PACIFIC NORTHWEST SECTION AMERICAN WATER WORKS ASSOCIATION FALL TRUSTEES MEETING ASHLAND SPRINGS HOTEL ASHLAND, OR. Thursday, October 4, 2012

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1 PACIFIC NORTHWEST SECTION AMERICAN WATER WORKS ASSOCIATION FALL TRUSTEES MEETING ASHLAND SPRINGS HOTEL ASHLAND, OR Thursday, October 4, 2012 The Fall Trustees meeting of the Pacific Northwest Section-American Water Works Association was convened by Chair Kari Duncan at 8:30 a.m. in Ballroom II at the Ashland Springs Hotel, in Ashland, Oregon. Those present were Section Chair, Kari Duncan; Past Chair, Bob Ward; Association Director, Mark Knudson; Chair Elect, Chuck Kingston; Trustees: Jason Canady, Mel Damewood, John Griffin, Corianne Hart, Randy Black, Treasurer Greg Wyatt and Executive Director Kyle Kihs. CHAIR S REPORT-Kari Duncan Summer events included the ACE Conference in Dallas and there was excellent attendance from the PNWS. There was a great representation in Tapping, Top Ops and Meter Madness. In Top Ops, Brian impressed a lot of folks. Summer workshop held in Denver this July. This year the PNWS hosted the regional meeting of sectional officers. Yesterday was the rollout of our strategic plan. We focused on leadership training for committee chairs and incoming trustees. Thank you to Jason Canady and Max Woody and the Southern Oregon Subsection for the water bottles and for hosting us. EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS REPORT-Kyle Kihs The 2013 ballots will be mailed out to members the first part of November and should be returned to the Section office by December 31. Any ballots coming in after that date will not be counted. We are going to begin work on the registration website for the upcoming conference at Yakima. We should have a demo out in mid November. We will be looking for feedback on it at that time. And speaking of websites the Section will be unveiling its new website at the end of December just prior to the holidays. Designed to make our trainings and events easier to find, I am sure the membership will be very pleased with the changes. The Winter Trustee Meeting and Subsection Training will be in Portland February 6-8 at the Airport Embassy Suites. ACTION ITEMS/MOTIONS: SPRING MEETING MINUTES It was moved by Chuck Kingston and seconded by Jason Canady to adopt the spring meeting minutes from May 1, 2012 at the Holiday Inn in Yakima, WA. There was no discussion. All in favor, none opposed and no discussion. Motion approved. KING COUNTY BYLAW UPDATE Page 1 of 15

2 It was moved by Bob Ward and seconded by Chuck Kingston to approve the King County Bylaws. All in favor, none opposed and no discussion. Motion approved SECTION CONFERENCE LOCATION VANCOUVER, WA OR BOISE, ID Due to possible Interstate 5 bridge construction in Vancouver during the time of the spring conference, it was suggested that it be moved to Boise, ID. Kyle mentioned how successful Boise was in the past. There was a lengthy discussion on the merits of keeping it in Vancouver and of moving it to Boise. It was moved by Randy Black and seconded by Chuck Kingston to approve the location of the 2016 Section Conference location to be in Boise, ID. All in favor, none opposed and no discussion is in Eugene, 2015 is in Bellevue and 2017 will be in Kennewick. TREASURER ELECT ANNOUNCEMENT Greg has done a great job for the last 5 years but his term ends in May This position has brought a lot of improvement and accountability to our section and has been a great educational position for our board to get updates on the budget and the financial side of things. The proposed candidates for Treasurer were Marshall Thomson and Mark Knudson, but Mark has withdrawn. It was moved by Chuck Kingston and seconded by Mark Knudson for Marshall Thomson to be nominated the next Treasurer for the PNWS. His term will start at the end of the spring board meeting. All in favor, none opposed and no discussion. Motion approved. KYLE S PERFORMANCE BONUS At the Hot Topics breakfast, there was a discussion about how pleased everyone is with Kyle s excellent performance. The Board believes this warrants a bonus for this year. It was moved by Mark Knudson and seconded by Jason Canady to give a Kyle Kihs a $2,000 performance bonus from the current year budget to be paid sometime later this year. All in favor, none opposed, no discussion. Motion approved. ASSOCIATION DIRECTOR REPORT-Mark Knudson The association continues to do well although the total membership numbers are down. This is due to life members removing themselves from the membership roles due to having to pay. Dues paying memberships are stable. The first item discussed is the ongoing planning with Water Environment Federation. An Exploratory Committee that consists of senior leaders from both organizations has been formed between AWWA and WEF to evaluate various collaboration opportunities. They are considering pros and cons of partnering opportunities as well as consolidation. They exchange financial records to evaluate benefits and liabilities that go with joint ventures. Preliminary recommendations should be discussed at the winter board meeting in Nashville. The second item discussed is the issue with subsection dues and membership. The issue is whether subsections can establish their own dues and membership structure that may or not include association membership. Association feels that if you are a member of a subsection, you need to be a member of the Association. Chair Duncan has established an Ad-Hoc Committee to work with subsections to resolve this issue. Preliminary recommendations will be discussed at the winter board meeting. Ad-Hoc Committee will consist of Jason Canady, Bob Ward, Mark Knudson, Corianne Hart, and Jackie Masters. Page 2 of 15

