 meeting of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District for April 15, 2021. Can you call the roll please? All right. President Mayhood. Here. Vice President Henry. Here. Director Fulse. Here. And Director Smalley. Here. Are there any additions and deletions to the closed session agenda? Staff has Okay. Let's see. We have, we don't have any attendees, so I don't think we have any oral communications from the public, right? Right. Okay. Speak now or forever hold your piece if you're out there. In that case, we will go ahead and adjourn to closed session and I'll see you there in a few minutes. Staff 630. So let's convene to open session. There is nothing to report from the closed session. Holly, can you take the roll call for the open session? President Mayhood. Vice President Henry. Here. Director Fulse. Here. And Director Smalley. Here. Thank you. All right. Are there any additions or deletions to the agenda? Staff has no. Next is oral communications and this is the portion of the agenda that's reserved for oral communications by the public on any subject within the jurisdiction of the district but is not on the agenda tonight. Do we have any comments from attendees from the public? I see we have four right now. Hearing none and seeing no hands up. I guess we'll go on to the next item on the agenda, which is new business of which there is none. And then we'll go on to unfinished business for which we have only a single item, which is the board policy manual. And I just want to sort of, Rick, did you want to start a presentation on this? I was going to just introduce the board policy manual and ask council Michaels to present this item. That was my plan. All right. Go ahead. Okay, thanks, Chair Mayhood. Thank you, District Manager Rogers. This item, as you know, is coming back to the board now for the fourth time. This has been a fairly involved round of annual edits and revisions to the board policy manual. The board is engaged in a transparent but very, I think, thorough process of asking the board members to provide written input, which were enclosed in a board packet in January. And then the written input was consolidated into sort of a list of summarized changes that the board considered and then provided direction to staff and me in particular, which of the list of changes were to be implemented to the board policy manual. And so what you're seeing in front of you tonight is a revised board policy manual where I've gone down the list of changes that the board, the summary list of changes that the board requested and then had consensus on in order to implement them via red line changes to the policy manual. You'll see that there's a note in the memo, which indicates that there are two things that will be corrected in the final version of the policy that's adopted tonight. And that is that hyperlinks were requested to code sections. And those will be added and pagination in the table of contents will be applied to the final version with any edits that the board may decide to make tonight. There is a resolution in the packet that could be adopted if the board moves to adopt the resolution in the packet. The result of that would be to approve and adopt the board policy manual that's attached as an exhibit to the resolution subject to any particular changes that the board may wish to make to that version of the document. And that's all I have. Okay. Thank you, Gina. I would like to just start the discussion here by sort of setting out what my goals are, which is the main one being that we complete our consideration of the board policy manual tonight. As Gina said, we've seen it a number of times before and district council has spent considerable time and therefore our district money in bringing to the version we've seen tonight. And that's one of the reasons we've set aside quite a bit of time on the agenda tonight so that we can address everybody's concerns or changes and hear them out. Now, because of the polling process that was used in arriving at this document, I expect that on the whole it should be acceptable to the majority of the board. And I ask that we respect the process that district council devised to get the document to this point, one in which no individual board member has rewritten the document. That means that several of us, myself included, will have to suppress our strong editors and resist the urge to wordsmith. I want to remind everyone that what we vote on tonight need not be perfect. It's an evolving document and further changes can be made when we get to the next schedule review in January. So I ask that any wordsmithing you'd like to do be saved for that January review and that tonight we restrict ourselves to proposing and discussing only those changes that are substantive changes. And to this end, I'm going to ask each board member to state any substantive changes they want to propose and preferably providing the replacement language that they're proposing. We will then informally poll the board members about this on the proposed change and any revision that receives a majority positive vote will be listed as a revision to the resolution the board will vote to ratify. District council will keep track of these revisions and so she might need to occasionally interject to make sure she's capturing the adopted revisions carefully. So I will just go ahead and if you don't mind start out with my one suggested revision which is on page 73 of the agenda which is page 20 of the attachment B red line version and in the second paragraph there's a line shown in red that says the deadline for public member applications typically will be on or about November 15th of any given calendar year. These are applications for the standing committees and what I'm suggesting or proposing is that we change that November 15th to November 26th and the reason is that November 15th means that we would have to post it very early and we don't have any meeting in late November so there's no reason not to have a date be later and give people more time to think of this and especially in an election year where a lot of things are going on in the early part of November. So the only change to that red line would be changing the number 15 to number 26. I guess we can anybody has any comment they want to make on that or before we pull on it? Okay then can we just do a voice vote would that be okay Gina on this? I think we can see everybody but I suggest a show of hands. All right a show of hands let's do that. All in favor of this change please raise your hand. Okay so that's unanimous in favor all right with that I have done the ones and and let me just make it clear that you know I'm sure if you read this document carefully you found a number of little small typos and things and Gina's found found those and goes without saying that those will be changed before the final version is printed out. So you're talking about things like missing periods or just apostrophe in the wrong place or whatever we're talking about very trivial changes we're not talking about anything that is substantive. Director Henry did you have any changes that you would like to make to the the red line version of the document? So it has to be a red line it can't be something that I submitted that was voted on. Whatever it is you just go ahead and describe what what it is. Okay it's item 12 on the list and it got five votes and what I had said was that a board member has a right to place an item on the meeting agenda. The director's request must be accompanied by background and information for the item which that is there the background information but what it says here is each director has the right to place items on a subsequent board of director meeting agendas and I was trying to get one item just because of a history I had it being board president in 2019 and I've tried to get that changed a number of times from items to an item but I'm not going to make a big deal out of this. Well it's just that it's something I think that because of an experience we had in 2019 it's something I think should be changed but if nobody wants to do it I'm not going to get my knickers in a knot. I think I'm glad you're not going to get your knickers in a twist but you have to decide whether this is something that you want to change. Well it is something I want to change but and then we can pull on that and so Gina can you quickly tell us where that might be do you I mean I just Lois did you look at page 62 and it's at the top of it's a at the top of the page right so section it's section eight capital A right okay and it's 62 or 58 of 80 okay 62 of the agenda page nine of attachment B or I'm just saying so what it says now just each director has the right to place some items on a subject or bullet of director's new agenda subject to scheduling by the board president so what you're suggesting if if I may put words in your math Lois is each director has the right to place an item so right so just replace items with an item that's what you're proposing right okay any discussion of that then can excuse me go ahead Bob go ahead Bob hang on yeah so in general I'm opposed to Bob you're breaking up at least for me I is am I am I better now or am I still breaking up now you're fine you know in general I I don't support things that restrict board of directors degrees of freedom in terms of discharging their responsibilities to the community and the people that voted for them so I I don't see that this is a has been historically a big issue and I don't see any reason to say well you can only have one versus two or one versus three or what have you the compromise language that we put in back in 2019 was subject to scheduling and I think the understanding was is that it wouldn't wouldn't be delayed forever but I think that's an appropriate compromise and and balances the agenda creation need with each director's ability to discharge their duties as they see them so I don't see any need for any other discussion of this Rick go ahead Rick go ahead we can't hear I'm undercuting there we go just on this it says each director has the right to place items on a subsequent board of directors being subject to scheduling by the board president I would like to see the scheduling mimic the other