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| The following summary minutes have not been approved by Simpsonville City Council. An official copy of the minutes will be available after adopted by City Council at City Hall 118 NE Main St. Simpsonville. Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, notice of this meeting date, time, place and Agenda was posted on the bulletin board at City Hall and faxed to the newspapers, radio stations, television stations and any concerned citizens. |
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SIMPSONVILLE CITY COUNCIL MINUTES WORKSHOP SESSION May 22, 2007 6:30 P.M.
CALL TO ORDER: Mayor: I’ll call City Council to order. Ms. Bodkins would you call the Roll for us please.
ROLL CALL: Ms. Bodkins: Yes sir: Councilmember Bridges: Here Councilmember Garrett: Here Councilmember Lawrence: Here Councilmember Gecy: Absent – arrived at 6:34 p.m. Councilmember Zitricki: Here Councilmember Larson: Here Mayor Waldrop: Present
Mayor: I’m sure councilmember Gecy will be here shortly. We’ll just try to dispense with all the start up stuff before he gets here and we’ll move forward. Thank you.
INVOCATION: Mayor: All right is there anyone here who would like to ask blessings upon this meeting in your own personal way. All right, councilmember Larson would you ask blessings on this meeting in your own personal way please.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Mayor: Would you join us now in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag please. Thank you. All right, and let the record show that Councilmember Gecy has joined us.
CITIZEN COMMENTS Mayor: Next item on the Agenda is citizen comments. Did we have anyone sign up.
Ms. Bodkins: No sir.
Mayor: So know one signed up and know one on the Agenda.
COUNCIL COMMENTS Mayor: All right, next is council comments. Who wants to go first. Ms. Lawrence
Ms. Lawrence: Yes, I just want – and this is for the benefit of the people that read the minutes on line. If anybody – I’ve had some people tell me they’re interested in starting an Old Towne Neighborhood Association which would encompass the Mill Village and over towards Cryovac. If anybody reads the minutes and is interested would they please phone me at my home – it’s under G. Lawrence on Beattie Street in the phone book. Thank you.
Mayor: Thank you. Anyone else. Mr. Lawrence – uh Larson.
Mr. Larson: I was going to ask Mr. Hawes if – we had a conversation the other day about some complaints about construction noise down at Heritage Pointe. I’m not sure where we stand on that.
Mr. Hawes: We have heard no more complaints. We did address that with the contractors who were working out there. Our Code Enforcement Officer. What the issue was was the construction crews working basically into the evening after dark with some lighting out there and using heavy equipment and basically creating a nuisance for neighbors who are having to deal with the noise created and this was with the construction of homes in the Heritage Pointe neighborhood. We addressed that as soon as we heard about that and we haven’t heard anything since.
Mr. Larson: Okay, thanks.
Mayor: Mr. Zitricki
Mr. Zitricki: Thank you. Just a statement for the record. I talked to Mr. Hawes today about the paving going on – there’s a couple of roads in Powderhorn – one is started and one is completed. Manassas Drive has some complaints from some residents about the shoddiness of the work. It didn’t look good at all, but I understand it’s only the base coat, they dug out the road and they deep filled it and they’re going to come back with an inch and a half of top coat, which hopefully will dress it up quite nice.
Mr. Hawes: We don’t want anybody to think that that full depth patching is the completed job. That is the first step in the resurfacing of the roads. And it may look like it’s complete for a while but they’re going to come back and put a layer of fresh asphalt on top and it will be very nice.
Mr. Zitricki: Good thank you.
Mayor: Okay – anyone else – Mr. Garrett
Mr. Garrett: Yeah, I’d just like to comment Mr. Hawes and compliment him on Heritage Park . I went down there this morning at 7:30 and of course everybody with the City that’s had anything to do with it – new paving super job – and I think something the City should be proud of and anyone coming in this weekend it’s really going to look good for us.
Mr. Hawes: I appreciate it and I know all the employees who have put in numerous numerous hours of toil and effort they really appreciate it as well and thank you.
Mayor: And I might add to that we need to try to do something special for all the employees that were involved shortly after this Freedom Weekend Aloft gets done. Ms. Lawrence.
Ms. Lawrence: There’s a stake cook-out in the works that I was going to tell you all about later. I was going to let it get over.
Mayor: Well thank you for letting us in on it.
Ms. Lawrence: Well I was going to let it get over before I said.
Mr. Hawes: We definitely will thank them one way or another.
Mayor: All right anyone else. Mr. Gecy
Mr. Gecy: Okay – just short conversation – I know we’re going to talk about the Hunters Woods Sewer so I’ll check that off and we’ll talk about that in relation with Frazier’s Report. But I wanted to ask about the paving contract and I was surprised how this got by. I talked with Mr. Carter today. One of the roads that’s scheduled to be paved in Hudder’s Creek Way and it said expressly on it it says from Spring Meadow to Picton which is a very short distance and the worst part of Hudder’s Creek Way goes across Picton and down to the stop sign. It doesn’t go all the way down to the end of Hudder’s Creek Way – it goes to the Stop sign and for some reason you can tell – where you can tell where the road was paved with the proper compaction at one time and then a new road must have been a connection was paved a little better. But it’s all I don’t know what’s the word wrinkly and alligatory. I asked Mr. Carter about it today and he thought that was something they could look at to work into because when these residents called me and kind of looked at their road – they thought they were getting something paved finally and now the determination was that’s not part of what the original thing was. This is a short distance – a few hundred yards. I don’t think it’s even 100 yards. But can we get our people to look at that and determine if this is something while we’re there if we can cross over Picton and pick up the other side of Hudder’s Creek Way .
Mr. Hawes: I think your question was answered by Mr. Carter that he would take a look at that. If there is something that is obvious that it might be able to be taken care of in the over-all project we certainly want to be able to do what is right.
Mr. Gecy: Okay, well I just wanted to get that backing because a lot of decisions aren’t made by him expressly about that. I wanted to bring it open so that we could discuss
Mr. Hawes: I would absolutely discuss with him and see what his opinion is on it and how exactly the prioritization had a delineated area as you said, it was a shorter area, and there may be some areas that go beyond that. We’ll look into that.
Mr. Gecy: Okay, because that’s not a whole different area of the City where we’d be going to – it’s right there where we possibly could do it. It’s under the assumption – part of the people that came last week or a couple of weeks ago when we brought it up live right on that street and we all were happy that that was on the list and that we were finally getting it done. So a lot of people would be happy on that end.
But continuing with the paving – I’ve had a group of citizens from the Jones Avenue area – some people live right on Jones Avenue and some live in Southern Oaks and they signed a petition of how they want Jones Avenue paved. Now, they understand it’s a state road, and you know I feel it’s a City issue even though it’s a state road I’d like to see us pave it and one of the residents actually had some contact with some of the contractors over there and asked a question about what a ball park figure would be to pave that road. And the ball park figure was $20,000. I don’t know whether that’s all of what needs to be done from here to there but that was just a figure one of the residents brought to me. And with that in mind, I talked to David Thomas yesterday and I’m going to pass this on to him because it’s obvious the council doesn’t want to pave a state road. I’d like to see them pave some state roads but that’s kind of what I asked the council to do but this is the choice that the majority of council would have to decide on. But anyway, nonetheless, these are citizens of Simpsonville that have a road that they live on. They don’t live in the state, first they live in the City, then they live in the state is the way I look at it and tax payers money spent to paving is one of the things I think our property tax should go to, at least the match money we get from the state. So the idea is we’re going to try to pass this on to the state, if the council’s not going to pass money or provide money to pave that. We need to lobby – all of us need to lobby for state roads in the City, but I wanted to bring that to your attention because these are several citizens that went door to door to get this petition signed and they describe how the history of the road and how long it’s been since it’s been paved. One of the problems is the sewer lids are so high. A lot of the paving has sunk over the years and some of the sewer lids are sitting – the opposite affect of when we pave a road – we have to raise the sewer lid – the collars. And like I said the other issue is Hunter’s Woods sewer, so I’ll pass that. Thank you.
Mayor: Okay – anyone else. Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: I just wanted to add to what you and Mr. Brown said – Mr. Garrett said –
Mayor: Thank you for doing that.
Mr. Larson: Yeah – I was out at the park earlier today and there’s so much excitement out there – everyone – the Police Officers, Public Works, Parks and Recreation – you could just feel the excitement in everybody that’s out there. I think it’s going to be an outstanding – and the whole City has done a great job to get this up and running from what since November. So I’d like to say thanks to you and the City.
Mayor: All right. Anyone else. Well the only thing I’d like to say is Freedom Weekend Aloft is coming this weekend but let’s not forget what the weekend is about. It’s Memorial Day Weekend and as always we will have a Memorial Day recognition down at Veteran’s Corner. That will be at 2:00 p.m. on Monday. So I hope all of you will be there and I hope we can show the deceased veteran’s how much we appreciate them. So – Mr. Gecy
Mr. Gecy: Mr. Hawes I asked that a discussion about storm water and creek bed issues be put on the Agenda – am I missing it.