3 TREASURER S REPORT-Greg Wyatt The balance sheet trend from Jan-Aug 2012 shows a total of $1.2m to $1.3m, but a lot of that is spoken for through E&T, WUCs and Water for People. As of August, the largest amount, $477,000, is sitting in the US National Bank. As of August 31, most of the cash was in a money market account paying virtually nothing. There are 2 CDs at this time. One comes due in November 2012 and the other one January month interest rates are pretty low. Between May 2012 and now, we had 2 CDs mature: One 13 month CD at $105,000 and a 24 month CD in June at $98,800. Both have accumulated in Western Asset Money Market Account. On August 31, $125,000 has been moved out of Western Asset MM Account and invested in 4 mutual funds picked by Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. The investment strategy going forward is to leave funds alone and let them grow. And keep rest of the sections funds conservative and in CDs. Implement a stair step CD plan at the best available rates so that CDs mature roughly every 3 months. This makes funds available when needed. Rolling over the maturing November 2012 and January 2014 CDs will give us the opportunity to reinvest at the best available rates at that time. Some CD purchases have been made since August and are not reflected in the current Treasurer s report: September 25, a $125,000 6 month CD at 0.50% and a $100, month bump-rate CD at 0.80%, starting the stair step approach. Profit/Loss statements show March and April generating large amounts of income and expenses hit in April, May and June due to the annual conference. The projection for the end of year looks to be an $8,700 overall net loss to the section. BUDGET OVERVIEW-Jeff Lundt 2012 adopted budget includes $25,000 going out to E&T Endowment Fund, of which $1167 has been used as of the end of August. Another $6,000 has been put in so far in the last month so the projected budget for 2013 is the remainder of the $50,000 that the board has committed to minus this year s total. Projection including $25,000 set aside for E&T matching was a loss net income of $73,000. Currently we are at a loss of $19,000. If the projection holds true, we are looking at a loss of $81,000 and minus $27,700 for next year. The biggest change was that we were using a balance forward in previous years which included some designated funds. Now we pull those funds out of the beginning balance. Though it shows $1.3 million in the bank, $1.1 million of those funds are committed to other designated funds. When you take what we have in the PNW section account and subtract what is designated for other use that leaves $204, as of the end of August available for operating reserves. When looking at net worth vs current expense, we were running 60-70% with the goal being 30-60%. This year we have dropped down to 45% based on current and projected value of 18% in 2012 and 14% for Deficit spending needs to be reined in. COMMITTEE REPORTS: SAFETY COMMITTEE-Mike Jacobs Page 3 of 15

