Heritage / Homestead Water Meeting Transcript - 2026-06-06
Transcribed with OpenAI gpt-4o-transcribe
Source audio: /Users/phinehasadams/Downloads/Water Meeting Recording.m4a
Audio duration: 01:42:26 (6146.1 seconds)
Chunk markers are approximate 5-minute offsets, not speaker-level timestamps.
Note: chunk-018 was rerun after an anomalously short first response; the final transcript uses the fuller rerun result.

[00:00:00 - 00:05:00] Chunk 01 / 21
My thing was scary. You guys called this, so I'm here to listen. Is Isaac coming? He is. He's running a few minutes late. I thought I'd have Isaac come because he did such a lot of background that I thought might help. Absolutely. He's going to be kind of out of pocket, but if we need him... So, I've been doing a lot of research. A few questions I have. Have you or do you know if anyone has mentioned doing just our facility? Because we can do a facility. It's called a facilities plus 200 feet CCM where we just verify the facility, not a whole area. And I'm pretty sure we could get that pushed through pretty soon. I want to say six months, but I'll say a year to be very conservative. Because you're saying... Can you explain that to me again? You're saying Chalk Bluff is also a facilities plus 200 feet. So, Waco has a map where they control... Have you guys seen our map that Zeke has? I don't think so. Okay. So, they have... Sorry. No, that'll be helpful. Because we have Zeke and I think Isaac's got it too. Okay. I would love to see that. So, Waco's the overarching CCM. They're the one who control everything. And so, like Chalk Bluff, Ross, there's a bunch of water supply companies or a few inside Waco's CCM. And when a new company wants to get a CCM, they have to get Waco's approval. Right. And the other ones too, as far as I understand. Well, from what I was looking into, Ross, and I can show you a map, Ross... So, see, this blue is Waco's overarching... This here? Yes, sir. It's not zoomed out because this is the land. This is Ross's water supply company. And this is Chalk Bluff. And as you can see, Chalk Bluff doesn't touch any of their... This is from the state of Texas' website. And their CCM essentially doesn't cover any of our property. Ross's does, but Chalk Bluff doesn't. And we have an agreement with Ross already. Is that right? So, my main question is, how friendly is Waco to doing a CCM with us? Would they be willing to sign? Basically, we just need them to sign a thing that says they were okay with it. I think we already have. I think we may already have that. Yeah, from when I was talking to Zeke, it seemed like he had great connections and they were very favorable towards doing that. Absolutely. Yeah, that seems right. That's what... Yeah, that's what I talked to him. He said we can maybe add another 10 more, but 50 is probably really... It's probably a... But are you saying so if we did that, we would have to even expand it beyond that? No, so if we did just that, but we would have... You would have the legal obligation to serve anyone and everyone in that map. You're saying the legal requirements are different even if it's the same size... But we wouldn't have to expand. ...water system. So we wouldn't have to? No, sir. I think that's what we want. And that would be great. It just, for some reason, it seemed like if Waco is super friendly and they've already signed something like that, then we could go with that. Would you want to call Zeke? I think we have Waco. I think he said we had Waco. And maybe Ross. We have Ross. He sent that to us. But Chalk Bluff doesn't have any say because they're not impaired. They're just a facilities plus 200. Is that... Correct. And that's what it looks like. But the other thing is... We have meters with them. The land has meters like where Caleb and Seth live. They have meters. But Caleb and Seth's property isn't under... We wouldn't necessarily have to put that under our CCM. Because that's already something like that. So my logic is... How I'm thinking about it is how quickly we could get Isaac's property released and then a few other... And even that. Do you know who has been... Isaac has been working with getting the subdivision done.

[00:05:00 - 00:10:00] Chunk 02 / 21
I'm pretty sure we could go to Waco, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure we could go to Waco and say, we are planning to do, I know we did this already once with the Far Paddock thing, but I'm pretty confident we could get them to at least release Isaacs to be subdivided, and possibly even a few more. How would they do that if they don't release all of it? Or at least that phase that Isaacs is in? I haven't seen the map, so I'm just on the subdivision map, so I'm kind of speculating, but I know there was phase one of the thing, and if we said, listen, we need to do phase one A, and we need this property, just this one property, and we show them our plan, because we're going to have to talk to them about our plan to do the water thing anyway. So if we get both processes started at once, the CCN process and the subdivision process, we might get the subdivision done immediately, and then keep walking through the CCN process. On phase one, the hold up there is chip sealing? Phase one is done. Now the agreement was we needed to chip seal or asphalt it. I don't know if I want to chip seal it. I'd rather spend the extra money to asphalt it. But yes. The blacktop we put down is working very well. Isn't it? As I understand, if I understand correctly too, tell me if I'm wrong on this, but part of the, we didn't know yet, I think when you were initially looking into it, that we already had some sort of conversation with the city of Waco, but part of the idea, if we needed to do a facilities plus 200 feet as opposed to a mapped area, it seems like they would be more likely to be agreeable to that. Because it's not, it's much less of an intrusion for them feeling like they're losing their system. We could file an amendment later down the road and make it an area-based CCN, essentially. But if Waco's willing to work with us, from what I can tell, there is no government requirement that it has to take as long as some of these people are saying. I don't see why it should take that long, especially if we do a bunch of the filing and research ourselves. I think we already have an engineer who's looked at this stuff. So we would have to obviously get them to sign off on a few things. And because Zeke said there was $25,000 of upgrades that are needed. A little more than that, yeah. And how I think we should do it is make a water supply company that the church owns. Most, like, Chalk Bluff, I think is how they do it. They have a water supply company and then you hire a licensed operator. Yes. And so we could hire a company or even a person. I think Zeke already does most of this anyway. Yeah, I talked to him too and he said the requirements for getting a license are actually not that hard. He said you can go to THTC and get, I guess, what is it, a TCEQ license? Does he want to do that or he wants to run away from it? I don't know if he necessarily... He basically said he's been saying for a long time that he'd love for some young guy to go get a license. Maybe it's like Joseph's Funnest Things Company. Yes, sir. So if we could have a contract with one of those companies, they could send... They have a bunch of new employees anyway. They could send one of their new employees to get... It's a Class B is all you need to get. And you have to have between one and five years of experience, so they would have someone like that. And then we could say, you know, pay them $15,000 a year to be the operator. And then we would sell water meters, obviously. Chalk Bluff sells them for quite a hefty... How much are they charging there? I think it's close to $20,000. It's almost what I paid for three of our lost meters. I think they're like $12,000 each. Some people said that they were raising them. I haven't bought one, so I don't know. Yeah, no, I realize he said he just bought one off of, I guess, Fort Graham's Chalk Bluff and you paid $20,000 for the water meter. Really? So I think... I mean, yeah. I think that would work. The church would still own the company. How can we do it without the church? So can we do this deal with the co-op? So when you say co-op... So this is kind of Isaac's sticking point, is we can do a co-op, but the only con to the co-op is where, like, think Hillco. Technically, we're all owners. I still don't understand how that all works. But if you've been a part long enough, they send you a check if there's any distribution

[00:10:00 - 00:15:00] Chunk 03 / 21
I'm sure the church has gotten checks. We just recently got a check. The general store did. It's like $3,000. It's nothing. They paid out millions to all the co-op owners. So you own the system. You don't vote in. You vote the board, but each person is basically financially responsible for the system. Does that make sense? The con to that is there's more government interaction in terms of changing the pricing, and it can take up to a year for them to approve new pricing. Why that would be a problem for us, I don't know, because it's not like you're going to be shifting pricing much. So what that does is that would take the financial responsibility away from five people having to own this water company, the church having to own the water company. We need to dig more into it, but then everybody that's a meter owner buys into that company, and it becomes their financial responsibility to keep it going. Right. From what I could tell, it is different with electricity versus water. From what I found, it's explicitly different. And how a water supply company works is it's a nonprofit. It's not a company. It's kind of like a co-op, but it's not necessarily a co-op. Call it a cooperation, but it's a nonprofit. It's like a Chapter 67 nonprofit. You appoint a board of directors, and it has to have like $100,000 of available cash or an agreement with the bank that they would be able to get that money. So Sumi was asking if we could make it to where I talked to him a little bit, and he was asking if we could make it to where the church didn't own it as well. We could. Would there be a problem, though? Because it would be its own company, organization. I guess the church wouldn't have to necessarily own it at all. Like what we're doing with Half a Plane. We've got a bunch of buyers involved. Yes, sir. And as long as all the meters are owned by homesteaders, they would appoint the people on the board. And so it would be just like chocolate. So whoever we offer meters to would appoint board members. We would start off by putting whoever we want on there. And they vote. Yes, sir. They vote. And then whoever owns meters votes for who's on the board. So this is Isaac's thing, and I do agree with him here. If there's not a financial incentive to own that water company and operate it, now we could say we're going to pay $15,000 for somebody else to operate it. So that may take that away. But if there's not a financial incentive, how much time is that going to require from that group to do it? Whereas if it's a co-op, then it's not stuck on the water company. It's stuck on the group of people. But you're still going to have to have a board. You're still going to have to have something similar. Right. And this is exactly what Chuck Bluff does. They have a board. None of them are paid. It's just because they're just on there because it's control. And Barry Hand, I don't know who's there now, but he was, from what I can tell, the licensed operator. Or unlicensed operator. I like Barry, but he was kind of a shyster. He was. I went and was reading through all of their meeting notes. He was quite the guy. I think he would get in a bad mood and say all sorts of nasty things. Is there just like breaks in the minutes or something? So whoever would be that licensed operator would be the only one who needed financial incentive to keep going. And that could be... So we got a company. So say Streamline. I think they could handle it. We could pay them $15,000 or whatever. Somebody like Levi Phillips. Exactly. I don't know what these guys have in their plumbing license. I would say Zeke, but I don't know if he'd be interested. Well, I thought Zeke, too, because he's already doing it. Zeke would be the best. He knows the most. Right, and he's doing it already for free. Could we financially make it make sense for him? Well, I mean, even Zeke. Anything's going to make more sense than what's happening. That's what I'm saying. An extra $15,000 a year or $20,000 to do something he's already doing for free, I mean, that's an incentive. And if we're selling all these lots that we're going to have, none of them really have meters from us. Right. That's what I'm thinking. They're going to have to pay $20,000 a meter. Yeah. That's only $400 per year per meter in operating costs in terms of that specific. $400? Oh, okay.

