 Call me Jordan. Tom Duster. Here. Scott Holwick. Here. Roger Lane. Here. Renee Davis. Here. Dan Wolford. Here. Ken Houston. Here. Russ Lowery. Here. Kevin Bowden. Here. Hope Bartlett. Here. Christopher. Here. Heather McIntyre is here. And then we have other staff with us, Brian McHale. Here. Kate Medina. Here. Lou Ayl. Here. Jorge. Allison Evermark. Yes. Here I am. Thank you. We have a corner here. Okay. Thank you. I'll start with approval of the previous months minutes. Any questions or comments on the past months minutes? Are there motions for a second? Yeah, we'll do the minutes for the next minutes. Okay. Thanks, Scott. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Very good. Okay. Carry on to water, staffs. Sure. Well, at the same time, this morning, we have 16 CFS. The hundred and forty-five years is for a five-year-old. This is June 28th. 38 CFS. Yeah, that's right. We're calling the San Bernardinic with the James Ditch, which has the priority data of June 30th, 1968. We're calling the South by the word of the staff in the name of James Ditch, the priority data of December 6th, 1995. Ralph Prysville's lower button rock, which is related to school and spelling, which is approximately 16,248 feet. Union Reservoir is at an elevation of 24.6 feet, or 10,345 feet, and that's down approximately 2,420 feet per fold. Basin Reservoir is at the end of September, where it's 73.7 percent. All right. Okay. Questions for Ken? I don't think we've had any heard. Do you want to? Yeah. The first thing I wanted to do is, for those who might not have been before, Dave Horvacher is down at the end of the table here. He's our director of the whole utilities department. Yeah. You want to introduce yourself a little more? Yeah. I could. You could think of me having a super role like Dale, but without the parks and the open-stakes part. So it's just all the utilities and public works and so forth in engineering. I just wanted to come in and say hi. And thank you for all of your time and service here. It's a very, very important role. And so I'm just going to sit in and just listen and understand better what, you know, how the meetings go. I do have another meeting at four. So I leave a little early. It's not because of the meeting at any means. So I just wanted to follow and stop in and say hi. Congratulations. Thank you. Bring it up. Thank you, Dave. Appreciate that. Our special presentation, Gordon may recall, as we were looking at some of the issues surrounding our couch and noodle last month, a couple of questions came up about exactly how we fund the different aspects of our water system. And Becky's role as a strategic integration manager and as some of her folks with her, they are the ones who really kind of help work through all of our financial aspects of the water. And so they're going to give us a presentation on how the different ways we fund. I think that will help answer a lot of the questions that came up concerning cash and noodle because cash and noodle really just parted the overall budgeting system. So we'll turn it over to Brian. Brian's going to give our presentation today and come from there. Okay. Hello everybody. My name is Brian McGill. I'm the utility rate and analysis manager with strategic integration. And I apologize in advance. We did have a Raven Martin, a rate analyst. Originally was going to give this presentation that she's home sick today. So I'm pinching for her. So it's not going to be as polished as we had hoped it would be, but hopefully I can convey what we're trying to present today. So did you want to say anything to Becky? Okay. So yeah, as Ken said, we're going to give a presentation on the water utilities finances and an overview of how those are put together. So this first slide is just a fund overview of the different funding sources for the water utility. There are three different funds. There's the water cash acquisition fund. The water construction fund. And then the water operating fund. And so what's inside those bubbles is the revenue sources for the different funds. And then to the far right is what those revenues can actually, what kind of expenditures those revenues can actually cover. So the water cash acquisition fund, the revenue there is this, the cash in lieu fee that's paid for by developers. And that fee is just an option for development if they do not have their own water rights that they can bring with them. And that revenue can only be used for expenses associated with increasing the water supply. Then in the water construction fund, that's the revenue generated in that fund is the system development fees. And that's paid for by developers for development and redevelopment within the city. And those fees are to buy into the existing system, the water system that currently exists. And we'll go over the calculation and reach these in just a little bit as well. And then those revenues can only be used for the expansion of the water system. And then the final fund in the water utility is the water operating fund. And that is covered. The revenue there is rates for the most part. And then there's another miscellaneous like revenues that go in there as well. And then that revenue can be used for all other operating costs. One other note though is the water acquisition fund and the water construction fund. We know that those revenues are not sufficient to cover the entire cost for increasing the water supply and for expanding the water system. So portions of those type of expenses are also built into the electric, the water rates, sorry. Okay, next slide. So I don't know when this is appropriate to ask. Oh, can you pass it? You're back to the previous slide. Can you give maybe just like some examples of like increased water supply, expand water system, right? There seems like there could be some overlap there. So part of the water system, for example, might be a dam or a reservoir that would, you know, firm some of our water supply or something. So how do those distinctions get made and how does that kind of tease the part in some way? I'll take that question. So when we say increased water supply, we really need to purchase water rights or to undertake actions that need to purchase water rights. So conservation programs are often funded through cashback position. And that is the most restrictive. I would say very rarely and, you know, exactly one time have we used cash acquisition toward actual infrastructure, which was the firming project which, you know, increased the firm yield of an existing water rights. So that's kind of a really special case in general. That was CIL money was used for that. Yes, yeah, for a portion, for 40% that we could tie back to that increased yield. It was a justification. Yes, exactly. And in general, that's something that we do every time we kind of think about how we could share the costs between these funding sources is saying, okay, so we're replacing a water tank and while doing that we're going to increase the capacity of that tank by some percentage. So, you know, if that's going to increase by 20%, then we could use 20% water construction funds, but the rest would really be operating because it's kind of a general thing. So having something to tie that justification back to is, you know, we usually have a mental bit of file as part of the project documentation that talks about how that split occurred. Okay, so just to give you an example of the construction, so when we say expand water system, we really increase the capacity of the system. So capacity in tanks, treatment capacity, or if we needed to increase the capacity of the larger transition lines within the