After months of searching, the Cortez Sanitation District has found a new manager.
Jan Grogan attended her first board meeting as district manager on Monday, Dec. 12. The district board held a special meeting the week before to discuss their options, and decided on Grogan. The position had been open since the death of previous district manager, Tim Krebs, at the end of May.
“I’m excited to get started,” Grogan said at Monday’s meeting.
She previously worked as manager of the Camp Verde Sanitary District in Arizona. She received a utility management certification from the Rural Water Association of Arizona, where she also served as board treasurer until recently.
Although Grogan actively participated in the meeting, she will not officially begin work as manager until later this month, when she will take over from interim district manager Phil Starks.
Among the topics of discussion at Grogan’s first meeting was payment for the construction company that completed the Ash Area Project, which replaced and relocated sanitary sewers in the area around Ash Street earlier this year, and a possible line extension for the Montezuma County Hospital District. The board also held public hearings to approve rate changes for plant investment fees and services fees, as well as the 2016 and 2017 budgets.
Grogan participated in discussion throughout the meeting, and she weighed in most on the board’s last agenda item, which dealt with the need for vacuum testing on manholes around the city. Right now the testing, which is designed to detect leaks, is “strongly recommended” in the district’s regulations, but the sanitation district has been considering the possibility of making it a requirement for all newly installed sewer manholes. Board president Ryan Griglak was in favor of making the new requirement, and Grogan agreed.
“It’s the standard,” she said. “You can’t argue against the standard.”
The board didn’t make a final decision on the subject on Monday. Instead, they voted to table it for their next meeting so that they would have time to consider in depth the details of implementing mandatory vacuum testing, such as how many tests a manhole could fail before it needs to be replaced.
Grogan’s first official day as district manager will be Dec. 28.
