 at being 5.30 I would like to convene this meeting of the Board of Directors of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District on May 6th, 2021. Would you please take the roll, Holly? President Mayhood. Here. Vice President Henry. Here. Director Fulse. Here. And Director Smalley. Here. Thank you. Are there any additions and deletions to the closed session agenda? So then we have the time for oral communications regarding items in the closed session. Do we have any people online? Now we don't. Okay, with that we'll adjourn here and re-adjourn in the closed session. Thank you. There you are. 6.30. So I would like to convene this open session Board of Directors of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District for May 6th. Holly, you want to go ahead and call the roll? President Mayhood. Here. Vice President Henry. Here. Director Fulse. Here. And Director Smalley. Here. There are no actions taken, there were no actions taken in the closed session so there's nothing to report here. Are there any additions and deletions to the agenda? Staff has none. This is now the time for- Excuse me, I do have a potential addition to the agenda. So this would be the item that we voted on back in March to bring the report on the consolidation to the Board of Directors on May 6th and it was not on the agenda. So it should be on the agenda if for nothing else to address what the situation is as to why it isn't on the agenda. I remembered the question being formulated. Maybe Mark can you address that? I will read the motion. That would be helpful. Okay. I will read the motion if that would be helpful. It was Mark Smalley made a motion to request our district manager contact the district manager at Scotts Valley Water District to prepare a brief summary of pros and cons to include a rudimentary budget analysis and to come back to the board for that information at the first second and it was unanimously passed. I could quick interjecture to speed this up. The Scotts Valley consolidation was agreed upon to be put on this agenda. However, we did put it on hold until the board vacancy could be filled and if the vacancy is filled tonight we will bring this item to the May 20th board meeting. To you, Directors Smalley and Fultz? Yes. Well it should be something that the entire board would be interested in. I mean the board did provide a specific directive and to my knowledge the entire board was not consulted with respect to whether or not it should be left off the agenda. We have had urgent items on the agendas before where we have just appointed a new member and they've dived right in with both feet. So I don't know why we would create an exception here. However, if the request is for second week delay, two week delay, that would be fine as everybody might remember. I was advocating for six months but my main point here is in order to be transparent with the community, it's better to at least address it proactively and forthrightly rather than just leave it off the agenda as if it didn't exist. Anybody else have any comments on that? Go on to the oral communications from the public. This is the portion of the agenda that's reserved for oral communications by the public on any subject that is within the jurisdiction of the district but is not on the agenda tonight. And I see we have two hands up. Jim Mosher. Yes, thank you board. I appreciate all the work you're doing for the district and I just became aware in the last 10 days that the Santa Cruz county has sued the water district. I've read the complaint against the water district about the Bear Creek Road incident I guess a year ago and I was hoping I know that this has been discussed in closed session and I know that very limited amount of information you can give us but I would be I think it would be helpful for ratepayers to at least understand if there's been any engineering reports or anything about what happened on that road that would be part of the public record so that we can have a better understanding of what this lawsuit is about. It just seems odd that we have a one point whatever it is one point two million dollar lawsuit against the water district and essentially no information about what the heck's going on. I know this is tricky because it has to be discussed in closed session but I'm hoping that there's some public documents that can be provided to ratepayers so they can understand at least rudimentarily what's going on. Thank you. Rick would you like to answer that? Well because it is pending litigation we usually don't talk about it in open session without conferring with legal counsel and I don't usually refer to legal counsel under questions but I well hear. Gina would you like to weigh in on this? Yeah I mean the two documents that exist at this point that lay out what the issues are between the county and the district are the county's complaint and the district's claim that was filed with the county and I'm not sure there's much more that we can say at this point. As we're coming you're muted. Rick you're unmuted. Go ahead and talk. Okay thank you. I'd like to address the issue of board resignations. Five of the last 11 board elected board members have resigned. Two board members have resigned in the last six months. This is a pattern a trend that is not good for our water district. If a pump well our other piece of equipment had this kind of performance we would do something to fix it quickly. I've been involved in the appointment process and involved with the board when they previously voted to have a special election to fill Steve Swan's seat when he resigned. The board reversed that decision due to the long delay and the high cost and other crises that were happening at that time. We must do something to reverse this trend. I recommend that our legal counsel work with our two state representatives Mark Stone and John Laird and try to work out of some sort of reform with the laws governing special districts with a more immediate election process and find a way to reduce costs. The voters deserve to have a direct hand in the selection of board members. Thank you very much. Thank you Rick. On to new business and the first is a review of applications for the existing board vacancy and we had two applicants for that position. Alina Lang and Jamie Ackerman and so we're going to go ahead and interview them tonight and the way this is going to work for the members that are attending. Each one of them will give a five-minute presentation. Then I will ask a series of questions to both of them and then board members will be offered a chance to ask an additional question if they'd like and to make a comment if they'd like at which point we'll go out for public questions and then this will be followed by board discussion. So with that we'll go ahead and we'll start with Alina and you have five minutes to tell us about yourself. You're muted Alina. Yeah that would help. Thank you. All right well Alina Lang here. You know when I first returned home after this easy fire I knew it was waiting for me but nothing would prepare me for what I was about to see. You know part of my block was just gone. I first started down this path of choosing to be active with the San Lorenzo Valley Water District because I wanted to help our community recover from this devastating fire the best way that I knew how. Well this is still very much true. I've come to realize that the district has an overwhelming need for someone with a background in fisheries biology and aquatic ecology. I was appointed to the environmental committee in January and I've used this position to contribute my knowledge to the Fall Creek Fish Ladder modifications, Olympia Conservation easement area contract, and reattaining District Owned Zianti watershed parcels for future possible future mitigation use. In addition I've attended board meetings and other committees as a public member to familiarize myself with the current water district issues. I spent a lot of time researching grants and I was really excited to be able to weigh in a little bit on the hiring of the grant wider in the administration committee meeting as we need to be aggressively going after funding right now. I also went back and I listened to the Santa Margarita Groundwater Agency meetings to be more informed about the state of our groundwater in the SLV watershed and what I heard was the topic of our ESA listed salmonas you know being brought up over and over again and during the the January meeting of the Santa Margarita Groundwater Agency the Santa Cruz Water Department stated that they feel like they're the only ones putting any money into habitat restoration for the listed species. You know I know it's not entirely true but I don't want our watershed partners to feel this way and we should be doing our part. We live in a watershed that is so chopped up by different water districts, public and private lands that it's difficult to manage water diversions and the impact on stream flow in the ecosystem as a whole. With the additional pressures of climate change upon us it is more imperative than ever that we work collaboratively with our watershed neighbors. There's also going to be a lot of upcoming discussions with regulatory agencies centered on our diversions and groundwater pumping, how they impact the habitat of federally protected fish population and how best to minimize and mitigate those impacts. We need to be collaborative partners with these state and local agencies. You know I want to be a problem solver. I care deeply about helping SLV water district meet their missions while also protecting our watersheds by balancing species needs with the water district needs. You know the city of Santa Cruz has been working on their habitat conservation plan since 2001. The National Marine Fisheries Service wants to start those talks with San Lorenzo Valley Water District. My appointment would be beneficial in bridging the gap that often caused delays and misunderstandings between water suppliers and regulatory agencies. We can move swiftly through this process. I'm also deeply concerned about equity having donated many hours and contributed monetarily to this cause. It's a particular concern with SLV ratepayers because water is life and people have the right to affordable drinking water. I spoke up at the recent administration committee when the topic of moving to owner-only accounts came up as it would kick renters off our rate assistance program. You know it only affected four accounts however I understand that if you're one of those people and there's no extra cash at the end of the month this could be a lifeline. My promise to ratepayers is to seek ways to achieve water equity. I've been a public servant my entire career, participating in research and monitoring for population viability and recovery plans covering all life history stages of salmonids from collecting genetic data at sea to hiking miles of rivers searching for reds, fawn adults and categorizing critical habitat. I was a biologist in a large regulatory monitoring study focused on juvenile salmonid passage and survival through the federal Columbia River power system. I came to California on drought funding where I was the primary resource and guidance for technical and field operations and innovative pilot study to cultivate new technology and test the feasibility of monitoring salmonids in the Bay Delta using Pitt technology. I've been the support for countless projects helping to advance our understanding of salmonid and watershed sustainability while pushing the limits of science. My strong environmental background would help fill the knowledge gap on the board created by Tina Tu's resignation. It would be my honor to serve my community. Thank you. Thank you Alina. Jamie go ahead. Thank you. So first of all I think that you've got two really great candidates before you and I have the benefit of having gotten to know Alina a little bit as well. As we were both candidates the last time you went through this selection process. So rather than spend a lot of time telling you about my professional background I wanted to tell you a little bit more about myself and why my deep roots in the valley make me the right choice for this position because I agree with an earlier speaker what Rick Moran said is true you need longevity in the people that are on this board and that's important to the valley in terms of the work that's being done here. I've lived here for 15 years. I've raised both of my children here. I have a daughter who is just graduating from college and coming home to the valley actually on May 15th. I can't wait. My younger one is a junior at SLV. I've got friends whose homes burned down on West Tilton out in Boulder Creek and I've got a cousin who lives on memory lane. My brother-in-law is on Elsoyo Heights in Felton and I've got great friends all over this valley. This is a really special place and it deserves people who have deep roots here and plan to be here for the long haul and I think that that's one of the reasons that if selected I would make a good candidate. In addition to my deep roots in the valley I have a water background and what makes me different as a candidate is that I understand the politics and the local government. I understand the nature of the way these regulatory agencies work together and I understand that what the board needs to do in order to affect change. Not only do I have close local relationships with local and state and federal government officials, I'm family friends with Anna Eshoo, our congresswoman, but I've also worked closely with Mark Stone and John Laird on other projects in the past when I was with Caltrain when we were achieving $1.5 billion for electrification on that project and when I was with Santa Cruz Metro and we were appealing for greenhouse gas emissions grants. So I think for those reasons my understanding of the water industry I've worked at San Jose water so I have dealt with the same kinds of watershed and environmental conditions that we are facing here as San Jose water is one of the largest landowners in the Santa Cruz mountains because they own the watershed that's over near the summit. And finally you know I think that what I recognized when I decided I wanted to get more involved in my local community and like Alina it was after the CZU fires which affected us all that I decided I had spent enough time in work on the other side of the hill and I wanted to work to improve my local community. What I realized was that so many of us here you know we're just not investing here because we have to leave the valley in order to work. And it's been really interesting this last year during the pandemic when so many people had to go home and we all started talking to each other more about what's happening here at home that's one of the reasons that I first put my name in to be considered as a candidate for the board position that opened up earlier this year. And that's one of the reasons that I decided to become involved with the San Lorenzo Valley Post doing some of the work I've been doing covering water issues for them and