just want to confirm

[2:23:29] We have director vickers as essentially a board member representative for that committee

[2:23:33] They'll start establishing to look at all the revisions that have been proposed so far in any additional comments and

[2:23:38] And move forward from there with the hope that we can get something presented to the board in January and improve by February

[2:23:45] Questions from the board. Thank

[2:23:50] you Christian again Christian number eight timing of executive session

[2:23:57] So this has come up in discussion recently

[2:24:00] Right now executive session as indicated on the agenda and as Wally walking in

[2:24:05] Comes after the regular session with that previously. It had been before

[2:24:10] And then if there was anything not covered before, what ended up happening is a German of the exact session convening the regular meeting and then reconvening after during the regular session or reconvening the executive session if there's anything that didn't get covered before the meeting.

[2:24:26] What we've encountered recently is just that there's a couple of things that can come up based on that that can either cause complications for being able to produce results for that item that might come up.

[2:24:38] or just from the staff time and discussing,

[2:24:40] you know, is there something that could be done beforehand

[2:24:44] that might be able to save on that sense.

[2:24:46] So the issues with the current protocol that we have,

[2:24:50] anytime that we have an item in executive session

[2:24:52] pairing with a discussion item in public session,

[2:24:55] as the executive session follows after,

[2:24:58] it can be difficult when the board may wanna utilize

[2:24:59] that executive session to gain knowledge

[2:25:01] before they discuss it in an open session.

[2:25:04] When it is a public session action item instead,

[2:25:06] Instead there can be an issue where if we have a public session, wanted to bring something

[2:25:10] for action, but we knew that there might be an ensuing executive session item.

[2:25:14] We can't just bring it for action without having that discussion.

[2:25:16] So what ends up happening is we prepare for executive session and then wait two to three

[2:25:19] weeks before we have an ensuing meeting to provide that action so we can delay

[2:25:23] a little bit of process.

[2:25:25] When we've had this recent instance with the PFAS settlement, if we ever coordinate

[2:25:29] for somebody to attend executive session who's not a staff member, it's a little

[2:25:33] bit more difficult to coordinate for them if we don't know exactly the start time of

[2:25:37] the executive session because it follows the regular session meeting which can also

[2:25:40] improve costs if there's somebody that we pay on an hourly basis for their time and

[2:25:44] then in general just as we have had the executive session tail at the end of it it does lengthen

[2:25:50] obviously the total time we spend within the meeting that otherwise if we did have

[2:25:54] it beforehand we would be able to get folks who are just there for the executive session

[2:25:57] there, discuss their item, get the input from the board and then have them depart before,

[2:26:05] you know, even when the recent hour is getting darker, just the general safety concern that

[2:26:08] can come with folks who are staying later, driving wherever they may drive to home.

[2:26:13] As we know, most accidents occur closer to home than they do on something like I-25, though

[2:26:18] I will speak from personal experience.

[2:26:19] I-25 is not great either.

[2:26:21] With that, we just want to bring that up.

[2:26:24] At the time I was decided to move it to the end.

[2:26:26] And I recall that, you know, that was made in that discussion of bringing the actual regular

[2:26:31] session to 6 p.m.

[2:26:33] The reason for that, excuse me, the reason for that was to allow more opportunity for

[2:26:38] attendance within that regular meeting.

[2:26:39] However, normally the public does not attend the executive session.

[2:26:42] So with that, would it make, is there any reason to bring it to the after?

[2:26:46] So we're just bringing up the conversation, discussion to share those concerns, but

[2:26:49] open for discussion.

[2:26:52] Questions from the board?

[2:26:53] Start with Joe.

[2:26:56] Comments?

[2:26:56] well I think we can schedule either before or after that justification of why

[2:27:04] we want to do it.

[2:27:08] Bill? Yeah I have no issues with having them before the public

[2:27:14] six-clock meeting. I don't believe that was the necessarily the intent of the

[2:27:18] app motion at that time. It was mostly mostly to change the meeting time to six

[2:27:24] so yeah I'm okay with executive sessions whatever works best for you

[2:27:32] I'm okay with having it earlier. It's fine.