Mr. Hawes: No, but I discussed with the Mayor prior to your arrival here today that that should be amended at this point if council would like to. It was my mistake it didn’t get placed on there and I recognized that and discussed that with the Mayor that it be added if it’s the will of council.
Mr. Gecy: Well I’d like to make a motion that we amend the Agenda to add that item.
Mayor: Certainly
Ms. Lawrence: I’ll second it.
Mayor: All right – all in favor Aye (AYE) opposed No. Aye’s have it. Good – just put it under Council Comments and make it 6a. All right – go ahead.
Mr. Gecy: Oh, okay – well I’ll bring it up right now then. Several issues around the City and one in particular on Hillpine. I got a call about a creek bed over in that area. Trees falling in the creek area – large trees, hardwood trees, nice beautiful trees that are being eroded in some of the creek beds. Is there any – how do we deal with that – how can we deal with that and how is the County dealing with it when they came out with a new – they came out with some kind of idea about stream abatement something. What was that about and what money was that and can we use some of that money.
Mr. Hawes: We had an exploratory meeting – I had an exploratory meeting with the Director of the Assistant County Manager actually and the County Manager to discuss the new program that the county was instituting to address erosion and streambed repair and things along those lines throughout the county to see if the City could participate one way or another. That was a productive meeting but has occurred since then – the County has been involved in buying property in low lying areas and basically allocated all of the funds to I think it’s the Del Norte neighborhood east of Greenville, and buying up those properties. That takes the bulk if not all of the funds from that particular program at this time as I understand it. You may have read about that in the paper – some of purchases that they’ve made of these properties to basically – they’re buying up flood plane land. And we still want an open dialogue with them should any money become available for work inside cities but they’ve been focused on that particular situation which is directly in the county and not inside a municipality. We do want to have continued conversations with them however about that particular program. But that particular program is not the be all and end all of funding for these types of issues. As I remember previously the City had worked with the U.S. Army Corp of engineers on some possible funding and some improvements of streambeds in the city limits. I could actually ask the Mayor because I think he’s a little more familiar with it than I am.
Mayor: Well it was actually the Department of Agriculture, the Natural Conservation – it’s a name about that long but they have an office in County Square and they came out and looked at the situation and actually surveyed the creeks. We entered into an agreement with Greenville County that we would survey – do a complete plat of the water basin in the Simpsonville area to include outside the city limits, because after all a lot of the streams come in the city from the county. Develop a plan for that, went searching for federal funds – they actually were able to provide us with two demonstration projects – one over off of Bonwood from Bonwood down the creek on N. Almond and then also down on Hillpine on the northern side of the bridge up. That program died on the vine and we were never able to get any more funding for that. I just recently had a conversation with Dave Knapp who has been our storm water guru down through the years. He took a personal interest in it and was very well educated on it and stayed in touch with the conservation and natural resources department that’s what it was. And he told me that the last time he talked with those folks there still wasn’t money – it always comes back to money. There still wasn’t money available for any more of those demonstration projects but I asked him to please connect with those people again and try to come up with some sort of routine that we can go through to make some improvements on those creeks. So that’s all I know about it.
Mr. Gecy: Okay – well just one more – just to understand it – we have storm – like on Willowbranch there’s a pipe – a storm water pipe that comes under through the right of way – under houses and dumps into these creeks to help the flow. With the increase in development in the community – this water – the contention by these homeowners is that the water is of course coming at a faster rate. That’s the problem. It’s the same water that’s coming anyway but it’s coming at a faster rate when things are paved. And this is the case in Hillpine as well where there’s a storm drain that dumps into this creek. So in a way aren’t we using the creeks as somewhat an avenue for storm water to move on down. I mean over the years we used the basin as kind of like an open storm water. If we’d tied our storm water lines into these creeks by doing that should we participate in upkeep of those creeks. It’s a tough question I know.
Mayor: It’s an easy question for Mr. Holmes. Mr. Holmes would you care to comment on that.
Mr. Holmes: Well as you know my position is that those are privately owned pieces of property and we’ve traditionally not done work – council hasn’t funded doing in work in those areas.
Mr. Gecy: Even when we’re dumping storm water from a public right of way into that very creek. I’m just – I’m not mincing words I’m just trying to identify what I saw and knowing that we have a storm water opening going into the creek that’s accepting a large volume of water with a large volume of rain and it’s eroding the walls of some of the creeks when it turns rapidly. And over the years there have been a few neighbors that have had rip-rap put in to prevent that from happening. And one in particular, I forget what street it was on but it was in Poinsettia but the neighbor had – the neighbor that moved in the house next door was getting ready to have it done but he died before they had it done so it never was done and they’re suffering the effects of it. It’s something that has worked and this might come back to the storm water committee’s pledge of if you pay for the material or the cost we would do the labor to do these kinds of things. I’d like to see us resurrect at least that. Because I think there are some property owners that would do that and that program I don’t think has gone away. It’s still out there we just haven’t exercised it.
Mayor: Well I have a personal interest in this because that very creek of which you speak goes across my back yard and I have lost a great portion of my back yard but I recognize where the responsibility lies. Did you have a comment on that Ms. Lawrence.
Ms. Lawrence: Well I was just going to say that I had a homeowner in Westwood mention the creek that runs under the Alder Bridge , I’m not sure what the name is
Mr. Hawes: Rocky Creek
Ms. Lawrence: Okay – Rocky Creek – he said so much of the sides had caved in And so much silt had come down from up above and I was thinking Corp of Army Engineers to dredge the thing but you know I don’t know. He said it’s filled in so much it’s taken a lot of his trees out.
Mayor: All right, well I expect to hear back from Mr. Knapp – I expect to see him tomorrow and I expect to hear back from him. I hope he’s contacted boy I wish I could remember the name of that agency – Soil and Water Conservation and Natural Resources Agency – a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. How’s that. Okay.
Mr. Gecy: You know but some of these – Mr. Mayor if I may
Mayor: You may
Mr. Gecy: Some of these communities that are in mountainous areas may have – we need to look around because some of these North Carolina communities, West Virginia and Virginia communities that have mountainous streams they may have licked this problem some way or had some doing. I’d like to see us look and see how they did it up there or over there – Asheville – the mountains of North Carolina or Virginia or West Virginia and investigate with all the access to the internet and look at some of these municipalities. If you ever go to a regional municipal meeting ask about that. Especially through the County. Some of the counties may have participated, because that’s a horrible problem in Western North Carolina .
Mr. Hawes: I know that some cities charge a storm water fee. That is then placed back into that type of thing. But we don’t have that.
Mayor: I think the Tennessee Valley Authority has some of those programs – they have so much of those problems in Tennessee
Mr. Gecy: That’s interesting.
Mayor: All right, anyone else. Is that okay.
Mr. Gecy: Okay.
Mayor: All right.
OLD BUSINESS • Report from Frazier Engineering on Hunters Woods Sewer Line Mayor: Next item on the Agenda is Old Business and we have Aaron Frazier here from Frazier Engineering who’s going to give us a report on the Hunters Woods sewer line. Mr. Frazier.