also in engaging with the friends of San Lorenzo Valley water because I really wanted to deepen my understanding of what are the needs and how can I be of service to the community. And I very much believe that participating on the San Lorenzo Valley Water District's board would be a high and good use of my time. Thank you very much and now we'll go ahead and do a set of questions to each of you. And if you see me cut my video off it's not an editorial comment it's just that my connection is not so good and it gets better if I have to turn my picture off. So what I want to start with is some issues that are facing or what you think issues are facing the district and the role of the board is to provide oversight and guidance regarding current activities while keeping in mind the long-term health of the district. Alina in your opinion what is the most significant near-term issue and the most significant long-term issue facing the district? Well the near-term I think is trying to get our surface waters you know completely back up and running to the fullest extent. So when we do have our winter storms and we can be taking that excess water off of it instead of relying so much on groundwater you know I would said I have been going back and I watched the Santa Margarita groundwater meetings and I mean that's just terrifying with these models that are getting run and the decline of our groundwater so I think in the short term you know fixing all the infrastructure from the fire and then the long term you know it's all it's kind of tied to that is our groundwater sustainability in the long term and then I think also working with our partners as far as our fisheries and you know making sure we are working on habitat restoration and taking that stuff into consideration. Okay Jamie in this case I have the same question for you. In your opinion what is the most significant near-term issue and the most significant long-term issue facing the district? Well I would have to say that my answer would be very similar to Alina's. I think that that in general fire recovery is going to and fire recovery and frankly the deepening and worsening drought that we're headed into in all likelihood at least until the next rainy season are both going to be twin challenges for us over the next year because you know we're going to be in the position of having to continue to rebuild our infrastructure to allow us to have the amount of storage capacity available to respond long term to the conditions that we're dealing with right now in the throws of a drought. I think that our challenges are going to be compounded this summer because in all likelihood it's going to be a busy fire season knock wood not here but we may have some here and I also think that our neighbors in Big Basin are going to have some challenges very near-term that the district is going to have to step in to at least find some way to help out with. So that would be the near-term long-term. I agree the challenges regarding the negotiations with Santa Cruz about the water rights how that affects the relationship with the Santa Margarita aquifer and the the you know overcharge issue that they're dealing with with the Santa Margarita groundwater agencies. I think that long term we're all going to have to deal with that because those those fights are only going to get more critical as we head deeper into drought. We know that the city of Santa Cruz is already at such a significant water deficit that you know it's going to be who of us to be smart about any negotiations we make as we go forward and look at water rights issues. Okay thank you. My next questions for the both of you have to do with the Santa Margarita groundwater agency. The district is a member of this agency which has the state mandated goal of raising groundwater levels and achieving sustainability of the groundwater basin over the next 20 years. Alina one of the side benefits of raising groundwater levels is that leakage from aquifers to creeks and the San Lorenzo River raises their level with benefits for fisheries. So I'd like to ask you as an expert in fisheries to tell us about Salmon and fisheries historically in the watershed. There's this situation now and what we might expect with future climate change and the role you think the district should take concerning the fisheries. Well historically we had wonderful runs of Salmon and so Stillhead and Coho and mainly our Coho creeks were Fall Creek and Bean Creek but I did take a look at the National Marine Fisheries Service what they declare as critical habitat. They got a lot of streams covered is what they think that you know that that should be considered critical habitat and you know the Stillhead kind of extend up a little farther but they even put Coho on Forman and Peavine which is two of our Diversions Creek which I found pretty interesting and then as far as raising groundwater levels that would be a little bug here. It'd be fantastic for Bean Creek because some of that water does flow into Bean Creek as we start the recharge process and that's a you know a tributary to the Zianti where we have done some habitat restoration there and Bean Creek being our historically our Coho stream. It is I think that as far as putting water back into the ground that's really important to try and keep Bean Creek wet and as far as currently Coho are exacerbated from the system they are considered endangered on the threat of extinction and our Stillhead are considered threatened in this area and I think the last part of that was like what to do moving forward. We got to be smart with our water and when we're releasing water you know the you know the adults coming in and then juveniles leaving you know they're really responsive to pulse flows and you know making sure that our rivers are wetted. We're doing a great thing with Fall Creek as far as reducing the jump height so we make sure that the adults are having more habitat to be able to spawn in there but I you know I would like to see I know it's difficult I talked a lot with Carly about habitat restoration programs and installing large woody debris we get a lot of kit back from the community as far as like thinking this woods going to go into houses or you know harm people's property so I know those projects are difficult to do but I think that they're really worth doing especially after the CZU fire because it helps sort out the fines out of the system which is great for drinking water and it's also great for you know creating more spawning habitat and creating pools for these fish to hide in and I would like us to see you know it's hard to manage this ecosystem we have all these different water districts and everyone's trying to do something it would be really nice to have like a something like the Santa Margarita groundwater agency but for fish well we're you know coming together as water agencies so we can agree on on something together as as a plan of it of where we're going to move forward from here I think I did I answer every year to cover I think you I think you did thank you Jamie as you probably know the Santa Margarita groundwater agency consists of SLV scott's valley water district in the county but also there's involvement of the city in Santa Cruz and they basically hold most of the surface water the Mount Herman Association and private well owners so the question I have for you is based on your work experience what are the keys to planning implementing and completing water projects that involve organizations of different sizes and constituencies with varied concerns well I think that you know you project management is the key there and understanding you know which agency is going to have the lead responsibility as the project manager but you know in terms of gaining consensus across that breadth of agencies I can speak to my experience with the Santa Clara Valley water agency as a representative of San Jose water I sat on the valley water authorities board one of their committees and I was responsible for you know communications on all you know issues related to surface water concerns and we had 17 members of that committee and what it really required was coming to each meeting with a clear set of objectives in terms of understanding what we all intended to get out of the meeting ensuring that there was good understanding of you know what the agreement was when we came out of the meeting I think one of the problems that you find in in a diverse group like that is that what one party walks away with in terms of an understanding another party doesn't so making sure that there's good follow-up communication after the meeting saying you know here's here's what was agreed to and here are the next steps that we've agreed to take by ex-date having a timeline for deliverables as well is really critical and then you know there's got to be someone who has the responsibility of making sure each of the agencies are pushing whatever the deliverable is through their process so often you have to go back through various boards to get you know contractual agreements you know if it's a financial decision or you may need to have various boards make policy or regulatory decisions to align themselves with the goals of the the overarching body so you need somebody who understands the politics of all of that how to continue to organize that process and make sure that everybody is meeting their timelines and deliverables and and you know and then good communication which is always the challenge so you know following up to ensure that everybody has heard the same thing has the same understanding and is meeting the same goals that's that's how you complete any successful project really so you know if you had a specific example of a project that was going forward i'd be um i'd welcome comment on it but you know i just think that consensus building is really really key to ensuring that people feel like they've had an opportunity to be heard in advance and aren't being dictated to afterwards i find that that's where you get the most pushback is not so much from people who feel like they disagree with you but people who feel like they didn't have an opportunity to participate in the process before a decision was made okay thank you um my next two questions have to do with outreach and PR efforts and in the context of renewing the contract for the board's PR firm the board recently discussed what the nature of outreach and PR should be for the district given especially that we're not like a normal business because we are essentially a monopoly you have to go to us for water so alina are you aware of the district's use of social media and if so what benefits if any do you see from the district's use of social media and what role do you think it should play the overall district you cut out a little bit the overall is where you cut out for me the overall outreach efforts of the district okay well um i can i still something that rick said that since we are the only ones we should do we should do the very best is not what he said during that meeting um yeah i you know i'm not a huge social media but i uh user but it's how people get their information these days um so i do think it's important for people to see the good that we're doing like we just had the the the the work that they posted with the solar rays and the the corpse like i mean people love seeing that and i think it's um it's good for them to see the water district of you know making improvement so they feel like when they're paying their their bill you know we're we're doing something instead of like all the the negative news of the fire and everything like that and you know we lost the pipes and we did that so when we are doing projects it's very important to be sharing that and getting people engaged in our community interested in what's happening with our water um so yeah i support that a lot i did like the pamphlet that you guys sent out to that was hard copy i know lois is a big thing a person of holding something in your hand that was that was very nice as well so i feel like a good mix between social media and actual physical pamphlets is is is great so you're kind of hitting every single demographic and how they receive their news okay thank you jamie um the Santa margarita groundwater agency is starting to cost out some of the projects that will be required for the basin to reach sustainability in the next 20 years some will be quite costly even with help from government grants as an expert in public relations would you please tell us how you would suggest the district structure a campaign to educate ratepayers about the Santa margarita groundwater agency and reduce the sticker shock regarding projects that will begin to be undertaken in the next five years um so advanced communication you know warning warning warning is um the key to sort of heading off that sticker shock um concern uh you know i i i think that there's good news and bad news to being a monopoly right i mean the bad news is that people get frustrated that they don't have any alternatives when when they don't like you but the good news is that you have a really high touch point in terms of your ability to access each and every one of your particular constituents um and that's that bill that you send to them um whether they receive it electronically or whether they receive uh something hard copy in the mail you've got their um address and so i tend to agree that social media is great and super important you need to find people where they are but um i would i would do things as basic as a printing on envelopes like hey have you checked out do you know what's the what the Santa margarita groundwater agency is things that kind of get in people's faces not giving them a ton of information but just making them go seek it out right and then i would have a section on the website that's just devoted to like do you know what's coming here's our capital projects issue because um pr and social media are sort of like um road signs on the highway right you want people to see your messages whether it's the envelope that their bill comes in um whether it's the subject line in an email that they get with their bill that's like you know hey check out the Santa margarita groundwater agency and here's your monthly bill um you want them to have all sorts of road signs along the highway that they're traveling on that direct them to the place where they're going to get the most best information about your issues right and you know that you're the best person to educate them so getting them to your website is the biggest goal right and and once they're you can tell them like hey here's how you can get involved um and getting the giving them ways to get involved is really key now pre-pandemic what i would tell you is that i would i would start a little community citizens advisory committee like maybe you have a special standing committee in addition to your administrative committee and your environmental committee and engineering committee just around these issues um and start getting uh what we would call influencers community influencers prepared with