[2:27:35] I've always supported having it before the meeting. I have no problem with it at all.

[2:27:40] I think it makes good sense.

[2:27:44] Is that to bring that back or?

[2:27:47] Yeah.

[2:27:48] Can I get a motion to go ahead and change executive session to before the meeting?

[2:27:54] I'll make a motion to change executive sessions to before or after whatever works best for

[2:28:00] the employees.

[2:28:03] Can I get a second?

[2:28:05] Second.

[2:28:05] It's been moving in second.

[2:28:07] All those in favor?

[2:28:08] Aye.

[2:28:09] Opposed?

[2:28:11] Motion carries.

[2:28:12] Thank you very much.

[2:28:16] Now we're on a case.

[2:28:17] Citizens comments.

[2:28:18] Is there anybody that would like to discuss or have comments, concerns about any of the

[2:28:22] discussion items that we had today?

[2:28:29] Everybody's raising their hands. We'll start with Sam and then we'll work our way this way.

[2:28:41] Appreciate being here tonight. Three years, 18 days later, I stand here.

[2:28:46] I created a sole member LLC in 2020. DGP63 LLC. The D stands for Dylan. The G stands for Grace.

[2:28:56] The P stands for Pearl. That's my daughter. She has turned 12 on Saturday.

[2:29:01] I thought it was pretty cool to name the LLC after her.

[2:29:04] 63 has to do with the address, of course.

[2:29:07] Most recent addendum I provided my 2020 operating agreement,

[2:29:11] and on August 16th, 2023, I signed to have a David that says,

[2:29:15] this letter certifies that Samuel H. Perl is the sole member of DGP LLC.

[2:29:20] All revenue, expenses, and potential profits are for the benefit of Samuel H. Perl only.

[2:29:27] I hope we put that to rest and I ask that we continue to objectively discuss and logically

[2:29:36] apply business principles to this relationship.

[2:29:41] This is a 100% gross lease.

[2:29:45] What that means is the building owner takes on all the expenses, maintenance and repairs.

[2:29:53] That's been overshadowed and hasn't been spoke about publicly.

[2:29:57] There's been a lot of talk about all these different terms.

[2:30:00] I bear the cost of all the expense. As most people know, in 2023, expenses are rising greatly.

[2:30:08] So I would like to remind that I want to thank Christian and applaud Christian.

[2:30:12] You guys got a pit bull right there. He got a lot for publicist metro districts.

[2:30:19] So I want to applaud you. And then there's some unspoken people that we wouldn't be talking about other stuff if they hadn't been poking and prodding me for many years.

[2:30:28] So they knew who they are right now. My building is not marketed as for sale

[2:30:33] But at the same time it wasn't for sale in 2020 when I bought it. I always say that

[2:30:40] Everything in business and everything in the United States is for sale if somebody wants to

[2:30:45] Buy it they can if those terms are reached

[2:30:48] With two mutual parties

[2:30:51] Everything's for sale with an exception of my Scotty Cameron putter collection

[2:30:58] Continue to answer any questions to any of the board of directors any staff

[2:31:03] I mean truly anybody out there public that needs that wants to know information on this would be happy to

[2:31:07] Continue to answer questions. So thank you for having me

[2:31:32] Rodney Thompson, I just wanted to thank the board for the motion that was passed tonight to assist us on

[2:31:40] Blackwell Drive as the owner of it.

[2:31:44] Christian certainly knows some of our story coming here to Colorado

[2:31:48] three years ago and we

[2:31:52] went through some serious issues with a shyster builder that screwed us over

[2:31:56] and came out here thinking we'd be in a motor home for

[2:32:00] four months and here we have just passed three years.

[2:32:04] So my wife is obviously very patient.

[2:32:09] But it has been a long ride and you all have helped tremendously tonight by passing this thing.

[2:32:15] Thank you Christian and you can thank your counsel too.

