Okay, it's after five, it's time to get started for the utility service board meeting for the city of
Bloomington on October 5th, 2026. And just a reminder that our mission of our board and our utilities
department 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. And our vision is that CBU
will be the leading municipal water utility organization in Indiana. We have board members present this
evening, and Mr. Sherman, board member, is online. So we'll have a hybrid meeting this evening, which
means we'll be doing roll call votes. All right. Are there any petitions or communications
from the public on items that are not on our agenda this evening. Any comments? All right. Seeing none,
we'll move ahead to approval of the minutes from our previous meeting of September 21st, 2026. Everybody
had a chance to review the minutes of the meeting.
Okay, it's been moved and seconded that we approve the minutes to the meeting. And Rachel, if you will
call the roll. Yes. Yes. Okay, the minutes have been approved. Thank you. Next item is approval of claims
and we have the standard invoices as listed in your agenda.
Any questions on the standard invoices? I move that we approve the standard invoices. All right, it's
been moved and seconded to approve standard invoices this evening. All in favor, call the roll there.
Carpenter? Yes. Dembro? Yes. White? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Sherman? Yes. Okay, the standard invoices have
been approved.
Thank you. Next is utility bills for September 24th. A chance to review those. Any questions on the
utility bills? All right. You might be getting some feedback online there or something, but
Okay, utility bills for September 24th. It's been moved and seconded. Call the roll. Sherman? Yes. Deborah?
Yes. White? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Harmon? Yes. Okay, utility bills for September 24th have been approved.
Next is utility bills for October 1st.
move that we approve utility bills for October 1st. Okay it's been moved and seconded. Any other discussion
for those two utility bills? Call the roll. All right it's been approved for approval of the utility
bills for October the 1st. Next is wire transfers and
for October here in the sum of $648,106.92 for the 5th of October. I move that we approve the wire transfers,
fees, and payroll. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Please call the roll. Stewart? Yes. Armitter?
Yes. Devereaux? Yes. White? Yes. Sherman? Yes. All right.
wire transfers are approved. Next item is customer refunds. Pay date would be October the 9th. So we've
got a couple of pages of those totaling $4,998.57. I move that we approve customer refunds. All right,
it's been moved and seconded. Any other discussion?
Call the roll. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. The customer refunds have been approved. Next we
have counts a special check run counts payable they're listed for September 24.
I move that we approve the special check run. All right, it's been moved and seconded. Any other discussion?
We'll call the roll. White? Yes. Sherman? Yes. Debrow? Yes. Carpenter? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Okay, motion
carries for the special check run approval. Next on our agenda, item five is approval of the consent
agenda totaling $19,357.
71 cents, and I'll call on Katherine Zager to give us the rundown on those. Good evening, Katherine
Zager, utilities director. I'm presenting tonight's consent agenda totaling $19,357.71. First contract
is with Stephen Lee Kleiman, DBA Stitescale Co LLC.
for $3,370 with two automatic renewals for the service and calibration of scales at Blucher, Dillman,
and Monroe. Next is with J.H. Waters, Inc. for $9,500 for EQ basin repairs at Dillman Wastewater Treatment
Plant. Next is with SET Environmental for $2,937.71 for the cleaning out of the sodium hydroxide day tank
at Monroe Water Treatment Plant. And next is with Wheeler Coaching Systems LLC for $3,550 for Environmental
Supervisors Communication Workshop. 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.
Thank you very much, Kat. Next item then is item six, the Habitat for Humanity Appeal. And our counsel,
Chris Wheeler, will make a presentation on this appeal. Good evening. Chris Wheeler with City Legal.
Last time we were here, we had an appeal from Habitat for Humanity.
discussing the issuance of water meters as it relates to Osage Place and the development of those properties.
Since that time, well, we had asked that this board take the matter under consideration and come back
with its findings and conclusions. In the meantime, in these last two weeks, Habitat and CBU have been
in negotiation in an effort to try and reach a settlement which the parties have.