[00:15:00 - 00:20:00] Chunk 04 / 21
$15,000 and $20,000. I'm just thinking in terms of ongoing every year. I don't think the company would make money at all. So we need to make sure that that $20,000 was used. At least some of it was set aside for more maintenance. Obviously we'll have to have $100,000 no matter what. Whichever it is, we can get milk from the bank. Yes, sir. We'll want to keep some of it for maintenance. Absolutely. But I'm pretty certain. Do we have, let me see, there's a list of basically people we need for this. As far as who will have meters? Well, no, a list of like, we have to have an engineer. And I don't think we have an engineer in the church, but I think we've paid one. Yeah, we have, you said we pay, it's him, we pay him I think $800 a month. And he's on retainer already? I guess so. We do have a water manager. He referred to him as an engineer, I don't know if that's just, maybe he was just saying, you know. I think he is. No, Ray Young is an engineer. I don't know if the guy that does the testing is or not. But whoever does the water from us could probably be qualified then to test the water. Right, if he takes that course. Yes. So we need an engineer. We would need a lawyer, which I don't know if your dad would, I don't think there's any like special type of lawyer that has to be for this. So I think Brother Jeff could probably be our lawyer. But we could do all the pencil pushing for him. That's what I'm thinking. But these are things that the state would require. An engineer is the biggest one. They want, like say we go to file with the state, they're going to want an engineer. Yeah, but we've been working with one for years, so that's not an issue. Okay, so then that would be good. I think we would need, I'm pretty certain Brother Alex could draw up, whether we did an area-based one or a map-based, I mean a facilities-based one, basically the CAD for submitting to the county, so I mean to the state. So I don't think there are any professions. To the state? Yes, sir. Because when we go to, I was just trying to, yeah, so a licensed operator, these are the requirements that we have to cover. A licensed operator, an engineer, finance, so we have to get all the records, all that. Map, GIS, the map data, we'd have to find someone to draw that up, which we already have. And then officers, so whoever would be the board, et cetera. So really the only thing we don't have in the church, from what I can tell, is an engineer. So it shouldn't cost that much money. I don't know why we think it costs whatever they said, $200,000. I think aside from the setting up and upgrading the facility, which that's harder to cost. Because we still have to expand our reserve capacity, don't we? Add another tank or something? Is that included in the $25,000? If we were to run it ourselves? I mean, we don't have to expand. So I think all you have to do. We just have to have an agreement. Right, I mean, go ahead. Sorry, I was just going to say you have to have, if we can provide, you have to have the guarantee that you can provide water for a certain amount of time. Right, which we have, other than if there was a leak, a major leak or a drought. Right. Then it's got a little tough. So it would be ideal to spend another. So what we have, though, is legally sufficient. Yes, yes. And I think there's a really good point. People's water usage is going to drop when they start charging. It's going to drop when they start charging by the gallon. Andrew's like, yeah, you bet it is. Or if they don't, we make more money. Yes. It means my lawn already came up. They're also super, like, again, I went through all their stuff, and they were very willing to give us a thing. Even in their meeting notes, like, I think Lem is the president and Noah's on there, and both of them seem very, they even worked, they were planning to do an expansion, and they even worked it around what we might want to do in the future. So say with the hookup, if we wanted to do a hookup, I think the thing that would make them the happiest is if we actually started doing something, because they were super happy. They're like, they're going to do it, they're working on it, and then towards 2025 and beginning of 2020.

[00:20:00 - 00:25:00] Chunk 05 / 21
It was like well doesn't look like they're doing anything so let's just kind of keep going. So I think if we actually push this through they would set up a thing to sell us water in case we ran out. Which Waco could do the same thing. Matter of fact Waco would have to provide water. Like they're required to if we weren't providing water. How would they get the water here? It would probably be a big ordeal and it would probably be a lot easier to do it with truck blood. But they could. I'm pretty confident we could get it pushed through. I think yeah. So you think for securing the engineer which sounds like we already have. We already have. Okay. $100,000 max expenses. $100,000 is max reserve that you have to have on reserve. Which we could easily, I mean. We just have to have a bank that says we'll give you $100,000 worth of CCN. And if there's five guys on the board, just use their financials. It's yeah. That's not much. Okay. Church can even do that. Sure. So there's that. And then what would be so just break it down into like 12 months. What's kind of the checklist? So when is this lot sale? December is when this deal with the Isaacs homestead is? I don't want to make it about Isaac's deal. Okay. It's, it's I'll deal with Isaac. We had a long talk after our meeting Wednesday night. That's not driving anything. Okay. That's from his perspective. Quite frankly. So I'm not worried about it. I'm not, you know, he wrote some things in there that I missed and your dad missed and I could kick myself for it, but I'm going to wrestle with Isaac on it. So I'm not worried about it. Sure. We'll work with Isaac. Okay. I want him to be a team player with his best. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So we just can worry about it. I mean, if we can get it done by December, I'd be the happiest guy in the room. Yeah, I want to get it done within a year. I think, and I think that's entirely possible, especially if four of us do all the paper pushing. Yes. I think it's very possible. We had to do a subdivision with my father-in-law and it worked. Once we, I got in contact with one of the city guys, they'll work with you very, a lot. If you reach out to Seth, not Seth, Zane. Zane was representing us to the city. He made some headway and got them basically to say, all we need is a CCN number. But get Zane and pick his brain. He could even go down there with you or whoever, because he knows the guy there. They had a whole change of personnel, which we really wanted to get it done before that happened. But Zane knows a lot about the subdivision part in the agreement. Zane's going to bring up about paving that road, which we need to do. Here's the kicker, is the guys that live there, most of them didn't pay their maintenance fee. So I'm like, okay, if you pay your maintenance fee, we'll pay your road. You can't expect me to pay the road if you don't pay your maintenance fee for two years. The road would be a thing for, well, I guess that's not... If that's going to hold anything up, we have to do it. So on that chip seal, because Brother Warren's got a guy that does it for a fantastic price. We could do, I mean, I don't know what the requirements are, but I mean, we could do one layer of chip seal. I mean, I don't know how they come out and count layers. I don't know if there's a requirement. I think it's just a matter of how wide, and then there's a cul-de-sac at the back that they had us do. But Zane would know that because he dug into that. We could probably get a layer of chip seal for a pretty decent price if we can just... I think it's just a matter of how wide. Well, the other thing is, if Isaac's property isn't an issue, then I won't worry about subdivision unless you want us to. We'll just worry about the water system. Let's push them both through. Okay. I mean, I get what he's saying. He'd rather have a mortgage than just paying on something. Right. So I get it. But yeah, if we could push both through. I'm not saying don't worry about it. Let's do it. I don't want to just make it about his house or something, the whole overall thing. But yeah, I mean, if we could do both at the same time. Sure. Yeah.