[2:32:19] I mean he's obviously been helpful with this as has Jeffrey.

[2:32:27] And

[2:32:31] you?

[2:32:35] I did. I did.

[2:32:39] I think I've run out of words.

[2:32:43] But thank you all very much.

[2:32:47] It's been a great thing for our heart to try to get this thing moving.

[2:32:53] Our house is about 95% done and we still don't have water.

[2:32:57] So it's been kind of scary.

[2:32:59] Thank you.

[2:33:00] Thank you.

[2:33:02] Melvin.

[2:33:15] Get up and stretch every once in a while.

[2:33:19] Okay, my name is Malin Mann-Rose. I live at 228 East Park Ridge Drive.

[2:33:23] A comment was made, and I'm kind of curious about this, because I got a four-wheel drive vehicle on a plat map of Pueblo West.

[2:33:32] And there's a lot of roads out there that are platted on this plat map, and they got property around them.

[2:33:37] And for some of the reason, these roads weren't maintained.

[2:33:42] Their roads are platted. The roads are there. If you go out with a four-wheel drive vehicle, you can get on them.

[2:33:46] And I spent a little time driving around and checking some of these roads out just for the heck of it

[2:33:51] but if they're platted roads and they're

[2:33:56] We're there at one time and people bought property along them and now people come out here and they find out

[2:34:02] The road wasn't maintained

[2:34:03] But I got this piece of property out there and now how can you expect these citizens that bought a piece of property

[2:34:10] On a road that was maintained to come in and put in a road and

[2:34:14] And there's a lot of them out there, Littleton Drive's a good example, Gantt's Fort's a good example.

[2:34:19] The roads were there, the head signs on them,

[2:34:22] and now all of a sudden a guy comes out here, I got a piece of property I bought, I want to retire on it.

[2:34:28] Oh, now I have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars putting in a road

[2:34:32] because Pueblo West didn't maintain a road that was there originally.

[2:34:36] So I think somewhere along the line you need to get together with the county

[2:34:41] and get these roads put back in, or something, rather than have to expect the people that

[2:34:48] have these properties, that have already bought these properties, put in a road.

[2:34:53] Why should they have the expense of putting in this road that was there when they bought

[2:34:59] it?

[2:34:59] But now it's weed grown and overgrown and the gravel is all sunk in the mud and

[2:35:03] there's water and dirt over it.

[2:35:06] I don't really think it's fair to somebody that bought property 20-30 years ago or

[2:35:11] back in 74 when McCullough built this place and

[2:35:15] Then tell them that now you got to put in the road because we didn't maintain it

[2:35:19] So I think you need to as a as a council you guys have done a good job. I'm not complaining

[2:35:25] But I think you need to look at somehow or another we need to put these roads back in or have these roads put back in rather than have

[2:35:32] individual property owners put these roads in. I don't think that's fair to

[2:35:36] them because when they bought the property the road was there and like you

[2:35:40] say I've driven around with a plat map. There's plenty of roads out there. You

[2:35:45] get out there you can find the gravel you can find where we actually had a

[2:35:49] road sign that said that was a road. Now there's nothing so just just a

[2:35:55] suggestion. I don't think it's fair to the individual property owners that

[2:35:59] bought this property 20 years ago, they have to put in a road. So maybe it can work something

[2:36:04] out with the county or something. Because it's part of the 54 miles road that you said

[2:36:09] that weren't maintained. So not exactly fair to somebody that bought property 20 years

[2:36:14] ago expecting to be able to come out here and build on it. So it's my only comment.

[2:36:18] Thank you.

[2:36:19] Thank you, thank you.

[2:36:20] I

[2:36:23] could just quickly, my wife was trying to remind me that I missed Mr. Blazon's name and the thank you was, I want to thank you also.

[2:36:33] We don't thank Jim very often, we don't thank Jim. You thank Carl and Jimis.

[2:36:40] Thank you sir.

[2:36:42] Move on to Board Member and District Manager closing comments. We'll start with Christian.

