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10/17/2016-CC-Minutes-Work Session MINUTES: CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION October 17, 2016 PRESENT: Mayor Thomas Muir, Councilman Lee Allison, Councilman David Clark, Councilman Bill Boutwell, and Councilman Allen Chick, Councilman Gary Bilyeu OTHERS PRESENT: Mike Brice City Manager, Cheryl Price City Secretary, Joe Iliff Planner/Chief Building Official, Meghann Piercy, Joe Falls, Patty Falls, With Alan Plummer Associates - Betty Jordan, Loretta Mokry, Tim Noack, Neil Harris 1. Call Meeting to Order. Mayor Muir called the meeting to order at 6:05 p.m. 2. Overview of Accela Software. Jim Berman, Parks & Recreation Director was recognized to give a summary of the new Accela Software Program. He advised that a few months ago Mike Brice challenged staff to find another door to City Hall. This prompted the idea of exploring a mobile platform. He noted he has had good experience with the Accela mobile platform and moved forward to the development of a mobile application. He presented a power point and live feed showing how the application works. This application will allow access on all IOS and Android devices. It will allow residents to submit requests, photos, access general municipal information, and browse neighborhood information (where they may find that their request has already been sent in). It will also be accessible from the City’s website and explained how easy it is to use. He highlighted some of the features that would be available to use from the application, like the mapping showing the hot spots for requests, and the time it takes to complete them. Staff is going to try to stick to a five-day completion when it is feasible. He noted the mobile app is called Sanger Solutions. City Manager Brice stated that a big advantage and what sold him was that any city staff employee would be able to log into the software and file any work order into the system. The citizens won’t be passed around to different departments. All departments can log the any type of work order into the system. Jim Berman noted how the reports would be watched by supervisors and escalated if not completed within a certain amount of time. He noted the citizen would also be able to check their request and have the opportunity to complete a survey. He advised you will even be able to pay your Utility Bill and Citations with your phone. He noted you can download the app on Google play or Apple. Discussion and questions ensued. Jim Berman wrapped up noting he felt this is one way to address Mike Brice’s desire to open another door to city hall and advised that staff wanted City Council to know about it first before it hits the media. He advised that you will start seeing signs, newspaper articles, and information on Social Media about the new Sanger Solutions App. With the way that people use their phones today, this is a big deal and we are going to make a big deal out of it. 3. Discussion of Options for Discharge of Effluent from the Wastewater Treatment Plant. Betty Jordan, Alan Plummer and Associates was recognized. She provided a summary of how we got to where we are today and gave a presentation on a stream restoration option. She noted the advantages of obtaining a free flowing stream. That this could be an option instead of the discharge to Clear Creek by a pipeline. Tim Noack, Alan Plummer and Associates was recognized to explain the option. He advised that this option would require a stable channel profile that performs to convey the flows of the wastewater plant and transport sediment produced up stream without building it up. He explained the concept of paths around the pond that would convey water and would bypass the pond. He noted there are some uncertainties with this concept. The lake has been there for quite some time and has built up some sediment and the character of that sediment is unknown. They are not sure if there is a stable foundation for the berm to be built on. The natural bottom of the lake is.unknown at this time. There are a couple of ways to move on to the next step of preliminary design. One would be to conduct a geophysical study by laying some geophysical lines which would determine where the bottom of the sediment is vertically and also if there is any limestone present which would really make a great base for the stream. The second thing they would do is a geotechnical investigation where they would go out into the lake and do some borings and pull samples out and take them to the lab and have them analyzed. Joe Falls stood up and said, “OK um you need a third option. Take this three million give or take the total call it three million and put it into the new plant location and just let the stream have its natural flow and close this plant. That’s what must be done in the long term. We are just talking about how much time we can borrow to keep this plant in operation and it takes time to construct the plant. This is going to be an operation to get it constructed. So you’ve got so many factors that you are adding into to keep this stream and to operate this antiquated plant that is in horrendous condition. Save that money that