agendas I think it's in consultation with the district manager well actually it's usually by the district manager in right I'd like to have those read the same I don't understand what the difference would be I put things on the agenda yeah I actually noticed that myself and it seems like it should make more sense that it would be just uniform just uniform of other sections in consultation with them I can go along with that okay so so then can we instead of changing um to um do you sorry Lois again I don't want to put words in your mouth so you say you go along with what Rick says but you would still also like the other change no I'm I'm fine with uh I I just um I think it'd be good idea that the person talks to Rick before they so can we uh just change that line uh saying subject to scheduling by the district manager in consultation with the board president will will that satisfy uh Rick and Lois is concerned yeah I just want to be uniform with the other areas about putting items on the agenda and how the agenda is put together I just I want them to be well let's just say that that's the wording now and we'll say well I can't find that section right now okay she because she can check on these things as we're going on it I've got the same language so if the board goes forward with it I can okay any more comments on that change then then let's uh all in favor go ahead and raise your hand all opposed just just want to make sure Bob that you realize that Lois retracted her part about changing it to a single item oh I didn't uh sorry I thought maybe you didn't catch that she said as long as it says um including that the wording is um scheduling um by the district manager in consultation with the board president yeah I mean that's the standard process I'm fine with that again I think it's with the understanding that things aren't delayed indefinitely right so I just I thought you might have not heard exactly I appreciate you bring that up so yes that would be a change okay so so again that's a unanimous yeah um anything else Lois that you wanted to no I'm fine with it all right good thank you um director smally yes um I'm taking your point about not words nothing Dale and uh withdrawing two of mine that I was going to make um I do have one uh that I do feel is significant enough and it is also on page 58 of 80 item D on that page where we put out a time limit of a quarter of an hour each month seems restrictive to me um and I recommend that we make that um 30 minutes a month half an hour instead because that would it would be now changed to limited to no more than a half an hour in any month is that okay correct even at the building one an hour so that's kind of the unit that right I see okay all right so basically it's just the thing is changing out a quarter to a half hour yes okay I'll I'll just say that I think that that's a good idea um having gone over the records of um the district council you know many of her short discussions with board members about things take you know on the order of point two to point three um so that would allow hours so that would allow a board member to have a couple of short conversations or one more month which strikes me is not right and just to confirm that this is also that you can go over that if the district manager approves additional time for a particular I understood that wording also yes yes go ahead Bob so how does the district manager decide whether or not to approve time so the the topic um may be a very sensitive topic and um I'm not sure I understand how that approval process works you know or Rick would you like to expand on how you think that would work be case by case I'll let Gina speak up this is her section yeah I said from my point of view this would put it the burden largely on on me to uh one keep track of the time in a given month and then two you know when that half hour is hit to reach out to Rick or request that the board member reach out to Rick you know with a summary of what the issue is and get approval you know whether that's verbal or you know um but uh you know if there's a concern about documenting something it could be an email I suppose well yeah I mean that's you know we can we can see how it goes you know these things tend to go in waves in my experience where there'll be nothing for months and then you know there might be a couple three things that go boom boom boom right you know one after the other depending on the circumstances around the board and the agenda items and that sort of thing so um you know and sometimes that that kind of process just may not work um not work very well I'm also concerned about the administrative burden placed on Gina um well I would just simply say that Bob part of being a lawyer the way she does is she has to keep track of her time to in excruciating detail um so this is not going to really increase the burden uh for her well I I don't know because in the past when I've asked to see if we could get a breakdown on specific things um I I'm not sure that that Nausman tracks things by matters I mean I'm familiar working with law firms where they typically have things tracked by matters so you have one account and then you have lots of basically topics or matters that you bill against it wasn't clear that Nausman was doing that but if they are then that would make sense and it might be easier then for her to track they are so each can we get a confirmation from Gina because I'm not sure I heard that last time I asked about we only have two open matters for the district uh and the one most of my work comes under is general counsel so one can go through the bills and you know the narratives are quite detailed but um we do not track the general counsel work for the district under a number of different matters okay great thank you I think I heard the expression earlier um this is not going to be necessarily a perfect process democracy isn't perfect we have something here in the document um and I think I heard Bob say we can try this and see how it works um we're going to be back at this again at the end of the year that's uh what eight months from now try it see if it works see how difficult or not difficult it is agreed Lois did you have anything you wanted to add um no I like the idea of a half hour um because well I I just I've got history here so I like the idea of a half hour a month I I think it ought to be plenty enough time for most of us that need to call the attorney I mean I call her once in a while um but even when I was board president I I wasn't calling her all the time so I I think a half hours plan I I did some um I went through the a year's worth of billing and what I discovered was that um with the exception of bob the average use of uh contact direct contact of the council was on the order of 0.4 hours per month on average so this would cover in terms of direct and so that this should you know should cover that sort of the average use that the board was was making in the last last year okay so head and poll on on that one um all in favor of changing the wording of uh to no more than a quarter of an hour to no more than a half hour please raise your hand that's unanimous that was fine uh all right so now um director faults go ahead and if you have edits or changes you would like to discuss yeah can I can I break this down I break this down into two um sections first I have some questions and clarifications on items which may not require any edits at all um I'd like to go through those first there's I think uh two or three of them and then I have some specific that's fine that work yes that that's good okay um the first one is on uh I think it's uh five king nine so that is on page 58 of the red line and this has to do with the sanctions clause I had a question about the sanctions so if I look at the um entire section on code of conduct there seems to be sort of a mix between excuse me Bob I'm not sure where where what page are you on like of the yeah it's it's page 56 page um hang on we get back there again because we've got three pick three numbers one is the it was on page 58 58 of 58 of 58 not and 54 of 88 just page 58 the second number is 54 of 80 and the third number I can't read so 58 in the agenda yeah all right and what was the item yeah so the item was number nine it says sanctions for violations of this code of conduct so when I was going through the code of conduct there looked to be sort of a split between um what I would call more legal requirements and then sort of um sort of recommended or suggested procedures or behavior and so I wanted to understand if the sanctions clause was for both and if the if the sentence the sanctions impose shall depend upon the severity of violation of violation you know some of these may be more political versus legal and I guess I'm a little confused as how to split that and so Gina I was hoping you might be able to help explain them well if I may I'll talk you through the thought process um that went into this and that is that one of the items that was in the the summary directions that the that the board approved or gave direction to me to to make to the policy manual was to modify the code of conduct to have more clear rules and kind of shall statements as opposed to aspirational type language and I'm paraphrasing a little bit from what was actually in the chart that summarized the directions from the board so what I tried to do was lead with fairly standard set of um of rules related to you know elected the conduct of elected officials in particular in water districts right um where I had to struggle a little bit is that that's not how the policy manual in the past has been organized and it has all of these you know kind of list of of shoulds and procedures and so forth and so I tried to to take out some of those items that either the board expressed some concern about in the prior discussion or um were kind of superseded by a more directive or specific rule but frankly I was hesitant to take out all of those kinds of statements you know good statements procedures um aspirational policies if you will because that's just a difficult thing for you know for one person by themselves to do without more specific direction and kind of and give that back to the board so I I left in