[2:36:46] Yeah, I have a couple, I did want to first echo Sam's comments about the lease and including

[2:36:53] the utilities there.

[2:36:54] Just to offer, I didn't mention it before, but we did our due diligence on our side as

[2:36:59] far as evaluating what that looked like and how the average cost, whether it's the Pueblo

[2:37:03] Pueblo West, how we're paying elsewhere and confidently say in support that I think

[2:37:07] we are in a good position for that lease and the arrangements there, especially considering

[2:37:11] the utilities that are owned by the owner there.

[2:37:14] So thank you, Sam, for mentioning that, and I'd love to help put that to rest as well,

[2:37:20] because I know it's been a comment or a concern or a question about whether that, how that's

[2:37:24] come to fruition.

[2:37:26] Mr. and Ms. Thompson, I just want to say thank you to all your patients and support.

[2:37:30] I was there a couple of years ago when Ms. Thompson first came to my office, which I

[2:37:33] felt inexplicably bad for, because I directed him to 356, and then he went to 280, and

[2:37:39] So I felt really bad, but he and I met a few years back

[2:37:43] and they've been extremely patient,

[2:37:45] understanding through the process.

[2:37:46] And I don't think anything that we've discussed tonight

[2:37:48] or the actual board approval to it does anything

[2:37:51] other than justice for that situation that occurred.

[2:37:54] And I think I just want to thank both him and his wife,

[2:37:57] especially his wife for offering some Japanese candy,

[2:38:00] which was delicious, along with just the process

[2:38:03] of the board and the staff

[2:38:05] and everything that's gone into that

[2:38:06] to evaluate that decision and how to move forward

[2:38:08] with it.

[2:38:08] And then Melvin, I definitely understand your concerns when it comes to, you know,

[2:38:13] something that was plotted the way the county looks out of this, the technical

[2:38:16] answer to it. But they accept it as it's plotted. The right exists there, but they

[2:38:21] never accept it for maintenance. What that usually ends up being for us in the

[2:38:25] district with that cause is whenever those properties were built there and

[2:38:28] they weren't actually accepted by the county for maintenance, we went forward

[2:38:31] and said that we would continue to maintain them as a practice that

[2:38:34] somebody lived there and wanted to make sure that there was access to them.

[2:38:37] the county did approve anything that was accepted by us for maintenance as

[2:38:41] something that they would continue to maintain going forward and I do think it

[2:38:45] will be a challenge but I think a worthy challenge of our board the committee

[2:38:48] and the county to work together to define what that looks like for you know

[2:38:53] exactly what we're asking the cost for developers and homeowners to do versus

[2:38:57] what the county may be able to take on. I know they've said in public

[2:39:01] session that they do not foresee that even with a sales tax that's enough

[2:39:06] money to fix all the problems that they've encountered, but I do think it's a good task

[2:39:09] and challenge for us to be able to understand that the folks living there and how to maintain

[2:39:12] it and how to expect future maintenance and improvements to go forward, we'll have to

[2:39:16] be in conversation, but I definitely understand the concern there. It's one we've dealt with

[2:39:20] for many years. That's all I've got.

[2:39:24] Thank you, Christian. Joe.

[2:39:26] Now the

[2:39:31] discussion about my concern with ownership of C of the 63 Spalding, I have no personal

[2:39:41] problem whatsoever with as long as it's transparent, we know who we're dealing with, or the family

[2:39:52] or whatever, that isn't my concern.

[2:39:55] The concern that I always expressed was, is it an arms length transaction?

[2:40:01] If it is, everything's above board, then there isn't anything to hide.

[2:40:07] We're trying to be transparent about everything.

[2:40:10] That's been a policy.

[2:40:11] So that's the only thing.

[2:40:15] Understood on my part.

[2:40:16] Sorry, just to add a little bit, definitely understood.

[2:40:19] I can share from my personal experience that that's been my perception and experience

[2:40:23] with us and taking this position. I appreciate Sam's diligence and negotiating

[2:40:28] lease. This was something obviously that fell during this year, so it was

[2:40:32] something that I got to undertake, but overall that has been my perception of

[2:40:35] and I understand your concerns, Joe.

