North Pole: Budget Work Session - Utilities, Public Works, Water & Sewer, and Building Department Budget

Good evening and welcome to our budget workshop, City of North Pole. Today is October 29th, and we will be discussing the Public Works and Utilities departments this evening.

Before we get started, I, I just would like to say happy birthday to our city clerk, Mr. Derek Ball. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on your birthday. We appreciate that. Happy 40th.

Thank you,. Sir. Will you please call the roll? Absolutely. Mr. McGee?

Here. Miss Rolfe? Here. Mr. Skips? Here.

Miss Barnett? Mr. Schuster? Here. Mr. Claus? Here.

Larry Terch? Here. You got a quorum. Thank you, sir. All right.

I guess that turns us over to, uh, Mr. Lougee. Good evening. Cool, it's good to see you guys. See one new face here, and glad to see you back. Haven't seen you in a while.

Yeah, so, well, this year's budget is pretty well— it's kind of flat to what it was, um, over the last couple of years. There were some areas where we cut and a few areas where we had to add, like heat and oil. And fuel prices for vehicles. So, but I'm pretty happy with it. I mean, if you guys got any questions or see anything, or we can go line by line too.

So Yep. Cody, about the overhires that you have here, um, seasonal hires, you want to talk to council about about that, about the guys that you have working with you, and then, uh, maybe if you want to touch on some of the projects you're planning here for this 27-year—. Um, yeah, we, we're down to one summer hire because we had some extra money in there and he's willing to stay, so he'll probably leave at the end of November. But, um, next year's projects, since it's going to be the 75th year for North Pole, we're coming up with ideas for that. Maybe some flags down Fifth.

Um, we've got 3 or 4 streetlights we gotta kind of dig up and rock them back into place. They're getting bad. I think one of them has a busted wire in there underground, so we have to dig those up.

Probably just, uh, more of the signs around, uh, North Pole and a couple of the wooden structures we'll have to build.

So it's pretty busy in the summer. So yeah, thank. You, Mr. Mayor. Um, are there any plans— and I have a couple suggestions if you don't about repainting those PVC candy canes that, that, uh, were inspired by Tammy Wilson a few years, many years ago,. Like on Fifth,.

Primarily on Fifth. Yes. Um, haven't really thought about that. I've noticed that they're getting a little faded. What I would suggest, if you have any contacts with the local Boy Scout troops, that would be a great Eagle project, uh, for one of the young men working on their their Eagle Project, something like that, instead of having to pay someone to do it.

You might make that— consider make that offer to one of the local troops. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You bet. Are you talking about the, uh, the little candy canes there on 8th Avenue that are attached to the, to the lights next to the trail? Okay, okay.

It was a program years ago that Tammy Wilson, um, brought to us and offered the businesses a certain fee to help pay for them, um, and put their names on the businesses. I don't know how well that went, um, but the candy canes went up. They were painted, they looked good, and they're still there, so we should refurbish them.

So this year we worked on a lot of trail— trails projects, and, uh, I, I want to thank Cody and the fellas for getting that done there, um, to connect those two 2 trails on Blanket Boulevard. Thank you for all the work that you guys have put into that and, and making that. Um, I have received a lot of positive comments about that and appreciation for that. So. We've got a little fine detailing to do, but we just kind of ran out of, uh, good weather.

Summer. Yeah,. Yeah, summer. And then you guys really stepped up to take care of the utility retention pond over there off of First Avenue this year. Yeah.

Um, that was a big, big piece. So. Thank you for that too. Yeah.

Any other questions, please? Mr. Claus. Thanks, Mayor. So that little building that's, uh, near the water treatment, is that anything going on with that one? That small one-story,.

The old. Water plant? Um, no, not right now. Yeah, just curious. Thank you.

Thanks.

Bringing up that old building, years ago when I was still in office, as we were getting crowded in, in our admin area, it was discussed to turn that into an office building. But bring me up to date if I'm wrong. We just— when we talked about filling in the old hole, but I was under the understanding that we chose not to go into that building because of the asbestos hazards. Is it— is that true? Is that a case, or am I wrong?