some of the material that I thought wasn't you know perhaps repeated or superseded by something else I mean ultimately sanctions in an elected board are at the discretion of the board and I thought about putting the sanctions you know under just sort of the shallow rules at the top instead of at the bottom um but you know I suppose I'm in a position where I just need some more board guidance in terms of what to do next because you know sanctions for a rule that says directors should you know it's a little harder to define what a violation is does that mean it can never be violated I'm not sure but with that I mean that that's the thought process that got it to where it is and I if there are more specific questions following that explanation I'm happy to address them no I you know Gina I appreciate that I think you sort of cut to the heart of the matter which is the in my mind this the separation between shall and should because should is in fact more aspirational and I you know the sanctions section doesn't distinguish between the two and so I don't I don't exactly know how you would apply sanctions to something that's more aspirational in nature that that becomes much more of a political statement rather than a legal statement so for example we had a there was a board member that had been disclosing I guess closed session information and you know that there was there was some talk of sanctions there was a board member in the past that made some horrendous statements and you know he was removed from committees that so I guess what I'm trying to do here is understand your view was that these sanctions would be in fact applied against any of the more political or aspirational or should statements equally to those that are the shall statement well I've written it so that in theory you know it could apply to both but you know there's clearly a difference between shall and should and I think it's in the eye of the board in terms of how to apply that in the way it's yeah the only thing you know you get concerned about is that if there's a dissenting opinion or somebody decides to do x y and z that the rest of the board doesn't like but it isn't illegal you know at that point it becomes a little bit tricky if in fact sanctions are available for that as well and as people know I've talked about this in the past I'm very focused on ensuring that individual directors have the maximum degrees of freedom to execute on their responsibilities as a director in the way that they seek them and so I would be concerned about this I guess at this point again well we'll see how it goes but I wanted to make sure that that was clearly this stuff okay the next question I have is about on page 56 52 of 80 section B what is the definition of confidential information and could you help me Bob because I'm making red line changes the word version I'm not looking at the board packet could you give me the sec the section number and the subsection yes it's yes it's 5d as in 5d David okay got it or delta whichever you did you so the question was what is there's a yeah what what is meant by confidential information are we talking here about closed session information yeah I mean at least from a legal perspective there's um some fairly you know there's some rules that I guess lawyers are fairly familiar with in terms of what's confidential and what's not clearly closed session confidential information attorney client privilege information attorney work product sensitive personnel files are often confidential and typically stamped as such financial record individual financial records those kinds of things um I uh okay yeah yeah I mean typically I'm used to seeing sort of confidential information capitalized with a definition but what you described that makes them I appreciate it sure and you know protective order or something it would be um but you know typically the the district maintains confidential information somehow separately or stamps that it's I don't think it would typically be a mystery is what this is but you know but if there are some graers that need to be addressed we can do that you know again I think at this point given your clarifications on what it is I think we can roll with it um and perhaps look at it again at a later at a later time um okay the next one is section eight yeah on page 62 excuse me um yes eight now I'm there okay um this this one struck me as a little bit a little bit hard to follow there is the use of the word shall use the district email and then there's just there's another clause it says if the director uses other email accounts for district business so um again if the director wants to use this doesn't prohibit a director from using another email address if they wish to do so they just have to recognize that it is subject to um potentially the requirements this one okay I hope the messages please use district issued emails and to the extent you have them devices for business related communications um it will save the district it will save legal time and expense in you know litigation and public records act requests it can protect the district and individuals from liability related to the public records act and so forth um so you know please do that um but if if you don't in a day if you you know this is a very difficult thing to police and if you don't do this um in addition to it being expensive for the district something I want to make sure everyone's aware of is that it can result in needing to search personally and email accounts and devices so I guess the question is then is this a legal requirement that the director must use the district email address my recollection is that the district adopted a policy to this effect some time ago whether by motion or otherwise and it's this is just sort of encapsulating it in the board policy manual um okay I think it's pretty clear that what the you know the intent is here is is use use the district account and if you don't don't think you're getting away with anything you can still be subject to public record yeah the other ones and so I thought it was yeah of course but I what I was trying to do is figure out whether well the shallow in the F kind of you know we're in contradiction to each other so I wanted to make sure I clarified okay well that that clarifies it a lot thank you for that a purposeful ambiguity I'm going to have to I'm going to have to steal that and do that ah the next one is on page 77 of 80 years we switched from letters to numbers it's 11 11 this is the duties of the president and this is the context around this has to do with a recent proposal that had been made historically I'm sorry Bob I'm not with you we're saying again yeah it's 11 dot 11 on page 71 67 of 80 so this has to do with appointing committee members and so I guess my question about this is does a point also include removal and the context for this was the recent situation we had no longer on the table where a board member was being proposed to be removed from one committee and moved to another historically appointments to the committees have lasted the entire year and or until a new board member was either appointed or elected in which case you know different skill sets you know may make a movement of committee members you know advantages um so I wanted to get a clarification on that that is is that the president's power to remove committee members as well well I hadn't thought about the clarification here that I could add is that this I think it's clear throughout the board policy manual that it's a board power exercised through a majority to actually make the appointment and so the president's role and I I tried to revise some previously contradictory languages is to make recommendations to fill the committees um but but I hadn't I hadn't given any thoughts for removal yeah I mean so I can see a situation where a board member may wish to resign from the committee in which case that would create an opening or request formally to be reassigned of the board of directors but what I'm trying to do is understand whether or not it is within the president's power basically say hey once we've done these appointments for the year we can also I can also recommend changing those at any time and I guess what I'm looking for here is that's something that everybody understands as a board member that that is sort of the implication and I guess to extend it further but a board member put an item on the agenda to basically reshuffle committees around that at any time during the year Gina did you I guess I'll I could add to this that um at least the intent in my drafting was to you know have the power to make recommendations remain with uh the the president um but you know in terms of how that you know any scenario that may come up I mean like I said I hadn't given any thought to the question of removal but it may be you know implied that if you can appoint you can also shuffle um uh membership um well it's just you know historically we've never done that um except in one case where the board member sort of behaved uh you know in an interesting way and so you know that person would remove from all committee uh as sort of a sanction but outside of that I don't recall that we've ever done the removal part once appointed um so I guess I just looked at the clarification here as to whether we want to make that removal as well point and remove I think you're talking about a hypothetical here Bob and that um nobody was you know that what you're talking about I think obviously is the situation where I offered you uh the if you would like to switch roles on budget and finance and on admin with uh director Henry and this was entirely up to you and so it was not a uh an attempt to remove as if you know the don't mistake what actually happened there um well the main point I would make is that I think that Gina is right in trying to write it um you know sort of uh don't make it too specific because the the role of the chair is to suggest and anything that happens has to be approved by the whole board and so for example there could be a situation where say some member of the board failed to show up for committee meetings routinely right or um was not prepared I don't think it would be you know again we don't have that at least