[00:25:00 - 00:30:00] Chunk 06 / 21
Well, we can't. I was just thinking about his road. We'd have road frontage. It's going to be something everywhere. If we want to say, let's start there right now, sure, and anything else. So get whatever you can. But yeah, I'm okay with that. I just want to make it just about that. So is this that document he sent us? No, this is something else I've been working on. So he was saying if we could get Isaac's and the Heritage Center subdivided out immediately, that would be really big. And so I was thinking about maybe trying to see what we could get with the city. Why is he thinking about that? Well, because he said if we get the Heritage Center subdivided out, then we could change and make it as for use of worship, and it would save $20,000 on taxes. We tried, and they... But he said something that if it was on its own piece of property that they would let us. I doubt it. I'm not saying we shouldn't, but we've tried that with them a few times, and they appealed it, and they kicked... I mean, honestly, we use it some for religious purposes, but when you get to that, I mean, it just pays for it. And if we do, if I understand correctly what we're wanting to do with it, it's going to be less so. Yeah, exactly. It's like we need to book that thing every week. Yeah, I thought we would be better off saving $20,000. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. But I mean, I'd say if we can, let's do it, but I don't want to concentrate on those two things. I'd rather see the whole thing get pushed. But if we can do it in the meantime as we're pushing, I'm okay with that too. That makes sense. Okay, let me make sure I'm not missing anything. I guess we would need to see these maps that they've drawn out already. Did you put a 12-month deal in here? Like step-by-step? No. Like it's the five steps deal? Yeah, well, in that first file you had a 12-month timeline. Oh, yeah, yeah, I need to. Right here. So it sounds like basically as so long as it doesn't cause an issue with any of the other water companies, so long as Waco is favorable towards it, it doesn't seem like there's any reason we couldn't do a map-based. No, but the only reason we wouldn't do it. Is there a reason at that point to do a facilities? Yes, because the obligations. Financial and protests. So what do we need to do to have clear numbers on either of those? Numbers in terms of financial costs? Financial cost differences. Just research? We can look into it. I think it's a matter. No, it shouldn't matter because. And there would be things like if we do a huge map, they're going to say, well, can your well handle that? Say that turns into a city tomorrow. Am I wrong in thinking it wouldn't just be more beneficial to do a facilities? I think we should just do a facilities thing and say these are 45 meters and we have the ability to go up to 50 and then our thing would be done. And we could just sit there for a little while. Exactly. And then if we want to grow our area, we just file an amendment. If they do feel threatened at all by it, that is no threat to them. They're not going to sell water to us anyway. Whereas a map-based technically could be. Right. But I don't think it's an issue at all. It's just a matter of you have to meet certain requirements. And the smaller your area is, the less those requirements will be. Exactly. So we might as well do the smallest possible area. Yeah, exactly. Because I presume after doing it, you can always make amendments down the road. Right. Well, and there may be things going forward down the line and stuff that it's like, well, let's just have a shallow...

[00:30:00 - 00:35:00] Chunk 07 / 21
We'll allow for that, you know, rather than... Even if, in the case that... Obviously, this would never happen, but even in the case that something sketchy happens with some well or something getting tapped into our system on the farm, and we have facilities plus 200 feet, and it happens outside of what is our responsibility, to me, that would change things dramatically. Well, facilities plus 200 feet includes all your pipelines, so there's no way that someone would tap your water and be... No, I know, but if... I'm just saying, like, if something happens on the farm and there's a whole system that we just find out after the fact was running out in the back hidden field off of our well system, and then we can't supply people water to the rest of the land, it's not like that was all happening within our area. I like that. Something just seems like that could be an easy step in. I agree. Have you guys seen the four paddocks or anything? No, sir. Yes. I got copies if you each want to have one. Does it say how long that four paddock is? Um... And the city has each phase of these from what Alex has told me. So... I don't want to throw everything in the loop here, but... That's Terry's when he was doing it, so they'll need something like that, right? Yeah. You know, there are... If we got... I know that you said Isaac's isn't an issue, but there are things where if you don't do more than four lots, it's not a subdivision, it's just a... I don't remember what they call it. So if there was a circumstance where we needed to subdivide or split out one or two, that is something we could do. I remember even they legally had to on some... Would that still be the case even though we've already divided all that? Yeah, so we just have to get with Alex to give us a drawing with say three lots on it. So could you do two every two months? Well, that's what I was thinking. If you wanted to do that, we could go three at a time. I'd be more than willing to do that, yeah. And you could do it... They might get mad and see what you were doing after a little while, but you could do three over here, three over here. Obviously there's going to be a few big ones from what I've... I don't remember, but... So you could do just... We could try that. I'll look into that. Yeah. Well, I just... Over when we were doing our subdivision, if you did four lots, it was a subdivision, and you had to meet all these requirements of the road, and we didn't want to put in a road or a county-spec road. And so we combined two of the lots to make it three. And so the plot was only three. And now it's not a subdivision. It's just a re-platting. If you keep it under three lots... And what is that, per year? No, just per filing. And so now we're going to submit another one as soon as... It's possible that people are going to be buying... To divide property quicker than that anyway. Right. I mean, if we could do that with Isaac, great. Yeah, I'll have to see why we couldn't... I'll have to see if there's any reason we couldn't do that. And we could even do it with the three around him. Yeah. I'm sure there's other ones down there. Yeah, so I think this is how it's phased out. Now, Alex would have the survey for each phase, so we'd have to get that from Alex. Okay, that makes sense, the individual survey. Yes, now sometimes Alex does not respond very quickly. Oh. He does, but if he doesn't, let me know, and I'll reach him. Usually he'll respond to me. We'll try. We can try. Sorry, I was distracted by that. Over when we were doing our subdivision, if you did four lots, it was a subdivision, and you had to meet all these requirements, like the road, and we didn't want to put in a road, or a county-spec road. And so we combined two of the lots to make it three. And so the plot was only three. And now it's not a subdivision. It's just a re-planning. If you keep it under three lots... And what is that, per year? No, just per filing. And so now we're going to submit another one as soon as... It's possible that people are going to be buying property quicker than that anyway. Right. I mean, if we could do that with Isaac, great. Yeah, I'll have to see why we couldn't... I'll have to see if there's any reason we couldn't do that. Okay. And we could even do it with the three around him. Yeah. I'm sure there's other ones down there. Yeah, so I think this is how it's phased out. Now, Alex would have the survey for each phase, so we'd have to get that from Alex. Okay, that makes sense, the individual survey. Yes, now sometimes Alex does not respond very quickly. Oh. He does, but if he doesn't, let me know, and I'll reach him. Usually he'll respond to me. We'll try. We can try. Sorry, I was distracted by that. Over when we were doing our subdivision, if you did four lots, it was a subdivision, and you had to meet all these requirements, like the road, and we didn't want to put in a road, or a county-spec road. And so we combined two of the lots to make it three. And so the plot was only three. And now it's not a subdivision. It's just a re-platting. If you keep it under three lots... And what is that, per year? No, just per filing. And so now we're going to submit another one as soon as... It's possible that people are going to be buying property quicker than that anyway. Right. I mean, if we could do that with Isaac, great. Yeah, I'll have to see why we couldn't... I'll have to see if there's any reason we couldn't do that. And we could even do it with the three around him. I'm sure there's other ones down there. So I think this is how it's phased out. Now Alex would have the survey for each phase, so we'd have to get that from Alex. Okay, that makes sense, the individual survey. Yes. Now sometimes Alex does not respond very quickly. If he doesn't, let me know and I'll reach him. Usually he'll respond to me. We'll respond to me. It got to the point where I had to send him a message every other day. I'm not going to send him one every day. Mike does the same thing. I just said that. I tried Alex four times. Would you call him? It's okay.

[00:35:00 - 00:40:00] Chunk 08 / 21
Yeah, someone needs to get their surveyor's license.
What?
Does he still do it?
I think he works for Blackstone or something.
Oh, okay.
Because he...
Okay, so this is...
I don't think he does it full-time anymore.
This is up top.
This is the one that Isaac...
I don't know how current all this stuff is, but...
Oh, this is the expanded view of that?
No, no, no.
This is Far Paddock.
This is where Seth's house and all that is.
Yeah, Seth's house.
Oh, I see.
Looking at it like...
Sorry, I had to get my orientation.
Oh, so my father-in-law's house was back here.
Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah.
But if we could do those few at a time, I'm all for it.
Maybe I misunderstood what you were saying.
No, I would have to...
Anything we could release to sell, let's do it.
Yeah.
Because really, I mean, this plan with the finances, I mean, we really have a lot to lose.
We would have to put a road here to do those few at a time.
We'd have to do it like that.
It doesn't even have to be chip seal.
It has to be a certain width and have drainage and a cul-de-sac, which he already...
Yeah, nobody's going to be complaining about that.
No, no one would complain.
I just wonder if they're going to make this chip seal or asphalt it.
From what I was researching, from what I could tell, it just had to be a certain width.
Because it's not an official subdivision, you're saying.
Yeah.
There's less requirements on the road.
It just has to be a county road.
Because there's dirt roads all over.
Yeah, Dry Creek has been in the county road for a long time.
But they're always wide.
They're not that kind of little drive.
Basically not a drive, but...
Just bulldoze it and grade it.
Have to take out a couple of fences.
I might be completely missing something, but I'm almost certain...
Yeah, we should dig in.
Alex, he would have to give us new versions of this, basically.
Whereas he would say, give us a plant like this.
It just has these three.
I'm saying at Isaac's.
Say this was Isaac's.
Three here, we submit it.
They approve it.
Three more, three more.
We couldn't take this big plant and say, this is our plant.
They have those big plants already.
They may cross-reference them.
Yeah, but if they have to do it, we could say, well...
Yeah, I'll double-check and make sure, but I'm pretty sure they do.
Maybe Zane could just help navigate it, just because he knows those guys.
I don't want to cross them, just because they can make things hard for us.
But if we're in the right, I don't mind pushing it.
Maybe he could even just ask them about it and see.
Is this going to cause problems down the road if we're wanting to subdivide the whole thing eventually?
This is fine.
This is fine.
When the guy told me that, it was one of the city guys.
Okay.
And he said...
Do you know who it was?
Yes, Isaac Birchel.
Okay, good.
And he said, I texted him and he called me within like 30 minutes and said,
yeah, get the road footage and combine that lot.
It could be a little bit...
He probably would be, but it could be different, too,
if we're dealing with something that is potentially...
He knows that yours isn't going to be divided into 15 lots.
He said, combine these two, make it one, and then file it and then split it off again.
I'm just saying it's a much smaller...
He called me yesterday on his property.
Something very similar.
He said they're changing everything to be much easier.
As long as it has road footage, Lucas has to make this a road.
That's like...
We can do that in our sleep.
Yeah, and it wouldn't cost any extra money.
Not any extra money, just cost money.
So what do we need to do?
We need to get these maps, obviously.
But to start pushing in this direction, actually.
Do we need to...
Tell me what you need.
Do we need to submit a proposal of what we're planning to do?
Or can we just start pushing and filing paperwork?
Yeah, we can start doing it.
We can submit something later.
I have...
Let's see.
I have a whole list of all the things we're going to need to file.
So we can just start going down these...
Can you just break it out into clumps?

