Town Hall
MINUTES
Approved
·
CALL TO ORDER: Mayor Leggett:
·
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Mayor Leggett asked if the Council to
consider the second draft of the
Mayor Leggett
asked the Council to consider the second draft of the minutes of the
·
REPORTS:
Treasury Report,
Mr. Goebel
Mr. Goebel reviewed the attached Bank Summery Report, the Bills-T0-Be Paid List, Additional Bills to Be Paid List.
· BANK SUMMARY REPORT: Mr. Goebel reviewed the attached bank summary report. The total consolidated assets of the Town’s accounts were $ 566,621.04.
· WATER USAGE: Mr. Goebel reported that the gallons pumped were 1,024,300, the backwash was 49,900 gallons, billable gallons were 974,400 gallons, and the gallons billed were 872,200 gallons. He also noted that the water revenue was $3,453.01 and the past due amount was $5,021.50 and the total assets of Washington Water Works for December were $5,862.84.
· BILLS TO BE PAID: Mr. Goebel asked the Council to review the list of bills to be paid and the additional bills paid list.
Ms. Mitchell asked if the Xerox bill was for the new copier and Ms. Dodd explained that it was not as she had had to obtain some networking information about the computer before the new computer could be installed and she now had that and it would be arriving soon. Mayor asked if there were any other questions or comments regarding the Treasurer’s report and there being none asked for a motion. Ms. Mitchell made a motion to accept the Treasurer’s Report and Mr. Benson seconded and the motion passed 5-0 and the Treasurer’s Report was accepted.
PLANNING COMMISSION: Chairman Gary Schwartz reported that the Planning Commission had met in January with no actionable agenda items. He said that they would be meeting on Monday, Feb.14 at a joint meeting with the Town Council to start with the official review with consultant Milt Herd of the Comprehensive Plan. He said that the joint meetings would be held the second Monday of every month for the next three months and they would continue to hold their regularly scheduled meetings the fourth Monday of every month. He reported that they had received Brandon Fowler’s resignation from the Planning Commission (attached) and asked for suggestions for nominations to fill the vacancy and that it would be posted in the newspaper.
Ms. Mitzie Young said that Ms. Sara Fowler had indicated that she would accept the position.
Mr. Schwartz commented that Milt Herd would be in town the next day doing some background work.
Ms. Mitchell asked if there was a specific reason why the Planning Commission meetings and joint meetings with the Council had to be separate for three months and asked if instead of making all the extra meetings if the joint meetings could be held on the regularly scheduled Planning meeting date on the fourth Monday of the month. She discussed that there soon would be extra meetings with Cheryl Shepherd as well and it would be good if some of the meetings could be doubled up particularly if there was nothing crucial on the Planning Commission’s regular agenda.
Mr. Schwartz said that it was fine by him. He discussed that one of the reasons to reserve the regularly scheduled meeting date would be for any follow up work that might be needed to be done without Mr. Herd and also to consider any applications to the Planning Commission. He said that he did not see that as a problem now.
Mayor Leggett said he felt Ms. Mitchell’s suggestion was a good idea and that they should hold the next joint meeting on Feb. 14th as planned but for the next month plan on having a joint meeting on the regularly scheduled Planning Commission meeting on the fourth Monday.
It was discussed that if any extra work came before the Planning Commission it could be considered at the meeting after the joint meeting adjourned.
Mr. Schwartz commented that the whole Planning Commission was present and that it did not seem to be a problem to have the joint meetings on the regularly scheduled Planning Commission meeting date and that he would check with Mr. Herd to make sure he was available. He said he would schedule the next joint meeting for the fourth Monday in March on the 28th.
· ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD: Mayor Leggett reported that the ARB would be meeting the next night.
