East Orange Water Commission

CITY OF EAST ORANGE, NEW JERSEY EAST ORANGE WATER COMMISSION 99 South Grove Street East Orange, NJ 07018 TED R. GREEN, Mayor REGULAR BOARD MEETING February 21, 2024 MINUTES Minutes of the Reorganization Meeting of the Board of Water Commissioners held in the City Council Chambers located at 44 City Hall Plaza, East Orange, New Jersey on Wednesday, February 21, 2024. I. CALL TO ORDER - 5:13 p.m. ROLL CALL PRESENT: Commissioners Alison Rolling Shantel Harrison Lauren Shears – approx. 6:05 pm Sherkera Lucas Staff John Liu, Executive Director Joseph J. Tomashosky –Finance Thomas Matich, Operations Manager Bianca Smith, Business Manager Counsel Denis Murphy, Esq. (Weiner Law) Council Members NONE Public NONE The meeting was called to order, Commissioner Rolling determined that there was a quorum and convened the Regular Meeting. Commissioner Rolling read the Sunshine Law for the record. Commissioner Rolling read the Rate Statement. II. STATUS OF RESOLUTIONS The Mayor has returned Resolutions #1 through #17 All resolutions are in full force and effect. III. ADOPTION/CORRECTION OF MINUTES 7A: The Minutes of the January 17, 2024, Annual Reorganization Board Meeting were approved on a motion made by Commissioner Harrison, seconded by Commissioner Lucas and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. IV. PRESENTATION NONE V. STAFF REPORTS FINANCE – Joe advised the Board that they collected $1.699 million this month from East Orange water customers and billed $2.184 million which gives them a collection rate of 77.8%. They anticipated a lower rate because they are in the second month, beginning November 15th, when they are no longer able to turn off for collections. In the past two years, they have seen a growth in accounts receivable. This means that they're going to collect less than what was billed. There’re no unusual expenses for the month and I have told some of the Board members that both I along with some staff had been extremely sick over the last 10 days. We are behind in getting some documents to you. I owe you the financial close for the month and I owe you a budget write-up which I will be doing under separate cover and sending to you next week. CUSTOMER SERVICE – Bianca advised the Board that due to a lot of our staff being out sick, we will begin our North Star customer service training at the end of this month. We have an agenda for that and training dates for the new representative that came in and we will also be retraining a couple of our old personnel. We did begin making our outbound phone calls for the high - low variance reports. We are also updating the accounts to make sure we have good phone numbers and e-mail addresses for the rollout of our app. We are making sure we make all our representatives aware that if a customer cannot come in personally to sign a payment arrangement plan, we will be able to e-mail them it and have them send it back to us. We did have a customer contact us to say that they couldn't come in and you know we have to have that signature in order for us to activate the payment arrangement. This way it can be done electronically. We did speak with PNC Bank in regard to the Zelle payments and they advised that Zelle is for person to person. They recommended ACH. I do have the information you requested for the processing fees. We do take care of the fees, but we wouldn't be able to absorb the other costs that they get from their credit cards but we do take care of the fees that they are charged to make payments via online IVR. WORPS/MAINS & METERS/SEWER - Tom advised the Board that it doesn't appear on your bill list, however, there was a catastrophic break that took place New Year's weekend. With the rising tide of the Passaic River and the cresting of the moon, I know that sounds all very trivial, however, it had a water main break under 3½ feet of water before we even hit firmer ground. It took a little over a day to find the isolation valve and when we were finally able to isolate it over 24 hours passed and our reservoir was falling. It required us to purchase water from our interconnections, so if you look on the chart on the back, that's why you show 8 million gallons purchased from Newark/NJ American. Since then, they've been able to dam it up and we made the repair to the pipeline. In light of that, we'll be instituting and implementing a pressure relief valve system there at the time of the connection which is the highest point of that well line which would bleed any air and pressure variances due to power outages. With power outages, the Director, will speak on the Emergency Generator. Additionally, in the packet, you'll notice a picture and that Madam President is the Dodd Street tower antenna for the collection tower. So, Dodd Street was done. They'll be proceeding with the remaining two in the coming weeks. We still anticipate an April 1st roll out and launch, where we can start pulling weeds for the entire system with four towers active. DIRECTOR’S REPORT - Director Liu advised that Lead Service Line Replacement Project - We have received the final comment from the controller’s office and Boswell anticipates that there will be no more comments. Hopefully, we will be able to go out to bid on the 2nd phase of the project soon. PFAS - We had our monthly meeting with the engineers. So basically, they are making some progress as far as the selection goes. We'll probably be able to let you know what type of treatment system we're going to have next month. After