17 August 2023- DCRSD Board Meeting Notes
Brett Fehrman - Vice President, Acting Chairman, Russell Beiersdorfer, Bill Shelton, Doug Baer, and Steward Cline
ABSENT: Steve Renihan - President (taking daughter to college), and Jeff Stenger
Board Attorney - Frank Kramer
Also present: Jim Thatcher,Commissioner and Rick Probst, Commissioner, Bob Hrezo and Christy Harlan of Hrezo Engineering, Tamara Taylor of Bright Beacon. 5 citizens present.
Title VI statement read as legally required by Fehrman.
Minutes: August 3 Minutes approved. Baer abstained as he wasn’t at the meeting.
Treasurers Report: Financials were passed out. Baer is going to talk to Kelly about separating money out for different projects- just has not had time yet to get worthy her. Cline was asking to be sure the money was accounted for easily for each project. Financials approved.
Public Comment: Paul from Moores Hill Sewer- brought Mary McCarty from SEIRPC came to discuss grant opportunities for Moores Hill. They are in the preliminary discussions. They have to have cooperation as they are not planning to annex. There are close to 50 homes needing to be served. Funding with OCRA is what comes to mind. Income-wise she knows Moores Hill qualifies - just needs to see if these properties do as they are outside their town. $500,000 - $700,000 is the money available in the past. The next funding cycle is due Dec 22nd. For 2024 grant cycle it’s June and December. This is a super competitive grant program. Minimum match is 20% and more is needed to be competitive. US Dept of Agriculture Rural Development and Indiana Finance Authority are other options. Logical next step is to get the residents together in Sept-Oct to discuss the targeted area. The project is $1.2million per Cline. McCarty wants to see the preliminary engineering study to see if there are some other paths. Income surveys have to be done. In the past, the DCRSD has not done well with income surveys per the board.Cline said- Christy will get them the map and then existing engineering report. Next step will be to see what the town wants to do and set the scope. Best we can hope for is a $700,000 grant. Doing projects outside the towns or cities is the norm. Fehrman said- that’s why annexation might make sense.
Dean Duff- resident of Georgetown Rd- daughters are looking at the Coates property by the Guilford project. Wanted to know the timeline. It will be a lateral to the firehouse. It would be 1.5 years before it’s in the ground.
Mr Bill Neyer- Fehrman introduced Neyer as the current Mayor of Harrison and runs VRUC in HVL now- He is a Class 4 operator. Bill Never is one of our sewer district options and VRUC could handle our billing to help us run more efficiently.The Board of VRUC is on board with that idea. Cline said- we can ask our consultant about this and how to operate our existing system. Neyer said they used USDA Rural development of maybe IFA for a water project. They also have a loan for 20-30 years with a $500,000 a year payment for that loan. They have 2200 homes on sewer and 1800-1900 homes on water. You need a field crew to fix things. He worked for 2019-March 2020- for Envirolink. He was there during the privatizing of SDRSD. They made a proposal to run our railroad per Fehrman. Neyer said- They have SDRSD and LMH, and small operation in SE Ohio- Most support is out of North Carolina. They would have to have someone here with boots on the ground to manage day to day and field operations. SDRSD has 2 employees there now from Envirolink. Fehrman said they haven’t talked to lawyers yet.
Project Updates:
Guilford- Cline said Christy has put together a letter that clarifies the sizes of treatment plants. She has spread sheet detail that went to ARPA committee. $8.99 million. $545,000.
ARPA meeting today and Cline said $8.28 million let and we are looking at using $8.2 million of it. Worried about exceeding that once bids come in. $2.5 million is already approved through Council. They want to proceed with 100,000-gal treatment plant. Sewer district and Council to share if it goes over that. We have $500,000. There is a $600,000 contingency. Cline said the opportunity to put in the 100,000 gal plant is more important than the possible $200,000 excess cost. They want to do it now and that’s more important and with the contingency we could watch it closely and get it done. Cline said they were clear that $500,000 is all we have- and Beiersdorfer said- we have to have some working capital too.
Beiersdorfer said- Dilldear is already approved- so that should move forward.
Cline said- Note in our minutes should state that the DCRSD will have to supplement any overage.They will be responsible for overages on Lake Dilldear too.
Board approved the possibility of having to pay any overages on these projects once bids come in they will know more.
Some discussion of pumps and repairs in various places in the county.
High Ridge WWTP
High Ridge west Expansion - Texas Gas Rd
Wilson Creek Project
Huesman Rd and Cole Lane
Harrison TIF/Stone Project - meeting tomorrow with a company and Perleberg of One Dearborn and they want to know capacity issues out there. They can check with Jim Wesley of Harrison to get the number. It’s a large line.
Scenic Ridge/148 Sewers /Outer Drive
Stateline Rd
Serenity Ridge Tranquility Court
Moores Hill- already taken about this above.
Dillsboro- Lake Dildear-already discussed above. Cline got a VM from Watson. They committed at a working meeting that our rate will be based on our percentage of that. They are working out penalties with time to fix a problem before instituting a penalty. Cline wants a timeline for this project similar to Guilford from Hrezo. Approved to get that.
Cline wants to have invoices with projects allocated on them - for Hrezo and for legals.This way they can allocate the money out of appropriate fund. They agreed to do this.
Cline asked board to get questions for Barnes and Thornburg together so he can put them all in a letter to the lawyers and see about having a meeting regrading what our options are with selling the DCRSD or not and what their experiences are with these types of issues in Indiana.
Kramer is going to get with the railroad and ask them to let him know where we stand there on Guilford.
Fehrman is trying to get a list of the DCRSD assets. They need to get thru files from way back in the office per Bill Shelton. It goes back to when Vera Benning was handling it.
Sewer rules changes per Baer- holding tanks can be a permanent solution for pump and haul now. There could be an on-site sewer management district. It’s still up in the air. IDEM has to get and NPDES permit re-established on a county by county basis. This will take time. They will hopefully come up with a model ordinance from IDEM.
Doug Baer said they no longer need a secondary septic site per new state code. Have till Oct 1 to get anything in ordinance reviewed by tech review committee at state. This will affect P/Z and BZA. So ordinances may need to be reviewed and/or changed to reflect these changes.
Office Update: none
Claims: Approved to be paid.
Comments:none
Adjourn- 6:45 PM
Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township
