everybody ready okay welcome to the Lunberg Water Disters Commissioners meeting today is April 9th and we will start by saying the pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to
the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right all right we got some uh minutes floating around and
Mike's got them over here look at you John he already got it yeah he was here early one he missed he was here on time he was here on time and he and he still missed one that's right well I didn't want to take every I didn't want to take all the jewelry from
Check that one out buddy you got to sign them John oh you already signed them i signed them on the wrong side that's all right it doesn't matter what about the annual well I don't know why we Yeah god 700 bucks to post in the Lego
uh Mark needs to sign that i think that's Woody's isn't it that Woody's signature yeah he looks a lot like mine oh yeah i can't even read it all right this is done I guess
i'll do a darn's all set oh I didn't I forgot to put it on there so I think we need to the next one don't you have to I don't think it needs to be agenda oh okay mr mr chair I'd make a motion we accept
the meeting minutes from March 26th and the minutes from the annual March 29th all those in favor i Wow that never has happened that quickly hey John john was
he was he was here taking taking notes yeah after 30 years I should 28 I should get it yeah yeah we got a lot more learning curve in you uh all right next thing we have is uh discuss the results of the annual meeting um I originally
kind of had it all together because um with the confusion of the moderator position um KP reached out and had said we should appoint the board should just follow up and just appoint Carol Hatch so I kind of had that as a combined and then Carol called me and said "Oh I can't make it to this one we'll do the
next meeting." Okay so it was just kind of if you guys wanted to review anything it seemed pretty straightforward all the articles voted unanimously but it was on there just in case okay yeah if we need to appoint her then I'm going to put it on for the 23rd yep she's going to come to the next meeting he said just to
cover your bases it's just a That's fine yep so all I got is I I was hoping he was here John Fortune because when he asked questions I was kind of direct and you know not very open to him because I was pretty upset of you
know what took place during the meeting so I kind of took it to him and I shouldn't have because he had a legit concern and I think it's something we could address and uh future meetings maybe maybe it's something we look at so but uh if he was here I would apologize to him because I think I stepped out of
line with him so okay wouldn't hurt to just reach out and let him know yeah I I kind of expected him to be that's why I thought I'd see yeah and and to his to his question he did he he brought up that gez if we're going to borrow money why don't we borrow it from ourselves mhm great idea but I definitely didn't
think it was something that we should change on the annual meeting floor something we should look into and see we do that article to borrow in anticipation of the revenue have we ever borrowed money to pay our bills no to
pay our bills no no okay so that's what that article is about that article is when we have we have an article for annual meeting that allows us to borrow money if we need to in anticipation of
the revenue that we're going to have to pay our operating expenses we've never had to borrow money to pay those operating expenses but the article has always been there just in case right so and I understand what Mr fortune was
asking if you know if we're going to borrow money instead of borrowing money and paying interest can we borrow from ourselves still something to look into because we still lose interest by using our own money right and we would have to I think we should dig into it a little
bit and I would I would kind of push that to the clerk treasurer to kind of look at and see and come back to us and see how that would work well yeah when when I talked to him there at the meeting a little bit I think maybe I alleved a little bit of concern i think what he was really saying was why
wouldn't we use the money out of the the tank fund right um to to do that and I think the answer that I gave him maybe even to expand it on a little bit more is that that money that sits in that tank fund is ours to use to repaint the tank so it's not a massive you know uh cost to the you know it's a million
dollars to paint a tank so we have that money plus right it was um but and the way that we do that is when we have a tank inspection the tank report comes back and it'll say "All right this is good for 2 years." At that point we can take that money and invest it for that period of two years anticipating that we
won't need it of course we always we do it in a way we could pull it out but I just don't think it would be highly advantageous to Now that money earns a percentage i'm making it up let's say it's 5% it's around there 5 and a half something like that and if we went out to borrow at 8% once again I'm making up
money we're talking about a 3% difference on it it may not be the best move but it is something to consider and I believe that is kind of what he was right and you're looking at 8% of what you borrow and you're looking at 5% of a different number right so those numbers
so that's why my suggestion just if it we've never had to do it but should we need to do it if the if the clerk treasur has a Incorporating the language yeah the article just the option yeah that's a good idea yeah yeah
it doesn't mean we can just if it so happened that the money was sitting there and we didn't invest it and something came up there's our option but at least changing the wording to it which I borrow or transfer money out of existing funds so we just run that by Yep and we can look at that for next
year and that would clean that up yep from what the attorney said like you said we've never used it but they they said this on every municipal right and it should be that article if something happened that we immediately needed to fix something next week we need to have
that ability to act on it right anything else on the annual meeting nope nope you got anything nope okie dokie moving on uh high water usage bill at 386 Hollis Road is that you guys yep
that's us if you want you can wheel on up or she was going to um have your weapon on okay um so I my assistant Lisa took the first phone call and I don't know what the date was if it was after you had gotten your April bill no I
think it was before you got your bill that you were contacted if it was before or was wouldn't have called to question that's what I wasn't sure about if if that's what Okay so I think the day before you called me so I think she um
had gotten her called you actually didn't call me back they um had called spoke with Lisa about the high usage i gave you guys their print out so you could see their history they are consistently very low minimum usage um
and Lisa from my understanding what she had explained to me had spoken with them kind of walked through a few things trying to check out if there was leaks and in the midst of going through things had discovered that their outside spot was on um so they had shut it off from
there um I was then spoke to um the next day um we had spoke and I reviewed kind of went through they had gone and gotten a new read so unfortunately this 13,500 is
from 126 of 24 through March 6th is when we got that read is March 6th so it wasn't until um April 2nd when she had gotten the bill she called and the guys went out and got a new read so there is an
additional 6,000 cubic feet that was used on top of the 13 because that was a one month from March to April mhm um so um I had spoken with her just kind of ran everything by um tried to explain
that um you know unfortunately we have things happen um and that I would just talk to you guys let you know that this obviously is out of the ordinary higher usage um so I
