Improvements To Give Greater Reliability, Stronger Water Pressure

Special Meeting of the Board of Directors, May 11, 2021

Please note: Board met in Person, Members via Zoom

President Wade Cornelius called the meeting to order at 6:40 p.m. All board members were present: Cornelius; Rob Campion, treasurer; Beth Morgan, secretary; and Patrick Stafford, member-at-large. While a couple of attempts had been made to fill the open position left by David Lucero, they have not been successful, largely due to illness. Campion took over Lucero’s treasurer responsibilities, leaving the position of member-at-large unfilled. Attending the meeting via Zoom were Brian Williams, a recent addition to the neighborhood, and Tiffany Acosta, Terry Holder’s daughter (in-law?). She and her family have moved into the home he vacated upon the death of his wife, Suzi.

Introductions were conducted for the sake of the new attendees. Cornelius welcomed everyone and said that we would move on to the review of minutes. He said that minutes are posted on Facebook and on our website, so that members can read them and keep up to date—or if they can’t sleep at night, he joked, reading the minutes might help. He said that Morgan takes extensive notes (actually, minutes have become lengthy because they are created from recordings, as participating in the meetings interrupts note-taking). Morgan said that batch of minutes was particularly short because that meeting was not recorded. She offered to read them, as they were only a page and a half in length. Rob Campion put the nix on that by moving to accept the minutes without them having been read. The motion was seconded by Patrick Stafford and passed unanimously.

The president then announced the board would address item 4-a., the water operator’s report. He said while water operator Henry Torres was not present at the meeting, he is responsible for keeping our system running and that he’s quite good at it. He asked the others present if they had anything to report on the well. Stafford noted that the State Engineer’s Office came out about a month ago, wanting to take a look at the new meter at the well. He wasn’t sure what their reasoning was, as they had checked it when it was put in. Everything, he said, seems to be working fine. According to the numbers, Stafford is inclined to believe the old meter must have been going bad for a long time. It indicates that we have used only 300,000 gallons for the quarter. In the past, we have had some million-gallon readings. He assumes the new meter is accurate but noted that it means that households on the system are barely using an acre-foot a year. The president quipped that Lucero had been using 700,000 gallons alone. Compared to other water users, Stafford seemed to think that our consumption is on the high side, but not nearly as high as the old meter had indicated. Campion said it wouldn’t hurt if we used more, as we need to prove up on some of the water rights we hold, but Stafford cautioned that though we have lots of water rights, electricity is not free. The president used an analogy from Star Wars’ Oppression of the Sith’s Dark Times: “We had Dark Times here with the well going down, droughts—you know—lightning strikes; “Yeah, frogs from the sky,” Stafford added, “Rats,” Campion chimed in. “You’re coming in at a good time; you are coming into the neighborhood at a good time, so, I want you to know,” he said.

Upon completing that topic, the board moved on to the treasurer’s report. Campion stated that the association’s current bank balance is $13,416, about as high as he’s seen it in eight years. Some members paid for the entire year at the first of the year—which was nice. He noted that we collect about $1,500 per month. Electricity cost us $238 this month, but, he said that will probably go up to $400-500 per month, as people begin watering lawns and gardens. Morgan asked for a copy of the financial report, which he said she could have after the meeting. He said he is using a new accounting software, which enables better reports than in the past. He said the only thing that is a bit of an unknown for him is what we owe our water operator. Cornelius said he could ballpark it. Campion inquired whether we have a documented balance of what we owe him. The president and Stafford disagreed about what he was being paid: Cornelius said $200 per month, and Stafford remembered it as more like $330. Cornelius added that as he remembered it, Torres had billed through spring of 2019, bringing the amount we owe him to about a year and a half’s worth of unpaid time. He said he had an idea of how to remedy the situation, if we would entertain it at that time, but it could wait until open forum later in the agenda, if desired. Campion advised that we continue the discussion.

