Country Club Estates Irrigation Water Delivery District No. 72
2024 June 29 Meeting Minutes–APPROVED by Board of Trustees, June 28, 2025
The Annual meeting of the Country Club Estates Irrigation Water Delivery District No. 72 met at 10 AM Saturday, June 29, 2024, at the Mesa Fire Department Station 218 Public Meeting Room, 845 N Alma School Rd, Mesa, Arizona.
Chair Jody Menzel called the meeting to order at 10:00 AM. Jody explained that only the Trustees are allowed to vote on motions.
Following the Call to Order, roll call was taken. Attendees were Trustee Jody Menzel and Trustee Gunn McKay (who together constitute a quorum) along with CCE IWDD No. 72 shareholders Ralph Dodson, Karol Dodson, Jay Grant, Carrie Grant, Clark Peterson, Brent Kellis, Pam Langerman, Aaron Murdock, and Jill Murdock (11 attendees altogether). All attendees included their contact information on a sign-in sheet that was returned to Jody. A copy of the agenda, with the estimated FYE 6/30/2024 financial history and the proposed FYE 6/30/25 budget, was distributed to attendees who didn’t have this information (the agenda, financial history, and budget were sent to all residences in CCE IWDD No. 72 earlier in June).
Motion to approve the minutes from the last meeting (on 6/24/2023) passed by a unanimous vote of the Trustees present (Jody and Gunn).
Chair Jody Menzel related the recent history of the three Trustees. At our last meeting, the three Trustees were Jody Menzel, Dave Richins, and David Palmer. Former Trustee Dave Richins resigned at the end of May when he moved out of the District and thus was no longer qualified to serve as Trustee. Former (and current) Trustee Gunn McKay, who had served as Chair since the inception of the District but resigned when he moved outside District boundaries, recently returned to his residence within the District and has agreed to take Dave Richins’ role as Trustee. The third Trustee, David Palmer, temporarily resides in Nauvoo, Illinois, and was unable to attend either in person or remotely (David Palmer will return to his residence in October 2024). Jody pointed out that only two of the three Trustees need be present to constitute a quorum, which is required to finalize any decisions made in the meeting, and that Gunn and himself constituted a quorum.
The next order of business was Review financial status of district and approve FY 2025 Budget. Jody noted that there are two items not on the (FYE 2024) financial report that he paid personally because there wasn’t the requisite two Trustees present at the time to sign warrants (checks), one for Gunn’s surety bond ($185) and another for Mike Lentz for weed and trash removal around standpipes ($750), and that those two items will appear on next year’s financial report and are not part of this fiscal year’s (2024) financial report. Jody pointed out that keeping the area around the standpipes free of obstructions is written into the CCE IWDD bylaws and that CCE IWDD may contract with Mike Lentz in the future, but there is no contract with Mike Lentz at this time. Jody also mentioned that there is a third expense that was incurred this fiscal year but will appear in next year’s financial report as well, the cost of mailing meeting announcements ($359). (Note that Jody consistently misstated the cost of Gunn’s surety bond, which was actually $185.)
Continuing on the subject of Review financial status of district and approve FY 2025 Budget, Jody stated that the estimated Property tax revenue reported in the mailing was underestimated and that the current balance in the account (as of 6/29/2024) was $24,298.24 (rather than the $24,100 estimate in the mailing).
Still on the subject of Review financial status of district and approve FY 2025 Budget, Jody noted that in the last fiscal year CCE IWDD has replaced four toggle-type gates with screw-type gates in two of the three standpipes that needed this upgrade, and that these repairs represented a large portion of FY 2024 expenses. This year’s progress on these upgrades means that less money will need be allocated to these upgrades in the future.
Jody stated that, considering that less funds will be needed for gate replacement in the future, he drafted a Fiscal Year 2025 budget that leaves unchanged the Fiscal Year 2024 tax levy ($14,950), as reflected in the meeting announcement. This will leave a projected surplus of about $26,000 during Fiscal Year 2025, which Jody stated that he believes is necessary in case of expensive repairs, such as a breach beneath a city street. Gunn agreed, saying that the question of whether an expensive repair, such as a breach will occur beneath a city street, is not if it will happen, but when it will happen.