· TOWN ATTORNEY: Mr. John Bennett was not present and there was no report,
· OLD BUSINESS: a). WASTEWATER UPDATE: Mayor Leggett said that the main new event was the surveying that was being done by WW & Associates, who were planning on meeting on Feb. 23rd for the public to get full information on the collection portion of the project and they would be particularly concerned with individual homeowners being aware that there would have to be an agreement for the location of each grinder pump and access to the sewer system while they were laying out the design. He said that WW & Associates would be contacting and approaching all citizens in the town. He said that they were not planning any other Town business that required any required any action and they were not planning on voting on any items.
b). RESERVOIR UPDATE: Mayor Leggett reported that the Town had been unhappy with the response to the bids for the new reservoir and that there had been only one bid which had not been responsive to the specifications and seemed to expensive. He said that the Council had decided to rebid and they had engaged Don Hearl of ESS to handle the rebidding. He said that Mr. Hearl had done a superb job of dealing with the Wastewater bids and was underway in getting the reservoir bids in.
Mayor Leggett said that the first step was to prepare the request for bids and that engineering expertise was needed by people who did reservoir type work and that Don Hearl had suggested that the Town engage WW & Associates, who had done a lot of work on reservoirs, to draw up the specs so that usable responses could be received. He said that Mr. Hearl was working on getting commitments from companies who would bid and that there would be a compulsory bidders conference once the request for bids had gone out.
Mayor Leggett said that the Council would be considering a proposal from WW & Associates (attached) and asked the Council to consider making a motion to pass a resolution which Mr. Bennett had drafted which would authorize the Mayor to accept the proposal from WW & Associates for water tank storage engineering assistance subject to the Mayor first obtaining an estimate and a not to exceed figure conforming with the budget of the project. He said that if the motion passed then he could go to WW & Associates and get an estimate of what they would cost and put a ceiling on it.
There was a discussion by Council of the motion and proposal and what was a reasonable not to exceed figure.
Mr. Lynch arrived and joined the Council.
Ms. Mitchell expressed her concerns that the resolution was confusing about what the Council was agreeing to. She discussed that Mr. White of WW & Associates would be doing a major reconstruction of the design of the reservoir which needed to be done but the Council needed the break down of the costs for the tasks listed in the proposal and a final cost figure of the project.
Mayor Leggett said that the resolution probably wasn’t needed and agreed to go back to WW & Associates and get the figures needed to complete the proposal and present it to the Council at the Feb. 14th meeting
c). PERSONNEL: CONTRACTING OUT THE MAINTENANCE POSITION UPDATE: Ms. Goodine reported that she had investigated the water system component of the maintenance position and after having spoken with Don Hearl of ESS and Troy Jenkins she had drafted some guidelines (attached). She said it came down to two things-1) pump house activity, the things that needed to be done at the pump house, and 2) things that needed to be done around town. She said that both of them had said that they would be willing to work with whoever was hired to introduce them to the specifics of the town’s water system and that they had indicated that the duties listed in the guidelines would be duties that should be expected for someone maintaining the water system.
Mayor Leggett commented that it seemed that some additional specs were needed of what that person would be responsible for.
Ms. Goodine said that this was just the sort of things they should be able to do but not the specifics things they would have to do and if they did not know how to adjust and lubricate components of the water filtration system then there wasn’t any point in their applying.
Ms. Mitchell commented that this was not what had been talked about and that it had been discussed that the Town was going to contract out because the two things that person was required to do was so different and that no employee in recent years had done any of the things listed in the guidelines except read the meters. She said that most of the things listed required a professional such as in fixing the leaks. She said that she thought that the concept was that the Town was going to have a contract.
Ms. Goodine said she was not saying whether it should be a contract or not but that after talking to Mr. Hearl and Mr. Jenkins they had said that this was what should be done.
Mr. Goebel said that they had talked about that a lot of what needed to be done at the pump house was Mr. Jenkins job and that there was overlapping duties and there were other people who could do some of them such as Mr. Critzer or Rappawan but what they were concerned about was the upkeep of the town and grounds keeping.
Ms. Goodine commented that she was not addressing the grounds as she thought that was self apparent and they knew what was needed there but what she was trying to do was talk to people about the water system and only deal with that and not what the ad would look like. She said that Mr. Hearl and Mr. Jenkins said that the things on the list were not their responsibility.
Ms. Mitchell commented that the water filtration had not been done since Mr. Norman had left five years ago.
Ms. Goodine said yes and that Mr. Jenkins was upset about it.
Ms. Mitchell said that this looked like something that a professional person or company would do and that eventually the Town would have to have a professional person on staff because of the sewage system and the water but at this point in time ninety percent of what the person did was raking, weed- eating, and mowing.