Cornelius said he had brought this up with Torres a couple of times, and he seemed amenable to agreeing to a set amount plus regular monthly payments of what they had agreed upon. Stafford noted that there might be occasions in which he would need to bill separately for additional work. Campion recommended that we pay him $5,000 and a monthly amount going forward. Morgan said that failing to pay him on a regular basis is how we end up having to pay a big chunk all at once; she favored paying Torres monthly. She also noted that he has to pay for insurance, and the board should ensure that it pays him enough to cover that. Currently, we understand that he works for the Gadsden Independent Schools System on a full-time basis, also, not for Lower Rio Grande Public Water Works Authority (LRGPWWA), as he once had.

After checking his records, Cornelius said the last time we paid Torres was 2019. “To which Morgan retorted, “Are you kidding me?” The president then said the payments in 2019 were for 2017. Actually, he said, he had paid him about $2,000 in August 2020. Campion again recommended paying a lump sum of $5,000, then monthly thereafter $288.83, an amount he has billed for more than once. The president then asked permission to approach Torres with the plan. Whether a motion was required was briefly debated, and the board decided that for documentation purposes, it would be helpful. Stafford obliged by making the motion to offer him $5,000, with payments of $288.23 monthly, thereafter. Campion seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. Campion noted we could set it up as an autopay if we get his account information and be easily caught up with him every month.

Item No. 5, the president announced, is the review and possible acceptance of a bid from the engineering firm of Souder, Miller, and Associates. Campion stormed in with “Move to accept!” before the president had a chance to say anything more. Cornelius paused at that point to ask that Stafford check and see if anyone else was trying to come into the meeting. No one was, so the president proceeded to explain to the new residents on Zoom that we have been working with Souder-Miller on two previous phases of our project, the first being an evaluation of the system, and the second being the design of improvements. The phase we are currently in is the construction phase, for which we received approximately $365,000 from state Capital Outlay funds, and another $707,000 from the Colonias Infrastructure Fund. The president noted that we had had to go to bid a second time to hire an engineering firm. When we did so, we got only one proposal, from Souder-Miller. Previously, we had been advised that we might be able to side-step having to go to bid a second time, if the state procurement officer agreed to that move, since we had been working with Souder-Miller on both previous phases of our project. He did not agree, so we went through the bidding process. As we received only one proposal in response to our request, duly published in the Las Cruces Sun-News, we were not required to conduct the scoring process necessary when selecting from among a number of other applicants. Cornelius also noted that Souder-Miller has been working with LRGPWWA, which now owns the High Valley Farms system a half mile to the south of Vista del Rey, and that we have designed and LRGPWWA will build an interconnection between the two systems so that, if one of the systems goes down, the other can provide emergency water until repairs can be made.

All board members had reviewed the proposal, some more thoroughly than others. The president asked whether there was anything that stood out for the board upon reading it. Morgan noted that the engineering firm had pointed out the obvious—they’ve been working with us for several years already—as well as for comparable small water systems in the area—and have developed a track record. Another thing she noticed was that, as she recalled, when they first hired Souder-Miller, they may have been involved in more lawsuits. At this time, the company was only involved in one, and only as a minor player. The association’s contract was to run out in June, a fact that required the association to go to bid again. As there were no other proposals, and as the board did not have to rank them, they decided to accept Souder-Miller’s bid. Campion repeated his original motion. Stafford seconded the motion, and it passed unanimously. “We are officially in the endgame,” the president noted, adding this was his third movie reference during this meeting.

Brian Williams then asked Cornelius what residents can expect from the proposed improvements—would it change the way he receives water, would it improve water pressure, or prevent breakage due to the age of waterworks? The president said we are undertaking “rehabilitation of the well and installing new lines.” When he referred to the Dark Times earlier, he had been alluding to the fact that we had had to excise additional fees from residents, as we had run our bank account dry several times. We’ve already made several repairs, but the work we are undertaking now will include new water lines, rehabilitation of the well (by which he means a new booster station and upgrading of some of the electrical controls), more pressure and more consistent pressure, and hopefully, fewer leaks.