didn't know what she wanted to come in and I guess talk with you see if there was anything we could do i know we don't I mentioned that we have never taken a be of the water or forgiven the full amount but that we have worked on payment plans um removing finance
charges any type of demand charges um I know there was some frustration because unfortunately when we get the reads it doesn't a flag doesn't come up when the guys go out and drive it's just on a digital system nothing comes up that day so it's not
for days later that the reports come in and then it wasn't until um actually I wrote it down um it was when um I talked to PJ he had gone and left a letter cuz once we had seen the high usage reports I want to
say it was mid-March we left a letter and I understand you said you didn't get the letter I so I spoke to him he said it was very windy that day he put it in the mailbox I I don't know what happened put it in the mailbox is that what he said Yes it's not supposed to go in the
mailbox to begin with and there was no letter in the mailbox i'm just I'm just letting you know what I was told he was concerned that if he I asked you and you said that you didn't know what happened now you're saying you cuz I spoke to him afterwards i spoke to him afterwards and
I asked "Do you remember this who did you go to?" And he said "I remember that day." Cuz he just got back from vacation so he said "I remember it was very windy and I was afraid of putting that on the door that it may not be found." So that's why he put it in the mailbox if it was in the mailbox then I should have
gotten it i'm just letting you know what was told to me i I don't I don't know i'm questioning that i'm also questioning why a stamp wasn't put on a letter and sent to us with this exorbitant amount of water that was
wasted i I Yep and I know we had talked about that too and I guess our practice typically has been we try to reach out to people as soon as possible um that would have been a phone call that would have come to the house i didn't have your phone number on our file
cuz I remember talking with Lisa i had been at that house for maybe 54 years i had had the same phone number all of that time i asked Lisa because I had said I said I see her phone number in here and she said when we talked the day
that you had called she put that in there so unfortunately I we don't you don't have the phone numbers of the people in town you can't call not everybody it's our policy now to get everybody's phone number but you don't have but we don't go we don't they're
get it but you don't have it well I'm sure if I I if you run into somebody that doesn't have a phone number we don't we haven't asked all of our customers to give us their phone number correct okay i and I I I guess there were emergency at the house and something terrible had happened i don't
know what somebody was in the yard with the hose and passed out say or I don't know you called 911 i Who would know if a person lives by themselves and they passed out and you know I didn't know
about this bill until I got until I got it i didn't know what was happening had I known a month earlier when it was read the young woman was very nice and she said "Look at your toilet look downstairs is there a leak?" And then she said "Go outside." And when she said
to go outside and look at the taps I thought that was ridiculous i mean who in December or January is used to have outdoor taps i went to the back and it was perfectly dry i walked around to the front of the house and it was leaking it was It was flowing did somebody turn it
on or there just was a bad faucet i have no idea you don't shut your water off in the cellar to keep your spree I spoke to initially told me that there's a turn off but we've lived there over 50 years and nobody ever told us
what happened is it could have frozen at one time and then when it thawed it started leaking because we've had some No question it was leaking we've had some cold days and some warm days so that's also it's in the front of the house would a kid have gone by and saw something i don't know i mean in January
February people aren't really out doing those kinds of things so in any case it did happen what I think is it would be good if there was a better way of notifying people that they had a problem i mean
had the faucet in the bathroom been spewing or there was an unusual amount of water in the basement we would have known if I heard something running I would have known see we're we're the trouble is we're not your landlord
that's up to you to know what's going on inside your house and outside your house i mean if if you have a if you have a leaky window or something the wind's blowing through it's not up to us to tell you wind is blowing through your window so you're saying it is not up to you to notify us for one month that you
know there is exorbitant usage you knew for one month and nobody notified us well it's only about um a week and a half to two weeks by the time we had the reports in it was read on you said April
March March 6th but I don't get those but it wasn't until about two weeks later when all those numbers come in and my data is where are the numbers if they're read on March they come into they get read on the iPad and then they get if it takes the iPad doesn't flag
anything not until it comes in on my meter reading system and it's not always though there are improvements absolutely that I we need to make I should have I will going forward look at the high consumption reports I guess the
day that well it takes 24 hours for them to be uploaded the next day that they come in but that's not always the reports that I go to when the guys go out and do the reads unfortunately it's not this immediate thing and I can change my policy a lot of water that was wasted a tremendous amount of water and
you can see by our bills that it is always the minimum that we pay we we're never we don't we're not wasteful so I'm very concerned that we were not notified in a way that we got the information and
putting it in the mailbox there should have been a stamp put on a letter there should have been a phone call there could have been an email somebody could have knocked at the door most days were in we're 83 and 84 and in the winter we're in a
lot so if someone had said there's a problem we would have at least from that point on known we have to do something about this we didn't know there was no sound no
anything so I guess what I'm saying is I think that people should be notified that they're wasting water as soon as your group knows i would agree with you a that there needs to be a look at the
process i would we have a process and we have a way of notifying people currently what is that currently what is the the notification process is if we recognize it to either take or or leave a leave a notice yeah i I think mainly because we
have always felt that that was the most immediate way to reach out because I I had mentioned to you and and I understand we're in town um but I have had multiple people over the past year be like I mailed my check two weeks ago even though you live in town the mail
gets sent to Boston then back to Lunberg so my fear was is if I went to the post office put that in the mail it could have been days so I guess we have always said okay well let's go to the house and that is something that we can improve on
by following up I guess every day if we don't get a phone call or an answer um within the first day most people Oh what did the notice say did it say to call you it's a a letter that's like a standard letter that says we believe you
have a leak um and yes to call and of course if we had gotten it we would have called you then yeah so obviously the system didn't work for us y this this is the first time I've heard
of the system not working by the way and I'm I'm just I I agree that maybe we need to review and look at the system that we currently have but I would be against us saying we're going to email post Facebook uh well the hard part is
like you said you have to have a standard way to try to contact people and it's always been our our that's been our standard way and we have not had an issue as of yet you have one now okay i I agree that it does it is something