4 The committee had a successful class on June 5 th on AC Pipe. We are looking at having another one down here after the first of the year sometime and working on a presentation in McMinnville. We have the opportunity to work on a water research foundation project, a follow up to our prevention through design project. OPFLOW is starting to do a safety zone and it will become a regular thing. This is good because it gets it out there. We are dealing with crane standard and national accredited operator certification. We have been working with Oregon OSHA and they have come up with an Oregon specific training requirement for utilities so then Oregon will be able to do our own training for 20 ton and under. Mike s term as chair in the National Committee has been extended one year to June of 2013 and there is hope that he can finish the rewrite of (M3) Water Utilities Safety Manual SPOKANE CONFERENCE-Dan Kegley They are working pretty hard in Spokane. Some of the information gathered from the Yakima conference survey: 33% have attended 3 conferences or less. Dan would like to suggest a different colored name badge for first time attendees instead of a ribbon that is taken off. Pre conference was hit or miss. There was a really great turnout with vendors. 35% of attendees found that to be very important and 86% took advantage of more time with the vendors. There was a new conference schedule. 86% preferred the new schedule. In Spokane, we are looking at giving tours of the dam to show hydroelectric facilities. Some of the attractions we are working on are a 5k fun run/walk and golf at Creek at Qualchan golf course on Wednesday, Tapping competition at the Forestry Pavilion, beer trailer, and Monte Carlo fun night with music and gaming tables. The conference gift is a portable charger that is great for phones, and with the hopes of a new app for conference programs, it would come in handy. We are hoping that the app will diminish the number of printed programs needed over the years. MSC COMMITTEE-Kristin Young John Roth is Vice Chair this year and there have been a few new members added as well. They are hoping to grow by reaching out to more vendors, get more excitement in conferences, sponsorships and short schools. MSC is lucky to have a large space and great layout for vendors at the Spokane Convention Center. There can be up to 126 vendors this year. More time with vendors will be given. Sponsorship opportunity levels haven t changed much this year. Highlighted are the new opportunities for the fun run/walk. The budget is simple. There is a line item on travel expenses if needed. New banner stands were bought last year, so that won t be an expense for a while. Feedback from vendors after Yakima Conference was 99.9% positive. They love the new format; Thursday was better attended than Friday. Registration was made easier by having packets at their booths when they arrived. WATER FOR PEOPLE COMMITTEE-Cindy Foss & Kristin Young Over the last couple of years, there has been more participation in the actual section Water for People Committee. Ideas are shared and upcoming events are discussed during a quarterly Page 4 of 15

5 conference call between a large number of section representatives. The goal is to get a representative from every subsection silent auction at the conference was a great success. A 5 person committee is busy planning for the auction for the 2013 conference, so be ready to donate special auction items. Over the year, there were several very successful events. Huge thanks to several subsections that started new events this year. SW Idaho came up with the idea of Fire for Water trap shoot that raised about $1,100. Southern Oregon had the golf tournament that raised $3,600. And NW Washington had Wine for Water that raised about $6,000. Thanks to Chuck Kingston for raising $7,727 at his Wine for Water event. There was a training session in Denver that emphasized the reason why we support Water for People and all the great work that has been done. Carla went and brought back the reminders. She also got Ned Breslan to speak at the Portland Gala on February 9. Thanks to Nicki Olsen, who came up with the idea that the committee needs to give back to all the volunteers. The idea of H2Whoa Spotlight would spotlight someone every quarter who has helped raise awareness and/or funds for Water for People. So far Peter Martins from NW Oregon and Marshall Thomson have been spotlighted donation total was $108,000! Only $17,500 away from $1 million level. MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE-Lacey Goeres and Pat Van Duser The budget currently has only expenses of $540 out of the $4,500 allotted budget. The Young Professionals Committee are in need of funds to encourage YPs to join, so it comes to the board for approval of $2,000 to be transferred from the 2012 Membership budget to Young Professionals Committee to help reach the year end goal of 31 new YPs. There are only 13 currently. It was moved by Mel Damewood and seconded by John Griffin to transfer $2,000, but after further discussion, the motion was withdrawn and the YP Committee will continue to just work with Membership Committee when funds are needed. A new database is being looked at to keep data at the Section level and to allow for better report purposes. The time is coming to decide whether to continue updating the Excel files or implement a new database. A few 3 rd party software programs have been looked at and one program looks promising, but it just hasn t happened yet. A reminder that there will be a 1 st time attendees meet & greet at the annual conference. DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE-Doug Schlepp The membership in recent years was concentrated in the Seattle/Tacoma area and expansion has been the goal. There are members in OR and most of WA but they are trying to get into Idaho using video conferencing for committee meetings. A new subcommittee is being established for water loss control that will become a new subcommittee to the Distribution Committee. There will be a pre-conference on this topic in Spokane. This year they are working on some short courses, a joint venture with the NW Washington Subsection for Asset Management as well as a Pumping System Optimization class that is sponsored by WA State University. Spring Conference will see them in a joint venture with the Research Committee on sponsoring a track. Page 5 of 15

