thank you this is william little i'm
going to call the regular meeting of the
board of commissioners for the city of
las cruces to utilities
to order and first of all i'm going to
ask
adrian to give us the the required
briefing to comply with the
ag's requirements
that's adrian guzman
okay well then i will go ahead and and
proceed
with that this this meeting is being
conducted
remotely and uh
it is also being live streamed on
youtube in order to comply with the open
meetings
aspects of this
new way of doing business
everyone needs to remember to identify
themselves when they begin to speak
and any votes that we take
during the meeting will be
by roll call and if for some reason
the link to the outside world
fails we will have to suspend the
meeting
until that link is re-established
now um
we have a brand new city manager this
week
and uh
is he on the meeting today
i don't think so we we will give him a
chance to
uh to introduce himself when he does
join
the next order of business is the
conflict of interest
is there any member of the board or any
member of city staff
who has any conflict of
interest with any item on the agenda
now
if we have to do it by name
commissioner archuleta now commissioner
ben cuomo
none mr carmichael no
mr hardy none
johnson
okay commissioner johnson is uh
is not at his desk at the moment
commissioner sword
yes no i don't have any thank you
uh and the chair none and
uh staff
no sir nothing from staff this is
delilah
thank you the next
order of business is the acceptance of
the agenda
i have a motion to accept the agenda
move to approve thank you that's sword
second carmichael thank you any
additions or corrections to the agenda
hearing none
ready for a vote chair archuleta vice
chair archuleta
commissioner ben cuomo
yes mr carmichael
yes mr hardy yes
mr johnson uh
still absent from his desk commissioner
sorg
yes and the chair yes thank you all
okay uh next item of business is public
participation
were there any email messages from the
public
delilah walsh interim director mr chair
no we do not have any
thank you so much the next item is the
administrative report
go ahead good afternoon chairman
commissioners this is uh
provencio uh deputy director of business
services
uh i'll brief you on activity ongoing in
the
in the building and receivables area
with respect to
utility assistance programs uh
the current slide and the following
slide provide the activity for the month
of august
and the numbers pretty much uh present
the level activity at this point
and if i could ask the the next slide be
uh
forwarded the information here
presented that is uh the remaining
programs
especially topic of interest is the
the casa de peregrinos uh assistance
fund
uh this month or for the prior month
excuse me
uh there was 205 residential customers
that received some assistance totaling
a little over 39 and ten businesses
that were assisted that received a
little a little
under seven thousand dollars in
assistance
if we can forward to the next page would
be
a the chart and
presenting the uh the overall
numbers that have been expensed excuse
me the funds that have been expensed
and the remaining balance at a little
under a little over
23 thousand dollars and that
would provide that provides the summary
of what happened
activity last month and i'll stand by
for any questions
questions no okay
all right thank you go ahead
we can forward or link up to
the
the slides that present the budget
adjustments for
up to uh this last month
um joe if i could interrupt you i'm
sorry again lila
walsh interim director uh mr chairman i
did want to let you know that our
our new city manager mr pealey has been
able to join us
yes i saw that thank you um
since we're since we're paused
uh let us welcome
mr pealey to the board meeting
we're glad to have you on board we are
looking forward to
working with you and looking forward to
meeting with you as soon as practicable
we do want to make sure that you have an
opportunity to learn
more about the utilities system
here in las cruces and how it works
it's somewhat different from
a way that many utilities work
we're really very proud of it and and we
want a chance to
share that with you thank you very much
i
i really uh i i've heard a lot of
a lot of great things about our
utilities and and i know it's uh
they're all true yeah i bet they are i
bet they are
but i appreciate you uh allowing me to
to jump on
i apologize for jumping on late
okay back to budget adjustments
thank you chair uh
chairman commissioners if we uh what i
going forward uh staff will be uh
providing
information on um on budget adjustments
that have
that are done submitted and
processed by the budget office uh the
main
reason uh for this level of information
is to give you
give the board an idea of the magnitude
and the number
of adjustments that are fairly
it's it's a process that's fairly common
because things change
and things have to be tuned in with uh
uh pardon me uh that uh tracked any
changes to the original budget that was
passed earlier uh
for this fiscal year uh
the adjustments are are done on a
quarterly basis
again by the budget office and uh
there's uh there's a number of them and
uh the
the information pretty much it provides
the magnitude of the dollars
and the reason uh for
[Music]
they know you're busy well i didn't
forward it that's my fault um
[Music]
let me take let me pick up where i left
off it it provides the the activity by
each one of the operating uh
groups and with the information that's
presented
i'll stand by for any uh questions or
specific questions
that you may have on these budget
adjustments oh yeah one more item excuse
me
the number that we have here is is
pretty much it's a catch-up mode
in terms of at the start of the
at the start of the uh
uh the fiscal year so
again i will step step aside and
stand by for any questions you may have
mr chairman
delilah walsh interim utilities director
i do want to just let you know we have
provided you with nine or ten pages of
the budget adjustments
if you have specific questions joke we
didn't go through every single one
as joe mentioned this is mostly the
cleanup to true up accounts at the end
of the fiscal year
and then account for any carryovers of
purchases that were maybe pending within
fy20 and carried over to fy 21 so in
other words we started the purchase but
didn't complete it
until the new fiscal year so we have
quite a bit out there
um but as joe mentioned if you have any
questions we're happy to address that
thank you questions mr carmichael um
joe could you just remind us i'm pretty
sure i know but
the fiber optic adjustment that was made
in each of the lines of business
talk about that a little bit uh chairman
commissioner carmichael uh
well i will defer to uh to dominique
rodriguez
manager of uh rate and economic analysis
uh who's uh spearheads these these
changes
if i can ask dominique to step in and
help you
sure chairman commissioner this is
dominique rodriguez the raiden economic
analysis manager
so this is a portion for gas water
wastewater and solid waste for the fiber
optic project
um that is on the cip um and it's
bringing it down amador i believe up
into a certain point and so we wanted to
budget
the utilities portion in order uh to get
this project going and moving forward
thank you you're welcome
anything else
okay go ahead
what we'll do now is return to the
regular presentation it does take a
moment
for us to switch over all right
again delilah walsh interim director and
i will introduce mr
mario puentes who is our gas analyst
mario
yes good afternoon mr chairman
commissioners yes mario puentes gas
business analyst
um this briefing here is related to
the reappointment of certain staff city
staff members to the new mexico
municipal energy
acquisition authority's board of
directors
or namia for short now
i know not everybody has heard of nemia
so i'll just give you a little bit of
background
the mia is a joint powers authority that
was created in 2008 by
the cities of las cruces and gallup
