Cottonwood Shores pursues funding for new $1.83 million water plant

By Glynis Crawford Smith/The Highlander

The Cottonwood Shores City Council on Thursday, June 16, approved the steps it has been planning to bring a new $1.83 million water plant project online.

“This is the largest and most important financial obligation the council will make,” said Mayor Donald Orr. “The (current) plant produces good water but it is extremely labor intensive.”

The proposed Pall Membrane plant would boost production to a potential half-million gallons of water per day, at least double the capacity of the current 2975 water plant.

“In addition we will have 135,000 gallons per day storage,” said Orr.

The council will seek a $1.83 million loan from the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB), offset by a $275,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), federal money they will seek through the Texas Department of Agriculture.

Six steps finalized work that has been underway in one way or another since 2007 and seriously for the last four years at least to improve water infrastructure. It came down to council agreement with Orr, who said: “We are in a good financial position now, possibly the best we have ever been in. the TWDB has money to loan and we qualify.”

The first step was approval of a letter of agreement with S.D. Kallman, L.P., Engineers and Environmental Consultants to provide services for the loan application to TWDB. Kallman had prepared the plant estimates and Orr assured Council Member Tony Satsky that time enough remained after loan approval and Kallman estimates contained sufficient contingency monies to provide two, 250,000-gallon plant installation if the council determined that was a better course of action.

Satsky was not the only member who would rather have seen details and even decisions about plant configuration in cost estimates. Council Member Cheryl Trinidad had concerns about the learning curve for the associated computer technology and Stephen Sherry asked if the old plant might serve as a back-up.

“Horseshoe Bay noted (their Pall micro-filter plant) is very computer intensive,” said Trinidad. “It took them two years to learn how to keep it going,” said Trinidad.

Additional steps in council action were authorization of:

    A financial advisor agreement with Blitch & Associates, a Houston consulting firm that works primarily in public utility funding.

    A bond counsel agreement with Radcliffe Bobbitt Adams Polley, PLLC, another Houston firm specializing in public utilities.

    A resolution requesting financial assistance from the TWDB for Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) and authorizing the application.

    Procurement of engineering, financial advisory and bond counsel services if needed in the case of receiving federal rather than the state loan backing currently sought.

    A letter of agreement with Grant Development Services (GDS) of Austin to make application for the CDBG funds.

One other aspect of the water plant discussion was only the beginning of one that will continue through the upcoming budget cycle. That is ad valorem tax support throughout the life of the loan. Orr laid out a strategy that will call for citizen support—maintaining the current tax rate.

The current tax rate of 54.38 cents per $100 (0.5438), applied to increased tax value in the city, will exceed the roll-back rate. In other words, citizens would have the right to rescind the rate decision in favor of a lower tax rate. In successive years, as costs of servicing the utility loan places a larger burden on the interest and sinking fund, taxpayers actually would pay more in taxes, Orr said.

The new Cottonwood Shores Code Enforcement Officer, Lewis Feder, was introduced at the council meeting.

“This is the kind of town I grew up in and I love being here,” said Feder, whose career in code enforcement went on to East Coast urban areas. “The work is the same, you just learn the new framework.”

With just two weeks on the job, Feder said he had blocked out four main areas of the city for code review and found most citizens happy to comply with his notices. One resident even happily reported getting three purchase offers in two days after a clean-up to code.

Speaking in the citizen comment portion of the meeting, Cassi Sultemeir asked the council to consider expanded hours for the Splash Park.

“It is only open on Saturdays and that is a problem for moms of young children, because they like to do that during the week and save the weekend for family time,” she said, offering another idea for the park. “A lot of friends look for places for parties. That could bring people to Cottonwood Shores and income, if you charged a small fee.”