that we need to look at so and um I say shame on you for not notifying us after being in town all of this time and what if there was some kind of emergency i can't think what but
say somebody fainted in the bathtub and the water was running over and they were by themselves and one month this this situation existed for one month thank you you call me tomorrow
um you said that's what you would do right if you weren't going to be here I'm What else and there's no decision and I'm leaving what would you like i guess that's I don't know you told me i know i asked you when I talked to you i asked you i said "What would you like me to ask the commissioners?" I said "All
right hit the tip." What What do we do about this nothing uh I I think we definitely need to look at our policy i'd like to look at the dates uh I'd like to hear from my cons my my I'd like to hear from other board members well we got the dates she's got
all the dates i have them right here i I can I can speak a little bit on this issue first off you know I feel horribly for you and I obviously you're a responsible citizen and and would care for your water and this is this is very unfortunate however us as the water
department it is our you know due diligence here to try to make sure everybody is you know up to date on all the stuff and I understand what you're saying like on the notification process as soon as we had notification you got to understand when the meters get read it's digital it goes onto a like a meter
like someone doesn't something on that meter that beeps or stars something that says "Holy cow." Okay we're losing all of this it doesn't exist yeah we don't make the meters right you got to understand that so you've lived there
for 53 years or you know you've been in town you know that meter uh while we do update the meters you know when it is time but that that's what that meter it's a very simple analog device it it's not I'm not contending that at all i'm not saying anything about Jamaica or
anything i'm just saying that there was one month well when it was read after it was read that we didn't know that water was being wasted okay I understand but I just want you to know when you say it was read someone didn't physically look at that
exact meter don't forget that the the number they read on your your meter is uh 5,500 57,500 it's it's an arbitrary number in your cycle it means something but to even to the layman that that would see this thing pop up they don't
have the last meter reader it's just it's what the meter reads so they have no there's no uh there's no ill willer or or or not applying themselves when the meter is read it's just it's it's what the meter is i'm not questioned
well you so when the data comes back to us and it goes through the system and then it populates into like the first time we see Oh we got a problem here we sent out a guy with a letter that that that went to the house so that's what
you're saying we did not receive that letter there's a problem with that so let let's just on our own like I said we can improve on make sure we we get better at this so so we'll leave a letter if I don't hear let's go we'll leave more letters yep how long do you
wait when you leave the letter i would say you don't get a response i would say one day yeah 24 hours if you drop it off if you haven't responded cuz you don't you don't do this at all copy of that letter that we were supposed to receive um I probably have a Okay yeah if Let me
have a copy let me see so I think there's room to improve the process we do have to we do have to understand that the day they are read doesn't necessarily mean the day that somebody populates the data and and and decides
exact so you know the I know what you're saying i understand exactly what happened what I'm saying is there was a month from when it was read until I got the bill and I called immediately i would have called two weeks ago or three weeks before if I got that letter and I
knew But there was no way but that's our standard i'd have to check to see if there was a different one we left but that's just a standard um Excuse me what does it say does it tell me to call you yes i'll look at that when I get home okay so you'll call me tomorrow then and see if there's anything else that
happened come on do you Okay thank you for coming in thank you so much for listening thank you okay moving on uh nine court can we uh Oh I apologize um she called um she can't make it till the next time okay um
but if you would like we can tie the two of these together so that I can follow up with her i tried to mention to her that a lot of this we can improve our process we can do all of this stuff but that in all these years we have
never the water went through the meter i It's It's a horrible thing and to tie it in nine Courtland Circle same thing high read so on nine colon though we we found the high reading we actually went there and did we speak to them that day
terry heard the water okay they weren't home but he went that Terry went up to put the letter on that door and heard water running and walked around and saw an act so it wasn't a spig it saw an actual hose in their yard running so how
were they notified so they were I think the letter was left terry shut it off immediately once he saw it they good they have a newer radio we could datalog
unfort that policy does work it works we left the letter they called right away yes in her case I mean a lot of people will grab something they think it's just junk mail and tossed on the counter i can't say that's what happened but And I specifically spoke with PJ about this and he said "I remember." Cuz he had
just gotten back from vacation he says "I remember specifically cuz he pulled up the house." He says "I remember it." He says "It was so windy that day my fear was if I just put it on the door it was going to blow away." So he made the judgment call i'm going to put it in the mailbox so so long story short to tie
these together um I let them know most of the time what you guys have done is if they agree to a payment plan we will wave finance charges um unfortunately nine Courtland Circle is even more her bill is
$4,500 she her hose was running i data logged for her i don't have it with me but hers ran for over two and a half months outside is that Donald Woodland's Courtland Circle offline the the loop so okay i have a couple questions okay if
you don't don't mind nope so let's just say All right so uh the the cycle closes on uh on this case April 1st okay that's when the the bill went out April 1st i we read the meters on March 6th and by the time you process the data you would say it's probably 7 to 10 days after the
read yes and and that would be my thought by the time you process the data get it into bills realize that she has a a higher read than normal into my reports the full report that really and actually I looked back she did not show
up on the Neptune 360 leak report it wasn't until which is the original one which nine courtland circle showed up so I that's I knew like a week before because when it's in this program but then as soon as I take it
from Neptune 360 and bring it to NDS a new report is created and that's that one that Nate helped us with that's when this showed up so that's why hers was even later i don't know why hers didn't show up and Courtland show I don't know so
one one of the to me one of the solutions to this and let's say you missed it and then I went back let's make a policy we set another eyes on it so either you say "Hey here's my list check it out." Or or Lisa here's my list what do you see and what we do is we we
set up I don't I think it's different i I had when I did I did my own little spreadsheet and we highest readings to lowest or or lowest to highest so then you could see the zeros which means your meter is not working and then you see the high ones but those aren't aren't easy to do either because some meters
don't carry the zero zeros so now you're adding zero so you make you're trying to make the things right so you you try and fix the readings so they're all correct and then you start zipping through like hey why why is this one so high but that's that report that I can't get from 360 until I send it to NDS and that's