with its main purpose being to obtain
energy supplies upon favorable terms
including
a discount from market prices and to
make that
supply available to new mexico municipal
utility retail customers
sonomia currently sells gas to the
cities of las cruces and farmington into
the county of los alamos
and even though namia is a kind of a
creature of the city and the state
it sells gas to las cruces via a natural
gas contract that was approved by
the lcu board
and to date the las cruces gas customers
have
saved close to 1.07 million dollars
and so it's kind of following
what we had anticipated that over the
30-year term it would be a little over
three million dollars next slide please
so the the joint powers agreement of
nemia stipulates that
nemia be governed by a seven-member
board of directors
with las cruces gallup and farmington
each represented by two directors
and los alamos gets to a point one
they are appointed to four-year terms
and may be reappointed
and they must possess current experience
in the operation of municipal utilities
or the acquisition of energy supplies
and or be
familiar with municipal finance in
general
next slide please
since the creation of nemia the city has
appointed the utilities and finance
directors
or their designees to sit on the board
and
utility staff has recommended to the
council to go ahead and reappoint
the utilities and finance directors or
their designees
and that recommendation will be
considered at the
september 21st 2020 city council meeting
and i'd like to point out that the the
appointments are by
position so the the resolution will
actually just state utilities director
and finance director
versus naming specific individuals
so we wanted to provide you this uh
kind of as a heads up on this particular
matter mr chairman
and i will stand for questions
thank you uh in our particular case
the director uh position would be the
interim director yes mr sherman
that is correct uh the interim director
fulfills
all the uh not only the requirements of
what nami is looking for but
she she is the she is the director
all right thank you so much yes sir
anything else i have a question mr
chairman
go ahead how often do you meet and who
is the chairman
uh yes mr chairman council uh
commissioner archuleta
generally uh the board meets once once
or twice a year
uh number one to uh uh approve the
budget
and and also to elect officers
the uh the we had a meeting uh late last
month i believe we're in september now
right so
yes sir late august and the new chair
is uh the gentleman from gallup
the the former chair is indicated he's
retiring
sometime soon and he was from los alamos
and then of course the vice chair was uh
dr garcia who
has retired as well
and they and they sit for the the uh the
yeah one year
so every year they that we we elect new
officers
okay thank you yes sir
anything else
no mr chairman all right thank you mario
next
mr chair commissioners next we'll have
our lcu human resources
activity report i do want to point out
our vacancies
as of september 1st have risen to
53. they were at 55 we brought down two
before the end of the month
or the start of the month i will point
out you can see
uh our vacancies were hovering and
starting to improve and hovering around
the 40
45 vacancies area and shortly after
covid19 and operational changes they've
been rising
quite steadily vacancies is starting to
impact us and so and i think i shared
last month
typically what happens is it takes an
employee two weeks to four weeks to
vacate a position let us know they're
retiring they're going to be moving on
or whatever that may be
however it's taking us an average of 40
weeks to fill that position
so using that data it's virtually
impossible for us
to overcome our current vacancy level as
it is
and i really anticipate it's only going
to keep rising based on current
conditions
um one of the situations we're facing
now
is we have almost 30 percent of our
staff has well over 220 hours of accrued
annual leave
as i've reported in our sit rep and i'll
mention it again later on
the city has decided that they will not
extend
the annual leave carryover beyond 240
hours which is currently allowed
therefore we do need to let's start
letting our staff have time off
in order to burn that annual leave down
before they lose it
so as i mentioned almost 30 percent of
our staff
70 to 85 people are in that 200 hour
range
i believe 70 already over 240 hours
so with that i've advised the deputy
directors
if we need to in order to keep up
operationally
we can start hiring temporary staff the
reason being it only takes us two weeks
to hire a temp staffer
versus 40 weeks to bring in a regular
fte
so long as that temp staffer is not
replacing an fte and what i mean by that
is that the ft it's only a short term
situation
until we get that position filled we can
do that with temporary staff
as you know we've been working hard to
reduce temporary staff but
right now quite frankly that's the only
resolution i see that's viable
temporary staff is not the only solution
because as you know we have
highly qualified skilled and skilled
sets as well as certification
requirements
and many of our lines in business
particularly in water waste water
and gas even with solid waste we have to
have a cdl driver
and it takes about 80 hours of training
on the equipment before
before we can let that driver out on the
road so it's not a great solution but it
is a solution
in addition to that we've been keeping
up operationally
our overtime is excessive and i don't
mean it successes
in the fact that it's unaffordable for
the utility obviously with the vacancy
savings we can afford
and even last year with as much overtime
as we had we came in
under budget with operations just
slightly
but we are using overtime the impact
that's had on staff is obviously
they're getting tired and it does impact
our morale
so the combination of the fact that
we've remained 100
operational through this entire covid
pandemic
our staff hasn't been able to use their
annual even is thus
cure accruing quite a bit
in addition to the fact that we have
significant vacancies
in our departments all those combined
are taking a toll on our staff at this
point um
there may be operational effects as we
start to allow them to have leave
in the sense that we may not be able to
address leaks as fast or
new connections as fast or filled
inspections as fast
as we do today so the two the one thing
i want to
first emphasize is operationally we're
doing great we're keeping up
but we're doing that on the backs of our
staff because we're unable to give them
that relief that they need by filling
those vacancies
the chart on the right will show you our
progress
or at least the change the net change in
vacancies within our lines of business
nothing much has changed since last
month obviously we've seen more success
in improving
changes in water we are finally seeing
processes move forward in gas and
it's just a matter of getting that
workflow done faster rather than
later
regarding our commissioners have to go
out there and help out
we may be getting to that point i hate
to be facetious but
i mean it it feels that way some days
all right michael i have a question
didn't we have
didn't we have pretty good assurance at
one time
that we would be able to have some kind
of
carryover
carry over of i believe
of the short haul oh thank you thank you
commissioner carmichael
mr chair commissioner we had been asking
that through our situation report
however based on the potential liability
faced by the city so
uh for just for a brief explanation
when you express on your financial
statements a liability
such as leave meaning that at some point
the city has to pay out that leave
whether it be during the year or at the
end of an employee's employment
i.e they retire that is a liability we
carry on our books
so the city as a whole cannot afford to
express such a large liability
with that much leave on the books and so
it is better for us to burn it off
and i believe uh interim city manager