6 The committee seems to fund itself by working with other subsections. WATER RESOURCES COMMITTEE-Judi Ranton The year started a little early having been asked by AWWA to help represent the PNWS at the Sustainable Water Management Conference in Portland in March where the committee held a very successful pub crawl. April saw a successful lunch and learn in Vancouver about Rate Setting in a Declining Per-Capita World. Other events included one tech session and a pre-conference in Yakima, a summer social in August and the committee is planning another lunch & learn in October. A budget of $1,800 was requested to cover the lunch & learns costs. They expect to bring in more money than they spend this year if all continues to go well. Expansion beyond the Portland area is a goal, hoping to get more areas engaged in some level. Travel expenses seem to be the roughest issue Conference will see several tech sessions: Conjunctive Use and Micro Hydro as well cosponsoring one having to do with water quality issues. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & WEBSITE COMMITTEE-Ronda Farmer Happy to have 3 members now, and they have been busy working with subsections and committees, helping them set up registrations through Google Tools as well as helping committees with surveys. They are working on the new website and once that is launched, they will be working on advertising packages. The budget is earmarked for the new website, the fees are not yet known. Income will be from web advertising. RESEARCH COMMITTEE-Jennifer Henke and Michelle Hall for Sam Perry The research committee recently transitioned officers at the last conference. There was a face to face meeting in August at a Tacoma site where they toured a treatment facility. For the Spokane conference, they are partnered up with several committees for sessions. Because of a lack of workshops this year, the income wasn t there like in the past. They are planning some for 2013 including a webcast. WATER CONSERVATION COMMITTEE-Christine Hollenbeck Though the list is 125 people, the active participation is low. Feedback shows that most want to be involved and want to know what is going on but are just unable to be active. At the conference last year, they had a ½ day track that was well attended. At the spring meeting in May 2012, the focus was what will happen at the 2013 conference. It was decided that there will be a pre-conference about water efficiency in indoor and outdoor audits, as well as a full afternoon on Thursday. At the summer meeting in August, the talk was about hybrid turf grass and water conservation. The committee lost their Vice Chair and the Vice Chair 2 was unprepared to take over. So Christine will hold the Chair and Jeff Peterson will be Vice Chair for 2 years. Page 6 of 15