when I found hers so Corland Circle showed up earlier on that on the NDS one because it was a leak report theirs didn't show up until which I cannot send it to NDS until I've done a bunch of stuff over here so that's why it wasn't until
mid-March that I realized she had the leak that's the difference in days and that's what I was trying to explain to her this is something we can have changed either e either g give us the raw data like we used to do and generate our own reports and not not let's see so
to me the bad thing happened but I I think we can address some of these things to right it seems like her um I don't want to say issue a complaint but her her hers is different from Courtland Circle right hers is she she's acknowledging that something was wrong
but her I think her problem is with that 6,000 month after that that communication after the fact definitely the other thing I mean you've you've talked about monthly billing before um you know I I don't
know if that would help us out but I also think that that's something we have to probably get resident input and unless there's huge savings it would definitely help us out we we you know she would see her water bill would jump in 30 days versus
Well even if we don't though I've talked to the guys about even just going and doing the reads for now monthly i don't have to bill but the but I can all right at least go out and do reads it's still we we can make improvements how long does it take to do a read for the entire
town three hours four hours to one person three to four hours so I think we just go out every month well I mean so on the water usage side that sounds like a great idea but the reality is
today's a real day for everybody okay water main break equipment to fix i mean We're not sitting around here goofing off a lot but you know what I'm saying Amy like there's there's always in the
downtime that we have from let's say doing the functional job of Lunberg Water Department there's a pile over here that the the truck that just took the dump body on him you can go down the list there's small engine repair there's you know that I I feel like the guys do a pretty good job in their off time to
occupy doing this so I'm not saying that's a bad idea but I I I think there's a the whole picture here is that I don't want to add add manh hours to tasks that can we I I don't know Fran and you guys are
here every day but I just I I don't want to like keep Oh you got to do this this this and this and eventually this is this is where employees are like I I sorry man I don't want to work anymore because it's like non-stop this I'm behind the eightball every day of my life well this is something that we
talked about too is getting those towers up and putting the radios and I could get real time data every day so so if she had a new radio and we had that up and her water was continually running
for right days it could send me alerts do we need to put new meters on to make that happen well it it will still read all the meters oh I see what you're saying this radio was like instead of instead of driving by with a truck going blip blip blip blip yeah it's going to read it
okay copy so yeah so we've been talking and actually with the radio upgrade I'm I'm swapping one of the antennas on the Sunny Hill tank to put up a antenna to read the meters so when the time does come this antenna cable right in the building so we are working on this where
it's and I tried to express that to her as I'm sure the technology will come along that you could almost get real-time data every day and if something's wrong with usage i'm sure the program will just like spit out uh whatever the address is and and then you
know we can we can start from there and try to catch the leaks more frequently because it it it I got an idea not happy to it's not a good thing when you get these bills i've got one of them before and it you know I realize it's my responsibility after the meter i got an
idea you know you can buy a thing about this big that goes in the feed line after the meter and if the water runs through that device for so many minutes or so many hours without it being turned on and off it automatically shuts the
water off now you know from now on all these new houses make it mandatory to install this thing in the line so the small the small It's better to pay $300 for for a little meter device that shuts the water off than pay $1,100 for water that that you
didn't use no now that's that's that is um something you can get cuz I've seen them huh that's interesting yeah it goes through right after the meeting pull it off in my shower when my daughter takes it forever you've been in there too long you put like I say you put it on the main feed
line after in the one inch line or whatever 3/4 coming in after the meter and it just after there's so much free flow going and going and nobody changes the the amount of water or shuts it on or off it shuts the water off so So my
my concern is for us to go to spend whatever hours to go read the meters okay so that that's that's that's a few hours then it comes back to the office people they're looking at 2500 of these things so when you start you're looking at 500 not now that's what I'm saying
it's it's not I know i understand that our current process is is it works we're always looking to make improvements but 10 15 20 years ago this technology wasn't there at all and it was from the meter made going to physically reading the meter and writing it down to where
we are now at the end of the day the ultimate responsibility is on the user we will do everything we can to try to help people conserve and everything like that but we can try to make policy adjustments to the best of our ability here but you know like you're talking
about John there that's a great idea but we can't go put that on 2500 houses and I understand the position they're in completely where they've been a customer here for 50 years their phone number is not on file because when they signed up 50 years ago that wasn't the policy it is now so to try to go and like
regrandfather everything in it's very difficult because let's be honest individuals like that probably don't come here unless there's a problem so it's it's hard for us to sit here and be reactive to this where every situation
we've sat through this before and it comes from a variety of reasons why their their water was broken so we can sit there and try to make the best efforts to be efficient but to do a blanket policy it's it's almost impossible you know see I I don't you
know I mean there's a dozen things in your house that can happen that's going to like you can leave the refrigerator door open in your house so your electricity bill is going to go up the electric company doesn't call up and say "Hey ma'am your refrigerator door is open." I mean it's you know we're not I don't
think we're going to get into at least I don't hope not get into the babysitting business of I mean I want to help these people out too as much as anybody i don't want to but I mean they got to take responsibility for their own property and I think that that faucet froze and split open and when it got
warm one of those days back then the thought and the water came on no else that I mean how else unless somebody turned it on that was kids were fooling around or something but I don't I mean like I said we would do our due diligence and I really feel that we do is that when we when these things get flagged we let people know and like in
in this case I it's it's it really just sucks that the communication didn't work with with PJ going out there but yeah um I will say this for a policy maybe what we can do is if we do go to make contact at a house and there is no response or
nothing back yes we should try it daily until Yes until something's there you know what I'm saying yep we can absolutely that we can do you know um but I think we should you know give them devices just some kind of a look at it
maybe just notify these people in town on the next bill or something you can buy a device that will shut your water off that's up to if if you find it that'd be great maybe we can post it on our website they can they can hire their plumber put it in i mean it's up to them to put one in when that device activates