[00:40:00 - 00:45:00] Chunk 09 / 21
I presume we need an agreement with the city of Waco before we file with the state. We already have a written agreement. I think so, at least from some of these entities, and I think Ross... we didn't have one for Ross yet, but you're saying we may not need one for Ross. We have it for Ross. I don't know if we have it for Chalk Bluff. For Chalk Bluff, we don't need it. I'm almost certain we don't need it for Chalk Bluff. They could protest due to proximity, and then that would delay it and go to a hearing. So from the research I found, all we'd have to do is go to them and say, hey, we're going to do this. Can you sign a thing saying you're not going to protest? They would sign that, I'm almost certain, and then the state won't even worry about them anymore. So we already have something from Waco written? I believe we do. I think we do. Perfect. So we should be able to... pretty much right away. What about... So yeah, to get this done in 12 months, we need to find all of the mapping data. Is this on that one you sent us? No, but I can send it to you. Build out the application, and that would be... So from day one... Application... So start filing... It's like he's stranded. His wife took his car. Marriage, man. Single car situation. He could be on the phone with me if we want him to. Sure. Call Isaac French on speaker. Calling Isaac French on speaker. We could briefly catch him up as far as the facilities plus 200, at least I don't know if he's even aware of that. Maybe his wife took his phone. His wife's still texting. Telephone number 2. He can call back or you can just send him like a meeting. So we'll have to find all that math stuff. Maybe that's for subdivision stuff. No, sir, for the CCN math, so whether we do... Oh yeah, okay, I know we have that. So this is just for the water facility. So we'll need to find the CCN math that whoever has drawn up, figure that out. That's the first thing. Then we'll need to start filling out all the paperwork and get letters from engineers, operator. So on month two, we need to get someone in operator, becoming an operator immediately. Figure out all the financial stuff. Simeon will have all that. We can just say how many gallons we've served. We don't have to say, because technically they're not paying for it. Then get Waco and Ross to approve it. Let's just say we do have to get Ross to get Waco and Ross to approve it. And for good measure, we might as well get Chocloff to sign something. Then we'll file it. We probably could get it filed within four to five months. Then most likely the state will come back and say, what about this? What about this? And then that's from month six to eight. We go through that, solve all their problems on that. We'd probably need to engineer a little more on those at that time. A lot of the reason people say it takes so long is because you have to get all the landowners to agree. But being that we're the landowner, that's not an issue. Resolve the final staff commitments, finalize the map tariffs, clear the Texas PCEQ engineering questions, and non-contestant. A lot of the time that people put in there is for the contestant stuff, whether someone opposes it, or lawyers and engineers, which we have a lawyer in-house, and it seems like we have a good relationship with an engineer. So I'm pretty certain we could get it done within a year. Maybe even sooner. What'll be the slowdown is the government, whoever we're handing our paperwork to. But that's okay. And that's the state of Texas. From what I could define, the federal government doesn't have much play in it. So as long as it meets the state of Texas, which our water system...

[00:45:00 - 00:50:00] Chunk 10 / 21
It's already in the state of Texas. You can go on the website and look at all the contaminants that were found, how far below. It looks great. We're orders of magnitude below any threshold. So it's already there. So they already know about us. I don't think it would be very complicated to get pushed out the rest of the way through. Do we know, like, what part of the state is that going to? What is it called? Public? P-U-C-T or whatever? Public Utilities Commission of Texas. The Southern Trinity Water District has something to do with it as well. Is it the Southern Trinity? Yes, sir. I think they work with the state. Either that or they're directly under the state. The engineer knows all that stuff. He can help navigate that all through. What was his name? Ray Young. Yeah, Ray Young. We have his emails, phone numbers. Zeke knows him very well. So I had my call recorded and Brother Zeke said he doesn't have him signed yet, but he can help push it through. Didn't have him signed for what? For the agreement. Agreement, yeah. From Waco and Ross. Or I guess we just need Waco. So? He's saying he can help push it through. He says it's very close, I think. So we should have him. Yeah, we should have him sign. I mean, Chuck Bluff to sign. It can be informal. Just signing an agreement that's saying they're not going to protest. And then the Waco one for sure will have to be a formal agreement, which we'll have to figure out how to get that right. That'll be a formal agreement and the one with Ross probably will be a formal agreement. But he can get the Chuck Bluff one tomorrow. If he can get it. We have something to Ross. Do we have a sign? We have from Ross. Oh, it's from Ross? It's from Ross. So Ross signed it? Yes. So let me see. Where is this? Yeah, there is one in there now that you say that. We have something to Ross over there. It's from Letter of Intent Heritage Ministries. So it's the... Do I have that? Signed right here. 20... May 6th, 2025? I don't know. I don't know if that's what we need. Matthew L. Brown. Let me see. Let me see. It's still not... So it may not be good anymore because of that date. Formed City of... Good faith and anticipated full execution of the agreement no later than June. So we may have... So we just have to get another one. But at least we know they're willing to. Right. And the loan is still on there. Yeah. Is that something that has to go in front of the whole board of directors? Yes. Okay. He is very... I was reading through all the notes and they talk about Homestead all the time. And he is very reasonable. It's not super friendly, but he doesn't... He's more friendly than he was even a while ago. Let's see, where is he? They were going to put it under contract. They're not taking... I think they're going to take down the sign and have their name. They'll put it under contract on there. Oh, that's good. That's good. Oh, this is the city of Waco. I asked him to do that because we used to have the loan. I asked him to do it. Okay. I think they're taking it down. That'd be nice. I'm glad they moved it because it was a driving hazard. I told them to move it. I told them to move it. Any cars coming? We should have moved it ourselves. Yeah, it seems like it wouldn't have even been on the property. It would have been on whatever... Yeah, part of the... Where was it? Yeah, I know. Who controls the PUC? In the state, what department? Is it its own department? Is there someone we can find that we can... Well, we would... Most likely how it would go is we would file something. There might be some person we can seek out, but it's going to be staff who will handle our... So any staff in that office... If we can get it in the process. I mean, Randy knows... I mean, I'm not saying we should do this, but he knows Ben Barnes, and Ben Barnes is a big name in Texas. Those guys know everybody or know somebody that knows everybody. And, yeah, if we cover all our bases and move fast...

[00:50:00 - 00:55:00] Chunk 11 / 21
I don't think they're going to oppose us at all. What's the point? So where is this letter? This is one to the City of Waco. Letter of intent. It's to the City of Waco, but it's between Chalk Bluff and... Heritage Ministry and Chalk Bluff Commission. Because we would have to submit that to the City of Waco anyway. The City of Waco doesn't determine who gets the CCN. They can say we don't want you having a CCN in our territory, but they don't determine who gets one. What we need from Chalk Bluff is them saying they wouldn't protest us getting one. That's what that's saying there, right? They're saying that they're agreeing to work with us. But this is for the City of Waco. I'm not sure why. We would need one addressed to the PUC. Maybe it was just a secondary thing so that the City of Waco knows and we know that they're not going to protest it. Or maybe this was something like Waco said, we'll sign it if Chalk Bluff also signs it. That might be what it is. It'd be good to have either way probably. But what we need is for him to go to them and say, we'll protest if we form a CCN. He texted me and said, they got it. He says we do have one from Waco. Specifically Waco. That they'll let us do it. That is signed. He says we do have one. He just needs to find it. Please do that. Please do that. So I'm actually doubtful why we're even worried about it. I think we would want to go with someone that's... They would just be the operator. Right, but we don't want to lose the operator. You know what, probably maybe Joseph's company would be the best because he could have whoever. It's a company, it's not like one guy like Levi or something if he goes to Virginia for two weeks. Levi works for Streamline. Oh, he does? Noah's the only one that's doing his own deal. I would be most comfortable, I think, with either Streamline or Zeke. We will need... Unless we want the company to own the whole water supply company, we need someone to be our licensed operator, contracted to be our licensed operator. Now, we could work a deal with Streamline. This is basically you may have to do this. This is part of his job, and we can pay Streamline to assign him to our thing without paying him. I think that's the only place a company comes in, is that basically we could use one of their employees. But we do have to have an agreement with a licensed operator person, saying he's contracted to do our licensed operator. And it goes for so long, like, you know, you have a five-year contract or whatever. And then he's responsible, so if he's going to run away, he's responsible. So what does the licensed operator do? They basically are in charge and responsible for operating it safely. Like what Brother Zeke is doing. That's exactly what it does. It's just they have to be licensed if you're going to sell it, if you're going to sell water. I mean, we could offer it to Zeke first. Yeah, I think we should. And say, hey, we'll pay you $15,000 a year. I think he'd do it, because I think most of the work he's doing now is just volunteer. Oh, it is. That's what I'm saying. The only question is if he likes doing it to begin with. He installed, I mean, him and there was others involved, but it was, I think, when we were building other stuff, he did that whole line pretty much.

