- All right, the time is now five o'clock. I'd like to call today's City of Bloomington Utility Service
- Board mission. Mission, sorry. City of Bloomington Utility Service Board meeting to order. I would like
- to start with the mission. City of Bloomington Utility's mission is to enhance the quality of life in
- our community by providing safe, sustainable, and high quality drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater
- services in a cost-effective manner, promoting public health, economic vitality,
- and environmental stewardship. If any board member has any personal or financial conflict with any issues
- or individuals on the agenda, then please be sure to recuse yourself during those portions of the meeting.
- We will begin with petitions and communications. Are there any petitions and communications from the public?
- Hello, my name is Selena Powell. I am a customer relations representative with CBU. And I wanted to
- give you an update on my experience with taking online classes through the Home School Spanish Academy
- for the customer service. The classes are about 30 minutes long each. I take them online once a week,
- virtually, with a teacher from Guatemala.
- The main focus is learning grammar and vocabulary while practicing verbal exchanges through speaking
- exercises. I started taking these classes in May. The last class will be completed March 4th of 2026.
- From early July to mid September, there was a brief break for student rush where I wasn't able to take
- these classes, but I have since then resumed them.
- This all began after joining the customer relations team when I found myself assisting multiple Spanish
- speaking customers in person. I had then translated the paper contracts that we have into Spanish to
- assist the customers that come in. And I realized the importance of helping these customers with verbal
- communication and what a difference that can make. While working with my manager to create personal
- goals for professional growth,
- I made it a goal and priority to learn Spanish for our customers. When customers come into the office,
- they often use their own resources, such as a translation service on their mobile device to communicate.
- My goal is to be more accessible to Spanish-speaking customers with verbal communication.
- With my training, I can assist customers without making them wait to see if a Spanish speaking employee
- is available during business hours. Every customer is different, of course. Some have questions about
- starting or ending service, high water usage, and what charges are on their monthly bills. My learning
- focuses on speaking fluently to consistently address all concerns.
- In conclusion, by taking classes to learn Spanish, I am working towards better assisting all of our
- Spanish-speaking customers, no matter their concerns or questions. Do you have any questions, concerns,
- or comments? Yeah, I think what you're doing is great. But please, don't reveal it to the federal government.
- Thank you. Congratulations.
- Thank you. This is a well-needed service for our community and our customers. If I have a question,
- I guess it would be, so you said that you are translating things on non-verbal communication right now,
- is that correct? Correct. Has the class benefited you in that aspect? Much. It has benefited me.
- very much in communicating with our customers. And how did you find this course? So we looked at a few
- different options online, something that would work well with working hours. And we found this class
- that you can take either 30 minute or hour long classes a week. And you choose your professor based
- on both your Spanish level and their English level.
- So you can choose the right one to learn. Well, thank you again. Hi. Is there a charge for these classes
- that you're taking? And are we reimbursing you for these charges? There is a charge. However, it is
- going through training. I believe it has come across the charges back in March.
- because this is a service that she is that and this is fantastic that you've taken on saw need and found
- a way to kind of solution for it so I think that's fantastic and to that extent I hope that we're looking
- at customer services obviously one of the top areas within the within CPU that I think it's helpful
- but there may be other areas that
- perhaps there may be other individuals within the organization that if we don't have Spanish speaking
- groups or a Spanish speaking employee that can help in those areas, it might be of interest to find
- somebody that could be of assistance. I also encourage you, while it's I believe personally much more
- difficult than learning Spanish or one of the other romance languages, but I know we have a high
- Chinese population, I know we have Japanese population, so I don't know if there's even a way for us
- to investigate different things with that. It may not be languages, but it may be written information
- that perhaps is helpful to them.
- you I think that's terrific I'm excited for you for our customers and then excited for you to be able
- to have this skill for the rest of your life so I think that's awesome and thank you for taking the
- initiative to do it. A follow-up kind of a combination of these questions so you mentioned about you
- know translating our paperwork is there like
- Question and answer sheet that we could provide our customers like in English and Spanish. Are there
- resources within the city that we could put it in other languages too? I think our website has some
- of that. I think I've looked at that before. I guess that was my question that I answered myself.
- Congratulations. That's terrific. Good luck with the rest of your course.
- Is there any additional questions? Thank you so much. Any other petitions or communications?