7 PUBLIC OFFICIALS COMMITTEE Len Englund The committee has a proposed schedule for the conference and all presenters have approved and are excited. There is hope for a great show. $500 was asked for the budget for incidentals. SUBSECTION ADVISORY COUNCIL Jacki Masters The SAC Vice Chair Sean Negherbon was promoted to City Administrator and had to bow out of SAC. Corey Peterson is willing to step up into the Vice Chair position effective immediately. Max Woody has agreed to become Secretary. Jackie is wanting a budget 101 type class for subsections that don t tend to do budgets. The committee would also like to get the subsections webpages updated and onto the new system. SAC has been developing procedural or operational handbooks for subsections to learn what is expected of officers, how to run a workshop, and so forth. All possible expenses are in the budget. There are a lot of activities that not everyone takes advantage of, but it is there in the budget just in case. A large increase is shown because of the funding for travel for potential teams. PROGRAM COMMITTEE-Jennifer Henke and Michelle Hall After filling out the 8 parallel tracks, there was only 1 empty session, making a total of 23 technical sessions, 5 pre-cons and 3 early-birds, a total of 102 different talks. 122 abstracts were submitted. They will be sending out the abstracts that were not selected to the committee chairs next week. The hope is to have a better draft in a couple of weeks and go out for full abstracts from speakers at the beginning of November and submit the full notebook to the states in January. The program will follow the same schedule as last year with the earlier Friday morning and with early-birds on Thursday morning. There was no income this year. The projection for speaker certificates is $750 this next year including postage and misc. expenses. SMALL SYSTEMS COMMITTEE-Dan Sleeth and Don Poppoff There have been no significant budget changes, just a bit of travel trying to spread the word of small systems to Eastern Washington. It has been a challenge getting people to be involved. It looks to be a good setup for Spokane with just a few spots to fill. There is a nice solid track for all day Friday. The question was asked about the travel out to other areas and if it worked well or not. It was worth the effort with positive face to face encounters, but communication quickly died off after. Don may have better luck growing committee membership through his day to day work with RH2 Engineering. The committee has been encouraged to work with the membership committee as well. Visiting treatment facilities would add value and be a good idea. OREGON WATER UTILITY COUNCIL-Mel Damewood Page 7 of 15

8 There have been a few high profile cases this year. They are helping support and represent Oregon to help the City of Cottage Grove file an amicus brief and getting water right permits extended. Another item the council has been involved in is looking into getting access to federally stored water, especially within the Willamette Basin. Right now, there is no municipal access to the water stored behind Corp of Engineers impoundments. There is 1.6 million acre feet of water that needs to get reallocated but is tied up in water rights. The council has successfully lobbied for $200,000 in federal budget to do a small allocation study and it is in the 2013 budget. OWUC is starting to travel around the state trying to get more interest and have about 25 active members so they are slowly starting to grow. They are also working with the Drinking Water Advisory Committee to develop best management practices for the identification and treatment of cyanobacteria in drinking water sources. It is expected that $27,000 of income will be generated from membership dues next year. The funding is mostly going for the allocation study for federally stored water. There is a bi-annual symposium on January 9, 2013 in Salem. WASHINGTON WATER UTILITY COUNCIL-Linda McCrea and Chris Peterschmidt As of May, Linda will move on to past chair, Chris will become the new Chair and they are looking for a new Vice Chair. This is a 2 year position. The council continues to work on legislation and litigation. Public fire protection issues continue, with Supreme Court decisions that have created confusion about how to pay for public fire protection, hydrants and such. Randy Black has been asked to chair a task force within the WUC about the outcomes we need and how to move forward. The task force moved forward with attorneys and came up with some possible solutions. There is hope to have something by the end of October. They are trying to clarify that public fire protection is something that can be billed in the water rates that includes all costs. They also continue to engage in water rights discussions. There is not an adopted budget for 2013 yet due to the need to make a decision on whether to raise the dues or not. The council s reserves are draining. They are spending more than they are taking in, much of it on attorney fees. $322,000 was roughly the amount of the balance at the start of the year. It is projected that there would be $235,000 at the end of the year with about half of that remaining at the end of next year if dues don t change. E&T FUND-Bob Willis The fund is doing just fine. Right now it is roughly at $450,000. There is some discussion of holding a chili fundraising event at this winter s board meeting. The past chairs committee is sponsoring a scholarship that is currently funded at just over $6,000 but is hoped to generate $10,000 this calendar year and another $10,000 in the next calendar year. The intent is to generate a scholarship fund in the name of the past chairs that will total between $20,000- $25,000 for their part and the total with matching funds will be $40,000-$50,000 fund that will fund a $4,000-$5,000 scholarship every year. Lee Odell created a full page ad that will run in Water Matters and should be a great generator of donations. Page 8 of 15

