MINUTES OF MEETING

CORAL SPRINGS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT

The regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the Coral Springs Improvement District was held Monday, May 21, 2001 at 4:05 P.M. in the District Office, 10300 N. W. 11 Manor, Coral Springs, Florida.

Present and constituting a quorum were:

Robert Fennell President

Clint Churchill Secretary

Karl Miller Vice President

Also present were:

Gary L. Moyer Manager

Rhonda K. Archer Finance Director

Dennis Lyles Attorney

Donna Holiday Recording Secretary

John McKune Gee & Jenson

Roger Moore Engineer

FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS Roll Call

Mr. Fennell called the meeting to order at 4:05 p.m. and Mr. Moyer called the roll.

SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval of the Minutes of the April 23, 2001 Meeting

Mr. Fennell stated that each Board member had received a copy of the minutes of the April 23, 2001 meeting and requested any additions, corrections or deletions.

There not being any,

On MOTION by Mr. Miller seconded by Mr. Churchill with all in favor the minutes of the April 23, 2001 meeting were approved as submitted.

THIRD ORDER OF BUSINESS Consideration of Award of Contracts

A. Triploid Grass Carp

Mr. Moyer stated the bid tabulation in included in your agenda package. As you are aware, this program is an environmentally friendly way to try to control the noxious aquatic weeds that grow in these canals that has proven to be somewhat effective. From time to time we need to restock and we go out to bid. J. M. Malone & Son are the providers that have been the low bidder for the last several years and have performed well.

On MOTION by Mr. Miller seconded by Mr. Churchill with all in favor the contract for the purchase of Triploid Grass Carp was awarded to J. M. Malone & Sons in the amount of $10,561.60

B. Underwater Diving Bids for Culvert Cleaning

Mr. Moyer stated we included in your agenda package, the bid tab from May 2000 to give you a comparison. As you can see the low bidder last year was Anchor Marine Environmental Services for $9,700 for basically the same work that is covered under this specification. This year we received only one bid and that was from Industrial Divers in the amount of $26,900. I recommend that we defer this until we can get clarification on why there is such a substantial difference in price. Granted, Anchor Marine did not bid but Industrial Divers bid $12,900 last year. It is over twice what they bid last year. It may have something to do with the drought and the very low water conditions within our canals, but I want to confirm that. If there is not a good explanation of why the bid went up by a factor of two, I am asking the Board to authorize staff to notify the bidder that we are rejecting the bid and we will put it back out to bid.

On MOTION by Mr. Miller seconded by Mr. Churchill with all in favor this item was deferred and staff was authorized to find out why the bid was so high and if there is not a good explanation to notify the bidder that we are rejecting the bids and put it back out to bid.

FOURTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Consideration of Work Authorization No. 18 for the Design of Four and Bidding of Three Water Supply Wells

Mr. McKune stated at the present time C.S.I.D. has seven water supply wells and are in the process of re-applying for the renewal of the Consumptive Use Permit from South Florida Water Management District which is done every five years. As part of this renewal, we would like to include four additional wells that we have been talking about for over a year, the additional wells being required because of the hazardous chemical spill that occurred at the dry cleaner some time ago. We have, with Mr. Moore's assistance, met with the City of Coral Springs repeatedly, the Parks Department, the City Manager, and the City Engineer regarding the placement of the wells. All four wells will be adjacent to this property across the canal in Cypress Park. We want to drill three of the four wells. The City has approved four well locations. We would like to hold one location in reserve. We want to do the complete design for all four to make sure everything is accounted for and just bid the construction of three. We can use additional wells now because we are stressed with the wells that we have. We still don't have the full and final approval from the City but I think we are at a point where we are assured enough to go ahead.

Mr. Moore stated we have verbal approval from staff. Probably before we go to construction we will need final approval from the City Commission. The easement description has been submitted to the City for their review and written approval and the process is to get a written agreement such as the one we have on the existing well located in the park.

Mr. McKune stated this work authorization will formalize the approval of the final design and authorize us to go to bid for three of the wells. Some of the moneys required for some of these items in the scope of service will not be new money. These work items have been accomplished during our preliminary design made necessary by the City's requirements.

Mr. Fennell asked how much money are you asking for today?

Mr. McKune responded there are several numbers in the work authorization which add up to approximately $33,000, some on a lump sum basis, the majority of it on an hourly basis and that is why I said these are not all new dollars. Some of this has already been paid to us. This represents approximately 7% to 8% of the construction cost which is in line.

Mr. Fennell asked how stressed are the wells?