david maestas has raised his hand and he
may be able to expand on that because
that is an executive decision at the
city hall level
mr marisa go ahead yes thank you
mr chair thank you delilah for sending
that over for me for
additional discussion on their uh
utility commissioners
i am david maestas uh technically i
think uh
my title is advisor to the city manager
at this time
so we will go by that title for this
discussion
with respect to carryover the carryover
that we had
been talking about previously and other
discussions was specific to the
extraordinary
leave that had been offered to staff
extraordinary leave had been offered to
all staff but in some instances
and as delilah has been pointing out a
lot of utility staff was not able to
take that leave or utilize that lead so
we said that
in order to remain fair everybody would
still be able to and have access to that
leave if they have not used it so that
one we are still
allowing staff to carry it over if they
have not used the leave the
extraordinary
leave yet they will be able to take that
into the next calendar year
and utilize it at different
opportunities throughout the year
however as delilah pointed out for the
the annual leave itself uh carrying over
more than the 240 does
continue to have a liability for the
city and it's something that has never
been
offered through any of the years so
we're just maintaining consistency with
that as well
again the one difference that we have
caused by the pandemic was the
extraordinary leave
and that one will be allowed to be
carried over thank you
okay thank you for that explanation um i
believe
that the board would say we are
disappointed with that
decision i have one question and then
commissioner johnson is next
earlier this week there was a press
release that
the city was going to award a one-time
payment for frontline staff
and i am presuming that that includes
utility staff is that true
mr chairman commissioners delilah here
yes sir we are considered part of the
critical infrastructure staff and
when the city management had reached out
in april to identify those employees who
continued to report to work which was
pretty much
the entire utility i think we had a
handful of people who were able to work
remotely 100 percent but um
we were included in that evaluation and
with that list
thank you uh
commissioner hardy no sorry commissioner
johnson
okay i i have the same question because
the
the press release doesn't mention
utilities in any
shapeway or form
and sir that that is correct uh
commissioner johnson
uh mr chairman we we are critical
infrastructure staff
and that was the definition under the
federal rules
but the press release just doesn't
mention this
correct once once again we're
an invisible profession okay go ahead
with the profession
with the
hiring thank you sir um as you know
our own goal within the strategic
business plan is to fill our vacancies
within six weeks
hr's goal within their strategic
business plan is to do that within 10
weeks
but as i explained earlier and as you
can see by these charts
the weeks and process is only growing
and right now we're averaging 40 weeks
to get a position filled
so that means that these positions again
may be vacated in two to four weeks but
it's taking us
12 to 40 weeks what's interesting is a
lot of eye hiring
is internal and even an internal
transfer
i'll give one example we have a
gentleman moving from
i believe wastewater to solid waste we
had all the paperwork in
four weeks ago but we had to make a memo
correction which we just got back last
week
and now it's being processed and finally
loaded into the system for pas so it's
it's just simply a workload
issue and so even internal transfers
are taking a long time to get through
the pipeline
as you see from the chart on the right
we do track
work stoppage when it comes to the
hiring workflow process
77 of our stoppages as of the first of
the month we're at hr
and 19 we're on our side the 4 in flow
means that the person has been hired but
we're waiting on their start date so in
other words we have a start date we know
where they're going to start
but the actual human person has not yet
shown up so
we we track that as an inflow
okay thank you it's not all bad news we
have filled those positions we filled 46
positions just since october
however because there are a lot of
internal promotions because again
remember we're a very
skill set heavy and certification heavy
organization within the department a lot
of those happen
internally so once we get them
transferred into that new position then
it starts the hiring process all over it
again
to open up that that entry level
position
within those those delays we are still
awaiting five reclassification requests
and those are the positions which hadn't
been filled for more than a year
and weren't used and weren't actively
recruited so we reclassified them to use
them in other areas where we identified
need
and those have been in since october
we're waiting for four new job
descriptions that we've remitted the
paqs
again we can't open up those jobs until
we have a job description in hand and on
neogov
we're awaiting four positions we're just
waiting on release of candidates and
what that means is
the application cycle has closed in
neogov
and the candidates are there but hr has
to run the filter for qualifications and
then release those candidates to our
hiring managers
we have nine positions that are still
waiting in neogov just to be posted for
hiring so that means we've loaded the
positions to neogov
posted the job descriptions all the
parameters for hiring
and we just need it to be advertised and
those are waiting
last month i did have a few that were
still waiting for the hiring
review committee as of the first we
didn't have any
as of today we have three pending hiring
review committee
and as you might remember this means
that
there is a committee at sit at the city
management side
that determines whether or not a
position is needed and then to release
it from
posting so as of today we have three
waiting on
hiring committee
looking forward our staffing specialist
position
has been loaded to neogov that means
we've posted it
um the acm has approved it for release
we're ready to go
but it hasn't been posted for
advertising yet
so it's one of those positions that is
waiting on the neogov posting
right now we're focusing on our staffing
just while we're complying with the
covid policies and regulations
and what i mean is that we still have to
have consideration of that extraordinary
fmla
or extraordinary expanded sick leave as
well as quarantine leave
and those other covert related leaves in
addition to that
we are still looking at trying to give
those 70 employees or so
time off between now and december 31st
i still owe you an overtime report and i
apologize for that
however i can tell you with certainty
our overtime is definitely impacted this
morning talking to our deputy directors
every one of our lines of business
reported back that all their employees
are working overtime
and that is again going back to the
vacancies and then having to allow more
time off
related to either covid or using down
the annual leave before the end of the
calendar year
um i do owe you longevity and retiree
analysis
i can tell you i won't be able to get
you that until we have a staffing
specialist in place
and then the temporary staff analysis
we've been talking about that because
as an organization and with the board we
set the goal to eliminate
as many temporary positions as possible
and convert those into permanent
positions within our budget
however as i mentioned earlier i'm
currently advising the deputies to load
up on temporary staff even if it's only
for the next four to six months
just so we can relieve our members
and try to catch up on putting people on
the ground
when it comes to the vacancies the
intern and journeyman program
i still anticipate that projection
started in 2021
again that's assuming we get a staffing
specialist before 2021.