city. Those would be the examples that would have our construction. So when you say system development fees and expand the water system, is there any element of buying into the existing system? Yes, that's exactly how the system development fee is set. So it's set with a hybrid of new expansion costs and buying in. So it's set on the basis of the existing system value, but the only allowable use of the funds is to expand the system. So it's system value over remaining capacity? You know, it's system value over we'll get to it. We'll get to it. Okay, so now we'll talk about how we set the rates in fees. So really the rate setting process is really a cycle of looking at the plans we have and then that flows into setting of the rates which flows into the budget process and the implementation of those plans and it's really just a cycle of continuing to do that over and over again. So the business enablement team works with the project managers and engineers to ensure there are funds for plans for projects such as capital improvement projects, but also to cover the operating expenses associated with providing essential water services to the city. And then the rates ensure that sufficient revenue is collected in each year when we set the budget for the upcoming year. We review the revenue and the cost of providing service to the communities as well as cost of desired projects which includes increased cost due to inflation or material cost associated with meeting new state and federal regulations. And then without sufficient budget projects may not be able to be implemented and may need to delay certain projects such as pipe replacement, and possibly in the future especially if there is a significant event affecting infrastructure. And then also the budget helps to determine which projects can be funded and also helps plan for the future years as we go through the budget setting process. So one of the financial basics is the fund balance. And so a fund balance each one of those funds that we talked about above on the second slide they all have their own fund balance. So to me the fund balance kind of like to relate that back to personal finances is kind of your savings account. And so the way that's calculated is on any given year if your revenues are in excess of your expenses your total expenses operating capital and debt service then that would be a contribution to your fund balance. If the expenses are more than the revenues you collected in any given year then you would actually be using some of that fund balance. So that's really plus equals fund balance right? Because the fund balance doesn't start at zero every budget year. Correct. And this is true so each of the three funds are essentially distinct in this case. So each one of them have their own revenues, their own expenses that are distinct. Correct. Next slide. Okay so now we'll get into the actual calculations of cash in blue system development fee and the windy gap surcharge. So you all are familiar with the calculation of the cash in blue and so it's calculated by taking the cost of the parent windy gap projects plus the cost of the firming project divided by the firm yield and that's how the cash in blue is developed and then just a couple of notes here. Again the revenue collected to cash in blue is restricted only to increasing the water supply and again it's only a mechanism in the event that the developers are not bringing in their own water rights. So back when we were whatever we were 18,000 or something this was three years ago basically about the day I started whatever that was about the day I left. So which one of these was none? We were basing that 18,000 only on the firming project because it was the most recent. The decision was made that in order to have something firm the parent project was given the next slide please. Just one more question. This formula is not statutory but we can adjust it based on the market for example. Yes, okay. Thank you for the policy. You're welcome. Okay so system development fee again these are the fees paid for by the developers is there either doing new development or redevelopment and as Becky mentioned this calculation is the value of the infrastructure and it's really the replacement value of the infrastructure minusing on principal outstanding divided by the single family equivalent units and my understanding is the single family value the equivalence is the average usage for a single family household just a little bit households and businesses. Okay. And so this revenue again is restricted for the expansion of the water system infrastructure. And the 6500 this thing varies what's the 6500 represent right now for a single family development. I believe that's a single family home with about 5,000 square foot lot. So there's a lot size component which is why this is approximately 6500 the kind of the existing sort of ignore use component is about 3,500 and then there's a per square foot charge. Next one is the windy gap charge. So the calculation for this one is the value of the windy gap infrastructure of parent infirmary again minus the bond principal outstanding associated with that project. And then again divided by the single family equivalent units and the revenue collected through this sort of charge is restricted to paying that windy gap bond. So my big question though is how is this not a double debt? Walk me through. Yeah. So a double debt meeting charging twice for the same method. Yes. So the windy gap surcharge is really for to support payment of our costs for firming our existing water right. It's kind of within the windy gap project. This generates on the order of $300,000 a year which doesn't quite get to the level of our payment for windy gap but it contributes toward it. So the difference between the windy gap surcharge which is for our share of the infrastructure and the cash and loot calculations. The cash and loot calculation uses some of the same numbers but it's really thinking about what would be a new unit of windy gap and the cost to get that to a user such as the city. So I think of it as system development fees for windy gap surcharge. That's for the pipes of the infrastructure. Cash and loot is for the water that's flowing through them. So it is a little odd that we're using similar costs to get to both of those things maybe but it really is for two different things that will make that water useful. So I'm trying to wrap my head around it because I want to get kind of specific. So you are saying that the cash and loot are equivalent. Yes. And that portion of the asset this windy gap surcharge is for the some hardware infrastructure for our share of that infrastructure based on what we have today in the water, right? Not also though like thinking kind of future versus past. So is it cash and loot about going out and obtaining new supply if we need it? Yes. And this surcharge is about paying out the bond that we've already paid for the money that we've already paid to be participants in this project. I could maybe go one step beyond. It might be easier to think of the cash and loot is not set out to pay for windy gap or any other project. So some developers many most developers come in with water 3 acre feet of water 3 acre feet of water. The cash and loot is really just to say everybody else has brought in 3 acre feet you've only brought in 2 acre feet so if you don't have water you can get us cash and the loot will bring you that water and finally the cash and loot is only to bring everybody up at the same level playing field at the time of annexation of happening under a property and it is just by happenstance, by policy