and you have 10 of them activated in town I don't think we need our guys doing additional stuff no no I understand that they would have to call a plumber and figure that out no that's what I'm getting at it's nothing to do with us but like I say if I was a homeowner and I was worried about a
water problem down the road even 20 years from now i mean I'd rather spend a couple hundred bucks on a some kind of device than 11 or $1,200 on a water bill but you know who they're going to call as soon as the water shuts off anyway oh yeah yeah and we're not going to know so we're going to go there yeah yeah that's
Well that's another That's why we're not turning in babysitters they got to take responsibility for their property yeah but I I think we should maybe I don't know what we can do now we got three of these the the only thing that I can suggest and we've done this before
is we've dropped down to the single tier not the block rate and I agree with Christie if she wants to set up if anybody wants to set up a payment plan as long as they stick to the payment plan I you know I feel I
feel bad uh it is it's an unforeseen expense for people and if we can help them out any way see now we we also got to consider we got we got three of these now we're working on we're trying to help these people y whatever we do for
one we're going to yeah well we're covering if we go to the block rate we're covering our expenses okay yeah land is operates some most the most the intent is to conser the intent is for conservation right and when you have
something like this that obviously they were unaware of and they and it's not that they weren't trying to conserve water because if you look historically good yeah you know if they historically had had been using a lot more invented different tiers then that to me might be
a different story and it still be a case by case but I'd be in favor in this instance here where they minimal users then I would you know it's not so much conservation it's the fact that they you know they overuse they overuse water
without knowing i would be in favor on this one because of that history to go to the the the first block rate what is that tier one and I think they faithfully paid their water bill for the last 50 years and if there's somebody if if if this
was a different scenario where there was higher usage and they were more at the block two then there might be I might have a different feeling on it but in this instance I'm okay with going to the single tier because they they have such
a lengthy history of not using anymore are you okay um with nine courtland where we know that it was the hose outside what is their what is their typical use like so that's why we look at each one of these yeah you give me a second i I know I'm pulling around but I
I'm trying to like be pro like I think this is a standard thing like I know that they want to come in here and I The hard part is is I know that this is our policy but they still want to come in so I try to be proactive and telling them like you can come in but I'm letting you know
like our we'll work with you do a payment plan no finance charges you know what I mean we know we have that but I think as far as the dropping the tier rate if we're going to do that I think that's on the individual and and how how we look at it each individual so
I I heard what you said i don't know if I agree with it but um even this individual that just came in now didn't ask us or tell us what they wanted they were
upset about everything but there was no this is what I would like an abatement a drop in price blah blah blah blah blah you know what I'm saying like so that right there is you to me is like all right well you know I mean I understand this is a shock and everything but like you need to come in here with a a
deliverable of like what you're expecting and I understand it's it's difficult but you know the the fact of the matter is is like it costs us money to make water like we're like a like a not for-profit company here when this water goes away it wasn't it
didn't show up for free you know so we have to be careful of how we do this because the reality is is that when all these things happen if we're too lenient about it we're basically passing the cost on to every other customer that has
done their job paid their bill and used their water because eventually this is going to catch up to us where our water usage is going to be here but our revenue coming in for it is that and so in a case like this where my goodness I mean I feel that is 19,000 cubic feet of the is that what these meters are the
read yeah with the six okay yeah with the six yeah versus an average read of 600 so just do the math there that's like two years of water revenue that we we just can't uh negate or or you know
what I'm saying um I want to help people out but at the same time this is as inconvenient as it am it costs us money too you know so just so you know I dropped I did a hypothetical by putting it down to the lowest tier
and it's only $170 taken off it's not like it's a huge I didn't even see what's I didn't see their dollar oh is it 1172 is that 117280 yeah so if I took off those other tiers that that went up to I it would take off $170 so it would
go down to like a,000 but that's at the 13,000 not the 19,000 correct it exactly well the next one would only be that their next bill is going to be reflecting of that but yes would this hose down the Courtland out in the front
yard do you know or doesn't I don't think it matters well it matters to me because what I'm saying is we haven't had that much snow this year yeah if you got a hose that's running for two weeks out on your front lawn you should her as well she wasn't home that often she said
and again I agree with with the chair people have to take a certain amount of responsibility after the meter we're responsible to the meter um in this case with this couple that came in I look at it as it's you know we
do the block rates for conservation they weren't doing it you know there wasn't anything I think they were doing maliciously to use excessive water it's not a huge savings um for somebody to go to a different tier but it's it's at least something
and at a tier one we still we still cover a lot of our expenses on it are we going to decide what we're going to do here now so she can I think she'd like to hear tomorrow i don't want to decide on Courtland Circle till they come in they Yeah I agree i'd like to decide what we're
going to do with these so these So on the matter of 386 Hollis Road are we in agreeance to put this down to a tier one i would make a motion that we go to a a a tier one um notify the resident that we are
looking at our policy on how we notify people this is like one of the first instances we've ever had and we've been using this policy for whatever number of years so we will definitely look into how we how we do that and and unfortunately
there's not much we can do for the leak detection or the the the process is what the process is right now and what about um Hold on was that a motion well I as far as a bill I would make a motion we dropped it to tier one if they want to do a plan that they could do it interest
free as long as they stick to the payment plan all right that's my thought was the interest that's what I wanted to say so all those in favor i I Okay okay trying to do it official yep i will follow up tomorrow john second the motion i second the motion okay
and unfortunately there's nothing right system is what the system is and we can only believe me I talked to you know other people in water departments like it's this is they're not as lenient as we they are not as no you pay it you
like it as a matter of fact I mean they they won't do anything with interest nothing there's your bill you know so I like I said I I I I I have uh you know want to be one with our community i feel for it but like at the end of the day
while we sit here and go through this there's 2500 other people that will have to absorb this and it's not really fair to them so okay okay all right we're good with that right