[2:40:39] What's all of it?

[2:40:42] I don't have any.

[2:40:44] Nothing?

[2:40:45] Nothing.

[2:40:48] Right.

[2:40:48] I don't have any.

[2:40:50] I got nothing.

[2:40:54] And I got nothing.

[2:40:55] and Committee reports, Committee of Architect, October 26th,

[2:41:03] Director Vickers.

[2:41:05] OK, we had a conversation about a 30-day limit.

[2:41:11] This is dealing with the county roads and bridges.

[2:41:18] Evidently right now, let me just write what I wrote here.

[2:41:23] 38 limit for the permit approval. If they missed their permit approval, they're required to go

[2:41:31] to the bottom of the list for their water tap and basically start the process over, pay the application

[2:41:38] fee again to the committee of architecture. The complaint was there's a number of times that

[2:41:45] they're held up by it's outside of their control of roads and bridges being one of

[2:41:52] them so they miss that 30-day window and now they're having to go back and pay

[2:41:59] that 375 bucks for a reapplication fee and they're moved to the my

[2:42:05] understanding it comes from the water department they're moved right to the

[2:42:08] bottom of the list for the water tap that they once had at this position so

[2:42:14] So to me it seems kind of punitive.

[2:42:18] We have houses out, and this came about because we have houses out there that actually got

[2:42:23] to permit the foundation is in, but we hadn't signed up on it yet.

[2:42:33] So we've created a conundrum, and it doesn't, well they said it happens to maybe 10 percent.

[2:42:38] So that's a pretty good number of people that it affects.

[2:42:43] So they wanted me to direct this to the board to see if there's something that they can do to

[2:42:49] Mitigate this and it all boils down to I guess the number of taps that you allow per year

[2:42:55] And and that you're not

[2:42:58] You're trying to prevent hoarding of taps right developers buying it

[2:43:02] lots of ground

[2:43:05] buying the taps and then

[2:43:06] Nothing comes of it, but they hold the tap and they take it from somebody else

[2:43:10] I think there might be a better way that we can do this system.

[2:43:15] Okay, so if you don't mind you.

[2:43:18] This all came about

[2:43:22] when we set the 60-day moratorium on water taps

[2:43:26] when we realized our water portfolio was anemic

[2:43:29] and I think the year before we sold some 470 taps

[2:43:34] our biggest fear, as you just said,

[2:43:37] and our concern was when we roll these taps out,

[2:43:41] we don't want builders and homeowners

[2:43:42] to come buy a water tap to speculate on their lot

[2:43:46] and they'd sell their lot a year or two later.

[2:43:49] We wanted to make sure that the water taps

[2:43:51] were gonna be used for building a home.

[2:43:53] That's why John Neville at the time

[2:43:55] was the director and COA,

[2:43:57] was involved with the water team

[2:43:59] where we all got together on the table

[2:44:02] and put these rules in place in your act.

[2:44:06] that was exactly the reason we did that. We set a timeline. In fact, Jim and I talked about this

[2:44:11] a month ago, how we really need to reconvene our water team and look at this whole thing,

[2:44:18] because it's just, a lot of it doesn't make sense, and then that water team can come to the

[2:44:23] board to make a recommendation as another committee. But I agree with you 100%. I just

[2:44:28] started in the movie. I'm starting a house over by the general store, and I got caught up in

[2:44:33] the rowdy sheep sign off and I got caught up with Pueblo County Public Works on the driver

[2:44:42] axis so it is definitely a delay and it's something that we really need to look at and try to

[2:44:50] tweak it a little bit.

[2:44:51] We did a one size fits all recommendation of the board and recognizing now that the

[2:44:57] economy has changed we're not, we don't have a worry of four hundred and twenty.

[2:45:11] We're scheduling a water team to meet sometime in December. You're right, it was based off people

[2:45:19] wanting to buy a tap off speculation. Didn't show any due diligence for building.