I have not shared that agreement with you, but it has been reviewed and signed by Habitat and I'm going
to read it into the record. If the board approves this evening, then we would ask that the chair sign
so that we can get a copy back to Habitat and this matter would be resolved. The appeal would be withdrawn
and we wouldn't need those findings. So this is the settlement agreement. Please ask questions or raise
your hand if you don't understand what I'm reading to you while we go through this. Otherwise, I'm happy
to take questions at the end.
as well. But this is the settlement agreement. It reads as follows. This settlement agreement is entered
into between the city of Bloomington utilities department by and through its utility service board.
They are together referred to as the city and with Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County, Inc., which
we're going to refer to as Habitat. And collectively, these are the parties. Upon signature of this
agreement, it shall be considered binding upon the parties.
Whereas Habitat is the developer of real property known commonly as Osage Place, which is split up into
two phases, phase one and phase two. And whereas the parties have been working together to resolve a
discrepancy between the approved design plans for a western storm swale and the storm swale that Habitat
has installed in phase one of the Osage Place development.
And whereas CBU has withheld approval for the release of water meters and phase two of the Osage Place
development until the western storm swale discrepancy is resolved. And whereas CBU and Habitat wish
to see the discrepancy resolved without CBU having to continue to withhold approval for the release
of water meters and phase two of the Osage Place development and
Whereas the parties wish to avoid potential litigation in the form of judicial review and possible appeal
of said judicial review over this matter, along with the uncertainty of its outcome and the costs associated
with such litigation. Now, therefore, the parties have agreed to the following terms and conditions.
Number one, upon submission of Habitat's application for water services for homes in Osage Place, CBU
will process the applications and provide water service.
Number two, Habitat shall submit responses to CBU's September 21, 2026 comments on Habitat's September
2, 2026 stormwater infrastructure design submission, which was submitted in an effort to resolve the
discrepancies noted for the existing western storm swell. The parties shall conduct a meeting to review
the submitted design
CBU comments and Habitat responses on a mutually agreed upon date between October 19, 2026 and October
30, 2026. This meeting shall be facilitated by the Deputy Mayor of the City of Bloomington. The focus
of this meeting shall be to identify and resolve any remaining issues regarding the submitted design
and to then have CBU approve the design plans for the new stormwater infrastructure. Habitat shall,
this is number four, Habitat shall no later than October 30, 2027
install or cause to be installed the new stormwater infrastructure in accordance with the approved design
plans. Number five, if the party should reach an impasse on the design and or if after final design
plans are approved by CBU, should Habitat fail to install the stormwater infrastructure in accordance
with said approved design plans or fail to complete the installation of said stormwater infrastructure
in the timeframe set above
Then CBU may pursue enforcement and penalties against Habitat in accordance with Bloomington Municipal
Code 13.08. Number six, this agreement shall be reviewed and approved by the USB and by a Habitat executive
authorized to sign on behalf of and to bind Habitat. Number seven, Habitat shall withdraw its appeal
to the USB. All parties shall be responsible for their own attorney fees and related expenses. That's
the entire agreement. There is a signature page.
I can tell you that Habitat has signed it. Wendy Goodlett has signed this document as of today. Happy
to answer questions or try to clarify any of the things I've read. I'm expecting that probably number
five will be requiring some clarification, but happy to try. Thank you, Mr. Wheeler. Any questions from
our board members?
and I'm sure you said it and I just was taking in so much information. What is the timeline for the
installation of the stormwater infrastructure? So we would expect once, well, the timeline for review
of the design that's been provided by Habitat, the review and approval of the design and the installation
of the infrastructure in accordance with that approved design is not until October 30th of 2027.
So we have a year to see that all put into place. I guess I missed the 27 part. OK. Any other questions
from the board? Issues? What will be the parties at the meeting between the 19th and the 30th? Will
it just be? It'll be members of Habitat.
and their representatives, members of CBU and their representatives. I'm sure that Carrie Bennett will
be in attendance. I don't know, but I will be. Um, and I'm guessing that cat and Phil might be present,
but I don't know for sure who the CBU representatives will be. And, uh, this whole meeting
will be facilitated by the deputy mayor just to provide some, uh, measure of, uh, facilitation in order
to keep the parties moving in the right direction.