so those are the goals moving forward
with hr
do you have any other questions
regarding our our hr activities
okay questions
all right um clearly we still have a lot
of
work to do with the city on this
uh go ahead thank you sir
i'll move into the covet incident
management for lcu
we continue to operate under our
submitted continuity of operations plan
as i've mentioned several times all
programs are 100
operational and the utility has remained
100 operational throughout the entire
pandemic
again that means we've got overtime and
we've really been working our employees
hard while complying with
our covert related leave as well as
federally required fmla leave
our return to work plan is in effect
under phase one
and i i didn't change the slide i have
it through 831 2020
but the governor did redo her order and
it's in
effect until september 18th i will be
rewriting
this return to work plan and submitting
it to the acm into the cm's office
the reason being the governor hasn't
clearly moved from a phase one to a
phase two
as originally outlined in their their
state reopening plan instead it's been a
hybrid
meaning that uh church capacities
restaurant capacities school return
plans those are all coming out at
different levels
and not clearly into the phase two
reopening plan of the state
so i'm going to rewrite our return to
work plan sometime this week or next
week
to reflect those hybrid changes rather
than the clear delineation between phase
one and phase two so that will be
changing a little bit
our goal of course is to get as many
people back
to city facilities and not necessarily
working remotely
but we want to do so that in a way that
is safe and healthy for all
our staff right now uh we
we're still limited to the 10 the 10
individuals gathering our common areas
are closed but as i mentioned i will be
rewriting that to match the state's
current hybrid situation between phase
one and phase two reopening
we continue our weekly situational
reports to the board
and i can tell you our pp has been
rap is adequate and we're doing a great
job i'll give a
shout out to gary byram and his
warehouse staff and to dominique
rodriguez
they've done a great job keeping us well
stocked with ppe
we are i can say we are one of the few
departments
who didn't really experience a shortage
to this whole thing as a matter of fact
i remember dr garcia working with
transit to get them some of our masks as
they were still scrambling to get
orders filled when stock stocks and
supplies were low
on the staffing side we're complying
with all federal acts
we are averaging about two associates a
week out
uh for one of these covid related leads
we have been working with staff as lcps
students remain
virtual students for the first nine
weeks of school my understanding is
hopefully k
through five will return to school after
the first nine weeks
the city of las cruces has created a
really
great program through the parks and
recreation department which we've shared
with our employees
so they have um teen learning sites as
well as the
youngster learning sites the k through 5
students
that they're making available at
creation facilities
and that is a free service they're
offering so kids can attend
their online zoom classes in lcps
while having facilitators available to
help with tutoring so it's a tutoring
session where they can actually attend
their their
online courses with an adult or with a
tutor
helping them out so that's that's been a
really great benefit
and we have shared that with all our
employees i believe the registration
deadline is today
or at 5 30 today any coveted positive
cases
are quarantined pursuant to nmed
regulations as well as state orders
we are continuing our increased
sanitization of the common areas
and eli duran and his staff have done a
great job
we've got several uh temporary staff
members who are doing that
i don't anticipate we'll be changing
that anytime soon i'd imagine we're
going to have that increased
sanitization well
through the winter months the as i
mentioned before
the excessive paid leave accrual of
above 24 hours
uh 240 hours will not be expanded
and as commissioner uh chairman
commissioner johnson
and mr chair had had mentioned the city
council did approve the five hundred
thousand dollars
a one-time extraordinary leave payment
there is no policy yet the only thing
the council approved at this point was
transferring from the telstra fund
into the city's general and operational
funds to make those payments
but how that payment will happen or what
pay codes will be used or what mythology
or what amount
is not yet fully established it's only
the estimates i believe during the
council meeting they mentioned
about 800 employees would qualify
under the standards presented to the
council so but there is no policy yet
and um we are included with that group
do i have any questions on our cobit
response
has there been any uh employees
hospitalized from covered 19.
