TUD Meeting Reviews Finances

Sonora, CA — At Tuesday’s meeting, The T.U.D. Board of Directors heard how the third quarter finances held up.

The Board set the time for the next public hearing on December 10 at 5:00pm. There will be a vote on previously proposed changes to water rules and regulations.

The minutes for the previous Regular Board meeting of October 22, and Special Board meeting of October 28, 2013 were not approved pending a procedural review of how the previous General Manager, Pete Kampa, was bought out of his contract. Possible Brown Act violations due to closing the regular meeting instread of adjourning and not reporting the action taken before Kampa was notifed are key conserns the board wants to address and determine how to resolve any possible legal liability.

The Board got an update on the Big Hill-Columbia Water System Interconnection Project. The $681,000 project started in late August and is being carried out by Njirich and Sons, Inc. It consists of installing 7,200 linear feet of 8-inch water pipeline along Big Hill, Sawmill Flat and Yankee Hill Roads. There were also five new fire hydrants installed and other equipment related to water pressure.

Pipe from Big Hill to Columbia water system is in place. The project has been under construction since August. The project was reported as on schedule and 95% complete. Clean up work remains and the line is “hot”. One component unfinished is the connection to the Columbia system. They will eliminate a pump in the Columbia Vista area that is not needed.

Ted Allen says the Big Hill project “is going to be $35,000 under the bid ammount due to elimination to the paving changes in the field. Well under budget.”

The reason it was under budget was due to moving the pipe line out to the side of the road which saved time, prevented damage to the road and resulted in less road repaving.No complete road closures and only one way traffic control except when crossing the road.

There was a Staff Report on the video inspection of about 55% of the District’s sewer system by the end of 2015.

The report is that the video is working out in general. The reporting process is working well, with the first level five (imminante) failure- a rootball into a pipe- being repaired when it was found.

There was also an issue with a PVC pipe where there was an offset issue due to improper instalation. The plan is that problems are found before there is a sanitary overflow. The report based on the first week of reports is “It is going ok it is going to generate a lot of work.”

The District has a $250,000 contract to inspect around 647,000 feet of sewer pipe by the end of 2015. For more information view the news story “Cameras In Sonoras Sewer Pipes”.