[2:45:28] That was

[2:45:29] going to reconvene and take a look at that but Director Vickers what was the

[2:45:33] percentage you said they told me 10 now maybe that's inflated 10% or that we're

[2:45:39] having the problem yes okay at the count maybe at the county level but I know

[2:45:46] that we've had several come through or the communities had several come through

[2:45:50] as of late to have to repay the fee and it just seems like that's not very nice yeah

[2:46:02] we talked we talked about that we will probably delve into that on December

[2:46:07] meeting that'd be great because I remember I recall and I understand the

[2:46:13] developers or somebody buying a block loss but I don't as far as I can remember

[2:46:19] and I've been building here since 95 I never was able to actually pay for a

[2:46:26] water tap until I had the sign-offs from everybody and the permit then I could

[2:46:32] buy the water tap how it's basically like that and what we got what I'll do is

[2:46:39] guarantee that you're going to build the house. Yeah. We wanted to make sure that you're actually building the house we get sort of a time limit type of foundation installed.

[2:46:48] We have some taps that were put in in the 80s and they haven't built. Yeah, I realize we came across that but there was, I distinctly recall that they would not sell a water tap or stuff.

[2:47:04] No, they used to back in the 80s and 90s when when the district was going to raise tap these they would allow

[2:47:11] Oh people coming to buy it. If you own property, you can come by tap.

[2:47:16] So it did happen back then. So I think our intention was to see physical construction.

[2:47:23] Right. We want to know that you're actually not just going through the sign off process and buying a water tank.

[2:47:29] So and that would be with the foundation.

[2:47:30] Play the devil's advocate here. So if somebody came in said we'll come and build a house now

[2:47:36] You could certainly restrict blocks of tracks, you know, 30 lots

[2:47:41] But if I came and said I wanted to build a house and I paid my

[2:47:44] $30,000 for a water tap and I didn't do that build that house

[2:47:50] We still have the $30,000 correct

[2:47:52] But think about your lots worth five years from now when we have no more water taps.

[2:47:59] It's a free exchange of capital, just like Sam said.

[2:48:06] If you pay for that, you buy your house and you're allowed to sell it at a profit.

[2:48:15] So what's the difference? The water tap is taken out of the portfolio.

[2:48:19] Actually, it's a benefit to us. It's not being used.

[2:48:22] they've actually paid for it. We've got that money now that we've used for 30

[2:48:25] years. I'm just saying I love it. I can't see. Most people would like that. If you're going to do that, I'll come in and write the check and I'll put a water tap on everyone in my house.

[2:48:37] How does that hurt the district? It doesn't hurt the district. It hurts the people that are going to build a house out here. It doesn't hurt us. We're going to get the money from the water.

[2:48:47] So you're doing all this to protect the builders, or the homeowners?

[2:48:50] To protect people from exploiting our water taps and flipping them in the fibers from that.

[2:48:57] What you're actually trying to do is say, I'm going to charge $30,000 for a water tap in 2023.

[2:49:06] If I don't sell that water tap in 2050, I may be able to charge $60,000 for that water tap.

[2:49:11] That's what you're protecting. You're protecting the district's ability to raise funds,

[2:49:17] But again, it goes back to speculation in that case.

[2:49:24] If somebody buys a water tap and the water tap fees increase as time goes by, they basically,

[2:49:38] well, just like I said, they basically bought a tap at 1980 cost in my one example

[2:49:45] And it still rests there at the 1980 cost. They haven't they haven't connected so

[2:49:51] When they do connect they should pay the current cost

[2:49:56] That's in the interest of the district. Well,

[2:50:02] I think they could pay the difference between what what what they paid and what would be the current cost

[2:50:07] Okay, committee reports Pueblo economic development corporation

[2:50:20] Okay, look at the list. I'm done. There's more on my list for COA

[2:50:27] Homeowner's obtained it. Let's see

[2:50:30] Can COA charge a fee for the re-inspection of property not staked?