what's coming in terms of the asks um because you're going to want people in the community who are educated about what's happening that can speak about well why are we being asked to vote for you know a property tax assessment or a new bond for the Santa margarita groundwater agency projects or you know you know we want people that are going to be able to answer those questions because um it's sort of like with the covid vaccine right you might believe a post that you see on social media and you might believe um something that comes in your bill but you're really going to believe people you trust like your doctor or maybe your neighbor who knows a lot about water issues um and so starting a citizens advisory committee or having a committee around those issues i think would be really central and then um yeah just meeting people where they are um through you know social media uh you know good promoted social media and um using you know the other levers that are available in the community you can do free community comcast spotlight um uh you know pieces little 30 second pieces they'll donate that to you if it's a community issue they actually are required to do that so so um organizations like the salons of alley water districts should take advantage of that because it's free um and you just need to get them there to take the video so anyhow just some ideas around how I would start the campaign but um start early uh to speak of it often and um where two or more people are be there so best you know art and wine festivals when those start happening again um having a tent at the uh sorry Fulton Farmer's Market um you know those kinds of things would be really really helpful um if you could do that as well in terms of generating um eyeballs on on topics of interest okay thank you and my final two questions are kind of maybe a little bit difficult or personal so I hope you don't mind but um Alina your resume details a variety of work experiences related to fisheries but most of the positions were short term there's a number of good reasons why this is the case but in the context of the recent resignation of a board member whose resume was similar there's an understandable concern by some people about your ability and willingness to commit to what is after all a non-paying commission uh position that involves at least 10 hours of work per week for the next year and a half so this is your opportunity to respond to those concerns oh I none of those jobs are quit those are just contract positions that's just how fisheries works um you know you get a contract for two years or six months or whatever and that's that's just it or you know I get called down here to do a drought project because of my expertise in pit tags or I'm up on the Columbia River uh working at the dams because you know they have a project these these tagging projects only last you know a certain amount of time and you do the project and you run through it you get the results you write the report and that job is done and so then you're on to your your next contract position but I didn't walk away from from any of those positions and I wouldn't walk away from the board you know I'm very committed to this cause I'm very interested um in the water sustainability around here and you know helping the water district out um so hopefully that explains it but I've never quit any of those jobs okay thank you um so Jamie you've written a number of articles concerning water issues in the San Lorenzo Valley uh post uh and um my question for you is given your role as a reporter writer for local publications how do you plan to separate this activity from your role as a board member if you are selected in particular on controversial issues that come before the board so um first of all I'm not a reporter I'm a I'm a columnist and there's a critical distinction there and that my role is to to offer my opinion on issues of water transportation and infrastructure um for the San Lorenzo Valley Post so um a reporter's role is to to report on the issue of the day in in in an unbiased way um my role as an expert on water and transportation and infrastructure issues is to say okay here's what you've been told is happening in the news here's my opinion on it so um I think that there's a distinction there and um I as a result of that I think that it would be inappropriate um for me to offer opinions on issues that are coming before the board um so I would use that role with the San Lorenzo Valley Post uh to specifically talk about things that are broader in nature um as I said the the column is about water transportation and infrastructure so what I would try to do is avoid things that were likely to come before the water district and write about bigger issues like maybe um the capital infrastructure programs that are being proposed as part of um Joe Biden's stimulus package that could benefit the entire valley in various ways um I might write about changes to public transportation uh that are being you know offered for the valley um my column is broad enough that I can tailor it to ensure that I'm not talking about things that I that are not appropriate for me to be commenting on as a board member before we've made any kind of a decision okay thank you well I I thought you guys both of you did a great job answering my questions um and at this point I would like to um ask if there are uh any board members that have additional questions that they would like to ask the applicants um and then um at this point I'll ask if there's any board members that would like to make a comment before we go out to the get public comments go ahead Lois thank you well I would like to thank Alina and Jamie for coming forward to apply for the vacancy I know there's concern about someone staying long time and I know that can be a problem for people sometimes uh this is my 11th year on a water board and but I've been retired that whole time so I've had plenty of time um and I would hope if you are chosen that you would stay at least until 2022 when you would have to run for the board if you wanted to continue it's it's important that we have some clarity about what's going on I I did want to say to Alina in 1971 I was walking along part of the San Lorenzo River and there were so many steel head in the water I I wanted to wade in and pick up armfuls I know you can't even imagine that you've probably never seen that was unbelievable and I know that's not going to happen again um and for uh Jamie it's a little tough sometimes when you're working for a paper to make sure that you are not speaking as a board member and if if you really feel like you can do that that you would be totally neutral and not talk about water board issues then I I wouldn't have a problem with you being on the post that's all any other comments all right well then I guess I will go out and see if we have any questions from the public seven members here we have a hand up from Jim Mosher go ahead Jim thank you again I just want to thank both Alina and Jamie so much for applying I know this is a huge commitment I've had the pleasure of working with Jamie um and I've been very impressed with her commitment and smarts and understanding of public relations issues and water issues I haven't had the pleasure of working with Alina but very impressed with her presentation she and the work she's done in the environmental committee you have two great two great applicants which I think is just a blessing for us all in the district and I'm glad I don't have to choose between the two of them thank you thank you Jim would anybody else like to make a comment go ahead Jeff okay so quick question for both of them do either of you have any real or potential financial conflicts that would affect your ability to make decisions on the board and for this for example are either of you married to someone who sells water pipe or pumps or contractors who do excavation work things like that Alina would you like to start I don't know if it counts but I am married to someone who works for Santa Clara Valley water district but that would be the only thing that I can I can think of Jamie my husband is retired he was a San Jose police officer until he retired a few years ago and I do some consulting on PR issues over the hill in the valley not on water issues though I'm pretty focused on public transportation consulting and I don't I would never obviously try to take a contract with the water district so I wouldn't have any conflicts there so I don't see any reason that I would have a conflict now okay hi um I just like to make a comment I am the neighbor Alina Lang and I'd like to say that during the cc cu fires she was very informative about things going on she was very aware of things and not only myself but many of the neighbors in this neighborhood where we live right off a ridge where like a lot of the main fires were and we lost a few houses she was very informed and always let us know what was going on through the internet she was very resourceful in in seeing things that were around let us know the water situation electric system situation the fire situation and I I'm pretty sure that's because of her background she's a very analytical and scientific and we all rely on a lot of information that she gives here so I would just like to put that out there and say thank you Alina and I think she would be a great candidate for this position thank you thank you Paul anybody else like to um I don't see hearing none and seeing none um we'll come back uh to the board for discussion and um director faults would you like to begin yeah I think the you know the nature of being on a board is um of necessity one of a generalist um the the issues that come before the board um are varied and in a lot of cases have to do with finances um and strategy our job I believe as a board is to ensure the the long-term health of the district itself and so in that regard having a broader vision and a broader view of the entire sweep of what faces us and what faces the community I think is very very important so that's that's part of what I'm considering as as making a decision I believe that we're in need of someone on the board who's an environmentalist although I understand that Jamie can also bring information to us um so it it's a hard it's a hard decision because they're both great candidates so I'll just kind of wait and see what happens here yes I have to agree with Jim Moser's comment um of we have two great candidates in front of us um and this is a tough choice um but I appreciate comments from both of them um they bring different perspectives and I think both would serve us well at this point so that's that's it for what I've got at this point all right thanks would anybody like to make a motion I can be brave or I didn't see if uh Bob I think you had your hand up first so I'll let you go ahead you're you're muted I'm trying to get there yeah there we go I'd like to make a motion that we appoint uh Jamie Ackerman to the San Lorenz Valley Water District Board of Directors is there a second well second that so can we make a roll call vote for that or let's see just to check with Gina um so we have a motion that seconded do we need to discuss this motion or go ahead and be discussed but it doesn't need to be okay I think we sort of discussed it do we need to go out to the public about it you do not you have already done that all right thank you all right then Holly would you take the roll call though thank you pardon uh president may hood yes vice president Henry yes director false yes and director smally yes motion passes thank you very much and thank you thank you both I wish we to tell you the truth I wish we could have a six person board and and have both of you um on and I look forward Alina to having you continue on the um the environmental committee because I think you're very important on there especially since we've had to resign recently um Holly I think do you give the uh swear the person in so that they become a member of the board and take what happened to her with where she left her hands up I don't see oh there she is became an attendee um oh that was yeah that oh that was an error you're a mistake yeah you should be um a participant so um Alice can you hear me can you keep Jamie Ackerman Ackerman as oh there she's she's back thank you okay Jamie if I may ask you to raise your right hand repeat after me I say your name I Jamie Ackman do solemnly swear or affirm do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies foreign and domestic against all enemies foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, to the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of California and the Constitution of the State of California and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully discharge and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which the duties upon which I am about to enter I am about to enter welcome thank you very much I will ask you to stop by my office and we'll have to repeat this again and and notarize it so we'll make that arrangement later thank you sure no problem I just thank you to all of the board members for your trust in me and I will do my best to uphold and honor the obligation that you've set before me the next item of new business is adjustment to board committee membership and this is in light of now that we have a fifth member of the board and as I suggested in the memo that went out I suggest that Jamie Ackerman take my place on the administration committee that's my recommendation for adjustment everything else remains the same yes I'd like to recommend that in light of the fact that you and Mark both have right now three assignments that Jamie be placed on the administration and environmental committees I don't believe again as I was speaking about I mean right remarks earlier being on a board like this is a generalist function I don't believe that it is necessarily required to have expertise in any particular area and I think actually one of the things that board members need to do is to bring fresh perspectives to areas perhaps that they haven't spent a lot of time in certainly that's the case with me being on the environmental committee I've done some work in that area in the past but it's not a deep area of expertise for me but I certainly do bring a perspective I think this would also spread out the workload a little bit and I think it would also introduce Jamie more aggressively into a broader area of the of the board and the district operations I think getting Jamie up to speed as quickly as possible is essential so I would I would like to if this is going to be a motion I don't know if you were making a motion but if if you haven't I'd like to make a motion that we appoint Jamie Ackerman to the admin and environmental committees is there a second I'll second it is there any discussion of the motion and Bob since you've mentioned my name I do feel free to comment yes I am on three committees right now between engineering environmental and Santa Margarita the environmental committee meets once a month and I have no problems remaining on