Well, there's the only action on our part is that we need to. I'd like you to vote to approve this agreement
so that you can go ahead and sign it and we can move forward in accordance with the terms and conditions
of the agreement. All right. We'll entertain a motion to do that.
It's been moved and seconded. Any other discussion on the resolution? I just would add comments that
I'm particularly thankful for our legal department and Habitat working the details out on this. That's
kind of the direction that we discussed a couple of weeks ago that we hoped
would happen, and in general, as this board has discussed in the past, our goal, particularly
with stormwater, is to make sure that we protect our citizens as new development occurs. And this is
a particularly important project. And when you have new homeowners,
particularly, we don't want them to ever be in a spot where we need to go back in and do remediation.
And so this, I think, will be a really good resolution for our rate payers and for developers and for
the utility. So thanks for your good work on this. Call the roll.
Yes. Thank you. All right. Motion is carried. The resolution is approved. Thank you very much for everyone
involved. Great resolution. All right. The next item is item seven, which is the request for approval
of the First Amendment to our agreement with Davies Engineering
And I think Dan Hudson's here to talk about that one. Hello, I'm Dan Hudson, Capital Projects Manager
for the city of Bloomington. And I'd like the board to consider a change order to Davey's engineering
contract for the Dillman Road wastewater treatment plant. What that contract is is a design for the
HVAC system and the admin building.
that includes the laboratory for the utility and also for an HVAC system and the headworks. The current
contract does not have bid services or construction services, so we'd like to move this project on and
go out to bid, but we need a contract change to do that. And they're asking for 18,700 for a new
not to exceed 80,600. Okay. So what we're doing is, do they do the actual installation or? No, no. Doing
design work? Yeah, the design is pretty much done. We just have to get the bids together and go ahead
and advertise and do the regular bid. And all this is at Dillman? At Dillman, yes.
Very good. All right, any questions for Dan? First Amendment to the contract with Davies Engineering.
Second. Been moved and seconded. Any other discussion? All right, we'll call the roll. Deborah? Yes.
Sherman? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Parmenter? Yes. White? Yes.
And the First Amendment change order is approved. Thank you. All right, next is item eight on our agenda.
This one is the request to approve the First Amendment to the agreement with Deniman Construction. And
Dan will be with us there as well. Yeah, this one takes a little explanation. If you give me time, I'll
give you a little history on how we got to this point. You got time. I have time.
In late April, we went out to bid for the contract and we received three bids and Thenamen was by far
the most reliable and most responsive and responsible at lowest cost for the project. It did not include
under drains in the project.
because it was based really on our experience of Monroe where an older filter and we had zero under,
under drain failure with that. So we was, we're guessing that we wouldn't have an under drain failure
while at the bid meeting. I received a photograph that
occurred that day that we lost one of the filters from a failure of the under drain. So that was a bad
choice. We did that and so we contacted the manufacturer. Manufacture said that we would have to replace
that existing row plus the rows on either side of the failure to do that. So we bought
the under drain and it was going to be installed under a smaller change order with the contract. In
the meantime, the manufacturer reneged on that and they said that they would not warranty the under
drain unless all of the under drains were replaced. And that has to do with they didn't think that they
could remove
an under drain without damaging the other one. So now we're forced in replacing all of the under drains.
And in the meantime, we lost another filter with the under drain and a third filter. So now we have
one filter left at Dillman and the superintendent and the operations are very concerned about that.
And there's been some talk to IDEM about what to do if we lost all of the filters. So they want me to
see if I can do this as quick as possible to get some sort of contract move forward so we can replace
the media, which is the existing and the new under drains.
The quickest way would be an amendment to the existing contract. If we go out and rebid, we're talking
about adding two, maybe three months to the project. So we have an amendment to the existing contract
for $1,125,000 for a new not to exceed cost of $1,875,000.
When we came in with this cost that created a legal problem because we're not, there's a state statute
that we're not supposed to go over 20% of the original contract. And this is by far over 20%. But after
council with legal, we were able to say that we met the statute and we're okay.
So now I guess I'm asking the board to approve that amount so we can move forward with this project.
