Town Board Workshop

okay 63 okay well uh welcome everybody to the Thursday August 15 2024 Webster Town board Workshop um actually this is our first Thursday night of our new format where we had the workshops uh scheduled at 6:30 pm. uh followed by the regular Town board meetings at 7:30 p.m. and that's our new format uh for the first and third Thursdays of the month going into the future so um at our Workshop tonight we have two agenda items the first one is a presentation by communications director Bridget Harvey and the Strategic communication plan for Town W and time to bridge it thank you um so earlier this year I talked to you about um two of the major efforts of the Communications Department as we get things rolling in this new Department of the Town um and the Strategic Communications plan is one of those um so I know Kim distributed the plan itself to you as well as this presentation um so I'd just love to take you through some of those highlights and

um allow you to ask any questions you may have about this and as always I'm also open to at answering questions offline as well um so we'll start off with what a strategic plan is and why it's important for the town to have one so our plan is an internal document that's really going to establish the um priorities and the purpose of the Communications Department as it's being newly created so it's those parameters that this department will hopefully um operate on as it continues to develop Through The Years um it's also a document to guide our communication and public relations efforts um in relation to our Target audiences so establishing what those Target audiences are and how we can best reach those through the different channels and opportunities that we have um it also organizes our efforts and um looks to create efficiency and Effectiveness in sharing our information and news and provides intention and sustainability so it makes everything really have purpose that we're doing rather than um just just doing whatever we want to do and growing and seeing with scks um and it is also to Foster

accessibility while we are reaching our audiences so some of the key components you'll see as you review the plan are identifying those um purposes and priorities of the department itself it's identifying our Target audiences it is setting up guidelines for our external and internal Communications um identifying what our response to conflict should look like in an ideal situation and um guiding our media contact and public relations efforts through their media opportunities um so who are our targeted audiences who are we looking to reach who are we currently reaching um so that's going to be our Webster residents but on the flip side of that it's potential residents who may be looking for a new place to live um it's our town employees but it's also prospective Town employees that we are looking to recruit it's business owners and prospective business owners where we want to Market our is a really great place to come and and show them that we're economically friendly and open to this growth it's our local media it's developers contractors and whees so some of the highlights you'll see throughout this is um establishing key messaging and supporting facts so what that means is establishing um

messaging points that are based on the needs of our community and it's supported by our town actions so supporting economic growth is a good example of a messaging point and how we would support that is saying that we're working with businesses to create an environment that is it is open for them to flish year um it's tailoring our approach to our audiences and the messages being sent um so we all know we have the opportunity to use social media to use our website to use print media but um it's really using those to um deliver information to our Target audiences really making sure we're getting the best return on investment for the um vehicles that we're using and it's encouraging internal collaboration and knowledge sharing so that's where we're really looking at our internal Communications which will um encourage not only knowledge transfer inside of our organization but it also bolsters our Communications efforts outside of the um outside of our organization as we're looking to reach our community um we're looking to centralize our Communications efforts um and what that really does is it it breeds

trustworthiness as we have consistency across the board people know things are coming from the town we have our our consistent answers to questions as we approach the community um and then one of the things that's most important to me is making sure our constituent experiences are really data driven so we need to regular evaluating our success and failures and being honest with ourselves of what's working and what's reaching people and what's not and um looking to grow from there so just some early accomplishments of our department and you'll see some of this within the plan um and some of it is lives outside of there but this plan itself um is something that we set to accomplish within this year and we've done so so we've done that using research and feedback and staff collaboration so um throughout this process I've invited staff to several um input sessions to Garner um their experiences and ask what their um recommendations on where we should go and what feedback they have for how we can communicate with people and that was very valuable in putting this plan together um and I was very impressed at

how many um folks within the town staff participated in that um and to do this we directed at our plan um to outline our um effective Communications for audiences using um research from other organizations experiences as well as what looks within our own um organization um you'll also see that we have our updated model for town a meeting AB um so we have fully implemented our userfriendly and um portable system which is um quite a bit more cost effective what we've used in the past and really is I believe the future of um where meetings like this will go but another important thing to highlight there is that we are cross trining a number of town staff members so you'll see um not to put her on the spot that Maria is here with me today um she has stepped up to be a cross Trin employee of the Town um and what that really does is it provides for us to not have any gaps in somebody is not available to come in and we can continue to use the same um model and not be halted with a less un favorable

situation for some amount of time um I know that many of you received our um new monthly e newsletter um in our first month of having it out our subscribership has already gone up 13.8% um we are I believe um with 11 um 100 folks subscribe to that um we have a 69.1% opam rate which is compared to a 42% industry average within um local government and we have a 10.2% click rate and engagement rate on that email platform which is compared to a 4% industry outage so really quite a bit above um the government industry and um we also implemented our social media plan which has seen an 89% increase in reach a 72% increase in average Impressions and a 247 increase in average interactions on our posts so looking to the Future um what's next um website updates I have you'll see that in the plan um but I've been working with our departments to simplify and um to address some of the concerns that

residents have had other users have had about our website to make it more user friendly and a more practical tool for everyone um as I mentioned earlier this year and um earlier this evening establishing a style guide which will breed consistency and make our branding work similar across the board and um and will really um solidify our methods um expanding our community outreach and looking for opportunities to engage with with businesses and with our residents in a more robust way than we have been doing um and really make the organization and within the community um establishing a crisis Communications plan to react to um crisis situations to protect the reputation of the town and really make sure that we're making smart and measured decisions in the font of a crisis or an emergency situation and all of this will lead to constient relations across the board um so I know there's a lot there and even more within the plan but if there are any

initial 2000 are you talking about like a con constituent relationship manager like a contact manager I'm talking about how people's um email addresses Oh They'll be used to um contact them about information from the town so yes and I want I just want clarify absolutely well can I speak to that yes okay Charlie do you remember when I became supervisor four or plus years ago and Steve pce Our IT director Karen Buck who ran cable at the time pseudo Communications and yourself I said you know Kim doyan and myself you know we want to want to build this database of email addresses we get contacted by our citizens all the and they submit the planning boards zoning board calling for tree evaluations they're falling in places and all this