[2:50:37] So that came about because they're going out to look at

[2:50:41] Sorry if this is out of your purview, but this is part of our job remember

[2:50:48] The committee goes out to inspect houses and they're not staked or signed

[2:50:53] which they require and they'll do that a couple of times and then eventually it's

[2:51:00] like can they charge a fee for the reinspection of a property that hasn't

[2:51:04] been staked over the course of three or four meetings that I guess would be a

[2:51:10] question for the legal department and a question for the board if that's

[2:51:15] something that you would find that they need to do you know they they have a

[2:51:24] list of homes that they go and look at to make sure they're in compliance. If

[2:51:29] they're not staked and signed, they'll go back next time. You know, how many times

[2:51:33] do they just keep making this trip until? But they don't have any recourse, right?

[2:51:38] They can't do anything about it. Yeah, right now that's what they're

[2:51:41] asking if they can if they can actually charge them a fee for doing

[2:51:44] that, like the building department does for a re-inspection fee.

[2:51:49] We should be

[2:51:51] I can't think of a reason that you couldn't do that if you want to.

[2:51:55] I think the board needs to establish a policy or the committee needs to establish a policy,

[2:52:02] but I can't think of any impediment to charging a reinspection fee if you're coming back to

[2:52:10] check and make sure that a violation has been addressed.

[2:52:14] Okay. So that would be something that the board would need to take up and decide if they want to do it?

[2:52:19] Probably need a discussion item on the agendas and get all the details.

[2:52:24] Probably with the list of all the rules so that can be published.

[2:52:27] Can you make a note to add to the next?

[2:52:29] Thank you.

[2:52:31] All right. That's all I have on COA.

[2:52:39] I think the committee reports are just reports. I don't think they're discussion items, correct?

[2:52:44] And if we're going to handle, if we're going to do everything by the policy, then the policy

[2:52:48] states that you've got to send an email if you want something on discussion item for

[2:52:53] the next meeting.

[2:52:58] Petco.

[2:52:58] Whatever.

[2:52:59] Director.

[2:53:00] Excuse me?

[2:53:01] I said whatever.

[2:53:02] Yeah, obviously.

[2:53:03] Okay.

[2:53:05] So I was double booked at this time.

[2:53:09] I chose to go to a water enterprise meeting versus Petco, so I apologize to them and

[2:53:14] swore that I'll be at the next one.

[2:53:16] So I don't have a report.

[2:53:21] Paycock.

[2:53:22] Essentially Paycock, we listened to reports from CDOT, various different potential projects to move forward.

[2:53:31] The biggest thing I think again I reported last meeting was the paving of Highway 50 from McCulloch.

[2:53:39] And I as I understand it, it's going to be to the county line.

[2:53:43] They're going to improve highway 50 and it will probably start sometime in 2025.

[2:53:49] They're working on the design right now.

[2:53:51] That's about the only thing I can tell you that impacts our community

[2:53:54] that I learned from the Peacock meeting.

[2:53:58] Desert Hawk.

[2:54:00] Joe, you want to do that?

[2:54:03] Okay.

[2:54:07] Well, the golf course Desert Hawk at all meeting was pretty productive, I thought.

[2:54:20] We came to grips with several issues that need to be addressed.

[2:54:25] Some of them are going to cost some real money.

[2:54:28] We're trying to address mainly the sprinkler system and how badly it leaks and what we're

[2:54:35] going to do about it.

[2:54:39] We've got some equipment out there that in my opinion

[2:54:42] should be sold. We've got more equipment sitting around starting to look like a

[2:54:48] junkyard. So all things considered the course itself looks beautiful but

[2:54:57] everything underground is a real problem. But we're starting to realize

[2:55:02] that or accept the fact that it's actually there and we need to deal with

[2:55:08] it. Discussions were held what are we going to do with the golf course after

[2:55:13] the last mortgage payment is made in December 24 is that correct?