So Dan, a couple of things. Yes. It looks to me like we've got a proprietary system here that we don't
have a lot of choice with. We have to stick with the existing filter media. Yes. Okay. Filter. Yeah.
Yeah. Wow.
And so how long does this warranty go for? Warranty? That's a good point. I don't know. I think it's
five years. I think that you can't hold me on, but I'm not sure. But I'm just thinking, you know, proprietary
system. We're kind of up against the wall here, but we are. And if we're going to do this, we need to
know that it's going to work for a while, right? I sure hope so. The good thing is that we
compared around locally. In Indianapolis, Citizens Energy had a filter that was very similar to this,
exact same manufacturer of the underdrain, and it failed. And the total cost for the media and the filters
was pretty much the same.
So we feel like we have a good cost here, even though it is a high cost, it's reasonable compared to
another project. Well, I guess we've kind of learned that this isn't necessarily the best to do brand
new systems with. Yes, yeah. Are there other manufacturers of this equipment
a better success, right? Well, the Monroe plant is a vitrified clay. I thought a vitrified clay would
be a lot more fragile, would be cracked or broken. There was nothing. Vitrified clay seemed to hold
up. But I don't believe they even make vitrified clay under drains anymore. Those are something they don't do.
There is another manufacturer called Leopold that makes something similar, but the dimensions of the
filter won't fit that without cutting the, and they don't, once you cut it, you can't, they won't warranty
it. So this is kind of like we lost one and it puts stress on the rest of them and then that caused
them all to fail. Right. Okay. Thank you. Okay.
Other questions for Dan? Okay, we'll go here. I move that we approve the change of order with Dannemann
Construction. Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any other discussion? All right,
call the roll, please. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Dr. Sherman. Professor Sherman. Trying to see if he's still with you. Jim, can you hear us? We still
got your signal? He's trying to talk, looks like. Okay. We didn't hear your last vote. Sherman. Yes,
can you hear me? Yeah, we have you now.
Jim, did you vote on the last, this change order for Thenemann? Yes, I did. Okay, it was a yes vote?
Yes. Okay, good. We got you now. Thank you. So the change order has been approved. Thank you. Thank
you for bearing with me on the history lesson. All right. Okay, our next item is request approval of
the service agreement with Doppler Incorporated.
Daniel Frank is here. Daniel Frank, Communications Manager, here to present the agreement with Doppler
Inc. for $223,826.27. This is for a response management solution for our control office here at the
service center. This will help streamline a lot of the processes that we have in there that we do daily.
It'll also provide a whole lot of customer service oriented notifications to help with communications moving
happy to answer any questions. So Frank, is this an annual contract or are we buying a big software
package and then we need a contract? This will be three years and then it also includes this includes
an 18,000 implementation fee that we'll cover. This is integrated with our City Works system so that's
a part of that. What all does this do? So
The main benefits that I get out of the control offices. Currently we take calls in there, enter them
into an email, and then we go back into City Works and put all that information into a second spot.
This will, we put everything into the Doppler portal. It will automatically integrate with our City
Works, create work orders based off of that. And then it will automate our dispatching. If we get a
main break, we can,
no longer have to deal with all the phone calls related with that to call out a crew. If somebody calls
in with a main break, they can, we can send out a text message to the customer that's reporting it.
If they decide to, they can provide us with a photo of what they're seeing out in the field and provide
us with the ability to diagnose it without having to send somebody out. Saves us a call to an assistant
superintendent and
It also provides a lot of other notifications. You can same thing if the customer receives that they
can get updates if it is a main break, say it will give them the ability to track that progress. If
we dispatch a crew out, they start working on whatever that issue is, then they'll get updates in real
time. So it also alerts staff for a call out. Yeah. Sounds like we're saving a lot of steps here for
the communications operators. Yes. That's good because providing a lot of value to customers who will
get notifications as we're doing. Frank, do you have any idea of how our call volume has gone over the
past few years? We don't really track overall call volume. It stays pretty steady. It's more concentrated
in the eight to four and four to midnight area.