you got all these people reaching out to us but we're not garnering these email addresses where we could potentially uh utilize them to communicate to them things such as hey we're going to be doing chip seal on your road you know in the next month and the big concern was and of course I was new so like this guy he's probably crazy whatever oh my goodness you know that is that's there's going to be some uh privacy issues there and there's going to be whatever and I said you know I got to tell you something guys and I appreciate that I said you know as you get to know me um I'm a measured twice cut once person we're going to make sure that this thing has policies and procedures that are locked out and the last thing I would ever want something like this used for and I'm going to call it nefarious because if somebody sitting in this seat who uses that database of 10,000 or 15,000 email addresses of our citizens as the incumbent for campaigning that's evil so the best thing we can do is put procedures and parameters around it to make sure that it never happens do you recall this conversation

CH not is much detail oh I do I do all right because now four plus years later um and I'm very very you know Patty Catholic guilt Bishop K you MC you know what I mean I feel very strongly about this the compass of right so to speak but the reason why we got to lock that down with procedures and policies in the future I can assure you you don't have to worry about me doing it not on my watch I'm not going to be supervisor forever and I'm going to leave the next supervisor with 15 20,000 email address that's a powerful tool if put in the hands of the wrong person as well it should and yes as well it that's why I wanted to call that out it's very important people should feel comfortable providing this information there's a lot

of andate events go on the website so it's more absolutely well we're still and I mean now I'll step off my soap box of the nefarious way to use it and I I think I know what source Jennifer that you're reading I think it's a source that is uh probably not uh representative of the 45,000 citizens uh feelings in the committee but I could be wrong I think making a very Val point it's nice to get that information out there well as long as there's information in the source I will say this is that um this is a question Bridget but uh because the news source of of what councilwoman um Wright brought up also from that Source was that this monthly newsletter that was launched on August

1st um there was you call it myths or dispelled rumors or however you put it um it had if I remember correctly Bridget more hits opens and clicks to Links in the first three days after it was launched then the Weekly Newsletter its predecessor had in May of 2023 for the aggregate four weeks of that newsletter so I actually have those numbers for you please put them out there because um in August of 2023 the weekly The Weekly Newsletter which was four newsletters had 126 total views um compared to uh 1, 198 views on our August monthly newsletter one weekend um and then in August 2023 our Weekly Newsletter so that's the four newsletters had a 14.3% open rate compared to to our 69.1 open rate on the new monthly newsletter and then in August 2023 our newsl uh newsletter had a click rate of 1.8% versus the current click rate of

10.1% so I want to go to the last page that's up on the screen right now because it all spawns off of that is um I I'm an old guy so I'm not really uh I don't practice this stuff I'm not on Tik Tok and Instagram and all that stuff but I got enough kids that you know didn't me how it works so when you get an 89% reach in your social media uh lately and 72% increase in average Impressions and 247 increase in average interactions um to me if our previous reach out through whatever the posts were and and the content of the post is completely a different thing okay that's different but if the post that the government is putting out is tan Mount to a tree falling in the woods because nobody hears it because nobody sees it well that's a worthless thing so one of the things that I've been very happy that Bridget came in with her base of expertise and said this is how we can increase actually people actually looking at our stuff and job one job one

as we communicate with the citizens is will they look at our St and I get the example all the time that when I own my business I think one of the biggest mistakes that was made by our marketing and Merchandising department when we did Direct Mail campaigns you spend a lot of money on Direct Mail campaigns is they spent 95% of their time on how the letter inside the envelope what does it say how does it look this and that and they spent 5% of the time on the envelope not understanding that human beings spend .1 second when they get the mail looking at that envelope before they throw it out or they decide they're going to open it and that's what the devil in the details of communications is something that I am really happy that we are starting to pay attention to it's going to pay major dividends to this to I've said it unapologetically that the one thing I hope when I'm kicked out of this job or do I get to leave on my own reconnaissance it's important to me that the community feels that the brand of the town government of Webster is good because the reality is the people that I work with these are good intentioned people and I'll be the first to admit

that it bothers me when things are thrown at the town government we're an easy Mark come on L it on the government the government's got to be the problem right and sometimes they're very right well I've asked our staff here's what we can do let's do what we say and say what we do if we can continually do that at every Department then citizens who are rational people are going to see that and experience that and they'll start to think well of their town government and it would be good to have them think well of the town government genuinely feel well of town government because then when they hear something that hey did you hear that there's going to be a CCO in town boy that government is a not transparent and they're slimy and this and that you'd like to think they' say well you know geez my experience with the town government has been that they're they're pretty upfront pretty transparent and pretty whatever that's the goal that's the goal of a business that's a goal that should be in your personal life I don't know about how you raised your kids but one of the first things you say is do as you say say as you do and rational people that you experience in your job and in your life they'll notice that

and they will gravitate toward it we need to do that here within our internal Communications and our external Communications I will get off my pontification Soap Box pretty high on it too on my thank you um I just want to reassure people that we're not mining their personal information from wherever we could find it and adding it to our database and along those lines briet maybe you know people are watching and they hav't sub to it yet what they'd like to how do they do that um they can do it in a number of ways they can um go to the communcations page of the um Town's website and there's an inline sign up form there um we'll also be posting it regularly on our um social media pages with a link to a signup sheet or they can contact me directly through um my email address or um office number and both of those are found on the town website as well great thank you Richie do you have a disclaimer you know that we only use their email you know for so um the they have to subscribe to our e newsletters so um a number of people