9 WATER TREATMENT-Chris Kelsey The committee holds quarterly meetings at treatment facilities and has seen some really unique facilities. The membership numbers are healthy with a core group that is essential and some young blood that is taking charge. Two technical sessions and an early-bird are in store for Spokane Conference. The topic of the early-bird is radioactive fallout and the influence on utilities. Instead of just one annual forum, they have now split it into a forum that is classroom based and another that is hands-on and held at treatment facilities. The hands-on forum was held in late July and 32 operators received CEUs at that event. The classroom based forums in September resulted in 20 CEUs in Idaho and 28 CEUs in Tacoma. They continue to look into initiatives to better their mission and to reach out to small systems operators that might not have the support of their managers. One thing they are attempting is a large/small partnership program which would be a self-funded program through sponsorships to help pay the cost of participants to travel to the small systems operators that can t usually make it to other events. WATER QUALITY COMMITTEE-Jason Canady The committee is working on putting together a program for the annual conference, they have several workshops planned but are looking for two more to fill in a couple of gaps. They have requested $1,500 for designated expenses such as water bottles or travel expenses. ENGINEERING COMMITTEE-Wayne Gresh There were many items in the works this year as well as an update to the website. The committee was asked to develop a new mission statement and align it with the strategic initiatives, which was completed in May or June. The website was updated last month with the new member roster and new mission statement. Starting in October there will be a rolling picture of projects on the website as well. It has been asked that the committee recruit members from the contracting community. To accomplish this, they made sure that contractors were in their presentations at the conference. The committee is also working on their training sessions. The next training session will be held in the Vancouver/Portland area. At the annual conference, the committee will put on a pre-conference that will focus on seismic events. There will be Engineering Awards to be given out again this year. The budget shows a $500 shortage, but they will try to make that number neutral and then start generating money by UTILITY MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE-Peter Martins They are a new and evolving group, only being around for a little over a year now. They are still trying to figure out the role and purpose for the committee and how to best run it. The training sessions at the 2012 conference went well. The upcoming trainings in October will be on emotional intelligence. One will be in Washington and one in Oregon. A full pre-conference is scheduled for 2013 on Asset Management and 3 technical sessions about what utility management needs to know, such as conservation rates, updating the M1 manual, and knowledge management. The budget projections look like there will be a slight profit. Page 9 of 15

10 BYLAWS COMMITTEE-Brad Phelps There was a request to make an amendment to the ROPs associated with the reimbursement of hotel and other costs associated with the members and board members. In May, it was decided that a full review of the the bylaws and the ROP s was needed. An Ad-hoc committee reviewed the re-written documents as well as a representative from Section Services and the documents have been given the green light. It was pointed out that lodging costs are an issue of the ROPs, not the bylaws. It was moved by Mark Knudson and seconded by Randy Black to approve the proposed amendments to the bylaws. All were in favor, none opposed and there was no further discussions. Motion passed. The next step is to present the new bylaws to the Associations Executive Committee for approval in February. CUSTOMER SERVICE COMMITTEE-Jacki Masters The committee has had two customer service training programs with a third one upcoming in a few weeks. There haven t been as many attendees as before, but there are plans to add to courses 1 and 2 and have CEUs assigned. There are three workshops scheduled for next year in Spokane, Course 1 in April, Course 2 in June and Course 3 in October. Brenda has set up a Course 1 in NW Oregon in March or April. The Course 3 being held in Longview still has a few seats left. The topic is Customer Service and the Vital Importance of Teams in Water Operations. It discusses how to take water from a well or stream and what it takes to get it into the faucet for drinking. YOUNG PROFESSIONALS COMMITTEE-Jennifer Garbely The mission for this year is: In order to retain membership of students and YPs, we need to get them involved. The goals set by this statement are to get students into the organization and then have them become an active member where they would be interested and to have more information available for everyone. The Fresh Ideas format will be a little bit different. They are going to move it to the pre conference program. This will create a professional environment for the students presentations. Judges will be needed on Wednesday. They will have a place to sit this year instead of standing. There is a possibility of offering CEUs for this as well. The budget has been increased for the Fresh Ideas Program to give more students the ability to travel. It is at the rate of $200 per student with 12 students expected. A little bit of funds were added for local events to pull more YPs into the program. There are two new chapters they are looking at: one in Eugene and one in Washington, so a little bit of funds have been added for that. After discussion, it was put on the table to keep the conference scholarship money in the Subsection Advisory Council budget, but to have SAC work with the YP Committee to make sure the Fresh Ideas students are allocated the amount requested. ORWARN-Mark Knudson They are considering a change in their structure that would increase the number of board positions that they have to relieve the burden when some members aren t available. Page 10 of 15