you know in the last few years that hasn't happened but um if if if it did I think it would be perfectly within the purview of the president to to suggest that that person be removed and somebody else take their their place but again the the control against a rogue you know president is that all of these things have to be approved by board mark so bob are you seeking a change to this language or I'm seeking clarification at this point right just the clarification side uh because of the recent experience and and you know Gina I will disagree a bit on on that it was entirely up to me no it's it's it's the lowest decision as well and that's right and and I'm and and I'm I'm reluctant as a board member to say okay somebody gets removed from a committee and replaced by somebody else unless that person initiates the removal process that's what I'm concerned about okay but I guess I guess what we'll do here is again we'll we'll roll with this but okay because of the precedent we had earlier this year it it caused me to think about that when we were okay right so I'm hearing that it would be possible under this language for a director to be removed from a committee or a suggestion to replace one person with another that could be recommended by the board president right yeah so you're okay with okay with rolling with this way it is I'm not okay I would you say I'm not okay with it but we're gonna we're gonna roll with it see if it happens again okay all right we can move forward on nothing okay Lois did you have anything you want to say yeah I I want to say something sometimes things come up and I I and and in this particular case that's been talked about we're looking at loans and whatever and it was thought that Bob Fultz would have a better understanding of loans than I would even though in my work I made loans but they were totally different kinds of loans than what we were doing it seems to me that nothing as as a board member I don't expect that necessarily I'm on a committee that I'm gonna be on that committee all year because things do come up and I think the board president should have the opportunity to come to the board and suggest a change if she thinks it's more beneficial um and so right now we're gonna come up with another board member pretty soon and am I gonna stay on the committees I'm on I don't know I don't know what's gonna happen and I think that's up to the board president um frankly she gets to name who she wants on committees uh in in December and the board gets to vote on it and if we don't like it we can vote no I've never seen that happen but uh it can be done so I I don't see what the big deal is here well it for me it's about the the the precedent so historically we you're right we have switch committee assignments every year at the organizing meeting or when a new board member joins the board but we've not done it sort of midstream and as a precedent you know it's it's it's um it's not that I don't want to have new things but I want to make sure that everybody's on the same page relative to that process and since we've never done it before it was it was just um it was it it bothered me a bit the way that we were talking about it with this conversation I think what I'm hearing is that okay we now all understand and everybody will understand going forward that the board president and presumably any board member could make a recommendation on shuffling committee assignments at any time and um okay we'll see how that goes I I'm uncomfortable with it but we'll see hopefully so any board member can make a suggestion I didn't I didn't hear that that wasn't something that a board member could bring as an agenda I've never heard a board member do that well but I it it's not prohibitive okay I mean I think that frankly I think that's just a little bit again we're talking about hypotheticals and it's just not a very good use of time so I we need to move on to things where Bob you have well again I will disagree with being hypothetical but we are going to move on thank you okay sorry guys we're scrolling scrolling through okay so now I'm back to my suggested edit okay this is on page 62 actually this is my last question my apology my last question page 62 58 of 80 it's item 8a we had talked about this before but about a different topic and my question here on including written backup material is does this standard apply to all agenda items or only two agenda items that a director submits I guess I can speak to that the intention with the edit was for this to apply to an agenda item that the director submits because the question sometimes comes up when a director wants to exercise this right to put something on the agenda you know who does the memo and so this is an attempt to clarify that issue okay and so the director would then be the one writing the memo is that is that what I'm hearing I believe that's the intent of the edit okay page 63 59 I mean Bob just quickly I mean if any right I mean you can have an agenda item without a memo but for what it's worth understand understand okay item excuse me page 63 59 of 80 item 9a and I would like to delete the entire sentence starting with inconsideration one what page was that that was page 63 59 of 80 section 8a excuse me 9a a line 9a 9a right in the middle of that long story 9 alpha middle of the paragraph middle of the paragraph in consideration of I just there's no reason to have time limits we can replace it with a general statement of um but I mean there's just no reason to have this a sentence at all you know meetings take what they take in order to accomplish the public's business okay so that's just your the suggestion or yes it's that entire sentence that says in consideration of all attendees including members of the public staff and directors the chairperson is encouraged to conduct all regular meetings so that they are concluded by 8 30 p.m. or 9 p.m. at the latest that is no more than two to two and a half hours of open session meeting any discussion of that before we so he wants to delete all that just that yeah just to leave the sentence yeah I I think that we need to have some consideration for the public or staff who get to work early and and we have no idea of the public what time they got up in the morning and I I just think okay our meetings start at 6 30 make a compromise here make it 9 30 that's three hours um so 8 30 uh it's two hours two and a half hours I I mean uh sometimes the meetings just go on and on with no purpose okay well I think I think we have a clear thing we can vote on that bob is suggested and so um unless somebody really feels the urge that they want to say something more let's go ahead and um just vote on it or poll on it um all in favor of deleting that sentence please raise your hand that's one by bob is in favor all opposed re-opposed so that change does not go ahead next one is on um page 65 61 of 80 and this would be 9 f as in foxtrot and basically my suggestion is to remove all the red lines except for the word orderly in the first line is there any way you could look at the version attached to the resolution that doesn't have the red lines and kind of translate that into what it would look like against the proposed final text okay do you want me to just read what would be left sure that would that would be great okay what would be left would be in order to promote orderly discussion of the issue before the board of directors each director shall be recognized by the chairperson before speaking notwithstanding any provision of this policy however each director shall have a right to be heard within reason on any statement before the board of directors each director may seek information or comment by their staff on any question period again the reason for this is we're removing what I see in a number of the proposals is additional constraints on the director's reason and ability to communicate on topics in front of the in front of the board our responsibility is to the community as a whole and doing the public's business as a whole and it is our responsibility to make sure that we're doing that diligently and thoroughly and if that requires more than two and a half hours and requires more than a single comment I think or even a second comment I think that that is important particularly for the issues that are going to generate that kind of discussion which are the controversial issue this is there there's no reason to say these kinds of things in a policy they are counter to the democratic process I got a question is he getting rid of the last red stuff also however the right of any director to be heard is limited to particular topic can't even talk is that also eliminated yes that's also eliminated these are all covered by these are all covered by roberts black and white okay these are all covered by roberts rules of order relative to discussion about the topic in hand but I am opposed to limiting artificial limits on the discussion for the most part most of the items that come before us don't require a lot of conversation the ones that do should get all the conversation and more in order to make sure that we're discussing it thoroughly for the I would just say that I will vote to keep it as it is and partly because it says shall typically conduct and this just sort of makes it clear what the order is it's clear to the public it's clear to the board how things will be dealt with and certainly you know as I've run meetings there have been times when we've we've gone back and and had more comment than what's listed here when it's an issue that really justifies it I mean there's some items that are you know the other way there's some items that are so routine that you probably don't even need this so I think that the important thing here is it's just it's the typical way we do it and so to me it doesn't constrain how the chairperson conducts it it just sort of sets out general expectations and that is the issue it communicates to the community we're going to limit you as a director most so it seems to me that we have an agenda and topics and the reason we have an agenda with topics is so the public knows what we're going to talk about so this line about however the right of any director to be heard is limited to the particular topic