were imported after they had subscribed to the Weekly Newsletter and those were transferred over um and then another caveat to that is there has to be an unsubscribe button and if they opt to unsubscribe we can't re them from there we've experienced a lot of I say a lot of unsubscribe when we've used the database of emails we have yeah to send out the chip seals of being done and at the bottom the disclaimer is if you want to unsubscribe unsubscribe certainly and I mean that happens for a number of reasons people move it's no longer of interest to them um and that's something we totally respect um it no longer works for them and that's fine P can I ask to this and I probably should know the answer you gave a nice summary five slides here you also gave the town board a draft of a 25 page strategic communication plan M this is a draft so this this hasn't been uh presented out to the community yet is that correct correct okay all right do you have an idea of when we would get to the point where the community would see the full 26 page I would say if there are no major concerns um from the board we would move

forward with this being effective though I don't think it requires a vote or anything it would just be posted to the town's website right okay um I I've already taken a lot of auction in out of the room in my Pulpit preaching I just I made some notes when you were going through this uh I think it was on the fifth uh strategic Target audiences the Webster business owners and the prospective business owners I know that you have already had a couple of meetings with Barry CH Barry Howard at the Chamber of Commerce that's correct okay and within that effort um the next page um where you have I'm just trying to think here um I put a note that and I think I mentioned this last week that we have an i it automation task force that has been formed um we were supposed to have our next meeting this week but boy several people had some issues that we had to reschedule till next week but that that is really going to be focused on how do we inove internal communication and this happens in every

organization I mean anybody watching this live or watching it in tape think about your own uh company you work for and how you know I didn't know down the hall in accounting they're doing this where we're down this Hall in sales it would have been nice to know that departments tend to sometimes in organizations be siloed and when they're siloed unfortunately I think you look back after two four six months and say it would have been nice if they were on the same page on something they could have done you know saved some money for the organization so we've been addressing that the last couple years I think we've made good uh Headway on it and and then in the external communication uh and what automation can help with that you know Denine I know that when we were uh vetting town clerk candidates and U tax receivers one of the things that came up is that we need to be realistic that if 10 let's say it's 5,000 people come into town hall in a typical year for services to pay their school taxes Town and County taxes to get dog licenses to get to get all the service that the town does realistically in 10 years um the people that come into town hall will not

they will not accept that as an option for them because they've grown up and they'll be in their 30s and 40s and have young kids and they're like I'm not taking time out of my day between 8:30 and 4:30 to go in for a service that should be on my phone and should be automated and so we're that's part of this uh uh committee is that we need to start thinking like that how do we get to that point we love seeing people at Town Hall we're not trying to chase them out but you have to have that option for those services so you know um I'm really interested to get going on that task force so that's all I got on that are there any other questions I can answer this evening no I I want to thank you on all the things that you've already done in the left hand column of this page and when I look at it um you've been very busy I have been busy but I love doing this work well we're grateful that you do thank you than thank you thank you now we might want to think about changing from 6:30 workshops and 7:30 regular Town board meetings to maybe 7

o' workshops because man if we got an hour that's going to basically motivate me to pontificate the Patty I was just going to say you can fill that time really how about that huh you know we gotta like we said we we would tweak based on lessons learned from this new format Mark that one down because we're starting uh 12 minutes late on the next presentation but we have 33 minutes until the 730 Town board meeting so our next item and second and last item tonight is a presentation I think that's going to be given by uh art Patron Rick Canali from our uh sanitary sewer department Wastewater recovery and also Paul Adams our um our finance director it's an update on the energy performance contract between the town of Webster and Navitas on the Wastewater recovery plant upgrade so I will hand the Baton off to those gentlemen thank you supervisor and absolutely right so as we uh sort of trend towards uh our final Amendment uh we want to give you a uh little project review of the thousands of hours uh that's really been spent to get us here uh we'll go through a quick agenda so

it's project status we're going to talk about uh the energy performance contract Amendment Three scope summary then we're going to discuss scope adjustments during construction and we will finish it with project financials so products project status so we have been under construction for about one year uh we have uh a lot of things going on uh at the facility I think a few of you were down uh in the past week uh our construction dates are right on target uh we'll be accepting uh septage in high strength waste in July of 2025 which will drive some Revenue uh will be a startup of the biosolids dryer in September of 2025 uh the there will be an operational cost reduction uh as you know uh we uh spend a lot hauling cake and also in September 2025 we'll be ready to accept a waste flow from Fairlife facility another large uh Revenue generator for the town uh the next page is you're going to see uh some construction photos and actually these were taken earlier this week uh on the right hand side you can

see the uh footer uh for the drier Building looks like two railroad tracks uh they're pouring that you can see the uh the large pump truck in blue and orange uh you can see just past that the high strength waist receiving building and to the left of your screen uh the 550 ton crane uh getting ready to erect uh begin erecting the panels of our uh new uh digestor and that is a uh great picture of the crane is just an awesome site and Rick how much weight was on the counter counter weights over 400 ton so it took uh 14 semi trucks to uh build that Crane and they did it in about uh 4 hours so we're going to talk about the energy performance contract Amendment Three scope of work this amendment will be focused on accepting waste flow from our new industrial customer uh so that includes our fourth aeration tank and upgraded airation systems uh would give uh much better control to our chief fline operator and team uh the new anerobic digestor that we just saw uh all facilities within the new dryer

building electrical mechanical HVAC and everything associated with that in all site work final site work and utilities uh on the site so we did have some scope adjust adjustments during construction and we're going to talk about those a little bit Yeah so um a major portion of the scope expansion uh really are tied to the first three uh bullet points there the high strength organic waste building uh the trickling filter that required complete Demolition and the relocation of um overhead electric utility lines so this project as we are moving along was kind of a actually wound up being a living breathing document it kind of we are continue to look at efficiencies and way way we could do things differently um instead of when we look at original design so this high strength waste organic um building was going to be a huge Revenue generation for us but originally the building was designed to be part of the derrier building um and what we found out as we um were doing the uh landscape of the waste that we're going to be accepting um out there um concurrently we were looking at project ISO to uh and we didn't know who they were what if they were going to land that um big fish but we wound up getting