commissioner sorg mr chairman no we have
not
all the employees that we've had test
positive and it's only i i would say
less than five that we've had in the
entire utility test positive
they've all been asymptomatic and really
weren't experiencing any symptoms or
illnesses okay thank you
okay thank you go ahead all right
next on our report is the water
litigation
and as you know um with the texas v new
mexico
lawsuit and update jay will be here next
month to give you an update of what's
happening
in that litigation during our closed
session
our federal litigation on griggs walnut
we did receive
our payment the 6.2 million from the
guard
and we've issued out our 1.2 million
payment to the epa
and in actuality i'm going to turn over
and defer this to
adrian widdenberg give you a better
update of where we are on our litigation
water litigation
mr chairman commissioners thank you
adrian whitmer
deputy director for water we're very
excited
because the consent decree was signed
july 30th
2020 so we no longer have litigation
with the federal government
we do however have some additional cases
going forward
um in regards to some other plaintiffs
that we believe that need to be
pitching in we have completed some
additional mediation
so we're really happy about that so
right now with briggs walnut
it is now just a project that we're
going to go in there and continue to do
the work
and we'll do our annual reports and make
sure that it is
functioning as as was designed and
expected
and we hope here in about a decade that
we are going to be done with greg's
walnut
uh i think it's really an exciting time
for
greg's walnut and if you have any
questions let me know
christians
okay seeing none go ahead
all right uh mr chairman our our next
item
is regarding a donation from johnson
controls inc
and um we actually have dominique
rodriguez
online she's our raid and economic
analyst manager
as well as mr harry romine with jci
so dominique i'll turn that over to you
or joe dominique
i'm not sure what happened to dominique
but i can certainly sit
sit in chairman commissioners jose
provencio
deputy director of business services
these are items that were donated by
jci that have
use within our system and uh
the details here i i believe uh were
going to be discussed uh by
dominic but uh if there's any other
additional items
uh these are the specific points that
or or items that were
that were donated by jci to utilities
detail is presented here on slide
18 so the
information here is pretty much uh items
that are
that have use or or potential more
likely use in our system
we uh uh fairly uh acquired these or
these were
donated at a salvage cost and i believe
uh we have potential
for saving money and uh
and get use out of these items into our
system
stand by for any questions you may have
okay do we have to do something
as a board mr chair commissioners really
it's just an acknowledgement
of the donation we've already gone
through the the acceptance process
meaning that we've remitted all proper
paperwork to the city manager's office
and that has been approved and turned
back down into us
i do want to expand the fact and so
you're simply just acknowledging that
the donations happening
i i do want to emphasize that we are
purchasing these excess items
at uh salvage value not at fair market
value so it is quite a discount compared
to what a fair market value would be
related to these items in addition to
that we will have the opportunity once
the donation is complete we will reach
out to other departments within the city
of las cruces
on who could use the boxes also we've
got some
boxes as well some larger boxes that can
be used by parks and rec and public
works
and the utility itself
okay thank you
go go forward okay uh
mr chair commissioners next we'll do our
september projects update and for that
i'll introduce mr carl clark carl
thank you chairman commissioners carl
clark deputy director environmental and
technical support
here to give you the september 2020
projects update
the three projects that i selected are
the pre-1965 foothills landfill
excavation
the talavera low pressure gas
distribution network phase
3 and the stern drive water line project
next slide please
so the first project the pre-1965
foothills landfill excavation project
there are several contracts here that
are part of this project
uh that we had to bring together in
order to move forward with this waste
excavation site
uh the list of the contracts are right
there in front of you
the total combined contract cost is 1.3
million the contract time is 227 work
days for this project with a start date
of march 18
2020 estimated construction completion
date of february 26th
as you're well aware i've been telling
you about this project uh monthly
uh we've pushed this out and the reason
being is because we've had to move into
screening the material uh with what we
call a flip screen
in order to remove a lot of the sand
material so we don't deliver sand to the
quarter leaked
landfill and deliver actual waste
i enclosed a couple of photos there uh
the very right lower right photo is the
area number two
that's actually screen material there so
we have quite a bit of the uh the waste
material that gets all the way
that's hauled away every friday
about at least i think about 10 up to 10
trucks can
end up moving that material out of there
so we do have a reduction in
number of truck hauls that we're doing
out there because we are screening the
material at this time
so percent complete is 50 in regards to
construction
and 43 in regards to payment uh we
basically
hauled approximately 23 six hundred
eight tons of this waste material over
to the correlitos landfill
um any questions i did include waste
area number two there
that's the current waste area we're in
we completed waste area number three
already
uh so they're about 50 through the
actual waste area
with about 20 of the waste already
screened
so uh once completed in waste area two
move on to waste area number one
that would be our final waste area for
this uh cleanup effort
any questions
any questions if if none i'd like to
move on to the next slide
please the next project is the taliban
low pressure gas distribution network
phase 3a so this is entirely a low
pressure uh
gas system insulation in talavera this
is the the main installations for
talavera
which i would consider to be north of
soledad canyon
the contractor's mythical construction
contract cost is approximately 3 million
contract time is 200 working days start
date was august 10
2020 with an estimated completion of may
28th
there are two percent regards to
construction uh completed i guess
and then uh in payment zero we haven't
had the payout just yet
or the monthly uh uh pay request meeting
a breakdown of this project is there's
approximately sixty one thousand linear
fee to two inch p
gas line that's going to be installed at
fourteen thousand lineal feet of four
inch pe gas
line uh along with the furnace's pipe
biting etc
uh currently they've uh installed
approximately four thousand lineal feet
of the four inch uh
pe gas line as a week and a half ago
almost majority of that's installed in
dripping springs road
or right off the north side of dripping
springs road
and then now the contractor has moved
into desert mirage north which is north
of drifting springs where they're
installing four inch big gas line
a couple photos there the upper right
photo is the back filling with the
bedding material on the pipe itself you
can see that and then uh
the lower right photo is installation of
eight inch reamer
on the boring head for installation of
the six-inch casing so we are having to
bore
uh several areas particularly across the
