APPRO-2025-35 : An Appropriation from Sewer Retained Earnings account 6000-319000 in the amount of $200,000 to Sewer professional Services account 604412-529000.

Transcript (~8 min @ 1:07:18)

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▶ 1:07:11 Mark Garipay: That's, um, that's down the bottom. That's what I was looking for. Okay, I'm gonna go in order. That's down the bottom. Okay, thank you. Uh, ID 1 2, 6 8 0 in appropriation from the Soer retained earnings account. 6 0 0 0 3 1 9 0 in the amount of 200,000 to sewer Professional Services account. 6 0 4 4 2 5 2 9.

▶ 1:07:37 Speaker 7: Thank you. Um, so the sewer retained earnings, uh, has adequate funds to cover this request. It's a project that the water and sewer rate advisory committee has talked about for the last couple of years. Um, it is designing a replacement for the Penney Road pump station. Unfortunately, this is, um, just the cost of doing business. This pump station only serves about 25 homes, and yet the cost to replace the station is probably upwards of a million dollars between design and construction. And so this portion is just the design, um, and the request is for $200,000.

▶ 1:08:19 Speaker 3: Any questions?

▶ 1:08:24 Speaker 3: Council Stewart? Thank

▶ 1:08:25 Speaker 10: You Mr. Chair.

▶ 1:08:28 Robb Stewart: What are the ramifications if we don't do it, just so that we understand why we need to do

▶ 1:08:33 Speaker 7: It? Yeah, so right now the, um, the Penney Road pump station, it was originally designed as, uh, what's called a pneumatic injector station. So it was this steel can with these two pneumatic pumps that would, when they'd fill up, they force the wastewater out and it sends it through a force Maine into the Gravity system down on Penney Road. Um, probably in the eighties that system was converted to what we call a submersible pump station. And they used to do these conversions to try to help something limp along a little longer. And they take that steel can and they turn it into a wet well. So the wastewater now comes and fills up the old steel can and then there's submersible pumps in it that now pump the water out. That can, was never designed to be a holding cell for wastewater. And so they wrought out and so the wastewater eventually seeps into the ground. Um, the, there could be backups into people's homes. Um, the more likely, more immediate condition though is that the wastewater starts seeping out into the ground next to the golf course.

▶ 1:09:38 Speaker 10: Alright, Thank you.

▶ 1:09:43 Speaker 10: That is it, Mr. Chair. Thank

▶ 1:09:44 Speaker 3: You. Uh, what's the role of the committee,

▶ 1:09:49 Speaker 10: Mr. Chair? I'll make a motion to recommend Second.

▶ 1:09:52 Mark Garipay: Second motion to recommend by Councilor Stewart. Seconded by Counselor Chetty on discussion Councilor Al,

▶ 1:10:01 Devin Romanul: Um, I just wanted to ask, um, thank you so much for the memo. I wanted to ask if there's any implications for the folks living down there as they are looking for either any community input or eventual construction down the road. I know that's gonna be some, some sort of timetable. Um, perhaps you could give some insight there.

▶ 1:10:17 Speaker 7: Yeah, we would probably have neighborhood meetings for this, but fortunately the location of that pump station, it's sort of away from most people's homes. And the new station will be constructed right next to the old one, and then the old one will just be decommissioned. So I anticipate very little interest in this project other than maybe the construction impacts of all the heavy vehicles and maybe some noise, but we will have neighborhood meetings. Sounds

▶ 1:10:41 Devin Romanul: Good. Looking forward to those for all of you on Penney Road.

▶ 1:10:47 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay. Council Vandiver. Sorry, one question. So you said that the, uh, the cost is about a million dollars and how long will this new work be expected to hold us until,

▶ 1:10:57 Speaker 7: Oh, how long would the new station, how long will

▶ 1:10:59 Kimberly Vandiver: Last for further work would ever be needed?

