News From the Board
July 25, 2018
Dear Friends,
As promised, we’re sending an update on the wastewater project as it relates to Blue Hole Regional Park and Friends of Blue Hole.
Below are outcomes from the July 19, 2018 city council meeting agenda items related to FoBH and the protection of Blue Hole Regional Park. Board Chair Andrew Weber was present and spoke on behalf of Friends.
1. FoBH no longer has a position on the Parks Board, as the City Council voted for new guidelines for committees and commissions. Friends of Blue Hole – which has helped to raise over $8 million for Blue Hole Regional Park and continues to fundraise, has been represented on the Parks and Recreation Board since 2011.
2. City Council voted to transfer $65,000 from the park’s reserve fund to the city Utilities Department to pay interest due on the loan from Texas Water Development Board for construction of the planned Wimberley Wastewater Treatment Plant. The park has not received one drop of Type 1 enhanced water from the yet-to-be built system.
3. Friends of Blue Hole does not, and has never had, a partnership agreement with the City of Wimberley . Document review confirms that, although the Council voted in 2010 to enter an agreement with Friends, the document on file does not contain signatures and appears to be otherwise incomplete. Thus, while we’ve worked collaboratively with the City to improve the park, we’ve never had a partnership.
Because of the loss of our advocacy role and knowledgeable voice on the Parks Board, and because of the lack of an agreement with the city, we have moved into uncharted territory.
We will continue our fundraising campaigns and programs to support the park as usual.
The most significant difference now is that our advocacy role has become more urgent than ever as we work to preserve, protect and defend the park through these very uncertain times.
You will hear from us again this week with more information about the Mayor’s plan to run a raw sewage line under Blue Hole as part of the Mayor’s Aqua Texas Plan.
We appreciate your ongoing financial support as we work on behalf of the park.
Andrew Weber, Chair
Friends of Blue Hole Board
Susan Nenney, Executive Director
Friends of Blue Hole Board
July 5, 2018
FoBH Meets with Mayor
Dear Friends,
Here is an update on the issue of water for the park, written by our Board Chair Andrew Weber following a two-hour meeting with Mayor Susan Jaggers, as published in the Wimberley View 6/4/2018.
Friends of Blue Hole Meets With Mayor
Mayor Jaggers met Friends of Blue Hole Board members. The following are my understanding of her positions and the facts surrounding her AT Plan. She clarified her AT plan is temporary, merely delaying the city-owned treatment plant, paying Aqua Texas a pittance to treat the downtown wastewater for no more than 5 years (The Mayor’s AT Plan).
She also explained we needn’t be alarmed over her instruction that City Administrator Cox reduce the parks department funding to zero while increasing fees and cutting services. That was only a tactic to get everyone’s attention. I understand she’s withdrawn that instruction and intends to propose council re-fund the parks department every year for any debt-service funds transferred to the utility department.
What I now understand from the Mayor about her AT Plan:
1. Nothing, or almost nothing, in the Mayor’s AT Plan is in writing. Her plan is only to DELAY the treatment plant construction for no more than 5 years. She’s persuaded AT to treat all the waste water for a $54,000 flat fee for up to 5 years. And she’ll get Black Castle to construct the plant later for the same cost (well, unless materials cost more in the future). While AT will provide a lot of free stuff to the City, including free treated water to Blue Hole Park, the City will pay the $300,000 needed to upgrade AT’s treatment plant so it can produce Type 1-enhanced water.
2. Why should we delay the city-owned plan? I understood the Mayor has two reasons:
A. The city-owned plan cannot, today, generate sufficient user revenue to pay the debt service plus operating cost. But, within 5 years, the City will have the funds to build its own treatment plant AND pay operating costs and debt service.
NOTE: The Mayor does NOT say there are insufficient funds to complete the project. This is not about capital funding, but about annual operating costs.
B. No discharge.
I understand that under the Mayor’s AT Plan:
3. AT will treat the wastewater to the Type 1-enhanced standard required 1) in the City’s settlement agreement with Paradise Hills and others, and 2) by the TWDB.
4. AT will give FREE Type1-enhanced effluent to Blue Hole Park.
6. AT will pay most or all of the costs to pipe raw sewage from the Square, under Cypress Creek, to AT’s existing line. The cost to run the sewage line under Cypress Creek, and who will pay, are unknown (in 2013, AT projected that cost to be $450,000).
7. The Scott Johnson family will donate an easement to get the sewage from its side of the creek to AT’s line.
8. Wimberley ISD benefits from having Type 1-enhanced effluent to irrigate its new school at the Bypass and RR 12, so Superintendent York might pay some of the $300,000 in item 1.
9. TCEQ has verbally approved tunneling under Cypress Creek to get the raw sewage to the AT line.
10. The City can charge users the difference between AT’s $54,000/year wholesale rate and the City’s retail rate; that difference will be used to service the debt (approximately $240,000/year).
11. My understanding is the Mayor believes the City cannot afford to pay the debt service plus operating costs. She says current projected operating costs are wrong–they will be $250,000/year instead of $172,000. The City cannot afford that $250,000, but can afford the $54,000 to AT.
12. The City can save, toward paying for its delayed plant, the $200,000/year difference between its $250,000 operating cost and the $54,000 AT will charge. But see item 10–is this $200,000/year being double counted?