11 The annual conference in Seaside has just ended. It focused on resiliency and there will be a lot of talk of seismic resiliency in Oregon in the coming months. A reminder to all utilities that they should be joining ORWARN. There are a bunch of utilities that are not member when they should be. The budget shows a $30,000 proposed income and expense with a balance of $7-8,000 at the end of year. IDWARN-Mark Knudson Based on participation, they believe about 40% of the population of the state is covered and that is a major accomplishment. The website continues to be hosted by ID DEQ and there is a mutual assistance agreement in place that has been vetted by the State of Idaho Attorney General and the state s public agency insurance carrier. Borrowing ideas heavily from ORWARN, they have met 5 times in the past year and conducted 2 emergency exercises with an additional exercise that included 3 mock emergency generator deployments to remote sites. The budget shows an expected income of $250 and $500 of expenses, most of which is to start a newsletter and pamphlets. WASHINGTON WARN-Dave Brown Having a rough year trying to get the website hosted by the City of Seattle.but it looks like it may now be a possibility and be similar to how Portland hosts ORWARN. After a trip to St Louis to the Chair s Conference, Dave came back with lots of ideas of what WAWARN needs to be doing. It was discovered that it is normal for all WARNs to come and go in strength and that WA is not alone with their issues. There are plans to have another conference with the region chairs to discuss the game plan and website hosting. There are currently close to 50 agencies that are members. There is talk about the possibility of starting to charge dues to make the organization self-sustaining. Adjourned at 4:00 Page 11 of 15

12 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2012 The Fall Trustees meeting of the Pacific Northwest Section-American Water Works Association was reconvened by Chair Kari Duncan at 9:05 a.m. in Ballroom II of the Ashland Springs Hotel in Ashland, Oregon. PUBLIC INFORMATION COMMITTEE-Jeff Selby for Tacy Steele Since May of last year, 14 communication awards were distributed to winning agencies from the competition last year. They co-hosted a pre-conference on presentation with pizazz which had 16 attendees. There were 2 executive meetings to discuss the future of the committee and to plan for the upcoming year. The plan for the coming year looks promising. The Communication Awards has been proven to be popular, so that will happen again in 2013 and applications will be available in early January. They would like to propose an awards dessert at the conference for the award recipients. They will seek sponsors for that event but have requested some budget money for it as well. A breakfast & learn is in the works talking about water rates. The same as a lunch & learn but held in the morning. The committee is also working to produce a brochure for new members of AWWA to express the benefits of being a member. SCHOLARSHIP COMMITTEE-Dave Leland The committee has solved the problem of excess applications that weren t relevant to the field by being more descriptive on the website as to what they are looking for and who can apply. This year s budget is consistent with last year for the most part YAKIMA CONFERENCE REPORT-Dave Brown It was a successful conference with a great team and an excellent conference center staff. The quality of service and food was excellent compared to the cost. The subsection made $ and the overall proceeds were $101,000-$102,000 with an estimated 400 attendees and approximately 200 vendors (100 booths with 2 people each). PAST CHAIRS-Mark Knudson The list of candidates was approved at the last board meeting. Chair Elect candidates are John Wiskus, Jason Canady, and Laurie Fulton OR/ID Trustee candidates are Todd Heidgerken, Sean Negherbon (withdrawn), and Brian Murphy WA Trustee candidates are John Roth, Ray West, and Cheryl Capron At-Large candidates are Corie Peterson, Stephanie Raddatz and Lacey Goeres The committee has been working with the E&T fund to put together the procedures on how to administer the matching funds to grow the E&T fund. Jim Doane has been nominated for the Distinguished Public Service award. He is being recognized for his work outside the water industry. He is active in Boy Scouts and endowed a chair at UCLA in the engineering program, as well as establishing a scholarship with the Section. TRAINING COORDINATION COMMITTEE-Lisa Snowden and Christine Hollenbeck This committee has only been an official committee for about 9 months now. There are several things underway. The upcoming website being up and running will be great to get all the tools in Page 12 of 15