them but what anyways so as we looked at it we were only going to be accepting being able to accept um a few trucks a day or one at a time actually so as we saw this we decided to look at maybe separating that building out and pulling it away from that to allow more trucks in the day to increase Revenue uh potential um but also um open up traffic for our fertilizer that we'll be creating so there's going to be a lot of traffic around there so having the building separate was the ideal way to go but um concurrently with that um New York DC decided to come out with uh put their guidance out for water quality standards regarding to the emergency contaminants the p and posos and our original design we were looking at taking an outside cake from other facilities um to utilize our dryer and be like their tipping or their landfill for them and we created a tipping fee for us but as we thought about that with the posos regulations and the low thresholds we're like well we may be bringing a problem into our facility from an outside cake and would affect our class A fertilizer so we decided to be proactive and we did our own sampling to see where we were at and we wound up being well below the threshold so we said you know what as we're looking at this maybe we shift away from taking outside biosolids and look at taking more

organic waste and fair life came to town which had excess Fair um organic waste so in turn that increased the size of our digestor so we're going to look at taking more truckloads of fair life waste other organic waste fat soiling greases and stuff like that so when we did this it shifted our building too so that moved it right over to where the trickling filter was which meant we had to do a full demolition of that and take it down instead of the original plan of just going below grade correct correct so also the trickle effect um is as we made the digestor bigger to increase Revenue potential and increased um uh gas production um we noticed that uh our roadway around there was going to be a little tight and the electric lines were through there so we decided to evaluate burying those electric lines um it opened up the roadway there allowed us to also move tankage up there which saved on piping and saved us money there was a savings there but it built resiliency for our utilities down the road and not having lines overhead and they were underground so so that was a major portion of the scope expansion absolutely uh there was there was a uh administration building uh expansion and like like Rick had mentioned you know

this is a uh you know it is a designed build and uh once we we got the plans and it was priced uh we sat back and looked at it and giving it more thought the the square footage just wasn't conducive to where the town needed to be now and into 30 years so we we uh enlarged uh really our training room break room that's where the majority of it was a little bit bigger uh to that point we've actually worked with our suppliers and vendors who uh just EST static with it because they want to come in and do training there not only for our staffs but for uh surrounding staffs uh the last one uh was the aestus remediation uh this was a hidden as Festus within the uh Within the administration building that was only found uh after the walls were beginning to be demolished so it was it was hidden vermiculate within the walls uh to that point we slide over to scope savings which at this point is approximately $1.1 million and this is really comprised of uh design credits working with uh navius and their team uh

pulling back on some items where we can uh there were some items that uh were uh in the scope but we were able to purchase them uh directly off of State contract and gain a uh gain quite a bit of a savings there uh winter construction savings uh Dennis I'm going to let you maybe elaborate on the winter construction if you would sure um when you're planning for construction in Upstate New York you have to plan on bad Winters um and that may mean cost such as heating for concrete or extended work times or additional labor uh but as we know the winter have not been harsh here so that's allowed us to actually have some Savings in those areas and it gives us the ability to return those back to the town and we do that within our contract through What's called the client savings allowance so whenever there are savings that are within our our executed contract those dollars are identified and then returned back to the town within the contract structure and then if at the end of the the project those funds are not uh used for some other Purpose By The Town a reductive change order is done to our contract which reduces that overall price and all those dollars are returned and then you know and a little bit on scope efficiencies what you touched on and this is the scope efficiencies it really happens uh

not in one lump sum it is it happens daily it happens weekly it happens monthly it's ongoing uh with uh with an Nova staff on site Rick and I are looking at things as as they're coming up uh you know in our two three and four we look ahads and saying okay you know maybe we can adjust things maybe you know maybe we don't need that right because something else changed so it's just evolving and we're always looking uh for scope efficiencies and uh scope savings on the financial side uh we actually have some good news um when you take a look at the revenue impact uh the septage and high strength are going waste uh we actually estimated this Revenue number at 60% of capacity uh we think it it will produce about 1.1 million uh in 2026 and then 1.6 million thereafter that's from the high strength or granic waste and the seped side uh once we get going in 2026 uh should be about 650,000 a year uh with the addition of fair life uh obviously that creates a tremendous amount of flow into the plant and uh

they will be charged charged uh 1 Adu for every uh 60,000 gallons that flows to the plant um so basically that equates to at a rate of $250 it equates to about $1.8 million per year uh also there's the onetime connection fee uh based on the pipeline capacity of 12,000 uh edus uh their fee for uh the onetime connection fee is uh $2,190 th000 that's in accordance with the town code uh we're striking a deal with uh Coca-Cola Fairlife to have that paid over 10 years the first payment will take place in July of 25 uh so it's a huge impact I mean it's it's the equivalent of adding 12 12,000 houses to to the town so on the revenue side I mean when you total it all up uh for 2, 25 we're at about 2.3 million uh in new revenue and starting at 26 we're at about 4.4 million on the operational uh cost savings side uh bio solid disposal

expense this is our sludge hauling uh currently we have to take uh the solid waste have to have it hauled away to a landfill uh it's very expensive uh that's currently in the budget for 25 for 57 $3,000 uh we're expecting this cost to come down substantially over the next few years we think eventually we can get that down to about 70,000 a year uh there is some Energy savings uh based on the existing buildings of about 70,000 a year but due to the new equipment we're adding on such as the dryer uh it actually ends up being about a net increase of about 30,000 a year for electricity uh the industrial user increases uh it does increase the overall treatment expense obviously it's not free to treat the additional flow we're estimating this to be about 650,000 per year on the next page we have the uh net project cost breakdown uh the current authorized uh namitas contract is just under 62 million uh this particular Amendment will be for about 23,300 th000 it will bring the Navitas contract up to