Ms. Goodine said that Mr. Jenkins had said that things had not been done and that the system was suffering because of that and that she did not know if the Town wanted to do it professionally but there were duties that were being neglected.
Ms. Mitchell said that she thought a weed- eating guy was not the guy who would repair the Town water system and these were two different things. She said that since Ms. Goodine had taken the time to identify these things the Town now was looking at two different people or sources to do those things because most of the hours had been taken up by grounds keeping. She said that maybe the Town needed to be taking care of these things on a professional level since they needed it and that maybe both positions needed to contracted out.
Mr. Benson expressed his concerns that Mr. Jenkins could be taking care of some of the maintenance at the pump house.
Ms. Mitchell said that the last Town employee, Mr. Norman, used to do it.
Mayor Leggett said that it was not Mr. Jenkins job to do the maintenance but his job was to do the water testing and the backwash and he was assigned his duties by the Water and Sewer Authority,
There was a discussion of Mr. Jenkins duties and salary and Mayor Leggett said he would get a breakdown of his duties from the Water and Sewer Authority,
Ms. Mitchell asked if Mr. Jenkins duties could be negotiated to cover some of the duties on the guideline list.
· NEW BUSINESS There was no new business.
· PUBLIC FORUM: Mayor Leggett opened the Public Forum.
Ms. Wendy Weinberg thanked the Council for their serious consideration of difficult matters before them but expressed her concerns over two matters. 1) how the town looked and asked that until a maintenance person was hired if the Town would contract out with someone like the Amissville Nursery to maintain the town flower barrels so that they looked bright and cheerful and 2) could the Town get some professional help in getting the Town web site up and working. She commented that the town did attract tourists and that it didn’t look good and appealing and that these jobs needed to be done and that in the next two weeks they should be set in motion.
Ms. Goodine asked Mr. Schwartz to comment on what the Business Council had been doing as that might address some of Ms. Weinberg’s concerns.
Ms. Mitchell discussed that the Town’s web site was a government site and was responsible for having things like the minutes there but the Business Council could be linked to it.
Mr. Schwartz discussed that he felt that the Business Council was stagnant and that there had been no activity to rejuvenate it. He said that there were three couples including himself and his wife connected with the B&B’s and tourism related businesses that had gotten together independently and they were trying to see what could be done to promote tourism. He said that there was no web site development related to that.
Ms. Goodine said she was not addressing the web site issue but that she had thought his group was working on helping the town put on a good face.
Ms. Mitchell discussed that the Business Council had collected money from the town businesses and still nothing had been done and that she felt that rather then Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz’s and other couples acting independently they should reactivate the Business Council.
Mr. Schwartz commented that he was not representing the Business Council.
Ms. Mitchell asked if there was a Business Council.
Mr. Schwartz said that there had not been any Business Council activity since he had been in town.
Ms. Mitchell asked Ms. Dodd where the money had gone when she had collected it for the Business Council, and if the Business Council had a bank account.
Ms. Dodd said what money she had collected she had given to Ms. Kuhn of the Business Council and she did not know if they had a bank account but they did have a post office box.
Mr. Schwartz discussed that Ms. Kuhn had said to him that the final copy of the brochure was at the printers and that it had been held up because the businesses in town had changed and the brochure had had to be changed. He said he had asked specifically about the bank account and the funds collected were in it and that the brochure was to be funded by these funds and a subsidy from the Town. He said that on behalf of an ad hoc committee for promoting tourism which right then consisted of the Ballards, the McPhearson, and he and his wife, they were trying to build with tourism related business something that might turn into something like the Business Council.
Ms. Mitchell discussed that the Business Council had not been just tourism based businesses but had included businesses like the bank, attorneys, and real estate offices and that some events had required a lot of man power and the Business Council had been the way those things not related to government got done in town including the Christmas festivals. She said that the Business Council had worked with the citizens and government to get things done but it was not necessarily tourism.
Mr. Schwartz discussed that he had a desire to do something about promoting tourism and the hospitality dependent businesses and was not prepared to rejuvenate the Business Council but would be willing to work with them.
