PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY DISTRICT #13
Minutes of the February 11, 2009
Regular Session of the Board of Trustees

The Board of Directors of Public Water District #13, Jefferson County Missouri met in regular session at 7:05 p.m. on February 11, 2009 at the Lake Tishomingo Community Center, Hillsboro, Missouri.

Roll Call of Directors
The following Directors being present or absent as indicated:
	Name	Present/Absent
	Marilyn Meyer	Present
	Rich Hirsch	Present
	Rick Lippitt	Present
	John Hindrichs	Present
	Ken Jost	Present

Also in attendance was Janet Hirsch (JWH, LTPOA Board member), Tim Robbs (TR, Taylor Eng.), Frank Taylor (FT, Taylor Eng.) and Bob Sweeney (RS, PWSD #13 attorney).
Approval of Agenda
Motion was made by Rick Lippitt and seconded by John Hindrichs to accept the agenda. On voice vote, all Directors were in favor of accepting the agenda.

Approval of Minutes of Past Meetings
The Minutes of the January 21, 2009 regular session meeting were emailed to the Directors prior to the meeting. Motion was made by Rick Lippitt to approve the Minutes as written. Second was by Rich Hirsch. On voice vote, the Minutes were approved.
The Minutes of the January 21, 2009 executive session meeting were emailed to the Directors prior to the meeting. Motion was made by Rick Lippitt to approve the Minutes as written. Second was by Rich Hirsch. On voice vote, the Minutes were approved.
The Minutes of the February 4, 2009 regular session meeting were emailed to the Directors prior to the meeting. Motion was made by Rick Lippitt to approve the Minutes as written. Second was by Ken Jost. On voice vote, the Minutes were approved.
Treasurer’s Report
Marilyn reported that as of Feb. 11, 2009, PWSD #13 owes:
Midwest Assistance Program:	$3,500
Ray Dickhaner (attorney):		$7,817.20
William Brunjes (engineer): 		$52,391.81
Floyd Norrick (attorney):		$7,830.00
Taylor Engineering (engineer): 	$61,076.79
LTPOA:				$6,176.62