that from a workload perspective being retired I've got the time now to do that so you and I have corresponded about this and so you know exactly how I feel about it which is that I believe that each committee should have at least one board member who has deep expertise and on the topic of the committee and I think that is fundamentally important to the good functioning of the board I think it's okay to have one person that's not as experienced and as you said it's a good learning experience but we've found that having people that are really expert has real benefits for the district so for example you in the finance when you were talking about helped the district in terms of thinking about loans when Mark and I became on the Santa Margarita we were able to essentially let go the consultant because we didn't need the help anymore so I think expertise you know we're a small lean district and so having board members who have expertise at least one on the committee is important well that may be the case but right now I'm not serving in the area of my deep expertise I also think it's a question of equity and fairness with distribution to the committee assignments the way that would be set up right now Jamie would be serving only on one committee and I just don't think that that is a fair equitable arrangement we have five areas that we have five committees right now one of which has three people actually because of the alternate requirement I just think this is a thing that we should all basically share and share alike given that arrangement and mark I do appreciate the fact you retired and sorry I just have one more thing mark I do appreciate that you're retired and that you have background in that area but I would ask that in the interest of equity and distribution that you consider making this change as we stay lowest go ahead lowest you're muted lowest you're still muted trying to get I mean thank you there we go so I I think environmental is something that mark really enjoys and since there are four committees and five board members and if you throw Santa Margarita out of the whatever out of out out the door there's always going to be two people that are only going to be on one committee because there would be 10 people if everybody had two spots and so hey I I think that if mark wants to stay on environmental that he should uh Jamie yeah um so Gina can I retract my second I suppose so yes sorry that hasn't come up before that's okay I thought that I could but I just wanted to confirm yeah I didn't mean I don't want to take work away from somebody that somebody wants to do I thought that this was just an opportunity hey we've got another board member let's let's give them some work because we've all got plenty so really I'm very happy to take the role of the administrative committee I am quite certain that there will be many more places for me to help and support in other ways in my role as board member so you know I appreciate the discussion um and and just wanted to be helpful um but I will take the role that uh makes the most sense and if somebody is happy with the work they're doing on a committee I certainly wouldn't want to uh take that away from them as a new board member Gina did you want to comment any more on that before I go to Bob um I didn't but uh chair me I don't just take this opportunity to provide a reminder to go out to the public the common I have I have one more short comment let's do that before we go if it's a short comment yeah it is it is I want to remind the board that you know the the board is drawn from the community and there have been boards in the past quite frankly where there has been no specific expertise in any area so I think we're actually pretty lucky in in this regard um I think we're really passing up uh an opportunity here and I I'm sorry to see that happen but I do appreciate the position that Mark and Jamie are taking okay since we don't have a second for Bob's uh idea I'm going to make a motion that we appoint uh Jamie to the administration committee in place of me so I'm no longer on it and all other uh memberships of committees by board members remains the same is there a second second thank you um let's go out and see if there's any comments by attendees I don't see any um with that I'll come back and if there any comments on the motion on the table okay if not Holly would you take the vote president may hood yes vice president Henry yes yes director Ackerman yes director falls yes director smally yes motion passes thank you um now uh the next item is a discussion of public members they can see on the committees and as you saw the recommendation from the staff was to change the number of public members on the budget and finance committee from three to two and then give direction regarding uh filling the vacancy on the environmental committee and in this um I in my accompanying memo which I won't repeat here I pointed out that um that what I'm proposing that we do is um until such time as the board can see fit to specify rules uh rules in this regard at its next scheduled review of board policy manual in January 2022 that when a public member resigns from a board committee the chair of the committee after consulting with remaining members of the committee will decide whether to advertise a vacancy and if so will make a request to the district secretary to advertise the position if not the chair will inform the district secretary of the new number of members on the committee for the purposes of the quorum and the section the exception to this would be if a resignation of a public member resulted in zero public members of the committee in which case the position must be advertised and filled so the um so that that's what I'm suggesting that we do in this in this case Lois did you have a comment yes I I did uh finance budget and finance has never been a popular committee um in fact part of uh 2020 we only had one public member and and not until um recently uh have we had three members uh we actually had like two members or it's just uh not most people's bailiwick they aren't interested in budget and finance if they're desperate to get on a committee they might make it their second choice and uh we all talked about this uh the two uh public members myself and and you were there uh we agreed that we thought we would be fine with just two I would just add that in this particular case I think a lot of the reasoning was that by the time we advertised and got a new person on board the budget and uh finance process the budget process for the year would be very far along and it would just be unrealistic to try to bring some some new member up to speed and would make the committee's uh time not what time well well spent um and so one of my reasonings for suggesting that the committee chair make this decision is I think it kind of depends on what the situation is who the remaining members are in the case of the budget and finance we have two very active members who are very qualified um and so I I think that it kind of that's why I'm making the suggestion that I am that we just informally have as a policy until we decide what we formally want to do um next January uh yeah I I I confess I don't really understand the reasoning uh the budget process is something that you know starts virtually immediately after the last budget is passed and um so the the reasoning to say well you know we're almost done so why bring somebody on board yeah but you're gonna start working on the next one and certainly uh people getting into this as early as possible is is helpful um the just from a historical perspective it used to be that the uh committee's only had a single public member um and uh a group of us ran on a platform of expanding community participation in committees to a much much greater extent in order to engage the community as much as possible um I I kind of see with this and some other things have been passed and in the board policy manual is sort of a uh 10 000 cuts rollback of some of those innovations and frankly um much better um transparency and engagement with the community than we had before I think what we ought to do is take this out and advertise it I think to say that this is not popular or people aren't interested or something like that is tremendously underestimating the community in a way that I think is is counterproductive I think what we should be saying to the community is as owners as part owners of this district it is vital that people be involved in this and as many people as possible be involved in this and that we as a board will do everything in our power to do outreach to the community to recruit people into these positions to bring up the next generation of leadership and to really emphasize the financial in this case the financial aspects of the district the challenge of which are facing us are enormous and which don't get nearly as much attention as they need to um I I think this decision if we go forward with it is is not in the best interest of the community and certainly not in the best interest of the board let's see if director smalling has anything to say let's kind of go around and see if others have anything to say before we get back to you last we do have a vacancy now on the environmental committee with the reservation of one of the public members and as you recommended I will talk to the other members of the committee at the next meeting and get their thoughts on it but at this point I'm not ready to say yes we need and we need a third member on the environmental committee so no I'm okay with what we have right now but let me talk to the other members first well I we did talk the two committee members and the two board members and we agreed that having two people on the committee is fine and I get the idea of of more involvement but let's face it I hear about let's get more younger people in that isn't who applies and a lot of people are just now getting their life back together and and this is what the committee decided so Bob can be unhappy with that but that's was the committee's decision Jamie would you like to make any comment you don't feel obligated since you kind of got put in this but we would like to hear from you if you want to say something um I just you know I I think that there's uh that there's a reasonable argument that says that there's more that can be done to solicit people into these vacancies and I I do agree that that we should you know think about that effort in terms of you know how we go out to the community and and try and tap community members for these roles but I don't know that it's necessary that every time there's a vacancy we do that and so I think you know maybe planning for a more robust outreach effort um you know closer to the fall when we start soliciting applications would be a really really valuable thing to do to appeal to the the concern that Bob has um but you know I'm not I think that these vacancies do come up on committees in my experience quite frequently and so going out to the community every time one does can be burdensome yeah I think that that in discussion with rick that's a concern that it's a burden on staff time that it comes up you know it comes up as at the board level that really is this the thing we want to be dealing with frequently but I think you know the idea that you suggested that we work harder to get a a long a larger group of people I mean last time we had I think 15 people applying for 14 positions you know there was not a big pool um and maybe other rules that like if we generate a large pool that we can have kind of a waiting list because you know they these are jobs that um people aren't paid and just life happens especially to some of the younger people so I think it's to be expected that we're going to have people resign it's just kind of normal and that's a good yes historically we've had before this innovation was put in place we had far fewer applicants for the positions so we've actually done a really great job in engaging the community and when I look at the applicants they actually are younger people who are applying so I think you know whether you're a hundred percent successful or not is not the point the point is are you making progress and having any success at all last thing I would like to say is the makeup of the committee the appointment around the committee and the policies around who should be in the committee is in fact a board function not a committee function the committees are there to serve at the pleasure of the board so for a committee to make a decision on something um okay I'm at least glad we're bringing it to the board this time it sounds like in the future we wouldn't even do that and that to me is encroaching upon the prerogatives of the board I think I would just emphasize that the board would still have to vote on the person that would be selected it would just not require that we have the board actually say go out and advertise because that puts it off by oftentimes another two weeks three weeks but I made this suggestion after consulting with legal counsel and perhaps Gina would you like to make a comment here well perhaps I can clarify something that I may have misunderstood um so let me try this um I had thought that the the proposal was that in a manner not inconsistent with the present board policy manual committee chairs if a vacancy occurs would meet with their committee and decide whether they their preference is to fill the vacancy or not and then I don't think it's ever been required that the board rec staff to go out and fill the vacancy um however there is a need if the vacancy is going to be filled for the board who actually make the appointment or if the vacancy is not going to be filled change the size of the committee so that the number of seats matches the number of individuals in the committee and so as I understood it either way the board would have to make a decision based on the committee's recommendation either to appoint someone or to confirm the new number of seats um on the committee in light of the no the committee's preference not to fill the vacancy so that doesn't speed up the process is the only problem but okay um anybody else have any comments so uh I think that what we have before us then is that um there's a motion to I'll make a motion to change the number of public members on the budget and finance committee from three to two for the rest of the uh uh this this year 2021 second is there any um comment by attendees if uh don't see any so is there any further comment on this motion can I just ask a quick question sure if the budget committee were to lose someone else um we would have to come back to this right because we would have to either make a decision to further reduce the number of people on the committee or go forward with an appointment process just to clarify yes unfortunately I was hoping that we could skip that step in the department should go district chair but apparently and if I could suggest something else I I think when we talked about it there was a mention of it possibly going on the consent agenda yeah so that would