- Hearing none, we'll move on to the approval of the minutes of the previous meeting. I just have one,
- I think, correction on page
- I must say, I got a little confused with the different Burnhams, and I figured it out. I was like, why?
- Oh gosh, mine's not numbered. It's on the, in the section, oh my gosh. In the water rates case, it's like the,
- The page that begins and distribution system, there's a comment there where I said unforeseen legacy
- issues, but I think it's unforeseen legal issues. I think that's supposed to be legal. That's my only
- change. Any other comments or questions on the agenda or on the previous meeting minutes?
- approval of the minutes of September 8 2025. All in favor please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay.
- Minutes are approved.
- Moving on to the approval of the claims. First, we have standard invoices for a total amount of $2,407,125
- and 24 cents. Are there any questions or comments on the standard invoices? So on page three, I actually
- have two questions. So my first question is about the trades district green roof. So I looked back on
- all of our,
- previous, what we approved. We had back in 2023 as a board approved participating in that at the amount
- of $310,000. And now we're paying 237,750. Is that the final bill on it? And we haven't paid any other,
- so this is actually less than what was proposed. Fantastic.
- Second question on that. Is it finished? I mean, I know we've all slept since then, but this was proved
- back in 2023. We would have paid for it if it wasn't finished. Yes, it's been finished. It's finished.
- Okay. Yes, it's finished and I've been up and it looks beautiful. And that would be my third question
- to that one. When can we perhaps schedule a visit?
- From what I was told, as I recall looking through the minutes, we were going to be able to have tours
- of this. And it was going to be a place where the public could come. You'd have to schedule appointments,
- but come learn about it. So I think that would be a great opportunity for us to perhaps have a board
- outing or option to go see it. So those were my questions about the green roof.
- And then my other set of questions is in regards to the 2023 Interdepartmental Agreement. Is that the
- last one to get caught up on? Or do we still have 2024? 2024 has not been agreed upon yet, so we're
- still catching up on 2023. And this is just the, well, we're paying the water each quarter this year.
- We paid the full sewer in the first quarter of this year.
- That's right. Paying the water one payment each quarter. So this is the third or four for this year.
- Perfect. Perfect. And at this time, we still don't know when we're going to see the two thousand twenty
- four. Oh, you know, still pending. Pending. Fantastic. Thanks, guys. Those were my questions. What part
- is pending? I guess what keeps us from revisiting the entire process, basically. And so the controller's
- office is reevaluating the
- whatever you want to call the breakdown of each of those departments that were listed on the
- interdepartmental to make them more relevant to how we do business today. Yeah, you know, there were
- concerns about, I know in the past there were concerns with the interdepartmental as far as like, how
- did you come up with this number? What metrics did you use? And there were requests for it to be a little
- more transparent and that's what we're trying to accomplish.
- with this next one is to make sure that we're showing clear metrics for how these numbers, how they're
- calculated. So both sides can come forward and say, this is what we think we're, this is what we're
- doing. And city can say, this is what we think you're doing and meet in the middle. Okay. So then hopefully
- then when the 2024 would be ready, then it would be pretty easy to make the one for 25. So then we could
- essentially be paying for that service as we receive it.
- In theory in a perfect world we would pay for a last year in the first quarter of this year, right?
- Just to be be done with it. So I don't know if that's the goal, but that would be what I would like
- to see going forward. Yeah. Thank you On the green roof, so yeah, I remember that it was a reasonable
- reasonably large expense given
- the amount of benefit accrued, because I remember asking that question, and it was pitched as this is
- an exemplar, it's going to be done right, it's something we can show off, and then developers will have
- an understanding of this is one of the tools or options that they have for both fulfilling different
- types of requirements as well as just
- trying to do the right thing. So in my mind, it would be helpful not only to have that as one point
- on a tour, but also seeing other examples of green infrastructure the same time when we go out to see
- the green roof. And because I would envision that as being a way that this is introduced to developers,
- not just one item, but rather here's the suite of
- things that we've done that we'd like to show off and our options to the community. I would be delighted
- to take this board on a green infrastructure tour. Absolutely delighted. And to address your question
- about access to the green roof specifically, you know, we, that is in our MOU. And as long as we give
- a little bit of notice,
- that we plan on doing. I think specifically in the MOU, we said it was for educational, workshop type
- things. As long as we're giving a little notice, because there are tenants in there who use that space
- for various things. So as long as we're giving notice, we have access to it whenever we'd like. Yeah.