Just the, uh, I believe it's just the siding on the outside. It's just the siding. It's on.

The.

Outside, so the inside's safe. Well,. And the inside is, uh, uh, completely gutted. For the most part. It pretty much got it.

And we do have new windows sitting in there that we just didn't have time to install this summer, so that'll probably be possibly next summer. So the building is usable? Yeah, it's going to take some work for sure. That's awesome, because I, I had a conversation with somebody that has some potential great ideas for that building, and hopefully that comes to, uh, comes to pass. Thank you.

Good, uh, Did some roofing work on it this summer too, so make sure there's no more leaks. Awesome, thank you.

Okay, seeing no further questions, thank you Cody, thank you for joining us this evening. I do love all of the flowers and the Christmas decorations each time. Like, the flowers are gorgeous. I don't know how you do it. I do not have a green thumb and I'm Well, we got—.

He's coming back, and that's what he does for a living. Well, he does a great job. So,. And I love the Christmas decor too. We're making new Christmas stuff decorations too.

I'm excited. I can't wait to see it.

I love that when they brought the Grinch out, I was like, oh yes, I got so excited. Got in trouble with the police chief next door. Oh, because we put the Grinch over there And I guess there was some Facebook stuff saying, oh, they're nothing but Grinches and all that. And. Oh,.

But so we went and moved it. Didn't, didn't go over very well.

I'm Paul Trissel. I'm the utility supervisor. I have the water and the sewer here, which are lovely budgets to go over.

On the water side first, um, it's maintaining it pretty much the same. There's a, there's a hydrant that needs to be replaced next summer that we're looking at and trying to make a project if we can, um, and that's over by Three Bears, um, and Church, the Three Bears, uh, gas station. Okay, there used to be a hydrant that's busted back towards the slough, and we're trying to get that moved up closer to the road on, on that. A little too close to the slough, keeps breaking, infiltration of water and stuff like that. Um, No problem.

But there's not a lot of projects that we have going on the, uh, on the water side. Everything is pretty much, uh, waiting until next year for funding. We're trying to replace the old steel water mains on both the west and east side of the city. Those were installed back in 1971, and they have severely outlived their lifespan.

Uh, we have the west side, which is 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, on the other side of the old Rich. That has, uh, been engineered. We have it to 100%. We have approval from DC as far as plan review. We're just, uh, needing $6.5 million for that.

Which we do not have. So hopefully some grants or loans or things like that can be gathered in the future. In the meantime, on this east side, uh, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th to the slough, um, is Phase 2. We have that almost to 95% designed. It's not going to DEC for plan review yet.

That's extra cost that we don't have. But we did have enough money to, uh, try to get the engineering on that down the road further. Um, that's where the water is standing as far as large projects and things like that.

Please, Councilman Claus. Thanks. Good evening,. Everyone. Uh, so little little projects like behind Tanana, for example, that water main that keeps breaking or leaking, whatever it is.

It's a part of the project. Yeah, I presume that's going to start happening around the city sooner or later if some of this stuff doesn't get grant funded or whatever. That's, that's going to be phase 2 of it. It's trying to replace those, get rid of the old inline hydrants that we have, um, valves that don't work anymore because of their age. Things like that.

Um, uh, trying right now after the meeting yesterday with the engineers looking at how to relocate those two hydrants that are in front of the elementary school where they drop off the kids, and they put the hydrants right in the sidewalk, seeing where we can move those to. That's pretty much finishing up that phase too. We had some issues with trying to figure out what to do with the service line that goes around the middle school That's a part of our circulation system, and we've devised a plan for that. The, the borough wasn't financially capable to, to put in monetary funds into that project to give them a new service to the middle school, which is what's necessary because that water main goes underneath their building, which is their service from 8th Avenue. Um, and so we've, we've found ways around that as far as the plans.

