Water Commissioners – March 11 2015 – minutes

3/11/15

The monthly meeting of the Board of Water Commissioners was held at Freedom Hall at 5:00 p.m. All members were present. Superintendent Chris Wiseman attended the beginning of the meeting, but left at 5:10 p.m. to attend a public hearing for the Barnstable Land Turst. Jen Leger attended the meeting as his representative.

The meeting was called to order at 5:05 p.m.

The commissioners were made aware of a customer complaint via an email from Jessica Grasetti. Commissioner Campbell notified Mr. Wiseman of the complaint and Mr. Wiseman addressed the issue both internally and with the customer, and provided an update to the commissioners. Mr. Wiseman will also follow up with Jessica Grasetti to close out this issue.

The 02/19/15 minutes were approved.

All warrants were signed.

Ms. Leger reviewed the water quality testing results including the quarterly by-product and manganese testing.

The following information was also included in the Superintendent’s report:

PUMPAGE 2014 2015
February 2014 Pumpage 7,379,000
February 2015 Pumpage 7,904,000

There were no new service and no replacement service completed in February.

It was noted that the new field operator, Patrick Roche, started on March 2nd as planned, and is working out very well. Mr. Wiseman is very happy with his progress to date.

Plymouth County has thrown out their procurement bids and they are fast-tracking a new bid process. Once this is complete, Mr. Wiseman will be able to provide a better estimate for the proposed FY16 article for a new truck.

The commissioners were advised of some minor damage to the 2014 Ford Service Truck sustained while plowing the access road to station four on March 5. The insurance company has been contacted and they are sending an adjuster to assess the damage. The policy has a $300 deductible.
Russ Kleekamp of Green Seal Environmental presented the board with a set of plans for the Main Street tank (90% complete) and a new cost estimate of $2.1M. The team is reviewing the final electrical plan, instrumentation plan and generator recommendations and should have final (100% complete) plans by the end of April. The commissioners have agreed to eliminate the lettering on the new tank.

Due to the lack of information and response from Open Cape, Mr. Kleekamp has recommended that the board start to look for an alternative solution. He has some recommendations for another company to work with and will contact Chris with that information.

The commissioners reviewed the second draft of the FY 2016 budget and 5 year capital expenditure plan. They will attend the next Prudential Committee meeting scheduled for March 23rd and the Civic Association Budget meeting scheduled for Tuesday, April 21st to present the preliminary budget and proposed articles.

Mr. Kiely attended the recent Town Council meeting where they approved the funding for the Lowell Park Land acquisition. With the municipal funding in place the BLT needs to secure the rest of the funding to complete the purchase in September. Mr. Wiseman will follow up with the commissioners regarding the public hearing held on March 11th.

At the request of the commissioners, two items will be added as new business for the April meeting to include discussions on the Solar Panel Field and the Santuit Tank Wireless RFP.

The next meeting will be held on Thursday, April 16, 2015 at 5:00 p.m. at Freedom Hall.

The meeting adjourned at 6:20 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Frederick Kiely, Chairman

Cc: Prudential Committee

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