Woodland Hills Sanitary District

February 2018 Minutes

The February meeting of the Woodland Hills Sanitary District was called to order at 6:32PM.

Roll Call: President Bobby Sadler established that a quorum existed to conduct the meeting. In attendance were Lois Lund. Ed Striebel and board members Garry Colasardo, Jim Stewart, Beth Haivala and Evan Hutchings.

Adoption of Agenda: Bobby presented the agenda to the board and it was adopted by the board.

Secretary’s Report: The January minutes were reviewed. A minor typo was corrected, changing a mention of October to December. The secretarial service just isn't as good as it used to be. Jim made a motion to approve the minutes, seconded by Garry and the vote to approve was 5-0.

Income Report: Total income for January was $7,921 which includes the special loan assessments. After expenses the net income was $5,228. There were two unpaid accounts in January. The engineering firm, AE2S, which oversaw the water project sent us a rate survey questionnaire and Ed will handle.

Water Report: Water losses for January were 10 percent. Water losses have crept up over the last two months and Ed attributes that to a new, more accurate meter having been placed in the well-house as part of the SCADA upgrade. Well-house pump hours do not show an increase.

Dakota Pump has finished the SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system upgrade and Ed demonstrated the new system on his phone. Ed can now remotely view and change reservoir levels and pump operations.

With the SCADA upgrade we can set pump operation times and Jim will call Black Hills Energy to see if they offer peak pricing. We could potentially operate our pumps during off-peak times and perhaps qualify for lower electric prices.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) conducted an inspection of the water system and sent a copy of their report to Ed and Evan. One item that was mentioned was the size of the screen holes on the mesh covering the overflow pipe on the reservoirs at pump house one. The mesh holes were too large and Ed replaced it with a 24 grade mesh.

Also the inspection report mentioned the lack of a capital improvement plan but since the system had been recently upgraded the plan is not needed.

Road Report: Bobby brought up a discussion of road maintenance such as plowing and sanding. Meade County does plow and sand Woodland Drive up to Chickadee Lane but will go no further. Randy Alexander does plow Woodland Drive when a few inches of snow have fallen. Sanding is performed on a volunteer basis using barrels that have been placed at various locations on Woodland Drive. However, the barrels are in poor condition and they allow moisture into the gravel which can freeze into a solid block. Garry will price getting eight barrels with half section lids (barrels on their side with half the barrel cut for a lid). With this arrangement a skid steer or tractor could easily fill the barrels.

Lois noted that Woodland Drive has two locations where the asphalt needs patching at Eagle and Robin Court. Jim will ask B&H to price the patch and include the job with the already planned patching for the "dip" on Woodland Drive near the well house.

Old Business: Jim had asked about a district credit card that could be used for the annual renewal cost of the web site. The district has a debit card which was issued to past president Randy Alexander. Jim will reach out to Randy to cancel the card and the web site will continue to be charged to Jim with reimbursement by the district.

New Business: Bobby had gotten some inquiries about the change last fall to the district's due date for water bills. The due date had not been changed but the late fee date had been changed from the 5th of the month to the 1st. The five day grace period was eliminated. The change was made to give our bookkeeper additional time to prepare the financial reports for the monthly meeting. Since the water bills go out around the 17th of each months residents have approximately two weeks to make their payment. No changes were made to the due date or late fee date.

Garry made a motion to conduct an annual rate review every January but Bobby requested that we delay action until the March meeting.

Resident Comments: Bruce and Tammy Heying brought brownies AND cookies to the meeting! Bruce asked if there was any interest in getting natural gas service to the sub-division. The board did not know of any and will gauge interest on the idea through the web site and email.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:38pm

Carefully submitted,

Jim Stewart

Recording Secretary