about 85 mil 327 and then we have a couple items that are outside the contract uh the paving of all the roadways and the parking lots around around the project will cost about 1.4 million and then the other project expenses of about 570,000 brings the expected gross project cost up to 87 m300 th000 and as you know we have received a 20 million doll Grant from New York State EFC uh Governor hul will awarded this grant back in April and um proud to say that we actually received the first payment today oh wow of uh yes 10 milon 590,000 I got an email uh I think it was early this afternoon and uh I thought the payment was going to come in tomorrow two hours later we had the money they W right on remarkable so we're halfway home on the GR fabulous which is good mhm which is good Paul have you ever seen an incoming wire for $10.6 million in your professional career yeah have you oh jeez bragger earlier today I expecting you to say no to

that okay go ahead I wow it's a lot of money it is a lot of money so anyway um so the expected net cost of the project are 67 m300 th000 um as you know we bonded 81,500 th000 so we won't have to borrow to that level um there's a but in in the uh upcoming amended Bond res resolution the only number that's really changing is the maximum project cost which will go to 873 uh that's on the last page the sewer rates are currently 296 per edu uh um so the town is expecting future rates uh to stay relatively stable at or below the 2024 level um so basically the town is able to complete an $87 million project with uh no effect on the rate in the mediate future which is quite an accomplishment uh additional dollars will be budgeted in the future for the sewer capital reserve Reserve in the 2025 budget I have 540,000

earmarked um in future budgets uh I put in about 500,000 in my long-term projection so uh we know that we have to put money away in uh for future projects so we don't uh run into this uh the situation we're in right now fut also we think that we've budgeted revenues quite conservatively as I mentioned uh the sewer rent charged to Fair life is based on 60% of their capacity 7300 EU uh so we think they'll probably go over that so if so that'll help build some unappropriated fund balance which can be used in the future to stabilize the rate and also the 60% conservative on the outside waste receiving yes so there's an upside to that also we're very consera that well I have questions if I could sure um when we're looking at the net project cost page maybe if we could bring that up again um perhaps you could elaborate on other

project costs what's what's included in that yeah the the biggest piece of other project costs is 26 50,000 we had to pay the rg& I think they had to be with relocating the lines and uh that's correct but we did as R mentioned we gained uh so many other efficiencies from that but you're abolutely correct and savings and savings it also includes payments to our bond counsel and our bond Consultants okay uh to handle the annual Bond anticipation notes eventually the serial bun so those those would be few other miscellaneous items yeah outside of the Navas contract right and um I I know that Paving was originally included in the contract how what was the reason we pulled it out and that's that's a great question so then you want to start it and I'll sort of end it up how we're going to move take care of moving forward so as we were working through uh all the work necessary to finish the project Paving came up for discussion and there's certain aspects of the project where us as the prime contractor we need to have responsibility for ensuring all of the coordination done and you end up with a well functioning system but Paving is a relatively simple and straightforward piece of work and so as we started to talk with the town we

were realizing that us managing that as part of the project with us having costs associated wasn't really providing very much value to the town so we started having some conversations with with art and Rick about were there some other ways that that work could be accomplished either um with the town procuring it directly with us providing some coordination support as part of the project or were there some other ways that perhaps it could be done more cost effectively yeah that's exactly right and and this is a great example of you know I spoken earlier about you know we're looking at efficiencies every day and this is a great one uh so we we left this as a conservative number uh we're working with our Highway Department uh to see if see if all or a portion of it uh they can help us complete uh if not uh we will work with our U with Novus and our Engineers to create an RFP and we'll send it out to bid and we'll manage it inhouse with a little bit of help from Abus uh but we will keep trying to drive that number down thank you yeah it's I mean we should make no mistake it's still going to be a cost within the project but we're looking at doing it more as Dennis said cost effectively and efficiently thank you

so I got a couple questions on the uh $2.6 million high strength organic waste building um because that was a pretty significant investment that um I was unaware of until I met with you gentleman the other day and one of the questions that I forgot to ask you was what was your projected uh return on investment of this 2.6 million so I so if you want me to take that so um I'm just assuming you did the analysis before the building went up what I remember at the time when we were looking at the differences was was related to how many trucks um could come into the to the site and by having the two lanes of traffic instead of the one and so one of the things that we've that we know is that every single truck that comes through um a day equals a little over $100,000 a year in Revenue so I i' have to go back Mr kahill and look at what we were looking at in the differences of the truck traffic capabilities from the first design to the second um in order for me to give you a good accurate answer to that yeah I'd be very interested in that information if you want to over to and we'll add to that um is that we weren't

projected to take in hardly any of fair life's Daft waste um they were going to have to haul that away so once we did this that was a whole new added one that we weren't planning on so there's a number of that too we can give you yeah sure I'm not really familiar with Municipal construction I'm very familiar with private commercial construction um and how do I put this diplomatically um usually we're we would approach the owners with some changes and something of this significance um the owners we would approach the owners before this happened it just seems it's a little went a little different this way C can I add something John to that two things one um instead of the return on investment calculation being sent to councilman kill in three weeks on September 5th we'll be back here for what I think is going to be a public hearing and a process to uh to approve maybe the project going to 87.3 can we bring that to that to that

meeting I can okay I'd like to discuss that idea all right y i me think that's CR you know part of this and two um I I you know Patty and I have been at a lot of these meetings so I Patty I can't say that we were we we knew about this before two days ago you when you said you didn't know about it till two days ago right and and Jenny you wouldn't have known about it nor Jennifer um I I I'm not sure you know we we've had this conversation uh before at the board I not to the 2.6 million um trying to think how to say this the communication that that I have tried to do as Town supervisor to the town board members on all the things going on in town uh it's an art more than a science I'm very open to um ways of that I can be better on that in the future in hindsight um I'm not sure when in the last couple months I would have gone to the town board members and said hey uh in in layman terms don't get married to the $815 million Bond resolution that we did back in July of

