Dear members

Since last fall we believed we had a major water leak in our park. When I became treasurer in November 2007, I received an outstanding bill for the months of July, August and September for $21,111.92, we had a previous balance of $3729.74 for a total of $24,841.66. The water usage number was 3278 units of water. One unit is 748 gallons. We had many contractors and maintenance crew looking for this leak. Carl Cormier and Gerry Merrill spent considerable amount of time addressing this issue. In December we received another bill from the city for $9000 for three months, it had gone down. We were told not to pay anything yet until we found the leak and then they would adjust our bill. By the time I received the January bill our bill had grown to $41,000. At my suggestion we started paying $2000 a month.

As spring approached the board was seriously considering getting a loan and upgrading the water lines in the middle section of our park at a tremendous expense. I was getting nervous since we could not find this phantom leak.

I recently took it upon myself to look at this problem from another direction. I went to the city and received a print out of the park's water usage numbers back to 2000.
I went to Tanglewood Estates another mobile home community to see how their water usage numbers compared to ours. After crunching the numbers, I reported this to the board on March 31st.

In summary I found that someone in repairing a minor leak had accidently turned on a valve that was not marked and that line was just pouring water into the ground somewhere as it was not capped, even though we could never actually see where it went. This valve was shut and our water bill improved. The city and our board agrees with my findings.

The good news is we do not have a major water leak. The new numbers from our water usage supports this. The valve has been closed and marked. The bad news is that the city of Keene has had three major increases including one in January. Thru the hard work of our president Gerald Merrill he went to the public works department then wrote a three page letter to the city which I typed up on our letterhead, the city has credited our water/sewer bill $8486.40.

I would like to say at this time that Gerry has spent countless hours on coop business including helping me tremendously when I require his assistance. As I am spending 20 to 30 hours a week on keeping our finances on track. Gerry has to be spending many more hours than I. If you see him please thank him for his hard work.

The bad news is that we still owe the City $30,551.68 of which we pay $2500 a month. Every three months we get a new water bill. Our water usage for last winter averaged 1500 units for three months at an average of $12000, we have in our budget $7100 a quarter. This is twice the water usage that tanglewood uses for 85 homes. They use 769 units for 85 homes. The only difference is that they have their own members pay for their water/sewer bills on top of their $400 rents. Some of their tenants pay $25 and others pay $100 or more each and every month.

Our water usage numbers show that many of our members trickle water during the winter months. I strongly suggest that if this is the case, that this practice stops. Get your heating tapes fixed and insulate your water lines properly.
Any homeowner water line breaks have to be addressed immediately by shutting your water off and fixing the break.

In closing I will be discussing this matter in depth with the board as we have to adress the issues I have mentioned.

Thank You

Yvon P. Brulotte Sr
Treasurer
Base Hill Cooperative