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11-23-60SpMtg 323 Nove=ber 23, 1960 A special meeting of the City Council of Delray Beach was held in the Council Chambers at 8:00 P.;,{., with ~.~yor Glenn B. Sundy in the*Chair, City Manager George Mingle,-City Attorney Richard F. Zimmerman and Councilmen Dugal G. Campbell, Charles H. Harbison, and George V. Warren being present. An opening pra~x, was delivered by Councilman Charles H. Harbism- Mayor Sundy called the meeting to order announcing that the same had been scheduled for the purpose of holding a public hearing on the schedule of rates, fees and charges to be imposed for the services and facilities described as sanitary sewerage collection and dis- posal system. 'Mayor Sundy stated that prior to any public comment he would like to have Mr, James Brown, Chief Engineer of the Palm Beach County Health Department, enlighten all present on what is ex- pected of Delray Beach concerning sewerage disposal; and following this information, .he would like to hear from the following people: }.ir. George Russell, Executive Vice-President; and ~.~r. Prank Osteen, Jr., Chief Engineer of Russell & Axon, the city's consulting engineers; also, Mr. C. T. McCreedy, the city's Fiscal Agent, after which the public hearing w0uld be open to all users of the sewer collection and disposal system, of the city and to owners, tenants, and occupants of property served or to be served thereby concerning the proposed rates, fees and charges, and that it would be appreciated if each individual comment would be limited to two minutes in order that all interested parties might have the opportunity of being heard. }.{r. James Brown, Chief Engineer of the Palm Beach County Health Department, said that he felt that his department were the watch-dogs over public health and they wanted to see good, clean, healthy con- ditions for all of the people, not only for the people who live here, but also our tourists whom we get part of our livelihood from; tha~: we don't want disease to be brought here and left here and we don't want disease to be contracted here and taken away. He stated that in 1950 there were ohly two sewer treatment plants in Palm Beach County, one being at the Palm.Beach International Airport, and the other one at the Boca Raton Axrpork. As of this date there are now under construction and in operation 39 municipal sewerage treatment plants. The State Board of Health and the County Health Department feel that in the Florida soil, with the high ground water table and with the natural underground water table they have to be protected and every time that a septic tank system goes in there is that much more pollution put into the ground; also, septic tanks are only temporary means of waste disposal in urban and city use. He stated that he was not here to sell a sewerage treatment plant but that his department did endorse sewers and sewerage treatment plants. The State Board of Health has their guide and requirements for these plants to operate by and the waste treated so as not to pollute the waterways and our natural water resources. With the increased popu- lation some means should be provided to help clean up the'waterways and Sewerage disposal conditions. In 1957, ~r. David Lee, State Sanitary Engineer warned the people of Delray Beach, at the same time that the water improvement ~)rogram was installed, that the sanitary sewers should be provided also. Mr. George Russell, Executive Vice-President of Russell & Axon, commented as follows: "I would like to point out the principal feature of this design is disposal of sewerage by an ocean out-fall. Delray is very fortunate in that the Gulfstream swings very close ±o shore at this point, just about as close as it gets anywhere along the East Coast of Florida. There are ~any areas in which we de- signed sewerage treatment plants in the State of Florida that it would be impossible from an economical viewpoint to utilize the ocean out-fall. There are some 4 ocean outfalls at the present time on the lower East Coast of Florida in operation..There is one at Palm Beach, also at Lake Worth, ~iami Beach, and Key West; and, at a meeting held last week of the Sewerage Works Association in Fort Lauderdale there was a discussion by representatives from each of theme and there were no complaints voiced at that time and no diffi- cult operational problems. Now to indicate how fortunate you are, NOVElV[BEI~ 2 3rd, 1960. the savinp~ to the city by use of this for a first cost for the system is somewhere in the order of three hundred thousand dollars and an annual operational saving to the city of about ~50,000.00, and that is a tremendous saving. There will be with this ocean out- fall pre-treatment facilities as approved by the Board of Health. The out-fall will dishcarge some seven thousand feet out from shore and will discharge into 90 or 100 feet of water and well into the Gulfstream which is a moving body of water much as a river. It will be carried away and not towards the shore. As stated before, there