The Combined Lake Delhi Recreational Facility and Water Quality District
Board of Trustees Meeting
Thursday, October 17, 2013 – 6:30 p.m.
Maquoketa Valley Middle School Conference Room
Delhi, IA
The meeting of the Combined Lake Delhi Recreational Facility and Water Quality District Board of Trustees was called to order by President Steve Leonard at 6:30 PM at the Maquoketa Valley Middle School Conference Room.
Trustees present: Leonard, Kramer, Davidson, Kray, and Gifford
Trustees absent: Schneider, Burger
Visitors: Jim Locke, Larry Peter, Ed Schmidt, Don Dede, Pat Dede, Sue Christiansen, Lou Christiansen, John Carbaugh, Pauletta Carbaugh, Shirley Christensen, Dorothy Thomas, Chris Stender, Ken DeKlotz, Barb DeKlotz, Marcheta Cooey Lux, Bill Lux, Pat Colgan, Chloe Colgan, Jen Colgan, Larry Aschenbrenner, Dave Larson, Diane Bauers, Dennis Woods
Agenda reviewed by Leonard. Motion made by Kramer to approve agenda, Gifford second, all ayes, motion passed.
Kray requested approval of minutes for the 9/12/13 and 9/17/13 meetings. Kramer made motion to approve, Davidson second. All ayes, motion passed.
Kramer reviewed payments for the General Fund – Alliant Energy for $21.44; L&L Consulting for $2,000.00 and Simmons Perrine (Attorney) for $1,395.47. Kramer also detailed payments for the Bond Fund – Delaware County Abstract for $475.00 and Simmons Perrine (Attorney) for $1,536.49. Motion to approve all payments as presented by Kray, second by Gifford. Davidson said may want to consider changing the L&L Consulting work to part time since the legislature is not in session. Kramer said they are working on a property tax issue and drafting language for a revised bill so they are already engaged. Leonard said is annual contract but we could have that dialogue. Davidson said just questioning expenditure and it is something to consider. All ayes, motion passed.
Kramer reviewed budget reports as of 9/30/2013. The General Fund had a starting balance of $113,351.04 and after receipts and expenses has a balance of $133,532.45. The Debt Service Fund had a beginning balance of $78,116.76 and after receipts has an ending balance of $237,704.82. The Dam/Spillway Fund has a beginning balance of $5,719,137.73 and after an interest payment ends with a balance of $5,723,979.64. Motion to file financial reports as presented by Davidson, Gifford second. All ayes, motion passed.
Kramer discussed the demolition of properties quote from Randy Harbach and Gudenkauf Tiling and Excavating to tear down the old Peck property and what is left from the 2 properties purchased in the Rocky Nook area. We originally tabled this action because an asbestos inspection was required. We received a report from EMSI advising no asbestos was found at the old Peck property. Kramer contacted the DNR regarding the 2 properties in the Rocky Nook area and has documentation advising we did not have to do an asbestos inspection at those properties because they were single family residences. The quote from Harbach is $5950 and the quote from Gudenkauf is $6800. Per Kramer we can go ahead and accept a bid proposal and move forward. Kramer make motion to approve quote from Randy Harbach for $5950, Davidson second. Gifford asked if we are sure both companies are quoting the same thing and Kramer said yes. All ayes, motion passed.
Kray discussed the insurance levels for the bid documents. At our last meeting we agreed to see what the ICAP recommendations were, vote via email and then authorize the decision at this meeting. The recommendations that we accepted were a $2,000,000 underlying limit plus a $3,000,000 umbrella limit for a total of $5,000,000. Kray made motion to approve levels, Gifford second. All ayes, motion passed.
Kray discussed possibly hiring a Recording Secretary for the District. She indicated it would give her the ability to participate more in the meetings and to also have someone with community administrative knowledge that would make sure we follow all procedures correctly. In addition, with time we could utilize this same individual for financial work to give Kramer some help as well. Kray also noted that Kramer contacted the County Auditor and her advice was to check our attorney to confirm we could hire this individual. Kray made motion to table decision for hire, Kramer second. Leonard indicated he is concerned about spending the monies to hire while we have a a tight budget and that all Trustees have to contribute volunteer hours. Kray reiterated that the reason for the hire was for better participation, better administrative control and noted the cost would be minimal (approximately $200/mo depending on agreement with new hire). All ayes, motion passed to table issue.