[00:55:00 - 01:00:00] Chunk 12 / 21
Can we come up with a number that we could tell them that we'd take them on? Yeah, Isaac. Thanks. Sorry, I was hanging on the phone with somebody else. Do you still... Yeah. Yeah, this is great. So we're just here with Brother Carl. I'm going to turn it over to Phineas and have him give you just a bullet notes of kind of a plan that seems like is going to work at the moment that we're considering. You have a moment for that? Yes, sir. Okay, go ahead. Have you ever heard... Have you looked into a facilities plus 200 feet CCN? Yes. So what would be the holdup? What we're thinking... What I'm thinking is to do that, we would only need... From what I can tell, we definitely need Waco to sign basically saying that we can do this. And probably Golsan... I mean, not Golsan, Ross. And maybe Chalk Bluff. Chalk Bluff is a facilities plus 200 feet facility as it is. And then we would have to contract a licensed operator, which we could contract Zeke is I think the best option for that. $15,000 a year. $15,000, $20,000 a year. I don't see... And then we would form a water supply company who Zeke has contracted to run basically, appointed a board of directors. I think it's $100,000 that we have to have. Basically an agreement with the bank saying they'll loan us $100,000 if we need it. And then file for a CCN. Do you see a problem with that? I know that's very condensed and I can send you all the research I've done. But do you see... That's basically what we've been sort of using as the alternative if we're going to do it ourselves. The biggest fact there is the water supply corporation process. That part's relatively straightforward. You file the documents with the state. But the harder part is actually getting the CCN number back from the PUC. That's who gives us the CCNs, whether it's the 200 feet plus or it's the district. And so as far as I know, there isn't much of a difference in which type of CCN it is. It's more of the standard process that the state takes of evaluating your previous experience. Obviously any other neighboring CCNs, which we currently do have this overlap, which has to be resolved. You guys probably know all about that. Z talked to the different parties, but not together, and that's been the hard part. But it seems like that can be solved. But the big downside there is time. That's the big cost. So with a facilities plus 200 feet, the reason we would go with that is because when the state looks at it, if you do an area-based one, then you're obligated to serve everyone in that area. And the bigger your area is, the less chance the state is going to trust that you can serve that. Whereas if you do it with a facilities plus 200 feet, it's essentially people you're already serving. And so they're going to believe you a lot more when you say we can serve these people. And the other thing is, from a cost perspective, the amount of reserve and financial backing that you have to have if you do facilities plus 200 feet goes down commensurate because you're not serving as big of an area. And so the demand won't be as big. So I think that... Yeah, I agree that the biggest issue will be filing with the state and getting them to give us the CCN. But I think we should be able to do that, considering that we already have a public water supply system or whatever they call it. I don't remember. It's a long acronym. Filed already. So I'm pretty certain that if we go with a facilities plus 200 feet, and then even in the future if we wanted to, we could expand it to an area-based one. So that's been the assumption, though, that we would do facilities plus 200 feet for the CCN. The big thing I would just say is, so it's a good that you've discovered that on your own. That's easier. It's a narrower ask. I would say at a minimum, you guys should talk with this attorney if you want to hear somebody who's sort of done this. She represents like 20 of these, and so she's gone through the process. Who's this attorney? Obtaining or her name is Patricia Ferguson. She represents multiple municipal waters in Central Texas. Not Wassertrampflop, but she's multiple neighboring. Her office is in Clifton. And basically what she told us and what I heard from the...

[01:00:00 - 01:05:00] Chunk 13 / 21
Texas Rural Water Association. Everyone seems to confirm there's a lengthy process if you're getting a new CCN, no matter what type it is, that PUC puts you through. Because basically, they're almost trying to discourage anyone who would, like a developer who would want a shortcut to buying a big piece of land and not having to work with the municipal water supply. Right. You know, to do it on their terms. They're trying to discourage that. I think that's the whole purpose of it. Plus, it's just the government and they're inefficient. But basically, her professional opinion is, that is 18 to 24 months best case scenario. And then she also says 40,000 of legal fees, which I think is inflated. Right. But there still would be some demonstration costs. Yeah, there would be a bunch of, the demonstration costs would be, we could work through because we, I know he's not a water. They see the actual application, because that would be a great place to start. Look at, I sent it to Addison, the checklist, but basically what you exactly have to include on your application to apply for the CCN. Yeah. And our engineers that Zeke had worked with started to fill that out. They're sort of like, they're very practically smart people, but they do not, and they have some connections with the state. But when I explained it to this attorney, kind of what they had described to us, because they never told us any of this. And then after the fact, they said, oh yeah, it's going to take a long time. But at least I never heard any of this initially on the timeline. They're looking at it from their point of view, which is very partial. Like they can submit the drawings. We already have the drawings. We can submit even our pro forma showing. And she also gave more clarity on that issue of financial disability or term for it. But basically she said there is not any dollar amount where you have to have this reserve or you have to have that amount of credit. She said what you need is to basically demonstrate, she's a lawyer so she uses all this language, but you've got to demonstrate that you are financially solvent. And so if you can show the way that I propose and the engineers actually propose, which she thought was a great one, a pro forma that shows historical expenses and income, number of connections, number of potential connections, which is only like five more. But maybe we say, but we're going to increase the cost. Then you map that out. And actually each year we're going to increase it for five years or whatever. All right, now we've gone from maybe being in the blacks to actually having a nice little cushion. And we're going to donate the system from Heritage Ministries to the new Water Supply Corporation. They're both non-profits, but that way there's no ongoing capital cost of paying off that loan. There's no rushing profit. So now we actually don't need anything. That's basically what I read her saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what I was thinking too. So the system is going to be donated to the company. We can assume that. And then we're going to sell, you know, well, we already have a bunch of meters, but we can tell the state of Texas, we're going to sell a bunch of meters for $20,000. I'm being very simple here, but you get my point. Sell a bunch of meters going forward for $20,000 a piece and make tons and tons of money. I'm pretty sure we could push this through with the state. And I agree that's why they slow down this for developers and all that. But if we have the system here and it's been here for how many years has it been? Seven. Seven years. It's not like this is a brand new idea. I'll look into it. That's helpful what she says. We should just be full aware that everyone says it's going to take that long. And so we should at least have a backup plan that accounts for that term. Right. Whatever else we're doing. Yes. Okay. Well, we definitely have a backup plan. But the other thing is, what would be the harm in submitting this to the state tomorrow? Even if it did take 24 months. Well, we kind of cut off our option to sell at that point because then it really complicates it because the PUC also has to approve any transactions of buying and selling. And so if selling is at all a possibility, then there's a bunch of things that need to happen. We need to engage them in good faith. Okay, that makes sense. Make sure that basically the PUC, she said that'll take six months too. The PUC will want to approve, review, she doesn't see any reason why they shouldn't, but they're going to look at that. She said that's six months. So basically we just stall everything that much further and create a bunch of confusion for the state. In the meantime, it could then have more effects if we were going to go either path. So we really should know...

