Interesting meeting as usual with this Board of Directors. They opened the meeting with a veiled threat against this very website, mentioning they were in discussion with their lawyer over the domain name’s similarity to the sheepcreekwater.com domain. They even asked me to change the domain name. Unfortunately for them I know they don’t have a leg to stand on here, this site has several disclaimers so no one is confused this might be the company’s website, they don’t have a trademark on the Sheep Creek Water name, and there is no harm or injury to the company. Good times.
In other news, the board voted to retroactively approve the 2023 budget and rate increase to Feb. 1, 2023. The board president, Andy Zody, stated that they “forgot” to add the budget to the January agenda, even though it was added to the end of the December agenda and marked “Approved December 13, 2022”. Still not sure how a rate increase that was never approved or voted on by the board went into effect on Feb. 1, but that will be an issue for a different day. New meeting, same old games, playing fast and loose with the law. As you can see from previous financial statements, the Sheep Creek Water Company fiscal year runs from January 1 – December 31, so they were two and half months delinquent in approving the budget.
The annual meeting in May was moved back from May 20 to May 6. Proxies will be due to the Sheep Creek Water Company office by 3PM on May 4. There will be a meeting Thursday, March 23 to finalize the agenda, proxy form, and other sundries for the meeting. Better late than never.
The board voted to place their company share buy-back program on the agenda for the annual meeting. The plan now is to purchase up to 5 shares per customer selling shares for $1100, and then hopefully sell them back to the public for $3250 per share, perhaps less if there are extenuating circumstances. The board seems to think this is a way to raise money for the company, although even if they bought and sold all these shares at the named prices within a year the max income would be just over $100,000, which is less than 25% of the projected Tier 3 income for 2023. I really don’t think they will be able to sell these shares for $3250 anytime soon, so the main intention is to raise the overall value of shares for people like the Nilsen family who are looking to offload shares for more than the current going rate.
The board also confirmed they have no further intention at this time to purchase the PPHCSD shares for sale. They claim that’s because PPHCSD doesn’t want to sell in one block. However, I suspect the real reason is because PPHCSD refuses to lower the selling price for their shares from the $1100 they are currently listed at in the office.
Speaking of PPHCSD, the Mr. Tapia, the GM, brought up a concern that the new property purchase agreement between the Zimmerman’s and PPHCSD for a new storage tank on the hill above Phelan violates an old right-of-way agreement between Sheep Creek Water Company and the Zimmerman’s. This caused Mr. Nilsen to bring up an idea he has for reaching out to PPHCSD to come to a water sharing agreement of sorts, where PPHCSD is able to utilize Sheep Creek’s storage tank capacity in exchange for an agreement for SCWC to receive up to 300,000 GPM as needed. This would be an excellent move for Sheep Creek Water Company, alleviating the need to drill the wells the state requires to lift the moratorium. Not sure how good a deal it is for PPHCSD, but that’s for other people to decide.
No new well updates, so it seems the company is still in limbo when it comes to addressing the water supply issue. However, the board did approve a new vision statement! There was also discussion about purchasing a new tractor for the company, vaccuum equipment, and perhaps even a new computer system. Gotta spend that rate increase money somewhere, right?
Below is the new vision statement as read aloud in the meeting which the board approved. I will reserve comment.
“Our vision is water is life. It is a simple but powerful message that describes why we do what we do every day. Water is necessary for our customers and it’s mission to provide efficient, effective, and reliable water service. Water is life also means we are there day after day providing this essential and critical service to our community. We work hard in many ways to deliver clean water that is also safe, reliable, and affordable because our customers, employees, and those who invest in us deserve nothing less. We believe the only way to do business is to reasonably deliver water at cost to our customers, build a strong community, leverage innovation in our water system, and support the expertise and dedication of our shareholders.”