Oklahoma City Water Utilities Trust – 5-7-2024

e e e e e e e e e good afternoon it is two o'clock and I would like to call to order the May 7th meeting of the Oklahoma City water utilities trust next up is generally the minutes but no not today today we have a drinking water week acknowledgement Mr Browning would you go down to the front of the Horseshoe Miss Simpson can you read the acknowledgement whereas water is our most valuable natural resource and whereas drinking water serves a vital role every day for the health hydration and hygiene needs of the 1.4 million people we serve in central Oklahoma and whereas the Oklahoma City water utilities trust aquit Oklahoma's largest drinking water provider treats and delivers an average 100 million gallons of Clean safe water water to customers daily and whereas treated tap water safeguards public health and the environment supports Public Safety through fire protection and enables economic prosperity and Quality of Life by supporting business and recreational opportunities and whereas reliable Water Service significantly contributes to the quality of life within the region through the development and financing of capital projects treatment and delivery of water through more than 4,000 miles of distribution Mains and the operation and maintenance of our water infrastructure and whereas aquit has committed to an investment of more than $1.7 billion in infrastructure improvements for the fiscal years 2023 through 2027 to enhance system reliability and resiliency and whereas residents in central Oklahoma are called upon to help protect our source Waters from pollution and practice water conservation guidelines promoted by ait's squeeze every drop program and whereas aquit is joining the American Water Works Association and water utilities across North America to celebrate the value of Clean safe drinking water now therefore I James D couch chairman of the Oklahoma City water utilities trust do hereby acknowledge May 5th through 11th 2024 as drinking water week which since 1988 has been observed during during the first week of May through a joint Congressional resolution signed by then President Ronald Reagan I encourage all residents to recognize the positive impact of water sector employees in our city and to practice conservation measures to help Safeguard our water supply for future Generations thank you Amy really do appreciate it so Jeff would you um well let me say something here first uh this week we joined communities across nation in celebrating National drinking water week it's a time for us to celebrate um the fact that we provide safe and reliable drinking water throughout not just Oklahoma City but throughout central Oklahoma so we celebrate that and and I'd like Jeff Balden our water quality superintendent to introduce uh his staff or they can introduce themselves and and what they do each and every day so if you don't mind uh my name is Mike I have the opportunity to work down at Draper not only do we help facilitate in the process of cleaning water treating water we also get to help with other things like the pipeline um booster stations um Hefner as well we come together as a tight knit we're not not too big of a department but we are the Automation and instrumentation industrial electrician side thank you I'm Emily Curry I work in the environmental Laboratory I um test the water for Regulatory Compliance and routine monitoring so then make sure that what we're drinking is actually safe hi I'm Jesse Carr I'm the assistant superintendent of water quality and acting Draper plant manager I helped to make sure that all these fine people have what they need to get their jobs done to produce high quality water for the citizens of Oklahoma City hi I'm Kevin Smith industrial electrician for water quality uh we perform maintenance and operations on all of the Oklahoma City water plants um electrical distribution um the aoka pipeline so we're we're all over the place to keep water moving thank you these folks represent a team of over a hundred in the water quality division uh who are part of a team of over 800 in the utilities department and they uh do provide uh our drinking water and our water for fire fighting uh throughout the entire central Oklahoma region uh we serve a population of about 1.4 million people um so they play a critical role in ensuring the health Public Safety and economic prosperity of the entire region not just Oklahoma City so um to collectively they're responsible for treating about 35 billion gallons of the water year and they also uh treat or they also test about 23,000 samples a year to make sure that our water meets all federal and state water quality regulations so in addition to these folks in the water quality division I'd also like to recognize the people the employees down in southeast Oklahoma who pump about 80 million gallons a day from aoka up to Draper to enable us to meet our water demands uh secondly the reservoirs and canals group are generally responsible for Watershed protection the flushing Crews go out um in every quarter flush all the fire hydrants and we have what about 70 80,000 fire hydrants Jeff so they flush the fire hydrants to make sure that we don't have any any dead ends in our water system that could cause water quality issues