[01:05:00 - 01:10:00] Chunk 14 / 21
I would suggest, if anything, we talk to other operators, like the Municipal Supplies, and we ask attorneys, we do whatever, if we want to hear this from their mouths in the last five years that have obtained a PUC, and say how about it go, and we should interview them and understand exactly what to expect. Because the attorney said she's represented clients who tried to do this, who tried to get a PUC, and literally gave up because it was so much harder than they thought. Sorry, not a PUC, a CCN, and it took so much longer. Six months into it, they just threw in the towels and said we're going to do something different, because this is not something we can manipulate faster than they're going to do it. So that's the only thing that has been driven into me by a bunch of different perspectives. So it seems like the overarching thing is the basically double time frame for a CCN. That's kind of the one sticking point. And we don't want to start one process without completely negating the other one, so we don't cause a hiccup. It's not double, it's like triple, but yes, that's all correct. We don't want to start one and then change our minds three months down the road or 12 months, worst case. Right. Yeah, okay. What is your perspective? I mean, obviously you're submitting it to the state. That is their thing, but how much of the extra time is just lawyers doing lawyer things? She claimed that it goes like this. You get everything together, which we have a lot of it together. Right. You submit the application, and then you wait for six to eight months, and then you hear back because they have a whole backlog of other stuff that they're trying to work through. Every other municipal water supply that's trying to make an IOU that's trying to make a rate change. Somebody else has to buy another CCN, whatever. Then you get a letter back that says, okay, we reviewed your things. Everything looks correct, but we want you to provide XYZ proof to them such and such. The previous email about their application for a CCN running well. Yeah, that makes sense. Do you know what authority PUC is under? I think it's a governor-appointed – it's like part of the executive branch of the state government, the PUC, the commission. I'm pretty sure the head of that is governor-appointed, so it's directly under the governor. It's a state – Okay, so it's like the agricultural commissioner, but for PUC. Exactly. Basically, it's sort of like the – yeah, it's like the federal level of the Department of Transportation. Sure. So it's actually overseeing the FAA, the whoever else, highway, whatever. Okay, that makes sense. No, that all makes sense. Okay. And basically, even TCEQ has to work with them on anything that they do. It used to be a little different where – Yeah. Some stuff – there's pros and cons because TCEQ is even worse in some ways. No kidding. It's just like just as Nazis, but in terms of the government aspect. Okay, so it's independent state regulatory agency within the executive branch of Texas government. So commissioners are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate. So it's a pretty powerful institution. Probably just operates on its own whims. Right. I would just say one final thing. Sure. I know you guys are accounting for this. Go ahead. Not only do you have the cost of time and the headache of working through the CCN, but I just think that we should fully appreciate and understand what we are getting into as an operator. Yes, we can hire a licensed operator to represent us from a testing and compliance perspective, but she gave some indication that, again, from her experience, one of the reasons you don't see a water supply corporation with its own CCN under about 200 meters, typically speaking, is because there's enough overhead between attorneys, other engineers dialoguing with neighboring water supply corporations, and, you know, compliance with the state that the overhead burden generally –

[01:10:00 - 01:15:00] Chunk 15 / 21
Right. I don't have a detailed checklist of what that looks like. But we can make assumptions. We can make assumptions and we can also just... But certainly the pieces that we do know, the operator, the engineer, an attorney who ideally has some Texas water experience, at least on call if not on a retainer, or issues that come up with the state. They also changed the laws on these things. Recently they changed this whole investor-owned utility thing, which is one of the reasons we don't want to do that, where you have to go through a laborious 12-month process and get approval from the state any time you want to change your tariff, which is just stupid. But basically they're trying to discourage IOUs. It's easier. Right. Talk to me with that though, because just for the sake of dialogue, I don't see an issue with taking 12 months to change tariffs if we're actually thinking things through. So just walk through this with me. I'm heretical, but just bear with me for a second. So let's say, I mean, you're not going to change your tariffs that much. You shouldn't be if you're thinking it through. Let's say, I mean, hopefully you're thinking ahead, at least that's what, you know, hopefully we would be doing that with our businesses is, you know, considering what we're going to have to charge next year based off of going up. I understand there's emergencies, etc., etc. But let's just say that was off the table for a minute. How would that change the whole overhead feeling of the IOU? Just ignoring that new rule for a second. Talk to me about how it used to be. Well, from what I understand, it used to be that's what developers would go to in that case where now they might try to use a WSC. You buy a piece of land, they're trying to shortcut the process. It's kind of remote. They drill their own well. They sell the parcels off and they have an IOU. So everyone who buys is under that. So an IOU from an advanced perspective is you can earn a lot in both cases. From what I understand, you're having to sort of stay within some general strikes on the road of profitability. You can't be too unprofitable and you can't be too profitable. They sort of want to know where the money's going and all that stuff. So that's part of the pain that comes with this. An IOU, you can actually return a pretty healthy amount. So it actually sort of disincentivizes smaller for the most part because it's much harder to turn a profit on a small scale. But like bigger private equity and bigger capital institutions are now buying up old IOUs. She told me this because they have a business place. So that's the incentive there. Right. Just like Hilco's returned millions of dollars in certain seasons. Right. There's a lot more PUC scrutiny, customer complaints, reporting, and overall compliance from what I understand is just greatly elevated of an IOU. I don't know if it was because that was abused because it sort of was kind of the more unofficial way of doing things. And so they kind of came back. But if you research this online and from what she said, there's just a lot more scrutiny. Customers can intervene so that they can complain to the state directly and rate increases can be contested which again complicates that whole process. You also have service obligations, I believe, which should be a little bit of an interesting thing that you would have to meet and must serve which could be a little bit of an interesting thing with Curtis. I don't know how that works on that. Yeah. The PUC is required to approve applications or resolve applications if they're non-contested within 80 days and if they are contested, they're required to approve them within 180 days. So they have to approve them. I don't know why the attorney says that, but I can send you the whatever you call it, regulation that should... Please send that to me and I'd love to send that to the attorney and say, hey... But I think the reason that that's six months, it's contested in any way. But if we can get what you call it, those two providers or three providers, which we have from two to sign an uncontested agreement, then we should have that as long as it doesn't get contested, the state has to fulfill, I mean, to resolve it. They could resolve it against us, obviously, but we could just try again. Can you send that to me? Is that on the Texas website? Yes. Here, I'll send you.

[01:15:00 - 01:20:00] Chunk 16 / 21
Let's see. So it sounds like the IOU is becoming outdated and they're basically regulating it so much that it's becoming not worth it. Is that right? Yeah, it's sort of like a corporation, to use this analogy, versus a LLC. When LLCs came along, everyone went to that because they're way more flexible, easier to show, easier to maintain. And the water supply corporation is sort of a lightweight entity that is approved, that covers you, but is not subject to all the regulation at a state level that an IOU or a corporation would be. Right. Okay. Okay. I sent you the document. This is interesting what Phineas is saying. Let me look here. Phineas sent it on my team? He did. Phineas, it looks like a big document. Yeah, just put it in your favorite AI and ask it to tell you about it. Okay. Well, I would say this is something that, you know, at a minimum, we can send a quick email to the attorney. We've met with her twice now, and she's got a lot of context, and say, hey, what's your reading of this? Is there any reason why we shouldn't, you know, go off of this and assuming that we have every single dot, you know, dotted and T-cross not be approved within four months or five months, whatever that timeline comes out to? Yeah, okay. Well, we'll look into it. Okay, sounds good. Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead, and then I'll... I was just going to say, if you want me to, I can digest this document and potentially just send an email, copy whoever you guys want to be on that, and say, hey, we've been talking further. We're finding this clause in the document online. Is there any reason why this is not accurate based on all of your recommendations to us? Okay, great. I'll send you a list of emails. You'll send me a list? Oh, yeah, perfect. Just who to include. Right, right. And that way you guys can also be looped in, and I can introduce you guys as sort of a task force that's pushing this to a decision point. Sounds good. Okay, great. So Phineas had mentioned that there's a possibility of pushing two or three lots through at a time. Is that right? What kind of doing three as a subdivision? So why could we not, so this is for the subdivision, not the water, why could we not push through three lots at a time? Because if you do it as three lots at a time and they all have road frontage, it's not a subdivision anymore. This is the Texas... Does that make sense? I mean, they're describing what it is. Could we not do that? Okay, I'll talk to Zane about it. Okay, I'll talk to Zane. Because we had, in our subdivision, we combined one lot in order to get it under that, and they approved it without... I presume you probably couldn't expand if you had that. So what I'm thinking is we could go through and do three at a time. As long as it's road frontage, we'd have to expand, say, your road to become an actual road, a legal county road, but that wouldn't be a huge problem. So I'll look into it. But I'll talk to Zane. Okay, I'm curious to hear, because I've never heard that, but that sounds interesting. Have you looked into facilities only at all? Okay, Isaac, I'll send you emails and we'll keep a dialogue. I'm going to have Phineas... Yeah, Phineas is going to send you a... We probably couldn't expand without making an amendment to our CCN, but it could be something. All right, thanks. Yeah, so... What is this? There's another type of CCN that's facilities only. Which would also be cool if we sell it to a company, because that means they don't have any purview over anything anywhere. They are granted for a point of use that covers only the customer connections at the time the CCN is granted. Doesn't even cover the lines. Facility-only service lines normally follow on roads and may correspond to distributions. Okay, well, what's the... What's the difference? How is it going to help us? I'm just saying it may be another option. It might be easier. Yeah, it may be easier since it's not... Now, I don't know what the difference between that... Okay, service here by the line... Okay, so it's just... It's the same thing as a facilities plus 200 feet. There's just no buffer. So it's probably not any easier to get than a facilities plus 200 feet. Anybody want a water? Sure, I'll take one. What is this? There's another type of CCN that's facilities only. Which would also be cool if we sell it to a company because that means they don't have any purview over anything anywhere. They are granted for a point of use that covers only the customer connections at the time the CCN is granted. Doesn't even cover the lines. Facility-only service lines normally follow on roads and may correspond to distributions. Okay, well, what's the... What's the difference? How is it going to help us? I'm just saying it may be another option. It might be easier. Yeah, it may be easier since it's not... Now, I don't know what the difference between that... Okay, service here by the line... Okay, so it's just... It's the same thing as a facilities plus 200 feet. There's just no buffer. So it's probably not any easier to get than a facilities plus 200 feet. Anybody want a water? Sure, I'll take one.

