7 December 2006 Dearborn County Regional sewer District Meeting Notes

7 December 2006 Dearborn County Regional sewer District Meeting Notes

Present: Hankins, Chairman, Pruss, Dennerline, Fehrman, and Holland

Absent: Enzweiler and Maxwell [NOTE: By-laws state that a member can only miss 6 meetings a year or 4 consecutive meetings. Maxwell has missed 6 of the 16 meetings that I have covered this year: Feb 16, Mar 2, Mar 16, July 6, Sept 7, and Dec 7. Ironically, Maxwell was appointed by Council to replace Greg Vollmer and they cited numerous absences as their reason.]

Also present: Kramer, Attorney, Quinn, Engineer, Messmore, Adm./Liaison, Baer, Health Dept., and Benning, Sec’y (?)

Minutes from Nov 16 approved and there was no treasurer report.

Special requests:
Ralph Meierjohn of Ameritech asked about DCRSD serving SR1 development (Glenn property). Hankins said there was nothing new on that yet. Meierjohn also asked about Gabbard property and was told that it was beginning to look more and more like they were going to have to locate a waste water treatment facility up there between Aurora and Dillsboro to clean up High Ridge Estates too. Ameritech is still willing to work with DCRSD for lift stations, pumps, locating them on their lands, and also line costs. Hankins noted it is up to the state as to whether Aurora can connect them ultimately.

Old Business:
Serenity Ridge- Hankins met with Jay Tucker and told him DCRSD was opposed to their expansion into 2 more sections. LMH was not averse to serving Serenity Ridge. DCRSD is to bring the line to the street and tap to LMH’s lines across the street from it. Kramer is drawing up the interlocal agreement for this.
2 reps from Serenity Ridge’s 5 homes wanting service were present asking for costs and timeline. Board let them know that realistically it would be about a year before they saw actual service if all went well. These citizens are bearing the entire cost of the service and engineering studies. Baer is to email them when interlocal agreement is in place. DCRSD will be LMH’s customer for this. And the citizens work with DCRSD. They can’t work with LMH, because that is not LMH’s territory.
DCRSD does not have a hard and fast rule on enforced hook-ups yet. Hankins said the gold standard for the future is to have EVERYONE on sewers.
There are 19 lots and 9 are built. The lots sold to some of these people requesting sewer were sold as buildable lots- but with septic rules- they would have to build their homes in the creek…
Citizens were worried that others in the development wouldn’t sign up and then the costs would be born by just them. Later those people could hook on and those costs would NOT be refunded to the original payers per Hankins.
If LMH owns the lines, these people would not be forced on, because they are a private sewer company.
The one citizen noted she’d like to sue because they were sold a bill of goods- a buildable lot that isn’t really buildable. She said that was not the realtor’s fault. [NOTE: when Plan Commission approved Serenity Ridge, it was noted that there were UNBUILDABLE lots in it, unless sewer became available. Neighbors were opposed to that, and the comment from the Planning board was that it was “buyer beware.”]

Fehrman and Dennerline motioned to have Kramer do the interlocal agreement and Quinn to do preliminary engineering simultaneously on this project. Approved.

Stewart St and Cole Lane- Hrezo Engineering contract amended to include $1585 maximum in inspection fees. Dennerline and Quinn thought a 3rd party needs to inspect it all (Hrezo) Approved- and the notice to proceed was signed also.
Hrezo will make daily informal reports to Aurora, which will suffice for them, and they won’t have to duplicate inspections on Aurora’s part of this project.

Quinn presented a preliminary estimate for line to Guilford from Greendale.
2 miles to Guilford, with 47 homes and 38,000 gal per day to 2021
4” forced main- $25/ft
8” gravity $90/ft
Forced total cost $329,000
Gravity total cost $950,000
Going under Salt Fork CR not in the estimate.
Figures the forced main is 1/3 the cost of gravity. [NOTE: This is always going to be the case with initial costs- it’s the long term investment that needs to be considered and maintenance.]
Quinn says a 4” main can hold 230 homes.

SDRSD update- pledged to continue discussing, trying to create an entity that will better serve the county. SDRSD meets 10 AM Tues Dec 12.

St. Leon Interlocal agreement- presented by Kramer from Watson for them to look over till Jan. meeting. Kramer has a call in to Watson to get the numbers for it.

Vieste, LLC/ London Witte- Hankins said DCRSD is trying to create a utility where none existed before. He asked Dick Robertson of Vieste to put a proposal together to help DCRSD get on their feet- like what they did in Clay County. He expects something form them soon.

Aurora agreement- Kramer made changes to the language and board voted for him to send that back to Aurora’s attorney for their approval or changes.
$500 and $2080 tap fees waived if sign on in first 60 days. $3500 to have pump (pump cost is $2650) installed, $250 to pump out and destroy septic tanks.
$260,000 is the DCRSD cost for Cole Lane and Stewart St. Long discussion about how to pay for part and finance the debt for part of this. Pay $160,000 and finance $100,000 at 1-2% from the bond bank, hopefully. Bond issue would be 40 years.
Average out of Aurora limits sewer bill is about $50 for 4,000 gal per month. That is going to $60 or so.
Kramer asked if this new line goes into the trailer park. Dennerline said it goes to the lift station where the old line was. He has the only property for the lift station, as most people don’t want it in their yard.
Dennerline said- it’s still cheaper than putting in septic again. Baer said cost of a new septic system is about $7,000 for gravity feed. [NOTE: And no monthly fee- just pumping periodically and routine maintenance.]
Fehrman worried that residents can’t afford all these fees. And also worried about setting precedents.
Will Aurora annex this soon? Dennerline- L-bg Bond bank won’t loan money without Woolpert Study.
Pruss brought up a neighbor on Mt. Tabor road filing a complaint soon regarding another neighbor’s sewage running off into his outbuildings. Dennerline said- wasn’t that in our original target area? Yes.
Non-working septic systems are defined as anything with a discharge per Baer. [NOTE: Does this mean a contaminated discharge or just water?]

Board decided to do a monthly fee of $12.35 to get 85-cent billing fee for Aurora and $11.50 for debt service reduction. The feeling was that people could take that easier than an up front tap fee.
Baer noted that Aurora does NOT want to force anyone on- and hopes the county won’t either. Hankins kept saying it was mandated- not forced.

Baer told them Chuck Andres thinks the county needs a separate Septic Maintenance district to inspect tanks. – Testing yearly would be about $200 to the homeowner.

Board voted for Hankins and Frank Kramer to work out details with Aurora and then Hankins can sign the agreement.

Hankins reported that the Woolpert Study to come to DCRSD by Dec 21 and will be “massaged” until they are ready to show it to the public on Feb 1st at regular DCRSD meeting.

Paid Woolpert mid way bill- probably another $50,000 owed after this.

Benning was told by Hankins to draw up a letter to commissioners recommending they reappoint Pat Holland.

Meetings for next year will be advertised as 2/month same as this year and they will cancel one of them probably.

Tom Kent asked about his SR1 development. DCRSD is not giving Greendale authority to serve it yet so he can’t get primary approval.

Next meeting is the 1st Thursday in January.

Meeting adjourned at 9:30 PM

Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township