Mr. Frazier: Okay – I am Aaron Frazier with Frazier Engineering. And we have been working with the City for over a year now. We did the initial flow monitoring study last year and we are currently doing manhole inspections and smoke testing within the City. So if you see smoke blowing in the streets and out of vent pipes that’s our crews. We’re getting close to wrapping that up. We were asked back in February to put a meter in – two meters in up on Hunters Woods lines which was in a different location than we previously did. So we did that and just a comment, our task – what we were asked to do was put in a flow meter at these sites and that was our task. So we didn’t survey the sewers, we didn’t t.v. the sewers to see the condition – we didn’t do an engineering analysis of the area. We put a flow meter in to see what the flow rates were. And we did that in February for just two weeks. We put it in then we were asked to take it out after the two weeks which we did. The line in particular on Hunters Woods up by Fairview was the one I summarized and I guess this made your Agenda packet. So I just wanted to summarize that meter. That is an 8 inch sewer and we metered it again, for only two weeks. It didn’t rain during the metering period so this is just dry weather flow data. The average dry weather flow at our meter was about 76,000 gallons per day and we did have a peak flow during the day of about 250,000 gallons and the Arbors pumps into this line and that peak was generated from some of their flow when the pumps kicked on combined with the other flow in the basin. The depth, and I kind of focused on the depth in this discussion because that’s an easy thing to get our hands around as far as the capacity of the sewer. The average depth in that 8 inch pipe was about 3.2 inches. And during the day it would peak out at 5 inches. Okay. So that’s about 60% peak when those pumps kicked on. Average daily depth was about 40% of the pipe diameter. And I did a graph of just the depth of flow and yours is probably black and white but the blue line is the depth of flow that occurred during the meter period and the average is about 3 3.2 and you can see peaks during the day – that’s just normal variation plus we have the pump station kicking on from the Arbors. It’s an 8 inch sewer okay. So you’re flowing on average about 40% of the pipe. Meters are electronic devices so we put them in and they record depth and velocity and then that calculates the flow. So we don’t just put in the meters for two weeks and come back two weeks later. We come back – and in this particular case we were there three times and when we come back we check whether the meter is running properly or not with the right readings. So I worked those down just to kind of show you when we manually measured the depth to compare with the meter our manual measurements were 3.5 to 3.75 to 4.0 inches and those were taken during the middle parts of the day. Pumps were probably on so just to kind of show you that we generally read when the crew was there 3.5 to 4 inches when they happened to be on site to check the meter and that’s about what the meter read most of the time. If you look during the night time it drops down to almost 2 inches. During the day there’s some peaks over 4. The peak of 5 was just one particular point in the day. So basically that was our task to see what the flows were in there. There’s been a lot of discussion – we haven’t been involved in – there was some theoretical calculations that I understand were done for what the flow might have been in this pipe. We weren’t involved in those. We understand there were some issues with that line related to some back ups related to some construction debris issues I believe. Again, we weren’t involved in those studies. But our data, at this particular site, says it’s about flowing 3 to 3.2 inches average and it’s an 8 inch pipe. So you know the decisions – I understand there’s been discussions about pumping flow elsewhere and relaying new trunk sewers and that was part of why we put the meter in. Our meter data shows at that particular site there’s a good bit of capacity left in that sewer at that site. I can’t say what happens up stream or down stream or whether the pipe has a big sag in it because we haven’t t.v.’d it or surveyed it. I will mention that the crews when they were out there they look in the manholes to see what it looks like and they didn’t see any evidence of things hanging from the steps where things had backed up. I asked Public Works if they’d had any history besides the back up – you know if they had stoppages or on-going concerns out there and I think they routinely visit the line because of the back up but hadn’t seen a whole great deal of issues out there. Looking at the flow – just so you know – around the area when we look at this we do all the metering for Western Carolina – we have about 100 flow meters that we maintain for Western Carolina Regional Sewer Authority. We’ve metered for Mauldin – we’ve metered for Fountain Inn, City of Greenville , Berea . We’ve worked with Metropolitan Sewer Subdistrict in this area as well as we do a lot of metering in NC and other parts of SC. All of our clients handle data differently. Meaning 40% depth a lot of clients it doesn’t raise any flags – some clients it might raise a flag that we need to keep a watch on that – some clients may move further to look – let’s investigate it a lot further. Surveying and t.v. the pipe and things. It depends on growth in the area, history of issues, maintenance issues – things like that. But this data in particular didn’t throw up any flags to me when I looked at an average of about 3 inches deep on an 8 inch pipe. A comment, and I put it in the notes here – this manhole as well as many of your manholes as we’re inspecting those – the pipe comes in as an 8 inch and it goes through a channel in the manhole. This particular site and I would say many of your sites that channel is about half of the pipe diameter so a pipe comes into a manhole which is an opening and there’s a channel going through it and that channel’s about 4” deep – so if you would go look in many of your manholes – down in the middle of it is an example – you’ll see a flow depth down there and it’s not – that’s not the full pipe diameter – that will be probably half of the pipe diameter. So in this particular site if you all will go out and look at it or the crews would go out and look at it – looking down in the middle you’d probably most times would see that channel almost full but that’s just half of the pipe diameter. It’s not the whole 8 inches. It’s about a 4 inch channel. So it’s a little deceiving some times but our sensors up in the pipe not in the middle of the manhole. I feel real good about the data. The data looked real good. Again, it was only in two weeks. The crew – every time they went there the meter was reading accurately. The crew that did your work the crew leader has been doing flow metering for 6 years. And the data looked excellent. We were really happy with the sight and the results of it.
Mayor: Okay, well thank you. I’m sure we have questions. Does anyone have a question. We’ll start with Mr. Gecy.
Mr. Gecy: The level of the slope in that line was that measured at all.
Mr. Frazier: We didn’t survey the lines. We just put a flow meter in.
Mr. Gecy: Well how does that have an affect on it if you take a meter of the level of the capacity of the height of the water flowing through that line. Does it flow differently when there’s a different slope. Would you get a different reading.
Mr. Frazier: The readings based on the slope effects the velocity and the level so in this particular site although we didn’t survey the sewer to see exactly what the level is this sewer probably is a little bit flatter than normal what you would expect on an 8 inch sewer. I don’t know if it’s ever been surveyed. The reason I say that is the rates of flow that we measured at 40% often on an 8 inch pipe at that depth of flow you’d have more volume of water in there. So what happens is if it’s a flatter slope you have deeper – a deeper level of flow and a slower velocity. So your total flow volume is the same – if it were steeper the flow volume is the same you just have a lower level and higher velocity because to calculate flow you use level times area of water which is – or velocity times area of water – so the steeper the slope the lower the level the higher the velocity – the flatter the slope the higher the level the lower the velocity – but you have the sign result as the total amount of flow.
Mr. Gecy: When you checked this line it didn’t rain for the two weeks.
Mr. Frazier: That’s right.
Mr. Gecy: And we’ve heard that there was no infiltration in this line but we wouldn’t know that unless we tested it during the rain obviously.
Mr. Frazier: That’s right.
Mr. Gecy: If we had a 2 inch rain how much more would you anticipate the average line rainwater would infiltrate.
Mr. Frazier: It obviously depends on the sewer, the age of the sewer, the condition. When we metered this a year or so ago we had very small rains and we didn’t see any measurable impact at the bottom of this line before it ties into Western Carolina ’s trunk sewer. Up in the system if there was a bigger leak right around our meter it would show up – it would show up as being an issue. As far as a 2 inch rain depending on the condition of the sewer – which we didn’t evaluate, nor t.v. nor what not – you know good sewers won’t peak any more than this one does during an average daily flow of 3.3 times the daily flow. Bad sewers that are leaking – older – 2 inch rain – I looked at some over in another sub-district in the last week and it went from an average flow of this in an 18 inch sewer to full and then some – surcharged on a 2 inch rain. So the peaks can vary substantially depending on the condition of that sewer. So when we metered a year ago we just didn’t see any issues in this line. We were way down at the bottom. If they were localized leaks they could dampen out by the time they get way down the sewer. The other thing to caution about leaks is you know if there’s construction activity – other things going on – paving roads where manhole covers aren’t raised but now they’ve paved up to here and now there’s a dip – you can create new sources of leaks that may or may not have been there a year ago. And we see that frequently. Where somebody’s knocked a frame and cover off when they were grading the parking lot you know. So without getting current rainfall data as in 2007, you know I don’t suspect there’s an issue based on a year ago, but I can’t say what might have changed since that point.
Mr. Gecy: In your studies and in your work around the county or wherever that you might work, compare our two or three maybe more I think – but at least two major backups we had on this line – we had one major and we had one down the line where the 10 inch line comes in backed up into a home and then I think there was another one on top of that several years ago on the same line. Is there another line in Simpsonville or our general area that’s had three major backups like that. That you can compare to and share with us.
Mr. Frazier: I’m not sure that I can right off. We’ve had some or I know of some that happened for construction issues related to blocking someone’s service lateral where it connects to the main. It was a very isolated incident in another sub-district. I know – I think these along Hunters Woods my understanding is a lot of them have back-flow preventers. I don’t know of a lot of sewers in the county area – I’m just not familiar with back flow preventers where they sit lower than the sewers. I do know other sub-districts that it may have backed up on the ground before it backs up into a home so to speak, where these homes may sit lower off the road. I don’t have an answer for the sewers in Greenville County that I know of right off. You know, in other states I know of some that have a lot of backups and it’s repeated and in those instances an example of one – we’re just redesigning the sewer where it goes down the street the homes are lower – they have back flow preventers. I’ll caution you about back flow preventers – if they aren’t maintained and well-kept they can fail. I mean it’s not a fail safe system. If something gets clogged in that back flow preventer it won’t function properly and so one thing you’ll need to think of is if you have those who’s maintaining them, who’s looking after them. In this particular city in another state it becomes the homeowner’s responsibility. The homeowners have not done it. They don’t have plumbers do it. The back flow preventers aren’t working and we’re redesigning the sewer to go behind their house so we can reconnect them to a lower sewer down by the creek to eliminate their back flow preventer. That’s a line that probably overflows or backs up in homes I’ve known of probably 5 instances in 3 years with several houses but that’s not in this area. But the choice there was it’s been doing it for quite a while. The back flow preventers are probably 10 years old and that sewer – it’s a little different from this one to – that particular sewer is an 8 inch sewer and when we did the flow monitoring on it – it really needed upsized to a 12 inch sewer – it couldn’t handle the flow that was there any way. They had a lot of growth up in the basin. They had some apartments built and the sewer just wasn’t the right size any way. So it was kind of a dual event we did there. We put the flow meters in – sewer needs to go from 8 inch to 12 inch – you had a lot of infiltration and inflow in it – lot more average flow. It was flowing about 65-70% full on an average basis. Back flow preventers don’t work.