And so, uh, it'll give, uh, the middle school also an opportunity in the future when they do have funding to replace that service, um, to be able to do it like a normal service, a supply line and a return back, and not hinder our circulation of the city. Also, is monitoring, uh, things like PFAS, now that new regulations are coming out, that's raising the acceptable level, for example, that— is that going to affect anything this coming year as far as you can tell? No, we'll continue sampling for PFAS in our, in our source water and at our water treatment plant, which we don't have any as of yet. But as watching this plume as it comes close to the city, we want to be prepared for that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I know you're responsible for the water that gets to it, but who's responsible for keeping the snow away from the fire hydrants during the winter? The fire department does that. Now, I say that because last winter it became quite an issue on Facebook, and local neighborhoods, local people that lived near one, their kids were going out and other people were going out and cleaning the cleaning the ice and the snow from around them, which is, which is, you know, is admirable. Most definitely. Liability— there's a liability there if somebody gets hurt while doing that.

So I don't know, I, I missed it yesterday on yesterday's with the fire department, but they,. They have the— a lot larger personnel to be able to do that. That's what they've done in the past. We've tried to help if we can, but when you have back-to-back heavy snowfall, and it's not usually snowfall that does it, it's the snow removal, especially when you have DOT come through whenever they feel comfortable doing it, I guess, on the Old Ridge and plow everything that you've just uncovered, or down, uh, Fifth Avenue here, or I mean, uh, Santa Claus Lane and things like that. But we try to, we try to help them out when we can, but sometimes it takes a little while to get to that.

There's a few of them. Oh, another part of my question is Brook subdivision and sewer lines. Brook sub—. So that has been in— is it not called Brooks? Brookside.

Brookside,. Down off of the end of Blanket and—. Yeah,. Yeah. If you— I, I've been here long enough to know that that was, uh, between Bryce and all the way to Welch was an issue of being, yes, we're going to hook it up, no, we're not going to hook it up, this is why we didn't hook it up, this is why we shut it off.

Is there ever a future that that system, sewer system, will be eventually attached to the Brookside subdivision? It's going to take a decent bit of already constructed houses. The problem with that is you have a a force main that is going from the Black Bear lift station behind Evelyn Drive. That force main goes underneath the slough at the Grange, it goes in front of the Grange Hall, it goes all the way up the dump road and goes to the wastewater plant. That's a force main.

It doesn't drain out on its own. And so for us to put that line back into service, you would already have to have a substantial wastewater flow ready to go. So it's not something that we can put back onto line or allow to be put back onto line, because as soon as it's brought back on, then it's the city's liability to maintain.

So in talks with the developers that were going on down there, uh, with Welch, um, they, they had talked a bunch of times about what was needed in order to get that line back and running. Yeah, the idea was for them to build out along, um, Blanquette Boulevard and then down— I don't even know what that road would be called— it goes to Black Bear Lift Station behind Evelyn. And, uh, they were going to do single-family dwellings along that. The idea was if they can tie in to have water put in there first, that gives them the ability to do smaller lots. They don't have to have separation for a leach field, but the leach field in the front of the property in the front yard and then completely build that out and have it sold and occupied.

That should give enough flow for them then to— in their, in their final dreams was a bunch of, uh, 8-plex, 12-plex in the core of that area. Um, all those houses along those roads would probably be enough flow to keep that open. The problem is, is that ground's going to freeze.

We can dump water down a lift station and keep it open, but as we've noticed last winter, that can take a day, maybe two, um, and freeze solid. And we don't have the manpower to sit and flush, especially over weekends, on something that has no service in it yet. Plus, those lift stations need to be completely rehabilitated, and that was an issue that the contractor had, because it's usually up to the contractor to bring up the facilities. And that's where the city's always done— the contractor puts in the utilities, the city then takes it over after it's, it's completed up to our standards. The trade-off is, is the contractor or the developer has an upfront cost, and then we have 50 years of liability maintenance And that's, that's the trade-off.