Mr. McKune responded the wells are between 80' and 120' deep. In the vicinity of the wells, the water table is depressed. We have had the water levels measured within the last month at each of the wells and they are down probably 20' more than is normal which is not an emergency but is an indication that this general area ground water table is not being replenished. South Florida Water Management District prefers that we have enough wells so that we can put them on a rotation basis and divide the total group of 10 or 11 into two groups that we will run one week at a time.

Mr. Churchill asked how much of this work has been paid?

Mr. McKune responded probably half of the total.

Mr. Miller asked how many wells do comparable size utilities have?

Mr. McKune responded it is tough to give an equivalent number because it depends on how much water you get out of each well. We have about the average number.

Mr. Moyer stated North Springs has ten wells.

Mr. Fennell asked how many does the City of Coral Springs have?

Mr. McKune responded they have more wells than we do. They have a lot of smaller, more shallow wells and a lot of them do not produce very well and a lot of them have been abandoned.

Mr. Moyer stated we have been very fortunate with our wells. They have not shown the same deterioration characteristics as the City's wells.

On MOTION by Mr. Churchill seconded by Mr. Miller with all in favor Work Authorization No. 18 was approved.

FIFTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Consideration of Proposed General Fund Budget

Mr. Moyer stated we are starting the budget process. We are not asking the Board to adopt this budget today, that will probably be 60 days or so from now when we will schedule a public hearing for the adoption. I think it is important that the Board understand that we are still working on this budget because there is a proposed 22% increase in the assessment if you were to adopt this budget as presented. Part of the big factor is to continue funding the renewal and replacement fund.

Ms. Archer stated the big ticket item in this proposed budget is a proposal to fund renewal and replacement at $111,838 which is supported by a schedule further back in the budget booklet which identifies the pump stations, the pumps, when they were last replaced, how many years they have remaining and the replacement cost. There are still some numbers we are trying to tie together. There is a discrepancy on the cost of replacing the roofs at the pump stations, as to that number being $6,000 or $20,000. If we can confirm that number, we will be able to reduce that amount. We are still tweaking the numbers. This is the worst case scenario with the assessments going up to $77.51 per unit. We will come back with a proposed revised budget as soon as we firm up some numbers. When we adopt our budget in July and put it on the TRIM notice, that will be the final number. Our goal is to try to get our assessments to a level where it funds our reserves every year and funds our annual operations without going up and down. With the replacement of most of these engines, we are able to identify what we will need to fund every year in reserves to keep them replaced.

Mr. Fennell stated I like this very much. I like the idea of taking it case by case and you have a model on how to fund the renewal and replacement.

Ms. Archer stated another item we have continued to budget and contract for on a piece-meal basis is the bank maintenance program. At this time I do not have anything in the budget to do this unusual maintenance that is not a part of the annual operations. This schedule starts the process of identifying all of the different components.

Mr. Fennell asked are we better off funding the reserves or borrowing the money when the need arises?

Mr. Churchill responded I like reserves. You know what you have and you know the rate of interest you are earning. You don't know what you will pay if you borrow.

Ms. Archer stated I think it is a good idea to have reserves and I think you can be criticized for not having reserves.

Mr. Fennell asked is it handled differently anywhere else?

Mr. Lyles responded no. You do have one twist in your special act to follow-up on Mr. Churchill's comment and that is you have a cap on the interest rate that you could pay of 10% if you did a short term note. You could find yourselves in the position of needing money because you elected to borrow when the emergency arose but rates have suddenly jumped up and you have a cap in your act that will not allow you to borrow money if you have to pay over 10%.

Mr. Fennell stated a month or so ago you mentioned that we were re-applying to the South Florida Water Management District for something. We talked about the ability to pump water back into the system. How did that go? Will that cost us anything?

Mr. Moyer responded Broward County is sponsoring a program to try to interconnect the various drainage basins within the County, which in theory is a good idea. The reality is that all of these drainage basins basically outfall into a major water management feature of the South Florida Water Management District which in our case is the C-14 Canal. If there is to be any movement of water north or south in the County, it has to integrate those outfall canals of the South Florida Water Management District and they would have to permit us drawing water out of the C-14 Canal and backflowing it into C.S.I.D. That is something the County is studying. We have not pursued that.

Mr. Fennell stated I can see us not only as a service to ourselves but to the County in doing that. People are talking about storing water underground but it would be very simple to store water in the canals.