Mr. Gecy: You said something very interesting. If you have a line that’s pretty flat or don’t have as good a drop as it should have let’s say. For whatever reason. And I think this is what we suspect here. When you have a line even if it has plenty of capacity in that line – doesn’t that give you a pretty good chance that if a blockage occurs – I mean it’s going to fill up in that flat line faster and they have less pressure pushing the debris through the line – when it’s real flat we have more of a chance to have another back up. Would you agree with that.
Mr. Frazier: Well with the flatter sewers your velocities are lower and so even for debris to start to collect there is more likely than a steeper sewer just because the velocities are slower. There are other factors of course. We’ll have lines – and you have to be careful – we have lines that maybe you survey the manholes and say well this slope looks pretty good we shouldn’t have problems – we stick a t.v. camera in there and video it and there’s a great big sag in the line. So there’s different issues that would cause potential for debris to collect and one is very flat slopes and another one will be sags and dips in the line. And we – for a sub-district here in Greenville County we’re replacing several lines. Every contractor that have slopes that are below minimum pipe slopes for 8 inch sewer – because the other thing that goes on with flat slopes is often you may end up with some dips in the line.
Mr. Gecy: What’s the bear minimum
Mr. Frazier: Minimum slope on 8 inch sewer is .40%
Mr. Gecy: What does that mean in laymans terms
Mr. Frazier: That means a 4% grade – 4 feet in 100 feet.
Mr. Gecy: So every 100 feet would be a four foot grade – every 100 feet it would be a four foot grade
Mayor: Did you say .4 or 4%
Mr. Frazier – I’m sorry 4 inches – I’m sorry – it’s .40 so 4/10 in 100 feet sorry.
Mr. Gecy: If this line – if this line were not at that level would you recommend that this line be made to that minimum standard – is there a chance this line is not at minimum standard Mr. Hawes – did we hear that
Mr. Hawes: Not that I’m aware of – but when you say is there a chance – as far as I know we have it measured at a half percent.
Mr. Gecy: So that would be the bare – that would be above the minimum
Mr. Hawes: Correct
Mr. Frazier: The .4% - .40% is national engineering standard – it’s probably also a state standard. Many utilities shoot for .5% to give a little buffer. So if your at .5 your above the minimum and your about where other utilities would want to be as a bare minimum. Some utilities go to .6 as a minimum. But that’s not usual. The sub-districts in Greenville County – Greenwood South Carolina where we do a lot of work is .5%. We didn’t survey it so I don’t know. And the other issue is again if there are any dips in the line.
Mayor: So .5% would be 6 inches in 100feet which you couldn’t hardly see with the naked eye –
Mr. Frazier: No – and the problem with that which I mentioned is it’s hard to lay a sewer at minimum slope – okay – so if we have minimum slope or you design it that way – and that’s why I think a lot of people shoot for .5% because they know they’re going to get some at .4 or .45 or .52. It’s just impossible to lay it so flat. The other problem with that is you might get some dips in the line.
Mr. Gecy: And is it a possibility Mr Hawes that we have any dips in our line.
Mr. Hawes: There may be possibly a swag there I’m not sure.
Mr. Gecy: All right. Do we have the technology to see that – whether we do or not.
Mr. Hawes: We have cameras absolutely.
Mr. Gecy: And of all the problems we’ve had with this line we haven’t tv’d it with expressly that on our minds to look for.
Mr. Hawes: I’m pretty sure we have. As I understand there may be a swag in there.
Mr. Gecy: So if that’s a swag that means we need to do something about it wouldn’t you think.
Mr. Hawes: I couldn’t say it would be up to council
Mr. Hawes: I’m not an expert on it
Mr. Gecy: Well we need to get somebody to tell us
Mr. Frazier: A comment on sags or swags – you know there are obviously various degrees of sags. There might be in an 8” pipe a 2” sag which is a quarter pipe – a 4” sag which is a half a pipe or more. In our typical rehabilitation work we will repair pipes that are half pipes or more. Which means often the t.v. camera will go under. The reason for that is just the way pipes are laid and quarter pipe sags it may look like an issue – if you start repairing your quarter pipe sags in the City of Simpsonville my guess would be you’re going to do a lot of repairs to fix those sags. You’re going to have a lot of those and typically they don’t cause as big a maintenance problem as a half pipe sag which would be 4” – if that would be in there or more then we repair it. The other thing with sags to keep in mind – it depends on how much flow comes to them. If there’s a lot of flow it might wash through the sag a lot easier and then other thing is what is draining to it. I understand in this case there might be some restaurants and things like that, if there are dips in the line and there are grease issues you have to be more wary of that and it may be exacerbated in a sag because grease will tend to collect in the pipe there. So if you do t.v. it and look at it I would just say look at the severity of it and a small dip in the line won’t be unusual and shouldn’t be causing any issues. If it is a significant sag of 4” or more then that’s probably something you would want to look at.
Mr. Gecy: When all of a sudden you start to get an odor from a sewer and you know you just think it’s coming from that sewer lid over there – what’s occurring all of a sudden that your starting to get neighbors reporting to me that they’re getting this odor from the area of the sewer lid.
Mr. Frazier: Yeah – well it could be – most often it’s when you have a rush of flow coming through the sewer – maybe from a pump station because the flow gets turbulent and releases the gases and that’s mostly where you get odor issues.
Mr. Gecy: Are there any pumps going through the Hillpine line – the sewer line in Poinsettia –
Mr. Frazier: The other issue – that’s the most common – because the odors usually occur when things get stirred up and it starts releasing gas out of the water. The other issue
Mr. Gecy: So if there’s no pump –
Mr. Frazier: It may just be water standing in there – debris collecting that’s gone septic in a manhole and things like that.
Mr. Gecy: So would that be a – what would our sewer department do then if you get a report which we’re going to turn this report in – what will they be looking for – for a backup of some sort or some debris in there that’s causing it to settle
Mr. Frazier: I mean what you would do – is clean and t.v. the sewer and see what’s there and report what you’ve removed. You may open a manhole and see a lot of stuff down there that’s just sitting there. The reasons for that could be elevation reasons. They could be in the manhole – I mentioned this channel going through a manhole where the flow comes in and it goes through a channel – a lot of times manholes won’t have channels – they need to but they don’t because it’s an older manhole. So if you look down in there you may see a lot of rags and stuff down in the bottom and it’s just sitting there. If it sits there long enough it will start to deteriorate and it could let off some odor. So they would clean it, record what they see, t.v. – usually we would t.v. – clean and t.v. lines upstream – 1 or 2 upstream and 1 or 2 downstream and just see what the issues are just because it stopped in that manhole it could be upstream – it’s probably downstream. It could be in the manhole but it could be a mass of roots down there that’s slowing down the flow. It could be a flat slope, it could be a sag, it could be grease. Anything down there that causes a back up.
Mr. Gecy: The other problem with that is some of these manholes that we’re looking at and I was shocked at some of them hidden up in the trees in the woods in the back in the dark – how would you get a pump-out vehicle back to these manholes, even if you had a problem. I mean is there a piece of equipment that we don’t have that we can get because that truck couldn’t get to some of these manholes if it had to clean it out.
Mr. Frazier: Yeah, there are machines that they make to get back into easement areas and I would say you won’t – I don’t know your equipment but I doubt you would own one. But there are machines to go back off road. You can get vehicles with just – they call rods that you just basically push rods down through the sewer which takes a big vactor truck to suck the debris out. You’re just moving it on down the line to break it until you can get it out. Usually the bigger equipment doesn’t go back into the off roads. I mean the other way is to find where it comes from to the road and then go up the line – because you can go – depending on how much cable you have – you can go multiple 100 feet up the line. But you may look at some sort of off-road type of equipment that can get back there. I will caution a lot of the off-road equipment isn’t great. They may tout some things they do – I don’t your easements are overly difficult to navigate compared to what some other areas are.
Mayor: Mr. Zitricki you had a comment about 30 minutes ago it seems like. Are you still –
Mr. Zitricki: I’m still trying to remember what it was. On your report you’re talking about peak daily dry weather flow depth. And you had 5 inches which is 62% of the pipe diameter. That’s dry weather. If we had any infiltration from storm water we’re already at 62% at peak which is in my unlearned opinion seems pretty high. Is that a concern.
Mr. Frazier: I mean – well if we had rainfall and I knew what the infiltration and inflow was –
Mr. Zitricki: Or even minimum infiltration – you’re already at 62% at peak – now if we have a pipe that’s not at standard – it has a less of a slope to it – you made a statement – you said it looks far the most – when you were giving your presentation here. I don’t know how you can see the slope but apparently you’re the expert and you saw that and you said it looked flatter so apparently is and we’re already at 62% at max depth. Any kind of blockage or the slopes not right it’s going to fill up faster with any kind of rain it would make it even worse. Am I on the right track here.