have been no problems and as a matter of fact a recent inspection on both the Lake Worth and the Palm Beach outfalls disuloses that 30 to 40 feet below the surface the sewerage could not be detected at all, so this, we feel, provides the most efficient and the most economical method of disposal available, in fact in the country, because this is a peculiarity that the Gulfstream is this close, and in addition to this it provides no esthetic problem as far as the inland waterway is concerned." Mr. Osteen, Chief Engineer of Russell & Axon, commented as follows "There is not very much that I have to add to the comments that Mr. Russell made, but I would like to state that we did make a thorough study of your existing treatment plant and we did prepare a compre- hensive report for the city and in this report it was our observa- tion that the existing treatment plant is in effect providing no treatment for the sewerage from some 1000 connections; in other words, it is going into the Intracoastal Waterway as virtually raw sewerage. Now that is something to bear in mind. I would also like to point out that we did two complete designs, one based on a complete sewer- age treatment plant, and the other based on pre-treatment and dis- charge to the Gulfstream. We did those for the purpose of giving the city officials and you people the dollar and cents comparison so that it would be obvious to you which would be the better method of disposal. As Mr. Russell pointed out the savings are considerable, both in first cost and in annual cost of operation. The program which the city is considering embarking upon proposes initially to construct this ocean out-fall with a lift station and the pre-treatnent facilities to pick up all the sewerage from the existing connections, which I said were about 1000 connections, to add to that the princii.~a! portion of the built up section of the city on this side of the Intre.- coastal canal and the principal portion of the Beach area. That w'ill get a large percentage of the population in Delray Beach on the sewer system. I don't want you to think that ~his is designed to serve only a small part of the city,' the over-all design is comprehensive, it includes the entire city, it provides a planned program while sewering initially that area and also a plan for ultimately sewering the entire City of Delray Beach." Mr. C. T. McCreedy, the city's Fiscal Agent commented as follows: "Ladies and gentlemen, the financing for this sewer system has been planned on the basis of the issuance of revenue certificates under the existing water and sewer revenue bond ordinance. In other words, there will be no property taxes involved in that portion of the pro- gram. The water revenues and the anticipated sewer service charge revenue, as projected by the engineers, will be sufficient to amortize the debt. The utility service taxes are pledgeable under this bond ordinance and will be pledged to make the bonds saleable; but the sewer service charges that have been worked out will amortize the debt according to these projections, so it will be done on that basis with the users paying for the services provided to benefitted prop- erty and not by general tax levy on all property in the city. Now, if you would like to go into detail with questions later I will be glad to answer them, but that's basically the way in whioh the mone~, will be raised prior to construction." Protests and co~ents concerning the application of the propos, ed rate shcedule and sewer service connection charges, and more specifz- cally as to their being placed in effect prior to the construction of the ocean out-fall, were made by the following: A1 Avery, Charles Turner, Fred Sellers, Egbert P. Hoyle, 3. L. Patterson, George Lapham, Walter Spiegel, ~ohn Santa, Art Michael, Albert Woolley, W. H. Davis, Kenneth Krusell, Harold S. DeHart, .Hank Cohen, Helen Neal, George Boughton, ~rs. Aaron Smock, Catherxne E. Strong, and Eugene Constans. NOVEMBER 23rd, 1960. Following general discussion Mm~ Harbison moVed that there be no charge on the present sewer system until 1962 and to proceed with the financing as proposed. Mayor Sundy relinquished the chair to M~,. Campbell and seconded the motion. Upon call of roll Hr. Harbison and Mayor Sundy voted in favor of the motion, Mm. Campbell being opposed and Hr. Warren abstained from voting. The motion did not caml-y. Hr. Campbell then moved that this item be placed on the Agenda for next Monday night, the motion being seconded by Mm. Warren. Upon call of roll Mm. Campbell and Mr. Warren voted in favor of the motion, Mm, Harbison being opposed and Mayor Sundy abstained from voting. The motion did not camry. Hr. Campbell then moved that the matter be tabled, motion beinM seconded by Mm. Wamren. Upon call of roll Hr. Campbell and Mm, Warren voted in favor of the motion, Hr. Harbison and Mayor Sundy being opposed. The motion did not camry. The meeting adjourned at 10:00 P.M, on motion by Hr. HarbisOn. R. D. WORTHING City Clerk APPROVED: Mayor -' ~ / NOVEMBEI~ 23rd, 1960.