okay discuss a vote approved uh for Waterworth Utility Management all righty so I'm sorry John uh so I had a Zoom call yesterday yesterday with Water Waterorth uh I'm 100% in favor of that program i we sat down for uh 20 30
minutes she really ran through uh everything they did um one of the things I really liked is you know being able to forecast your your budget rate increases in you know and factoring in uh PAS plant or
whatever it may be but even more one of the things I've really liked is is that you know you could plug these numbers and let's say we did a 3% or 3% raise and you can kind of see where you're going but oh that didn't quite we're gonna need to do a 7% to do this but then maybe it's a year where we have a
two and a half over ride in Lunberg and we want to give the you know the citizens a reprieve we can move that around a little bit to offset that to still get it at the end so I I think there's a couple of good things about the system that I like also I think
it'll give us here you two um just some more you know bird's eye view of of the the management of the monies and how it goes and whatnot so I I was definitely a favorite one of the questions I really had is that yes if it it comes to a PAS treatment plant when we need to present
to the public they are 100% on board on helping us with that setting up you know we need to give them the raw data but they can you know you know maybe like we've talked about give a couple different codes that we want to do for X Y and Z put it up on
the board and they actually had an example of one one in Ohio or something like that and they showed so um yes I'm I'm all in favor of that duh okay when do we start to see that we're going to utilize it is this a rightaway thing to start absolutely because you know how
like every year we do our annual budget and we just kind of go off last year's you know we do it that way i think this way would give us a a great uh more vision of 10 20 years to see hey if we stay on this course of of increasing gig and we adjust for inflation and even
some of that if you want to do projects they had it in there like if we don't do it this year and it's a 15% two years it's going to be this that's a great it was a great to show that so I think we could take our annual budget that we do with all those line items plug them into this and see where they look like and
then we can sit here and be like all Right if we keep increasing office supplies we're going to it doesn't need to go that high we can keep it here but it looks like chemicals or whatever we may need to start pulling that up a little because I don't think we're going to in 5 years be covering all that so um
yes it was definitely a multifacet program not just a rate study it was on your job but you could look at it and see hey here's our revenue here's our expenses you see the spike coming up and but the revenue is here so you can
clearly just look at and say "Hey we got an issue right here." Yeah we're going to have go to it where where Woody was saying you can do your increases and then you can see it there's your revenue then your projected revenue so you can actually see it mean that so you can do a legit projection and like I say it was
nice to be able to plug in the numbers 3% this year two and a half% five years later or whatever like you know we don't we we don't do that now because we just don't have the we were doing fine without it but like you know we're I feel like not we don't wing it but like year to year we make the budget and that
this will give us a little more projection and then you know maybe that'll help us make decisions on capital improvements water man replacements etc if we saw like hey you know what this this fund's growing i know that in four years we we want to do
this job if we keep this when this comes in and it you know let's say it's a $4 million project we may only need to borrow one mill you know you know and we got something to go by right and I think on a day-to-day operation of them just taking those numbers it may help
does uh speak I'm thinking about the chemical increases and stuff does the ultraviolet light take care of the some of the problems that we're do taking care of with the chemicals or is that a completely different deal well like kings uh we have the ultraviolet light
which is a bacteria biological destroyer so anything anything biologically it kills so ultraviolet light would do that it does so that kills the bacteria and everything so at kings we have a whole chlorine setup but it's it's not active it's only if if something happened right
so what I'm getting at is if we put an ultraviolet light down Lancaster Avenue would that lower our chemical use ju just for chlorine just for chlorine so it's not a uh iron maganese it doesn't do anything with that it's just it's just the uh the
B so when we build the treatment plant no matter where it is there's UV light going in it when we redo the Chase Road tank paint job uh All right but I'm just thinking if if it killed a bunch of other stuff that we're using chemicals for we could cut back on the chemicals install the ultraviolet light no the
only thing I saw was that the UV light that we have at Kings they have a off different kind of setup for it for PAS but it was only on the the backwash of the PAS nothing for the system so that's another thing it doesn't do anything for
PAS no nothing does nothing other than all that wouldn't that be great oh my goodness yeah throw a light on it and kill it that'd be awesome John this is uh if one of you wanted to make a motion good shot why do Why does
the chair make a motion all right okay you're the motion man i'm the motion man uh I would make a motion that we go Are we going to go with a one-year annual super let's do a one year and are they going to give us a discount if we renew
it it would probably start a whole new one next year if we looked at it again and we said this has been great that would be do three yeah we could do three five whatever if we do the three then we could we could budget for this year we got the the one just cuz we we could stick it in the budget so one year
annual subscription to Waterorth which is a long-term financial model assessment replacement schedule scenario exploration rate and design now does that go when we I mean is it a fiscal year is it a calendar year does
it go from Probably tomorrow if I called it okay so it be this time next year yeah okay not that it matters i'm just you know you're going to second that motion John of course okay all those in favor i
I come get all the data yeah that was the other thing where it's not What's that company uh it's called Okay uh that was another big factor too it's not these guys spending a whole bunch of time you know dumping the stuff over
oh boy you guys are beating on me here all right uh All right yeah commissioner superintendent clerk treasure additions i got nothing nothing sorry um Gez you know so every time uh this year we reorganize the board oh yeah that's my
next I would make a motion that we leave the the board organized as it is second that all those in favor i I Congratulations good job Mr chairman i I You're the best i will comment on this after the meeting
this won't do you any good yeah you guys really snuck did you get Well hey we're good that's what you get for being late we've been doing this for a while there was no collusion oh my goodness i'm following a complaint but but at the next meeting we got we have to actually put it on the agenda to reappoint everybody oh we should do everybody all
right all right i got time so you got Yeah yeah that that that was just them or everybody well they've got to reappoint all the employees um Yeah and then if we can tie that in with um Caroline carol
carol yeah um so the reports we were talking about earlier I've had time to dwell on and I'd like to set something up this summer where maybe we try to see because the guy running the truck doesn't see that you know and he doesn't even see it