be one way of dealing with it if and somebody could pull it off the consent agenda if they didn't agree with it okay okay so just to repeat the motion that's in on the table is that we change the number of public members on the finance committee from three to two for the remainder of 2021 holly would you take the role president may hood yes vice president henry yes director ackman yes director false no director smally yes motion passes then what would uh I heard from um mark that he would like to go back and discuss the environmental uh committee situation with his committee do you have a meeting yet in may no we do not so you already did it well uh the main meeting was cancelled because we did not have a sufficient number attending we are going to meet in june instead okay actually we were going to revisit that now that this we have a another board member we were going to revisit that we weren't sure what was going to happen who was going to be on it but so we are going to revisit that and possibly plan a another meeting later this month okay so so then you can take it up with the committee yes time um is is that something that needs to be voted on jena or no it doesn't matter another he has to bring it back right yes right yeah there would be a vote or perhaps just a consent agenda item to reduce the committee or to appoint someone okay that's the row all right that that sounds fine to me um can we go on to the next item on the agenda which is the drought stage recommendations item uh 10d is a recommendation the district water shortage contingency plan is part of our 2015 urban water management plan the plan outlines a four stage demand reduction plan associated with the amount of rainfall received with uh in a water year or a series of water years to determine a stage of action in 2018 the district's board of directors and staff reaffirmed stage two of the district's water shortage emergency plan an attachment in your agenda as described in the current urban water management plan the reaffirmation was based on the dry rainfall year receiving approximately 56 percent of normal rainfall the dry state continued through 2020 its effects are now being seen at at a higher degree rainfall this winter uh was far below average meaning our groundwater basin received less recharge and stream flows were reduced as an additional consideration several of the district surface water diversions uh are offline due to uh damage caused by the cz u uh lightning fire uh the santa ronzo valley is currently around 40 percent of its average rainfall with approximately 17 inches of rainfall uh collected in our bowler creek uh area according to the u.s. drought monitored nearly 40 percent of the west is currently in a state of extreme or exceptional drought with santa cruz county currently rated as moderate drought uh staff evaluated rainfall groundwater conditions and uh less available surface water due to the fire uh staff is recommending that we remain in stage two and we do not uh increase into stage three staff recommends the board ratify the 2014 declaration of stage two water shortage emergency the restrictions uh associated with a stage two can be reviewed in attachment one approximation and water conservation outreach is outreach is also recommended that the district's environmental planner will review as part of this memo and reviewing our surface water sources we're mainly concerned of the the amount of surface water the lack of surface water due to the cz u fire during the the months of uh july through november it's our most critical production months um looking at historical uh production from these sources that are offline that amount of water is is figured at less than 10 percent we feel that the stage two uh the drought contingency plan will be sufficient to get the districts through uh our our drought summer period and then we will reevaluate again the following year um with rainfall uh i will ask the district's environmental planner if she would like to discuss uh our outreach efforts and the conservation hopefully she was having some bandwidth problems getting on hopefully she is on by telephone great can everyone hear me yes yeah perfect yeah so um first just to start off i would also mention that the us drought monitor was actually updated today and we have been moved into extreme drought in santa cruz county um so that's just something to note as part of this we'd really like to start pushing some outreach around the ratification of stage two and the different uh requirements as part of the stage two including highway banners bill and third truck decals and conservation devices and pushing our rebate program as well to customers we believe just kind of getting this information back out will really help us start to see the conservation kick up again um and you know as things progress we'll come back to the board as needed if we need to move into a higher stage right and we'll obtain any questions from the board um uh jamie we uh just to let you know that we usually um just go around the group and alphabetically you now are first if you have any questions you don't have to ask any questions you can just say i don't have any and pass on but this is to make sure everybody has their chance to speak up i just if um if you could explain if the if we have moved into extreme drought conditions as a county um does that place any other regulatory onus on us in terms of the amount of conservation that we have to adhere to or what is there anything that changes for us regardless of what uh stage of water conservation we're at as a district good question seems that that just was changed today i'm not sure what came with that there might have been requirements uh you know it does change from time to time carly did you get a chance to really review that or is it too new right to the the state of california hasn't declared a a drought um state of emergency yet um and if that comes into play we'll start to see some of the the regulations come in as well um right now it is based on our own um how we'd like to handle the situation and we still are meeting our gallons per capita per day um with the state's goal of 55 indoor usage so as long as we stay under there um right now and until the state decides to make those changes we are we are meeting all the regulations and as we go towards the summer that's what we'll be targeting phenomenally the outdoor use you know to make sure people use you know water water their gardens would shut off nozzles no hosings down of uh sidewalks watering only uh certain days of the week during certain times um that's what our concern is around the outdoor use come late summer director false yes i have several things i wanted to ask about um so if i understand this correctly uh this is an affirmation of or a reaffirmation of a reaffirmation that probably goes back to the uh 2014 2015 period is that correct that's correct right that's correct and so in that in that period according to the most recent information i have we were um somewhere around a million units produced and about 870 thousand units sold as a result of that drought um declaration back then we dropped literally 25 down to about 640 650 something like that and we've been sort of trending along that line since then so given that this is a reaffirmation of a reaffirmation of an original what is the reference point that we're using to determine the percentage conservation that we should be achieving is it the number back in 2014 2015 or is it our current number well back when we did this it was 2013 was the number that we referred back to water production of 2013 so you know that's people's patterns and people has moved the same amount of people don't live in the same houses a lot's changed in home since 2013 so it's a tough number to go back to with existing customers so we're kind of looking at the the reduction in rainfall the reduction in the water sources from the sea to z u fire and trying to maintain almost what we achieved last year i i want to answer your question yet it doesn't and this is this is a really key thing because if we're going to message something to community we need to be very specific about what it is we're messaging and what the goal really is so i'm still confused is the goal to maintain what we have now or is it to do a further 10 or 20 reduction below where we are now the goal is to somewhat maintain what we have now but to monitor water use during those those several months of high demand um and to to monitor outdoor water use and try to have customers follow the requirements of stage two well you don't have a number to compare but we're already following the requirements of stage two if we're using 2013 as the reference we're already right 25 below so what more do they need to do our our community is already at 35 to 40 gallons per person per day indoor water usage where is it that we want them to go and i think we need to be crystal clear and how we're messaging this and right now i don't i'm not seeing that clarity at least not for me i if everybody else is clear that's great but i always like to work from what the numbers are where are we starting as the reference what's the goal and how do we message that to the community but the last thing i wanted to talk about is leaks so um right now you know historically we've been running over the last a few years at somewhere 25 and 30 percent difference between production and and sales and of course you know we got to take last year off the table because of the fire but what is the plan to be able to help conserve water through the reduction of leaks and an aggressive position to go out and find and fix leaks well as you know our capital improvement program we have been replacing redwood tanks at a pretty good rate um we've just currently replaced uh seven tanks in the last couple years with the tanks in the redwood tanks in lumpiko and in the probation tank which we're leaking considerably we have contracted repairs on the existing redwood tanks to try to reduce the amount of leakage which is very difficult we currently have contract leak detection going on right now we are working as one of our goals as part of this drought program this year is to reduce our water loss and as you also know with an older system high losses are not uncommon it's a constant battle and as we move ahead with our capital improvement program and the replacing of pipelines and replacing of the the rest of our redwood tanks which i could i could ask the director of operations account i think we have four to six redwood tanks that are still leaking but we have corrected and repaired a considerable amount of water loss over the last couple years and we are aggressively using ultrasonic leak detection right now we have a contractor doing a hundred percent of our our district so we are we are aggressively trying to reduce that number but that is very very staff time intensive because we're out working with uh with contractors and going around replacing the leaks the capital improvement program is the key to reducing our unaccounted for water uh down to hopefully you know 12 to 14 percent for an older system like the districts yeah and i and i get that it's just that replacing tanks takes longer than the next six months so i'm glad to hear that we're out doing leaks underground because while they're not visible they actually have i think a bigger potential to save water so the last thing is then based on the leaks that we fix will that be used as input into the determination and how much additional water we're going to ask our community to conserve yes i mean that's all part of our our drought program you know we're trying to reduce our water loss and by doing that you know it it it just it it it reacts and and so the rest of the system and the rest of the customers don't have to reduce their water use as much thanks rick appreciate it but and you know and some of that water is also you know as you know we have a meter replacement program that we're that we're replacing meters so some of that meters isn't all lost some of that water isn't a hundred percent uh uh all leaks there's other factors involved uh in that high number between consumption and production but predominity is leaks that is 100 percent correct your view gail ls did you have any comment yes i appreciate your comment about the meters mr lodgers because most people have no idea how much water they're using and i can look at my uh my account and i can see exactly how much i'm using and see days when i might be using more and i have new washing machine that's supposed to be energy efficient water efficient but still if i wash two or three loads of clothes in the same day if it really shows me how much water i'm using of course just being my myself i don't use very much water um so i i think part of the good thing here to do is to get as many of those new meters installed so everyone can look like i can to see how they're doing and i realize that's not going to happen immediately but the more we can get done people need information and their meter can tell them everything they need to know including if they have a leak we and we have a changeout program that we're systematically changing meters every year until we get them change and those meters do show uh the other managers and the other water agencies um you know the smaller districts available to get a hundred percent done because it's a less cost and they say the water conservation turn a return from those meters by people fixing their own leaks have been just tremendous it's an excellent water conservation tool for people to use but we'll get there you know we're working on that and we will get there director smally yes um i appreciate bob's comment about uh what's the metric that we're using for this um and after uh going back and looking at the memo again i don't see the metric here but at the same time i don't feel that the metric of how much are we trying to conserve to or what's our goal of uh gallons conserved or what are we comparing to i don't see that that's necessary for this uh stage two declaration um i think getting the message out there that we should be conserving this summer is something that the public can appreciate and understand um with some of our surface water sources still uh not being available to us we're going to have to tap groundwater that much more to supply this summer um using less of our groundwater resources this summer um is important if we can get the public to conserve anymore so based on the comments that i've heard i'm ready to make the motion that we um that the board adopt uh this resolution affirming the district's stage two shortage emergency second it let's go out to the public now and see if there are any comments among our attendees seeing none and hearing none um we'll come back for any final board discussion of uh the motion on the table vote please president mayhead yes vice president henry yes director ackman yes director falls director falls yes director smally yes motion passes next item on our like just just you know one one quick comment on this drought