Mr. Moyer stated the problem is that the time to hold that water is during the rainy season and that is the time you don't want water in the canals because of flood protection. The horns of the dilemma are, you are protecting the wet months against flood and in the dry months you wish you had all of that water that you could inventory back into the canals. The idea of the aquifer storage issue that died in the Legislature this year was to take the storm water and instead of pumping it into the ocean where it is lost forever, pump it into the aquifer, and put a pipe in that so that you could recapture it. There are environmental concerns that killed that bill. That is not something the State or the Water Management Districts are going to pursue at least for the next twelve months.

On MOTION by Mr. Miller seconded by Mr. Churchill with all in favor the general fund budget was approved for the purpose of setting the public hearing.

SIXTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Staff Reports

A. Attorney

Mr. Lyles stated I know you received a copy of the final act that was passed by the House and Senate in Tallahassee concerning the District with a cover letter from Rhonda Archer which explains what happened. It did pass as we expected it to at our last meeting. They did continue with the limitation on the extension of the terms of the present members. Right now you are scheduled to have an election in November in which your terms expire which is 2003. November 2002 there will be an election to seat two new members and unless something changes, the following November, there will be an election to seat three members because your terms will be expiring. There was discussion about that problem at the end of the session. There were potential constitutional issues that the Legislative Delegation staff and attorney raised with me regarding creating terms of office that exceeded four years. My position is that the terms do not exceed four years, we are merely trying to schedule the election to create a transition that makes sense so you would have a two year overlap on a two and three Board member basis and have elections in even numbered years along with the general election in Broward County. At the last part of the session if that had been pulled back for an attempted amendment in the House, I was told that it probably would cause the bill to fail because there was not enough time to get it in front of the Senate. It didn't seem to be consistent with the direction the Board had given to staff or the discussions the President had with Representative Ritter. We have a non-written non-binding commitment to work on this change next year during the session to straighten out the time of the elections and hopefully, extend the terms on a one time basis through November 2004 so the District will not incur any additional costs to call special elections as it will have to do if it has an election in 2003.

Mr. Fennell asked did the Governor sign it?

Mr. Lyles responded not yet. I had a call today from the Governor's Office once again requesting phone numbers and addresses for the Board members. I don't know what that was for but I assume it is to send a thank you letter for your cooperation or information you shared with the staff. The Governor's Office spent a great deal of time researching this bill, interviewing Board members and staff.

Mr. Fennell stated as I read this over, I found inconsistencies such as the mention of landowners. I think we need to read this thoroughly.

Mr. Lyles stated we prepared a codification of our bill to comply with the State Statute and did not put new, substantive matters into it. It was to incorporate the one amendment that we had to our bill. When they started making amendments to our bill that we submitted, they plugged in the part about the elections and they forgot to take out the part about landowners voting. This gives us a basis for saying to them next year, you have to open it up anyway because you are allowing landowners and electors to vote in the same election and that is inconsistent and has to be changed. That gives us an entree to get the other problem fixed as well. The bill you authorized to be submitted, is not contradictory. The bill that you saw previously is not inconsistent. People from outside the District and outside this body attempted to inject some other amendments in our bill and made it contradictory and that was not anything that we could do anything about. We will politely but firmly ask that that get squared away next year and at the same time fulfill, what I will term a commitment, to straighten out the terms of the existing Board members.

Ms. Archer stated this bill requires you to meet monthly, whether you have anything on the agenda or not.

Mr. Fennell asked can we tour the water plant next month?

Mr. Moyer responded we can do that.

Mr. Fennell stated the engineer can bring along the five and ten year plans so that we can envision what is going on.

B. Engineer

1. Monthly Water and Sewer Charts

2. Update on Construction

Mr. McKune stated we have included in your agenda package the water and sewer charts that reflect the lack of rainfall.

C. Superintendent - Waterway Clean-up Correspondence

Mr. Moyer stated we received a very nice letter from Roy Gold, the Coral Springs Coordinator for the Broward Waterway Clean-up which is included in your agenda package.

D. Complaints

There not being any, the next item followed.

SEVENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Supervisor's Requests and Audience Comments

Mr. Miller stated I saw the email address on the bill. Thanks for putting that on.

Ms. Archer responded we have started work on a web page and we will have something for you to look at next month.

Mr. Miller stated we talked about putting something on the water bill if they exceed the normal usage.

Ms. Archer responded Mr. Daly has talked to the programmer and is working on getting that done.

EIGHTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval of Invoices

On MOTION by Mr. Miller seconded by Mr. Churchill with all in favor the invoices were approved.

On MOTION by Mr. Miller seconded by Mr. Churchill with all in favor the meeting adjourned at 4:50 p.m.

Clint Churchill Robert Fennell

Secretary President