Flushing City Council
Minutes
June 29, 2009
A Special Meeting of the Flushing City Council was called to order on Monday, June 29, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. by Mayor Pro-Tem Michael T. Szukhent, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag and invocation.
Present: Richard L. Bade
Mark F. Brock
John C. Gault
Janice L. Gensel (entered meeting at 7:50 p.m.)
George G. Kozan
Teresa K. Salem
Michael T. Szukhent
Absent: None
Others Present: Dennis J. Bow, City Manager
Nancy G. Parks, City Clerk/Treasurer
Edward G. Henneke, City Attorney
Approval of Agenda - Motion by Bade, seconded by Salem, to approve the June 29, 2009 agenda.
Yea: Bade, Brock, Gault, Kozan, Salem, Szukhent
Nay: None
Motion Carried.
MEETING
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC:
No public comment.
PUBLIC HEARING:
Sewer Plant Study/State Revolving Fund - Moving on to the Public Hearing. City Manager?
City Manager Dennis Bow: We have a report from the City Engineer regarding the State Revolving Fund and the Stimulus Dollars that may become available to the city for improving the sewer treatment plant. And, if I can, I’m turning it over to the City Engineer, Lou Fleury.
Mayor Pro-Tem Michael Szukhent: The Public Hearing for the Sewer Plant Study and State Revolving Fund is now open.
Flushing City Council
Minutes
June 29, 2009
Page Two
City Engineer Lou Fleury: The purpose of tonight’s public hearing is to discuss, or fulfill, requirements established by the DEQ for the purposes of applying for a low interest loan through the State Revolving Loan Fund.
The objective tonight is to hear any public input, to go over the alternatives, to select an alternative and the cost information, and then adopt a Resolution of Support, and, with that information, we will package that up and send it along with the Project Plan, which is due this Wednesday in Lansing.
The scope of the project, this is really a maintenance project, given that there are no current water quality issues with the treatment plant. For the past several years you have no problems meeting your NPDES Permit, so, basically the goal is to enhance the efficiency of the system by just upgrading the old, aging equipment, and using more recent technology. So, it’s really a maintenance type project.
I brought a board along because I want to highlight some of the components that are proposed with the alternatives. So, given that this is a maintenance project, there was really two alternatives that were, or principal alternatives, that were considered. One is upgrading the city facilities and maintaining the city treatment plant. Or, two, becoming a customer of Genesee County, and creating a permanent connection to the county’s interceptor. Taking a look at the cost information, annually, it looks like it’s more cost effective for the city to have and maintain their own plant, versus tying into Genesee County.
So, just to orientate you with this map here, north is up, the Flint River is in blue here at the bottom of the picture. The sanitary sewer, the city’s sanitary sewer, flows into the plant at the south end where this green arrow is, into the headworks. The headworks is where the pumping facilities are located. And, from there, the effluents pump through the system. I’ve also split this up into what I’m calling the new plant and the old plant. The new plant is, was an expansion done in the 80’s due to development that, there was a new area added to the north and, of course, the old plant is south of there. Currently, the city does operate both old and new to treat the sanitary sewer.
So, with that, I just want to go and highlight some of the components that are proposed to be improved, starting at the headworks down here at the south end. Again, this is where most of the pumping components are. So the proposal here is to upgrade the pumps and controls. The pumps, we would select a pump to fit the wide range of flows that the city does see coming through the plant. And then the controls, again, we would be using newer technology in order to be more efficient and more reliable in pumping the flow through the plant.
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Minutes
June 29, 2009
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Up next, these purple arrows, this is the grit chamber. This is where most of the inorganic stuff is settled out of the effluent, like the sand, basically. Hence the name grit. Anyway, there is an auger here, a grit auger, which has seen it’s better days. An auger is a mechanism for conveying the sand into a dumpster. So, that would be replaced as part of this project. As far as primary treatment goes, there is a proposal to split the flows between the new and old plant. Currently what happens is, as the flow comes out of the grit building, it flows into these two clarifiers that are just west of the existing aeration tank, part of the old plant. After the flow leaves the clarifiers, it’s then split between the new and old plant. The proposal is to create a diversion, or a split, upstream of these clarifiers. What that’ll do is allow the operator a little bit more flexibility when utilizing the new plant by sending more of the inorganics, or the organics, to that part of the plant upstream of the clarifiers.
