A special meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Monday, June 24, 2019, at 7:00 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.
Vice President Michael O’Brien presided; City Clerk Patricia Piecuch recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Patricia Piecuch; Alderman June M. Caron led in the Pledge to the Flag.
The roll call was taken with 10 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Alderman Wilshire, Alderman Gidge,
Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Jette and Alderman Clemons were recorded absent
His Honor, Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
President Wilshire turned the meeting over to Alderman Dowd, Chair of the Budget Review Committee,
to conduct the public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING
R-19-142
AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND CITY TREASURER TO ISSUE BONDS
NOT TO EXCEED THE AMOUNT OF SIX MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND
DOLLARS ($6,200,000) FOR VARIOUS IMPROVEMENTS TO THE JACKSON MILLS
AND MINE FALLS HYDROELECTRIC FACILITIES
Vice President O’Brien
So that the rest of the Board knows | did hear from Alderman Wilshire and Alderman Gidge, both are on
excused absences due to illness. Tonight’s meeting will be a Public Hearing on R-19-142. | am going to call
on Sarah Marchant to give us a brief overview of R-19-142. There is a little presentation to hopefully explain it
better. Would you like to come up, however you can see best, my seat is available.
Sarah Marchant, Director Community Development gave a brief overview of R-19-142 before the Board heard
public testimony.
Ms. Marchant
Good evening, thank you very much. | have just a few slides and | will go through them quickly. If you have
questions, I’m more than happy to answer them. | have more information but | didn’t want to overload with
data. | am here to talk to you about our two hydroelectric facilities. A very, very brief history is that we, the
Jackson Mills Hydroelectric facility which is part of the Margarita’s Restaurant, you can actually enjoy a
beverage on the deck that is directly about our hydro plant was returned to the City’s ownership as of January
of 2015, it was December 30" or something like that. So we didn’t pay anything for it; there was originally a
lease. The City was part of the original construction, the hydro, the entity who was running it had a lease for
30 years. The lease ended it and suddenly we had a dam. And so that one we didn’t pay anything for. But we
have a 35 year old facility that is in need of some upgrades.
The second dam was the Mine Falls Dam, that was built about the same time. During the early ‘80’s there was
a lot of money through FERC who put in hydro facilities and that one was built at the same time. That had a
buyout provision so that the City had the opportunity to buy it out at a preset rate which we did exercise in April
of 2017. We paid just over $4 million dollars for the Mine Falls Dam at that time. We did a lot of studies, a lot
of work on it. We did a complete evaluation before we purchased that dam, we have a whole lot of, somewhat
of a mini-CIP if you will of wnat we knew needs to be invested, how we need to, what things needed to be
upgraded, what things don’t and how we can move forward with that one.
Another big different between the two dams is Jackson Mills is one megawatt and it is actually has an
exemption from Federal Licensing, from the FERC Licensing Process. So we can operate that without having
to get a license from FERC that has to be renewed every so often. The Mine Falls Dam is a 3 megawatt