we made the policy so years ago 20 years ago earlier we based cash and loot on the price of CBD CBD went it's heterotonic so we would use the parent when you get a firming project that would fall on for 10 or 15 years and we decided really we made a policy decision to use Marin project and the firming project as a complete water project that's where the 48,000 comes from but it's not designed to go out and give you water as much as it is designed to keep everybody level we could go back to CBD water we could use native basin it's really a policy decision that happens to be when you get out what that does is it brings everybody to the same level playing field three acre of land that you annexed and developed in Baltimore then once you have annexed and developed then you have the actual cost combined into the systems when you get up surcharge again it happens to be the same as cash and loot it is really to help us pay off the bonds originally it was to pay off the bonds of the parent project but once that got paid off in 2017 we didn't have it for two years and then we ended up with more bonds because of the firming project so now from 2019 I think we'll have 30 years I believe in 2030 20 years pay off that bond and that's what that surcharge really inspired that 20 year period so it's really everybody buying into the same system at both levels but it's much more directed towards a physical component surcharges a windy gap project as opposed to cash and loot which we just made a policy decision to use the windy gap and it's an index it's not correctly paying for that now once that cash and loot comes in then the city has the opportunity to use it for whatever we want conservation use it for buying water rights we will use some of it for paying off the bonds for the windy gap any expenses we have for any piece of water whatever we want we need it to the waters yes exactly I can't use it for down payment for low income and with that it even is narrowed down to a different fund with a specific fund that would need narrow workers right so the cash and loot is really basically for rights and rights for maintenance yes and so it's not necessarily for water treatment that would not be the inappropriate use and you can see how the calculation is different and the surcharge here is on per household or per equivalent basis whereas looking at that cash and loot is kind of bringing it down to what would a per acre foot look like trying to establish that market rating I think that can be a really good point I think the calculation of cash and loot is based upon index of what is for water work as opposed to the other two calculations are basically what's the system when you plug your water line into our system you get the benefit of a very valuable system so both of those calculations when you have surcharging and construction based on the value of the system that you plug into your pipeline the citizens have that it's their system and you can pay for the value of the system I think the challenge here is like I don't think that means a good thing it's not a challenge that long mind is so proactive in thinking about our water needs in the future that it's not like we're in some kind of situation where a new housing development goes up they pay cash and loot and then we say oh great finally we have some money and we can go out buy a water right to repeat that housing development or to provide that housing development of water right and so it's not there's like separation in the transactions here right and so for example I mean I don't know the answer to this actually when was the last time that long mind just went out and bought some water ever like I don't remember that discussion we rarely just simply go out and buy a water right a lot of the water rights we quoted bought more recently have been part of land acquisition we required land around union because of water so we bought a number of lots of water rights around there our own space department of course but it was open space by its water rights but that stays on the open space but yeah and then you know whenever they can provide the sort of water rights they did and so then but there's just the separation in these transactions you know because we are kind of using what is supposed to be kind of almost what I think of in my mind as being kind of like proactive right like going out and getting water to provide housing development we basically just said well we have that water already and so then you're free to use that cash in lieu to for past decisions in a way and so there's a kind of disconnect a little bit but keep in mind the bulk of our cash in lieu more recently went towards paying off so that gave us firm water and I can't remember like he was $3 or $4 billion cash in lieu $7 million so you know it probably did us 20 years to get that $7 million for the community gap we also use it for water conservation so that's water now we don't have to go back out somewhere so we can make that concerned water and use it with respect to Tom's project or questions rather I wonder if it doesn't help to get away from the economic principle that we all grew up with of thinking of water as a free good it hasn't been that for a real long time and so because I think at the bottom of your question why are we charging so much for water we already have and we're not I think of it more like the cost of storage or the cost of electricity you have to pay to store it and we have to pay to firm when we get water rights you have to pay as you use it and I like to think of this as an insurance policy because a water right is not the same as water water rights may not if there's a change in the water they may not flow in with the amount of what's happening to the Colorado river now I think that might help just to be clear I think that we are in such a good position that sometimes it causes problems I can imagine that we have been so proactive but that you all have been so proactive that you have done such a great job of securing a future that when we're thinking about what the future looks like and the ways in which we program a future or something that the way that becomes a difficult thing to describe if you're not in a crisis all the time it's hard to describe how you're using the money that people are making it's like you're going back to the household analogy if you're saving it's hard to suggest how it is that you're like using money in a way so anyway I'm I'm impressed with the way in which we have continually plan for the future around here and so I just think that sometimes the marketing or something of that idea that kind of give the word out made me it's a complicated business I hate to keep holding up this discussion but the last time the public got upset about the way we charged was when we changed the windy gap search echo the windy gap formula and they were on the opposite side of the discussion they said hey city you're leaving way too much money on the table here CBT cost this much our fee in lieu is way down here you guys fix that so I don't think the public has problem with us charging developer so I really don't okay okay thank you Brian okay so how do we spend revenue that we collect so this is a representation of an annual water utility budget and the thing that we just wanted you to focus on was the pie chart and that 63% of the total expenses go towards operating expenses 19% go to capital improvement program our projects and then the remaining 18% goes to debt service this slide please so then this okay this pie chart is just a further breakdown of the orange slice of the pie from the previous chart and so you can