after so we need to All right so what what what we're discussing is there was a large fire in Shirley and there was a hydrant used on Massav near 790 Massab and they were filling tanker trucks to haul to the fire so we we we were starting to get a
lot of calls we got low pressure relief valves blowing on hot water heaters and uh so when we got those and that was near the end I'm like I got to see what's going so I went down there and they they were all done they they'll pick it up so they I didn't get to see any of the operation but we had our guys
there and they they didn't say anything was like crazy so uh so I didn't know any of this so So I questioned this today because we had broken water man on a duck line which is incredible you don't you don't break duck line mans and
this blew a hole in it so to me it was from the bottom uh can I 100% prove that no but to me pretty confident it was um so then I started looking at uh pressure gauges that we have at Kadings so the the pressure at Keings was spikes of 20
PSI and that's 7 and a half miles away so what what was the pressure spike local we don't know that right but uh to me it it was much higher than 20 PSI to me when we flush hydrants I don't want to see a two or three pound increase
when we when we close that so so the the idea is we're trying to help prevent from the fire side we're trying to help prevent issues with the with the water infrastructure so you know it's good to have the the communication here but the
guys there didn't see this don't know what's going on in in in what's happening with the pressure relief valves and so forth i think trying to have somebody from the water district there when we have a call which you know we did have somebody
there seeing this data here the idea is when it comes out of a hydrant whenever possible we're supposed to tie it to a truck and then through that truck and the truck is supposed to alleviate that
so whether it was a uh operator error truck error or what it is I we don't to me I don't know until we maybe try to recreate this at some point and see if if it still if we do everything that
we're supposed to does it still create a spike okay does anybody ever check the pressure relief valves in those trucks i don't I think the pumps are tested um I'd have to check to see as part of the pump test if they check the valves i know they actuate them they're supposed
to be able to dial them in and they there's a there's a light on the valve once you set your pressure you you crank that valve and and it's supposed to take the pressure and and not give you that much of a variance supposed to dump it out supposed to dump it out the
bottom of the truck i don't know what the variance is on that valve and how much it really takes so when it dumps it out of the truck does it allow some to bypass which would still create a back pressure until we
you know try to recreate it and maybe So it's a very simple thing to regulate the pressure valve uh if the valve if the valve works and the operator uses it the way that we're supposed to use it it Yes all things considered you got somebody over there that knows how to do that i
mean they all We all We all We all train we all train on it they all know to use a pressure relief valve how much of that is squeaking by it how accurate the valve is compared to the gau that's what I'm getting how How do you know what you're setting in that i mean is there a
It's usually get it to bypass so it's dumping on the ground and you just close so you got to set it under water use yes you just can't go to the truck the truck has to be flowing water to set it so some So there's no there's no there's I don't I've never seen it and it's not on
any of our apparatus where you can actually set it to a pressure you can't dial in like that 200 lb or whatever it is well how do you know what it is uh the gauges on the truck which are as accurate as the gauges are on a truck
and I'm not saying they're inaccurate they're pretty good but once you once you set it you dial this down and then when the valve actuates it lights up so then you're supposed to then the training is that you crank a little bit above that because you want to still be
able to maintain the pressure that you're flowing out of that truck all right i'm just asking another thing about it so so just trying to work together departmentally so that we can you know do the the best for both departments can't always in a perfect world have a
truck we've talked about this and we can't control who right we've talked about this before this is not the first time this has come up we I guess need to take the lead on this and implement something either we we obviously I want to work with the fire department on this but this graph is
is doesn't lie you know so we we need to find a way to either have a meeting with the fire chief uh however he would like to uh approach this but we need to have some resolve on this because thank god the mass ad water man was done because
that thing would have blown in six pieces you know what I'm saying any water right they would do the whole right and you wouldn't have had I mean would have been how it would have been most of it I'd like to try to find a way to to address this and I'm open to suggestions but we can't just keep talking about it we we need to so on
this note this happened on Sunday as well so Sunday they did a they did a spike uh when when the fire alarm start going off at the school that tell right boom they they they did something creating a water hammer we we had we had 800 f feet
of line 4 inch line that filled up yeah where was that and the speed in which it it it it filled up um you don't when you're turning it on at the hydrant you don't even see the truck that you're filling so to see how fast you're really turning it i was always taught walking
speed yes but you're not even you're not even you're filling here the the hose is filling up filling you go nice and slow anyway so I called the fire chief yep and I said "We we need to address this if we don't you're not gonna have any water because you are going to blow up the water mate and you have nothing and
he says I understand and I said when you let's go to why don't you date you do training on this and I said we'll go there we'll stick a gauges on the hydrant out front and we'll watch what you do mhm and and we'll do the whole process hey we're going to we're going to turn on the
hydrant boom watch the gauge okay it's all bad you know right right away because I've watched them they spin the hydro stash cannon and that's you're you're supposed to fill the hydrant because you got to get the air out and then you then then you do your thing you know so So the the hydrant on Lancaster A was a past water district employee
that turned that hydrant on so he knows how to turn hydrant on we know what that was do you have to do that test from a hydrant or can you do it at the lake what pump the water through the valve can you pump it out of the lake or does it have to be pressure from the high no the whole the whole idea is to protect
the the domestic system well all right so the conversation you have with the fire we could talk about this you know like we understand this policies and how to do this but we really need to us all of us you guys please we need to to do
this because today's what we did today was completely a waste of a day you know what I'm saying i mean I'll give you the pipe i mean it's so so what what you got to realize is for example uh rowing anchors ne never ever had broken water
manes until out of town was filling tanker trucks at Lancaster on Page Street so when they were doing that they they blew up the water man twice two two spots blew apart so since that day now now this that's on our schedule to replace that water man so not only did
this blow the main on Peninsula Drive it it affected the whole water system so it could have a pipe that's ready ready to break you know yeah it didn't break right then next week but it it's ready to go and I think it's important some of
our stuff is aging too okay you know what you're right our system is aging but guess what that's what it is and it's a high pressure system it's going to be like this at all times so yes so you need to address any more right i agree so what are we going to do i I say