Next item would be the emergency bypass connection to the county interceptor. The county interceptor line is not shown on this drawing, but it kind of parallels the Flint River here. So, basically, what we’re talking about is, on the city line coming into the plant, we would have a valve and a emergency bypass connection constructed in this area. And, basically, it’s just for emergency situations when you’re down, and when you have no power. The reason for this is that it’s less expensive than going through and having a standby generator on the site.
The digester cover. The primary and secondary digesters are located in this area. The cover that does need to be replaced, it was installed in the late 70’s, and it’s just beyond it’s useful life. So that, along with the heat exchanger that heats the digester, would be replaced as well.
So, in a nutshell, those are the components that we would be addressing for the work at the plant. And the other component would be the collection system, and that really would consist of an upgrade to the Birchwood lift station. What’s proposed there is new pumps and controls. The pumps would be resized to match more closely to the flows that actually go through that station, as well as newer technology in controlling that station to increase the efficiency.
So, basically, that’s the improvement that was selected, or the selected alternative. Looking at the cost for components, most of the money is spent here at the plant. The estimated cost of the upgrades throughout the plant is 1.1 million. The collection system work, for the work at the Birchwood station, is estimated at $150,000.00. Taking a look at the overall project financing, the overall project cost, including inspection design, bonding, attorneys, we’re looking at 1.63 million for a total estimated project cost. Using the typical financing for this type of loan, it’s usually around two and one-half percent financed over twenty years.
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Minutes
June 29, 2009
Page Four
That comes to be approximately $110,000.00 per year. Based on the annual number of users of the system, that’s about twenty-nine bucks a year per user.
Environmental impacts during construction are going to be negligible, due to the fact that we’re not going to have any impact to any inlets, lakes, streams or wetlands.
Schedule-wise, what’ll happen is, we will be submitting this final project plan, again, on Wednesday over to Lansing. They will rank the projects, everyone in the state is eligible for this program, the project will be ranked and the DEQ comes out with a project priority list, those which rank and which don’t rank, and that usually comes out in September of every year.
And that’s all, really, all I have. If there’s any questions?
Councilperson John Gault: Just one note, will we have a meter there, to tie into the county meter, you know, and that, I’m just curious as to how the county…
City Engineer Lou Fleury: Yeah, they would charge. Yes. They would want to meter us.
Councilperson Mark Brock: Lou, how do they rank that? By necessity? Is that how it’s ranked with the state?
City Engineer Lou Fleury: It’s, there’s a wide range of things. There’s some communities that get into this thing that are under what’s called an ACO, which is an administrative censor by the DEQ. Maybe they have violations for overflows. Those communities get, and it’s on a point system. Those communities that have ACO’s get 300 points for having the ACO. There’s other communities that have, get discharge points, because they’re discharging millions of gallons daily, weekly, or quarterly into the river. Untreated. So, and the fundable range of projects varies year to year based on who you’re competing against, and how much money’s available. You know, it’s a revolving loan, so it’s hard to, you know, there’s not a fixed number every year as far as how much money’s available, as well as, how many people are coming in and going after the money. This year coming up, I will tell you that it’s going to be very competitive, because of the stimulus that people are hearing about. What they’re doing is, they’re what they, because this is a loan program, they don’t call it a grant. They’re calling it a loan forgiveness for up to 25%. I don’t have a good handle on exactly how many dollars are being pumped into the start of program, if there is, for first quarter funding.
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Minutes
June 29, 2009
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Councilperson Mark Brock: One of the questions is, the clarifiers that you spoke of, and I don’t know what a clarifier is or does, or anything of that sort, obviously, but you talk about skipping that step to go onto the newer part of the plant. Is that a step that we could skip altogether; is there a cost there that could be avoided?
City Engineer Lou Fleury: No, no, a portion of that flow would be diverted into the batch reactors. The rest of it would continue on as it has before, and go through the clarifiers. The clarifier is another physical process. It’s a big, round tank, and it’s got a big paddle on it, and it goes around and around, and just, it allows some settling before it goes into aeration. So, the balance of the flow that does not get diverted still will go through these clarifiers and then through the old plant.
Councilperson Mark Brock: Well, is the new plant doing what the old plant’s doing, or just splitting up the work?
City Engineer Lou Fleury: It is the same, essentially the same process, except the new plant is a, this is more of a continuous process, and this is a batch process where you have a certain amount goes into the tank, and then you start your air coming into the tank for, as far as treating goes, this is a continuous process.
Councilperson Mark Brock: So the newer part doesn’t need the clarifiers.