see that a lot of expenses go towards wages and benefits and some professional contracted services and then there's just other little slices as well next slide okay so then that 18% that goes to debt service we did just earlier this year make the final payment towards the state revolving fund loan then there's also the 2021 revenue bonds and those were used for treatment and distribution improvements then you can see the bottom one is the 2021 a revenue bonds which were for the windy gap for a mean and chimney hollow reservoir project next slide please okay so how do we do our annual budget next slide so this is a little flow chart of the actual budget process we start the process by doing a revenue forecast based on the existing rates and the projected numbers of customers and projected consumption for the year and then we work with the leadership and engineers to develop an operating expense budget and also a capital expenditure budget and then we looked and make sure that the forecasted revenues are sufficient to cover those expenditures and if we need to we can go back and adjust operating expenses as need be or if we notice that the revenue is not sufficient to cover the expenditures then that's when we would undergo a rate study next slide please so these are the main drivers for when we go to do our capital planning not only do we look at the projected growth and water demands but there's other things that go into those plans as well making sure that we can meet regulatory requirements make sure that we have funds to take advantage of technical logical and innovation advances and then another big piece of it is just looking at the aging infrastructure and making sure we're able to replace that in a timely manner next slide please okay so these are the as we're working with the project managers and engineers we create a prioritization matrix and these are some of the factors that go into that prioritization matrix and then the percentages are the leading that we've assigned to each of these different factors those factors are asset condition whether or not we are able to meet regulatory requirements also trying to reduce risk and also meet the future capacity needs so then we look at this list sorry so then all these factors are taken into consideration while we're preparing the annual budget and also trying to keep an eye on the future capital needs next slide please so this is just a visual representation of the various assets and also the forecaster replacement costs based on the current condition and life expectancy next slide please oh interesting what are the periodic peaks presumably those are planning rising events so the really large spikes you see there are higher intensity capital projects I believe the pink ones are treatment and the blue ones are water supply so that big blue thing that we had kind of in that 2020 region that is our investment in the W&D gap firming project and then we assume there's about a 50 year life before we may have to make another significant investment in renewing the reservoir so kind of similarly those spiky pink things are really about kind of the ritual of treatment assets according to their age whereas most of the other kind of smaller things and in particular that weighty blue piece there is the distribution line and all the the age of different pipes coming out according to that type send us all yes thank you also we're updating this continually this is a snapshot of when we did this last month it may have been a couple years but we're continually moving and readjusting based on the current education expected our biggest one obviously is what treatment plants are doing which is that pink one there around 2030 yeah and we'll also have a pretty significant investment probably a little sooner than that but they're not going to get it done no and the big orange storage spikes which aren't as tall but they're still significant are those like tanks reservoirs reservoirs smaller to supply the dark blue I would imagine that you just kind of train your eye to to knowing these things as you're looking at things as an expert of course but how do you then translate those episodic moments in time to kind of like to the reality of the situation which is essentially that's going to become presumably a bond that then gets paid over time and so I guess you just kind of do that in your brain you just say well that blue one and it'll just kind of come down and then the odd payments will go up so what we do is annually but very intensively or when we do a rate study approximately every five years we look at a 20 year horizon and say okay here's what we know is coming due for replacement within this 20 year horizon and in fact have revenue at a level to support either replacement or the damage that's required Can I point one thing out too on the graph one of the things that's not quite as obvious in a water system is our underground pipes they're very you just really don't see them but they and there's a lot of them every foot of them isn't worth what a water pipe is or a reservoir but there's so many feet of them that it's a lot if you look at the general the slide blue how much the expenses that is that's a real significant part in how much you can replace each year is a big deal also if you look you'll notice what it does here is the age of the pipe if you think about it in 1965 they built IVM and long life started growing and we grew quite rapidly from the 60s to today while all those pipes in 2060 to 2090 are 100 years old so that's what you're seeing there is the age of that pipe and I hope you don't have to replace it all once but you know an interesting part of having a community that didn't grow when early over a few hundred years but grew then 100 years from that growth then you have those pipes come do I think for me that's a little interesting that dotted line there about the annual cost of sustainable ownership that's really just taking an average of what should we be investing in a system just to manage the assets that exists today we're not quite there yet we're getting there I didn't hear so annual cost of sustainable ownership is really just sort of an average there's what we need to be spending over that whole time period in order to maintain existing assets should be a little north of 10 million what is the health of our infrastructure I don't want you to categorize are we in good shape, average shape do we take good care of our existing facilities we do I'd say that we're at average right now that some assets have been maintained better than others we have a fairly new walkthrough plan, mostly planters it is very robust they've spent money over the last few years building resiliency and redundancy in it so water plan is in very good shape obviously our reservoirs and some of our raw water infrastructure we've been spending on that as well I think there is a very good shape historically and maybe it's kind of shown in my graph or two we have not put as much time, money and effort into our distribution system so it is not failing by any means but it's kind of new when I see huge water lane breaks in Denver I don't get too concerned but I wonder about, I don't see many of those here in Long Island which is a good thing fortunately we have had few, not too many but they do happen a week or so ago there was one on 9th Avenue that our crews were in response to and we're able to put that together and lessen the pay most of them don't disrupt distribution so they don't become very obvious so we don't have very many large lines like Denver does we can do even some and we had a break on one of those as we kind