Island Park Idaho - Hotel, Lodging, Recreation, and Fishing

September 06, 2006

Dear Committee Members,
Since our initial meeting at Chad Bauer’s residence, I’ve been busy collecting data and researching the sewer system and how it has been administered by the Fremont County Commission. I have had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Larry Hultz, who was an original member of the Island Park Sewer Advisory Board. In the fall of 1999, the Fremont County Commission advertised the need for qualified professionals to advise the Commission on how to administrate the sewer system. There were seven (7) original members that were appointed by the Commission, one of which is on our new citizen committee (Mr. Ron Dye). Mr. Hultz has the records of each and every meeting, including email communications and phone conversations that took place among the members. Mr. Hultz also has the records of the recommendations that were made to the Commission, and data on calculating and setting the fee schedules and Operations & Maintenance fees. I am still researching this data, and will compare the original Advisory Board’s recommendations to what was actually administered by the Commission. I will have this data ready for our October 3rd meeting.
I have been in contact with several agencies that offer assistance to communities experiencing planning & financial problems with water and wastewater systems, including the Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP), the USDA Rural Development, Expectmore, and the Idaho Environmental Finance Center. I have had the pleasure of having a phone conversation with Mr. William Jarocki of the Environmental Finance Center at Boise State University. Mr. Jarocki works with municipalities all over the State of Idaho. He assists communities in effectively designing, operating, maintaining, and financing water and wastewater treatment facilities. He is an expert in this area, and will be traveling to Island Park to assist us in determining the feasibility of what Mr. Phinney of Keller & Associates has proposed to the Fremont County Commission. Mr. Jarocki has also offered the community access to the tools needed to determine what our system actually needs, how to figure a realistic growth rate and interest rate, accurately determine a realistic budget, and how to calculate the need for, as well as how to pay for, system assets and needed improvements. We can then compare the new data to the data calculated and provided by Mr. Phinney of Keller & Associates. Mr. Jarocki can also help us determine whether the Commission is administering the system according to Idaho Statutes. Anyone interested in examining these tools can do so on the Internet at:
http://sspa. boisestate.edu/efc

The last item I have been working on is the ‘Operator Basics’ training program offered by the Montana University System’s Water Center. This online training program explains what a wastewater system is, how it is operated, how to manage it, and help us generally understand what kind of a system we have in Island Park. This is a training program that operator’s use for qualifying education required to become a licensed wastewater system operator. Anyone interested in examining this training program can do so at:
http://watercenter.montana.edu/training/ob2005/

My opinion is, to better understand what our system operators are up against in operating our system, we should at least understand what our system is, and how it works. I would also encourage the committee members to visit the Mack’s Inn wastewater facility offices, and tour the system to become more familiar with it. Dan Lostutter, the Facility Supervisor, has welcomed this idea, and he can be reached at 558-7341. Please call ahead and make arrangements with him to tour the facility. You may also contact John Nelson at 558-7341 to make arrangements. I believe it may be easier, logistically, to tour the facility individually. We can, however, tour the system as a group, if we so desire.
The last item I would like to update you on is the possibility of having a few additional members join our citizen committee. Jeff Coonce of the Buffalo Run Campground has a few individuals that are interested in joining us. Both of the individuals interested in our committee can offer us significant professional services and opinions, and I am looking forward to them joining our team. Hopefully they will be able to attend our next meeting, which is currently scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday October 3rd, at the Henry’s Fork Landing restaurant (located across the river from Mack’s Inn). Additional notices will be sent regarding the confirmation of our meeting place.
FOR YOUR INFORMATION:
The wastewater facility system users own the system in Island Park, not the County. The County is in charge of administering the system only. The Commission should not be acting unilaterally. Keller & Associates was paid $50,000 to study the system and recommend improvements ($25,000 from Fremont County & $25,000 from DEQ). That is all Keller & Associates was hired to do, and they are done with that. They should no longer be involved with any repairs or needed improvements. The system users will tell the Engineer what we need. We do not have to accept what the Engineer has proposed. In addition, Fremont County is obligated to award public works projects over $100,000 through the sealed bid process, also known as the competitive bid laws. Hiring an Engineer by the job will not relieve the Commission of their legal responsibility.

Sincerely,
James M. Randall
558-7122

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 17th, 2006 at 9:55 pm and is filed under Island Park News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

September 06, 2006

Dear Committee Members,
Since our initial meeting at Chad Bauer’s residence, I’ve been busy collecting data and researching the sewer system and how it has been administered by the Fremont County Commission. I have had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Larry Hultz, who was an original member of the Island Park Sewer Advisory Board. In the fall of 1999, the Fremont County Commission advertised the need for qualified professionals to advise the Commission on how to administrate the sewer system. There were seven (7) original members that were appointed by the Commission, one of which is on our new citizen committee (Mr. Ron Dye). Mr. Hultz has the records of each and every meeting, including email communications and phone conversations that took place among the members. Mr. Hultz also has the records of the recommendations that were made to the Commission, and data on calculating and setting the fee schedules and Operations & Maintenance fees. I am still researching this data, and will compare the original Advisory Board’s recommendations to what was actually administered by the Commission. I will have this data ready for our October 3rd meeting.
I have been in contact with several agencies that offer assistance to communities experiencing planning & financial problems with water and wastewater systems, including the Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP), the USDA Rural Development, Expectmore, and the Idaho Environmental Finance Center. I have had the pleasure of having a phone conversation with Mr. William Jarocki of the Environmental Finance Center at Boise State University. Mr. Jarocki works with municipalities all over the State of Idaho. He assists communities in effectively designing, operating, maintaining, and financing water and wastewater treatment facilities. He is an expert in this area, and will be traveling to Island Park to assist us in determining the feasibility of what Mr. Phinney of Keller & Associates has proposed to the Fremont County Commission. Mr. Jarocki has also offered the community access to the tools needed to determine what our system actually needs, how to figure a realistic growth rate and interest rate, accurately determine a realistic budget, and how to calculate the need for, as well as how to pay for, system assets and needed improvements. We can then compare the new data to the data calculated and provided by Mr. Phinney of Keller & Associates. Mr. Jarocki can also help us determine whether the Commission is administering the system according to Idaho Statutes. Anyone interested in examining these tools can do so on the Internet at:
http://sspa. boisestate.edu/efc

The last item I have been working on is the ‘Operator Basics’ training program offered by the Montana University System’s Water Center. This online training program explains what a wastewater system is, how it is operated, how to manage it, and help us generally understand what kind of a system we have in Island Park. This is a training program that op