Ms. Mitchell asked about what was going to be done about the money that had been collected for something that did not exist.
Ms. Dodd said she thought that the money had gone for the brochure.
Ms. Mitchell said that it had been $2000 to start with and asked how much had been collected.
Ms. Dodd commented that she did not know how much money had been collected as she had only collected part of the money but she had handed it over to Ms. Kuhn promptly what she had collected.
Mr. Goebel discussed that it was time to finalize the brochure and get it printed,
Ms. Mitchell said she would take responsibility for contacting the Amissville Nursery about going forward with getting the flower barrels filled.
Mr. Bill Tiecklemann asked about the status of the application to discharge to Sperryville.
Mayor Leggett said that
was no application to discharge to Sperryville only
to discharge to the
Mr. Tiecklemann discussed if the plan went all the way to the point of what happened to the sewage solids.
Mayor Leggett said that they had applied for a system that included a wastewater treatment plant as well as a distribution system and that the sludge would be hauled away.
Mr. Tiecklemann asked if the plant would cost as much as four million dollars.
Mayor Leggett said that it could go that high including land acquisition.
Mr. Tiecklemann asked if the plan was to include all the houses in town on the sewage system from the beginning or were they going to do it in stages.
Mayor Leggett said that the collection system had to go through all the streets and that was what was being looked at now but it had not been determined the full definition of who got sewage. He said that the trouble of a staged plan was that it cost more and took longer.
Ms. Mitchell commented that the people on the system had to divide up the expense so if there were ten people on it then ten people would have to pay for it.
Mayor Leggett commented that the Town had to get the Comprehensive Plan started and that would give the guidelines of what the Town wanted and what the utilization would be.
Mr. Tiecklemann asked about funding.
Mayor Leggett said that they were investigating getting the funding and that he was confident they could get the financing and could service the debt.
Mr. Tiecklemann asked about development of town lots if there was a sewage system.
Mayor Leggett said that would be a function of the Town’s Comprehensive Plan and it would deal with what level of growth there would be and the capacity.
Mr. Tiecklemann asked about the Historic District Ordinance update and the survey being done in town.
Ms. Mitchell commented that the original proposal by Ms. Cheryl Shepherd was available to be looked at. She said that Ms. Shepherd had been hired by the Town to update the inventory that had been done in 1989, to come up with a design book, and to work with VML, the Town Council, the Planning Commission, and Hank Day to update the Historic District Ordinance. She said that what they were doing now was taking pictures around town and updating the design book which would have a picture and updated materials on every property.
Ms. Goodine reported that Ms. Shepherd had said that she hoped to have a preliminary report by the end of Feb.
Mr. Smoot expressed his
concerns that the wastewater would be going through the ground from the Clopton
property to the
Mr. Goebel explained that the water would be going through a pipe to the river not directly through the ground.
Mayor Leggett closed the Public Forum.
· CLOSED MEETING: Mr. Gobel made a motion to go into Closed Session pursuant to the provisions of Section 2-2-3.711A3 of the Code of Virginia for discussion or consideration of the acquisition or disposition of real property for public purpose where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the Town Council and Ms. Goodine seconded. A roll call vote was taken and the motion passed 6-0.
·
OPEN MEETING: Following the closed
meeting, the Council reconvened at
Only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meetings requirements under the Code of Virginia and,
Only, such public business matters as identified in the motion by which the motion by which the closed meeting was convened were heard, discussed, or considered by the Town Council. A roll call vote was taken and all members voted yes.
ADJOURNMENT: There being
no other business to discuss Mr. Benson made a motion to adjourn, Ms. Mitchell
seconded it and the motion passed 6-0 and the meeting adjourned at
NEXT REGULARLY SCHEDULED
MEETING OF THE COUNCIL:
JOINT
MEETING OF THE TOWN COUNCIL AND THE PLANNING COMMISSION ON FEB. 14, 2005
AT
PUBLIC
MEETING OF THE
Respectfully submitted,
Eugene S. Leggett
Bank Summary Report
List of Bills-To-Be-Paid
Additional Bills Paid
WW & Associates Water Tank Engineering Assistance Fee Proposal
Draft of Guidelines for the Water System Component of the Maintenance Position