There was some incidental discussion of damage due to fiber optic cable installation. Jody pointed out that all of the recent issues created by fiber optic cable installation have been due to AT&T Gigapower installations. Google Fiber has installed fiber optic cable also, on just one street in the CCE IWDD district boundaries to Jody’s knowledge (south side of 9th Place), but it has not led to any issues. As far as Jody knows, Cox has not installed any underground fiber cables in our neighborhood other than on the east side of Palmer several years ago (when, incidentally, they compromised one of our pipes). Jody stated that the horizontal drillings by AT&T fiber installation contractors have damaged our infrastructure multiple times (ten times or so), despite CCE IWDD hiring a locating firm. In many cases AT&T subcontractors repaired the compromised pipelines themselves, but their repairs were, more often than not, substandard (at least one breach was repaired by At&T subcontractors three times because of subsequent leaks). CCE IWDD has paid for at least two repairs where the AT&T subcontractors’ repairs were inadequate. Jody has requested reimbursement for these repairs but has not diligently followed up, his efforts thus far have been limited to “incidence reports” with ANSCO (the AT&T Gigapower subcontractor).
Jody continued that there are at least one and probably two new leaks due activity by ANSCO when they recently used horizontal drilling a second time in the alley between 10th Street and 10th Place west of Westwood. Jody was on site the day of the drilling and marked the location of CCE IWDD pipes, but ANSCO damaged our pipes anyways. Premier Irrigation temporarily repaired one of the breaches, but permanent repairs will require moving the AT&T fiber cables. Jody has not yet followed up on resolution of the problems but said he will do so soon.
Jody reminded the attendees that the IWDD is responsible for repairs to users’ valves, including gaskets. He said IWDD also can bring the valves to Fullerform for repairs to valves where the handles have rods through them as opposed to one-piece handles, since the rods often wear out.
Jody moved onto the next Agenda item, website status. Although the website is not well-visited, Jody noted that it has become necessary to maintain a website in order to more easily comply with IWDD statutes and regulations. Jody said he worked with James Bowles in the past to maintain and upload to the website, but he had a falling-out with James and is reluctant to ask him to put much more effort into the website. He said their relationship remains civil, however, and James has posted meeting announcements and other items to the website when requested. Jody proposed hiring The Market Builder, the company that prints and mails CCE IWDD Meeting Announcements, to help maintain the website. Gunn motioned to approve hiring The Market Builder for website purposes and the motion passed.
The next agenda item was the boundary change status report regarding 814 W 8th Place. Presumably the owner is Jason Wright per SRP’s schedule. Jody explained that the properties on the north side of W 8th Place were not included within the IWDD boundaries because at the time of District formation, none of the properties took irrigation, and they never had taken irrigation within memory. Since then, the property has begun irrigating through SRP and Jody feels that the owner should be included in IWDD boundaries in case maintenance becomes necessary, and IWDD would be responsible for repairs, although not necessarily responsible for the cost. Thus, the owner potentially would benefit from IWDD inclusion. Jody said no motion was necessary to address the issue, it was on the agenda because it was on the previous year’s agenda and had not been addressed. Jody said he would take another look at the issue and try to work toward getting it resolved.
Jody opened discussion of the next agenda item, the need for more involvement from members other than the Trustees. He pointed out that at some point the current Trustees would not be able to fulfill their duties and others would have to step up, and it would be advantageous if stakeholders started learning about the job and sharing some of the Trustee work. Jody said as a Trustee, he found it hard to delegate because he has been involved for so long and he was used to handling things himself. Jody stated that there was still a CCEI Committee, but membership was inconsistent as to duties and members themselves. As an example of an area where Jody himself could use assistance, he mentioned AZ811. CCE IWDD has a membership agreement with AZ811, and Jody is replying to tickets on the AZ811 Exactix website, but he is still not completely familiar with how it works. Also, Jody mentioned that he has been writing the meeting minutes, which is not a major job but would be easily delegated. Jody ended the discussion by suggesting that the Trustees and the Committee needed to attempt to increase the involvement of non-Trustees, and he would try to reach out to members to accomplish this.
The last agenda item before the Call to the Public was hydro jetting progress. Essentially this involves shooting high-pressure water down the lines to clear out debris. Jody suggested that stakeholders should let the Trustees know if they suspected they weren’t getting their full water allotment because the pipes may be getting occluded. Jody believes this should be done regularly, but there is no set schedule, and he couldn’t remember when it was last done. He also suggested that this was another opportunity to delegate Trustee duties.
There were no Call to the Public items from the meeting. Jody said he would be reaching out to attendees via email to follow up as discussed. Motion to dismiss was seconded and the meeting was adjourned at 11:00 AM.