plan i i don't want to uh make it sound like the unaccounted for water is not important that's extremely important to reduce and we hope that we're going to you know knock at least five percent off of that number uh this year and continue to improve on it you know it not only saves water saves the aquifers but it saves a tremendous amount of electrical and chemical and treatment expenses it has the ability to to lower costs uh district-wide and i don't want to diminish the importance of this unaccounted for water it is very important that we that we reduce that and the capital improvement program that the board has approved loan funding for and the replacement of tanks and the probation tank is a huge impact on unaccounted for water those tanks were leaking anywhere from five to 25 gallons per minute each a considerable amount of loss has been taken care of um i just wanted to pass that along thank you the next item of business is the grant writer consultant award and the environmental planner will uh will uh present this item to the board great thank you rick i've mentioned earlier in the meeting aggressively aggressively presenting grants will be critical to begin implementation of infrastructure recovery fire vegetation management and capital improvement projects in due to staffing limitations the district has had limited bandwidth to pursue grants although it has been successful maintaining grant awards in the past few years um to increase these opportunities the district released a request for proposals earlier this year which closed on march 5th 2021 with two proposals submitted both proposals were reviewed by staff and the environmental committee on april 13th with a consensus to recommend susan robinson as the district's consulting grant writer susan has direct experience applying for grants in santa group county and the monterey bay her achievements are outlined in her proposal attached to the agenda it was requested to better understand the potential return on investment or roi but a concrete number was not determined roi for grant writing is difficult to determine due to a number of factors and susan did not feel comfortable assigning a percentage however all of susan's references spoke very highly of her work and their success was working with her reference discussions also led to other local agencies expressing interest and partnering on grants in the future to increase our competitiveness and in due to the unknown roi staff recommends initially funding susan with a budget of $35,000 to research determine competitiveness for each grant recommend the staff which grants to pursue and estimate hours needed to submit the proposals depending on the grant the grant itself staff may request additional funding for grant proposal development or staff may take on grant writing if bandwidth is available um if staff is ready to answer any questions that the board may have regarding susan robinson in her proposal um or the need for a grant writer thank you carly um bob would you like to have do you have any questions i don't have any questions we uh whoops let me turn my video back on since i got thrown off i don't have any questions we we did cover this in the admin committee and and i found it interesting that we only got two proposals one from iowa i think it was one from vermine the iowa one was was much lower but unfortunately did not have uh the qualifications i would say it was not a qualified response um you'll notice that susan lives in vermont now so she's kind of getting california wages in in vermont which is probably a really a really good thing live in large but it looks like she has tremendous background and i as a first step into this for us i thought this was an appropriate place to go the roi number i think really is one that we need to be looking at that is at the end of this year where we're trying it out what was our success um and um what would we do different if we want to try it again if the success wasn't what we were expecting so for the for the money we're getting i'm i'm hopeful that we'll get somewhere around a 10 percent close um you know be one of her 10 percenters and hopefully we'll get something like a 10 or 20 to one you know uh uplift on this if not a lot more so i i think that's um i think it's worthwhile for us to proceed in this we we got to get more money from more sources than than just our community lois did you have a question or comment uh well i think this is a great thing to do i'm glad the admin committee took it up and it's something we need somebody who can write grants for us and hopefully we'll get some grants that we can go for director smalley yes um i did see in the memo um from carly that it was the environmental committee that reviewed it and i understand uh bob corrected that that that was the admin committee is that correct carly right my my i believe that is correct my apology okay because i attended that environmental committee meeting and i thought i must have been asleep but no our parallel universe mark i i guess i guess i do have a couple of other questions on susan's existing clients include the city of santa cruz um given uh discussions that we've had about the city of santa cruz in particular with the water rights petition recently um is there a potential conflict of interest here right so susan i did have a discussion around that um what we would probably do is hurt she would probably either step down and tell us she wouldn't be able to pursue a grant if she was already pursuing it for another agency where there would be direct conflict um and then you know same thing for us as well so if she was already working on a grant she would not go after the same grant for the other agency um the other thing to consider though is in talks with i did call the city of santa cruz for a reference of susan and they were actually very interested in potentially partnering with us for some of these grants um particularly around um updating our meters they're going through the same process right now and there are grant opportunities around that and joining forces would actually make us much more competitive for the funding forces okay all right and my last question is um what's her existing workload and does she have the time for our district because in looking at her uh existing list of clients it looked pretty extensive so if you had that discussion with her about workloads right she i mean she was she was very confident that she did have the time um and you know she said that she was very flexible so what she would do was actually do the research for us and bring the grant to us before pursuing them and depending on her workload at that time she would be able to tell us if she could pursue them and not or not but even having someone do that research and actually bring them to us would be really helpful as well so then we could actually decide if we wanted to pursue them in a house or maybe go with someone else to go after the grant carly also i think she has somebody that could assist her as well if i recall from her proposal right exactly she does have one staff right okay jamey that's all of my questions jamey go ahead sure um so just to understand if they're going to be grant do we have any sense of how many grants we could be wanting to apply for that um some of her other water district or agency customers may also be applying for that you know it's just to get a sense of whether we're going to find that that's a problem on a regular basis that there's a grant that we're interested in going after and she's unable to help us with that do you have any sense whether that would be an issue right we didn't have that specific of conversation um you know i we kind of seeing how it goes initially and i think that's what this budget reflects is it will be kind of testing the waters and seeing exactly how the relationship would work out and you know that 35 000 doesn't necessarily all have to be spent it'll be based on how many hours she actually can put in and dedicate to us so like i said it's kind of testing out the relationship initially to see what we can get out of her and what you know the benefits will be at the end of the the year here right and and even if she has another um client that is going after the same grant if she thinks it's a grant for which we would be competitive would she still bring that to us so that we could then um write our own proposal right that's exactly what she was telling me is that if she was unable to go after the grant for us that she would at least bring it to us um and allow us you know to either go with someone else or to work on it internally okay yeah i was just gonna add that i thought that that was one of the major benefits of hiring her was um just she knows where to look and she's you know has a basically a library of places that she's applied in the past and that's half the battle um and so even if she can't deal with them directly certainly just knowing they're out there will be a big help okay so i would like to uh make a version if i could that um the board directs the district manager to enter into a contract with susan robinson as the district's grant writing consultant with a limit of thirty five thousand dollars through fiscal year twenty one twenty two thank you and let me just go out to the um public now and ask if there's any questions or thoughts from the public attendees hearing them hearing none and seeing none um i'll go back and ask if there's any final comments on the motion on the table by members of the board if not holly would you please go ahead and take the roll call vote president may hood yes vice president henry yes director akman yes director false yes director smiley yes motion passes the next item of new business is the andy property connection fee waiver right item 10 f is a request for a waiver connection fee you know just after the cz u fire the district was contacted by a property owner at 13 9 10 big basin way belonging to james andy who reported to the district that he has been receiving unmetered water from some time from a welded steel main which crossed his property that was damaged in the fire and was out of water district staff believes this pipeline was constructed in the late 19 centuries by the what was called the boulder creek waterworks and that the unmeter connection was most likely in compensation to the landowner for allowing the pipe to cross the property the district had no records of serving this parcel uh staff's been unable to completely document the history of the pipe and service connection the parcel owner was able to provide a letter from the sanitary's land title company that's in your packet uh dated november uh 1957 which addressed to mr andy and describes a dated easement to the boulder creek waterworks dated july 22nd 1887 the document includes a reversed right a reserved right to water use from this parcel and from the waterworks was crossed his parcel to to be non-commercial use back to the property owner no further documentation has been provided staff's research of the history of this water district shows that facilities owned by the boulder creek waterworks are currently owned by the district through a series of transfers dating back to the early 1890s the current landowner is the fourth generation of his family to own this parcel dating back to 1930 the parcel includes three cabins and is used only during summer months a review improvements by staff showed this parcel would require a one inch meter and that the best location of the meter would be located on highway 236 in consultation with the district legal staff it's believed that locating documentation from this time frame is extremely problematic and the cost of verify such information would be greater than the connection charge staff is recommending that the district board waive the required connection fee for the new water service the parcel a parcel owner will be responsible for the installation cost and meter fees along with ongoing fixed service charge and volumetric uh metric charges the parcel owner will be responsible for acquiring encroachment permit cal trans uh for the meter installation um and there's a resolution attached for your review and approval and we'll be happy to answer any questions Lois did you want to start any questions or comments okay so uh actually the resolution has changed a little bit that I saw um so it it said something about waving the fee as long as they agree to buy water from us that will waive the fee for the installation is that what I read right before the meeting yes and the the owner is uh is comfortable with this situation and will agree to uh to adhere to all district rules and regulations on purchasing water etc so I I'm fine with the waiver uh director Smalling um they appreciated the historic nature of what we were reviewing um in looking at something from 1887 and seeing documentation that far back um this uh property owner brought it to our attention that uh he was receiving water and is willing to pay a portion of these fees um I have no further questions on it and I'd like to make the motion that we adopt the attached resolution to waive the connection fee for a new one inch meter at 13910 big basin way under uh the APN number of 081 051-0 there may hood and director Smallley if I may offer a um a possible clarification to the motion there was a revised motion that was a revised resolution that was posted to the website uh so if you don't mind modifying the motion the motion language to reflect um to the adopt the resolution presented on the website to waive the connection fee um I'd appreciate it for clarity so that would read that the board adopt the adapt the the resolution as revised and posted on the website today to waive the connection fee etc okay okay all right and did we have a second second okay um let me go out to the public I I did have a question though first just well can I go out to the public and then we can come back Bob Bob hasn't asked any questions right are there any comments by um members of the public hearing none and seeing none would come back to any further discussion of the motion on the table Bob would you have something you wanted to add I just wanted to clarify something this was a 140 year old pipe that was still in operation until the fire rig that's that is correct as part of the old Boulder Creek water and what was interesting you could find reference in Randall Brown's book to that water company you know I I have to say aren't we just unbelievably lucky that they made things so bloody well back then that it survived that long and this was still in use and what was interesting here was a lot of it was above ground and that's how it got damaged if it was unburied it wouldn't have got damaged that's just incredible well the other question I had was about how much this will cost him to get that permit on 236 and um uh do the installation we have an idea ballpark about how much that's going to cost him I'd say the installation uh would probably cost him around five thousand dollars to have that pipe installed okay and the connection fee that we're