2023 because that $815 million Bond resolution that we did approximately 12 and a half months ago I want you to really think about this that was two and a half months after project ISO as Rick Canali said which turned out to be coch Fairlife coch Fairlife told us on May 9th 2023 in a big press release we're coming to Webster and it's not practical between May 9th and July 27th two and a half months to be able to go and design all the nooks and crannies and details of a sewer plant that is now going to go from a volume at 3 million gallons a day on average to 5 million gallons a day and so the best efforts of trying to estimate in Late July two and a half months after Coke came to town the reason why we had to do that Bond resolution with the best estimate with the information we had in front of us at the time is the next day was the deadline to apply to New York state for 25% of the project in a WEA EFC Grant

and 25% of around 80 million I think is 20 million bucks now who did we get the $20 million Grant from at New York State what agency Paul we got an April from the governor is that EFC EFC EFC yeah so there was a Confluence of events that you know almost and I'm just being honest with you people had us building the plan in the air and um I want to be fair to Rick and art and Paul and to Navitas I mean as they approached us Patty and I I'm like I look I'm not going to go out to the board members and start talking real numbers when you're telling me well we still got to look at this and we still got to look at this and we still got to look at this there was way too many balls in the air on Revenue production on costs of various parts of the plant in my opinion it would have been premature for Patty and or I to go out to the other three board members and start that discussion because it would tan amount is serving a wine before it's time however like I said before you know communication is an art not a science

and and maybe you know we just learned something a couple of weeks ago on this board that I think we put into practice that if there's certain things that Patty and I as the liaison and and supervisor know about the police department we learned something a couple weeks ago if if we think there might be something that could hit the news media even if it's got the chance of hitting the news media we should let the town board members know and I never would have thought about that before so I learned from that experience and I'm going to put that into practice going forward and maybe I'll learn from this experience we'll have a discussion of well how can we I don't know what's the materiality of a project or something where it's like you know what um you should let the town board members know in some fashion whether it's executive session whether it's in a weekly memo whether whatever the fashion is and I guess in this it's a money thing because if this was going up $100,000 whatever but it was a $2.5 million building so somewhere in between there is probably the materiality of when uh we should communicate out to the other board members if Jen and I are working on the parks and recck department since you're the Lea's and something comes up that has that whatever that materiality is Jen we look at each other and say you know we should let the other board members know about this this is making its way up the pike

so well the point I made the meeting the other day was that you know there's a sequence to events for a building being built you're going to have your drawings and you're going to work an estimate off the drawing and just you know I would have liked to know this number prior to the building being built I would wanted to know okay what what is the reason what's your reasoning for doing this okay um and it's like I told you in the meeting if I had that information I may have agreed with you but IID rather have had that information up front and it's not like we're moving hallways and doors and just doing a $100,000 expansion it's $2.6 million of taxpayer money that's pretty significant in my opinion so I want to councilman I think we agreed with you in that meeting yes did but I would like to clarify the context of what we're talking about because it's it's being I think people will hear it as a building it is more than a building it is a it's a an integral part of the process of that facility of the nine buildings um so I don't want people to get the impression it's a building it's more than a building it's it's pumping it's agree 100% and and all of that so I

just wanted to but I would like to have known we're definitely same and like I said we're totally understand and I will say this the return on investment I'd like to know it too okay that's something that in all these meetings I mean I think we touched on it CU I know that one extra truck in the 100,000 I'd have to go back in my notes there was I mean I got files that are this thick on this project um but the interesting thing about this is I mean there's so many components to this it's such a more complex facility than for instance the highway garage the highway garage is a big pole barn I hate to say it that way it's an 80,000 ft pole bar and there's not a lot of complexity to it not a lot of moving Parts it is the traditional Municipal project Wix law contingencies all that stuff this thing is the farthest from that this is like it's unbelievable that being contingencies for this as well this is not a Wix law where we get low bids and then within the bids they put contingency and I'm going to let them answer that in a second but I want to make sure everybody understands something about on one of these pages put that our 2024 sewer rate is $296 for a homeowner so when you look at your January County and town tax bill uh as a

real estate owner of a single family home in the town of Webster you're going to see a line item for sewer I think it's two of them isn't it o and m operation and maintenance two and then it's Capital but the total of them is $296 correct Paul that's correct okay last Thursday at our second uh Town board Workshop meeting which probably went a lot smoother and efficient because councilwoman and Deputy supervisor cataldi ran it and not verbose flairty but I watched it and art and Rick uh presented their 2025 budget and I think Paul you may have say but the proposed edu charge omm and capital for 2025 for Webster town of Webster not village town of Webster real estate owners single family home dwellers is $253 that's $43 less than it is in 2024 during a year 2025 where we're not maxing out on all this new Revenue during a year where we got to go into debt something like 50 or 60 million to to finish this thing is this correct Paul yeah that's correct

but the combination that includes putting 50,000 in the capital reserve account and putting 50 500,000 because we don't want future boards in 2060 to face what this board and actually you know my predecessor and Patty you were the in John you were on those previous boards in 2017 that were faced with the fact that oh the sewer business is a very highly expensive infrastructure business you have tens of millions of dollars of buildings and pipes and all that stuff and Science and whatever but it rots and and and nobody in their right mind who is a private business owner would ever get into the sanitary sewer business it's a dumb business it really is because you'd have to spend a hundred million on building a plant to basically get $6 million of gross revenue a year there's no MBA program or business model in the the world where that makes sense especially $100 million of capital on something that's not a one-time payment to build the plant you know it's going to rot because you know what goes through that plant so if you take the money annually

from it and you don't reserve it like we are planning to do then you leave future boards with an empty coffers with no money and you got to rebuild the thing at whatever the dollars are in 2060 and you're going to put the town back into debt I can't believe how good we are coming out very fortunate I mean it is really serendipitous all the things that fell into place with K Fairlife coming to town and the $20 million Grant and the onetime tie-in fee and the revenues that were you know uh produced through this being an energy performance contract that is going to affect the sewer rates and at the end of the day I think the tax oh can you put a $60 million in debt that's going to that's going to cost me oh that's going to cost me $43 less next year it's not intuitive doesn't make a lot of sense how can we go into that kind of debt and have 43 M $43 less to each citizen or real estate owner and in that budget be putting 500 Grand a year into Reserve yep I'd have to get a whiteboard to show you how it all works but we we just Paul you want over it with the financial the revenues you got four you got 2.3