- Cool. I have a question. How much maintenance would be required for that weeding?
- Yeah, yeah, so there are maintenance requirements I believe they have they should have an O&M They do
- have an O&M Operations and maintenance manual and so they follow that there's You know vegetation maintenance
- and also maintenance of the infrastructure as well. Yeah Indeed we're gonna do a tour
- Could we include in that some of the projects that were involved in the research and the grant funding
- that we gave out where people did culverts or rain? That may be a little more difficult because those
- are private residences. Well, we could drive by. But we've supported it.
- We won't tell the federal government we're going. We might. Yeah, an unmarked van. We are not immigrants.
- Good Lord. We have supported green infrastructure in the right of way. So we've brought several MOUs
- to this board,
- maybe three at this point, MOUs to the board where we have provided funds to install rain gardens, along
- with other improvements that were happening in the right of way, such as greenway projects. So I think
- a tour of those facilities would be very nice. This kind of goes off topic, but on topic. With what
- Jim was suggesting, it might be a nice idea if this is already included when we do the grants proposal.
- for the candidates to submit a before and after picture because that would be a very easy way for us
- and it would also be a wonderful way for you guys to be able to promote the advertising of what folks
- have been able to do. Again, when you talk to people about swales and rain gardens and French this,
- before I got involved with the board, I had no idea what those things were. So to share those types
- of that information with the visuals,
- public might be very beneficial and again nice for us to see without stalking the neighborhoods. I have
- a question on page one the first Amazon our large pond floating fountain for disfusing scum so I just
- wondered where that is it is it temporarily temporarily used or is it like a permanent fixture somewhere?
- It looks like it's definitely at Monroe, but I'm not sure what the purpose of it is for. I believe this
- is in our flocculation basins. This fountain, it deters algae growth. Keeps the water moving.
- I guess that would just probably be like a replacement for something. I would assume they've got something
- that aerates all the water. Oh, I'm not sure if it was a replacement or if it was an addition.
- We need it. OK. Yeah. Thank you. Do we have any other questions on the standard invoices? I move we
- approve standard invoices for pay dates September 26.
- All in favor please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Standard invoices are approved. Next we have
- utility bills for a total amount of $172,075.35. Are there any questions or comments on the utility
- bills? I move we approve the September utility bills. All in favor please say aye. Aye. All opposed
- say nay. Utility bills are approved.
- Next we have wire transfers for a total amount of $554,380.14. Any questions or comments on the wire
- transfers? We approve wire transfers for September of 25. Second. All in favor please say aye. Aye.
- All opposed say nay.
- wire transfers are approved. Next, we have customer refunds for a total amount of $4,888.35. Any questions
- or comments on the customer refunds? All right. I move we approve customer refunds for September 26th.
- Second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, say nay.
- customer refunds are approved. Lastly, we have a special check run for a total amount of $2,054.73.
- Any questions or comments on the special check run? I move we approve the special check run for September
- 15th. Second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay.
- special check run is approved. Thank you all. Item five on our agenda is the approval of a consent agenda.
- Catherine Zager. Good evening. I'm Catherine Zager, utilities director. I'm presenting tonight's consent
- agenda totaling $20,000. The first contract is with greener day solutions for $0 for a pilot study of
- a screw press for the biosolids handling building at Blucher pool wastewater plant.
- The second is with AMI Roofing Contractors Inc. for $20,000 for on-call roofing services. Is there any
- member who wishes to consider one or more of these items individually? Hearing none, if there's
- no opposition, these items will be approved as recommended by staff. Hearing no opposition, the consent
- agenda is approved.
- Item six on our agenda is request approval of service agreement with Wynn Industries, Incorporated for
- temporary repair to alum take. Dan Hudson. Good afternoon. I'm Dan Hudson, Capital Projects Manager
- for the City of Bloomington. I'd like the board to consider a contract with Wynn Industries to
- repair the alum tank at the Monroe water plant for $75,900. Willing to take any questions on the project.
- So thank you. Yeah. I know this is a temporary pair. Does that mean that if our rate case is approved
- that a more
- permanent repair would be made with the water treatment plant improvements? Yeah, currently we're under
- design with Westler to redesign the whole alum feed project. And we're about ready to put it on the
- shelf until we get money to do this. But even with that, it would take one, one and a half, two years
- to get everything rebuilt.
- But in the meantime, we're under regulatory requirements to have at least 30 days worth of alum on site.