Kray and Gifford detailed the meeting with DNR, County Sanitarian and the District regarding the Septic/Well inventory completed by most District residents. Kray had 2 large posters that she explained to the attendees. These documents put the results of the survey into 1 – visual view of those with septics and 2- visual view of wells and the closeness of the wells to leach lines. Both Kray and Gifford explained that the DNR and the County see this as a long term project and a continuous improvement process. During the winter months the DNR and the County Sanitarian will go over all the data and use local knowledge to determine a list of residences that need to be inspected based on the list of non-responsive and non-permitted properties. There was also some discussion about having an open house in the Spring of 2014 to provide more detail to the District property owners.
Committee Updates
Finance – Kramer said the committee will be considering a second meeting to approve bills but it has not been confirmed yet.
FEMA – Leonard said there was a team meeting in Des Moines about 3 weeks ago to go through the 2008 flood event to outline next steps. The District signed an agreement with Stanley to assist with this effort and this will be helpful in going through the issues regarding sole source contracts and percentage base contracts as we need to understand what should have been paid and what was paid. Dave Fry will be the lead for us in this effort.
Dam Construction/Timeline – Leonard said the Federal Government shutdown slowed us down in our permit process that we require to begin work on Phase I. The agreement was sent over prior to the shutdown but SHPO had been running on a skeletal crew but it seems we will still be looking at 30 days as it relates to the permit.
Colgan said at the last meeting we talked about going out for bids. Everything changed because of the delay in the federal permit. We may be able to award phase I in early January and Phase II needs to start in late March. We can still work through winter because the work will be demolition and then concrete.
State/County Legislative – now that the land transfer from the LDRA is filed and should be complete by tomorrow, we are beginning conversations with the County Supervisors as it relates to a work session with Trustees and the Supervisors to outline our next discussion on bonds. We are also engaged in an appeal process to confirm that the District is tax exempt. The language in the 357E code is not clear so we have engaged the lobbyists to fix the current bill.
Property Management – lake bed preparation is the big focus from the Hartwick bridge to the dam as we get prepared for water and it needs to be done this fall. A lot of property owners have been grooming their lake bed but there are pockets of areas that need a lot of work on debris removal and weed and tree mitigation. There was educational information provided in the last Voice. Once an area is covered with water, the trees won’t grow but they need to be cut otherwise the tree will remain there and cause a boating hazard. This committee can organize resources like ATI who have offered their equipment as a donation. We need property owners to step up and communicate what their needs are or they will be contacted. We are finding some debris so we will need to do more debris removal and the need varies by area. Davidson said burning may be appropriate in some areas. Gifford has detailed the problem tree areas and has started to have conversations with those folks. LDRA has $2500 from Rockwell to be used for lake bed clean up. Need to have legitimate documentation to justify the expenditures. Locke will confirm with Brian Hughes that we have agreement that these funds can be used for weed removal.
Water Quality – Kray advised the team has had their last meeting for the year. There are no remaining shoreline grants available. The team also determined what areas would have water testing in the Spring.
Public comment- Jim Locke asked if we now have the documents to record the land transfer. Leonard said the County Recorder has had them for 10 days and worked on areas that needed improvement. There is now an agreement that all is clean and the documents are being filed.
Larry Aschenbrenner asked to what extent can the lake bed be cleaned up. The debris is unbelievable and some of the debris is buried. Larry is going to take milk jugs and mark items that are in the lake bed.
Larry Peter asked if paper is finalized on the property transfer and is the abstract and title review completed where you pick up the existing easements. Leonard said there were easements that were granted to us. Leonard said Hektoen (our real estate attorney) is confirming that all easements have been transferred to the district. Peter asked if there are concerns about Modern Hydro and the contract with the LDRA some time ago. The LDRA solicited a cancellation from Modern Hydro and received no response and the LDRA attorney has justified that this was the process that needed to be done. The contracts have been canceled and Modern Hydro hasn’t responded. Colgan said Modern Hydro’s FERC license for our dam was for five years and that timeframe has expired.
Dennis Wood asked if the perpetual easements for the First family on the south side of dam will be honored. Leonard advised nothing changes because we inherited whatever was there. Peter reminded the board of docks by the Peck property that belong to Pam Hargrafen and that they should not be destroyed during the demolition.
Motion to go into closed session for the purpose of discussion regarding terms for acquisition of property and property rights for the purposes of restoring the lake and dam by Davidson, second by Kray. Individual roll call requested, all ayes, motion passed.
Motion to adjourn by Gifford, second by Kramer, all ayes, motion passed.