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 May 21, 2024 MINUTES Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Board of Water Commissioners held at 99 South Grove Street, East Orange, New Jersey on Tuesday, May 21, 2024. I. CALL TO ORDER - 5:05 p.m. ROLL CALL PRESENT: Commissioners Alison Rolling - approx. 5:09 pm Shantel Harrison Lauren Shears Sherkera Lucas Emmanuel O. Awe 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 Harrison determined that there was a quorum and convened the Regular Meeting. Denis Murphy read the Sunshine Law for the record. Denis Murphy read the Rate Statement. II. STATUS OF RESOLUTIONS The Mayor has returned Resolutions #48 through #57. All resolutions are in full force and effect. III. ADOPTION/CORRECTION OF MINUTES 7A: The Minutes of the April 16, 2024, Regular Board Meeting were approved on a motion made by Commissioner Lucas seconded by Commissioner Shears and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. IV. PRESENTATION PFAS Engineering & Construction Management Presentation – H2M architects + engineers Patrick K. Cole, PE, Vice President | NJ Water William F. Delnero, PE, Senior Associate, Department Manager | Water Resources Karen E. Benson, PG, Practice Leader | Hydrogeologist V. STAFF REPORTS FINANCE – Joe advised the Board that we had a good collection month, we collected $146,00 dollars reducing April's collection. We had a year-to-date collection rate of 95%. The collection rate for the month was 105.2%. Whenever you have an amount over 100%, you reduce your receivables. The good part about this month is that we reduced our receivables by $100,800 but we reduced our longest aging receivables by $160,000. Therefore, the quality of our receivables has been improved and we're continuing to use all the collection tools in our toolbox as we move forward. We had our budget hearings on April 18th, and I believe that they went very well for the Commission. There was a lot of interest in what we're doing in terms of activities from capital to training. A lot of positive comments about the operation of the system. Our budget should be sent to the state this month. It still has not been adopted. So, we continue to have our monthly temporary budget resolution. CUSTOMER SERVICE – Bianca advised the Board that they are going to draw down from the East Newark account that they have leaving a balance for any incidentals since they will still be doing the billing and collection for the next 12 months. They are working on a cost proposal which will include our services and manpower at a fee. We are progressing with our asset management system to integrate Northstar in terms of work orders with number. That will decrease the time it takes customer service to close out the work orders and it'll be a fully automated process. We are also discussing options with our current service provider to offer services such as auto pay, e-bill, text and e-mail alerts. Also, where we'll be able to catch our checks that go with wrong account numbers and things of that sort. That will decrease the issues we have for exceptions on a daily basis. We spoke with a different company in regard to that as well, but this is something that will really ramp us up for customer service and decrease the number of calls that we get from customers. They also have the option to do alerts for the high- low bills as well. We'll be able to send out alerts for that via text and by e-mail. Our meter replacement project is underway with the assistance of our customer service and mains. We've started in the First Ward, we're proactively reaching out to homes that have already been inspected, cleaned and operated so we're not doing double the work wasting our time, manpower and the customer’s time. We did have a good collection month and we are doing turn off for cycle 1 and 3 tomorrow. WORPS/MAINS & METERS/SEWER - Tom advised the Board that they have a new relationship with the courts, and they anticipate the procedure to take place that Property Maintenance will be out there with us the moment that we execute a turn off. Property Maintenance will then execute their fees and levy their fines based on the units or the EDU for that building. Before the courts collect their fines, they will be encouraged to take care of their water first before they're addressed with those funds. We're going to try this new approach and see if that helps with some of our larger accounts. It was discussed that a lot of these times the fees and the fines go to the City for us to turn off the water. That will reverse it and address the overdue charge to us first. We'll see if that works. Hopefully, it does. If that's the case, then we'll have a lot more support from the City on a lot of our larger turnoffs. Our 3 towers structurally are in place. Due to some procurement issues, we're still trying to lock down an electrician to take care of all that. We anticipate that clearing up relatively soon and have those in place for a trial run to ensure that the readings are good. Then we'll take a look at a pilot for the 360 program, for a customer portal and our administrative portal as well, to limit what they have access to and what we can see as a whole. Internal work is still being done with meter replacement. In conjunction with that, we're also doing the spring flushing. Turn offs and the construction of dig out, blowouts and excavations for curb valve access for all the turnoffs. The mains department has been busy and also preparing for our phase 2 lead service line replacement. The sewer division is still doing the in-house repairs. Up at the plant, we're still undergoing the well rehab work out in the field. An additional reservoir inspection took place today. Outside of that, just working on the internal maintenance of mechanics for each of the well houses as we progress into phase two of our well rehab. DIRECTOR’S REPORT - Director Liu advised the Board of the following: Lead Service Line Replacement Project - We have to replace the Lead Service Lines within 10 years. Phase 2, we're going to have a meeting with the consultants next