Fort Walton Beach Council agenda — 10-09-2007 regular agenda — reading text

10. Employee Retention and Release Currently, there is a staff of 13 employees in the Sewer Operations Division. If an agreement with the County is reached, there will be no need to retain the majority of these employees. As outlined above, the City may have the need to retain up to 2 of the 13 employees in this division to staff the Pretreatment Coordinator and Laboratory Manager positions. County personnel did indicate to staff in earlier meetings that they already have a surplus of licensed operators and would have no need to retain current City employees. Some of the remaining employees could be absorbed in vacant positions throughout the City, but tl1ere would likely not be enough vacant positions to absorb all employees. Conclusions: Nothing would preclude the City from joining the County at some future date, but abandoning our wastewater treatmentfacility would be a permanent change. Many of the costs related to the County proposal remain uncertain and could be beyond the control of future Councils. The complexities of releasing the Air Force property could leave the City with a myriad of unanticipated costs that could not be resolved within the scope of the County project. Council' s control of wastewater treatment costs would be permanently lost to the County and portions of those future costs could be required to subsidize other areas of the County' s treatment operations. The City expects a draft interlocal agreement from the County by the end of October. In the interim, the City will contact independent engineering firms to determine an estimate of costs to evaluate such a proposal. Staff expects that this will be a comprehensive effort involving multiple disciplines including rate analysis, construction estimation, civil engineering, and financial advising. The estimated time for completion of such a study is 2 to 4 months. This will allow sufficient time to permit WWTP renovation work through the FDEP, should Council elect to proceed with the renovation project. 7 Recommendation: Staff recommends that we continue on our current course to finalize construction drawings to completion. Currently, tl1e design plans for this project are approximately 95% complete; and the FDEP is reviewing the construction permit for the project for sufficiency. Staff intends to update Council in 30 days once the draft interlocal agreement is received from the County. At this time, staff will also bring forth recommendations to Council for approval regarding the preferred course of action to evaluate the County' s offer. Other than staff's recommendation to proceed with completion of the engineering/ design element of the project, no other Council action is necessary for this item at this time. 0- '-/--- 07 Date Reviewed and Concur: L(- D iJ)- lO_ yce- hanahr; ;, City Manager Date Attachments: 1. Residential Wastewater Comparison 8  RESIDENTIAL WASTEWATER RATE COMPARISON UTILITY BASE BASE GALLONAGE RA TE CHARGE PER CHARGE CHARGE 5~000 GALLONS INCLUDES CITY OF 4,000 GAL $ 10.65 $ 1. 31/M $ 11. 96 VALPARAISO ( NTE 11, 000 GAL) CITY OF 3, 000 GAL $ 9. 99 $ 3. 71/ M $ 17.41 MIL TON CITY OF MARY 2, 000 GAL $ 16. 01 2, 001- 6, 000 - $ 2. 07/ M $ 22.22 ESTHER 6,001- 10,000 - $2. 50/M 10,001- 14, 000 - $ 3. 17/M 14, 001- UP - $ 3.43/ M ECUA 2, 000 GAL $ 8. 99 $ 4. 90/ M $ 23. 69 NTE 15, 000 GAL) CITY OF NONE $ 14.20 $ 1. 95/ M $ 23. 95 NICEVILLE ( NTE 16,000 GAL) CITY OF NONE $ 14. 12 $ 2.05/ M $ 24.37 PANAMA CITY ( NTE 10, 000 GAL) BEACH CITY OF NONE $ 19.06 $ 1. 26/M $ 25.36 DESTIN ( DWU) CITY OF FT 2,000 GAL $ 15. 70 $ 3. 661M $ 26. 68 WALTON ( NTE 16, 000 GAL) BEACH CITY OF NONE $ 10.85 $ 3.46/ M$ 28. 15 TALLAHASSEE CITY OF NONE $ 10. 02 $ 3. 69/ M $ 28.47 PANAMA CITY ( NTE 12, 000 GAL) OKALOOSA NONE $ 15. 13 $ 2. 91/ M $ 29.68 COUNTY ( NTE 10,000 GAL) CITY OF 2, 000 GAL $ 16.50 $ 5. 00/M $ 31. 50 CRESTVIEW ( NTE 16, 000 GAL) WAL TON 10, 000 GAL $ 37. 33 10,001- 20, 000 - $ 4. 15/ M $ 37. 33 COUNTY 20,001- UP - $ 5. 25/ M REGIONAL UTIL CITY OF NONE $ 30.00 $ 3. 