roadways
uh because they're heavily traveled and
the county has
has asked that we not cut the pavement
that we bore under the payment so we
we've accommodated that
any questions in regards to this project
okay if none i can move to the next one
the final one
go ahead please
this is kind of an overall picture uh
that it showed of the area that we're
actually working in i'm sorry i didn't
go into that photo i should
there you go dripping springs area you
can see the project area
it's a large section that's what i would
consider north soledad canyon road if
they went completely
east and west and so it takes uh care of
the
subdivisions under this phase next
next slide
some days it works well and some days it
doesn't there we go stern drive water
line project uh this is a contract with
j29 enterprises or a local contractor
for 116 000 contract time is 45 working
days with an estimated completion date
actually we started august 24th an
estimated completion date of october 27
2020. they're approximately two percent
complete in regards to construction
there's not been a pay request meeting
yet so we have nothing in there for
payments at this time
basically they're installing 570 lino
feet of 10 inch pvc c900
and then 158 lineal feet of 10 inch
ductile iron
water line that's attached to the bridge
decking their office stern drive it's an
nmdot
bridge along with the airvac valves and
oppertnesses
basically they've begun installing the
support channels on the bottom side of
the bridge decking
and uh in order to mount the hangers off
of the uh the support channels
they've already cleared and grabbed the
alignment and began working
in the dirt side of that project so
i included the upper right photo is the
clearing
cleaning and grabbing of the area and
then uh the lower right photo is the
channel on the bridge that's being
installed any questions
thank you uh commissioner sorg yes thank
you mr chair
um carl are any of these buried
pipelines having
uh uh additional pipe for pulling
through
um future um utilities such as
fiber optics uh
chairman commissioners uh sorg no uh
there's not a shadow conduit there
associated with these these pipelines
here that was something we looked at in
the talabara area we had a
our consultant look at that possibility
of pulling a shadow conduit for
fiber optic in the future that's back in
the in the taliban area
unfortunately uh it was uh
by the consultant it was deemed that it
wouldn't be really it'd be very risky to
spend our money in that aspect because
uh there's already fiber optic out that
way and it's a limited on the
development size
so they felt that we wouldn't see the
payback uh if we installed the shadow
conduit
uh to talavara area now this other
pipeline is
is a little smaller and and uh it's more
of a
uh it is in the city limits however
uh it has minimal uh
residents in that area off the d.o.t
right away and
um i believe there's recently just last
year they installed new fiber optic with
one of the uh
communication companies along that that
corridor already
okay yeah okay but you recall uh
this was a practice where pract were
useful or
practical uh in the past couple of years
we started doing uh you just still
consider that for any of these
underground projects not for the stern
drive one
um no but i mean others others
uh any long extensions uh which we
haven't run into just yet
uh we have not considered that uh
because
most of most of our extensions uh are
outside city limits
uh and so uh we're
and so the density is a little uh it's
much less dense in those areas
um but we can consider
we can consider for now on looking at
that aspect and see if that's a
possibility and see if there's any
payback for it
sure sure thank you
[Music]
okay go ahead okay
mr chairman commissioners uh that's it
for our updates
on our projects as you know we've
already
approved two of our resolutions with the
agenda which we're on consent
our next is going to be our resolutions
for discussion and we'll start with
uh we'll start again with carl on the
well water well 40. okay but first i get
to
okay the first resolution is
resolution 20 21 0 24
a resolution awarding a contract for
project number
2021 024
drilling and development replacement
waterwell 40
to kp ventures well drilling and pump
company
llc of cottonwood arizona
for a total award amount of 1 million
dollars and 89 cents move to approve
so amu thank you commissioner johnson
in a second
thank you uh discussion
thank you chairman commissioners carl
clark deputy director of environmental
technical support
this is one of the projects that we that
my group led out
basically we worked with john schumacher
and associates to put together the
contracts for this project for the
uh redrilling of as well we only had two
bidders
um they were both from out of state
and the low bidder uh skp ventures as
you mentioned
uh we are going with the base bid plus
uh alternate number two which
alternate number two is utilizing
stainless steel piping
uh for the entire well um we felt that
for the additional cost it is a good
investment because of the longevity of
life that we get out of a stainless
steel well
um i included a couple of photos to show
you where well 40 is at
well 40 is up on the east mesa you can
see how it is
in relation to a royal road there's
highway 70 on that left side photo
hangar lake road uh that kind of gives
you an indication of where that well
site is it's an existing well site
we're replacing the well that failed a
couple years ago
you on the right photo there you can see
the proposed location of the new well
site
that's pretty typical like you had seen
when we redrilled uh wells 2931 and 32
with that the state legislative funds
that we received so it's a similar
project
we believe that uh this is the price
that uh
we were expecting somewhere in that area
so we'd like to move forward with this
project
okay comments or questions
uh commissioner carmichael
carl uh i'm really glad to
see the recommendation of using the
stainless steel
casing uh how many wells do we have with
stainless steel
so far gosh chairman commissioners i
don't have the answer in regards to how
many we have so far
i know that the last uh three wells i
did they are stainless steel
which are the 29 31 um
maybe if adrian whitmer still online she
could tell us
but i know that this is something that
we've moved forward and
uh just recently um i'm not sure how far
back
they started that because a lot of our
older wells are all mild steel
which you get so many years out of them
i don't believe as many as you would get
out of a stainless steel casing so
right so we're recommending that going
going forward hopefully
yes sir that's how we when we spend this
kind of money we want to make sure we
get a long life out of them
good the other question i had was on the
vendor
doing the drilling uh great references
that
they had in their bid
all their drilling or at least in their
references appear to be
in arizona maybe one in texas somewhere
are they likely to get any surprises
when
they come into new mexico uh chairman
commissioners i i don't think so
this is uh a pretty common work we will
have
you'll see on the next resolution where
we'll have john schumer associates on
board with us
for the drilling of these wells
we follow pretty much a standard
methodology and so
they should be prepared and ready to
come in and and uh
meet our specifications as identified in
our contract documents
so we we we spent a lot of money to make
sure those contracts
uh are spot on thank you you're welcome
uh commissioner hardy uh i just wanna
comment i thought that was a very good
suggestion going to stainless steel