City Engineer Lou Fleury: Correct.
Councilperson Mark Brock: Okay.
City Engineer Lou Fleury: It goes right into our, as a batch.
Councilperson Mark Brock: I understand.
Councilperson Richard Bade: Lou, would you be putting on a presentation to the state?
City Engineer Lou Fleury: No, what happens is, after tonight, all the public participation documents go into the plan, and then there is a manager assigned. It is the Environmental Services Division that ranks them. They have a committee that ranks the projects. But, essentially, they’ll be using our project plan to rank it. They’ll be no other presentation at the state level.
Flushing City Council
Minutes
June 29, 2009
Page Six
Councilperson Richard Bade: But will we get points, I mean like some of them are going to get 300 points right off the bat. You mentioned one of the covers was from 1970. I mean, how do we get our points?
City Engineer Lou Fleury: Yours is, I’m going to tell you right now, we’ll score relatively low, because it is just underneath its project. You don’t have any water quality problems.
Councilperson Richard Bade: Right, which is good.
City Engineer Lou Fleury: Yeah, that’s a good thing. So it will be real competitive as far as going after the dollars. And, what happens sometimes too is, is you get into this, we saw this with the DWRF, ours was kind of a maintenance project there, because we were just upgrading old lines, we got on the overall list, but we weren’t in the fundable range right away. We needed, oh, I don’t know, twenty million dollars or so worth of projects to drop out that were funded. It so happened they did drop out and then you got funded for the water. So, even when that list comes out, you’re still not going to know whether or not you’re going to get funded until all the money’s committed for those.
But, as far as getting back to how you’re going to rank, I’m going to be up front and tell you it won’t rank real high, compared to some of those other communities that do have water quality problems, are under legal action from the DEQ, and, again, it varies year to year on, it might be a large number of those communities are, maybe there’s a large number of communities doing this type of work. So, dynamically, it always changes as far as what the fundable range is going to be.
Councilperson Richard Bade: Let’s go back to the stimulus deal, because I thought, and maybe they pushed it off to the side, but I thought there was stimulus money set aside for sewage plants and all this type of thing.
City Engineer Lou Fleury: Yes.
Councilperson Richard Bade: Oh, there are?
City Engineer Lou Fleury: There are stimulus dollars, and they will be funneled through this program and then the other program is rural development. It’s a loan program again. They can’t call it grant, because this is a loan process, they call it loan forgiveness. So, those communities that we see stimulus dollars were told, and what we’re hearing is, they will get 25% loan forgiveness. We don’t have a good handle on exactly what the number of the stimulus dollars is, to be honest, at this point, it seems like it changes from week to week, as far as what’s available in stimulus.
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Minutes
June 29, 2009
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Chairperson Richard Bade: Well I read they’re going to throw it out, then it got back in, and it’s gone back and forth.
Go back to that cover again. You said that was in from ‘70, and there’s some other things that have aged. Why, I mean what happens, I mean do they just, the sewage and everything eats it up or what?
City Engineer Lou Fleury: It tends to deteriorate.
Chairperson Richard Bade: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Mayor Pro-Tem Michael Szukhent: Any comments from the public?
Beverley Martin, 526 Chamberlain Street: I just have a question, was there another public hearing that we missed? Aren’t there supposed to be two public hearings when we, when we ask for that much money from the state? I’m just asking a question.
City Engineer Lou Fleury: About this program?
Beverley Martin: Yes. The public hearing for the sewage plant. Did you have another public hearing that I missed, or something? I don’t know.
City Engineer Lou Fleury: No.
Beverley Martin: You don’t have to have two Mr. City Manager?
City Manager Dennis Bow: It is my understanding that this is the application process. This is not the final paperwork where the council will decide whether or not the project will go forward. This is just for the application to the State of Michigan. And it’s my understanding there is one public hearing. We have to record all of the comments. That’s why we needed your name and address. And all of these, the transcript of this meeting will go, along with the application, to the Department of Environmental Quality. So there’s, at this point, one public hearing required. Again, this is just an application.
Beverley Martin: Thank you very much.
Bobbi Hoydic, 436 Windy Bluff: We don’t have to sign anything to the state? Like we usually have to sign something.
City Manager Dennis Bow: There is a Resolution of Support that is on the next part of the agenda. And the Council will have to determine whether or not they want to support the application.
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Minutes
June 29, 2009
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City Engineer Lou Fleury: You should have them sign. Everyone that’s present. I’m glad she brought that up.