13 one place to make life easier for everyone. Focus is on putting together a list of mentors to be available for short school programs and identifying ways to get trainings out to more remote areas through video conferencing. They are also looking at ways of getting feedback to see what is working and what isn t. A survey might be in the works. There are currently about 15 people on this committee. A good percentage are active all the time. The budget is focused on portable trainings and the training of the trainers that run those sessions at the pre-conference. BUDGET RECAP AND FINALIZATION-Jeff Lundt $25,000 in equipment expense for the website was removed from the equipment budget and left in the Water Information Technology Committee. An adjustment was made to ORWARN. It should have been $500, not $5,000. Several issues were found with the balance forward with the Washington WUC, this still needs to be figured out. Some updates need to be made to the LAC budget spreadsheet based on some changes that were made during the conference with the elimination of travel from various committee budgets. There are no suggested changes for the budgeted income for AWWA contribution is at $130,000 and right now we are at $121,000 but could be up to as much as $145,000 if we go by a percentage basis. End of year 2012 is based on previous years. September-December is about 20% of the income. There is concern about the increase of committees budgeting for speaker travel instead of utilizing free local speakers or scholarships. All committee boards should think about that and look for ways to minimize expenses before it gets out of hand. An issue that has come up is the cost of the trustee meetings based on cost last year. It looks like the $45,000 budgeted for 2013 will be too low. It should be more around $55,000, so it is the decision of the board to either increase the budget or decrease the cost of the meetings by not paying for hotel costs for those members that have other means of paying for it themselves. It was suggested that an ad-hoc committee be appointed to take a look into cost of trustee meetings, specifically lodging, and to create an appropriate policy for board travel but then the board decided to continue talking about it at the next board meeting. It was moved by John Griffin and seconded by Bob Ward to approve the 2013 budget as presented with minor adjustments that are still to be made. All in favor, none opposed with no discussion. TRUSTEE REPORTS Greg Wyatt: Budget: -Kudos to Jeff and all committees for the good work Audit: -Kudos to Judi for quick turn-around on write ups when auditing subsections Page 13 of 15

14 Bob Ward: Ad-hoc committee: -A committee has been formed to look at memberships and dues for membership. That started yesterday. Nominating: Past Chairs: Scholarship: E&T Fund: Chuck Kingston: Committee Chair: Inter-Organization: -No report, may want to sunset this committee Strategic Planning: Public Officials: Training Coordination: Mark Knudson National Association Awards and Review: ID, OR WA Water Utility Councils: ORWARN: Randy Black: Cross Connection Control: -Committee needs a Vice Chair and Secretary Education & Certification: -No reports have been received, may want to wrap this into TCC Distribution: Conference Program: Mel Damewood: Historian: -This is a fairly inactive committee at this time Research: Utility management: -This committee needs a little work and guidance working with YP and Women in Leadership groups Customer Service: John Wiskus: Engineering: Page 14 of 15

15 Safety: Water Resources: MSC: Jason Canady Public Information: Water Quality: -This committee needs a little help Small Systems: Subsection Advisory Council: Corianne Hart: Young Professionals: Water Treatment: I/T and Website: Membership: John Griffin Conference local Arrangements: Water for People: Water Conservation: Publications: Chair Duncan adjourned the 2012 Fall Trustee Meeting at 11:10. Page 15 of 15