By Rudy Hemmann

The Surveyor

According to an information sheet provided by town staff, R. Wayne Ramey, President of Ramey Environmental Compliance, Inc. (REC, Inc.), made an offer to purchase the town’s 2003 Vactor combination jet/vacuum truck in exchange for doing work on the town’s sewer lines. The truck was purchased by the town in 2003 for $205,000 and currently holds no depreciation value.

In lieu of a cash purchase of the truck (which Ramey has valued at $70,000) REC, Inc. is offering to jet clean and video 66,000 feet of sewer pipe of the town’s choosing. The $70,000 price of the truck would be paid off at the rate of $1.06 per lineal foot.

Additionally, if the town has budgeted any funds for cleaning and televising of lines REC, Inc. will do that work as well at the stated price.

The purchase agreement authored by REC, Inc, also notes that there are mechanical issues that they will have to get repaired before using the truck.

The trustees voted unanimously to give the town administrator the authority to sell the Vactor truck to REC, Inc.

At the second reading of the development code revisions, there was an attempt made to add some provisions to the document which had not been discussed and were outside of the parameters established by the planning commission. The board decided to approve the revised development code with the following items to be reviewed by staff and their recommendations be brought back to the board at a subsequent meeting. Those items are:

• The relaxation of the awning standards in the commercial section.
• Defer to the Tree Advisory Committee concerning the percentage of tree species diversity that will be allowed to be planted on public lands in a new development.
• The notification distance for development should be increased more than threefold from 300 feet to 1,000 feet.
• That all new subdivisions should be required to set aside a small tract to be used as a community garden and if road buffers should be required.

Town Attorney Greg Bell suggested the following statement be added to the motion:

With the finding that immediate effectiveness is necessary for the health, welfare and safety of the community and therefore should become effective immediately.

The second reading of revisions to the town’s water policy was considered by the trustees. The information sheet for the item gives the following information:

At the March 13, 2018 meeting of the Board of Trustees, a modification to the Town of Berthoud Water Dedication Ordinance was presented for consideration.  That ordinance requires, among other things, that water be dedicated to the town prior to the development of any new potable or non-potable water uses.  In lieu of dedicated water rights, a cash payment can be made to secure water rights to serve a new development.

Quoting from the information sheet, “As the board is aware, town staff has received requests from developers of smaller homes, on smaller lots, to modify the current water dedication requirement.  The thought process is that a smaller home (i.e. a single family dwelling on a lot smaller than 3,500 sq. ft.) has a smaller water demand than a more traditional single family dwelling on a lot greater than 3,500 sq. ft.  Staff agrees that the water demand from smaller, more attainable, homes will be less than a larger home primarily because of the reduction in irrigated land area, which is the largest area of use for a home.  As the ordinance already requires an increase in dedication for larger single family home properties (i.e. homes on lots greater than 18,000 sq. ft.), staff believes it would be appropriate to lower the water dedication requirement for smaller home properties.”

“The ordinance also includes a corresponding increase in dedication requirement for larger lot homes to clarify the Town’s existing practices.  Other minor revisions in the ordinance are included to clarify the Single Family Equivalent (SFE) values assigned to multi-tenant commercial buildings, and to clarify the timing of dedication or payment of fees for subdivisions.  Since the 1st reading, a change to the language regarding multi-tenant structures has been made.  Specifically, multi-tenant commercial buildings will be assigned a value of 0.5 SFE per 1,000 square feet of building area, rather than “per unit” as originally proposed.  Lastly, for any dedicated water rights that require a change in use to be processed through water court, there is a proposed revision to the ordinance that limits the developer’s costs to the actual costs incurred by the Town in processing the change.”

A motion to accept the new water dedication ordinance was made, seconded and unanimously approved.

The trustees heard a request from Chief Steve Charles of the Berthoud Fire Protection District (BFPD) in which he requested the Intergovernmental agreement between the town and BFPD be modified to make it easier for BFPD to assume the fire protection responsibilities of newly annexed subdivisions. The board approved the request.

Mayor Steve Mulvihill read two proclamations into the record for the meeting. The first was to recognize the month of April as Parkinson’s Disease awareness month and the second was the annual Arbor Day celebration proclamation. Arbor Day has been observed in Berthoud each year for the past 35 years. This year the event will be held at Roberts Lake Park with the planting of two trees on Saturday, April 21 beginning at 10 a.m.