Hondius Water Users Project Committee 1/8/15 Meeting Minutes
Present: Jim Redman, Tim Breiding, and Bill Rawsky. Absent: Beth Coulson, Ernie Dietrich, Thurmond Williamson, Brandy Flanagan, Tony & Vi Burroughs, Don Piepgras
Previous Meeting Minutes.
Approved by all. Jim will forward for posting onto the website.
Review of Project Committee and Project Timing.
Larimer County is working on the Request For Proposal (RFP) for the project’s Preliminary Engineering Study (PES) and it is expected to be completed around the end of February. Responses (bids for the study) will be requested within approximately two weeks from that time. Based on this time frame the committee to select the engineer (expected to consist of two participants from the County and three from the Hondius water users group committee) will have an initial meeting to score the RFP’s mid-March. This first meeting can probably occur via phone conference and will narrow the pool to 2 or 3 proposals. The second meeting would occur around the end of March and will require the members to meet in Fort Collins to interview the bidders and award the PES.
The following are targeted timeframes after the awarding of the PES:
August 2015 – PES completed
September 2015 – Meeting with Hondius Water Users Group to share results of PES
May-July 2016 – Meeting with County Commissioners to form the LID
November 2016 – Election of the LID Colorado residents regarding the question of whether to incur debt for the project
Jim discussed with a County representative some issues discussed by this Committee regarding defining the project in terms of what constitutes the main Hondius line and the extent to which work would need to be included in the project to deal with the issue of common “service” lines where those exist within the Hondius system. The County representative indicated that this matter is something that would need to be addressed by the engineers in performing the PES.
The County representative also indicated that the State is changing the process for loans for water projects, but that he did not have all the details at this point. He indicated that he would go to Denver to obtain more information on the changes and the impacts, if any, to our specific project. One thing he had become aware of was a possibility for a grant process for the more detailed engineering work required after the PES is performed. Under the previous system, these costs would have been rolled into the loan for the total project costs; however, if further grant money were available, that would reduce the total amount of the loan required for the project. We will hope to have more information on this matter by the time of this Committee’s next meeting.
Hondius Water Users Map Update.
The maps have not yet been received from the engineer that is supposed to provide an ecopy of the maps so Tim will again contact the engineer.
Closing.
Next Meeting: February 5, 2015, 6:00 PM MST.