- And so that's what the temporary repairs are for. And what's our time frame to get this completed? I
- think we might be able to get it done before the end of the year. OK. Thank you. OK. And what's our
- current storage? Say that again. Current storage for it. You say we require to have a 30-day storage.
- What do we have right now?
- I don't have that on the top of my head. Thank you. All right, I move approval of the contract with
- Wynn Industries. Seven. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Request is approved.
- Thank you.
- Item seven is request approval of service agreement with Herzig Engineering Incorporated. Mark Menafee.
- Hello, Mark Menafee, utility engineer. I'd like the board to consider a contract with Herzig Engineering.
- They are a specialty engineering consultant that does arc flash studies. And this is to update our compliance
- with NFPA regulations for electrical arc flash.
- They will also do an infrared study. So they will look at the electrical equipment, looking for hotspots,
- any work that needs to be done. Contract is for 48,728. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Do we
- have any questions for Mark? So this is mandatory compliance work that has to be done? NFPA 70E. Yeah,
- how often do we do this?
- We need to do it every time we really make major changes to our system. We would need to come back and
- update this. So we would use this engineer to update those plans every time. This also includes labeling
- all of the electrical equipment with the hazard. It includes training.
- for all the maintenance employees and anyone who would be around this electrical equipment. It's really
- just a measure of how dangerous the equipment is and what PPE you would want to wear when working on
- that. Thank you. Any other questions?
- Approval of our contract or approval of services agreement with Herzing Enterprises LLC. Second. All
- in favor please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Request is approved. Mark would you like a seat?
- You're gonna be up there for a couple more. Next we have request approval of amendment number one to
- agreement with Springfield Electric Supply. Mr. Mark Menife.
- I'd like the board to consider this amendment. You might remember a few weeks ago, we had the failure
- of a variable frequency drive on a motor. When we had the startup technician on site, we had the VFD
- was working, but we had trouble with a motor and a pump. So the technician spent extra time on the site,
- and that's what this amendment's for, 1,962,000.
- for a total of 6,220. Any questions on the agreement with Springfield Electric Company? I move approval
- of the amendment to our contract with Springfield Electric Supply. All in favor please say aye. Aye.
- All opposed say nay. Request is approved. Next we have request approval of amendment number two to agreement
- with Wessler Engineering.
- Mark Minife. I'd like to consider this change to the Wessler engineering contract. You might recall
- that we are doing a project at Blucher Pool to upgrade the PLCs and the SCADA system. And we ended up,
- for various reasons, having to bid that job three times.
- in a row in order to get a contract. Uh, Westler did extra work changing that contract in between bids
- and also the extra work of, of bidding those out and recommending, uh, the recommended bidder. Uh, so
- the extra amount that we have for Westler is to add $15,000 to their not to exceed a total of $417,000.
- Happy to answer any questions. I move approval of our amendment number two with Wessler Engineering.
- Second. All in favor please say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Item
- 10 is request approval of updates to cross connection control enforcement response plan. Matt Dabberding.
- I'm Matt Dabberton. I am the environmental program coordinator in CBU engineering. I am here with some
- updates to the enforcement response plan for my program. It's been a long time since the board has last
- seen this plan. So I just wanted to kind of give an overview again about what my program is about and
- some of the changes being made
- to the plan because the red line version is a little intimidating with how much we have updated. So
- backflow prevention is about the principle of water flowing backwards from a customer system back into
- our water main, which can introduce potential contaminants if they mix anything into their water.
- The ways that this can commonly happen are if there is a main break, it can cause the pressure to drop
- in the main enough that the pressure in the customer system is higher, where it'll then flow back to
- where it's lower down in the main. Or if there is a fire, where the fire department needs to pump a
- bunch of water, that can also drop the pressure in the main enough to cause reverse flow back into our system.
- And while not everybody has an orange barrel with the skull and crossbones hooked up to their water,
- there are a lot of potential cross-connection hazards out there that we deal with in our daily lives.
- One of those is commonly lawn sprinkler systems. People commonly add fertilizers or things of that nature
- in line to those systems to spray out.
- when they're watering the lawn or, let's see if I can get my video to play here, or fire sprinkler systems.
- Water in these stagnates over time. It just sits there for years and turns black and nasty looking like
- this. And obviously we don't want that going back into our drinking water and coming out of our customer's faucets.