15/M $ 45.75 CALLAWAY  Page 1 of 1 Joyce Shanahan From: Virgil [ vmiIl63@yahoo. com] Sent: Thursday, September 27, 20077: 12 PM To: Joyce Shanahan; Lisa Absher; Toni L Craig; Helen Spencer Subject: Agenda Item Request: Oct 9 Meeting 1.Request a status report on the discussions with the county re the partnership with the county' s WWTP. Couple this with the status of the recently awarded design study upgrade to the FWB WWTP. 2. Provide justification why the city shouldn' t issue a stop- work order for the design study and proceed with contract termination. The recovered funds could be used to provide for the design aspects and subsequent construction for the integration of the FWB facility with the county WWTP as well as tie in the affluent lines for the golf course. Funds will also be required to decommission the FWB WWTP. 3. I believe this subject needs our immediate attention in order to salvage as many funds from the WWTP upgrade as possible. Virgi Miller Seat 2 Be a better Globetrotter. Get better travel answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out. 10/ 2/ 2007 COUNCIL MEETING 10- 9- 07 Councilman Virgil Miller requested a verbatim transcription of the comments made by the Mayor at the October 10, 2007 after the wastewater treatment discussion and also at the end of the Presidio discussion along with the comments by Councilman Mike Minich and Councilman Mike Holmes. Agenda Item on the City' s WWTP design process and an update on the 15. Consideration of a status report discussions with the Okaloosa County about the possibility of developing a partnership for joint wastewater treatment. ( Council Member Miller) Mayor Anderson - before we get to Mr. Hofstad presentation, Mr. Miller, this is your agenda item. Virgil Miller - Well I'm just concerned that we do the right thing in this regard. The County is building a ten million gallon a day facility out there with a capacity to go to additional 5 million gallons at 15 million gallons a day. That' s enough for everything south of Crestview and I was a little concerned why we would be building a separate 5 million gallon a day facility out here for Fort Walton Beach, and a facility that we average, I think, 2 - 2 Y2 million gallons. $ 14 million is a big bondage to undertake for 21, 000 residents and I just want to make sure that we' re doing the right thing. And that' s the reason I asked for this. I also asked for justification why we shouldn' t issue a stop work order for the design study and proceed with contract termination. But this is the type of thing we need to evaluate and see where we go from here, and that's the reason I submitted this request. Mayor Anderson - okay, Mr. Hofstad, you want to address the item please? John Hofstad, Utilities Director - I don' t want to spend a whole lot of time rehashing what' s in this eight page staff report. And I did speak with each of you individually over the last coupe of days. Staffs recommendation is, we working diligently with Okaloosa County in discussions and are negotiations about a possible Interlocal agreement to utilize their treatment facility, based on a wholesale rate. The County is preparing a draft Interlocal and I should have that in my hand by the end of the week or early next week. Once we get that, what we' re asking for is sufficient time to review that Interlocal, at the same time we can get a handle on what additional debt service cost would be to our residents should we elect to renovate our own facility as we' ve planned and then we can come back to you in approximately 30 days with all of that information, arm you with that information and then press forward with a path, pick a road and stick to it. But what our recommendation is, the design work is nearly complete, the design work is probably somewhere better than 95% complete and from my perspective we' re on the hook to our design consultant for that work because they have done the work and we' re under contract with them for that work. We' ve also made application to DEP for our construction permit. Those fees have been paid, they' re behind us, we don' t want to slow that process down in the event that we come back to you and we see that the County' s proposal is not in our best interest and not in the best interest of our citizens, and then we' ve lost that time once again for the construction element in our wastewater treatment facility. So what we ask is, let' s delay the process for another 30 days, continue with our design project, wrap that up because we' re very close to finishing that and during the interim we will have a proposal from the County. I'm working very closely with my counterpart at the County, Jeff Littrell who is in the audience tonight, the County' s Water and Sewer Director, and I assure you that both of us have our constituency in our best interest and serving our residents and those users of our systems. I fully believe that they will bring back a proposal and negotiate in good faith and try to come up with some deal that' s in the interest of all of our citizens. And in the event we can' t, we still have our wastewater treatment facility; we have design plans in hand. tape change to side 3) COUNCIL MEETING 10- 9- 07 John Hofstad - and I'll be happy to answer any questions. Virgil Miller - I move that we suspend Robert' s Rules in this