so good idea thank you
thank you anything else
ready for a vote commissioner archuleta
hi mr ben cuomo
yes commissioner carmichael
yes commissioner hardy yes
commissioner johnson i
and commissioner sorg yes
and the chair yes thank you all thank
you
the next resolution is resolution 2021
lcu 007 a resolution
awarding a construction oversight
contract
to john shoemaker and associates inc of
albuquerque new mexico for the drilling
and developing replacement
water well 40 project number 2021
o24 for a total contract amount of 99
483 dollars and 94 cents
thank you and a second
thank you uh discussion
thank you chairman commissioners uh so
this project
here or this contract goes hand in hand
with the previous project i just
discussed
um we have john shoemaker and associates
getting on board with us
uh as part of the uh oversight of this
contract
um they have the experts that they'll
send over the hydrogeologists that will
remain in the field during the well
drilling process
as you can see the scope will work there
it's eight to ten hours a day during
well driller mobilization drilling and
final site work
uh full-time oversight during well
completion
this is important critical at this time
development and pump testing
so they'll be there as the muds get
prepared ensure that everything meets
the requirements
uh they'll ensure that the well hole is
is drilled straight
they'll stay on top of the contractor 24
7 as they're drilling along and uh
pulling mud samples and uh they'll get
some of the screenings
they'll also develop us a nice chart of
all the uh the profile
uh of the uh media or the strata that's
in place that the well is going to go
into
uh in the end we'll get a nice report
summarizing all the work that was
performed uh as well as the
interpretation of the test pumping data
so we can
although provides recommendations for
maximum pumping rates at those
and the pump setting levels uh for this
well
so we we like to have them on board they
are the experts
they drill i'm sure they have well over
100 wells under their belts
over there john showmakers and
associates okay thank you
uh commissioner hardy
if this were the vote uh no
did you not have your hand up no let me
see if i can get it down if i did
did someone have their hand up and i
just couldn't see it i did i'm trying to
oh commissioner johnson okay now sorry
yes and this is just a more of a
clarification
we used uh shoemaker and associates to
evaluate the previous
contract that was left let and now we're
using them to
monitor that contract and this just has
kind of a little bit of an appearance of
conflict of interest i assume this is
all in
in in line with our procurement policies
and so on from the city but i wasn't
familiar enough to
to decide that um
chair commissioner uh delilah walsh
interim director
this is typical of most projects um i'll
use it
as for example if we were to build a
building typically we'd have an
architect create the plans manage the
bid and then actually assign a project
manager for the construction of that
building so it's very similar in this
situation wherein
john shoemaker and associates helped us
prepare the
bid documents would uh we would evaluate
the bid
under procurement and then help us
execute that bid just like you would a
building
okay thank you okay anything else
seeing nothing ready for a bit of
sorry a vote uh
vice chair archuleta i
commissioner ben cuomo yes
mr carmichael yes commissioner hardy
yes commissioner johnson aye
commissioner sorg yes and the chair yes
thank you thank you okay
that concludes the resolutions for today
a considerably shorter list than last
month
the next item is old business
commissioner on old business first of
all i do want to confirm
we are have requested a one and a half
hour
closed session prior to our regular
meeting in october
so it'll be a closed work session of the
lcu board
for an update on the texas venue
colorado litigation
okay thank you and uh that will be
calendared for us
yes sir yes sir and that will happen
with our october meeting
next on the uh updates of old business
uh we have been working with mr carroll
with whom you had a
uh public at the last commission meeting
and i will actually turn that over to
clark
uh carl has developed a good scoping
report we're working with
uh mr carroll and carl if you wouldn't
mind giving us a
brief update
yes thank you chairman commissioner carl
clark uh
deputy director environmental technical
support so you all heard from
a letter that was uh read by the uh
board chair
last month from mr carroll so i have
intervened with mr carroll and
and uh i had the uh uh
i've been able to meet with him in the
field talk about his issues
and uh see how we can work with him to
correct these issues and so
uh we are working on setting up an
easement
for the force mains that we have along
motel actually it's the the branch that
goes into his property
so he wanted to ensure that we had a
clear demarcation
of where las cruces utility ends and
private property begins and we can do
that
we'll also be installing a couple of
valves and a couple of check valves
in order to protect the private property
owners from our system
when it's pressurized and ensuring that
we can never push into
their private their private system so
i've met with him
he's uh he's been he was actually part
of our
scope and report we included all of his
comments
uh we all agree that it's the right
direction to go in
and we anticipate getting completed uh
by about november 10th we
just completed some potholing to verify
sizes and location of the
existing horsemaid and we're working on
a design
to pass to either to staff to go out
there and work on
or we'll hire a contractor to come and
install these valves
okay thank you so we will look forward
to
a mission accomplished next time
yes sir thank you mr chair um in our
also on old business we will be i'm very
excited to share that in october
jeff dillard will be giving you a
demonstration of utility hawk
and as you know this is going to be the
software we're using for the customers
to access their water usage data or
actually
not just water but all their usage data
within the utility
online so customers can identify their
own usages
and i'll actually turn it over to jeff
dillard the demonstration will be
scheduled for next month
at our board meeting but jeff can give
you a briefing of where we are
chairman commissioners thank you jeff
dillard business systems analyst
as ms walsh said i wanted to bring you a
quick update on the utility hoc
customer portal this is part of the
johnson controls
jci performance savings contract we've
been working on this for a while
the board initially approved this and
then
we came to the board again to select the
final candidate which
was utility hawk their portal will allow
our customers to review their
water and gas consumption check an
estimated bill
based on the usage in the billing cycle
and set threshold alerts which are
automatic notices
that are generated by dollar limits or
usage limits
custom set by each individual on the
account
this portal be available on any device
phone tablet or computer staff has been
working
for quite a while with utility hawk to
set up the data exchange
between our munis billing system the
itron advanced metering infrastructure
system
and the utility hawk portal we've been
testing and verifying these processes
every step of the way
and in the october meeting i'll have
that demonstration for you
to show you what our customers will have
access to
once the system is live and available to
them
thank you thank you
anything else mr chair that's all we
have for old business
okay now new business for new business
um we are actually going to be