[01:20:00 - 01:25:00] Chunk 17 / 21
Yes, please. Minor boundary treat, all approved. It's actually, hold on, sorry. It's actually 30 days. The 80 days is for electrical, so that will be useless. Can I take you directly to the source so we can see that? Yeah. You can probably search the actual document as well. Which AI did you use? Because chat didn't figure it out. Another AI. Okay. A better one? He built his own model. My own model. Thank you so much. So, Brother Carl, it's actually 30 days. They have 30 days to review. There's another question. It takes so long, it's because of the contested thing. If it gets contested, it has to go to a hearing. That's the most common delay. And how long do they have once they contest it? 180 days. And it has to go to a hearing, which is, normally the hearing will be resolved in favor as long as it's not a majority. The most common thing, though, is people protesting. Other people. Yes. Either other CCNs or the people who you're actually selling it to, which shouldn't be an issue for us. That sounds like it's one of the most common in mapping problems. But if we can keep it down to the facilities, or even just the facilities, we can make that simple. It's obviously easy to bias in a certain direction. And the other thing is, all of corporate America is going to hype things up in order to make you feel better when they get a number faster. And so that's what's going on. I'm 100% certain that it will not take 24 months. We have to approve it. If they have to approve it in 30 days, how could it take 24 months? No, it could. The thing that would take 24 months is the lawyers. When they come back and say you can take it. I can definitely picture someone taking 24 months to submit it. It's not difficult. I think we should just submit it. They have on their website very detailed instructions on how to submit the mapping and everything too. Which it seems like they're durable in that matter. I don't see any reason why it would take so long. So if we submit it, then that takes... They have to review it within 30 days. So what we need to do is by next week we need to have, by yesterday, we need to have our letters of consent. One for Ross, one for Chalk Bluff. Can you work with them to get those done? Even if we need to go do it in Zeke's name, let's do it. And then maybe, I think there would be, would it be wise to Phineas track now with Zane this whole platting thing? Because I wouldn't mind having that back door with the subdividing. In case something doesn't like... We should have that. He's worried that if this gets stalled and then we can't sell it, then it'll be forever that I can have my property from his perspective. I'm 100%, I'll just say 95% certain that word comes to words, we could get his pushed through. If it were to take longer than that. Yeah, we should talk to Zane about that. He said he didn't know, when you asked the question, he said he didn't know and that we would need to talk to Zane. Can you schedule a... Can I meet with you and Zane? Yeah. Let me know when you do it. Or if anybody else wants to, that's great. Go for it. Okay, well then let's get that match from Zeke. I want to see what he has. Would you want to go straight to doing a map of the 500 acres of the land is? Or do you think we should go to doing a facility plus 200 feet? I'll get a little more research and tell you exactly what I think would be the holdup with the map on. I've already said the price of how much you have to keep on reserve or whatever, but Isaac was saying...

[01:25:00 - 01:30:00] Chunk 18 / 21
obligations if... But if it's all land, I don't think the obligations part is necessarily a concern. I'm not worried about the $100,000. I don't think that's an issue at all. So I'll look and get clearer on the pros and cons of doing a map versus a... Yeah, I'd be curious what the benefits are too, like if there's even reason to. I could see a map one if you want to aggressively expand your work. Yeah, but we can only do five more anyway. Yeah, exactly. I mean, do we even want to do five more? If it's already five, four, and it's perfect. I agree. The facilities only is literally just what it says. So like, because he was... Yeah, it's basically the same thing. You just don't have both. So it's probably not that much of a benefit. I was a little bit confused as to the terminology. It covers all your lines and everything. You just don't have a button. So if we submit an application or whatever we're going to submit, then we don't want to pursue the chalk bluff thing because it's just going to confuse everything. From what he was saying, I haven't researched that myself. If you could, just to balance things a little bit. So yeah, from what it seems like he's saying is, but that doesn't make any sense actually. Because he was saying if you submit an application, then you can't basically work to sell it or something. But then what he said a few minutes later was that other people who do this do it for six months and then throw it out. So then what do they do? Right. And you could always say we want to fill our application. Exactly. Yeah, why couldn't you? Because I'd like to pursue both things at the same time. And the other thing is... I agree. He said these people go for six months and stop. Well, why do they stop at six months? Right. We're not that impatient. If we have a year, I think we can get it done within a year. And a year is a lot better than 24 months. Absolutely. Okay. So it sounds like from what you said, we're going to hear back from them either way in 30 days and then possibly have... Once we get it submitted. Yes, the main thing I even look that up is if you submit something to these people, the people who handle it, and you just say you have to get this back to me within 30 days and you send them the little PDF, it normally helps keep the wheels of progress moving. We had something with the VA years ago that we did a bunch of their work for them. And in the contract, it said they have to pay within 30 days. And we called them out on it because they would be way late. And they said, yeah, that's true. But if you're going to press the issue, we just won't give you any more work. And that's what they did. So they may pull something like that, but let's find out if they will. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's just the luck of the draw. But if we get someone who's not rude, they'll work with us. And that's where the personal connection comes in. I think that's what Zane has at the city right now. Right. That's what we're hoping for. So, yeah. Okay. Well, then let's get with those maps from Zeke. Yeah, okay. So the maps. And the agreement. The letters. First, the map, and go with Chalk Bluff first. He can do that without anything else. I want to look and make sure that there's not some formal format before we go to Waco and Ross. Does that make sense? Because there may be some way that you have to go about it. With Chalk Bluff, I'm pretty certain we could just get a letter like he has there. Yeah. That one's addressed to Waco. We can keep that one, but we need one. I'll send you something. Sounds good. That's great. And we can just take it to them and say, hey, can you sign this? He can sign it. What was he saying about getting Isaac, what was he saying about getting them together? Is he just saying they all have to agree to one document? Do they have to all actually get together or does it just need to be one paper? But it sounds like from what you're saying, Waco can sign it. And if we are in Ross's, they have to sign it. And if we are too close or threatening Chalk Bluff, they can protest. But they don't even have to sign it. Waco is the only one who has the overarching authority. The biggest one and the first one. And then Ross, if we're in their territory, also has to sign it. Other than that, no one else does. It definitely does seem like, though, since that is the most common cause for delay from what I've seen, that it would be good to just go ahead and get an agreement from all of them. So it is the commission by the Senate, right? So we have... No, we can do that. Yeah, no, I think we should. And I guess it's just the luck of the draw. But if we get someone who's not a rude guy, they'll work with us. And that's where the personal connection comes in. I think that's what Zane has at the city right now. Right. That's what we're hoping for. So, yeah. Okay, well, then let's get with those maps from Zeke. Okay, so the maps. And the green letters. First, yes, the map. And go with Chalk Bluff first. He can do that without anything else. I want to look and make sure that there's not some formal format before we go to Waco and Ross. Does that make sense? Because there may be some way that you have to go about it. With Chalk Bluff, I'm pretty certain we could just get a letter like he has there. Yeah. That one's addressed to Waco. We can keep that one, but we need one. I'll send you something. Sounds good. That's great. And we can just take it to them and say, hey, can you sign this? He can sign it. What was he saying about getting Isaac, what was he saying about getting them together? Is he just saying they all have to agree to one document? Do they have to all actually get together or does it just need to be one paper? But it seems like from what you're saying, Waco can sign it. And if we are in Ross's, they have to sign it. And if we are too close or threatening Chalk Bluff, they can protest, but they don't even have to sign it. Waco is the only one who has the overarching authority. The biggest one and the first one. And then Ross, if we're in their territory, also has to sign it. Other than that, no one else does. It definitely does seem like, though, since that is the most common cause for delay from what I've seen, that it would be good to just go ahead and get an agreement from all of them. It is the commission by the Senate, right? No, we can do that. Yeah, no, I think we should. I mean, I guess it's just the luck of the draw, but if we get someone who's not a rude guy, they'll work with us. And that's where the personal connection comes in. I think that's what Zane has at the city right now. Right. That's what we're hoping for. So, yeah. Okay, well then let's get with those maps from Zeke. Okay, so the maps and the letters. First, yes, the map and go with Chalk Bluff first. He can do that without anything else. I want to look and make sure that there's not some formal format before we go to Waco and Ross. Does that make sense? Because there may be some way that you have to go about it. With Chalk Bluff, I'm pretty certain we could just get a letter like he has there. Yeah. That one's addressed to Waco. We can keep that one, but we need one. I'll send you something. That's good. That's great. And we can just take it to them and say, hey, can you sign this? He can sign it. What was he saying about getting... Isaac, what was he saying about getting them together? Is he just saying they all have to agree to one document? Do they have to all actually get together or does it just need to be one paper? But it seems like from what you're saying, Waco can sign it. And if we are in Ross's, they have to sign it. And if we are too close or threatening Chalk Bluff, they can protest, but they don't even have to sign it. Waco is the only one who has the overarching authority. The biggest one and the first one. And then Ross, if we're in their territory, also has to sign it. Other than that, no one else does. It definitely does seem like, though, since that is the most common cause for delay from what I've seen, that it would be good to just go ahead and get an agreement from all of them. It is the commission by the Senate, right? So we have... No, we can do that. Yeah, no, I think we should.

