Utility
Matt Gardner, the District Manager has responsibility for ongoing management and operations of the Utility, i.e., the production and distribution of drinking water and the processing of waste water. Our objective, in concert with the Sanitary District Board, is to act in support of Matt to ensure that he has clear and consistent direction about the Districts’ priorities for the Utility and the necessary resources, i.e., training, financial, staff and contractors, to address them. Per Special Districts Association of Oregon:
“The role of the Board is to make and approve district policies, set the direction of the district, make decisions and establish strategic goals and objective”
Watershed
Our objective relating to operations of the Watershed is a bit different. Matt Gardner’s plate is more than full with training a new operator, normal day-to-day operations, preventive maintenance, handing periodic crises, addressing the backlog of deferred maintenance projects and the coordination of capital improvement (i.e., the Engineer’s Recovery Plan). As such, the District has no staff to take on the responsibility for operations of the Watershed. In that case, per Special Districts Association of Oregon:
“The role of the Board is to make and approve district policies, set the direction of the district, make decisions and establish strategic goals and objective. If a district has no staff, individual board members can assume administrative functions, but only with the authorization of the board.”
Our objectives relating to the Watershed are as follows:
Immediate-Term Operations & Oversight (until near-to-long term planning is completed)
A) With the need for additional forestry expertise on the Forest Management Committee given the impending departure of Ben Hayes and the upcoming road engineering work, reconstitute the Forest Management Committee, expand its scope, appoint members with forestry and facilitation expertise and ask them to answer the following questions:
Given that our primary objective is to protect water quality and quantity, and with the possible need for commercial logging in 10-ish years…
- In order to relieve Matt of operational responsibility for the Watershed, are there operational responsibilities that need to be covered by the Forester or someone else?
- What should be our approach-plan for Fire Response?
- With the contracted Forester’s impending absence, how should we fill the need for oversight of road construction and general forestry? What is the appropriate RFP to get the most appropriate contractor(s)?
- What should be our procedure for monitoring-controlling vehicular access to the Watershed, i.e., who has keys, what is the process for managing key access, who is using the roads, who is in the Watershed?
- What are the minimum maintenance requirements of the Watershed that we should be considering and factoring into the Finance-Operations plan?
- If logging is to be required, should it be only outside of the source water protection area? If so, should the two areas, inside the source water protection area and outside of the source water protection area, be managed differently?
- Which project(s) in the Ecological Road Assessment should we undertake? Are there any suggested refinements?
- Should we Quality Assess (QA) the performance against our contracts, e.g. the thinning contract? If so, how and when?
- Should the Watershed be patrolled and should the Watershed be submitted into the Travel Management Agreement?
- Are there other questions that we should be asking?
B) Staff the minimum operations responsibilities for the Watershed as defined in A.1 above.
C) Determine optimum allocation of available financial resources in a manner that meets operational and project requirements and ensures compliance with contractual obligations.
Near-to-Long Term Planning
Reconvene a Finance Committee as a subgroup of the Forest Management Committee, appoint members with expertise in finance and forestry and ask them to:
A) Work with the community to develop and adopt a near-term to long-term financial-operations plan for the Watershed (to include public access, road work, recreation, conservation management etc.), with requisite funding sources, e.g., logging, grants, donations, levies, rates.
B) Using that financial-operations plan as context, work with the and community to determine which of the following approaches will be used for long term operations of the Watershed;
1) Add operations of the Watershed to the set of responsibilities of the District Manager and augment District staff if/as necessary, OR
2) Hire contractors to undertake operational responsibility for the Watershed, OR
3) A blend of “a” & “b”, OR
4) Outsource the operations of the Watershed to a Forest Management Company
C) Once a sustainable operational approach is selected, work with the community to define the appropriate governance structure for ongoing management / oversight along with the role for any necessary committee(s), e.g., Forest Management, Finance, others.
D) Establish the Watershed as a separate business unit
A.C. Water District Board (Go to Home Page) 