Old Business
Administrative issues
The oath was given to new Board member Ken Jost by Attorney Sweeney.
Legal Service Agreement 
This was postponed until a later date.
Electrical circuit installation
JWH summarized pros and cons of the Homeowner Installed Electrical Circuit vs. the District Installed Electrical Circuit [connected to the electrical meter base]:
Homeowner is responsible for installing dedicated circuit with shutoff box. District provides specs.
Pros:
•	Homeowner pays the cost -- lower cost to District
Cons:
•	District has no control over when the circuit is installed -- can lead to many possible delays.
•	Requires signed electrical easement or condemnation of homeowner’s property.
•	Requires installation and certification by licensed electrician.
•	Homeowner pays the cost – leads to homeowner discontent.
•	Homeowner will feel lied to about “no upfront costs.”
•	We can’t tell homeowner how much it will cost--each installation is different.
•	Inconvenience factor: burden falls on homeowner to get it done. Homeowner has to arrange for and contract for the work. (Similar to getting cable TV installed.)
•	Homeowner may have to upgrade service panel if only 60 amp service or no space in box.
•	Cannot use USDA-RD funds to do work inside the house.
•	May cost more long term due to delays and legal action.
•	May increase maintenance costs if circuits are done improperly.
District installs new circuit at the base of the electrical meter before electric goes into the house.
Pros:
•	District has complete control over installation.
•	Work gets done on District's schedule, so no delay due to homeowner.
•	No electrical easement/condemnation required – only requires permit from AmerenUE.
•	Much less homeowner involvement – decreased inconvenience factor.
•	Cedar Hill Lakes has been successful doing it.
•	Homeowner may get free upgrade (outside meter only, not service panel in house)
Cons:
•	Higher cost to District, may lead to possible up-front charge or higher user fee.
•	Electric meter may need to be upgraded.
•	May require electrical inventory of all houses.
Other Considerations
•	Some homeowners may already have a dedicated circuit for septic that will meet the specs. Circuit would need to be certified by a licensed electrician.
•	Possibly electricians will not certify work they have not performed.
•	We still need an easement to mount a pump control box on the home.
•	Give homeowners a choice of paying an upfront charge or higher user fee to cover additional electrical expense. (By vote or individual choice?)
MM: Peggy Stewart (city clerk) at Cedar Hill Lakes (CHL) told me they had to install new meters for some homes that had a meter base that could not be tapped into. Their average cost was about $1363 per connection. That includes a box and upgrading the meter where needed.
FT: We plan to visit and see the installation at CHL and Terre du Lac at Bonne Terre.
JWH contacted AmerenUE's construction hotline and a service tech will call her back later in the week.
JH: You can't run cable all the way around the house and install a disconnect at the end of the cable. The disconnect needs to be installed close to the meter.
MM: Peggy Stewart agreed to send me a copy of the easement agreement used at CHL. 
JWH: The most recent electrical easement agreement we wrote does not account for mounting the pump control box on the house. 
TR: It could be incentive to get the homeowner to sign the easement agreement to tell him the if he signs the agreement we'll make the installation nice and tidy, rather than mounting boxes off of the house and in the yard, which will look ugly to some.
TR: The electrical cable will most likely be buried, where possible. If there is concrete and the cable cannot be buried, we will put it in conduit attached to the house. We will probably need the homeowner to sign the easement agreement to mount the conduit on the house.
MM: Here's what they did at CHL. If there was an extra charge to put the new tank where the homeowner wanted it, the homeowner would pay the extra charge.
FT: Right now we're down to about 60 houses where we don't know where the septic tank is.
TR: That's not bad, 60 out of 240 houses.
RH: If you let us know what houses these are, we might be able to locate the tank by contacting the homeowner.
TR: From what we talked about tonight, I think we have to send someone out here and perhaps take pictures of every house. We also need to know the electrical meter location. 
FT: I think before we send someone out we need to make our trips to CHL and Terre du Lac and see what they did and if they had any problems. Then we'll have a better idea what we need to do.
JH: What CHL is probably doing now is not piping around the house, but probably piping to the disconnect off of the meter socket. Because that's something they can do a bunch at a time.
MM: Are we in a position as a Board to decide how we are going to handle the electrical connection?
FT: Let us make this trip. We'll get it done in the next week. 
RL: I think this method has a lot of merit.
JH: I think expense would be the only problem.
RH: I don't see an alternative, but I think we need to see how much cost this will add.
JH: I think there will be a problem for homeowner's that currently have aerated septic tanks. They're going to want you to use the dedicated circuit that they already have installed. So we should allow homeowners that have these circuits installed to use them. 
MM: So I have a sense that the Board really wants to do this clean, efficient, and fast. But we still need to go ahead with our letter and meeting.
JWH: I think we need to rewrite the easement, since it's no longer just an electrical easement. We need to allow putting a control box and conduit on the house.
FT: Before you make that decision, we need to do more research. We need to go do our homework.
RS: We can modify the easement, but we need to let the engineering experts do their work. If they give me the science I can make the language right. I feel much more comfortable that way. I can legally defend their science if I've got it.
RS: Because timing is critical, I think another meeting should be set up in two weeks on Feb. 25.
MM: I agree. 

RH: I have a question about the service line, the pipe connecting the house to the old septic tank. The District will "tee" into it with another pipe that will connect to the new tank. The USDA-RD says that we will retain ownership of the pipe we install, but the homeowner will be responsible for maintaining it. The question is why is it the responsibility of the homeowner to maintain the pipe from the house to the new tank, even though the District owns part of it?
TR: Because it is still considered a service connection and by USDA-RD rules, the District can't maintain that connection.
FT: To put it in perspective, if you have a gravity main system, the 4-inch lateral that comes out of the house that goes to the main, that's always the property owner's responsibility to maintain. This is a similar situation. 
RS: A simple explanation is that federal funding won't allow us to maintain the service connection. 

Attorney’s Report
Bob Sweeney reported:
Title commitment: Plat for the area behind the dam for the WWTP is pretty clean. This should be relatively painless. On the other properties that need to be transferred, the title company found 23 separate parcels. The title company wants $200 a piece for reports on those properties. That's $4000. I will have to look into this further.
Bond counsel opinion: This is in process. I may send a letter to bond counsel (Gilmore & Bell) to get the information we need. We are missing a letter from bond counsel verifying that the bond election was valid. This letter may be in the files Ray Dickhaner gave to Floyd Norrick. [RH will write Mr. Norrick asking for our files to be returned. These files will be stored with RS.]
911 Map: I left a message with John Lewis to get the addresses of houses in the subdivision.

Engineer’s Report
There was no engineer’s report
Adjournment
There being no other formal business to come before the Board, a motion to adjourn was made by John Hindrichs and seconded by Ken Jost at 8:35 P.M. Motion passed with all Directors in approval.

Respectfully Submitted,

Rich Hirsch
Recording Secretary

Approved this 25th day of February 2009.

___________________________	_________________________________
Secretary	Chairman
February 23, 2009