and then last but certainly not least the line maintenance group where they have to maintain and repair 4,000 miles of pipe uh and they're out there in all kind of weather conditions I'm sure you all have seen them out there when it's I don't know 17 below zero fixing water mains so they're responsible for a really really tough job so let's get our glasses is is this excuse me is this Draper water or eer water yes okay you're actually in the blending zone so let's raise our glasses to toast the reliability safety and accessibility of our tap water which flows reliably into our homes schools and businesses through the hard work and dedication of our water utilities employees thank you very much for all I thank you Chris um this leaving the room but it's uh some health professionals have said that the most significant event to improve health in the history of mankind is a chlorination of water that is that's the most significant out you know that and in the history of mankind that's that's like a long time Dennis was there at the beginning but so you know unfortunately um you know World Health Organization publishes uh mortality worldwide and and still today in 2024 about 5 million people a year die from drinking unclean water that's almost impossible for me to wrap my head around because we turn the tap on it comes out we don't even look at it in the middle of the night we just drink it that's the level of confidence our folks have and I don't know if anything else you'll put in your mouth without looking at it first good point you know but how many times have you gone to the kitchen and the bathroom in the middle of the night didn't even turn the water the light on got a glass of water drank it went back to bed didn't even think about it yeah clean water and disposing of waste water is obviously alweer is very very significant and we shouldn't take for uh those Services because there are many parts of the world that do not afford those those benefits and and I would be remiss if I didn't thank you all for all of your support to enable us to do what we do so thank you very much thank you Mr Brownie next up is the approval of minutes from the April 23rd meeting the minutes are in your packet are there any questions or comments regarding the minutes seeing none is there a motion for approval Motion in a second and it passes unanimously next up is a consent docket there's another a number of items from repair of the dam wall repair at Lake heer some request for proposals number of amendments and change orders renewal of a some agreements we've got a easement right of Entry uh ratification of payments anyway a number of things in the consent docket are there any items on the consent docket that the trustees would like to pull for individual discussion consideration seeing none is there a motion to improve the consent docket and it passes unanimously item four is the concurrent stocket there are three items on the concurrent stocket all of these items are in concurrence with the City of Oklahoma City and none of the three items include aquit funds is there a motion for approval the consent docket motion second and it passes unanimously there are no emergency contracts on for consideration today there are no items for individual considerations items from trustees General management reports Mr Browning thank you Mr chairman um I do have some really good news here um we received the uh updated Bond rating from moodies and standard and pores so on April 23rd 2024 aquit and city council approved resolutions authorizing an upcoming aquit tax exempt Revenue Bond transaction so as a part of that process aquit staff and City Finance staff held rating agency presentations with both SNP and Moody's on April 29th both rating agencies announced that aqua's AAA credit rating was affirmed with a stable Outlook so uh we we got the highest rating possible again uh so aquit so so they cited a few things um and and you know we're we're we're kind of turning into the Benchmark so with aqua's prudent and exceptional policies and practices that support aquit strong financial performance these are all the things they cited supporting their uh rating uh aquit continued uh diversification with service areas serving 1.4 million residents in central Oklahoma aquate sophisticated long-range planning together with long-term water supply water reliability system expansion and risk resilience systems and then the rate management practices that support multi-year rate adjustments and you know they they stated that only uh seven and 5% of utilities are rated uh AAA by standards and pores and moodies respectively uh so uh we're anticipating to price Bonds in the upcoming week and uh and we'll um provide a post bond sale update at the next trust meeting so that would be the $300 million Bond sale coming up so with that um be happy to answer any questions any questions for Mr Brownie very good that's excellent you know I think that's probably you're kind of leading the city toward that keeping them up at a triple A how that works crank that's right all right I'm not aware of any citizens to be heard there's no further business therefore we are adjourned I need to write a memo back I need to write an email back to mer

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