of struck the camera about it but we have confining protection all of our ski lines are very larger we have a lot of treatment and we're also it's very well maintained but when I said you mentioned they were put in a while ago everything has a life cycle to it we could be dead in 2070 I trust staff in the city for us all those ones in 2070 we'll be great here okay these are just some key financial metrics that we also take into consideration is going through the budget process there's the reserve or cash on hand as well as the debt service coverage and the debt to capital ratio which is an important metric considered when we are seeking new bonds for capital improvement projects is it really going upwards I was just thinking I was just thinking I just think that okay next slide cash reserve policy so the cash reserve policy is important to have in place because revenue for the water utility can vary from year to year based on if it's a wet or dry year so in the wetter years obviously the revenue is down much however the real cost can stay very constant from year to year because we still have to operate the system as usual some of the costs do fluctuate based on how much it's used but for the most part that expense stays level from year to year as opposed to the revenue which can fluctuate and so having that healthy reserve policy then allows you to dip down into that fund balance for years where you have less revenue and it just helps to ensure the help of the water utility through those highs and lows next slide please okay so then we just we're going to end the presentation again by just giving that fund a overview of the three funds what those revenues are they're going to each of those funds and then the restricted expenditure types for those three different funds as well as a repeat of the first slide just in a little different format I think that wraps up our presentation I do have a question so first the system you're going to call it system development charges but you call it system development B you're going to have assets in there right and that's where other water rights assets are oh no I don't believe that there are water rights assets in that calculation at all because we the city own more assets through system development correct yeah and all of that is removed from that because the cost well first of all our water rights single biggest asset full stuff and everybody's contribution to that to our water rights is covered by the raw water so either providing that historic water other water rights that we accept or pay cash in this so we don't charge again for the water rights because it all comes in that raw water and the city is looking for ways to incentivize behavior from residents from developers from industry all of that all of the first thing we go to is the connect fees of various sorts for various utilities and water is right up there in the front of the line how do we do the calculation where we decide whether a fee waiver which is a terribly valuable thing is going to be too expensive for additional costs if we offer it and how do we project the uptake rate on it because it might be a little expense or it might be a big expense depending on how many waivers we end up giving this is a great question and relevant so as we've been thinking about fee waivers so Jimmy on Brian's team has been doing some projections on what we think based on our goals for affordable and attainable housing units how many units that we think are going to come in at that level and sort of doing some stress testing if everybody comes in at an attainable level we have zero revenue for existing development fees but we have to set the bumpers on it and you know Brian talked a little bit about how neither the cash in lieu nor the existing development fees can fully fund and either of those sort of permissible areas we're always going to depend on rates to make up the difference in this case they're just taking up additional slack and that additional funding will be reflected in future rate studies depending on the number of fee waivers will depend on what that additional rate increase has to be to support them so in some ways this is far away from the target the rate here is under right any shortage in system development charges so that's something that's been bothering me for a while yeah it bothers me as well yeah so that's always true when we hear about a waiver it comes from increases in rates that there's not like some magical money bond out there that we take from no the whole concept of the enterprise having that utility that it costs to provide the service so we don't have extra yeah that was the next question there's no profit that it digs into I guess that's what I mean though there's no slight padding to build up a fund obviously we just talked about three times and it wasn't included in the wage there's not some small amount of padding that goes into building up some small amount of additional pool of money that then some of that comes from there are the cash reserves that Brian talked about we have some really specific reserve policies that dictate what we keep in that fund you know it's a policy decision also about if we were to maybe require higher reserves for that purpose as well as the existing we'll say at one point the community housing was the backfell with CDBG funding that was a global housing fund but I don't know that all those ones are available for all of them so yeah, any offset of many of these fees are currently related to each other so and that brings up another point when talking about rates one of the big pieces you need to talk about is the affordability of the rates for folks already in the community keeping your rates appropriate and low given good service if you want food water you want those types replaced but having folks in the community that have affordability issues and those affordability issues can be measured in different ways and some of the measurements are scary I'm not as familiar with lawn moths but and so I really don't like affording fee waiver costs to rate payers rate payers sometimes have affordability issues to them well, a third of our rate payers have affordability issues it's a bigger piece than you think yeah we have good programs that are all free or nearly free to help our rate payers reduce their consumption which helps them their individual affordability issues but of course they're voluntary they're also fortunate to be able to offer a lot of my parents program you know that was the next thing on my mouth thank you for saying that and because of something else I was just wondering how are we am I alone on the schedule here you know I thought we'd take just a minute and ask Dan and Scott if they have any questions at all any questions guys I'm good Scott? that was a really nice presentation thank you Uncle I don't have any questions on you guys that's the good ones I'm all good too, thanks just wondering how we how we fund the CARES fund because you know that's another thing the enterprise should be kicking in something for the CARES rebate yes it is it's one of the big enterprises that has a rebate it's funded through the rates in the case of water this is how much magic money there is ready we assume a very small percentage of our usage is really at that very very top tier of we have the four tiers in the rate only about one percent of our usage comes in at that 25,000 gallon level and when we project revenue from that we don't want to see usage there we think that that is excessive use in single family homes so when we project the revenue from that usage we project that it's coming in at the