just like I said with with Chief he agrees we'll they'll do a training we'll we'll we'll go there maybe we all go you guys want to go yeah I want to go i want to see how this I'll watch pressure gauges and uh I I just told the guys today they I call them tattletail ones you stick the pressure gauge on there's a little red needle on it so if the
pressure surges Yeah it the needle stays there so that he can't Okay so before the next meeting will you get with the fire chief in in trying to try to coordinate trying to coordinate the training it's just what talking to him about when when we do it but yeah I you
can do that right at the fire station you can i don't know if sometimes doing it from that location every time i don't know if we should be picking a different location uh to me I like that only because you have the hydrant out front and the hydrant they're using so we we need to
watch the one with the water that feeds so if we did like School Street that wouldn't be okay because you got the hydrant at Mass Avenue and you get the hydrant there for the old school yeah so wherever you you think and then Yeah we can we can simulate either filling tankers or using large amounts of water
and you know again the trucks it's not something that's they they go through they actuate this stuff there are truck checks you could go a year without using a pump what once again I'm I'm not trying to point blame here uh it just
obviously it just it just this can't keep happening every time there's a fire because well it's cru it's crucial to us at the fires that we have water and then yes after after the fact if it if we're if you know the operation is causing broken manes that's not a good thing i'm
sure you got more more than one truck over there with this system in it the valve they all have the same system how many you got every class A pump has that system so one two three four they've been there forever so yeah but I'm saying you're going to have to check them all yeah well if if it means maybe
that's something even on the the fire end uh I don't know what the policy or procedure is on you know they actuate the pumps but you know checking checking that stuff i don't know if that's part of the um pump test every year the chief
would know more about all of that and knowing exactly what gets checked on a truck how often this part that could save us gets checked and how effective that part is it may be that we really have to dial in our procedure but we're going to know that in Lunenburgg and it
doesn't mean that we're going to do the one we're not the ones tapping a hydro okay so this this just went out what was it last week mass Waterworks the post saying a lot of water departments start to complain about fire departments blowing up their water manes
who is anybody else noticing this so she's out putting feelers on i'm sure I mean and I'm not trying to I didn't say it work i ain't saying it but I'm definitely going to respond that we need There is a couple there is a couple that have have said I've noticed y you think
the builders of these trucks would be able to put in a different I don't think it's the trucks i I think it's I think it's the training of the people you know so like I'm closing the water off to you just filled a 3,000gallon tank of truck in 2 minutes we You got to realize I was flowing a ton of water i
bet I better take It took two minutes to fill the truck i should take six minutes to close that valve yeah that not not seconds but then you're six You're six minutes while the truck is waiting to to to go well it's either six minutes or
48 hours for us to fix it you know I mean I once again and I I understand all aspects because at that time adrenaline's pumping we got to move move move is that's what you're trained to do it just we need to sit down and try to come up with uh some way just to try to
avoid this in the future try yep whatever stops this graph from happening again I'm for it i don't care how we do it but you know yeah so so so I spoke to Chief he's all for I said he can figure this out so he's all He he agrees and
you said the downs are okay in that it's the ups that you're worried about but how do you how do you come to the middle of it you know how do you go from that down to that up and not have it go i'm no genius but I think the real problem is from the down to the up of this and
that is right that's the problem so they they was a 20 lb drop as well right so if you and that's just the pressure drop so So you should see the nut like together right so usually the drop is here and then then you get the rise because the truck full filled up so
then you get the rise right after but the the when you have the down how can you not expect an up if you go slow enough you won't you I understand it's slow enough it's or at least back up to static right you're going to have not above static but it's the up above move
the truck until the hose is disconnected until it shut it down so you shut it down as as you can be tanker right behind it you got 100 ft of pipe oh yeah it's gate valves and we're slow we have no pressure relief valves we have none of that once you
have a gate valve uh and you go slow and then u sometimes we'll put a gauge on to hydrate so you can actually watch the gauge you do a little crank you can watch the gauge go up and then you can see it gradually drop down so you can you can see the stuff so you know that might not be a bad idea to show somebody
like this is how we shut down a a hydrant and show them that procedure just like what you're talking because maybe I don't maybe shutting down is not flushing the initial when you're trying to get the water initially right away that's that's where open it has no
problem opening is the problem they're both Well it depends which which like when you open the hydrant it the hydrant's empty yeah so you don't want to fill it very quickly you want you want to let the air out you have to take it oh yeah it should only take 10 seconds to fill a hydrant right 10 10's
okay yeah so I'm saying crank it let it fill up and then open it up full blast in the case on Lancaster AB it was after the the hydrant opening probably wasn't the issue it was the speed in which the once you started feeding that 800 feet
of 4 inch line you don't realize in in just a short distance of 4 inch line how much water you actually use we tried to run the uh the deck gun off of a an engine that was there they barely got the water to the tip and ran out really
like we didn't have we didn't have anything m so and those those things run you know I don't know 800 to,200 gallons on on a truck so the deck gun runs off the hydra not off the pump no ran off the ran off the pump ours ran off the We
had to have a pump next to it because there's no pump on our ladder so we So the pump didn't keep the deck gun working nope the You got to get the water to the You got to get the water to it so the 4 in friction that's why we run 12in mains there's too much friction loss if the water has any report from how they're doing the guys all right
there's a lot there's a lot to it i just want to keep communications open and the guys are trying yep you know so and and they don't the guy on the pump doesn't see your your end and the guys that were doing the the pumping weren't weren't
newbies these are guys that have that have definitely pumped before they they know exactly what they were doing and they and I don't think they've done anything different than what we used to do we're going to we're going to hopefully find a way to address this
where everybody gets to continue on business as usual okay anything else Christie nope public comment unitel is going to change your electric meters we just got a notice thanks i think they
have been out this is a water we have electric we have electric tighten the meeting a little bit but Mark we do the drills on Monday that's Yeah that's the chief can figure out when when we can do it and there's there there's staff during the day that
sometimes you know they could try to they could try to do it then so should I make my motion oh you should to adjourn all those in favor i I Okay fellas