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11/15/1999 - Minutes TIGARD WATER DISTRICT BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS MEETING November 15, 1999 Members Present: George Rhine, David Strauss, Beverly Froude, Gretchen Buehner, Norm Penner Staff Present: Mike Miller Visitors Present: Jack Polans, Robert Windecker 1. Call to Order The regular meeting of the Tigard Water District Board of Commissioners was called to order by Commissioner Norm Penner at 7:00 p.m. 2. Roll Call and Introductions Roll call was taken. All Board representatives were present. Commissioner Penner requested the printed agenda be deviated from slightly in order to evaluate and approve the minutes of the last meeting. (Changes have been made to the order of topics for discussion from the Agenda.) 3. Approval of Minutes Commissioner David Strauss moved that the minutes of the October 25, 1999, meeting be accepted. Commissioner Gretchen Buehner seconded the motion. The vote to accept the minutes was unanimous. 4. Disclosure and Waiver of Potential Conflict Commissioner Buehner moved that the TWD sign the consent to representation acknowledging that Preston, Gates and Ellis perform bond related work for the City of Tigard and others. This is not viewed as a conflict and is totally unrelated to what's going on with TWD. All board members voted AYE and the paperwork was signed. 5. Visitor's Comments Mr. Jack Polans addressed the Board of Commissioners regarding the TWD By-Laws and his inability to receive those records from Mike Miller to date. , Commissioner Buehner informed Mr. Polans that she had discussed this matter with Mr. Ed Wegner today. She explained that old TWD records were boxed up and moved to storage. Six or seven boxes have already been searched through TWD Meeting Minutes - 1 - November 15, 1999 with about the same number of boxes still needing to be searched. The records have not been found yet. The records have been stored and are irrelevant at this point and are old records. When the records are found, Mr. Polans may review them. Commissioner Penner stated that Mr. Polans is entitled to see the records, however, it requires staff from the City to go through stored files (semi-retired) which takes time away from their regular duties. The staff is looking for them and will find them within the next few days. The fact that Mr. Polans is entitled to have them is not the same as he is entitled to have them the instant he asks for them. An effort is seriously being made to find them at significant taxpayer's expense. Mr. Polans will receive them probably within a week. TWD does not have the records and does not have staff and cannot help in that matter. It is within the City's hands. Mr. Polans brought up another point, that being that the Unincorporated Commissioner's Board Members should have their own staff. Commissioner Buehner indicated they have no funds to pay them with. She questioned whether he would be willing to get something started so they could have staff but concluded that he has no authority to do anything because he does not live within the Tigard Water District. He can just complain. TWD cannot do anything about it without something coming from the ratepayers. Commissioner Penner added that TWD has no tax basis and has no authority to tax citizens within their district for anything. Their budget is very minimal and does pay for the work that the City of Tigard staff does for the TWD. It does not have enough money to pay for a full time person. Mr. Polans interjected that TWD needed their own staff and own attorney. Commissioner Buehner cut in indicating that TWD does have their own attorney: Mr. Polans continued by stating that Mike Miller is an employee of the City of Tigard and has nothing to do with the TWD Board Meetings. Mr. Penner informed Mr. Polans that Mr. Miller does have every right to be at the Board Meetings because he works for the Department of Public Works, which is responsible for the water system for the entire Tigard water system service area. Mr. Polans wanted to know how the TWD could increase their budget to get their own staff. Mr. Penner informed him that the TWD could petition the other members of the consortium and ask for them to agree to increase the allocation of water rate payer's money (not taxpayer's money). It would have to be approved by the representatives from Durham, King City, and the City of Tigard. TWD Meeting Minutes -2- November 15, 1999 Commissioner Strauss requested that Mr. Polans come to the Budget Meeting and make that proposal. The meeting will be held sometime in April. Mr. Polans said he would look into the matter and thanked the Board. The Board voted to go into Executive Session under provisions of ORS 192.660 (1) (f) to consider records exempt from public inspection at 7:15 p.m. All visitors and Mike Miller were requested to leave during the Executive Session. The regular meeting of the Tigard Water District Board of Commissions reconvened in open session at 8:32 p.m. and continued with the agenda items not yet covered. 