December 12, 2011
The regular monthly meeting of the Board of Water Commissioners of
Columbus, Georgia was held at the office of the Columbus Water Works on Monday,
December 12, 2011, at 1:30 p.m., the following Commissioners being present:
Philip Thayer, Chairman
Billy Blanchard, Treasurer
Carole Rutland
Karl Douglass
Mayor Teresa Tomlinson
Receipt of the Minutes of the regular monthly meeting on November 14,
2011, was acknowledged by the Board as written.
At this time, Secretary Blount introduced Mr. Bill Holby, CWW?s Bond
Counsel from King and Spalding. Mr. Holby was present to discuss the
modification of Bond Authorization.
Mr. Holby advised the Board that beginning with the issuance of the
1985 Bonds, and for the 26 year period that has followed, all series of Bonds
issued for the purposes of financing or refinancing additions, have been issued
under the terms of the 1985 Ordinance, which has been amended or supplemented
17 times to reflect changes in law, changes in market conditions, and similar
matters.
After consulting with Secretary Blount, the financial and legal
advisors suggested closing the lien of the prior ordinance and have a new
Resolution adopted approving a new Trust Indenture, allowing the Columbus Water
Works the flexibility required to take advantage of market conditions when it
comes to issuing bonds to secure financing for improvements to projects. This
new Trust Indenture will function in much the same way as the 1985 Ordinance.
The ?master?, Trust Indenture, will be entered into with an appropriate
corporate trustee, and will authorize the issuance of future series of revenue
bonds in accordance with the terms of that ?master? Trust Indenture.
After a thorough discussion, the Board authorized Management to proceed
with a final draft of the Trust Indenture to present at the January Board
meeting.
The Financial Report for the month of November including Ft. Benning
was provided to the Board. Motion was made and seconded to approve the
reports. Motion carried.
Management gave a brief report on the Drive-Thru hours and a
recommendation to modify the current operational hours of the drive-thru from
8:00 a.m. ? 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. ? 5:00 p.m. In addition to the changing
customer payment pattern, the request is based on the following items:
Strategy Team #1 Recommendation
Limited Customer Activity between 5:00 p.m. ? 6:00 p.m. ? Average 4,634
drive-thru customers per month. Of those customers, an average of 8 customers
daily made payments after 5:00 p.m.
Internal Efficiency Improvements ? Increase resource coverage to handle average
5,366 walk-ins and 20,735 mail payments monthly.
Security ? Eliminate security risk with Cash staff being in drive-thru area
with limited personnel following the closing of Main lobby at 5:00 p.m.
Peer Utilities ? Team reviewed other water and local utilities in surrounding
area. They mirror their Operational Hours. Ex: GA Power: 8:00 a.m. ? 5:00 p.m.
Following the report, motion was made and seconded authorizing Management to
change the operational drive-thru hours to 8:00 a.m. ? 5:00 p.m. effective
February 1, 2012. Motion carried.
Management gave a brief update on the following activities for the month of
November conducted by Engineering and Field Services.
Engineering ? Uchee Creek Campground
This project is for providing water and sewer service from Ft. Benning?s Main
Post to the Uchee Creek Campground in Alabama. The Project consist of
approximately 27,000 feet of water main, 18,000 feet of sewer force main, a
sewer lift station, two pipeline crossings of the Chattahoochee and
appurtenances.
On October 27, 2011 bids were publically opened and read as follows:
Contractor Bid Amount
Gordy Construction Company $2,141,138.50
Astra Group $2,226,754.00
Unity Construction Company, Inc. $2,280,960.90
Ronny D. Jones Enterprises, Inc. $2,389,630.00
Crawford Grading & Pipeline, Inc. $2,456,186.20
Complete Sitework Services $2,653,371.20
RTD Construction, Inc. No Bid
John R. Walker, Inc. No Bid
Site Engineering, Inc. No Bid
Valley Pipeline No Bid
Strack, Inc. No Bid
Reeves Contracting Company No Bid
Russo Corporation No Bid
The engineer?s estimate was $2,665,055 million. The engineer has reviewed and
tabulated the bids and recommends contract award to Gordy Construction Company
as the low responsive, responsible bidder, at the bid price of $2,141,138.50.
This work is funded via contract modification P000133 and Ft. Benning R&R Funds.
Staff concurs with the engineer and requests Board approval to award the Uchee
Creek Campground contract to Gordy Construction Company at the bid price of
$2,141,138.50. Motion was made and seconded to award the contract to Gordy
Construction Company. Motion carried.
East Wynnton Neighborhood Housing Project
Wynnton Neighborhood Housing has requested the waiver of connection and impact
fees for the redevelopment of six lots in the East Wynnton Neighborhood. The
lots are located on Tenth Street. The cost for connection and impact fees for
the six lots is $14,880.00.