[2:55:21] I believe so

[2:55:23] yes. And the final discussion was we really can't do anything until all of

[2:55:31] the debts are paid and there's seven or eight million dollars in debts that the reality of

[2:55:39] it, the operating expenses of operating revenues will never pay off that debt. So we're going

[2:55:47] to have to rethink ownership of the golf course operation of it or we're going to put three

[2:55:54] million in capital into a new sprinkler system. There are many big questions that need to

[2:56:00] be answered. And there's really not any consensus on which way to go.

[2:56:10] That's all I have.

[2:56:14] Public voice admin building, Dr. Vickers. I think we pretty much covered that, unless

[2:56:19] you have something else to add.

[2:56:23] Yeah, I think we discussed that earlier from

[2:56:25] Christian. Aquatic center committee. So the proposal has been finalized as far as

[2:56:32] I know it's been sent to the committee members.

[2:56:35] Committee meeting is supposed to be scheduled soon,

[2:56:38] and then hopefully we'll get that information out

[2:56:42] and start that process for finding sponsors.

[2:56:48] Events committee, the only thing we had

[2:56:50] is we had a meeting parade of lights, December 2nd, I think.

[2:56:58] Also during that committee,

[2:57:00] Sean who's not here recommended the lighting competition so we started that

[2:57:06] that's would be the first inaugural Pueblo West Light Fight exterior

[2:57:12] decorating contest for the community and I think that was it for the events

[2:57:19] committee am I wrong did I miss anything Christian Katrina announcement

[2:57:26] and events November 23rd 24th district offices will be closed in celebration

[2:57:32] of Thanksgiving so I want to show everybody a happy Thanksgiving November

[2:57:38] 27th Board of Directors regular meeting that's canceled correct we're not doing

[2:57:43] that November 30th registration ends for the Pueblo West Light Fight so get

[2:57:49] your home signed up December 2nd is the holiday and lights parade Bill and

[2:57:55] I will be judges.

[2:57:58] Judges for Carol. I don't know who else or how many she needs, but I

[2:58:04] think she can.

[2:58:07] December 11th, Board of Directors, Regular Scheduled Meeting, Public Hearing for

[2:58:11] Water Rate Adjustments. December 13th, Desert Hawk Management Board, Special Meeting, 10

[2:58:18] a.m. on Zoom. December 14th, Committee of Architect, Regular Scheduled Meeting at

[2:58:24] 530 356 South McCulloch Boulevard. December 19th, joint meeting with Pueblo West Board

[2:58:32] of Directors and Pueblo County Board of County Commissioners. That will be at 101 West 10th

[2:58:38] Street.

[2:58:41] December 25th, district offices will be closed in celebration of Christmas. Pueblo

[2:58:48] West Park's department for more information on how you can donate holiday giving tree.

[2:58:52] also I think they're taking donations for turkeys so if you want to help out you

[2:58:59] can get a hold of parks at this time I'd like to entertain a motion to adjourn the

[2:59:04] regular meeting and moving to executive recess the regular meeting move into

[2:59:11] executive session with a five-minute break in between so moved second oh

[2:59:17] I'm supposed to read all this out first.

[2:59:21] Executive session 24-6402, CRS determining positions

[2:59:26] relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations,

[2:59:29] developing strategy and negotiations

[2:59:32] and extracting negotiators.

[2:59:34] A, offer a purchase of I-2 property.

[2:59:39] And B, contract to lease tower and ground space

[2:59:42] for TP-1 tower.

[2:59:43] Also, Executive Session 2, 24-6-402,

[2:59:49] CRS conferences with an attorney for the public entity

[2:59:52] for the purpose of receiving legal advice on specific legal questions.

[2:59:57] And 24-6-402.

[3:00:00] CRS determining positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations. Developing

[3:00:05] strategy for negotiations and instructing negotiators on a concerning a dispute with a property owner

[3:00:13] on Blackwell Drive. Now can I get a motion? Same motion. Can I get a second? Second. It's

[3:00:20] been moved in a second. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? We are now recessed,

[3:00:27] and a recess. Thank you everybody.

Board of Directors

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