Mr. Frazier: On a slope – you know like I said we didn’t survey it – just looked from the depth and I don’t have the velocity data in front of me – it probably wasn’t flowing how it normally would on a steeper slope – it wouldn’t be so deep – you know 40% full with that 76,000 gallons
Mr. Zitricki: Well it just concerns me – this has been a problem line for years and your summary of data shows that it has potential with the depth to be even more of a problem if the slopes not right. So apparently, do we need to go and do a study of this line for slope – put a camera down there to measure to see if there are any sags in the line or any kind of blockages to rule these out.
Mr. Frazier: Yeah – I mean I think I said earlier and I’ll just restate it if I didn’t – we have a variety of clients who look at situations like this differently. And depending on the situation and you know we have some clients that look at this and think it’s an issue because they have lots of pipes in this condition. If it’s a historic problem line which obviously you have problems I would recommend cleaning and t.v.ing it. I think the Public Works has done that. That’s my understanding. I haven’t looked at the video. If there are issues – if you’re at a ½% slope, which I didn’t survey it. You know that’s what an 8” sewer often is designed for. If there are sags in the line I don’t know that we need to look at the video. We haven’t done the study. The other thing to look at would be any growth or changes in the area that need to be looked at. Yeah, you know every day it gets up over 4” and that’s likely due to when the pump station kicks on. We see a lot of lines that flow like this that do accept some infiltration and inflow. They don’t back up or surcharge on a normal basis. But if this is a problem line I would think that you would want to t.v. it, clean it, look at it, evaluate it and make a decision on that and we – this isn’t a basin we’re looking at because it didn’t have a lot of infiltration and inflow problems. We were hired to continue into 6 other basins. So this isn’t one of them.
Mr. Zitricki: I think it is a problem area. We’ve had issues with it in the past multiple times and we need to fix this once and for all. T.V. it look for any type of bellies or slopes, the slope angle is correct or look for any kind of anything that could make the flow not as high a velocity as it should be.
Mr. Frazier: Yeah, and I don’t know what’s in there – grease or roots or sags – all those things contribute even if it’s surveyed and the slope looks okay – there could be a big dip in there that you don’t know until you t.v. it. I would think, and again we haven’t seen the video – we weren’t provided that but that would be something that I would think you should do. If the slope is flat then you have to decide you know how far down do you go because I think Public Works told me it might steepen just beyond this so maybe it’s flatter and then steepens I don’t know we haven’t surveyed it. But there may be an opportunity to steepen the slope from here to that steeper part and catch some elevation there. That would just need to be looked at. I think the flow data says you know if there are issues out there that can be corrected then there should be enough in an 8” sewer to handle what’s out there right now. It’s a matter of whether it’s flowing. And then a comfort level if it’s 60% full every day and on a peak and these readings are 15 minute readings so it doesn’t stay up very long. It’s like a peak rush there so if that’s a concern then I think it should be addressed once and for all like you said and look at it a little bit more closely and that’s very reasonable. The 8” should be able to handle this flow. Obviously it can’t handle it if it gets blocked up by debris or gravel or stone or grease or sags. I would offer a suggestion to I think you all are looking at some new t.v. equipment but it probably wouldn’t hurt while you’re there to just look further down stream also and just look at that line and if the line does steepen you have some buffer in case there’s a back-up downstream from this particular area, because you have some elevation there. But if you’re out there you may just consider looking on down the line just to make sure and get a full evaluation of it. You may fix this one little area and the next piece down may have a root blockage or something so – if you’re going to look at it I’d suggest you look at it a little bit further down and up.
Mr. Zitricki: Well I suggest we do that. Take it that next step and find where the problem is.
Mr. Hawes: My understanding is they have done that. I didn’t know Mr. Frazier hadn’t seen the results of that. We can certainly produce the results or even go back out and do it again – that’s no problem and let Mr. Frazier review them and give us his recommendations on what he sees. If he sees a swag that looks worse than a minimal or I think he described a larger swag vs a lesser swag or something along those lines. I think it would be helpful for his expertise to determine if what we see on the video is something to be concerned about. Because nobody here at the City that I am aware of has that expertise.
Mr. Zitricki: I’m sure we need to do that – we need to go down that road and pursue this.
Mr. Hawes: I agree I agree.
Mr. Frazier: I would also – you know one important thing in the t.v. – also and we can talk about it and talk about Public Works and the equipment that’s available. It’s as important to know what you’re looking at as it is to get a good picture with a camera and I know you all are looking at new camera equipment, which will be really nice. The new cameras are color and you can put them in and pan and tilt all around and you get a real accurate picture vs some of the older cameras that may be sitting too low or they may be sitting too high. If the camera goes in and it’s sitting real low in the pipe you may think you have all sorts of problems. So it’s real important to make sure the camera part of it’s done correctly also.
Mayor: Ms. Lawrence has been patiently waiting to grill you so I’ll
Ms. Lawrence: Well no, not really to grill you but the swag that is in that line puts that camera under water where they can’t even get it above water. It is a really bad one according to what our equipment tell us. But then you said turning on a pump station might cause an odor out of a manhole and we do when we go further down that line and it makes a right and goes down to the creek there is a manhole that has a really bad odor. Now could that be coming from this waste that sits in this swag and then when this pump station turns on everything goes at once. Could that be causing that odor,
Mr. Frazier: It could contribute to it yeah. Often what happens is – you have to look at the lay-out. Often a pump, and I know this one kind of comes and does some 90 degree turns and whatnot so this may not be true in this particular case, but often when a pump station kicks on the waste water may sit in the pump station for a long period of time so it’s going septic a little bit and the pumps kick on – if it’s a straight run often it will be going through there fine but if it hits a turn or something turbulence gets in there a little bit worse and that’s where it would release.
Ms. Lawrence: Well this one hits several turns and I think it’s turning right there where the odor comes from – is that correct – no – it’s up the hill
Mr. Moreland: Straight down the hill and it makes a turn on the other side of the creek and in front of the road. Down the driveway it gets going down like this
Ms. Lawrence: But that’s where the odor is.
Mr. Moreland: It sounds like the Chatahoochee River and the Natahalie
Ms. Lawrence: So it might be when that pump station is turned on.
Mr. Frazier: It’s just that most odor comes from older waste water that’s been sitting and not moving – so yeah a sag that may have a lot of stuff settle and it gets flushed out it’s possible the pump station if it sits in there a while before it’s pumped – that’s older waste water and that’s where odors often come – coming down a steep hill like that with all that velocity and flow and barreling down in there and if it turns or something that’s where turbulence and gasses start getting released in the water and that just stirs it up and releases the gas.
Ms. Lawrence: Well that sounds like our problem to me.
Mr. Frazier: A sag – again I haven’t seen that sag that you’re talking about – if the camera goes under water in a sag we’d have to make sure the camera was set up right
Ms. Lawrence: I know they said they couldn’t see because it goes so far under water with it – they can’t go any further to see anything
Mr. Frazier: Well typically if the camera goes under water and it was set up properly (Tape switched sides) – that’s one of our criteria. When we look at projects half pipe or more and camera goes under water. Now I say if it was set up properly because if you have an 8” pipe and the camera is set up real low on the bottom of the sewer it can go and splash up on that lens real quickly. So we have to look to make sure things are set up – but if it’s going under water it probably needs to be fixed.
Ms. Lawrence: Thank you.
Mayor: Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: Did I understand you to say that none of the flow rates were measured during a rain storm or after a rain storm
Mr. Frazier: That’s correct
Mr. Larson: Is there any reason why we couldn’t measure during a rain storm and see how much water is running in there.
Mr. Frazier: We could – we were asked – we put it in and were asked to remove it in that two week period we had the dry weather so we removed it. But we could put the meter back in and wait for the rain.
Mr. Hawes: If I could ask – who asked you to remove it and why was it removed after two weeks because I was thinking we would at least try to get some wet weather flow to.
Mr. Frazier: Public Works.
Mr. Hawes: I was just wondering. I don’t know what the impetus was for just pulling it in two weeks. Did they indicate –
Mr. Frazier: What we were told was we were just looking at the dry weather and we had two weeks of dry weather data so go on and remove it
Mr. Hawes: They were assuming the inflow and infiltration which was marked to be minimal from the previous – I hate to assume things. I’d rather get some more wet weather flows to.
Mr. Frazier: And I don’t know – we were asked to remove it and we did. I think the thought was minimal infiltration and obviously the longer the meter is in the more it will cost the City and we were asked to remove it so we removed it.
Mayor: Mr. Gecy
Mr. Gecy: Mr. Hawes council, unless I’m mistaken we gave direction to move the Arbors off that line. Why isn’t that moved. I was told the engineering was even started and that you even looked back and said Mr. Carter haven’t we started that.
Mr. Hawes: That’s correct. Mr. Carter has looked into that situation and found that it is a much more complicated process than it appeared and I don’t know if Mr. Frazier is aware of the situation at all – I think Joe mentioned it when you were down there at Public Works that it would require a larger pump in the pump station is that correct to go up over a ridge.
