Water Utilities Community Facilities District - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call the order the Apache Junction Water District special meeting for 07/15/2025 to order and request that all cell phones be put on silent. Roll call.

Chairperson Wilson?

Here.

Chairperson Schroeder?

Present.

Board member Cross?

Here.

Board member Heck?

Here.

Board member Johnson?

Here.

Board member Nesser? Present. Board member Seller?

Here.

You have

a quorum, your honor.

Thank you. Approval of minutes for the 06/17/2025 meeting. Do I have a motion for the approval of the minutes?

Mister chair? Yes. I move that the minutes of

the meeting of 06/17/2025 be approved. Second. Moved and seconded. Roll call.

Board member Soller.

Yes.

Vice chairperson Schroeder.

Yes.

Board member Nesser. Yes. Board member Cross.

Yes.

Board member Heck.

Yes.

Board member Johnson.

Yes.

Chairperson Wilson?

Yes.

Motion passed.

Presentation and discussion and consideration of procurement of a custom trailer.

Mike. Chairman Wilson, a member of the board. We have a few presentations tonight for procurement of some items we budgeted for in 2026 for this fiscal year. The first one, we have to get a trailer to haul a new excavator, which is another item on our list here to approve tonight possibly. We're requesting $25,000 to purchase

a custom trailer to haul our possible new mini excavator that we're asking the board to approve tonight.

Quick picture. It's just a tilt trailer so

we can this is a track co we're looking at. So we need a trailer to pull it around to get to different sites as we do construction out in the field or repair waterline breaks at different things. Any questions on this one?

Any questions?

What's the weight of the the excavator? 20,000 pounds. 20.

30 is needed. Yeah. You guys are getting a bigger excavator also, right?

Correct. Yeah. We'll talk about that here in a second.

Okay. But this trailer is not going be big enough for that.

We're not getting that big one. Yes, this will be the trailer for it, though.

No other comments. Do I have a motion?

Your honor. Yes. I move that the purchase of one custom trailer from Texas Pride Trailers LLC in an amount not to exceed 25,000 be approved.

Second.

Moved and seconded. Roll call.

Board member Nesser?

Yes.

Board member Johnson?

Yes.

Board member Cross?

Yes.

Board member Heck?

Yes.

Board member Soller?

Yes.

Vice chairperson Schroeder? Yes. Chairperson Wilson?

Yes.

Motion passed.

Presentation and cons discussions, excuse me, consideration procurement of an excavator. Mike, continue.

The next piece of equipment that we're looking to purchase and get approval for is to purchase a new Caterpillar three zero eight b excavator. We're gonna be using this on water lines and repairs, also on installation of new facilities, existing equipment. Our backhoe struggled digging through some of our caliche that we have here in Apache Junction. We actually rented one when we did the work here at City Hall about three years ago. We've leased a couple out in the field as we move forward with some of the projects that we struggle with.

The backhoe just doesn't have enough oomph to dig through some of our cliche. We've tried different buckets. We'll also get a ripper bucket on it as part of this one. But this is a heavier piece of equipment so that it will cut through some of the cliche that we have here, typically between four and eight foot deep here in Apache Junction is when we run into it. And our backhoe just scrapes so we can spend hours to get an inch, or if we have a machine like this that we could dig through that in five to ten minutes.

So requesting to move forward with this purchase is part of our 2026 budget. We're gonna be utilizing the city of Tucson's cooperative agreement, and then we're requesting a $190,000 for the purchase of this piece of equipment. It's a mini excavator. As you're asking earlier, we've kind of looked into them. We've tested them. This one does not. It's not a large one. It will get into spaces that we need on the side of the road or different things like that. It has a zero turn radius. So what that means is the back of it doesn't swing out over the tracks.

It stays within it. So safety reasons, it wouldn't hit people or swing out in the traffic. If we're in the roadway, we have to be utilizing it. So we can utilize that way. And then it'll also dig down over 10 feet, which is something that we maximum depth that we would actually do the work at would hire a contractor at that point if we can handle something that deep. So we're trying to trying to maximize our and be efficient with our digging more out there. So this is what this piece of equipment would help us with.