you are going to spend on it to bring it up to standards and save this money. Put it into the new plant. You’ve already decided to move the lift station to the new plant site. That’s 20 percent of your plant cost right there and then the lift station becomes the deep well to supply the plant. Pretty soon you are going to come up with the ability to build the new plant and I will give up the stream. I was told when we initially let the plant be built at that location by the engineering firm (Engineering firm name? Robert? Not able to decipher 53.56) This is not where we need the plant. It must be down on Clear Creek. That City Council recognized that and bought the 100 plus acres down there for that purpose and uh I’d like the water to stay in the creek. I have a permit for that water but I am willing to give that up. I know that conversation about 45 years ago this plant has got to go down to Clear Creek so let’s work as fast as we can to do that.” There was extensive discussion between the Engineers and the Council regarding the stream and what would need to be done if they were to pursue the stream concept. It was noted if the stream blocked up and quit working that it was Mr. Riley’s property and his responsibility; however, Betty Jordan advised that in order to stop the stream flow someone would have to actively construct a dam. It was noted the concept stream would allow a better permit limit than a pipeline would allow. There would be permits and monitoring from various agencies and this concept has been discussed with them. It was noted by the end of the evening on the regular agenda the Council will need to make a decision on whether we pursue the pipeline or the restoration. If it is the restoration, there is some more work that will need to be done to find out if it is feasible. Betty Jordan noted that this is not a rare project and the TCEQ likes to have streams restored she noted that advantages of the pipeline are that they are somewhat shorter construction time, less complicated permitting, and fewer unknowns. Disadvantage is they remove flow from Paddock Lake, and a slightly higher cost. The stream option would retain options for the future and does not require any easements, less land disturbance. The additional cost is $100,000 to find out the unknown. The permitting process for this type of concept is done all of the time depending on what they find, the construction costs 2.4 or 2.5 million. The pipeline construction cost 3.1 million to take it down to Clear Creek. Land easements for the pipeline are estimated at $65,000 but it gets into condemnation it could be significantly higher. For the preliminary and final design cost is about the same. Permitting is about the same, just different agencies. There is a much higher contingency in the stream restoration project. Discussion ensued regarding the options and the technical aspects of restoration of the stream. Joe Falls stood up and commented. “The original stream was in the middle of this dam. The dam blocked the stream, this was a grass spillway that eroded down to bedrock. So, the lake when it was constructed held more water however much dirt eroded down to that limestone and that lake is s extremely shallow and is a problem for anybody. If you just did away with the lake and took the dam away and maybe you could let the stream go back to its original before this lake was built. For your information, the Jones family owned that property many, many years ago and some mapping person put Paddock’s name on it and the Paddocks only leased the piece of property. I resent you know that because the Jones is an old-time family of Sanger and a historic family. But if we chose to uh dredge that lake like they did Bachman Lake, White Rock Lake and you could restore that to where it was and have a greater depth. Maybe that would meet the criteria, I don’t know”. Mayor Muir, “You can’t stop the flow is the problem, right?” Engineer Loretta Mokry, Engineer, “Yes, even if it is water in the lake, once that water flowing down Ranger Creek hits that body of water that slows it down and that’s what allows the solids to settle out and that resolve oxygen drops because of the oxygen demand right there in the lake.” Joe Fall, “That’s never been a problem we’ve not had fish killed in that lake the years I have been here and I have known before.” Engineer Loretta Mokry, “We saw dead fish when we were out there with Mr. Riley during the summer. Right now, it’s so shallow it’s not just a matter of temperature, it’s a matter of oxygen demand for what’s coming down the stream. It was noted that Mike Riley is in favor of doing the stream restoration and has walked the property with the engineers. The Council had a lot of questions and the question they are posed with tonight at the Council Meeting is that it would require the additional valuation of $100,000 for the Geophysical and Geotechnical studies to be conducted to see if this stream restoration project concept is feasible. 4. Overview of Items on Regular Agenda. There was no discussion of other items on the regular agenda. 5. Adjourn. There being no further discussion Mayor Muir adjourned the work session at 7:28 p.m.