Excuse me, they didn't do anything? They didn't do anything. There was some grant funding that was secured, um, only for new development, $2.5 million. But in looking at what the $2.5 million was gonna get, it wouldn't complete anything. And so The last time we did lift station rehabilitations, it was, uh, just over $1 million a lift station, and there's 2 lift stations minimum that they would have to have, probably a third one installed, a brand new one in the middle of their subdivision type of thing.

So if the development ever gets complete, get filled,. It's, it's going to be, it's going to be a touchy one and a difficult one to bring that sewer back online because there's just no need for it. As soon as, as, as Flint Hills put in the new force main from H&H, up H&H and down the dump road like it should have been done in the first place. Um, unless there's a lot of development, it would have to be a very dense development,. Right,.

In order to bring that stuff and make it, make it worthwhile for a developer to put that amount of money in. And that force main that goes all the way up to the, the lagoons, we don't even know what the what state that is in. That's been a long time that's been full of water and frozen over and over and over again. Although it's ductile iron, still doesn't matter.

So it would be a tough one, but it would be doable, but it's going to take a substantial amount of. Money. Yeah. Thank you, Paul. No problem.

Carry on, sir. Any questions about the water?

Not seeing any. Move on to the fun sewer side.

Sewer— the projects that we have going on is, uh, in, uh, 2024, 2025. What year are we in? 2025, Um, engineers that the city had, uh, utilized in order to find a solution to the outfall issue that the city has a notice of violation for— the river went dry and it's moving south. And so our braid of the Tanana, which we dump our effluent from the wastewater treatment plant into, no longer has flow from the Tanana. Not reliably.

Tried different engineering methods to find a new solution to that, going further out into the Tanana, different braids. Problem with that is we still have to get access to it for sampling. You can't take it too far. We don't have much space in the, in the shop for an airboat, although big one. But anyhow, we, we will find it if we had to.

But anyhow, it was getting too far out into Tanana River to find a place to do it. Arguments were made with the state to try to use our braid as a conveyance channel, basically saying that it's still— even when it's dry, our waste stream is still making it to the bigger part of the Tanana River. Uh, they did not like that. This has been going on for 13, 14 years now. And they've had enough.

So in 2000— or 2025, they gave us 5 years to fix it, or this notice of violation is not just a notice of violation that's on a piece of paper, that goes into the fine stage, and that's daily. And we're not shutting the wastewater treatment plant down. It's going to be hard to get everybody to stop flushing the toilet. So right now we have, uh, partnered with RESPEC. Stantec is who we were using before.

We went with RESPEC in a different avenue, found another location in the Tanana that's just south of Petro Star.

There's already a road basically access getting to the Tanana, very nice flow. We started with Stantec just to see if it was a viable option. Would DEC give us the, uh, the time of day and looking at it, at changing where our effluent is? The only other option that we have is a brand new wastewater plant. We would have to meet water quality standards at end of pipe, and then we can dump that onto the ground, we can inject it into the ground, we can put it anywhere because basically it's just clean, clean, clean water.

$40 Million, we'll go with something that's going to cost us about $3.5 million, is what we found. And so the, the course of the last year and a half, they've done flow studies, hydrology studies. We just got done with geotechnical work, borings on trying to use where our force main is going behind the high school out to the Tanana, cut into that, run it on just the inside of the dike, run it down the dike to the new location, and, and have a new outfall.

The design of that is, is ongoing.

Um, EC seems fond of this idea that there's enough flow that we can have a proper mixing zone.

It's just finding $3.5 million for that project now. And so that's hopefully something to find this, this coming year, if not getting, uh, loans onto next year's, uh, ballot.

That's something that, uh, we have 3 and a half years now to get this done, but we're working on that and, and keep trucking down the road. A part of that project is also sludge removal at the wastewater plant, trying to see if we can utilize a grant right now to have that done next year, if not the year after that. But, uh, that is starting to affect the water quality on the effluent. Those numbers are used in order to, uh, size your mixing zone, and so they go hand in hand. But that's, that's a part of the project that we're trying to get done earlier.

It's probably not going to happen this summer. That was the hopes and dreams, but it's looking like it's going to be 2028 for— but it's going to have to be done. So a lot of that's already engineered up, waiting for, uh, put out to bid, bid documents, things like that. It's just funding. That's, that's the holdup right now on a lot of this.