6. Consideration of any action resulting from the Executive Session: Based upon the discussions held during Executive Session, the TWD wished to advise their IWB representative as to what general positions they wish conveyed to the rest of the IWB members. Tigard Councilman Hunt's statement was then read into the minutes. "The Tigard City Council has directed me to inform the IWB that the City will not be seeking voter approval for use of the Willamette as a drinking water source in the near future. The Council is considering all options available to us for meeting the long term water supply needs of all customers in the IWB area. We are working as quickly as we can, and will be presenting a proposed course of action to our IWB partners in the near future. We believe that this deliberative approach is in the long term best interests of all customers in the IWB. I and my fellow Council members appreciate your forbearance and cooperation in working with us during this process." Commissioner Buehner indicated that the City of Tigard has decided not to send the vote to the people for either the March or May 2000 election. TWD needs to proceed with that. Based on that decision, she requested instruction from the Board as to how to address the remaining issues at the next IWB meeting on Dec. 8 with respect to long term water. Commissioner Strauss moved that the TWD delegate inquire to get more information from the proposed studies and ideas as to cost, subjects of study, results, length of time, etc. Commissioner George Rhine seconded the motion. The Board Members request their delegate to convey to the IWB that TWD requests more information in a timely fashion before proceeding further. All members voted unanimously AYE. TWD Meeting Minutes -3- November 15, 1999 Commissioner Strauss moved that TWD support any studies or projects being made by the members of the IWB as opposed to the City of Tigard. Commissioner Rhine seconded the motion. All voted AYE in favor of the motion. Commissioner Buehner inquired whether the Board wanted her to raise the issue of the effective functioning of the IWB and whether that could be clarified to make it work better. It was agreed that she would encourage the IWB to undertake a discussion to find ways in which the IWB can be more inclusive. A discussion is desired where King City and Durham do not feel they are being excluded in any way. The motion was made, seconded, and passed unanimously. 7. Intergovernmental Water Board Update • Commissioner Buehner reported there was a short presentation on the Water Rate Study. Basically they have had problems with the computer software programs and it has caused a set back. They are still dealing with that issue. • Additionally, there was a presentation by the non-profit organization that operates the Tigard House. They were asking the district's authorization to build an accessory building next to the house where they could have restrooms and a small office. The John Tigard house was moved to it's present location and is sitting on land that is owned by the TWD. They have a long term lease with the TWD. The lease is over 20 years old. The two issues brought up were: (1) Would the Historical Preservation Association be allowed to build the accessory building near the house on the property? A citizen of Tigard recently left a large amount of money to the foundation that runs the house. There is a proposal that the house will someday be moved again and they would like to put a park at that location. They recommend it be done. Then when a park was put in somewhere down the line, the restrooms would be usable for the park. That was approved by the IWB. (2) It was also recommended that the lease with the Historical Association be revamped since it was 20 years old and no longer conforms to Oregon law. Revision of the lease will be looked into. The rent is $1.00 per year. • There was also an issue of a swap with the Tigard-Tualatin School District for a parcel on Bull Mountain for an elementary school. There are plans for a reservoir up there at the proper altitude for the submerged tank (a parcel above Woodhue on 150th). Mr. Miller will discuss this further in his report. • IWB is also still talking about what they are going to do with the property by Menlor. Unsure about whether they will sell it outright; some of the neighbors would like to have a park built. There are a number of things that are bgin_g discussed. TWD Meeting Minutes -4- November 15, 1999 8. Utility Manager's Report Commissioner Penner informed the Board that he has already sent a letter to the Insurance Carrier. He will provide a copy to Mr. Miller who will take it up with Loreen Mills. Water Rate Study Update — Mr. Miller has seen the software in some detail. It looks very nice. It has Excel spreadsheets and can provide flexibility to look at and review rates and make adjustments on a yearly basis. The original program we had looked at a 5-year projection making a 5-year average. This one actually looks at yearly revenues and expenditures and forecasts for that specific year. The disappointing part of it is that the City has gone through two conversions. The utility billing software (started conversion to Springbrook a little over a year ago) is still not completely converted to the new system. There has been difficulty getting information, specifically consumption reports. They are working on getting those bugs out. The financial end as far as expenditures and revenues, the City had Springbrook in a DOS format before. In upgrading to the Windows