Mr. Frazier: I think that’s what he mentioned – I’m not sure of the engineering on Site Design
Mr. Hawes: Site Design’s who did it
Mr. Frazier: Maybe they second guessed or re-evaluated it – it was my understanding – I don’t know any specifics on it.
Mr. Hawes: Basically until we knew we needed to do that with Mr. Frazier and further analysis of the line until we know exactly what it would cost to get a new pump in there – it’s not even a city pump station – we would have to buy a pump for a private station as I understand it so those were concerns. So we’d rather get the information.
Mr. Gecy: You know after all these months that’s the first I’ve heard – that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that reason and why we didn’t do it.
Mr. Hawes: Well I’ve been waiting for Mr. Frazier he was
Mr. Gecy: All I heard was we were supposed to put it in the Bi-Lo line and now we want to put something else in the Bi-Lo line so we weren’t going to do it so that’s kind of what the excuse was we didn’t do it. But that’s the first time I heard
Mr. Hawes: Where did you hear that
Mr. Gecy: All over the place – that was told to us by everybody
Mr. Hawes: By whom
Mr. Gecy: I guess I had a conversation with Public Works and Ms. Lawrence we even talked about that that we were told the Bi-Lo line there was something planned to go to the Bi-Lo line that would over-capacity that so we decided not to turn that and
Mr. Hawes: I’m not aware of that
Mr. Gecy: This is the first time I heard there was a problem going up over that way – so I don’t know what you’re doing.
Mr. Hawes: I don’t know what you’re hearing
Ms. Lawrence: The apartments –
Mr. Gecy: We don’t have it done and we voted to do it that’s all
Ms. Lawrence: The apartments that decided not to come
Mr. Gecy: That’s exactly what it was – it was
Ms. Lawrence: the apartments that decided not to come that they couldn’t go the Bi-Lo line and the Arbors also.
Mr. Gecy: Anyway it had been
Mr. Hawes: I don’t remember that –
Ms. Lawrence: Yeah you do – you remember it
Mr. Hawes: I remember exactly what you’re talking about Ms. Lawrence but what I’m saying is that’s not the reason the Bi-Lo line – the flow has not been redirected.
Ms. Lawrence: Well I know but it started out to be that but now it might be the pump but.
Mayor: Okay – anyone else have any more questions for Mr. Frazier
Ms. Lawrence: I think we’re sewered out
Mayor: Well I have some questions but I’ll just get with you on that later we’re running out of time. Thank you very much for coming and thank you for that report. Mr. Zitricki
Mr. Zitricki: I have a question do we need to give Mr. Hawes some direction for this matter.
Mayor: I think he’s got it
Mr. Hawes: I’m pretty clear on what
Mr. Zitricki: What is your direction
Mr. Hawes: From what I understand we’re going to do is make sure that we t.v. the information and get it to Mr. Frazier – have him drop a meter in there to get some actual wet weather flows as well – and that’s what the t.v.ing is going to do identify any swags and slope issues and take it back to council as soon as we have that information. What’s our time frame for completion.
Mr. Hawes: That would be difficult for me to say without talking with Public Works. Now if he’s going to drop another – if Mr. Frazier is going to drop another meter in the line and we have to wait for a rain storm I can’t tell you because the last time we did it we went 5 months and spent $60,000 waiting for a rain storm and we only got 1.93 inches during those 5 months.
Mr. Zitricki: I think – I believe we can start by t.v.ing the line and measuring the slope and let’s not worry about the flow with the rainstorm right now – we have other issues
Mr. Hawes: I would expect we can get that done very quickly – that portion of it.
Mr. Zitricki: I think we need to expedite that very quickly.
Mr. Hawes: I know that we’ve got the information already. Ms. Lawrence referenced it. So I thought Mr. Frazier had seen it.
Mr. Zitricki: Can we have that done within the next couple of weeks
Mr. Hawes: I would expect so yes.
Mr. Zitricki: Okay so two weeks and we’ll have a report
Mr. Hawes: By the next council meeting yes.
Mr. Zitricki: That would be fine thank you.
Mayor: Okay Mr. Gecy I’ll give you the last word.
Mr. Gecy: One other issue with that same line. While your folks were out there working Mr. Frazier I happened to drive by and here’s our truck pumping out that same manhole that we had the backup in. They said they found debris in there from the car wash they think from the tie-in at the car wash. Did your folks report to you anything about that issue.
Mr. Frazier: Not specifically
Mr. Gecy: Because they brought it to the attention of Public Works and we went out and found some debris in there and we think maybe it was from the tie-in to the line that the car wash tied into. I’m talking about the same line – same area – same place we had the back-up. We had our crew out there pumping it out today and there was some debris in there that they were thinking came from the construction of the car wash. This came to the attention – your folks gave our folks
Mr. Frazier: I know when our crews have been out doing some inspections they come upon things like that and they have a relationship with Public Works to just deal with them or they may have talked to another engineer in the office I just wasn’t aware. I do know we went out and looked at that line and same manhole I want to say Friday – last Friday and I asked the guys to go back out and look at it knowing I was coming here this evening and they saw strange colors in the sewer flow. One color looked muddy and they called me and I said call Public Works and see if they can’t come out and try to track that down. That could be from the car wash also. It looked real muddy. Sometimes we see muddy flow and it’s a construction site and contractors might dig through a sewer and the mudd’s going in the sewer. So they did see that and Public Works also mentioned I think there’s a Sherwin Williams Plant or Paint store or something and maybe it could be that. Which our crew said nobody should drop paint in there any way and I’m not saying they did – they went back several hours later and it wasn’t quite as muddy looking but it kind of had a different color to it and I forget how they described it – so there may be car wash issues – it might be someone washing off a lot of mud and Public Works was going to go out Friday evening and try to look at that.
Mr. Hawes: I looked into that situation when you brought it to my attention as well. The – our understanding is that was an illegal tap into our sewer first of all because we hadn’t approved that and we will fine – we’re working to identify exactly who did that and we’re looking to fine them for illegally doing that as well as to pay the costs of having our crews come out and clean that up.
Mr. Frazier: And on the meter – I was walking out the back – but we’re available in the next week or so to meet your deadline.
Mayor: Thank you. I told him I’d give him the last but I’ll give you the last last word,
Ms. Lawrence: Two meetings ago when I brought up that car wash everybody knew about the tap – it was being done to alleviate putting water down in the creek and now today nobody knows about the tap.
Mayor: I didn’t know about it then.
Ms. Lawrence: Well two meetings ago everybody knew about it because I asked about it.
Mr. Gecy: Did they get the proper permit to do that
Ms. Lawrence: I don’t know
Mayor: Apparently not if they
Ms. Lawrence: Today nobody knows about it.
Mayor: All right next item on the Agenda Ms. Bodkins applicants for Planning Commission.
• Review of Applicants for Planning Commission Ms. Bodkins: Yes Sir, Mr. Mayor and Council, as you know you have a vacancy on your Planning Commission due to the recent resignation of Karen Wright. This position has been advertised on our PEG Channel and I have received two applications. One from Carolyn Richardson Mahaffey, sponsored by Mayor Waldrop. And one from Scott Fowler, sponsored by Bruce Larson. A vote will be taken at your next regularly scheduled business meeting to determine the new Planning Commission person. I have put those applications in your packet so you can all review them.
Mayor: Okay good deal. I’m sure everybody will review those carefully and we will have a vote at our June meeting.
• Discussion regarding Text Amendment TX-2007-03 Tree and Landscaping Mayor: All right next item on the Agenda Mr. Hawes you’re going to discuss text amendments regarding trees and landscaping.
Mr. Hawes: Yes sir, Mayor and Council. This was a clarification of an earlier Agenda item we had at our last council meeting. Council asked for a red lined copy and that’s provided in your packet of information. The red line copy basically identifies changes to the functioning of the Planning Commission or proposed changes that the Planning Commission recommends City Council consider as a text amendment. The primary change here is that the Planning Commission would be the reviewing entity of a site development, rather than the Zoning Administrator. And that’s the primary change of the most of the rest of it – the red lined portions and so forth identify intent with regard to tree preservation and the use of the City Arborist instead of a Zoning Administrator for reviewing tree issues, site surveys of trees and so forth. It identifies a specific dbh equal to greater than 8” with specimen trees and dbh of greater than 4” – tree clearing certificate requirements basically would change that the process in any condition whereby a property is developed would require a tree survey – this also requires that the downtown areas that are in the downtown overlay would fall under the tree preservation requirements that any other area does while currently they do not. Things along those lines. And the rest of it is again identifies the arborist as reviewing. That’s the primary changes. There are mentions of how much mulch needs to be used for over-exposed roots and so forth. But this – the primary change is the Planning Commission becoming the reviewing entity of a development – site development when it comes to the city rather than the Zoning Administrator.