▶ 1:11:02 Speaker 7: I would estimate a minimum of probably 50 years, but with the pumps being replaced, but the difference is that you, you build a concrete chamber like a manhole, that's now what the wastewater is housed in. And so, you know, we have sewer manholes that last over a hundred years. So, but the components will have to be swapped out over time. The pumps will be replaced on some schedule.

▶ 1:11:27 Speaker 4: Okay. Great. Thank you

▶ 1:11:30 Mark Garipay: Council, ed, Jamal, and then council Ro.

▶ 1:11:32 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Um, in this project, are we going to hire any contractor because of the positions that we no longer, you know,

▶ 1:11:43 Speaker 2: like when, uh, whether engineer or any, um, yeah. Previous position that you, we used to have,

▶ 1:11:50 Speaker 7: We would definitely have to have a consultant do the design. We would've needed that anyway, but the consultant is gonna have to, you know, carry a little bit more of the load too. We've, when we are, uh, really short on staff, I always tell our consultants that we need them to fully manage the project, um, and not wait for us to, you know, advance it to the next step. Doesn't always work, but if you have a good consultant, usually they can move it along.

▶ 1:12:16 Maya Jamaleddine: So, so how much we would've haven't saved or not pay for this project? If we had that position already,

▶ 1:12:26 Speaker 7: We would need a consultant to design this one way or another. It's a highly specialized, um, project that we don't have any in-house expertise to design it.

▶ 1:12:36 Speaker 2: So it means that it's, it's not impacted by the, um, uh, positions that we are not going to re

▶ 1:12:45 Speaker 7: Um, I mean the main impact is just the oversight to, you know, track the invoices, get the contracts put into place, all of that. That will happen through the engineering division. So it may happen a little bit slower, but once the contract is, once we have a consultant under contract, they'll pretty much be running with it. So it shouldn't be terribly impacted, um, by the budget or the lack of positions.

▶ 1:13:09 Speaker 3: Okay. Thank you. Council ro?

▶ 1:13:11 Speaker 8: Yes. Um, thank you. Um, just to clarify, the 200,000 would be for the design? Yes. And you said how much would the, would the installation or the,

▶ 1:13:21 Speaker 7: I roughly, I threw out a number of a million dollars total between design and construction. That is based on past experience with pump stations, but not with one of this particular size and this location. So a lot of unknowns when you start digging that deep.

▶ 1:13:39 Speaker 8: Yeah, understandable. Um, so where would the funds come for something like that? Is that Grants is that,

▶ 1:13:44 Speaker 7: Uh, we would potentially look to the state revolving fund loans, which are 2% loans from, uh, for sewer work. That's one possible avenue. Um, another is that we, if we think we have enough in retained earnings, maybe we, you know, store that away for a year and, and see how much we end up with the following year. Maybe we amass enough mon money and retained earnings to afford it. Um, I think our retained earnings in sewer have at times been over a million dollars. We've used it to, um, mitigate rate impacts in the past, but that's not the only way we can use that. But fortunately with the enterprise funds, we're in a much better position financially, um, because we run them like a business and we make sure that we always can cover our costs with the revenue that we collect. And so we're not, we're not playing the same catch up game with the level of deferred maintenance that we are in the general fund projects.

▶ 1:14:41 Speaker 8: Much like an anything else? Sorry, we have to start with the design process. So that's why we need to start with this 200,000. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

▶ 1:14:51 Speaker 3: Any other questions? Madam

▶ 1:14:53 Mark Garipay: Clerk, can you please call the role?

▶ 1:14:55 Speaker 8: Yes. Counselor Jamine? Yes. Counselor Occhio? Yes. Counselor Hamilton? Yes. Counselor Karen Chetty? Yes. Counselor Mki? Yes. Counselor Amano? Yes. Counselor Stewart? Yes. Counselor Vandiver? Yes. Counselor Williams? Yes. President Elli? Yes. Chair Garipay? Yes. All in favor of motion passes.

▶ 1:15:19 Speaker 3: Okay, that will get, uh, recommended.