A regular meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Butte-Meade Sanitary Water District was held at District Office on December 9, 2020 at 8:00 a.m.  The meeting was called to order by the President of the Board, Bob Lewis at 8:05 a.m. Unless otherwise noted, all Board action was by unanimous decision.

Members Present: Bob Lewis, Brian Stambaugh (via teleconference), Gary Velder, Judy Heisler, Penny Oedekoven , Merri Stapp, Clerk Treasurer, Mike Wolff, District Manager. Absent: None.

Motion by Judy Heisler, second Gary Velder to adopt the agenda. All voted yea.

The Minutes of the November 10th meeting were read and approved on a motion by Bob Lewis, second Penny Oedekoven . All voted yea.

The Treasurer’s Report and bills were approved on a motion by Bob Lewis, second Gary Velder. All voted yea:

Discussion was held on hiring a very part time billing assistant to be able to fill in should one of the billing clerks be ill or need assistance on a very busy day, and also to have one more person trained on the billing system.  The hours would be approx. 25 hours per month.  The Board agreed upon a 6 month trial for this part time position. On a motion by Brian Stambaugh, second Bob Lewis, hiring a part time billing assistant @ approx. 25 hours per month was approved. All voted yea. Clerk-Treasurer Stapp added that Billing Clerks Hope Komes and Kim Marzolf should choose the person to be hired as they are the ones who will be working closely with them. Trustees Heisler, Velder and President Lewis volunteered to help interview applicants along with Hope Komes and Kim Marzolf.

Manager Wolff presented his monthly repair and maintenance report which included:

• Showing the Board the new telemetry system’s options on the computer. The new system has many options, and can work on 2 tanks, with the capability of adding more tanks if necessary.

• Main breaks repaired in the past month. The worst being the break on Indian Creek Bridge.  The boring crew is on their way today to get the repairs done.

• New taps to be installed.

• Low pressure for some customers east of town. A possible remedy may be replacing the 1 1/2’” line with a larger line to increase pressure. Manager Wolff will be studying the situation to come up with the best fix.

• Discussion on raising tapping fees for new lines.  Currently the fee is $ 200.00 and has not increased since 1967.

Trustee Velder brought up a few items to consider. One was dressing up any areas after digging work is done.  Manager Wolff said they try to make sure that is done, but if anyone has complaints, make sure to report it to the Manager so it can be taken care of.

Also, Trustee Velder would like to see a year end summary of the work done each year and provide it to the customers, maybe send it out with the billing, just so the customers are aware of what the District has done in the past year.

On a motion by Bob Lewis,second Penny Oedekoven, the meeting was adjourned at 9:05 am.