Mayor: Ms. Lawrence you have some comments
Ms. Lawrence: At the Planning Commission workshop the other night there was some talk that they might would like to receive this back. They’re constantly told there’s all kinds of loop holes and things in there and I think they really want to work on it and I think they want to do some more work on it and I would like to make a motion that we return it to the Planning Commission
Mr. Hawes: This is a workshop – it’s not a voting meeting
Ms. Lawrence: Okay can we just –
Mr. Hawes: We can just pull it from the Agenda
Ms. Lawrence: I think they’d like it back. In fact I’m sure they would.
Mayor: All right – I don’t hear any objection we’ll send it back and let you all take another run at it. All right. Well that took care of that one.
NEW BUSINESS • Update of FY 2007-2008 Budget Mayor: Next on the Agenda is New Business. Russ Hawes is going to update the FY 2007-2008 Budget.
Mr. Hawes: Yes sir Mayor and Council we had a budget workshop and discussed some changes or adjustments to the budget as proposed to City Council. Of course the budget was a balanced budget and still is a balanced budget for the operation of the City for fiscal year 2007-2008. It involves no tax increase. It’s a reflection of the strong and qualified not qualified but growth of the City that is a – that benefits the City through a stronger tax base and some of the annexations that are beginning to take form and increase the tax base which allows us not to consider raising taxes or cutting services. This budget does neither. Some of the things that were brought up by council were a paving budget for speed humps program – we have added $10,000 to that line item. We have basically reallocated some funds that were not necessary in the budget - $22,000 was budgeted for service cost of new 800 mgh for the Police Department – all indications are that that will be funded by the State – that is a line item in the State’s budget right now to fund that for municipalities. So we were able to take those funds that were allocated and provide new fire hoses for the Fire Department and to replace hoses that are at least 10 years old and currently in use. Also we worked in some software for the Fire Department regarding incident reporting and maintaining a data base that is a standard that quality fire departments need to meet. Those are the primary changes. So I think we’ve got an excellent budget and this is really for your information. What you all asked for at the prior meeting has been implemented and this is what is going to go into the advertising for the public hearing before second reading. I’m open to any questions you all have.
Mayor: Okay – do you all have any questions for Mr. Hawes. Mr. Zitricki
Mr. Zitricki: Thank you. Mr. Hawes I’ve got a question in reviewing the budget that was submitted to us and going back to discussion points that we had at our workshop session I noticed one thing that – I’ve heard that there was a discussion about the Administration Department organizational chart that was attached to our discussion points and that’s no longer going to be put into the new budget. Is that correct.
Mr. Hawes: Well actually the organizational chart is something that’s included in the budget but it’s not actually an allocation of funding but it’s included to clarify what the organizational structure of the City is for all of the employees and anybody else who reads the budget. It was suggested that we look at some organizational changes within the Administration Department. I considered those on their face and also in light of some changes that were occurring due to the changing of the position of a current employee that will take effect as of July 1 and the fact that we are adding a Planning Director to the City Staff in the Administration Department. And after a very thoughtful consideration of the changes that are occurring I did not feel it was in the City’s best interest or the Administration Department’s best interest to implement the organizational chart as it was presented at first reading of the budget.
Mr. Zitricki: Well my concern is that we accepted on first reading that document that had the organizational chart on it and if it’s a change to the budget – which is included in the budget – it should be included with our revised budget changes and it was not. It’s not here. And I don’t remember discussing taking it off or changing it.
Mr. Hawes: No that was my decision entirely.
Mr. Zitricki: Well we voted to accept it as presented and that was part of the presentation
Mr. Hawes: It really wasn’t part of the budget that was for your information – it would be included in the budget but it’s not what you voted on because City Council would typically not vote on organizational structure.
Mr. Zitricki: Well that’s where I’m confused because it was added to our discussion points for the workshop so I was assuming since it was added to this it was included and that’s what we voted on and then I’ve heard it’s changing and I don’t remember having a discussion about why it’s being changed or being deleted and I see nothing on the revised budget documentation.
Mr. Hawes: I’ll be glad to talk with you at any time to explain how that particular item has nothing to do with what you voted on on the budget specifically.
Mr. Zitricki: My concern is it was included with our workshop session and we have it in here and we came back up here to vote. You take it that things you see on your paperwork are going to be included – that’s what your voting on.
Mr. Hawes; You voted on it on first reading
Mr. Zitricki: Yes so if there’s a change from what we voted on it needs to be included in the revised budget changes
Mr. Hawes: It will be for second reading I can assure you of that. Because what you’re going to vote on in second reading will be a different structure entirely.
Mr. Zitricki: I just want to make sure everything is covered and there’s a paper trail and we know what we’re voting and nothing’s changing that’s being slipped in or taken out
Mr. Hawes: I have no intention of slipping anything in or taking anything out.
Mr. Zitricki: I’m sure you aren’t. I just want to make sure everything’s covered. Thank you.
Mr. Hawes: Right
Mayor: Okay. Mr. Gecy
Mr. Gecy: Just to reiterate – part of the budget reflects $100,000 prepared to go towards a paving match if one should come our way.
Mr. Hawes: That is correct.
Mr. Gecy: Is there good hopes that we will get a match.
Mr. Hawes: Yes
Mr. Gecy: Okay thanks
Mayor: Okay – anyone else. All right, thank you Mr. Hawes. I don’t see Mr. Harrison here so I’m assuming your going to talk about the 2006-2007 Budget Amendments
• FY 2006-2007 Budget Amendments Mr. Hawes: Actually since Mr. Harrison was unable to make this meeting I would rather that we just hold off on this at this time.
Mayor: Okay. Will we have time to discuss it at the next meeting before we …
Mr. Hawes: It can be taken up at the workshop in June as easily as the first meeting in June.
Mayor: Okay fair enough.
EXECUTIVE SESSION • Contractual Matter – Public Works Mayor: All right next matter on the Agenda is we have a need to have an Executive Session to discuss a contractual matter relating to the Public Works Department. I would entertain a motion in that regard. All that sewer talk put you all to sleep.
Ms. Lawrence: Mr. Mayor I make a motion that we go into Executive Session to discuss a contractual matter in Public Works
Mayor: Thank you Ms. Lawrence. Do I hear a second
Mr. Garrett: Second
Mayor: Mr. Garret seconds. Thank you for the second
Mr. Gecy: Question
Mayor: Mr. Gecy
Mr. Gecy: What – that’s pretty broad – a contractual matter – what about Public Works. What kind of contractual matter is it – I’m just curious.
Mr. Hawes: It is a legal discussion contractual matter in Public Works Department.
Mayor: To get legal advice
Mr. Gecy: About what
Mr. Hawes: About a contract
Mr. Gecy: About what
Mr. Hawes: A prior agreement regarding tax issues in the Public Works Department. If I say it then it’s not
Mayor: All right all in favor signify by saying Aye (AYE) opposed No. Aye’s have it we are in recess in Executive Session and we will possibly be back up.
CAME OUT OF EXECUTIVE SESSION AT 8:23 P.M. – No action was taken.
Mayor: We are back in regular session. Mr. Hawes
Mr. Hawes: Yes sir Mayor and Council I wanted to bring up an item. There were two requests for sewer flow on the Hunters Woods line that one of them is a re-use of an existing bank building for Starbucks and the other is a new construction building for Calvary Baptist Church . The Starbucks is requesting 1,000 gallons per day sewer capacity at that building that was previously occupied by SouthTrust Bank and the new building for Calvary Baptist Church is requesting 4116 gallons per day of sewer capacity. Per council’s previous request we are pretty much before you for considering identifying the acceptance of these flows into the City system.
Mayor: Okay Ms. Lawrence
Ms. Lawrence: Excuse me I didn’t hear you say how many Calvary wanted.
Mr. Hawes: 4116 per 1372 seat sanctuary.
Mayor: Okay – is that it.
Ms. Lawrence: Yeah that was all I wanted to know.
Mayor: Mr. Gecy
Mr. Gecy: Since we’ve made that discussion about the pledge to not tying any more taps into the line until we made a determination about the capabilities of that line – we’ve tied in MoJo’s coffee place and there’s some building going on behind Hunters Woods – behind Sherwin Williams that I think have been completed and tied in so have we violated that already.
Mr. Hawes: No. No those
Mr. Gecy: How is this different then
Mr. Hawes: The buildings built by Steve Hoover were already approved prior to City Council’s discussion of prior review before acceptance.
Mr. Gecy: So the banks tap is not going to require a new tap
Mr. Hawes: Correct
Mr. Gecy: So they’re going to be assuming – they’re just going to ask for a little more flow.
Mr. Hawes: That’s correct
Mr. Gecy: But the Church is a new tap is that correct
Mr. Hawes: That is correct
Mr. Gecy: If what we’re hearing from Frazier that there’s enough capacity in that line what is our Public Works Department saying what is their recommendation right now.
Mr. Hawes: The Public Works Director has recommended that both of these would be acceptable with the information that we have.
Mr. Gecy: So really even though we desired not to tie into anything else legally we probably have to accept this – kind of like what Joe’s determination is.