waiving I think is around 14 000 I think it's 20 000 I think a one inch meter I don't have it in front of me but if Stephanie is there she may know at the top of her head I think a one inch meter goes for 19 and we we raised it it used to be 10 and now we like we raised it to 19 yeah so I mean this is a great deal for him and um yeah we should definitely I'm happy he wants to do it that's really great we get another customer and this is part of our unaccountable water these illegal services absolutely how many more of these do we have do you think we find one every great now and then not all okay great thanks let me let me go to Jamie to see if she has any comment I don't have any comments but I would love a copy of that San Lorenzo Valley Water District book yes I'll leave that in Holly's capable hands and Mark did you have another question I want to follow along with Jamie's comment also regarding that book and also Rick you said that this pipe was referenced in that book well the the water company was referenced in the book oh the water company okay okay okay Holly would you please take the roll call the president may hood yes vice president Henry yes director Ackman yes director false yes director Smalley yes motion passes our next item of business is the Foreman access trail rehab right item 10 gene the district engineer will present the staff report to the board Josh good evening see let me get to the right spot here for the Foreman access trail rehabilitation project I'll just read you the executive summary which is that two proposals were received for design of rehabilitation to a trail that we had previously cut to allow construction immediately following fires and district staff is recommending to the board directors that they review this memo and the motion and by emotion of the board direct the district manager to enter into contract with Freyre and Loretta incorporated for design of grading and erosion control measures related to the Foreman access trail in conformance with the Freyre and Loretta proposal in the amount of $134,200 dated April 13th 2021 did you have anything you want to add to that I would just like to add to it that this is a FEMA project to come back in after the repair of the Foreman intake access line and it did go to the engineering committee for review and I'll let Mark take it from there if you'd like yeah go ahead Mark certainly the engineering committee was faced with two proposals the proposal that we've received from Freyre and Loretta was on the order of $50,000 less than the proposal that we've received from Sandus and was more comprehensive based on that the engineering committee made the recommendation to the board that we approve the proposal that we received from Freyre and Loretta theirs was the lowest cost and the shortest duration of the work between the two proposals that we received Jamie did you have any comment question no questions okay yeah Rick you answered one of them already about FEMA I'm not sure I recognize this name is this a new supplier it is a new engineering firm that has to my knowledge has not worked with the district in the past I want to I'm not sure exactly how we got somebody new to apply but it's really great as you know I've been on us we need new suppliers to get competition into the bidding process Sandus has certainly been doing a good job for us I don't want to disrespect them in any way but you know after a while as we saw with WSC you know sometimes those fees start creeping up a little bit and so it's great to have other other folks available who are stepped in you know that saves our customers about $12,000 and the federal all of us you know 38,000 so that's that's a really good thing now the last question I had was on the picture that I saw on the proposal there were two pipes going into the ground has has a portion of the fight to the ground or am I well what you're seeing in that picture is because we bury that line Bob we also put that portion of the five mile pipeline while we were digging that the trenching so we didn't have to go back and re-excavate because once we put the once we do erosion control and put this pipeline to bed we're not going to want to go in and re-excavate we did this under under the emergency of the fire so we went right in there and did it and we don't want to have to re-excavate and do erosion control again because it's going to be expensive so that's what you see that second pipe that'll be eventually tied into the five mile pipeline and how much of the five miles does that pipeline encompass this oh about 2500 feet plus or minus maybe even a less it's a short section yeah I don't recall that we talked about this before when we were doing the emergency proposals so I I guess if it's a twofer here and that's included in FEMA funding as well right that is correct okay all right um yeah it just you know it's sort of it was sort of I guess an unexpected surprise or bonus I don't know at least to me so that's um and that's plastic pipe right buried sufficiently yes um so that we're not going to be losing that pipe again in a fire that's correct that's the goal and uh to answer your other question it's been a goal of the engineering committee to to work with staff on reaching out to get additional bidders so that's it's working well yeah so congratulations to yeah congratulations to Josh and you for doing that it's tremendous let's keep it up our competition into this thank you very much Lois did you have a question I I don't have a question but this was my first uh engineering meeting that I attended so I'm quite excited about this and being on that committee thank you and it was great to listen to all the comments and I guess I was kind of surprised that I know more about pipes and some of that kind of stuff than I thought I did um and and about San Lorenzo so this is great this is really good news okay um I would like to make a motion that the board direct the district manager to enter into the contract with frayer and loretta ink for design and grading and erosion control measures related to the foreman access trail in informants with their proposal in the amount of 134200 dated April 13th 2021 second okay I'd like to go out and see if there's any comments by members of the public seeing none hearing none are there any further comments by members of the board okay then holly would you take the roll call vote please president may hood yes vice president henry yes director ackman yes director falls yes director smally yes ocean passes thank you um our next item on the agenda is the lion access road design project the board uh ten h uh is the lion slide road design uh that's the district engineer to present this item to the board thank you rick on this one i'm gonna start with a little background as many of you know there was a slide in 2017 near the lion complex our water treatment plant and tanks that damaged the road and we have been working since then to figure out how to stabilize that area and restore the road we're still using the road but it's in need of help this project is an effort to find a way to take advantage of the damage from the cpu fire which forced us to remove a huge number on the order of 400 large trees that are on the slope between the lion complex and big steel tank and by extension madrone drive we have an opportunity here to attempt to find another road path up the hill past big steel to the lion complex that avoids the slide area if we can do this and i will stress it if then it is significantly possible that we will be able to reduce the project to stabilize the slide which is currently in the 15 million dollar range we are hoping to reduce that so executive summary of the memo here three proposals were received for investigation and design a new access road for the lion water treatment and storage complex district staff recommended that the board of directors review this memo and by a motion of the board direct the district manager to enter into a contract with sand is civil engineers for site investigation at roadway design related to the lion slide road design project in conformance with the sand is civil engineers proposal in the amount of $162,130 dated April 6th 2021 i'm happy to take any questions the board or public may have on this proposal jamey did you have any questions no i don't have any specific questions about this but i am well offline i have a couple of capital and operating budget questions that i don't want to derail the meeting for because i think that i need a little bit of education around our annual adopted capital infrastructure budget but no specific questions for this yes so this will be a recurring question on these sorts of things is this still considered eligible for FEMA funding even though we're you know four years into it have we got an extension on this to protect this for against losing the funding yes um given that we would essentially abandon the existing road where we to find a new access in and i think it very likely we can't do that um what will we have to do to the area that did slide in order to make sure that it doesn't continue sloughing and further endangering our facilities up there josh you want to answer that or you want me to currently that's unclear one of the things we would need to do once we determine it's possible excuse me possible to lay out a new road is to look into both environmental needs in terms of protection of hessie creek which is below the slide and in terms of stabilizing the slide enough to protect the lion treatment plant my i was going to say hope but um it is my expectation that we will be able to do some much smaller intervention to stabilize that slide and that we will be required to do something yeah i i mean i figured we would be but it won't be 15 million at least that's not that's not the expectation that is correct and i guess my last question is you know when i see all bids come back at basically within point you know zero five percent of each other how did that happen that's quite incredible actually i was a bit taken aback myself i have not seen that happen in the past it's almost like they got together and said we're we're going to bid 162 thousand that's really weird no mark's got some experience in this mark here what do you what do you think i'm i'm stunned actually a good good bid package specifications and drawings and what the customer wants lets an engineering firm better hone in on the costs that's why you see on this one three bids that are very close to each other in terms of the cost um so again that's two josh and the engineering department's credit in putting together a good bid package in order for the contractors to see what we wanted yeah but but on the last one did did we have the same kind of thing the last one we voted on uh similar i'm i'm sorry no we saw as much as a 50 thousand dollar difference on that um that was the case of uh the firm fair and loretta having a better idea or a better concept on how they were going to be able to approach um of the three bids that we received here for error loretta and sandis were fairly close in comparable in the term in terms of what they were going to deliver mme's uh proposal although it was for a similar dollar amount was delivering significantly less in terms of how far through the process they were taking yeah 60 percent drawings instead of all the way right yes so we had two that were close but sandis were sandis firm was taking it um farther through the process than fair and loretta plus they were providing the uh shortest duration time frame um in their uh proposed schedule so the engineering committee reviewed it and again we agreed um that sandis was the appropriate for this one it almost seems like that they probably have all reached the conclusion there is a path forward to get us a new access and it's probably pretty clear where it is i like right where i'm looking at it when i go up there i think so okay yeah all right great thanks martin appreciate the background sure last did you have a comment or question yeah uh i think this is great i read the proposal i um saw what sandis wrote and they're very familiar with the district and i think they can get this done sooner than someone else and in the long run hopefully this is going to save the district a whole lot of money i would like to make a motion that the board direct the district manager to enter into a contract with sandis civil engineers for site investigation and roadway design related to the lion slide road design project in conformance with the sandis civil engineer proposal in the round of 162 130 dollars dated april 6 2021 okay are there any comments by the members of the public in attendance hearing them seeing them are there any more comments by members of the board okay then holly would you please take the roll call the president mayhud yes vice president henry yes director ackman yes director foals yes director smalling yes motion passes the next item on the agenda is the health fire California forest health grant representative authorization yes and the uh environmental planner will give this to the uh producers to the board carly you still with us yes sorry about that i think it drops okay can you hear me now yes great so this item as rick mentioned um the district right now is currently seeking to submit a proposal for the cal fire forest health grant program as part of the resource conservation district or rcd of santa cruz county's application package for more than three million dollars after the cvu fire a hundred and seven acres of previously forested land experience very high burn severity and qualify as high priorities for reforestation the potential grant award would fund reforestation of these 107 acres and removal of invasive eucalyptus followed by reforestation of native trees improving forest health and increase in fire resiliency a district representative needs to be assigned by the board to be the signatory and point of contact how fired use documentation in the form of a resolution or letter from the board of directors before continuing the application process the district manager has been chosen as the district signatory and will direct communications with the rcd and cal fire to the district's environmental planner if there's any questions i'm happy to answer them um otherwise that's all the information on that are there any questions from members of the board yes carly thanks how much of that three million would we be getting if that grant were awarded we initially requested about six hundred thousand dollars um and we will see kind of what cal fire by that i'm hopefully we'd be able to do a full 107 acres that we requested but whatever we would get there's sort of a pro rata formula then for everybody involved right yeah and um i guess i didn't realize there was eucalyptus up there but i guess maybe on top so those are those are like explosion matchsticks so definitely want to get rid of them right okay great next thing any other questions from members of the board how about from attendees um the public members okay hearing none seeing none i would like to make a motion