next lowest tier so we're funding the rebates with the additional difference in revenue between where it really is charged and what we projected at what we are thinking about our long term so it's just profligate users that are funding this because they should how do you take into account when we have rating years of this year do we not have as many people around us tier yes I would expect that we not going to have very much use in that tier at all yeah we're pretty low on revenue currently any other questions good presentation I appreciate your time really good presentation thank you very much this is at one when we included in your packet we included the legislative principles and we didn't get the most out of it the difference I can point out the two differences it was from in that very first guiding water principle now it just speaks to support policies these are changes that you all recommended last year used to say support water policies and it was asked to make it just policies so we strike the water and then the other one was item number five we added the word environmental and that was the year guys direction so this reflects those two that didn't get in the one of me those are the two changes we had so what the board has one of them is five different items one of which requires we'll go through that one first the first one is the bill is a spring valley final flat it's a three point two settlement proposal along six and six in sunday after ride it's part of some land it was passed back in 1925 all these sort of water rights were transferred to privatization and after that application we had a point five you know I'm happy with you now for my next meeting but it was a pleasure just meeting you briefly today great presentation and amazing questions so thank you I'll be back at some of the other meetings too you just hit so bill is a spring valley final flat it'll be in compliance with the well water requirement policy upon satisfaction of 1.799 and that was it final flat approval additionally just for your own information what's being proposed on this roughly three of your side is 28 single family attached residential units and so this is the one we're looking for a little reaction on if you have any questions I can answer them quick that older county city 66 66 north and south east of east of that's going to be east of base east of keep working it's the next street that connects to 66 it's kind of where the left of that box of course is maintenance just looking for that any questions do you want to make a motion I move that we recommend approval provided by the citizens we're looking to come into compliance by citizens all right all right second all in favor second by the saying aye aye all right the next four are just for information purposes with the policies required to look at these the first one of which with the horizon part shopping center generally speaking it's up by Murdoch and the old Kmart at north on 66 it's in compliance what's being proposed is the subdivision replanting the seven new parcels I do not know what's going to go into those but you might think of making the parking lot being carved into some extra additional spots I don't think it's realistic to think of some kind of business that we're going to do in plots so that's that one the next one is wall's addition fifth filing so it's going to be on the south side of hike road west of highway 287 it's in compliance with what's being proposed there is five new single family halls with mixed use so it's a combination of residential retail and commercial so it's taking one that was already planted and just somebody into five more blocks development pulled out all of this it's got to be very close there might be some on play I'm not exactly sure but I think absolutely there's a couple vacant blocks if you're coming to the apartment building that's right next to this so at any time they could resubdivide it that's what you're going to see problems like this replanting really took a large amount and subdivided it into maybe smaller blocks the next one is subdivision re-plan A it's generally located east of Patel Road south of Maxwell Avenue that was part of the conveyance path back in 1999 what we're looking to do there is 13 single family detached residential units so in there 13 blocks of about 2 acres and they're in compliance right now and the last one is Connor subdivision re-plan C it's kind of down by 2nd and Martin Street this particular one actually annexed it puts two annexations both of which were prior to the formation of one on Water Ward so that's why it's in compliance now they're looking to get four apartments two more stories putting about 200 units within those four apartments how many units? there's four apartments that would include a total of about 200 apartment units about 50 50 so all those four that I just spoke of were in compliance but I just wanted to give that to you guys to see what was kind of going in that's all I have for my question general business can you talk to that a little bit yeah we have before you today the 224 legislative I've got any water I'm supposed to approve each year these once Water Ward has approved them they're forwarded to council with the city's broader broader legislative principles the city council then approves and directs staff to look at all the legislation that will come up starting January it's not too long from now but we generally do this in October so that we can get them put together and set the city clerk's office to then comprise them all in their approved city council at the end of the year so that they're ready for the new legislative session already in January very Water Ward's reviewed this every year for quite some time but I wanted to give you another shot at looking at them if there's any additions or provisions of your life we'd be happy to have those before we forward them on for Scott and Dan can you just review the changes that are in the ones that we have for you so Dan and Scott just to if you're looking at an electronic version that was included in the packet the difference again of what I handed out in the revision was in the first bullet item now it simply states support policies the protect quarter and Scott you were the one that brought that to everyone's attention last year at this time and was an item number five where now we talk about including yet a number of listed but it also additionally includes environmental so we're supporting appropriate coordination of municipal water use of agriculture, recreation we've now added environmental and open space so broad that particular one those are the two differences of what you're seeing on the electronic version so I think what we're looking for is to see if there's anything else that you would like us to add or if you're in support of what we've got in front of you and then looking for a lot of order of recommendation on these questions for what's it all I don't know that this is a topic that needs to be resolved today but I mean at the very top it expressly indicates that there's no priority or rank importance given to these and of course you know the legislative world is all about priority right I mean there's limited budget of course I didn't think but we have limitations and so I'm curious just from a long term perspective whether there is any interest in thinking about priority or importance of course that's just I mean now all of a sudden we become I don't know it's as divided or something as a legislative body might be or something and so you know this certainly is sufficient to me of course but I'm just curious about whether there's any