SUMMARY........CC Regular Mtg. Dec 16, 2014

Highlighting only the relevant stuff....

6. Presentation on the in house Street Projects in progress.

Construction on Shafer Rd is at a standstill and being held hostage by Texas Gas.

Meeting between the parties is scheduled for the 1st week in January 2015. Bottom line the road construction schedule is way behind and the clock on the contractor has been stopped or will be stopped because the halt in construction is  is not their fault and beyond their control.

10. Consideration and action on payment of $15,875 to Austin Traffic Signal Construction for the accident that damaged the electrical aluminum pole at North McCullough and Stenger causing damages.

Commission approved the payment for a new upgraded traffic controller. Word from the city attorney is that the insurance company already settled with the person who caused the accident and the city will not get the total amount being expended to replace the traffic controller. The city basically dropped the ball.
 
13) Discussion on the use of the 2007 CO's (certificate of obligations) for the Museum Construction and relocation of the museums and use of the City EDA Grant.

There was a long discussion on this item. Besides the CC members, the architect (don't recall her name) and Rey Avila spoke. According to the city's financial advisor, the 2007 CO's won't be able to be refinanced or floated until the year 2016. Furthermore, the EDA grant specifically for the Museums will EXPIRE in September of 2016 if funds are not used by then and they must be returned. The architect (Meg) suggested to the CC that the best option in her opinion is to proceed with plans to build the museum at the current location with upgrading the Community building and using it as part of the museum for archive storage, etc. There was not CC action, just a discussion, but the consensus was to go in the direction of building the museum at the current location as opposed as to the Resaca area and not risk losing the EDA Grant because the project has to be completed by September 2016.

16) Consideration and action for the acquisition of pumps and related materials related to initial repairs for Water Treatment Plant NO. 1

There is more to what is going on at WTP #1 than what the city is willing to admit. The engineering firm, Lou Portillo & Associates, doing the assessment on WTP#1 gave an update report to the City Commission.

Right now, if the TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) would do a surprise inspection of the WT #1, the city would be fined for not having a backup to the only good pump operating. Of the 5 pumps the WTP #1 operates, only 1 is operating.

Furthermore, of the 7 filters available to operate the WTP1, 3 are inoperable and 4 need rehabilitation/repair. The engineer made a statement that stuck in my head,  "WTP#1 is FLYING LOW and LEAN BUT NOT SAFE ".

Later!

JR