- Another common risk is soda machines. You'll see these out around town in pretty much every restaurant.
- And the issue with these is the CO2 that gets added to carbonate them. If that flows backwards, it can
- mix with the water to create some weak acids that, if it gets into copper pipes, can then leach the
- copper out of it, which in enough quantities can make people sick enough that they need to go to the hospital.
- And so that's what we're trying to work to prevent is things like these from getting people sick. So
- backflow preventer works basically as a series of check valves. It's basically just a one-way valve
- where water can push from one side and push it open, but on the other side it's sealed shut and can't
- work its way backwards into our system.
- And while this diagram looks a little complicated, they're usually not too complex when you get to the
- inside. Most of these are just a rubber disc on a spring that sits against a seat. And so all it's doing
- is just sitting there for water to push through and keeping it from going backwards into our system.
- These are commonly used, as I mentioned, on irrigation systems, both residential customers and commercial.
- Domestic water typically on commercial customers, as well as fire sprinkler systems, again, mostly commercial
- customers. And there's all different types for these different applications, but they all work on the
- same principles. For the domestic, there is a whole list of
- different types of businesses that are required by the state to have backflow prevention. So automotive
- plants like Carlisle up the street here through the great factory. Beverage bottling plants like Upland
- on the west side of town. Car washes, which it seems like we have more of every time you blink in this
- town. Laboratories, medical buildings, different kinds of manufacturers.
- Pharmaceutical plants, which we have several of in town, like Cook here in the corner of my slide,
- or Cintra. Commercial laundries, like dry cleaners, or sewage treatment plants, so that includes us.
- We have about 30 of these in our different facilities that I maintain. So what do we do with these once
- we're installed? The Indiana Administrative Code lays out rules for
- the installation of these devices, as I mentioned that list before this. And then the Indiana Department
- of Environmental Management requires us to maintain a database tracking that these are being tested
- and repaired to make sure that they work annually.
- And so what we have done is created the backflow chapter of the water ordinance. It's chapter 24 of
- Title IX, which allows us to conduct inspections, review plans for new installations, maintain the testing
- database. The software we use for that is called Track My Backflow, and conduct enforcement if our customers
- don't follow the rules.
- And there are a good amount of customers out there that don't follow the rules. This is kind of my,
- I had a title on here when I presented this to the presentation within our department called The Wall
- of Shame. And most of these are not through the fault of our customers themselves, but rather the installer.
- The one on the left there is a device that had a meter installed on it.
- and it got replaced. They took the meter out and then buttoned it all back up and left the meter sitting
- in the corner of the pit there as I discovered. The one in the middle is in a restaurant and my best
- guess is that it froze at some point and they used what they had which was foam and painter's tape and
- covered it up and then eventually forgot what it was and
- and then had stopped maintaining it from there. And the one on the right is a residential irrigation
- system where the installer had put the backflow preventer in a control valve box and by the time I had
- gotten to it, it was half buried and obviously you can't maintain or test that very easily if it's halfway
- stuck in the ground.
- Over 3,000 of these installed in our water system. And as I mentioned, we use that software called Track
- My Backflow to track the testing of these. As I mentioned, they're supposed to be tested annually. And
- if we require a customer to have testing done, the contractor they use for that would submit it to that
- system. It would be assigned an annual due date.
- And then they send out automated reminder notices saying that their yearly due date is coming up, or
- if they're past due, then you're told they had 15 days before the utility takes action. And so this
- has been really helpful because it takes it down from 3,000 devices that we always have to keep track
- of to just a couple hundred at a time.
- Once we get beyond those two reminder notices, then it's up to the utility to take action through the
- enforcement response plan. So we are updating this plan in large part to improve enforcement consistency.
- This is a snippet I had taken from the old enforcement plan where the range of response to a particular
- problem is basically
- anything from a phone call to a compliance schedule between one and 30 days. It's really the full gamut
- of anything you could do. And so it's been difficult for me when I see that to decide which response
- am I supposed to take if I have basically the full range available and if they don't respond in a timely
- manner what I am supposed to do next.
- So that's the kind of thing that we're trying to improve these updates. We're also tightening our enforcement
- process to try and protect our customers' health. The old enforcement response plan had defined a show
- cause hearing for termination of service, for shut off of people's water, as well as legal action. However,
- it didn't really use these.
- types of tools in any of the range of response actions. And so that's our basically ultimate recourse.