whether there would be any benefit in attempting to rank for lack of a better word these types of priorities I don't know I think you start ranking and yeah prior to this version of these that it was just a bulleted list and the board asked last year for us to number them so it would be easier for reference purposes so that's why they are numbered but yeah and initially when I did look at it I kind of like I thought about some kind of inference associated with the members that if we did it for kind of like probably a mechanistic purpose or something so we had numbers to reference but if you don't read it now it's a topic almost kind of comes off as an interest but then yeah I think Dan has a comment Dan you got a comment yeah I was going to say I think for this very thorough we're still here are you talking I think this is very thorough and you know as much as I guess the priorities change depending on the topic and what we're discussing so I don't want to necessarily to kind of listen in any given order or because depending on the situation or the circumstances around the discussion that priority may change at the time so Margie are you going to say something I was asking permission to say something go right ahead and start talking we're already okay 21 I observed that in a pre-pandemic we had the climate emergency task force stuff like that citizens groups actually tried to recommend policies which this would probably reject in those cases in my mind that would try to create policies that stood in the way of our ability to develop municipal water sources now I think the political climate has changed enough for the post-pandemic we're probably not going to get any citizen initiatives to do that for a while but I would wonder if there are times when the board itself in order to adopt humane policies might want to do that for example if we had a massive west slope water crisis would the board say we're taking more than our share because you know that was the presumption that the environmental faction had back in 2018 and 2019 wasn't really true but could be true if if we predicted drought from the environmental model as ever comes along worse than the one that their historic group have been in so do we need to think about that wording do we need to somehow give the board and the city a pass to what was it not be grabby you know consider not only welfare of this municipality but also the general welfare of the state I'm asking there are a few in here that can cover that type of thing I mean nobody could point to that was an interest I mean so 18 for example future water supply solutions must benefit both the area of origin so does that mean that that Westlip water is coming on the eastward I also think that like number one and number seven and number nine all reference Colorado's water resources which is thinking of you know we're beholding to our customers which is city long long big bears but our community is a big box and so I think those speak to maybe some of that spirit already gives the board room to consider that to consider Colorado issues and you know Colorado's priority over and above what communities need to be concerned I'm not saying that we should look beyond ourselves so far the community the community has cooperated with our efforts to make a good improvement so it hasn't come up well talking back to your comments I'm kind of comfortable with the way it's laid out I hear what you're saying and I think is when the legislation cranks up probably at that time there's some particular issues that come back to that so that would be the time to pull in on the way it's laid out I'm not saying I don't want to listen to your comments but it was more so just the topic for consideration I don't know necessarily what might be on the subject the risk that I like these you know kind of guiding principles the problem that I always have with them is that you just stack so many on top of each other that suddenly they become less meaningful because there's because it says everything it says we want to provide everyone with everything and everybody should be happy right and the danger in that then is that it also says nothing and so I don't know that we're at that point you know I mean but I'm sure that somebody for any issue could find one of these principles that would cover them for any outcome and so then we become a hold into the interpreter of the principles but that was my only concern again I'm not necessarily advocating in one direction any other it's Scott and I didn't want to know I've got to check off I didn't have any specific concerns we looked at these pretty hard last year and I acknowledged the conversation that's going on in Boston there but I wasn't necessarily favorable to seem to modify these any other any other comments I think where we'll do it is we're okay with the modifications made and we'll move forward with some green principles we need to we'll be helpful if someone would make a motion to that regard so I'll motion to adopt the 2024 let's say the year of guidance order principles and do amended motion second move them second all in favor very good items from staff Wes yeah so coming off of the presentation just recognized that the next quarterly review is scheduled for December but from the review last month kind of following the board's direction we have started having conversations with other departments within the city of Watermont the public works engineering team and planning team and the communications team to try to figure out the best way we're going to be able to stakeholders both internal and external customers of future changes and so we're working through that right now we have each one of those departments bring their own perspective and their own talent so it's good it's good it's a good initial communication to learn to put that out there that we are working on that aspect of it we also wanted to mention that as we go through the specifics we talk about the number crunching the numbers related to the windy gap and stuff we know that when you look at it in December you're going to find that there's was a range of numbers that came through those 8 units that Flat River have they range from 3.8 million per unit to 4.5 million and we know that there's an average it's kind of close to 4 million so we'll be pretty able to bring that specific data to you in talking with PRPA they are anticipating um taking 2 of the 3 cells so there's 5 units that are represented through 3 different transactions they're planning and thinking that probably the 2 of the 3 will go in front of the sub district board in December and it would be just prior to your December meeting and then the other one would be sometime in the first quarter they're thinking so the PRPA board has already given approval to accept these bids it's already in place but the actual transaction the authority to make these transactions comes from the northern sub district board and it won't say yes you can sell it or transfer it to party A, B and C and so that's their projected timeline and then lastly I was just going to mention go ahead I need that said again slower and maybe let me just ask the question the PRPA board has determined which of those are the cells they've already given the approval to accept all 3 all 3 3 bids that represent 5 units got it okay and so they basically accepted the price and now they're waiting on northern to approve those but that gives us a fixed price that's correct that's exactly right and and I can tell you they've shared it with me and told me that I can share this with you the average price for the selected so of 8 units that were bid