How often do you feel you'll be needing or using it?

Weekly, monthly? I would say probably every other month. It depends upon the year. We have some water main projects that we will be doing on the district to tie in some water mains that have been out there for years that either property is fully developed or it is a piece of property that a like SRP has a piece of property that they don't need water service to, so we'd run that water line across that property to tie it in to loop our system for water quality, for fire protection, different things like that. So we do those projects probably about two to three times a year, looping those mains, so we'd be utilizing this for that, and any main breaks we have, or any other things that would come up in the field. We also do share with public works, if we have monsoons, hopefully someday, they'd be utilizing it for different things as part of

that. And on average, when you have to rent the equipment, what do you do you rent it in a month at a time or a week at a time? And obviously, we hope that this will pay for itself

Yes.

And savings on the rental and all that.

Yeah. So roughly, if we the one we rented back in the day, think it was between 10 or $20,000 for the month that we rented it for. Yeah. So if we utilized it 10 times, get our money back out of the out of this piece of equipment.

There you go. Thank you.

What's the life expectancy of

something? I'd say roughly about twenty years. Okay.

If it's well maintained, they'll last thirty, forty years. You know, they do really well, especially cat.

And we're getting a four year warranty with it and all the services included with this price also.

And connection, the purchase of this is not specifically tied to the use or the every other month use, but it can help us in emergency preparedness management and the public works department or even if Arizona Water or someone in our community needs this support, we're we're going go help.

So, we're district has something very similar to this, a little smaller. We tried utilizing theirs. Didn't work on some of our glitches, this would be a benefit to them. So, we're trying to utilize it for any utility across us but specifically, it's for the water district

will it come with other types of buckets or just

one bucket or grapple and a grapple bucket you know if we have to clear out a drainage we can get additional buckets we typically wouldn't so we did rely on other departments if they utilize it for that they could utilize it We have a ripper bucket that would also be coming with it and then a sheep's foot so that it helps compaction. When we put a water main down, we can compact behind it with the dirt so it doesn't sink at a later date so you don't have those trenches that you drive through and dips in them. We'll part of this purchase.

Perfect. Your honor. Yes.

My question. Since AJ Water is not a department of the city, if for other departments in the city to use this equipment, Is there has to be an agreement? Or do we have to pay you to do that? Or how's that handled?

I'll let our district attorney explain that to you.

The answer is because both the city and the district are municipalities. There's no gift problem. So you don't have to charge. Can you charge? If you have a main city manager that wants to charge the water district, the city manager can charge the city, the district manager. Yes. So be nice, Mike. So you can do an exchange, but you don't have to because you're both municipalities, governmental so the gift clause does not apply.

Thank you.

No other questions? Okay. Do I have a motion?

Mister chair?

Yes. I move that

the purchase of $1.20 25 Caterpillar three zero eight minutei hydraulic excavator from Empire Southwest utilizing the cooperative contract with the city of Tucson. Contract number 212816Dash01 in an amount not to exceed $190,000 be approved. Second.

Second. Moved and seconded. Seconded. Roll call please.

Board member Cross.

Yes.

Board member Nesser. Yes. Board member Saller.

Yes.

Board member Johnson. Yes. Vice chairperson Schroeder. Yes. Board member Heck.

Yes.

Chairperson Wilson.

Yes.

Unanimous, your honor.

Presentation discussion consideration for procurement of fleet vehicles. Mike, continue.

Our annual fleet maintenance, our fleet purchases this year coming back to replace our vehicles that are 70 years old or over 100,000 miles. This has proven over the years with our fleet management with the city that takes care of our fleet management. We've had less things go in there for major malfunctions with engines and transmissions and different things out there. And typically, all of our vehicles just go in for either tire maintenance, oil changes, or brakes at this point. So trying to reduce all maintenance cost and then also be ready for emergencies.

So when we do get called out on these emergencies, we're able to make it to those rather than our vehicle breaking down or something else going on with those. So we try rotating these out of stock. We take the old ones. We take them to auction, resell them. And since they're a little, I guess, not as old of a vehicle, we still get some money back on those when we take them to auction as part of it.