or item of business at issue and it's supposed to be that way so the public knows what we're going to be talking about so if we wonder off topic the public that isn't at the meeting and since we have summary minutes will not necessarily know that we talked about something else so I don't see what the issue is with that line at all and a chairperson shall endeavor to confine debate to the question under discussion okay I get shut off ever now then because I wonder off into the woods where I think so it's it's just I don't see a problem with that well are you are you suggesting that the first part you would agree to strike and leave in the second part um well the staff presentation if any followed by one opportunity to comment by each director public comment blah blah blah so that doesn't mean it's only going to be talked about once it does it I guess I would actually sort of counter that I think that listing this actually in some ways is protective of directors having yeah their say because there's several rounds of right yeah there normally are several rounds I think actually taking it out I mean one of the reasons we put it in to me was to make it clear to the public how we were going to conduct meetings but also this this protects directors because there's several rounds and you can't have a road president basically you know have have somebody introduce an agenda item and then the president say I want to move x y or z and then you know have a vote so so I you know I would just disagree that this is constraining I realize how you feel about the last paragraph but but I think it's important to say that we need to stay on the agenda and not go off it just for the sake of efficiency of the meetings well I don't think anybody about this so you know this is one of these things that we can we can agree to disagree about yeah I mean I think I think there might be compromise there that's why I was asking you know Lois about that I you know I guess I could I could say okay we'll leave in the last part to take out the first part I I see it it actually has constraining and that there may be some issues where we're going to go four or five and a under this policy a president would be under their rights to say no we're going to limit it to two and you know that that is constraining and most times we only need one but that's not the issues I'm most concerned about so I could accept the compromise to leave in the last part but take out the first part mark did you have anything you wanted to add about this if you're around yes I am around I'm listening to it and what I have to add is the language looks okay to me as is then let's go ahead and um I asked one more question here this says emotion requires a second so we aren't going to get rid of that are we well that's Robert's rules of order that goes without saying Lois sort of goes without saying that that's just Robert's rules well I know it goes without saying but why do we get okay it might not go uh if the public were to look at it they might not know that goes without saying yeah but we could also bring in the entirety of Robert's rules of order you wouldn't want to do that no I don't want to do that but okay so we can we can definitely we can definitely do the poem I think let's do the poll okay so uh Gina has uh recorded um what uh Bob has suggested uh in terms of deleting so um all in favor please raise your hand opposed okay so that change does not pass Bob did you have others if you wanted to Jess yes in um page uh actually this may be more of a question my apologies on this earlier page 66 62 of 80 uh this would be looks like nine uh can't read the letter oh nine india what paragraph uh first paragraph actually first and second so you know we we frequently have material that comes to the board relatively late sometimes even at the meeting I don't necessarily see that as a rare instance um are we saying here going forward that in virtually all cases if all of the material isn't available in the packet that that item will be withdrawn from the agenda that's not but Gina you want to expand on that yeah it certainly wouldn't be in all instances um the language here largely tracks what I my recollection is that we ran it through committee and then adopted it over the summer in the context of dealing with meeting issues you know with virtual meetings and and covid and so forth and the fact materials were sometimes late and we came up with this sort of set of deadlines to establish you know in rare instances when when materials are late how that might be dealt with I think it gives the district manager and the board president discretion to pull an item if the materials aren't available but it also provides some flexibility for instances where um that may not be the best approach right not you mean like if something is incredibly urgent right and you know and and also to be clear that the district has traditionally had circumstances where you know for an example a consultant is invited to give a presentation it's not always the case that the district would require the consultant to provide the power point and time to meet the agenda deadline you know they may be working on materials that are being revised up to the time of the meeting and then it gets presented and then it goes into the it gets posted after the fact is it this set of rules is intended to try to capture all those different scenarios that come up I think that um I just bought one of the things that comes to mind to me is that um you know if if we were presented with something from the staff that we just got at the very last minute and I felt that the board didn't have enough time to read it and that we you know I can't really think of an example where this has happened but where we're sort of being railroaded into making a decision on something that we haven't seen I think it you know would be within the rights of the the president to say no we're not you know we're not going to be forced to do this or for that matter you know the district manager may have asked one of his staff to do something um and they didn't do it to his satisfaction or got it in so late that it really didn't help so that that's what we're trying to capture here is both cases where you want to pull something and then cases where there's an emergency situation where you might want to allow um this to happen I mean I was not on the board but I at that time but I can imagine that during the fire you guys were you know you were meeting all the time and we're probably dealing with things that came to you at the last minute and that was exactly the right thing to do under those circumstances so I think it's trying to give us flexibility or at least that's how I I thought it was and would with board members also be able to make an appeal to the president they felt that there was not adequate time to digest something and it was not an emergency oh absolutely I mean that's why we ask you know are there any additions or deletions and I I think that it's perfectly within the rights of a board member to say hey you know I just got this uh you know five hours ago and you can't expect me to read these things you know in that short of time frame and okay so so the board members would have the ability at that point to also comment in addition to Rick on behalf of storm that wasn't clear to him so that's that's good well I I certainly I've assumed that that when we ask if there's additions and deletions that you know anybody on the board can comment on that um I don't know am I am I wrong on that interpretation you know I you know that's not to say that the the board president would necessarily agree and I understand yeah absolutely I mean the president could always put it to a vote if that's what I would think I would do is if this came up I would say what is the rest of the board of think and then we go go from there okay no I mean that's really good I mean I mean this is one of the benefits of having these conversations is to make sure that we're all in the same page with respect to expectations that was not something that I understood so I've been on the board for two years so that's that's a good good thing to know um okay now the comment what Lois did you I thought I saw your hand I was under the impression that uh additions to the agenda have to almost be an emergency you can't just board member can't say uh do an addition well I think it's a super majority but you know that right well it depends there's there's only a couple of very narrow circumstances where you can even do it and then the requirement depends on how it arises but yeah so additions are tough but deletions are much more straightforward yeah deletions wouldn't be but additions is what I'm talking about here we put additions to votes they would likely fail in most cases right so you can't you can't do them but we always ask for additions at the start of the board meeting well because something could have come up that we don't know about that's an emergency and Rick or Gina could inform us right and so the the items we're asking for really the emergency items not just any agenda well I I mean additions are difficult you gotta have very good reason to do an addition the Brown Act is very specific about the requirements for additions and I think they're recorded in some form in our agenda those requirements yeah I heard you're right I remember reading that is that satisfied you Bob you want to go into the next one yeah I know that that was a great clarification I do appreciate the time on the next one is on page 68 64 of 80 this is on items well this we'll start with item one just from a historical perspective we had a lot of controversy in the district about votes being shut down by previous board not able to communicate their concerns in a in a comprehensive fashion I think with some of the changes that have been made to the board's culture and conduct and more openness to hearing from all points of view um I think we sort of have perhaps thought well the issues like that could never happen again one of the reasons for having a five-minute um length of time is to effectively tell the community and uh the voters that you really have it's not unlimited you know we do have this limit of five minutes but