million more Revenue in 25 and 4.4 million in 26 MH I want to make sure everybody understands something that 4.4 million in 26 that's not because we do a 100 million in Revenue right now and we're going to make another 4 million no we do about 4 million in Revenue right now we are doubling the revenue doubling it and when you double the revenue and by the way the other Revenue the 4 million that we have right now we get that from the $296 we take from you Charlie at your house and Jennifer at your house and my house 177,000 homeowners pay essentially 296 into the system to get us that 4 million Revenue C Fairlife comes to town they're throwing in their revenue because they're equivalent to 12,000 houses almost then you throw in this septage Revenue which we haven't gotten any of that in the last 7 years we used to 2018 we got $200,000 a year in septage revenue and the dec came along and said man your plant is failing and one of the first things you're going to have to do is

stop taking in septage you better just focus on the stuff that's coming in through the pipes you can't be taking Chamberlain sepd stuff so we lost $200,000 in Revenue because we had a rotting failing plant $200,000 a year and then to make matters worse Irish luck at the same time sludge hauling went up double from A4 million dollar a year to 500,000 because nobody wants to build a landfill for sewer sludge this whole project was built around h how do we not be beholden in years to come to the rates that will go up and up and up on the expense of sludge hauling and that's where the drying came in and all that to get it down to pellets that's fertilizer our sludge hauling should go down to almost nothing right that's our hope and the septage is Paul just said which we haven't really gotten any money in years because of this new building and I'm interested in the return on investment Council male has got a great question on that but you said I think that we're going to get $650,000 a year of septage in 2026 Paul

that's right and that's based on a 60% analysis from when we had waste matters and whatever did the analysis critical path critical path and there's also the high strength waste Revenue the organic waste acceptance is going to be 1.1 million have we ever gotten revenue on that before no there's some things like fat soiling Graces from restaurants is lumped in there too so it's stuff that we want to go to the digestor not to the head of the plant so that's figured into the high strength organic waste let me ask the question a different way in 2026 Paul said the revenue impact is 650,000 for septage and 1.1 million on organic waste acceptance that's a total of 1.75 million in Revenue what are we getting in Revenue today on those two components septage and high strength organic waste zero okay thank you that I think everybody can do that math um yeah it's uh it has boggled my mind uh that I still to tell you the truth when I saw when you brought the budget Paul and um and said this this is

It's $253 a month om andm and and uh and Capital it's down $43 a month in 2025 a year a year I'm sorry and we're also that's putting 500 Grand into reserve and I said well that can't be it's 2025 that's that's not possible we're not we haven't hit we're still building the thing we don't get the full year of whatever I was doubting Thomas I should have never doubted Paul so we went in and looked and I said I'll be Dar he's right yeah yeah the main reasons are the uh the increase in revenue and the Grant from New York State can I say something delayed the borrowing can I say something you you included in the list of things that were serendipitous the $20 million that we got from the state and I just uh we we need to give credit where credits do there was nothing serendipitous about that um you you went to bat for the town you you you went to war for the town it didn't look like we were going to get that Grant and you insisted and you talked with all the offices and all the people you possibly could and let them know that Fairlife was a wonderful thing coming to town and everybody was all on board about rah rah rah Fairlife but you made

it very clear that we were not going to balance that project on the backs of the Webster taxpayers and that this project the sewer plant was going to cost more because of them coming to town they came to town because we could do it mhm and and you um you certainly let everyone know how you felt about that so getting that 20 million was not serendipitous it was your hard work and your advocacy for the people of the Town Patty thank you and J but I'll tell you what that was a team effort because was a team you drove that train well I was you know what I did that my role in that was and this is why I'm not a good politician I was the jerk I was the one that went to huh you played it well I did great you know what I don't think Jerry Lewis movie I don't even think I have to act uh from talking to my kids but I felt strongly that you know we had done everything we said we were going to do we did as we said and we said as we did I think I said this earlier in my pafic agent and I and I had told all those powers to be we we are you're telling us we're going to get our 20 million through the WEA Grant through EFC I'm I'm taking you at your

word apply for it on you know at the end of July of of 203 that's why we had to do the $81 million Bond it that was too quick to do the bond we didn't know what this thing was going to cost two and a half months after coch comes to town um yeah it's uh it and and honestly it's it's kind of interesting and I've said it before um and then we're going to finish this because we're starting the regular board meeting late um but this is a topic that needs there's a lot of meat on the bone this is transformational generational um you know Patty's been in a lot of meetings jarlie has Paul they probably I'm sure that I just when it comes to this coke Fairlife thing um Paul was mentioning how the onetime tie-in fee from C Fairlife is 21 I think 21.9 million something like that 190 yeah um you'll see it as we get into the next board meeting there is resolution on there to authorize the supervisor to sign that onetime tie-in fee agreement we tabled it on August 1st we will be tabling it again tonight so I'm going to save you some time I'll give you but I got good news we than Charlie and Patty and Paul that we have the final verbiage

agreed on between the Koch Fairlife team and the town team on that onetime tie-in fee contract and also on the conveyance pipe contract we we didn't want to vote on it tonight because we just found out this morning that would have been shoehorning it in it's $30 million in contracts it deserves the next couple weeks for the town board members to get it and review it and have questions it deserves to have the community have it posted to the website and to social media platforms so they can read through it so that when we get here on September 5th and we're voting on that that everybody has has seen it um but that that one time tie in a 21.1 whatever million Paul did it surprise you when you looked back at our you know one-time tiin fees since 2018 over the last seven years 18 through 24 we've averaged about $98,000 about $105,000 a year in that Revenue right right onetime Revenue y Koke Fairlife is