- If we can't get a customer to comply from any other means, then we would shut the water to make sure
- that there's no risk to the public health of the rest of our customers.
- And the other changes that we've made are a lot of updates to the language throughout the document,
- both just for clarity, as well as making sure that it lines up with what's written in the ordinance.
- We had this whole section on right of appeal before, which was different from what was written in the
- ordinance. So we updated it to just say, follow what's in the ordinance to make sure that it's consistent
- between the two.
- The main changes are to the table in the back of the document. We've replaced the old table with this
- matrix of the range of responses and types of violations, which we've tried to trim down by a couple
- to make things simpler for people to understand when they see this table.
- Each type of violation now has a clear escalation path. So instead of the full range every time, we
- have a typical response. And then if the customer doesn't get into compliance within the amount of time
- we give them, then we would move on to the second, third, or fourth step from there. And each type of
- violation, as I mentioned, generally will end with a shutoff or legal action if we can't
- attain compliance through other means. And so we would be, of course, working with the customers trying
- to get in contact and do as much as we can to ensure compliance before we get to that step. But we felt
- that it was necessary to include as a potential action if we can attain compliance through any other means.
- So what this does for our typical enforcement cases is the old plan, as I mentioned, it's very broad.
- If a device becomes overdue for testing, which is kind of our main violation we see, we would then send
- them a notice of violation of our compliance after they get their two automated notices from Track My
- Backflow. And then if they didn't respond after that point,
- plan said that we could find anywhere between $1 and $2,500 a day. And that was kind of all the guidance
- it had given beyond that point. And so that's where I left off, because obviously that is a very large
- range to have to pick through for each individual customer. After the changes, it should simplify things.
- So if a device becomes overdue, we would send them a violation letter requiring compliance. We would
- give them 15 days as a general guide. And then we would move on to a flat $150 fine per device they
- have that's overdue if they did not respond. That $150 number is roughly the cost of a test. We had
- to try and balance it between giving
- Residential customers, not too much of a penalty for people who don't have as much ability to pay compared
- to commercial customers who may not notice or may not care about a lesser fine. And then we would move
- on from that point to a shutoff hearing if they had not contacted us and if they had not contacted somebody
- to at least schedule a test.
- I'm happy to answer any questions. I know this is not something that comes up very often. Thanks for
- the presentation. So we do have an irrigation system. So I have a few questions. Yeah. My memory is
- that before five or six years ago,
- we knew nothing about backflow, is that right? That's pretty much correct. We were required by the state
- to establish a backflow prevention program in 2018 as a utility, but the rules have been around for
- much longer than that since the mid-80s. So we were just getting away with it for quite a while. Essentially,
- yes. So then my next question is,
- How do you know that I have an irrigation system? That is a fun question. That's something that I have
- been working to figure out. The previous people in my role before me had worked to kind of establish
- the program and get it off the ground. And a lot of my work I've been doing is inspections to find all
- the devices that have been out there since before our program started.
- Um, cause there's a lot of people out there who have never tested, you know, their irrigation system
- or fire sprinkler or, or so on. Um, and so I've basically been going and doing inspections, uh, with
- John our buckle in the back there, um, to find these systems. Usually the ways we can tell are either
- they'll have a irrigation meter on their, um, services in our billing system.