This year, we're going be utilizing again the cooperative agreement with Arizona State with C2R059320 and C2R069474. We're requesting $225,000 for four vehicles. This price includes the service bodies on two three quarter ton trucks. The three quarter ton trucks is very similar to the one on the right here. And then we're also doing a 1,500 crew cab for one of the superintendents.

And then we have a Colorado, a little smaller vehicle, four wheel drive with our inspections going on in dirt roads out there. When it does rain or they have to put humps over things, our inspector has got stuck. So we're looking at a four wheel drive here, but a smaller truck to get around all the equipment as they put in our water mains out there in the field. Any questions on those? Chair?

Yes. Have

we ever considered just outright selling the vehicles at Wholesale versus sending it to auction where you get pennies on the dollars versus a fair price?

Good question. Typically, provide them to public works and they take them to auction for us. And I'm not sure how that works with government sales. If we have to go through that auction or if we can try something different, that would probably be a better question for our fleet manager, Brian Gleeve, when he's in here. But we can bring up that question to him to see if it's a different opportunity for us to sell them at a better price.

Yeah, because 100,000 miles truck like these, that like you have, that have been well maintained, should be able to get a lot better money for them than auction.

Matt, can double check that assumption about pennies on the dollar to see what we do get so that we can report back to the council and then verify processing. I think we can try another process. That'd be good. Yeah. Just to see

what else.

For auction, there is a fee that they take.

Yeah. They take a percentage. Yeah.

So you don't have to go to auction under the city rules. No. But I think that's what

they do with most vehicles. I realize.

And you're right. If it's a 100,000,

that's assuming it has been well maintained. And for the most part, our our vehicles have been, yeah, well maintained.

I think the last ones we sold, don't quote me on this, were roughly, they were a little older, 10 to twelve years old, and I think we got 15 to $17,000 for them. That auction. After auction.

Well, is that what we realized or is that what

they That's what came to the district. So, that's what the district took in. They must have sold for a little higher than that. Sure. That we had to pay our fees but I think they were roughly around 15 to 17,000 is

what we took in. That's not bad though.

Yeah. But we can get that data, and let's get that out to all of them. Yeah, one little thing that's interesting, Mike, and maybe explain, like, we're so used to thinking of the city government in terms of our planning for the future as doubling, right? So we're going from about 10,000 households in the way we do trash or the way we do a lot of things in terms of our services. But in Mike's world, it's not the case because it's not the same base, right? Maybe explain how you're preparing for the future in terms of your base, where your base started with is not 10,000 customers, right?

So we're slowly built and we started

with our normal customer.

So we have a level of service that we're

still trying to prepare for. We're slowly building out there. Typically, we're in front of a lot of things that are happening on the back end with city maintenance and stuff like that. So as we're growing, we're installing more meters, more maintenance as part of that. So we're adding a couple of people here and there as we move forward. But we want to train them as we move forward rather than trying to gain five, ten people all at one time. So typically, we've been asking our budget and what you guys approved here recently is roughly about two to three new employees each year so we can grow as development goes to the South, but keep ahead of it a little bit. Some of these trucks will be prepared for that. That's why some stay a little longer than our seven years, because as we add more people, we have to keep some of those trucks rather than

take an auction. But you're not doubling. You're more like five times is what I'm trying to get. Instead, you start with 2,000 customers, you're going to end with 12,000, right? So you're going So as Brian

said, roughly about three years ago, we were at 4,500 customers. Today, I would say, meter set, we're more at 7,500, almost to 8,000 service connections out there. So in the last two to three years, we're gaining between a thousand to 1,500 customers a year. So we're not the city of roughly 40,000 going just to 50,000. We're going, you see our numbers here, 4,500 to 75 almost doubling in a couple years, which the city is not, but the district is because of where the developments have.

Okay. Any further discussion? Do I have a motion?

Mister chair. Yes. I move that the purchase of one replacement 2026 Chevrolet Silverado 1,502 wheel drive crew cab truck, two replacement 2026 Chevrolet Silverado 2,500 HD two wheel drive regular cab trucks, and one new 2025 Chevrolet Colorado Crew Cab WTLT four wheel drive truck from Midway Chevrolet utilizing the Cooperative Arizona State contracts CTR059320 and CTR069474 in an amount not to exceed $225,000 be approved.