on so you have 5 different people asking for a total of 8 units the average of that was $4,160,000 and the average for the selected bids so the 3 bids that represent the 5 units that they're trying to sell was $4,337,500 per unit so those are the numbers and the details we'll put back in writing in December that kind of gives you a barometer the lowest bid was $3.8 million the highest was $4.5 and the average was $5.5 and so that's where what they said did I answer that question before your name? you did, thanks so much I'm so glad we've got a number yeah, so I'm not right and so we continue to keep a finger on the pulse of what's going on with CVT even though that doesn't establish our cash in lieu that's not what we're using to base cash if we want, it's nice to understand where that's at and in the past those numbers were coming in around $70,000 a unit somewhere in that it looks like right now that market is softened a little bit it's probably in around the $65,000 a unit range the thought was what we're hearing is a lot of that has to demand as interest rates went up there's not as many people that are willing to take cash off the sidelines to buy it and so therefore the supply that's out there can't demand quite as high a price so it's kind of softening a little bit but still close to where it was it's certainly not back down to the $20,000 or $30,000 and just to remind when we look at CBT the credited yield we give for a unit of CBT is .76 so it's still it's still in the $80,000, $90,000 per unit per acre foot range for CBT that number is still quite a bit higher than what current cash was so that was kind of just the update not looking for any any action just wanted to keep what you know that we're doing what you asked us and we're working through that policy and I expect next month we'll give you some further updates when we're coming through with the communication internally and how we might best feel like we're covering everyone we're wanting to make sure anyone that might be affected as far as the timing of us adopting a adjusted number do you think when do you think we will have the information we need to come up with a firm decision? I think that the December meeting you're scheduled next quarterly meeting we're going to be able to have that number and hopefully you guys feel like you have enough information that maybe you can make a decision what you want to do with cash support at that time Any questions? Okay, moving on Hope, are you down there? Hi I'm ready Right, so since the last time we met we did our Keesington Park Brass to Garden project so just as a brief reminder this was a term transition project that we identified with the help of art in hundred places we received our water conservation and state funding to do this project and our public places helped us identify this site at Keesington Park because there's a mosaic there that's being damaged by water hitting it in the lowers and we locked it in all those sectors so our public places was going to remove the grass anyways and so we thought what a good example of a project to the cross departmental and put in some zero-created flowers so we had to work with Northern Water and go to the Botanic Gardens to create xeric native plants planting garden and then we engaged the community throughout the whole process so we did a lot of community engagement we had events on site so that they could be a part of the design process they had to choose what plants they wanted to see what they wanted the gardens to look like and then on the 23rd of September we had the planting event so we invited all of the Keesington Park community to come out and actually plant the plants in the ground so we had 59 community volunteers come out yeah it was really successful that's rock and roll we planted 354 plants we gave away 99 plants zero plants and then so that we removed 3,000 square foot of turf grass and we're estimating water savings of 180,000 gallons per year and I just have some photos of the day that I thought you guys would like to see so that's what it looked like before that's the mural starting by all that green grass they did not remove the turf until like the Tuesday before the car Saturday event so we were a little nervous but we had really good contractors they were right on it they removed all the turf grass amended the soil next slide please and then put in all of the mulch we used pea gravel what we call an industry squeegee which is the best management practice for zero plants as well as an ADA path so that folks in wheelchairs can get up to mural and all around the garden so lots of community members, lots of kids huge families and then then you can just scroll through and this this barren ground here will be grass so that big area in the front is going to be where we're going to do dog tough which is a plant select hybrid from native grass in Africa so super drought resistant and tolerant to dogs which is why we call it dog tough and then some native grass as well I put this in here because that sweet old man in the wheelchair to show that this is a ADA compliant she rolled her dog right up there we had that's a joke cherry tree which is one of the trees that were requested by the community lots of youth which was really great and so those kids were really excited about the tree and they kept saying I can't receive my tree in a couple of years and lots of tree grow it was really a special really special event we were able to partner with neighborhood group leaders association so there the ones who did the boots on the ground community engagement outreach flyering we used the youth center to put flyers on every door in the Kensington neighborhood and we were able to use ARCA funding so we used this as a community enrichment event post-COVID we were able to get some sweet cow and breakfast burritos and coffee and a bunch of other we did a resource fair so sustainability was there and Longmont public or Longmont food rescue all those types of things we did a large resource fair there too and that's what it will look like when it's all grown and established it'll be about three years and so right now we're here with zero gardens the water use decreases significantly so this first year we won't see huge water savings but then we'll increase and then after our third year we're expecting to not irrigate at all so yeah just wanted to share that successful project with you guys it was really a wonderful example of our growing water smart initiative of how gross departmental work and collaboration is really important I mean being able to work with art and public places and neighborhood group leaders association and sustainability and the youth center and parks and open space were there natural resources and our volunteer community or our volunteer coordinator was there it was just really a special event for I got one phone call and she was like why are you tearing out our beautiful grass and all I had to do was explain that word and put something more beautiful in there and she was so excited so she was worried we were going to tear out the whole part I'm like no no just this part three thousand square feet seems like a lot of grass but it's a huge part so there's still lots of room to run around the grass and play great project thanks a lot anything else hope uh can you put up the major project anybody have any comments on the way this is laid out question your comments can we comment on um racial lines or what was the stuff that was included in okay all right I know it's technically scheduled for future games anything else we need to anything else we're going to cause after one of your