it's very difficult for someone to talk to five minutes there's a handful of people I'm sure they could but most people not an issue but what it does is it communicates to people that we're here to listen to you fully and one of the things that I really dislike is you know the big uh the big sound that comes out when people are talking um because it's it's distracting and I I know for people that aren't necessarily used to getting up and talking about things it can also be somewhat intimidating so I would like to remove that the red lines and basically leave it the way that it is nice I'm one of those people who can talk for five minutes and say not much because I talk slow uh and uh I'd say when I had three minutes I'd say wow all right I even said that one was five minutes but I I think three minutes is plenty for more most people and the board president and and I I did this with people when I was board president even when they got five minutes I would say finish your thought please uh or something like that I that's what I would do I I didn't say okay boom stop uh and but three minutes for most people is and um and it's pretty standard uh for me it's not enough time because like I say I talk slow oh I can remember my dad talk about somebody who talks slow so um I'm fine with the three minutes I understand your your point about wanting to be welcoming of uh comments from the public and I guess I think that we sort of prove that the three minutes were well and that is when we had a very long meeting because we allowed everybody in the public to speak on the issue of consolidation um you know with scott's valley and we limited it because there were so many people there there was almost a hundred people the three minutes and and I there were actually very few people that I had to ask to finish their thoughts um and I I just thought it I mean I was frankly surprised at how well it went um people were respectful um there wasn't too much repetition um and and so I I considered that an experiment that showed that three minutes actually helped to focus people and um they were respectful and we responded to them respectfully and I I guess I just thought it was a successful experiment well I'm I'm not surprised at all actually um I found that in uh earlier board meetings um you know back a few years that there were a lot of very well spoken people that were making really good points but to me this is really one of the key foundations of establishing that new culture um and I'm I'm really very disturbed that we are rolling this back uh to the way that was before because that is in fact the policy that was in place when those not so great things were happening with respect to the board and community uh discussion so um yeah okay um but we can move to the poll if you wish okay what we're basically saying is that we do not accept the revision to three minutes and go back to the five minutes yeah just leave it as is yeah leave it so all in favor all opposed okay it doesn't pass next one is just a little bit further down in item two there is a very thick red line basically if the question is answered in real time the board president will ask if the question is will ask if the question is answered and if not allow a short follow-up request with clarification again one of the cultural things that we found prior to uh 2018 is that people would ask questions they would either not get answers or they would get incomplete answers and it became really frustrating for the community members in those interactions this was put in place as part again of changing that culture of getting to where the engagement with the community was actually more welcoming and more interactive in that regard rather than just people asking questions and the board moving on again very disturbed to see this being removed I think that's taking us back to that old culture uh that we that was in place and um yeah not a great comment on that yes um I have heard president may hood say several times during the four months now that I've been on the board virtually that exact statement that's being made it's being deleted so her policy I what's that her policy that she well um she has said was your question answered answered by that response so in by me saying that I agree with Bob's uh suggestion on that to remove that deletion wait say that again what what are you I didn't quit remove um the language has been deleted oh okay so restore the language deletion right I know it's a little bit counter and I know it's a double negative yes but I gotta follow along with the double I understand Bob that you're you know I think what Mark is saying is that that somebody that's a good president should just do that right well by being a you know a good leader but it probably doesn't hurt to put it in the that's Bob's making the point I see you doing it routinely leave the language in there then okay any other comments so the suggestion that often saying is that we do not delete the question the excuse me the sentence that begins if a question is answered um in real time etc is that crack pop that's great okay and so all in favor of Bob's suggestion raise your hand okay whoops I can't bear sorry okay so that's unanimous so that change is accepted next well it's yeah it's the same thing as before in terms of this going back to three minutes so I'll skip over that since everybody said they didn't want to do that once already um we already talked about 1111 and the last one sorry guys it takes a while to scroll down so I don't go past it right okay this is on 14 excuse me this is on page 72 68 of 80 section 14 committees sorry page 73 that was the paragraph we we didn't do a paragraph number so it's page 73 69 of 80 and it's going to be the sixth paragraph in section 14 and that paragraph starts with administrative budget and finance engineering environmental committees and basically I would like to remove the words but no more than three public members any again this goes to the creation of a of a different culture in the community by basically allowing us to excuse me staff committees to a level that we deem appropriate without limitation for that committee and I believe we had seven members on an environmental committee one at one point in time and the chair said it went great the way it used to be I think there was only one public member on committees and even with only one member on a committee sometimes committees had a hard time getting things done but I think three is a perfect number the more people you have the more people you need to even have the meeting to have a quorum and also if you have somebody who likes to talk a lot you're not going to get anything done unless you agree so I I think three members is I think three is a perfect number it's just my favorite number and that's all I got to see any other comments okay so uh let's hold that question basically um as I understand it bob you're suggesting that we just delete that addition uh two that says but no more than three public members is that correct okay all in favor all opposed that change does not pass I believe that was the last one all right thank you all for your consideration okay is there any other comments or questions before I um basically what I'd like to do now is go out to the public to see if they have any comments or questions I see we have one two three four people uh from the public here do any of them want to make a comment seeing none hearing none we'll uh go ahead and um go back and um do another round of discussions of the changes that we've seen that'll give Gina a chance to put together all of the revisions that we've had um do uh Lois are you running off or I was gonna start I have to let my dog in okay so we'll we'll we'll move on to uh Director Smalling to Mark if he wants to make any comments at this point um if Gina has captured the changes we've discussed I'd like to make a motion that we approve the resolution um that is attached uh to her memo adopting this board policy manual with with the revisions that we have just discussed with the revisions that we um voted on and approved may I just for the record given that this is a resolution approval of a final policy manual just quickly go through them I have only four yeah let's wait till Lois is back just so that we make sure that everybody is on board on this um what he made the resolution okay so Mark made the resolution Lois uh Gina is now going to read the resolution with the revisions that we voted to approve okay before we seek a second on that on Mark's uh motion okay if I may I'm not gonna modify the language of the resolution I'm just gonna propose a slightly if Director Smalling agrees a slightly more detailed motion that captures the particular changes so uh you propose Director Smalling a motion to to approve the resolution uh adopt the resolution in the board packet um which will approve and adopt uh the board policy manual is exhibit one I'm just going to clarify that the specific changes to it uh that the board directed be made in the course of this discussion tonight are uh first to change the deadline for public member applications uh it said honor about November 15th that's been changed to honor about November 26th that in section 8a each director's right to place items on a subsequent board agenda is subject to scheduling by the district manager in consultation with the board president the words district manager in consultation with the were added in section 8 letter D the limit on contacts with district council was changed from a quarter of an hour to a half an hour and finally in section 9 letter paragraph 2 the sentence was added back into paragraph 2 that reads if a question is answered in real time comma the board president will ask if the question was answered and comma if not comma allow a short follow-up request for clarification and that's all of them holly can we have a roll call vote um I'm sorry we need a second I second it always seconds it and we now have the opportunity for everybody to make a comment and also to go back out to the public thank you bob for reminding me all right so please let's first uh hear from the uh members of the board if there's anybody that wants to comment bob go ahead you know I want to say I know