Second.

Moved and seconded. Roll call.

Board member Heck.

Yes.

Board member Cross.

Yes.

Vice chairperson Schroeder.

Yes.

Board member Nesser.

Yes.

Board member Johnson.

Yes.

Board member Saller.

Yes.

Chairperson Wilson? Yes. Unanimous, your honor.

District Manager's report? No report, your honor. District Director's report.

Chairman Wilson, just a couple updates. I know some of you guys here live in the city. The last couple weeks, we've been out on Tomahawk just North Of 60. We were informed by one of our customers we had a leak on the side of the road just across from Campground USA or the gas station there. It was a 16 inches main that goes under US 60 leaking on the north side there. It's about a 30 year old main. At that point in time, the district did not polywrap, which is a plastic coating they had put on the outside of their pipe. The soil here in Apache Junction is corrosive, so it created barnacles in a little hole that sprung on that 16 inches pipe. And over time, it just keeps eating away from that and then creates barnacles on the outside of it. So we had a leak there.

The district went and dug it up, put a repair clamp on it with a temporary fix. And then we brought in a contractor because the pipeline was roughly eight foot deep. And we had to replace 60 feet of that line because we had to go back to find a good piece of pipe. So it was between also communication cables and a bunch of other things going on out there. So it was a really tight fit. So we ended up hiring Garney Construction to come in under a JOC to help us repair that line break that we had out there. And the work was completed last Friday. We will be having a contract come in that we'll request approval for once we get those total costs for that project. So I just want to give you a heads up that that's what was going on out there. We only had one customer that was out of service for a couple hours during the day.

It was the gas station across the road, but we kept everybody else in service during that time. If anybody asks you questions out in field of what was happening out there, that was going on. Another item that will be coming up in the near future here, we're working on an IGA that's wrapped up. We've got the legal language here done with Mr. Stern. We work with the sewer district. We're working on language to purchase the reclaimed water from the sewer district. This is their clean water that they have an A plus rating on. And then we'll take that water, purchase it from them, and then deliver it to our new subdivisions on Supercystin, Vistas, Radiance, and Blossom Rock as part of the water and sewer agreements that we signed about two or three years ago. So we're getting through that process.

We're getting all our agreements in place. So we're working through that. So you guys will see that here in the near future. We are also on that piece of property. They deliver that water gravity to a tank, and then we pump it out.

Most sewer lines are all gravity flow, so the sewer district's not in pressurized pipe, which the water district is. So that's why we're controlling the distribution system that actually delivers that water to the lakes in these developments. We also have a fiber between our two things, the non potable water tank and our treatment plant. We have extra strands in there, so we'll be leasing part of our strands of fiber to the sewer district for their internet provider to provide them services at that location. So we're trading services as part of this, but it's all going be in the intergovernmental agreement that we have with the Sewer District. But this will be coming up in the near future here in our next couple of meetings that we'll get this approved. Any questions on our agreement?

Yes, sir. So, Mike, I understand that reclaimed water is going be used for landscaping, irrigation, that kind of thing.

Correct. So in the new development itself, any landscaping over two and a half acres is required to use reclaimed water on it. So any grass areas that are larger than that will be used reclaimed water. They're using it for their water all their trees, a lot of the infrastructure down there to save our potable water. We went there. Not the lake? It fills the lake. So what happens is it comes from our tank there, fills the lake down there, and then we have another pump station that the HOA owns that pumps it out to all the parks throughout the subdivisions to the south there. And that's how they

do it. It's the same pond, according to the Yeah.

So that's our large storage tank down there is the lake. So we don't have to put up a steel storage tank or a concrete tank. The pond is our storage. So it serves to a poor person. It's a great benefit to the community. But it's also a storage tank for us to service that water to them at the same time.

Anyone else?

Okay. That's all I have. Thanks.

Okay. Thank you. District treasurer's report. Thank you. And I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you.