version everything in their financial packages is now very difficult to get information. The whole City has been effected; unable to get monthly expense reports since the start of the fiscal year. It is frustrating not being able to know where finances stand on a day to day basis from a budget management stand point. They are about 90% to getting everything complete in order to provide us with a consumption report. Once that information is received we will be sending it off to CH2MHill in Seattle. They will then be able to get us back some scenarios. Those scenarios will be based on the current 10-year capital improvement plan and provide supply option information. We expect to have the information to the IWB for the December 8 meeting. Reservoir Site: We have been in negotiations with Venture Properties and have plans to acquire a parcel of land (8 buildable lots) south of 141stAve. If it goes as planned, this will allow them to have a park. It is at the right elevation (between 520-550 ft.). It will be a 30-foot tank, in stable, bedrock about 10 feet below the surface. Some drilling and blasting will be required. Exploratory digging was performed discovering weathered rock to a degree which could be removed mechanically. It has been requested we drill and blast beforehand and just leave it in place and come in later when actual construction is performed. Some other caveats have been requested as conditions pertaining to an existing well. They initially wanted over$600,000.00 so we counter-offered late last week and have not heard back from them yet. When the first initial offer came, we started looking at other potential reservoir sites. We identified a number of sites. We wanted to stay in the general vacinity of 141st because existing pipeline is headed that way and was identified as a future reservoir site. Several sites off 150th above Woodhue were identified. We didn't want to go too far west of 150th, which would bring us too far away from our grid. In looking to the east, we came across two pieces of property the school TWD Meeting Minutes -5- November 15, 1999 district has off of Bull Mountain Road. The school district is very favorable into discussing placement of a reservoir on their property underground, with the potential use as a playing field. Mr. Monahan has sent a letter to the school district superintendent formally notifying them that we are interested in order to get the ball rolling to set up some meetings to discuss it further. The projected reservoir is 5 years out. The school district property will not be swapped. We will either buy it from them and lease it back to them or lease it from them. At this point we are leaving the door open in several areas. We are looking at other options right now. One is the school district property, the other properties would be off 150th. With the school district property we don't have piping in place, but it does afford us an opportunity to service the local mountain area out of this reservoir in the future. We do have pump station capability. The other property we are going to pursue regardless is property off 150th & Sunrise Lane. We have identified that as another site for a reservoir. Commissioner Strauss inquired as to the schedule of Beef Bend Road. Tigard Times reports that the project is about to be complete in a few weeks. Mr. Miller informed the Board that construction of the 24" line is scheduled for January/February 2000. The new line will go essentially down the middle of the road bed. 9. Non-Agenda Items Mr. Polans requested a copy of the tape of the open meeting. Commissioner Penner told him to make arrangements with Public Works to have that done for a fee. Mr. Polans also inquired as to whether the disclosure and Waiver of Potential Conflict was a public document. He also wants a copy of that form. The Board was unsure as to whether it was protected under attorney/client privilege. Commissioner Penner advised Mr. Polans to acquire from the Attorney General's office the book "A Quick Reference Guide to Oregon's Public Meeting Laws". Commissioner Buehner received a flyer from the Bar. They are putting on a half day program on public meetings and how to deal with officials, and what are the rules and regulations if you are an official. She has the information and will provide it to anyone interested in attending the seminar being held December 2nd and she thinks it costs $95.00 to attend. Commissioner Strauss made a motion that the TWD pay the registration out Of the administrative fees for Chairman Penner to attend. Commissioner Buehner TWD Meeting Minutes -6- November 15, 1999 seconded the motion. It was stressed by Commissioner Strauss the importance of the Chairman being kept up to speed on those matters. Chairman Penner abstained from voting. All other members voted unanimously AYE for this motion. Commissioner Buehner will fax the information to Commissioner Penner. Discussion followed about whether to hold a regular meeting in December. The meeting was tentatively set for December 13 at 7:00 p.m., if necessary. Mr. Miller reminded the Board that 48 hours was required in order to post a notice of cancelation. 10. Adjournment The regular meeting of the Tigard Water District Board of Commissioners adjourned at 9:28 p.m. TWD Meeting Minutes -7- November 15, 1999