Mr. Hawes: I don’t know if Joe has looked at the legal aspects of it.
Mr. Gecy: Well I use legal as assumption. He’s assuming this is fair to do.
Mr. Hawes: Without putting words into Mr. Carter’s mouth I would say that his understanding of the existing conditions and the future conditions with the changes that are proposed here is that the changes would be acceptable per the standards of the City.
Mr. Gecy: So we’re in a not voting meeting how can we give you guidance on this.
Mr. Hawes: You just give me guidance.
Mr. Gecy: I mean I say – do we need a vote on this.
Mayor: Well does anybody object to him moving forward with it.
Mr. Zitricki: Mr. Mayor I have a question. Do you feel we should wait until we get the study back from Frazier Engineering to verify that there is nothing detrimental to allowing these two buildings to increase the flow.
Mr. Larson: Seems if we already gave them permits – oh I’m sorry
Mr. Hawes: There’s more that enters into it than just the I guess – what Mr. Larson was alluding to was the fact that we do have a permit already issued and some legal issues are brought up because of it.
Mayor: Mr. Holmes would you like to respond
Mr. Holmes: Let me see if I can answer the question directly. If you do the study and you find out there’s a swag in the line then we’ve got a repair issue we’ve got to take care of. So that in my view would not be the swaying determination as to whether or not these taps are allowed because that’s a maintenance issue that the City has an obligation to take care of. The permits I think were provisionally granted based on the assumption that based on current engineering there is capacity in the line. If it turns out there is a maintenance issue – a swag or a camera that disappears we’ve already heard tonight that needs to be taken care of and that would need to be taken care of whether this goes on or not.
Mayor: Okay – Mr. Larson did you have something now.
Mr. Larson: That’s basically what I thought as far as – the bank buildings already there – I don’t see that a little increase in their flow is going to affect the whole line and then if there is a problem it’s going to show up whether or not the Church comes on or not or we’ll have to fix it whether the Church comes on or not.
Mayor: Mr. Garrett:
Mr. Garrett: I’ve got one question just for my own – you say 4,000 gallons per day but that would probably be one day a week right? I mean
Mr. Hawes: I don’t expect that
Mr. Garrett: You all don’t have 1,300 people down there every night do you.
Mr. Gecy: I think they have day care though.
Mr. Garrett: They do have a day care – they don’t have that many kids. I just can’t see just one day a week and Sunday is kind of an off day anyway. I’m no sewer expert.
Mayor: Mr. Bridges
Mr. Bridges: That’s the question I had
Mayor: Okay – anyone else. Mr. Gecy
Mr. Gecy: I can’t see turning the church down for this if we have the capacity. The only thing is if we keep on putting 1,000 here 4,000 here into this 8” line going through – when’s it going to stop – you know there’s already talk about some development behind Burger King or behind that area that’s wanting to come this way and it almost came – the rumor was out there that they were sniffing around and applying for the permit – Ms. Lawrence made a reference to that. If that comes in and this comes in and pretty soon we’ve got all this sewer flow going into a neighborhood valley and I don’t want to stop the Church and I don’t think 4 – if that’s all they’re going to do is 1,000 from a restaurant – I mean are they low-balling it or – that’s a low number for a restaurant
Mr. Hawes: It’s a coffee shop
Mr. Gecy: Yeah but it’s also not a regular coffee shop – it’s a big whopping building – they’ve got more interest than just selling coffee there. It’s going to be a restaurant – it’s going to be kind of a semi-restaurant coffee shop.
Mr. Hawes; I think that’s why it’s 1,000 because the MoJo’s was 250 per day and this is 3 or 4 times that
Mr. Gecy: MoJo’s does not have seating.
Mr. Hawes: That’s what I’m saying – this is 4 times that.
Mr. Gecy: I don’t have any problem with that either – that’s an existing tap. I think we need to let people do their property and sell their property – they got a good deal for that – a good lease on that building. But the Church you know – I just want to know when it’s going to stop. We could do this – can we hold up from here any further commercial sewer until we have a determination if we decide to let this come in.
Mayor: That’s what we debated about – we stopped it –
Mr. Hawes: That’s not going to change but
Mr. Gecy: I know but I want to stop it somewhere there – it’s like what’s his name in – what’s his name we had the war with the one that says cross this line and then cross this line – I mean we didn’t keep crossing the line – so if we allow this let’s make a pledge to put a moratorium on sewer taps into that line and let the public know and let the contractors know by God they can’t try into that line until we make a determination.
Mayor: But I thought we’d already done that – I thought we’d already said we’re not going to allow any more on that line.
Mr. Gecy: We have said that but I’m kind of thinking – so you don’t want to allow the Church – I’m willing to allow the Church and if we’re going
Mr. Bridges: Anybody – if we’ve got the capacity let them go.
Mr. Gecy: But we don’t know if we have a swag in the line that’s going to be a problem – that’s what the whole thing is. It’s been the screwiest thing I’ve ever heard of. I learned more about sewer and I still don’t know anything about it because I’m learning something new every day. Do we have a swag in a line – do we have a camera that can go in. We know it – we’ve got a problem with that –I don’t think we want to fix the problem we just keep on tying into it because this has been going on for years. But any way I mean I don’t want to hold the Church up but I don’t want another major restaurant or another major apartment complex coming through our neighborhood with sewage if we don’t know if we can handle it or not. And the guy stood right up there and told us those back flow preventers aren’t always 100% right – so there you have the liability and possibility of neighbors – I know you all have good basins where you’ve got good flow over there – you go directly to the 10” line
Mayor: That’s exactly right
Mr. Gecy: I’m saying I’m looking out for people – for a neighborhood right now that’s got a line with all this raw sewage going through our line and I’m willing to do for the Church I want to see the Church get going but I don’t want to see another major thing going. And if it means Mr. Bridges that we said no – then by God let’s say no to the Church if that’s what you want to say. Well then let’s say no to the next big development and stick to our guns and don’t come to us with another permit.
Mayor: So we’re going to get selective about who we say no to is that it.
Mr. Gecy: No just don’t do nothing then. Don’t be a smart ass.
Mayor: I’m not a smart ass I’m asking a question. I mean what you’re saying – you all have been fussing – all of you have been fussing for months. We said no more taps – we said no more taps – and then all of a sudden we’ve got this issue – well I’m willing to let a couple of guys come on – I’m willing to let that guy on
Mr. Gecy: I’m trying to
Mayor: If it was a builder that came in and wanted to tap oh my God let’s stop them their evil.
Mr. Gecy: You have thousands of gallons
Mayor: Thousands of gallons. You’d stop them with 100 gallons – so that’s what – we have these standards that we set for some people but not for others.
Mr. Gecy: I’m talking about volume. I’m talking about something that will work. Well then if that’s how you want to do it – why are we talking about it. If we said we’re not doing it then the Church shouldn’t get it and neither should the thing – neither should the coffee house because – do we stick to our word Mr. Mayor do you want to force the issue – you said no more should go in there then no more should go in there. Why do we
Mayor: I’m not forcing the issue I’m laughing at the double standard
Mr. Gecy: It’s not a double standard – I’m trying to compromise on that because it’s a Church and it’s only 1,000 gallons and the coffee thing already has a tap. I’m talking about a major – see you’re laughing because it ain’t going down your street.
Mayor: No that has nothing to do with it.
Mr. Gecy: If you had an apartment complex going in over there I would like for us to think twice about it. If we have 1,000 gallons going where there’s already 400 permitted there I don’t have any problem with that. Just like you said if we find out there’s a swag in the thing we’ll fix that – but a major apartment complex Mr. Mayor is a different issue.
Mayor: But we’re not talking about a major apartment complex
Mr. Gecy: So I say from here on now let’s don’t allow a major tap into this line
Mayor: What’s major
Mr. Gecy: Over 10,000 gallons
Mr. Hawes: That’s clear
Mr. Gecy: But I mean make it clear – put the word out – tell the developers before they come get a permit they can’t tie into the line until we finish with Frazier and we finish with Joe Carter and we find out if there’s a swag or not. If there’s nothing wrong with that line I’m happy with it. Let the line go and don’t worry about it any more. Let’s do the study and let’s make a determination that we’re not going to allow any major tie in to this line past these two.
Mayor: Any objections.
Ms. Lawrence: I know there’s a swag and I know if we fix it everything will move better down hill.
Mayor: It all flows down hill better.
Ms. Lawrence: But there’s a bad swag
Mr. Gecy: All right so are we saying – what are we saying then 10,000 – are you going to agree to that.
Ms. Lawrence: Yeah you said 10
Mayor: All right I’ll entertain a motion Ms. Lawrence.
Ms. Lawrence: I make a motion we adjourn
Mayor: Do I hear a second
Mr. Bridges: Second
Mayor: Mr. Bridges seconds. All in favor signify by saying Aye(AYE) opposed No. Aye’s have it we’re adjourned. Have a happy holiday.
Respectfully submitted,
PAMELA J. BODKINS City Clerk |
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