this has been a um a process and a longer process than what we've done in the past but um I do think that there's been some really substantive improvements made I think gene has done a lot of really great work in reorganizing this and making it into a much better policy and I don't want um that to be lost in the midst of all the changes that we were talking about um I think these are the kinds of things that actually send messages into the community about who we are and it's very important that we get this as as right as we possibly can there are things in this policy that I don't agree with that I will be obviously looking to continue to change in the future because I think they run countered what um I ran on and what um I wanted to see happen but um the overall improvements in this I think are really substantive in that area I also wanted to as Gina was going through the changes I also wanted to say I think each one of us had a change I think that is a really balanced uh approach where um everybody got uh something that they were concerned about addressed and so I really want to thank um everybody for working on this so hard it's been a really great process thank you thank you Bob night night like a sentiment so thank you and again just echoing especially uh Gina doing this in such a way that we could have this this outcome all right uh so we have a motion on the table are there any more um and seconded any more comments by members of the board before I go out to the public okay any comments by the four members of the public that are um hanging in there with us seeing none and hearing none we'll go back and I will now ask holly for a roll call vote um may I first note that this this is resolution 17 21 2021 17 parentheses 2021 yeah okay um president mayhood aye vice president henry aye director foals yes and director smally yes motion passes unanimously great all right got through that all right so next um we have the consent agenda which consists of the minutes um for uh three meetings do any of the directors want to remove them from the consent agenda Bob yeah my apology but we need to remove for me anyway we need to remove the march uh we get back to it the march 18th meaning I was not present um so I I don't want to vote on that and I also would like to remove the four one because I have uh one edit that I would like to add to it okay so as I understand it then um for the 3 18 one we just need to vote and you'll abstain because you weren't there is that what you're getting at yes right okay um so can we do that now is that is that all right so um we'll uh vote on acceptance of the board of directors being minutes for march 18th Karen I would just uh uh if if you would please public comment on the oh okay I'm sorry um I didn't know that okay I didn't realize the consent agenda that the panel when it gets pulled well and also the way we have it is the public can pull can request have things pulled as well that was actually on district okay yeah all right okay consent agenda we can we can talk about this later but I think this is not a good idea I think the idea of having the uh public comment and pull district reports but maybe not on the consent agenda um are there any uh public comments on any of the minutes seeing none hearing none what I'd like to do is uh we will uh without hearing any objections we will go ahead and um approve the director meetings for 3 11 21 and now I'd like to bring the minutes of march 18th 21 to a uh roll call vote olly sorry I was writing uh director may hood I vice president Henry so I'm only improving 3 11 and 3 18 no no march 18th so 3 11 and 3 18 is march those are the only two things we're approving what well 3 11 we we basically said because nobody pulled it it is part of the consent agenda so without objection it it is approved okay but for one was pulled yes yes okay I I can't hear you bob um okay I yes on the 3 11 and 3 18 okay director smally yes and director false was absent I'll abstain abstain and director false you're pulling the minutes for April 1st and go ahead and tell us what you'd like to change yes in addition under um item number 11 unfinished business uh item a graph high level budget presentation um I would like to add the following to uh that section of the notes um okay let me that would be on page 100 thank you um sorry I don't the number is too small for me to read and blow that up it's three of four I think on the uh on the moon but it's page 100 again okay so the first thing is uh it's 11 a draft high level budget presentation so what would you like to add for chair I'd like to add as a summary b-fold stated that based on the numbers presented comma the proposed budget for 2021-2022 showed operating expenses increasing by almost the same amount as a proposed rate increase meaning we are not getting ahead of our capital obligations he does not support this approach can you state that last part who does not support him but b-folds does not support this approach I don't even know where you are okay um I think bob that consistent with what we agreed on that these are summary minutes you need to come up with a shorter statement of that before I would vote for it well that is the that is the short statement well make it shorter you know I think that um anybody tell me where we are at the moment we are on page 100 lois okay and which item 11 a 11 a okay and okay I see it now I thought I was clear down here on okay all right okay well um you know remember bob that what we agreed on is yeah yeah no I know I know I got it that's why I came here with this language right that is a summary of the comment that I made during the discussion I think that you need to come up with something shorter as in um director faults express concern about the continuing increase in in the operating budget period um okay that would be fun thank you good all right so that that that's it did you get that holly it's recorded I can listen to the recording yes I'll just restate that so that we can vote on it the director falls um express concern about the increase continued increase in the operating expenses that right bob or yeah that that that works that that's fine yeah I appreciate you with what we all agreed upon okay with that can we um adopt the minutes for April 1st with the um vision that uh director folks uh suggested I will I will make that motion to adopt the minutes of April 1st 2021 as modified by uh director folks I'll second that uh director mayhood excuse me president mayhood uh I go to the public I think I have to go to the public oh do the public have anything to say about this so seeing none hearing none we can go back to the roll call but holly thank you excuse me um director mayhood excuse me president mayhood dang i was fine we're at that time of the night the first names are okay apparently vice president henry no director falls yes director smally yes no question passes great right now we uh move on to district reports and what I would like to do is just divide this up actually so that first we consider this department status reports then committee reports and then director reports so in each case the public can if they want to uh say anything they can so are there any uh director comments or questions about department status reports yes I have one okay mark go ahead um I see in a number of the in particular the engineering committee meeting that I've seen it in the environmental committee meetings um el sanders said that he would like to see each committee to prepare a statement in writing regarding the consolidation process that's being discussed um I did not uh want to ignore that comment since I see that uh mr sanders has made that in several of the committee meetings but it is my opinion that um the consolidation uh aspects are being appropriately addressed by our district manager and the district manager from scott's valley at your hand raised yes thanks I have two items I believe um the first one is on the uh finance and business status report this is on page 122 it's the past due analysis summary so I wanted to recognize the effort that Stephanie put into this report to modify it um a little bit to make it clear I think it's at least for me much clearer and also to add in the um line there about um the past due that's over 30 days which I consider to be the real past due anything within 30 days they might officially be past due but it's not you know it's not really the the same critical nature and as we can see there that portion is staying roughly the same um 375 000 in october and 368 here in february so I think this is a really good way of presenting the information and I wanted to recognize Stephanie's efforts and doing that so thank you for that the second question was on the operation status report I do like looking at the production numbers uh graphics would be great but this helps and I'm had a question about the numbers from felton for both um february and march why they are so high can you give us the page number bob sorry page 150 your question was uh why are those numbers so high coming from felton yeah and you know concurrent with that why the well production for the north system looks to be low that is due to using of it six pumping water north into the north system from the felton system to make up for surface water loss from the intakes on ben loma mountain due to the fire so just to make sure I'm clearing this so we're actually exporting water from felton to the north system are we doing that under an emergency declaration that's correct okay and that emergency declaration has been in effect since the fire that's correct okay great um so that actually is for the precursor to what we might possibly do as an ongoing operational thing once we get the ability to do that outside of the emergency situation that's correct and that's some part of our conjunctive use right and also during that time period we have exported water from the north system into felton when the felton sources were taken offline due to turbidity and fire concerns right so I mean this this to me is a great object lesson and the advantages of being able to operate our system as a comprehensive pole as opposed to three separate systems so the faster we can get there I think the better it's going