Board of Public Works - Regular Meeting

welcome everyone i am calling to order the utilities committee meeting for tuesday july 7th please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone please be seated

Roll call of membership. Let the record note that Alex Schultz may be joining us. If not, he is excused. And we will introduce ourselves starting on my left.

Patrick Hayden, District 7.

Brad Meltzer, District 2.

Chris Grote, District 14.

Thank you. And we need an approval of the minutes from the previous meeting. Motion to approve.

Second.

Motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any abstaining or objections? There are none. Minutes are approved. We do not have any public hearings or appearances today. We have one action item, 26-0895, recommendation to adopt ordinance creating section 20-45, private led service line replacement financing and special charges. Deputy Director Neuberger, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. So in 2027, we're just getting into the first round of lead service replacement projects for which the DNR funding does not cover 100% of principal forgiveness. So this is going to be a 50% principal forgiveness census tract that we look to work on and the DNR informed staff that we needed to have a legal framework within our ordinances to allow us to assess for the costs where the portion of the costs that are not eligible for principal forgiveness. So the memo pretty much explains that. I had intended to include the draft ordinance language to go along with the memo. I didn't make it into the agenda, so I provided hard copies for the committee, and then also we'll make sure that that gets into the meeting minutes as well as an attachment to the minutes. So the draft ordinance language has been reviewed by legal services and by the finance department, and they have approved it as presented.

Thank you. Do we have any comments or questions from committee? Just give people a moment to finish looking through the draft. Go ahead, Alder Krote.

Thank you. Is it at all possible to estimate what the impact could be at the 50% level? or the average property?

I don't have that one handy. And I'm not sure that I'm gonna be able to come up with an accurate one here this afternoon.

It's okay. I'm just, as we look at ways to address this, obviously it's an important thing to get addressed. Just kind of wondering how much of a financial impact it would be. Could I follow up with the committee after the meeting? Yes, and then one other follow-up question, if I may. I think we've talked about this, but do we know how many properties would be impacted by this?

So for 2027, I believe we have, this is very ballpark, somewhere in the neighborhood of about 130 or so properties that we want to put into the 2027 program.

Okay. If you could just confirm that with a follow-up as well. That's all I had. Thanks.

All right. Thank you. Anyone else? Alder Hayden.

Thank you. One question. When we say 50%, is it? Oh. When we say 50%, is it a flat 50% or are we estimating that it, well, I guess we can start there.

Yeah, so it's a straight 50%. And then Director Youngworth also reminded me that along with this, we have filed with the PSC to get a PSC approval for the stormwater utility funds that we would look to contribute. that would cover up or excuse me the water utility funds that would cover half of the out-of-pocket costs that would be accessible for the private property owner so we are we are looking to provide a subsidy to cover half of the out-of-pocket costs that so that's it's half of the half it's it's half of the non-forgiven portion okay yeah 25

So there's no difference between the public and the private when we're talking about the 50%. Okay. Thank you.

And I did pull up our spreadsheets to give perspective on cost. And this was our project engineer had been running the numbers. And we budget or had planned for $5,000 per lateral. And that's 100%. So the 25% would be $1,250. If it's 50%, we're talking $2,500. Okay. To the property owner, potential cost. Depending on how it shakes out with the ESC approval.

If I may?

Sure.

Go ahead.

Just to clarify then. So with the subsidy, it would be half of the half, right?

Right, so to bring that down, if it's 5,000 per property, the 50% principal forgiveness would be 2,500 per property. So the grant funding would cover 2,500. The 2,500 is a local cost share, and of that 2,500 local cost share, we'd look to assess for 1,250 of that, and the other 1,250 would be covered by the utility. Okay, thank you.

I'm just trying to think about ways to reduce that as much as possible. Thank you. Get these addressed.

All right.

And it looks like we've got actually 98 properties currently slated for the 2027 program.

All right. Anything else? All right. Let's go ahead and vote. All in favor?

No.

Oh, I'm sorry. We do need a motion.

Move to approve. Second.

All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed or abstaining? Or none? That is recommended for approval. And we have one information item twenty six dash zero eight nine six the first amendment to the w d n r grant agreement lsl our community outreach grant program.

Right so. So we were informed this year staff were informed this year by the by the d n r that. the number of grant application requests and the amount of those requests, once fully funded, there was still money left in the grant program. And so the DNR reached back out to the communities and said, hey, if you would like more money than what you applied for originally, we got more money. So we ended up We started out with sixty five thousand grant, and so this would be an additional twenty eight thousand five hundred and seventy one. And so this was this is essentially to provide additional marketing and educational information to property owners to make them aware of the program and to help equip them with information on how to try to identify whether they would potentially qualify for the program.

Thank you. Alder Crote.

Thank you, Chair. I almost can't believe I heard that right. So the state is actually saying, do you want more money for a mandate that typically might be unfunded at some level? Good news. Very good news.

My understanding is part of that was it was kind of a use it or lose it situation, and it was better to put the money in the hands of the communities.

Maybe things are changing in Madison.

Maybe they're scared. What's an example of how we would be using this funding?

So it could be flyers. It could be postcards. It could be working with a consultant to develop marketing materials to get increased exposure electronically, social media. I'm just using those as examples. We haven't made decisions yet on exactly how we want to do that, but those would be examples.

And so would this be specifically targeting those 98 properties then?

So those properties are pretty much already on our radar. This is kind of for those homeowners out there who are yet to be added to a program. Those are potential participants that would be the primary focus.

Thank you. Alder Wolf.

It's a quick question for the information that's provided on this flyer that we would be putting out there. Is there any opportunity to add information about Aquahawk and adding that to inform our residents as well? Is that possible?

We can absolutely look into that.

That'd be great.

That's a great idea. Always like to promote Aquahawk. All right. Do we have any other comments or questions today? Seeing none, we have item number eight.

Move to adjourn. Second.

We have a motion and a second to adjourn. All in favor, say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you all very much.