CWW staff requests Board approval to waive the connection and impact fees, up
to $14,880, for this development.
Staff also requests Board approval to categorize Wynnton Neighborhood Housing
in the same classification as Habitat for Humanity and Neighbor Works, these
being organizations that CWW provides water and sewer connections at no fee,
but provides this as information for the Board. After discussion, motion was
made and seconded to waive the connection and impact fees of $14,880. The
Board also asked that all future requests of this nature be brought to the them
for their consideration. Motion carried.
Field Services ? Columbus Distribution System
Renewed old galvanized leaking service on Miller Road with new copper.
Field Services ? Columbus Collection System
Cleared over 5,000 linear feet of easements off Collins Drive, Lantern Lane and
Bradley Park Drive.
Stabilized section of exposed sewer main behind 4151 Montclair Court.
I & I Crews
Repaired a cave-in on a connection that was capturing rain water from the roof
of Forest Avenue Apartments.
Also replaced a section of 10? sewer main that was allowing infiltration in the
line.
Ft. Benning System
Repaired 10? cast iron water main inside golf course.
Management gave a brief report on the Holiday Grease Recycling Event which was
held on November 26, 2011. The following report was presented:
Holiday Grease Recycling Event
Strategy Team 4, along with other CWW volunteers, held their first annual
Holiday Grease Recycling Event on November 26, 2011.
The event was held at the WalMart on Whittlesey Blvd. and the Winn Dixie on
South Lumpkin Road from 10:00 a.m. ? 2:00 p.m.
List of employees that volunteered ? Brian Boswell, Trent Rimmer, Aaron
Collins, Natasha Hall, Mike Burch, Chris Cornett, Pat Cosby, Amy Gamble, Chris
McGruder, Reggie Shipp, Mike Taylor and Jeremy Cummings.
52 customers participated in the event. The customers stated that they were
glad CWW was doing this and wanted to know when we were going to do it again.
Customers stated that they did not know how to properly dispose of used cooking
grease.
CWW collected 60 gallons of grease at the Winn Dixie site and 125 gallons from
the WalMart site.
A total of 185 gallons was collected and transported to the SCWRF to be
disposed of at the NEW Grease Receiving Station.
Bill insert seems to be the most effective way to communicate with the public.
The Board acknowledged Management?s report.
Management gave a brief update on the following activities for the
month of November conducted by Strategic Planning and Employee Services
Department.
Strategic Planning
On November 18, Billy Blanchard, President and CEO of Columbus Bank and Trust,
Regional CEO of Synovus, and Treasurer of the Board of Water Commissioners,
presented ?Cicero?s Surprise.?
Billy shared his perception of the following three characteristics of
leadership:
Keep your cool
Keep your focus
Have the right perspective
Forty-three CWW employees were in attendance to include senior staff, team
leaders, strategy team members and mentors.
Employee Services
CWW Leadership Development Program ? Level 1 ? On Wednesday, November 11th,
participants from CWW attended a training session titled ?Harassment at Work.?
Margie Watson from the Business Resource Center of the Pastoral Institute,
facilitated the training session.
On November 3rd, Chris Cornett (Environmental Compliance) represented CWW at
the Interdisciplinary Graduate Research Conference hosted by Columbus State
University. CWW was one of seven corporate scholarship sponsors of the event.
The theme of the conference was ?New World, New Challenges: Building Bridges
Across Disciplines.?
The Board acknowledged Management?s report.
Management gave a brief update on the following activities for the
month of November conducted by Information Services Department.
Information Services
Work continued on the Maximo 7.5 Upgrade during the month of November. This
project upgrades the existing version of Maximo to the most current version
available for conversion, integration validation and user acceptance testing.
The user acceptance testing uses predefined scripts to take the user through a
check list of steps for testing each process and is performed by employees that
use the system for their everyday work activity.
CWW consistently meets the target for the company Virus Benchmark due to CWW?s
Virus Protection Program.
At CWW a triple layer of protection is used to detect and clean viruses:
Firewall level
Email server level
Desktop level
Management acknowledged Management?s report.
Management gave a brief update on the following activities for the
month of November conducted by the Water Resources, Managed Maintenance and
Environmental Compliance Departments.
South Columbus Water Resource Facility
Filled Aeration Basin #6 which use to be an aerobic digester. This is part of
our construction project to provide aeration for the biological activity. This
basin holds approximately 1.2 million gallons. There are now four aeration
basins in service for the first time in the facility?s history.
Planted winter wheat crop in mid-November. Recent rains have helped the crop
get off to a good start.
Average Daily Flow for Month ? 20.6 mgd
Maximum Daily Flow for Month ? 37.6 mgd
Managed Maintenance
Preventive maintenance work orders ? 74%
Planned maintenance man-hours ? 34%
Repaired primary basin drive at the SCWRF
Replaced heat Exchange on Aeration Blower #4 at the SCWRF
North Columbus Water Resource Facility
Cleaned Raw Water Tanks #1 and #2. Contractor performed inspections.