Additionally, I believe:
13. The Mayor expressly concedes her AT Plan requires formal TCEQ and TWDB, EDA and Way Family approval, despite the delays/changes; and
14. The Mayor concedes that a significant cost of NOT building the city-owned plant now is the superfluous $1M cost to run a treated-water line along The Bypass from RR 12 to Blue Hole Park. Once the City builds its own plant, that line has no value to the project.
Note: The rumor that the Mayor is instigating, or supports, any move to transfer Blue Hole Park ownership to the County is completely false, the Mayor said. Maybe that was just Lila McCall getting excited.
Some outstanding questions/concerns I have after our meeting:
1. Why would AT do so much for free and treat water at a fixed cost for 5 years?
2. How long will it take to get TCEQ, TWDB, and other stake holders to have meetings and agree to the proposed delay and changes? Can these approvals be obtained without causing any material delays to the project?
3. The Mayor’s annual operating cost “savings” seem illusory. The Mayor says we can’t afford the annual operating costs. If we can’t afford the $200,000 difference she projects between the city-owned plant and AT, we can’t save it each year.
4. So what’s left to build the $3.6M+ plant within 5 years? Seems to be $2.3M or less, plus something.
– $2.3M (at best). Net money “saved” by not building the plant today ($3.6M plant cost “saved,” less $300,000 to upgrade AT’s plant, less $1M to run a reclaimed water line along the Bypass);
– Plus something (for collection system savings, but any collection system savings apply to either plan)
Editorial:
It blinks reality to think AT will engage with the City for no more than 5 years when it is agreeing to trench, lay pipe, and provide free treated water to Blue Hole Park. If it seems too good to be true, . . .
Even if the Mayor is correct that her “temporary delay” has no permit, engineering, or legal costs, her AT Plan still comes up at least $1.3M short ($2.3M vs. $3.6M). Is this newest “short term, temporary” twist in the Mayor’s AT Plan the old camel’s-nose-under-the-tent? No suggestion the Mayor is being disingenuous. But I question whether AT and others will, or currently intend to, go away in 5 years or less.
I ask the current council to require the due diligence it alleges previous councils failed to do–you and we need to see TCEQ, TWDB, EDA, and Peter Way approvals and, most important of all, the written proposal from AT with all the freebies and the fixed $54,000/year the Mayor has negotiated–with clear language that the City is out in 5 years or less. Until Friends of Blue Hole see the Mayor’s AT Plan in writing, with those attachments, insuring the City will ultimately be in control of its own fate with Type 1-enhanced water to Blue Hole Park, we cannot support of the Mayor’s AT Plan.
Andrew Weber
Chair, Friends of Blue Hole Board
If you have not already done so, please sign the petition to stop Aqua Texas
Call to Action
June 25, 2018
Dear Friends,
This is not a drill.
Water for Blue Hole Regional Park as well as its reserve funds are in jeopardy. We ask for your help because we know you care. We have two urgent concerns:
FIRST the real possibility that the present council will abandon the city-owned and operated sewer plan and go with Aqua Texas. There is no assurance that any AT plan will provide water for the Park, and if it does we don’t know at what price or what quality (State regulations require Type I effluent for human contact.) The AT plan has not been described, documented, engineered, permitted, or financed, while the City-owned and operated plan has been fully vetted, permitted, engineered, financed and is well under construction.
SECOND is a grossly unfair use of the park’s reserve fund. There is an agreement that requires the City Park Fund to pay the City Waste Water Fund up to $200,000 annually for “access to and use of reclaimed water” from the sewer system to maintain the park. The Mayor, Susan Jaggers, wants the Park to begin paying THE FULL $200,000 now, before the sewer system is built, before the Park has access to any water and before the Park has use of any water or even has official reconfirmation it will get water. This payment is incredibly premature and, as the Mayor has said, may require all of Blue Hole’s reserves to be depleted, a cut in the cost of Park payroll, programs and maintenance or perhaps an increase in Park fees and other revenues. She has instructed city administrator to move $150,000 immediately and move the remaining balance monthly until the $200,000 has been moved. (public record email June 20, 2018).
We believe both of these proposals are harsh and grossly unfair to the Park and to the community.
Friends may host a membership meeting in a few weeks to update these matters. BUT WHAT CAN YOU DO NOW?
1) Sign the petition hosted by Citizens of Wimberley for No Aqua Texas.
2) Attend the Mayor’s next Town Hall Meeting, date TBD. We’ll keep you posted.
3) Email all the Mayor and city council members:
Mayor Susan Jaggers mayor@cityofwimberley.com
Mike McCullough place1@cityofwimberley.com
Craig Fore place2@cityofwimberley.com
Allison Davis place3@cityofwimberley.com
Gary Barchfeld place4@cityofwimberley.com
Patricia Cantu Kelly place5@cityofwimberley.com
4) Write letters to The Wimberley View wvieweditor@gmail.com
5) Attend City Council meetings. Check the calendar as the dates/times change.
6) Share this email update and encourage friends to take action too.
7) Follow developments at friendsofbluehole.org
8) Reply here to let us know if you would be interested in attending an update meeting hosted by FoBH.
Thank you for helping protect Blue Hole Regional Park.
Susan Nenney
Executive Director
Click the image to read the Mayor Jaggers’ email.