- But we don't have any information for the backflow preventer. That's a way we can tell. Or by huge spikes
- in the usage during the summer months is another way we can find this. But I also suspect that it happens
- to be Nature's Link that does ours. I assume that you got in touch with companies like Nature's Link that
- do irrigation systems that they provided? Yeah, there's several contractors in town that have testers
- on staff to become a tester. They have to go through a 40 hour course through the state, but there's
- several irrigation companies, several fire sprinkler installers and plumbing outfits in town that have
- testers. So if a customer calls to schedule a test, usually
- They can do it within a matter of days or within a week or two Just depending on their schedule I know
- they do this every year And for us they they do it when they turn the system on in the spring Yes, and
- it always seems that it's right up against the date It's required so that if the person who does it is
- sick one week we would probably go past the date so there would be no problem and I would just get a
- notice of violation with a certain amount of time yeah yeah if a customer runs over the automated notices
- they get from our tracking system would give them 15 days before we take action so 15 days past the
- due date and
- then we would send a letter giving another 15 days before we would take further enforcement with fines
- or that sort of thing. So essentially, if it runs over, you have a month of leeway before a fine or
- something like that. Thanks. Sorry to take everyone's time. And additionally, we're pretty flexible
- where if people call us and they say, hey,
- called my contractor, they can't get out here for three weeks or something like that, then we would
- be pretty flexible as far as extensions or that sort of thing goes. The goal is not to punish people,
- it's just to get compliance. Thanks. Any other questions or comments from you? The previous tools you
- had available for
- enforcing looked like there was a lot more flexibility, right? Less specificity. So you're wondering
- maybe what to do. But when I saw the list of different types of customers, it seemed like some of them
- posed a more severe risk to our water supply than others. And so it made me wonder when you put up like
- typical case,
- Are there any tools you have if it's someone you're really concerned about that you don't have to use
- that typical case? You can have some other mechanism to get them to act quicker? Yeah, the enforcement
- plan also gives us the ability. I think it's somewhere on one of the earlier pages. It mentions how
- basically that the matrix we've laid out, I think there's also a disclaimer under the matrix that
- in some extraordinary case where we have a customer that we're particularly concerned about, say if
- it's like a particularly severe violation that we can defer from what's laid out in those steps and
- either skip to a later step or take a different enforcement action than just what's listed out. So it
- still gives us that flexibility in a
- extraordinary case, but for a typical case, at least the idea I had was to kind of give more of a guideline
- than just a range of any and all actions. Yeah. It gives you guidance and predictability for the customers
- as well. Good. Thanks. I just want to say thank you for doing the update on all of this. This is very
- informative and I appreciate the show and tell because
- That's very helpful to see how something works for somebody who doesn't install it, doesn't live around
- it. I don't have an irrigation system, Jim. But to be able to see how that works is very cool. So I
- appreciate that. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? OK. I move approval of the revisions to
- the Cross-Connection Control Enforcement Response Plan. Second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye.
- All opposed say nay. Request is approved. Thank you. Great presentation. Next we have request approval
- of resolution 2025-19 to designate surplus property for auction. Matt Havy. Up in the yard that we'd
- like to try to sell it if they nobody buys them will scrap about. I mean questions or comments from Matt.
- I move we approve the disposal and surplus items as listed in our report September 15th. All in favor
- please say aye. All opposed say nay. Request is approved. Next we have request approval of amendment
- number four to agreement with Azteca Systems LLC Matt Havy. So the Azteca Systems is the software that
- we use for our City Works program.
- which is our work order maintenance system for the TD folks and also an asset management system. We're
- just going to have somebody come on site and do some training for the whole utility. Any questions or
- comments? All right. I move approval of the Fourth Amendment to our agreement with Azteca Systems LLC.
- Second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye.
- All opposed say nay. Request is approved. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on, old business. Do we have
- any old business from the board? Old business from staff? No. New business. Any new business from the
- board? So I've got an item I wanted to just update folks.
- Utilities Cybersecurity Update meeting on September the 8th and I'm really pleased that both our utility
- staff and the City IT staff are working together and I've gotten an assessment both in our cyber security
- and our physical facility security
- an assessment that came from the Department of Homeland Security, their Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
- Security Agency. I think I mentioned that maybe a few months ago, how we were headed down this road,
- but they gave us an update in their quarterly meeting, and CISA gave us, the federal agency gave us
- a list of recommendations for improvements.
- And we're slowly working our way through those. So Nolan Hendon and others from the IT department, both
- here and at Civil City, gave us updates about the progress they're making on each of those recommendations.
- The good news is we're making progress and that we've identified things to improve because we all know
- that critical infrastructure is a target of our adversaries, either domestic or international.
- we wanna make sure that our systems are in the best shape they can be. So trudging along, it may get,
- one of the things that we've talked about is the improvements to the SCADA systems that we've been approving.
- Some of our systems are older and by buying the new ones, that's gonna give us the latest versions and
- updates that are more secure and link our systems together better.
- The other point I'd make is that I really was impressed by how well city IT, which we depend on downtown,
- and our staff both are working together, and when they see things, they work out the issues and try
- to come up with best improvements. So I think we're making good progress there. We've still got a lot
- to do, and we'll keep you informed how that's coming along. Awesome. Thank you for that report.
- Any other new business from the board? New business from staff? We didn't have a subcommittee, so no
- subcommittee reports today. Staff reports? Not today. Oh, goodness. Any petitions and communications
- from the public? Do we have a motion to adjourn? I move we adjourn. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.