Highlights of the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Raymond Irrigation District held Tuesday January 7, 2020 commencing at 9:00AM in the RID Board Room.
Attending: John McKee Chairman, Craig Palmer Vice Chair, Rod Wendorff director, Gordon ZoBell, General Manager and recording clerk, Cody Heggie Operations Manager in training and Kelvin Kado as needed.
IRP Project Update – Cody reported that the R8-1 IRP 2356 project is progressing. The crew came back to work January 2, 2020 and have made excellent progress. Cody increased the hours the crew is working to 9.5 hours per day with the overtime being taken with time off in lieu of. The pipe has been installed beginning at the south end of the 2020 reach and is currently to the Prince parcel. The precast inlet structure is built and Precon will deliver it when we are ready to install.
Monthly Maintenance report – Cody gave a slide show of the operations, IRP and maintenance performed over the past month.
Irrican – Awaiting completion of 2019 audited financial report. Next Board meeting January 28, 2020 at 9:30 am. The Irrican AGM will be held January 28, 2020.
RID financial – report by K Kado. Got a good response from the reminder statements sent December 5, 2019. A/R as of January 7, 2020, $694,512 of which $538,129 is due from ICW. One concern was with Customer #1063 he is now 2 years in arrears as of December 2019, in the amount of $45,501.53 as well as putting account #1295, in arrears for 2 years, $13, 892.85 because they rent the parcel. Winter party January 28, Red barn is booked. March 19, 2020 Seminar and AGM Ag building, building is booked.
Forty Mile pumping agreement – Craig Palmer noted that he and Gordon had signed the agreement as noted.
Potential RID Manager – John and Craig will check with two additional references on the candidates resume. The manager was asked to email the individual to update them on the application process to date.
AIDA Annual meeting – The meeting was held Friday December 13, 2019 at the Keg restaurant in Lethbridge commencing at 10:00 AM. All RID directors and the manager attended the meeting. John was able to give a short report at that meeting about he and three other district directors attendance at the UCP annual meeting in Red Deer and of the positive networking that was made with elected officials.
Solar Array – Solar generation at the R7-1 and R8-2 pump sites. – After much discussion the board determined that they are not interested in moving forward with this project at this time. They will revisit the possibility in 2021. The manager noted that this potential initiative could be studied in more depth by the new manager going forward if the board was in favor.
New light trucks – The manager noted that two new GMC light trucks were ordered through Davis in Lethbridge and will arrive for the spring season.
2014 Ford F 150 – The manager noted that this truck has 145,000 kilometers on it and has been diagnosed with no compression in cylinder number 4. After much discussion the board determined that perhaps the best alternative would be to receive bids for the truck and possibly sell it as is to someone willing to make the necessary repairs. The second alternative would be to find a used engine and have our crew install it.
Directors Items – The manager reminded the board that there is a meeting on January 15, 2020 at the SMRID regarding the IJC and also regarding collaborative possibilities between the TID, RID and SMRID. John and Gordon will attend. Craig and Rod will be unavailable.
Town of Raymond – Gordon noted that the town is seeking approval to develop and area east of the RID Raymond main canal east of Corner Lake on the south side of the canal. They are hoping that the RID will have no objections to their proposal. The manager noted that the town was going to provide a letter to the RID regarding the issue but it has not arrived. The board will consider this issue going forward.
December 17 Main Canal and Irrican meetings – Gordon and Craig attended the Main Canal meeting and Irrican meetings with Kelvin joining them during the Irrican meeting. They noted that budgeting was discussed going forward. The main canal drop 3 project is proceeding nicely at a cost of $650,000. Gordon has visited the project on a few occasions. Irrican budgeting was discussed and the sale of carbon credits is looking very positive moving forward.
RID code of conduct – Gordon reviewed the draft he had prepared with the board. They requested more time to study the code and asked to have it brought forward in the next board meeting.
RID expansion modeling – Jollin Charest and Andrea Gonzalez from AAF joined the meeting at 10:00 AM as a delegation. They came to review the expansion computer modeling that was recently completed by them. They showed the board a technical power point presentation that very thoroughly examined the expansion scenarios of 10, 20 and 40% expansion in the RID. Weather records dating back to 1928 were used as well as current cropping and works condition. After much discussion the board determined that they would like to present the expansion possibility of 10% and 15% to the water users. This would take place in a special meeting March 19, 2020 in place of the usual yearly seminar. A vote on expansion would take place a few days or weeks following the meeting. Len Ring will assist the district and all legislative requirements are to be met. The delegation stayed for lunch with the board and left the meeting at 1:00 PM.
RID Seminar and Annual Meeting – The meetings will take place March 19, 2020 in the Raymond Ag Society main building with the seminar commencing at 9:30 PM. As noted, the seminar will be a special meeting for the water users where expansion within the RID will be presented to the membership. Presentations will be given by John McKee, Jollin Charest, the manager and Len Ring. The board would also like, during the annual meeting, to honor Mark Jensen and Phil Wilde at their retirement.
Next meeting date – Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at the RID board room.
Motion to adjourn and time meeting ended – Having no further business the board ended the meeting at 4:42 PM on motion by John McKee.