Stafford asked whether the work would still be done in two stages. Morgan indicated that that would probably be the case, as when Marty Howell had delivered his bid, he indicated that we might not get many bids because PVC pipe prices have skyrocketed as a result of the failure of the grid in Texas. At one time, we had planned to do the booster station rehab first, so this again makes that reasonable, while we wait for PVC prices to go back down. Campion added that the interconnection with the neighborhood to the south give us some redundancy that provides greater security to both parties. He mentioned the dark times as a period of two weeks (more or less) when we went without water. “That’s why we’re very excited about this,” Campion said. Williams was also interested in whether construction crews would need to be on individual properties.

Stafford explained to Brian that anything on the street side of the meter is the water association’s responsibility and anything on the side of the meter going into an individual’s property is his or her responsibility. He said outside of the well, the main problems with the system have been leaks in the mainline. He noted that the rehabilitation we are proposing includes a variable speed pump. The president said, currently, it will drop to 28-32 pounds and when it kicks on again, it may go up to 54 psi. That’s what we maintain. In town, people generally get 65-90 pounds of pressure; that’s what most people are used to. Until new water lines are installed, however, Stafford said we would likely leave it at its current settings. We may be able to bring it up to 65 at a later date. Williams said there was a problem near Claire’s house recently, and he was hoping to avoid that. Stafford explained that the issue there was that a pipe had been bent at a 45-50 degree angle, instead of the responsible party installing an elbow. (This issue was on the property owner’s side of the meter.) And once water is flowing, that adds pressure to an already stressed pipe, Morgan added.

Cornelius advanced to Item 6 on the agenda, old business, which was identified as a board vacancy that occurred when David Lucero had resigned as treasurer. Morgan noted that the board had offered the position to each of the Holders, Suzi first—for her bookkeeping experience, then Terry—for his water system operating experience, neither of whom were able to participate, apparently due to her illness. Campion volunteered to serve in that position until the board could get a replacement. No one has expressed an interest to date. Morgan also pointed out that elections are overdue, and should have taken place in January. The president said that positions were extended a year, Morgan adding, due to COVID. She said that the association is a “tiny little division of state government,” and, as such, must jump through all the government’s hoops. She also stated that when board members must be gone for more than about four days, they need to let her know, because sometimes we must prepare documents or sign them for the state, and they may be needed right away. Campion said that the qualifications for the board used to be a strong back and a shovel.

Morgan stated that the association normally has quarterly meetings, but often must resort to special meetings, when things come up. She said that she and others realized that the system was 40 years old, and it had broken down frequently, and we “got tired of putting out fires.” That is why we applied for the grants to upgrade the system, she said, adding that we have a more professional board now. Board members teased Williams about serving on the board, but he said he did not expect to be living here full time until 2022. Stafford suggested that we post the open position on Facebook.

Next, the president announced the exciting finale of the meeting: open forum. Stafford said he had an item to discuss. He said he has three people interested in the road grader that the association owns. Some time ago, the cost of repairing the clutch would have been around $500. He noted there is also a crack in the exhaust manifold, which can be welded, but that is replaceable, as well. Discussion revealed that concerns are that the grader is quite old, and if we pay to repair it, whether it will last long enough to make it worth the price. At this time, each time the association pays to have the road graded it costs about $550. The individual who grades the road is one of the parties interested in acquiring the old grader. Stafford stated that the fact he has three parties interested in it “to me, that says something … They’re almost indestructible.” The blade and the frame are sound, and we also have an I-beam to use to drag the road. The president said that the grader operator said that he would grade the road twice in exchange for the grader. Stafford believes that fixing it might be the most cost-effective option for maintaining our road. Cornelius said getting an estimate for repairs would provide more information for making a decision. Campion does not favor keeping it and repairing it, due to its age. He believes it will be much more than $1,500. He recommended getting a water truck so that we could water the road and drag it with the I-beam at will. He said what would happen is that we might have to have a member buy it, as we can’t afford one right now. Stafford agreed to look into the repairs and the cost of a water truck.

The president adjourned the meeting at 7:38 p.m. He thanked the two members who attended via Zoom and they, in turn, thanked the board for the opportunity to attend and become informed about the water system.