to be for for us in general we've also found a benefit in it when the upper stem stream flow due to those intakes not being online in the upper system it's putting more water into the upper stream and then we're moving water from down further upstream well it looked to me like our fall creek um and big trees uh low requirements are being met is that correct yes so that is that is um good news in that front though of course we want to get all of our pre-1914 water sources back in operation as soon as we can yes um because they're pre-1914 correct okay well um really great thank you for the information okay are there um any comments from the public about uh department status reports uh Cynthia Senzel can you unmute Cynthia so she can make a comment here we go can you hear me now thank you uh so um responding to bob's comment about the felton system so when the fall creek fish ladder is revised how long will fall creek be out of operation it will not be out of operation it is going to have a temporary intake installed during construction and how soon will the north system be back online all right now we have one of the intakes back online currently uh we'll be trying to get the a second one online in the next fiscal year and we hope to have the other two creeks online within the next three years which would be clear creek as we water creek and the amount of water that's being diverted from fall creek um is that how many months of the year is that expected to take place we will be exercising that until we are in vial vial until we cannot do it without violating the fall creek or water right so when the stream flow gets too low that would be the trigger point for stopping that transfer that's correct and when do you expect that to be um and this with the low rainfall this year it probably is going to hit us in about august maybe july well it's to be determined because we're looking at we're not looking at the the big the big trees gauge we're looking strictly up at uh the fall creek intake right right so that'll be you know we that'll be weather dependent and we will monitor if we monitor daily so um the water rights um discussion with the city of santa cruz now is that affecting our ability to take water from fall creek in other words you say we're not monitoring at big trees we're monitoring at fall creek to determine how much we can take out that's correct and that the santa cruz is not impacting what we're doing right now that discussion okay and is that based on our water rights having been changed uh or reinterpreted no we're we're in the process of submitting to the state water board a a urgency change in use due to the cz u fire um so this has all been directly reflective off of the cz u fire and will that become permanent unknown at this time probably not we're working on conjunctive use and we're working on other types of uh conjunctive use projects that we're looking at to become permanent and so that will be determined through the santa margarita water agency not necessarily I think we're getting we're getting off subject here yeah no I think I think what Cynthia is trying to get at is is whether the the changes in in water permits and rights that santa cruz is do affects us and it doesn't affect us yet so we're we're operating under the same permits that we've operated under and because of that we're not in violation of anything at big trees and we'll still operate in the same way um in terms of the fall creek bypass so you know and and that city of santa cruz issue will be taken up uh you know at the state level almost going to take a while we've put in the district has put in a protest of it so I I don't see you know my guess is that nothing's going to happen um you know at least for a while on that and santa margarita has really nothing to say about surface water its whole goal is to reach sustainable levels in the aquifers um and so when we're talking about water that's really at the state level and margarita doesn't doesn't really bear on that directly thank you you're welcome any other questions from the public okay um then let's uh where am I you know one full of questions actually a pretty key one based on what I heard um rick say I wanted to make sure I got clear in my mind do we actually have an emergency designation in place today for the water that's being exported from felton to the north system or is that a prospective uh designation we're in the process of that designation right now with the state okay so we're we're exporting water in advance of getting official approval that's correct we've been in contact through email and phone calls and consultation um and this is the route that we're going now and submitting the temporary and they know about the fact that we know about it that's correct that that's the key point we're making sure okay great thank you okay um let's see we've done department status reports and now we are on to if I remember correctly committee reports are there any comments or questions by directors if not are there any comments or questions from the public hearing none and seeing none we now go to directors um reports and I I do have one as a director and that is that uh Rivka Lund resigned from the budget and finance committee effective immediately just before the last meeting on march 16th um of this year so the committee now consists of four members for the purposes of a um forum uh the chair of the committee um Lois has expressed her preference that we not try to add another public member at this time because we're getting so far along in the budget process that um you know if we were to advertise it right now it would we wouldn't get somebody until may or June and we're pretty far along and is that fair to say Lois am I I don't again I don't want to put words in your mouth right we we should be uh wrapping up the budget because we're coming to the end of the fiscal year now June 30th is the end so so I'll you know I'll so this is just my report of what this the status is right now so we still have the two members who have both been quite active um I think and and one in particular has really been quite helpful I thought um so that's the status of that committee is there anything else that um directors uh Rick go ahead but not directors I I I wanted to go back to operations I forgot one quick note that uh we hope to uh close escrow tomorrow on the nekari property and that's where uh we are very close council nickels it's just about has it over the the finish line um couple minor um things to complete and um it should be closed tomorrow can you add anything to that I'll ask you about the details of that but I will know later next meeting all right that's good that's that's great news um are there any other director communications I had a question about the budget committee could we um put that on the agenda for the next meeting to discuss uh advertising or public numbers uh yes we we can do on the May 6th meeting that would be fabulous like that yeah we'll do that thank you can I chair may who could I make a quick clarification here yeah um I think right now um there would have been an action when the public committee members were appointed establishing it as a five seat committee uh which would give it a three person quorum and then with the person the public member resigning it would still be a three member quorum but uh at some point because of the way we've been handling the changing committee sizes there would need to be an action to actually change the number of seats um unless we change the approach and have you know the same as the number of members and that's that's one reason to put it on next meeting okay maybe we can that that sounds like it might be a slightly complicated thing to discuss holly did you did you have something you wanted us to clarify well I just wanted to note that the budget and finance committee has that item on their agenda for the 21st as sorry say that again I haven't read read the agenda the agenda for the budget and finance committee on the 21st of April has that opening on the for discussion all right that's good so we can discuss it and we can come back with a recommendation that can be considered at the May 6th regular board meeting right and at that point we can discuss it with the whole board that that actually seems like a great kind of way to handle it lois I just want to remind everybody that if we uh appoint somebody to the budget and finance committee meeting their term is up in december uh that's the rule that no matter when they get picked their term is up in december the end of november I'm not really sure but if someone is let's talk about it in the next meeting yeah I think I think so we can we can discuss this there's you know there's uh it's there's pluses and minuses of adding people and let's let's discuss the next meeting as bob suggested so we we I'll work with rick to get this agenda is for the May 6th meeting okay holly holly you have your hand up did you have something else you wanted to no okay all right um so there's an item here called future board of directors meeting agenda items is that something rick that you wanted to say or Gina at this point or or I thought that was a request from board members to put that back on I thought that was a request from you gail no the directors communications was a board members have an opportunity to either ask a question or ask to have something put on the agenda or I mean and or report something that happened on a committee and so that actually went exactly as I had hoped we ended up with with a decision about how to deal with uh you know gail I think putting that on the agenda is a really great thing it's something that I think that needed to be on there for a while because stuff comes up and you just never know how to talk about it so that's great thank you for putting it on yeah it gives us a chance to talk about briefly uh things that we you know as you say that come up and and figure out how to deal with them down the road great um is there anything else that we need to do otherwise um I will happily ask that we now adjourn all right thank you all tonight I thought I thought we made a lot of progress on things so thank you all for uh working hard and being cooperative about it night