[01:30:00 - 01:35:00] Chunk 19 / 21
They seem like they're willing to get it. Do you want to find the actual beginning application and just start like, send it, even post it here? Well, he said that they already started filling it out, didn't they? He said they'd got a lot of it done. See? Yeah, they've got a lot of it done. They said they just basically need to kind of push through. So does he have it where we can get it? Yeah, let's get it. Go ahead and ask him, yeah. Send him that folder you sent us, send that to Zeke, and just ask him to put everything he has in there. We'll have AI dig through it. I just don't even know if he'll get it in the folder, that's all I'm thinking. Email it. However is easiest for him to give it to you. Yeah, however is easiest for Zeke to get it. Put it in a box on the outside of your car. I asked him if he'd email everything he has. He might have just not gotten time yet. Just keep following up. I'll ask him again. And we can also talk to the Ray Young guy. I would get his contact and call him. I'll probably call him too. Somebody said he's a little scattered? No, he's good. He's good. He's just basically on the verge of retirement. I think he's wanting to be done. But there's still him and his wife work together. Some days it's right there. But we've misstepped here and changed our mind. It's like, come on guys. It's kind of both ways. It seemed like Chuck Law kind of had that sound. I think our guys have said it. Somebody may want to call the lawyer too. Just to connect with her and say that's what we're doing. And I don't even have any issue. If there's something that she might do better for us, I have an issue paying her to do it. Speed things up and recover things that we don't know. Exactly. I don't have an issue with even doing that. We can call her. I'll get her contact information and maybe send her an email. Just see if this is what we're planning to do. I'd be curious what she has to say about it. She's going to say, yeah, that's true. But what it is, once you have to get back, you're a qualification. That's kind of what she was saying. That's what I hope she'll say. And they protest. But if it's mainly people that are holding the water, I don't have an issue with even doing that. And if we have really thorough agreements with all the other CC&Cs. Yeah, and the other thing is we... I don't think anybody here is trying to hold it. The church is the property owner on almost all of us. So the only people who would have the ability to protest is the church. And so none of the meters are sold. So we haven't sold them to anyone yet. And so we still own them all. So no one can protest, I don't think. I don't think how many people put and certify a water supply company on their own property. That's essentially what we're doing. No one does that. And so I don't think there will be any precedent for this taking that long. Except for these other companies, and they're very agreeable. Which they all know about it already. And they're agreeable. So I don't see any reason why it would take that long. And we can even get Noah. Yeah. Smith, because he's on the board. He's on the board. Oh, okay. Oh, Noah Smith. Yeah, Noah Smith. They have like two openings, if anybody. I mean, it just doesn't hurt to have a little influence. We'll have to get people on the board. This is going to be down the road, but we'll have to figure out who to put on the board at this point. How do you get on the board? You'll just be put there. Have a church meeting, and everybody puts them out then. Barry Hand ran one time, and this guy. Did you guys ever see that letter? It was years ago. It was young probably. But he was running, and this guy that was running against him exposed. I mean, nailed him. Oh, wow. And Barry still won. It wasn't even an issue. It's kind of like, do you keep up with it, Golsan debauchery out there, like the mayor, the whole? No. It's sponsored by the mayor. They literally are. The mayor got arrested. There's a fist fight. Yeah, they had a full-on fight. Daniel Blue. Daniel Blue. Oh, I know Daniel. He got arrested. Really? He's a horseshoer, isn't he? Yes. I think so, yeah. He couldn't get anything done. They only need 30 votes or something. Yeah, the other five people don't matter. Their council meetings are more like brawls. No, one guy got arrested. One guy got arrested. There's a fist fight. What's his name? Daniel Blue. Daniel Blue. Oh, I know Daniel. He got arrested. Really? He's a horseshoer, isn't he? Yes. I think so, yeah. He got arrested. No, he got arrested because he was beating somebody up, like, big time.

[01:35:00 - 01:40:00] Chunk 20 / 21
Is this, yours is Andrew Lancaster 01 at gmail.com? Yeah, or iCloud. Is this the guy? iCloud is what I use, so that would be better. I'm sorry, my eyes. Yes, that's him. Curtis is the one, years ago Curtis was the one who came up with this with him. Oh, really? Yeah, iCloud would be better. He was from Houston, he just moved to China Springs, I think. Okay, well, I think we have some... Yeah, let's go. Just keep me in the loop on the emails. I'm not going to read through every one of them, but just... I guess if we submit, if it is true that it's going to mess things up to have both options open, then we'll have to make a decision. If we can do both options, let's run with both of them. And then we can pick one down the road. I think, originally I'm saying let's sell it to Chalk Bluff, let's get out of it. But I'm not so sure that's what we're supposed to do. Yeah, and from the research I was doing, if we do this, and then in the future we want to, I think it could be a good resource to have. Because we do it like this, and then in the future, as soon as we get our CCN, I think we should file to get an area-based one, and maybe even a somewhat larger area-based one. We would want to get our ducks in a row before we did that, because then we'd have the requirement to serve them. But then, as Texas, this area continues to grow, and there's the data center, and everyone's freaking out about water. I think it's illogical that they are. It might be something good to have, even financially. Obviously, or not, I shouldn't say financially, I should say strategically. If we could serve a large area, or a surrounding area, we could serve them water, that might be nice. Another thing I thought I was going to bring up to you guys, when the time's right, but the mayor of Lacey Lakeview, Bruce, I forget his name, Bruce, I've met with him a few times on the data center. But he talked to me about, what do you call it, when you absorb a... Annex. Annex, us annexing in with them, because they want access to the Brazos River for the data center. And I mentioned it to Ossie and Matt, and some of the other brothers that we were talking to. I told them, I don't think we'd ever do it. Then this guy, Bruce and Ossie said, I think that might be something we would want to do. I was shocked. So I think even us keeping the water would even be an asset to that, hopefully, because they will bring in sewer. We have talked about doing our own sewer plan, which... Which you have to get along with. I know, and they're saying a million dollars, but it's going to be more than a million dollars. But they would do all that. And our septics go away. They would do our roads. They would do... I mean, our tax, we'd have to pay taxes to them. I don't know if it... But anyway, it seems like even having a water system, that maybe they would even buy it at some point. Right. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. It would be valuable at some point. So it really might be the thing. Yeah, and we could do that, or even if we wanted to incorporate as a city, having a water supply company would be great. And that's even the area. So let's say we have a water supply company that's much larger, you know, and then incorporate as a city, again, and then we could do what Lacey Lakeview is doing, annex property all around us, and then it would be really great. We can do it. Who would we vote for mayor? Well, not obviously Brother Gabe is what... You wouldn't want anybody from New Jersey to be a mayor. And Texans would have a hard time with that. The New Jersey guys, they always get caught for bribes. They take bribes. Well, let's do it. Let's do it. Thank you, guys. I really appreciate it. And you all want to take this? Yeah, sure. It's cold in here. Thank you all. Yes, sir. Thank you. Okay, Sue. Yes, sir. Files. So should we shoot to regather with paperwork?

[01:40:00 - 01:42:26] Chunk 21 / 21
...research on Monday? Yeah. Is that too soon or should we shoot for Tuesday? Tuesday. Tuesday. Okay, we need to get... There was a few things we needed to get from Zeekas. Oh, that map. I want to see that like yesterday. Yeah. Okay, well you're tracking down with Zeek, right? Maps and agreements. Maps and agreements, yep. Oh, and the maps, agreements, and the document if they're already starting it. Oh yes, the actual application. It'd be really nice if we get our hands on that CCN application. Yeah, so we could start scrolling through that. Yeah, I'd love to. To me, this is the same thing like Simeon doing 501C34HYN. He did it all himself and all this hoorah about it taking so long. I mean, it's a hard thing to get a 501C3. It's total baloney. They said the same thing about our subdivision. It can absolutely be done. So... But that map I want to see because I wonder how they have it drawn up. Isaac said that the facilities plus 200 feet was already the package they were planning to take. Right. Which would be great. Yeah, so maybe the mapping is already done for that. Maybe it's already done like that. That'd be great. That'd be great. Does somebody want to reach out to Alex? He's going to ask for the Zeke if he has the map. And then we'll see. If not with Alex, this is my group. I'll reach out to him. He'll have to show up in person. He used to be mine before ours and that's where I would nail him. Yeah, come here. Wednesday night. Can't leave now. Exactly. He's bullshit. Yeah, everyone told me, he said, if you can't get a hold of him, the only place is at church. You've got to ambush him at church. But I do terrible in person like that. I don't ever like walking up to someone and saying, hey, I need this from you. I don't mind. I would way rather send them, you know, a skating email. I have a pet peeve with people not getting back to people. That's why I always try to do it. Because it just bothers me. Because everybody's so busy. And then things get hold on for months when you could have got it done two weeks ago. And it always seems like if you just respond basically right now, even if it's I'll get back to you, it takes less time. At least they know. Yeah, at least they know.