That's good to know. Does this have an interface to use with Everbridge? It doesn't necessarily partner
with Everbridge. They have their own notification application that goes along with it. It's a little
bit more expensive than Everbridge and we already have that system up and running so I didn't see a
need to trade additional costs for something that we're already doing.
after the excitement from the last two weeks, we're looking at it as like this will be a really good
supplementary tool to go along with that. Because you can also set up like event notifications. If we're
having like a large scale issue like we dealt with with the boil water, you can set it up. It will automate
parts of the phone network.
it will generate an automated response when customers call in. If it's like you can do this for main
breaks. Also, you can geo code like an area where you're experiencing an issue. If they call in and
their address is within that area will provide like a automated response. Yeah, that's similar to the
capacity we have with Everbridge. So will this then grab all of the customer information that we have and
integrated into this software so that we have contact information. My sales rep that I've been dealing
with at Doppler, she's in the meeting with us today. We actually brainstormed that a little bit earlier.
We'll be able to collect that data and then we can add that to supplement or update whatever we have
in Everbridge. Do you have any idea what the annual renewal will be after the three years? So for this
year it was
First year annual is $61,000 roughly. They have within the proposal like a 12% increase year over year
for to cover inflationary costs, engineering, all that. Ava said that they're running closer to 5 to
8% for that increase year over year. So this is baked in with worst case scenario for that increase.
Okay. Good. Thank you. Other questions? Discussion? This looks like a step forward.
Great. Awesome. All right. Ready for a motion. I move that we approve the contract with Doppler Inc.
Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Will they call the roll, please? Deborah? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you.
All right, item 10 on our agenda is requesting approval of an on-call service agreement with Affordable
Waste Solutions. Mr. Havy. So our mutual folks have this on-call contract with Affordable Waste Solutions.
So they can call them if they need them to help them out with a septic issue. And so we just want to
get this set up as on-call. Got it. All right, any questions for Matt?
I move that we approve the agreement with on-call. All right. Been moved and seconded. Call the roll.
Sherman? Yes. Steward? Yes. Yes. All right. The on-call agreement with formal waste has been approved.
And next item, item 11, request approval of the resolution 2026-17 for the Dillman Sewer Expansion Project.
And let's see, who's going first on this? You flipped a coin and I lost. Or I'm the winner.
We'll find out. And I was instructed to advise that Brian is also here in case there are questions.
But this is a resolution. Essentially, we're just asking for the board to resolve and approve our efforts
to initiate the process of eminent domain
for the purpose of servicing the construction improvements to upsize the sanitary main from Weimer Road
to the Dillman Road wastewater treatment plant. This is a rather large project that's been going on
for a while, the design of it, and we are in the process now of securing the easements that are going
to be necessary to allow the upgrades to be made
So I think this is overall called the Dillman Relief Project to provide relief for the existing sanitary
sewer lines that are running down to Dillman. We're going to upsize them, straighten some of the pipes
out, which is going to necessitate the need for some wider easements in some sections of the project,
and also just additional easements where we're trying to straighten out the pipes to make them just
that much more efficient. They are going to create some redundancies to the existing lines as well.
So we are cutting into some new ground. The properties that we're looking at are identified in attachment
A. And we just would like the board's approval to go ahead and move forward with our efforts to secure
these easements.
in the documents? Is there one that you can pull up for us? Not that I can pull up in a moment's notice.
Right. So I apologize for that. Probably pretty close to what Phil has shared with us previously. It's
been a while. From Dillman, yeah. I guess I didn't realize it was so many different persons.
lot. And, you know, I would say that the way the resolution is worded is good that we want to do our
best to reach a good settlement with each of these owners. And last resort would be eminent domain.
Yes, and we, we haven't done this type of a resolution in the past, we're going to start bringing
this type of resolution to the board. We have already reached out to all of these landowners and with
the exception of Public Investment Corporation, which is tied up in another larger effort. So there's
a lot of negotiation going on with Public Investment Corporation in the city with regards to some road
infrastructure across their property in addition to the little bit of easement that we need.
We got swept up into those discussions. I don't believe there is any issue necessarily. It's just that
the approval for that easement will come along a little bit later on. But otherwise, with all of these
properties, we have had really good cooperation with their landowners, and we anticipate that there
won't be any need for eminent domain. There's going to be full cooperation and agreement for the purchase
of these easements.