City Manager Dennis Bow: Oh, you’re talking about the, where they, oh I’m sorry. We can circulate an attendance sheet. I misunderstood what you were asking.
City Engineer Lou Fleury: Thanks for bringing that up. I’ll give you something to write on.
Beverley Martin: I won’t sign a blank sheet.
City Manager Dennis Bow: I’ll fill something out here and circulate it.
City Engineer Lou Fleury: Okay.
Mayor Pro-Tem Michael Szukhent: Any additional comments? Seeing none, I will close the public hearing.
REPORTS:
Fire Services Agreement – A Fire Services Agreement has been approved by Flushing Charter Township, and represents a five (5) year continuation for services provided by the city to the township.
The terms of the contract have been changed since the last extension was granted in 2004. A new formula is included, and effectively divides the cost of the fire department between the city and the township based upon the number of fire runs that take place in each community on an annual basis. Estimated payments will be made on a quarterly basis, with a “look back” provision based on the number of runs. Also, the rental of city fire equipment for hydrant cleaning in the township will be billed based upon charges for the direct cost of the equipment. The agreement is to become effective July 1st of this year and continue until either party issues a notice of cancellation. That notice would provide for a one-year time period prior to the termination of the contract.
Motion by Bade, seconded by Gault, to approve the Fire Services Agreement, as presented, between the City of Flushing and Flushing Charter Township.
Yea: Bade, Brock, Gault, Kozan, Salem, Szukhent, Gensel
Nay: None
Motion Carried.
Flushing City Council
Minutes
June 29, 2009
Page Nine
Sewer Plant Authorizing Resolution – Motion by Gault, seconded by Bade, to approve Resolution 09-0629, a Resolution Adopting a Project Plan for Sanitary Sewer System Improvements and Designating an Authorized Project Representative (city manager).
Yea: Bade, Brock, Gault, Kozan, Salem, Szukhent, Gensel
Nay: None
Motion Carried.
ORDINANCES:
Outdoor Café Ordinance - Motion by Bade, seconded by Gensel, to move to second reading and adoption of Ordinance 110.09, an ordinance providing for licensing and regulation of outdoor cafés in zoning districts where restaurants, bars or similar establishments are a permitted use.
Yea: Bade, Brock, Gault, Kozan, Salem, Szukhent, Gensel
Nay: None
Motion Carried.
Closed
Session:
Labor Negotiation – Motion by Kozan, seconded by Bade that, pursuant to the Open Meetings Act compiled laws 15.268(c), Council go into closed session to consider negotiations on a collective bargaining agreement.
Yea: Bade, Brock, Gault, Kozan, Salem, Szukhent, Gensel
Nay: None
Motion Carried.
Purchase of Real Estate – Motion by Kozan, seconded by Gensel that, pursuant to the Open Meetings Act compiled laws 15.268(d), Council go into closed session to consider the purchase or lease of real property, or the option to purchase or lease real property.
Yea: Bade, Brock, Gault, Kozan, Salem, Szukhent, Gensel
Nay: None
Motion Carried.
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Minutes
June 29, 2009
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Pending Litigation – Motion by Kozan, seconded by Brock that, pursuant to the Open Meetings Act compiled laws 15.268(e), Council go into closed session to consult with the city’s attorney regarding trial or settlement strategies, as an open meeting would have a detrimental financial effect on the city’s litigation or settlement position.
Yea: Bade, Brock, Gault, Kozan, Salem, Szukhent, Gensel
Nay: None
Motion Carried.
Adjourn: 7:57 p.m.
Reconvene: 9:07 p.m.
Labor Negotiations – Motion by Kozan, seconded by Gault, for the city manager to proceed with, and approve, labor negotiations, as discussed.
Yea: Bade, Brock, Gault, Kozan, Salem, Szukhent, Gensel
Nay: None
Motion Carried.
Purchase of Real Property – Motion by Kozan, seconded by Gault, for the city manager to proceed, as discussed, to obtain real estate.
Yea: Bade, Brock, Gault, Kozan, Salem, Szukhent, Gensel
Nay: None
Motion Carried.
Adjournment - Motion by Gensel, seconded by Bade, to adjourn.
Yea: Bade, Brock, Gault, Kozan, Salem, Szukhent, Gensel
Nay: None
Motion Carried.
Adjourn: 9:08 p.m.
_______________________________ ______________________________
Michael T. Szukhent, Mayor Pro-Tem Nancy G. Parks, City Clerk/Treasurer