that, we're going to have the engineer come in to do a presentation about how the treatment works. Water and Sewer rate study - The engineer for NW financial was here twice. They requested a lot of information, so we've been providing that information to them. After this Friday, they will have all the information they need. We anticipate they will have the draft probably by the beginning of March. We'll probably have them come to the Commissioners once the draft is presented to us. They will come here to do a presentation and answer questions from the Commissioners. Probably next month or the month after depending on how fast they finish the rate study. Meter Replacement - The first tower is up and we're waiting for two more towers. Once all three towers are in, we can start doing the testing. We’re anticipating that 99% of the meters can be read through the MDM so those things are going to happen soon. We're going to have automatic reading and leak detection. GIS - We are actually doing really good and we are working with the vendor and also the consultants. The GIS is pretty much in shape now. The supervisors in the field will be able to use the tablet and to read maps and know where all that stuff is, all their valves and update the system information. That would go together with the Asset Management System which we're going to implement. The Asset Management System will be another automatic system that will remind you that things need to be taken care of or need to be maintained. WQAA - We are following the WQAA guidelines with all the all the necessary things that need to be done. I&I Study - We are going to get the eye tracker next month. We have already located the eye tracker and we'll be able to purchase it. So, there will be a resolution next month. Once the eye tracker is in, it will allow us to find out why our lower lying area gets flooded every time there's rain. We have Sanitary Sewer it's not connected to the Storm Sewer,  why we get flooded during the rainstorm. So, there must be a discharge into the combined sewer of Newark that caused the backup. We want to verify that and then we're going to have a meeting with the state and with Newark to find out exactly how they want to resolve this because it's not our fault that caused the flooding. Wyoming Reservoir - We replaced a couple of those gates and now we are still anticipating exercising those valves. D3 - We talked to the consulting engineer. They anticipate no more issue with the permit from the state. They recommend we go out to bid. So, we're going to go out to bid next month. That's for D3 which will give us an additional almost 1.5 million gallons of water a day. That would be a great increase in our capacity. Surge Tower Rehab / SCADA System - We are going to put the level indicator in the Surge Tower to monitor the level. That's already in place. We have an engineer. We have the SCADA people looking at it. We anticipate probably next month. We'll get your approval to put the level indicator in the Surge Tower. The SCADA system is a part of the Surge Tower so that is also the same project. Emergency Generator - We got final approval, so we're going to make the generator fully functional with the existing transformer. When the new transformer comes in, then we will hook up to the new transformer. Everything will be automatically as we designed it. The Conversion Project - The Conversion Project is finished. We are doing the final calculations in the order to close out the project. Other than that, we are doing good. VI. COMMUNICATIONS None VII. UNFINISHED BUSINESS Legal Matters to be discussed in Executive Session. VIII. NEW BUSINESS Commissioner Rolling advised the Board that she had a conversation with Chief Jackson regarding a landlord complaining about the hardness of the water causing boiler issues. She asked if there was a way to test the water to see if the calcium levels are increasing. Mr. Liu responded and a discussion was held with regards to same. IX. APPROVAL OF RESOLUTIONS The following resolutions 13A through 13F were presented to the Board for approval. A Motion to omnibus Resolutions 13A through 13F was approved by Commissioner Harrison, seconded by Commissioner Lucas, and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote.  13A: Resolution ratifying the January 2024 recurring and pre-paid monthly bills in the amount of $76,585.41 13B: Resolution authorizing the approval and payment of Operating Bills in the amount of $686,522.69 13C: Resolution ratifying the January 2024 Payrolls in the amount of $401,512.18 13D: Resolution authorizing the payment of Capital Invoices for the Month of January 2024 in the amount of $14,762.25 13E: Resolution authorizing revenue reimbursements in the amount of $128.20 13F: Resolution appointing a Water Department Employee as a Water Meter Repairer 1 X. PUBLIC COMMENT NONE XI. EXECUTIVE SESSION 15A: Resolution for Closed Session Resolution 15A was approved on a motion made by Commissioner Harrison, seconded by Commissioner Lucas and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. ------------------ The Board went into Executive Session to discuss the following at 5:50 pm: 1. Personnel Committee 2. Contracts and Litigation Matters The Board came out of Executive Session at 6:50 p.m. ------------------- There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6:51 pm. THESE MINUTES ARE OF NECESSITY CONDENSED AND ABRIGED AND DO NOT PURPORT TO CONTAIN THE FULL CONTENTS OF THE MATTERS DISCUSSED. SONYA BUTLER TRANSCRIBER