converting to the icompass agenda
management software
and i will turn that over to almonds you
can give you a better explanation of
what's coming
oma you're muted
we're gonna we're gonna do a quick
social distancing flip so alma's gonna
come into my office and i'll
get six feet away from her
deal
okay elmer ruiz senior office manager
for the record
and the city council
started using icompass which is a
cloud-based program
that enables the creation of the
resolutions
agendas and agenda packets to be
electronically
saved to the cloud they started using
this in february of this year
and they've suggested that the lcu board
be the next
board to come on live using this
program and this is going to really
benefit us because
of the resolution approval process it's
going to speed up
that process in order for us to get it
from
beginning to end a lot quicker and
therefore having
the agenda packet being able to be sent
out as a complete packet
and that is
really everything that another key
component is that
all of the documentation that is
uploaded to icompass is searchable
it is searchable now the way we send it
because we have to
do an extra step in the process of doing
optimal character recognition which is
ocr
every document so that's also going to
save staff some time
in utilizing this eye compass and we our
target is to
start this process for the november
board meeting
giving us a month to kind of get some
tests
and some training in for staff that
utilize this
so we hope that it'll be a smooth
transition for the board members when
they receive their agenda packets
bye stem for any questions
okay um questions
uh mama this is ed does this involve
basically electronic signatures or what
thank you um chairman commissioner
archuleta
it's actually it does it's a workflow
electronic workflow that
provides um the approval process
okay thank you sure
any other comments or questions
okay well we will look forward then to
november do we get a dry run ahead of
time or we just plunge into the deep end
commissioner sorry we switched back uh
desks to lyla walsh here
um we'll probably just uh dive right in
but
aml and her staff will keep you up to
date on what you need to do
or getting access to your documents well
ahead of time and as she mentioned we do
have the benefit
that we'll be able to get these packets
out quicker through the signature
process
so hopefully we'll have some time to
play with it with you
all right thank you uh
any other new business yes sir i'm very
very
honored and pleased to announce and i'm
sure you've heard our city council has
recently approved
the naming of our new water quality lab
to the jorge a garcia water quality lab
so we're it's obviously a very well
deserved honor and
we're excited to do that with and for dr
garcia and with the city council
um they had a great resolution based on
your own proclamation that we we gave dr
garcia upon his retirement so
carl is actually working with the
original contractor
and architect so we'll order that
lettering make sure everything's
consistent with the new building as well
as the building design
what we're planning to do is carl's
going to coordinate getting those
letters onto the building
and alma will coordinate with the
city manager's office staff so we can
get a very
nice resolution printed on the parchment
paper and presented
in the certificate framing just as we
did for his proclamation
and hopefully we can have an unveiling
once that's all complete and invite dr
garcia back so we can
call we we're calling it our jag lab now
so it's the j-a-g
lab and uh once we do that we plan to do
something
where we can unveil the new name with
the board and with dr garcia with the
council
okay thank you anything else that is it
for new business
all right next item is boards general
discussion
i have some items but is anyone else
okay seeing none once again
the board welcomes mr peely as the new
city manager we are looking forward to
meeting with him
and talking about the
utilities department and uh
mr pealey do you have anything
additional to add at this point
not really mr chair commissioners thank
you thank you uh
for your warm welcome i i am looking
forward to a tour
i've already talked to uh walsh
uh about taking a tour to the facilities
you know i i have uh i've had the
opportunity to manage a gas and electric
along with our water and
sewer companies uh my previous
employment
and so i have a special place for uh for
utilities and i understand
how uh how much work goes into it
and and you you mentioned something mr
chair
uh being an invisible part of the
part of the city nobody really gives the
kudos
because they don't all they care about
is their toilets being
uh their lights turning on and they're
you know their heat in their homes
uh but but we got uh very much unsung
heroes in
in this department and and uh those who
manage that so
i appreciate the opportunity and i
certainly look forward to
to the tour and and getting to learn
more about our
our facilities great thank you again
all right um
this is a warning shot um
the october meeting will
include appointment of a
chair and a vice chair
uh in the
intervening weeks think about whether
you are
ready to serve in the capacity of either
chair or vice chair and we will
proceed with the appointment at the at
the october meeting
the second item is the uh
next work session on
the 10-year water plan if we wait
until a
board meeting to have another work
session it will be
november at best and
rather than wait that long
i would like to suggest having a
standalone work session
toward the end of october
i'd like to have you look at your
calendars
for the last two weeks in october
and email alma
with your availability during those two
weeks
we'll probably spend uh start about 1 or
1 30
and spend a couple of hours uh
uh delilah you will be or alma will be
checking with the
um city schedule
because this will need to be um
broadcast and so we'll have to work in
our our broadcast with the other
uh city events and
once alma tells us what days are
jointly available we'll pick one and go
forward from there
are we in general amenable to
meeting at some time
there in the end of october uh
commissioner johnson yeah i certainly am
i did have one question i assume this
will still be a zoom meeting and not a
in person we believe so
it would take a major thought
in the resolve of the state
we're limited to 10 people yeah i
i think it might take divine
intervention to be able to do it
in person meeting by that time yeah
and if we if we tried to meet in person
we could have the seven board members
but then we could only have
two or three staff members and
uh so chances are it's going to be zoom
okay thank you mr chair
this is count commissioner sword
it's possible i might not be available
at the end of october
okay well uh we will miss you
uh mr hardy i should be available almost
any time in there
okay go ahead and let alma know i will
and by the end of next week alma will
have
a read on what days are available and
she can
share those with us mr chair if i may
delilah walsh here
if we could look at those last two weeks
of october maybe the first week of
november just
to give everybody enough of a a plan
and leeway as we'll have to also work
with our consultant
as well as with city management on the
broadcast so
and just let us know your let alma know
your availability and we'll
get we'll find the best date for
everyone
good enough anything else
i will entertain a motion to adjourn
second carmichael thank you
those in favor all say aye
hi thank you all we'll see you
in november thank you
october october you're right
you're quite right never mind
you gentlemen thank you