That's the wastewater side. Fun stuff.

So we do have some grant funding that we have out there, um, that we have been working through. Hey, if that comes through, we'll be able to use $1.5 million of that for the $3.5 million. And we have the ability to take out an SRF loan through the state. It's a low-interest loan to take care of that.

We have been for the last 4 years, almost 5 years, super focused on getting our water system up and trying to replace the ductile iron in Phase 1 and 2.

In hopes that, uh, we could fix our sewer system after the water system was fixed. But it's all coming to a head all at the same time. The water is going to be an issue as time goes by, as we found. And everybody has seen the wonderful pipes, chunks of pipe that I gave Bill Butler in his office with holes in it, the steel water mains that we have. It's just going to be an ongoing problem.

Um, this, this outfall sludge removal has, has moved itself to the top of the utility's overall projects that has to be taken care of, um, immediately. We don't have a choice on the timetable on that. Um, Tim Glidden, the previous, uh, Director of City Services, and I sat down with DEC when he first got hired on And, uh, went through with DEC all the options that we could think of to try to extend this, and that is not an option. And this wasn't any low-level people at DEC, so our time has run out on that. And that's, that's where the focus migrated to, was trying to figure out a, a plan for this.

But luckily we found that, that new outfall spot And it's really promising, very excited with DEC giving us the opportunity to, to go down that road because that is a tenth of what the other option was going to be. How long will it take to be completed? Uh, that should actually just take one, uh, construction season, summer. And if we can get— that's, that's why, um, Even getting the loan this year on the docket would have been pushing it pretty hard because usually that's something that you want to put out to bid a year in advance because it takes a month to go out to bid. We got to go through all the bids, score them, get a contractor that we like, get you guys to approve it.

Get the funding in, get them on as the contractor and approved, then they have to start sourcing all the materials, the pipes, the manholes, all that stuff that none of it's just sitting in a yard in the state. So procuring all that material usually takes some time, and it's been in the past, any of these larger projects like that that go out to bid, the earlier you put them out to bid you get a better price. If you're trying to get something done at the end of a year, uh, contractor doesn't even know if they have the contract until early in the beginning of the year. They've already got next year's projects in their pocket for the most part, so they're not worried about it. If you can get them earlier for a project that goes the, the year after that, then you get hungry contractors that might, uh, give you more favorable pricing on things, and more contractors bidding on it too because they looking out that far for— so puts us in a good spot.

We just need to find the funding for this outfall. We can put the— we can put the, the water pipes on, on the on the shelf for a little bit. We already have them plan reviewed with DEC. We're going to have to re-up that next year. That gives us 2 more years with DEC. But the worst case on that, if the water main project doesn't go through, that will have to be re— relooked at by DEC, re-plan reviewed.

And they do that because rules change, regulations change, things like that after, uh, 4 years. But it's already done. Nothing's going to be changed. And if that's the worst thing that we have to do and pay for again, which is just a few thousand dollars, um, not that big. The outfall project is the focus that we're trying to look at, all maintaining everything else.

We've expanded quite a bit here the last—.

Maybe talk about that. How many sewer hookups do we have within the city, and how many water hookups do we have total. In the city? I think on the, on the sewer side is about 550, give or take some. I don't think we've gotten past 600 connections on that yet.

Uh, we have 1,700 on the water side. We had 575 water connections a decade ago, and within 4 years it went to 1,700. Finally gotten to the point where we can see everything has stopped, the dust is settled, and we can look at what the revenue is versus how much it's costing us to run that. But we have, uh, we have almost 100 miles of pipe that we're in charge of maintaining. We have hundreds of pumps, all sorts of controls now and things.

There's 5 of us that run all 4 aspects. We have to be certified in all 4 aspects: water treatment, wastewater treatment, distribution, and collection with the state, and hold those licenses at the level of our system. Uh, we have new guys that are coming up, but it takes 8 years, certifications, city. Um, I've got a couple things I want to talk about, but I'm going to put you in a hot seat in a moment. But I was about to ask you how many people were employed in your department and your history and your longevity that's been here.