week. The controller’s review is almost complete. We anticipate going out to bid sometime next month to take advantage of the next fiscal year. Next fiscal year, we anticipate getting 80% of the principal forgiveness up to $16 million. Phase 2 we anticipate we’ll get $16 million in principal forgiveness. We’re also looking to put out Phase 3A and B as soon as we can. That would also probably meet this fiscal year’s principal forgiveness portions. So that is good news. We did reduce a lot of our own finance through the I-Bank. If we can submit the second phase, Phase 3A and B, then we can get another up to 80% of the principal forgiveness. We're going to have a meeting with I-Bank to confirm that next week. PFAS - As far as the emerging contaminant, PFAS, we're going to have a presentation from H2M. They finished their initial investigation based on the water quality and the price selection. You will hear all the details about how we're going to approach this PFAS treatment. Water and Sewer rate study - At next month’s meeting, we're going to have them come in to do a presentation. I'm going to have all the information to you before the meeting so you will have the information regarding the new rates. Meter Replacement - Is ongoing, Bianca is working with the Meter Division we are actively involved with replacement for small meters and large meters we let the contractor do the replacement. We anticipate that within 2 years we will have all the meter replaced. GIS - Is ongoing, the engineer will complete the GIS for the plant. We already have the GIS for the city and we're going to have GIS for the water plant. That will give us all the permanent information of all the stuff that we've been changing recorded on GIS. WQAA - Bianca is working on that asset management part of the WQAA. We have already started putting together all the information in asset management. The beauty of it is, everything will be in a digital copy. There will be no more paper, and everything will be digitized. I&I Study - We ordered the eye tracker. We already have the purchase order. So sometime next month, we're going to have the eye tracker here. We need it because of all the flooding in the city. Especially during the heavy rain, since we are a separate system. We have our sanitary sewer and storm. It's separate, so any rainwater shouldn't affect our sanitary sewer, but it does because we discharge our sanitary sewer into a combined sewer that is carried by Newark. That's why we want to be able to use the eye tracker to determine exactly what's going on in our sewer system. Wyoming Reservoir/Well Rehab - We did another robot inspection today. Because the generator is now online, we are anticipating the new transformer is going to be here in the third or fourth quarter of this year. Once the new transformer goes in, then the generator will be fully operational. It still needs one more construction revolution to change out the transformer. So right now, it's in full automation. So, with that we are more confident that we can shut half the reservoir down during the work. D3 - D3 is out to bid and D4 we are working on the design. Surge Tower Rehab / SCADA System - H2M is working on the Surge Tower. We identify the issues and then we are going to do the level indicator and H2 I'm going to do the design for the site improvement. Then we have 3 surge relief valves that are going to be replaced. That will resolve all the surge issues. SCADA system is ongoing. VI. COMMUNICATIONS Email from 451 So. Harrison regarding water bill. VII. UNFINISHED BUSINESS Legal Matters to be discussed in Executive Session. VIII. NEW BUSINESS Email regarding 451 So. Harrison St - Resolved IX. APPROVAL OF RESOLUTIONS The following resolutions 13A through 13J were presented to the Board for approval. A Motion to omnibus Resolutions 13A through 13I was approved by Commissioner Lucas, seconded by Commissioner Shears, and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. 13A: Resolution ratifying the May 2024 recurring monthly bills in the amount of $83,356.74 13B: Resolution authorizing the approval and payment of Operating Bills in the amount of $391,865.49 13C: Resolution ratifying the April 2024 Payrolls in the amount of $378,514.59 13D: Resolution authorizing the payment of Capital Invoices in the amount of $12,228.00 13E: Resolution authorizing the June 2024 Temporary Budget in the amount of $2,119,933.42 13F: Resolution authorizing reimbursements in the total amount of $3,094.23 13G: Resolution awarding and authorizing the execution of a professional service agreement with H2M Architects & Engineers for the Surge Tower Management Project at a cost not to exceed $41,500.00 13H: Resolution authorizing a contract award to a state approved vendor, Access NJ to provide janitorial services in an amount not to exceed $15,000.00 13I: Resolution authorizing the award of a contract for the replacement of Dickinson Well 3 Project to Salvatore Demaio Electrical Company, Inc., in an amount not to exceed $1,480,000.00 13J: Resolution authorizing a Personnel Action HELD 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 approximately 7:20 pm: 1. Personnel Committee 2. Contracts and Litigation Matters The Board came out of Executive Session at approximately 9:00 pm. ------------------- XII. REINTRODUCTION OF RESOLUTIONS A Motion to introduce Resolutions 13K and 13L was approved by Commissioner Harrison, seconded by Commissioner Lucas, and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. A Motion to adopt Resolutions 13J through 13L was approved by Commissioner Harrison, seconded by Commissioner Lucas, and carried unanimously on the call for the Board to vote. 13J: Resolution authorizing a Personnel Action 13K: Resolution authorizing the execution of a Professional Service Agreement for legal services for PFAS Litigation services with Keefe Law Firm, LLC 13L: Resolution authorizing the settlement of Cullen v. Board of Water Commissioners, Docket No. ESX-L-5830-20 There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 9:02 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