I'm sorry to ask more questions about a map that you don't have in front of you, but are these like,
is this like a thin strip through their parcel or is this like, I mean, or acres or how we can? Well,
for the most part, it is just little strips of easement that are expanding the size of existing easements
or cutting out a little bit more of a straighter path of an easement.
With the exception of the Joe Smith property where we are intending to do a great deal more on that
property, we brought to you an agreement with Joe Smith that would buy the property outright, but because
of certain realities, we are now readdressing that agreement with Joe Smith and his attorney, and we're
probably gonna shift gears and just have an easement, but it's still going to be a relatively large
easement because
Not only are we looking at running additional sewer lines through the property, but we also wanna create
some underground storage facilities that can allow for additional capacity at Dilman when we have wet
weather events. And the last thing I'll say is thank you for sharing that you've already talked with
all of the property owners and it sounds like in a favorable agreement outcome with this.
Other questions or discussion? I think this would be a good time if our engineer, Phil Beaton, could
just give us a brief review on why this is an important addition to our wastewater infrastructure, what
it does for us.
engineering so to answer Megan's question a little further too there's a lot of them that are just 20
feet wide and then we have existing easement we we were talking to one property owners we're adding
five feet a little sliver up to in addition to the existing easement so it's little slivers here and
there and then 20 30 foot wide for the for the easement on those stretches but yeah this project is
to eliminate or at least reduce the frequency of a sanitary sewer overflow that we experience on South
Rogers, as well as just adding capacity through the system as we experience wet weather events and then
additional development within our community. So we looked at and we had an engineer model the system
from Dillman all the way up to say Bloomfield Road and analyzed the pipe
through those sections. So it's, you know, we included Weamer in this discussion of where we need some
easements, but we're not replacing all the sewer or putting a parallel sewer from Weamer all the way
to Dillman Plant. There's just segments of those sewers that have a lower capacity. Maybe it's their
slope or their pipe diameter that restrict some of that capacity. So those areas have been identified,
and when we set a specific flow rate that we want to be able to contain within the pipe,
and determine which sections that need to be replaced or have a parallel sewer. So this will help for
future growth. This will help for handling the wet weather events and can say eliminate but drastically
reduce the occurrence of those overflow events. Good. Thank you. Any questions for Chris or Phil? Anybody?
All right.
2026-17. I move that we approve resolution 2026-17. 6-17. Second. Moved and seconded. Any other discussion?
All right, we'll call the roll. Stewart? Yep. Sandbrough? Yes. Formenter? Yes. White? Yes. Sherman?
Yes. All right. Resolution 2026-17 has been approved. Thank you.
All right, next item is item 12, old business. Old business from staff. Old business from the board.
All right, new business from the board. Mix it up here. Any new business from staff? All right, subcommittee
reports. Yes, the planning and subcommittee
We did meet prior to our meeting tonight and we approved a motion that would move us forward with the
consideration of a utility service center.
motion that we voted on and recommended to the full board included amending the design contract, moving
forward with bond documents and appraisals of our existing service center. Let's see, should the full
board take that resolution and vote on it then?
I think that's our next step. All right. I don't have the full text of that, but you were all here.
So I think we can accept a motion to approve the resolution or the recommendation that the Planning
and Projects, Property and Planning Subcommittee has sent to the full board.
for that I move that we approve sending it to the full board all right you're not moving you're not
making a motion to send it to the full board you're making a motion to accept their recommendation very
good that's what I meant I know that we accept the recommendation of the subcommittee all right
that's been moved and seconded that we accept the recommendations and move forward on or any discussion,
further discussion. All right, we can call the roll then. Yes. Yes. We lose him. All right. Okay.
That recommendation from the property and planning subcommittee has been approved. We're moving forward.
All right, that brings us to staff reports. I'd like to welcome two new staff members. First is Corbett
Hall as our new temporary part-time bike maintenance laborer, and Stephanie Goldberg Dugan as our new
purchasing
Any petitions or communications from the public? Seeing none, I think we're all set to adjourn. Thank
you very much for a good meeting this evening. We are adjourned.