And I've known you since since I came on, and your— the knowledge that you have, your own personal certifications and education that you've gone through to be one of the best water and sewer department heads we've ever had, and mainly only had for the last— for many years. Are these other 5 people meeting that same certification and education that you personally have yourself? No, not yet. It takes time. Marty has been with the city for 19, 20 years now.

20 Years this year he's been here. He has the certifications and he's the only other operator of all 4 systems. It's just me and Marty. Randy's real close, another year and he'll have the time needed and he'll have the other 2 certs that he needs to become an operator. The other two gentlemen are new.

We have Laffy Skips and David McBroom. David's been with us for 2 years now, and Laffy is— she's 5, 6 years now. 5 Years. And he's getting there too, but certification exams aren't all that easy, and you have to take multiple ones in order to get to the certification to maintain the classification of the system with the state.

All that knowledge comes with time. There's, there's a lot of things that happen that you don't see but once, twice in, in, in a decade on how to respond to that and what it's going to cause upstream, downstream, and all those different things. Just something that comes with time. Keeping the fellas here is, is one of my biggest priorities. And we've got it set up real good right now for the transitions that will come in a couple years and pass that on.

So you do, then you feel confident that when that transition comes about that will continue running smoothly? Yes. The other thing, the other thing, and this is just, and I know this is, I don't want to say contentious, but it's a subject that's been obviously sore based on videos. City Director, over the years, and now that we haven't— apparently there hasn't been one on a regular basis, and a few ifies that came in— do you personally feel that as far as a supervisory position for Public Works and Sewer and Water, do we need a city director to supervise you? Um, it's It's not necessarily in my mind.

I think the position is needed. Uh, after Danny Wallace, I was trying to get the city to take this back to a city engineer like it was with Jim Remitz. A city engineer is needed. I. Haven't heard that name in years.

It's been a long time. A long time. To be my neighbor. Yep. Um, But, but I, I do believe a city engineer, something along those lines, is most definitely necessary, um, with the building department, um, help look for grants to help with engineering projects and stuff like that with the citywide, not only just for these two departments, but looking at grants, the building department itself and all of the, all the engineering and issues that I need help with.

I think that that is necessary. Trying to get that position back out of doctorates and back into somebody that has more of an engineering background, um, is, is, is a good step in that direction also. But there's, there's enough stuff that goes on here in this room, um, and getting things moving and in the right direction. And being able to have one person that's understanding that, that can be in between three departments and, and you guys is, is not a bad thing. Place where you can get questions asked and answered and stuff like that.

Awesome, thank you. That was a good answer. Appreciate it.

Any other questions for utilities related to the budget? Anytime that you would care to go on a tour to see,. Yeah,. What, what we have, so that it's not, uh, we're trying to describe something to you that's way off in underneath the ground. It would be wonderful to take you around And I'll take anybody that wants to go around on a tour anytime to look at what we got going on.

I'm not a stranger to construction and things like that. Um, my father was an electrician. I worked summers with him, uh, wiring houses and things, and I learned a lot from just that side of it. I don't know the in-depthness that you do by any means, but I'm very much ask questions and I wander around as job site and get into trouble as a teenager, but it gave me knowledge, which is— so yeah,. It makes it a little easier when we're coming talking to you guys about we have a problem over here or this just happened.

Yeah,. To know what we're talking about, that it is a building over here or over there, or why we're seen in Moose Creek driving all over the place. Uh,. Yeah, no, I would love to take you on. It.

Anytime. Evenings, weekends, just, just let me know.

Not for that. It's nothing but fun. But yeah, please let me know.

Okay, thank you, Paul. Appreciate it.

And seeing no more questions, unless council has anything else, move to adjourn. We're not going to go— we're We're not going to go through the other funds. Uh, we'll do that when we get to, um, the actual budget in the first reading. Okay, okay, sounds good. Thank you.