$21 million and that is foundational to um why this agreement to spread it out over 10 years was something the town board was um willing to do um and it's something that when we were courting ISO as reick said um they had asked us if they came to town would they ever consider spreading the onetime tie-in fee uh over a period of years and we said yeah I mean it's it's got to make sense to the town um it's taken us a lot of attorney work hasn't it Charlie to make it make sense for the town but I uh I'll let everybody else decide on that when they see that contract before next week so um let me ask you something can I just uh roll into the regular board meeting gang or we got to start a new just for okay well that concludes unless anybody else has a the work shop uh I did have a question about the contingency fee unless that can be discussed elsewhere did that I think that's a pretty quick answer okay sure go ahead I'm sorry what was the question so Jennifer has the question um wouldn't that uh some of those items uh that we

spoke of wouldn't they come out of a contingency but they were out of scope so they they were out of scope the challenge that we had is is that as as we had talked earlier this week that discrepancy is actually the comparison to the $815 million Bond value and so when we went back and looked at the budgets in that calculation of the 81 and a half that separate building wasn't in that calculation and so there was no there was no money in that budget there was no contingency there for it because it hadn't been it hadn't been part of the original calculations that part I understand but just like with a project that size and and Tom you were talking about how quickly it had to come together May 9th July 27th like with a project that big is it not possible to have some sort of contingency fee overall not for a specific line item yes it is possible to have a contingency to carry for those unknowns it wasn't in the structure of the budgeting process that we were using with the town at the time okay I understand just it's a big project so to expect that it's going to I mean I don't know how deep you want to go in there is a contingency there is

you have the owner's allowance which you know if we manage the project well with you it's all our money agreed the contingency if you I mean obviously when we go to do the third amendment and all that if we do it in a couple of weeks I mean it's all out there for everybody to see I think the contingency has a 6040 component to it I I think what I think Mr Right what you're talking about is is in that early process why wasn't there money yes in the budget at the time for an unknown like this it it could have been done that way it just wasn't the structure that navitus and the town had been using in that budgeting process what it would have done so hypothetically if we had done that if we had had a $5 million contingency then your bond resolution at that time would have been 86.5 million instead of $ 81.5 million at that resolution right which would have just my opinion it would be better to go to that well once versus going back to the well and adding $6 million that's on I you are 100% correct and you want to know something Jennifer in our meetings what would have been ideal and you'd have to go back to the whole what what uh councilman Abbott and uh John myself Patty was Barry Dean involved in that

too um when we got educated on energy performance cont contracts and really having to to take off the hat of Wix law traditional Municipal low bid contingency all that stuff energy performance um what would have been nice in a in in a different Universe if we could have signed an $81 million contract with Navitas back 13 months ago because then really any of these changes inflationary all that stuff that that would have been on them the reason why there was it was impossible to sign that back then is because we did not know what the coke Fairlife component was going to be and if you go back to the the history of this we did the original Navitas contract to get the ball moving and I want to say that that was 40 million bucks we knew that these are things that we need to get moving now if we're going to meet time Tim taes we had supply chain issues of getting major things here we needed to be under contract to order stuff that might not be here for a year I think this was before your time Jennifer it was and then we did a $20

million Amendment um I don't even remember when that was that was Amendment one November November November I want to say the next amendment was like a million something that was Amendment and brought us up to the 61 whatever and um and now this third amendment will be putting the ribbon around the whole contract um I don't know you know in hindsight how we could have done it differently um you know we never I mean we I don't know that's an interesting thing I I don't know I don't know how we done but I just asked a question because on a project that's $81 million it's a big project so to think that you're going to stay in that box given a project that is that long or that that size over that long of a period of time yeah just intuitively you might I don't know have I don't think this is necessarily a contingency item um I'm speaking specifically about the acceptance uh accept seage that that building is more of a standalone I would think rather than and it wasn't in the original scope either right agree which

is why it's not that would be considered an add-on am I correct in that assumption you are you okay I think a piece of this also is what the supervisor said earlier or somebody said and can't even remember at this point um trying to project what this project was going to look like two months after Koch Fairlife said they were coming to town that that alone has changed this project tremendously and some of these things would be impossible to know and put into the bond at that time because as we said we were building the plane as we were flying it and we had started the project we knew what we had to get done um and I I actually think that working this across three amendments while it looks like we're going to the well three times it has is actually worked out to our benefit to be able to do this in the smartest way and clearly although we're seeing the costs going up um we're also seeing the revenue going up and I I think it's allowed us to react to some of those

things in a much smarter way where if we had committed to a contract of I don't know $67 million we would had to figure out how to build that thing with 60 67 million in and there would have been things we'd had to leave out so I is as difficult as this has been to keep going to these amendments I'm happy to see that we are on our last one right yes ma'am this is going to be it um but we've got a a complete and very good project that will serve the town thank you okay and I'm sure that this conversation will continue on to be even more robust in 3 weeks when we have a public hearing on it and uh and and all sorts of board conversations and get a chance to look at the return on investment of that uh that Standalone building all that stuff um and I would invite the town board members over the next three weeks if you wake up at 3: in the morning say oh I got a question that I don't know shoot it at these guys because it is a huge 8187 million whatever dollar project and when we've

sat in these meetings and and I've and Patty and Charlie and Rick art uh Paul I mean when we're working on these contracts with Koch Fairlife I'm like we are not going to lazy this thing we are the devil is in the details this is a generational project in the dollar size it is and we better make sure that the way we write it up in paper tray it and all that is not something that in 10 years we're looking back and saying oo you know we we made a mistake how we handled that and I've been very pleased with what has been a it's been a tough process wouldn't you say Charlie that the attorneys and the coch team and the town team and it's it's been it's been tough but I think that the town I always felt like we were holding our ground on things that made sense to the town we were representing the town that's how I felt I don't know about you no I thought I thought you were a very good advocate for the talent I I think the whole team was I think Paul was right there with information Rick and art were right there with information Jeff Storch from Harris Beach who we helped on this you Charlie Patty it was a group effort um

and uh I'm I like the end product so anyway you got to shut down the link we are done with the workshop and