Set up annual Christmas lights at the NCWRF
Average Daily Flow for Month ? 26.8 mgd
Maximum Daily Flow for Month ? 31.8 mgd
Water Quality Monitoring/Environmental Compliance
At the 2011 GAWP Fall Conference in Athens, GA, on November 15, 2011, the ?QA
Award? was presented to the WQM Department as the best lab in the greater than
20 mgd categories in the State of Georgia.
Chief Lab Analyst Ken Mendenhall received a Certificate of Distinguished Merit
for Excellence in Laboratory QA Achievement by both Georgia Association of
Water Professionals and the GAWP Laboratory Committee for 2011.
The Manager of WRM/ECD and the Columbus Water Works was honored this month with
the November 2011 Community Green Award sponsored by Acura/BMW of Columbus,
Diverse Power and WLTZ 38. The Keep Columbus Beautiful Commission nominated
CWW for this award.
WQM introduced a new test method this month for determining mono-chloramines.
WQM had several complaints in the first part of November due to the brown water
in the downtown area which was resolved.
The Board acknowledged Management?s report.
Management gave a brief update on the following activities for the
month of November conducted by the Division of Communication, Security and
Safety Programs.
Security & Safety
On November 30, 2011, met with J. Smith Lanier to schedule CWW?s annual
employee training plan for the calendar year 2012.
Community & Corporate Events
CWW received the President?s Volunteer Service Award presented at the GAWP Fall
Conference on November 15, 2011. This award is a U.S. Presidential honor that
recognizes the valuable contributions of volunteers nationwide.
CWW raised a total of $71,544.81 with 100% employee participation for United
Way.
Communications
2012 Schedule for Bill Inserts/Videos
January Payment Options/Low Income Credit
February Educational Information on WaterSense ? Fix-a-Leak Week
March Information on Earth Day/Pharmaceutical Disposal
April What is Drinking Water Week/Basic NCWRF Treatment Process
May Outdoor Water Requirements
June 2011 Consumer Confidence Report
July Understanding your Water Bill
August Water is Life ? How Often Do You Turn Me On?
September Clean Water Week ? SCWRF Open House
October Citizens Looking After Their Waterworks
November Holiday Grease Recycling Event (depending on how the 2011 event goes)
? Cold Weather
December None
Note: Subject to change as needed
The Board acknowledged Management?s report.
Secretary Blount presented the following meeting dates to the Board for
2012. These are all on the second Monday of each month, starting at 1:30 p.m.,
with the exceptions of the June and October meetings.
January 9, 2012
February 13, 2012
March 12, 2012
April 9, 2012
May 14, 2012
June 18, 2012*
July 9, 2012
August 13, 2012
September 10, 2012
October 15, 2012**
November 12, 2012
December 10, 2012
*Changed due to AWWA Conference
**Changed due to Columbus Day
Secretary Blount presented the following Holiday Schedule for calendar
year 2012:
Monday, December 26, 2011 - Christmas Holiday
Monday, January 2, 2012 - New Year's Day
Monday, January 16, 2012 ? Birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Monday, May 28, 2012 ? Memorial Day
Wednesday, July 4, 2012 ? Independence Day
Monday, September 3, 2012 - Labor Day (First Monday in September)
Monday, October 8, 2012 ? Columbus Day
Thursday, November 22, 2012 - Thanksgiving Day
Friday, November 23, 2012 ? Day After Thanksgiving
Monday, December 24, 2012* ? Floating Holiday
Tuesday, December 25, 2012 ? Christmas Holiday
Personal Holiday ? Employee?s Own Choice
*FY 2012-2013 Floating Holiday recommended for approval by the Board of Water
Commissioners
The Board acknowledged the Board meeting schedule and the Holiday
Schedule.
Secretary Blount provided the Board with the following items of information:
Thank you letter to Bob Tant from Belva Dorsey, CEO, Enrichment Services
Program, for donating five computers for Head Start children.
Thank you letter to Gwen Ruff from Amber Dees of Columbus State University for
her involvement in the first Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Research
Conference.
Before adjourning, Mr. Douglass asked if the Columbus Water Works paid sales
tax on capital projects although they are exempt. Secretary Blount advised that
the Water Works does pay sales tax for supplies; however, after completion of
the project, the Water Works submits a copy of all invoices from the contractor
to the State for reimbursement. If the project meets a certain criteria CWW is
reimbursed. Secretary Blount informed the Board that a check for approximately
$242,000 was just received from the State for the CBFT3 Project and put back
into the reserve account.
There being no further business the meeting adjourned.
_____________________________________
Emory E. Blount, Secretary
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