that the board adopt the resolution as presented appointing the district manager as a signatory and point of contact from the district for the cal fire forest health grant i'd like to second that any more discussion holly would you take a uh roll call vote please president mayhood yes vice president henry yes director ackman yes director fulce yes director smally yes motion passes okay next item on the agenda is purchasing and procurement procedures thank you let's see the district's current purchasing procedures are outdated and are in need of revision many of the existing requirements are not being followed um and being because due to being outdated uh attached is a draft district procurement policy and procedure the new policy is updated with current general procurement standards an outline of the purchasing cycle and procurement guidelines for staff to follow at the march 9th 2021 admin committee meeting the committee reviewed the draft policy and recommended the policy be submitted to the board for adoption the updating of this district procurement policy has been a long-standing goal of the district attaches a resolution and the draft policy for your review and staff can answer any questions yes there was one question that that came up during the committee meeting i don't know we got a final answer on and that had to do with if there were any state regulations or statutes prohibiting consultants that generate a report from then participating in the implementation of the conclusions of that report this is probably more a question for Gina and if we don't know the answer tonight this may be something we can look into and if we need to make an amendment to it we we certainly can we do have that in the purchasing procedures for FEMA projects that's clearly stated that a consultant who generates reports or is involved in the request for proposal or not allowed to bid on set projects yes but i i think i found something in the california code that addressed this and i i wanted to know if that was actually something that existed or if it's just the figment of my imagination on you know because everything on the internet is true right so um you know he he always got a check i i would say bob i'm not aware of any specific statute or regulation that takes that issue head on in california there are some principles that get interpreted around that issue but if you think you've found something that deals with it directly i'm more than happy to take a look at it and um if we need to plug it in here somewhere okay i'll i'll go back and resurrect that i know in my business i'm frequently prohibited from um implementing what i actually recommend as part of you know my consulting work so i just wanted to see if that was um something we need to worry about here we can always bring it back if necessary for an amendment i'll i'll get back to you separately lois did you have a comment or question that seems that this policy is bringing the district into the 25th century really modern uh up-to-date policy with a lot of changes that are quite white and i i think this is a good policy i have no questions on it and hearing none from either lois or bob i'd like to recommend that we adopt the make a motion that we adopt the attached resolution approving the district's procurement policies and procedures dated may 6 2021 second any comments from members of the public hearing none and seeing none if there are comments by members of the board jamie um does this procurement policy bring us into alignment with any federal and straight state grant programs that we may go after so will we run into an issue sometimes um i have found in other public agency contracting work occasionally you go after a grant they want to see what your procurement policy is if your procurement policy is into alignment with the conditions of the grant you may be screened out so um in order to avoid that has this considered that or should we have the new uh grant writer take a look at this as well and make any recommendations that she might need to make to ensure that we're um not screened out of any potential grants and that and that's a great question and carly and i have been discussing that and council has been discussing to make sure that whatever grants we go out that are for uh our procurement procedures do and make sure that we qualify and fema in general right now is the one that we're very closely looking at because it does have some certain requirements um i don't know carly or jena do you want to uh comment on that as well well i would say that that generally what we've created here is sort of the gold standard for procurement it hits all of the boxes for state and federal procurement rules um that said i'm not a grant writer and i don't know if there are you know unusual conditions that come up in grants that may not be based directly on state or federal law so maybe there's something that a grant writer would see that i don't see from the legal side but um i i would i do feel very confident in saying that you've got a really strong procurement policy in front of you that should align with just about any requirements that the district gets presented with at least you know legally speaking putting aside you know very particular things nobody may want i i tend to agree i i managed grants for public transportation and public transportation grant financing is some of the most complicated um in of all public agency grant financing and this really reflects um the procurement policy that we always functioned under so i i think you're right i just wasn't sure if in you know the water grant procedure process there are more um bells and whistles and bars that we have to check in order to be competitive but uh but this is a very um in my experience uh well written procurement policy i i want to um really give a lot of kudos to um our our staff rick stefany and the team for putting this together this has been a work in progress for a while and rick does it feel good to have it across the finish line tonight or what um i've been i've been working on this for a while and it feels good to me i can tell you although you know the policy would be done but we still need now to develop internal policies uh to how we're going to implement a little bit of work to do i i get that but to get it to this place was this effort on your part and stefany's part for doing that so thank you for that i want to recognize that it's it's been great thank you um and our final new business item is the quail tank and university tank i don't think we have more yet no vote um let's see did we go out to the public no don't believe me all right i sir hearing none seeing no comments by members of the public and are there any more comments all right then holly would you like to call the roll call the president mayhood yes vice president henry yes director akman yes director foals yes director smally yes motion passes tank and university tank and booster scan equipment director of operations will present this item to the board names good evening all um so this here is a sole source procurement request for the continuing upgrade of our skata system we started a few years back with doing the hmi system here at the operations department and this builds into that um so with it it is recommended that the board of directors review this memo and adopt the attached resolution approving sole source procurement of skatey equipment for the quail tank and university tank and booster skater replacement project and authorize the district manager to enter into a contract with emerson process management power and water solutions to perform services in the amount of $81,000 this amounts to $27,000 per site which includes equipment software and programming and this is to replace legacy equipment that's out in the field that's anywhere between 25 and 30 years old um and it is right now the equipment in the field is ran by at and t hard wires and at and t is starting to eliminate those as legacy equipment as well and they're not really keeping up on those lines for communications this will take us to a cellular based communication which has more resiliency against power outages as well and so with that um this company is the one that had all of our skating equipment is pretty much through except for the new stuff out in malpico and things like that but this is to talk to the new equipment that we did install here at the operations department and with that i'll take any questions or anything else you have uh lois would you like to begin i really don't have any questions on the skater okay how about uh mark yes um why do we have a proprietary software so that we can't competitively bid uh and from my read we have to go out to emerson because of that proprietary software and i'll say that because when the district first went to skate at the skaters and so they went with emerson process and that's the equipment out in the field and in the main office and so as we're upgrading and we went with emerson to upgrade the hmi and everything else that puts us kind of in a position where we've got to stick with emerson for the equipment to be copacetic so if emerson came back at twice this cost we'd still have to do it unless we wanted to have another unless we wanted to change the whole system over to another communications companies with their equipment which we would have to do the whole overhaul pretty much at once and this way we were trying to break it up understand the school years right the main telco bridge is still emerson but we have switched off remote sites when we could to other manufacturers such as the lumpiko tanks uh the lumpiko tanks are a different manufacturer pretty much an off-the-shelf uh for those zones for those tanks and pumps but when we're on the the main bridge of our skater system the hubs that control pockets zones what we call them they may control five or six facilities are still under the proprietary emerson now to change those out that's when you talk you're talking you know two three hundred thousand dollars at the time now that that that hub which we call it's the main computer they're actually in little buildings when we go down we could investigate switching those out but like james says we did look at when we did the hmi and the main office uh software and we decided to still go with emerson but we do have some hybrid different types of manufacturers out on the field and it depends on the degree of control if we're just turning one thing on or off is one thing but these sites are bringing in a lot of information well depths meters uh meter readings uh time of use is a big one so we can get pg any time of use the the less proprietary equipment doesn't make that it doesn't do that control um when we purchase the initial portions of this network then for the for the office and the did you say the hmi um or the ridge aspects did did we competitively did that or was it emerson only at that point no when we did that we did go out competitively okay okay but it was more of qualifications and operations less than price to to see if that equipment could do what we're we were doing we looked at different manufacturers of equipment for the type of control that they gave and not of price i so yeah it was more okay yet the level of operations that we wanted okay okay that's all for my questions jamey i mean i think i understand the basics here you know you've you've selected one provider and it would be cost prohibitive to change out the entire system but you have to bring these facilities online so you've got to add them to the system therefore you must stay with this provider you know i make sense to me i'm comfortable to go forward and this has been a big concern of the board for quite some time and we are trying to get away from sole source providers as much as possible we're doing less and less of it is it is it possible with this kind type of communication equipment i mean it would seem to me that it all needs to be internet worked so that it can communicate with one another so that we can move water around right and understand what water is where and what's happening that's correct some equipment will interface and some doesn't so kind of a site specific and what we're doing at the individual sites right so how would we think level is pretty low pretty low lift uh electronics and software so we did go to other manufacturers and it was considerably less expensive i will say that but they do a lot less right yes it's a lot less of a system the mission that we have out of these other sites because it's just given us tank level and then pump on pump off that's where these other sites are communicating through one hub and then talking back to the main hub it's more of a intricate system right there just aren't that many providers that do the level of customization that's available for emerson yeah if you were to start and build a whole new system today i think you could find many different providers that would interact but unfortunately when we had emerson there was a lot of proprietary softwares right yeah that and we'd have to do the whole system at once which would be probably close to a million dollars to do the whole system at once i mean we have a lot of sites and all the sites have been coming in through emerson right around 25 to 30k we just did the sole source on probation which was another major hub when we did the probation tank and that was another sole source with emerson and that that one came in at 30 pop do you have any comments or questions i do um the number of times i've been through this the number of times i've been through this kind of thing in my career in silicon valley is is incredible and at the end of the day companies like this exist to milk their customers with what i would call less than cutting edge technology for as long as they possibly can um it is an explicit strategy and we should stop playing the game i get that it might cost us a fair amount of money to do that but i would also encourage us to be looking at going to more modern technologies and architectures including cloud-based architectures which which eliminate the need for the hubs that you're talking about there are companies out there that that have these kinds of architectures but yes it does require that you you do that however the threat of that might also encourage emerson it has happened in the past with some companies i've dealt with to start being a little more realistic about their their pricing because they're just they're just ripping us off nine ways this sunday we are basically in a position of thank you sir may i have another and we will be until we get serious about taking these guys out of the picture so i hope that as part of a modernizing of our infrastructure going electronic that sort of thing we take another serious look at this it certainly needs to be strategically we we got to get off these guys i did have a question about the cellular portion for the cellular communications are we in a class of service where we get priority in case the cell networks start having congestion issues or what have you as as is frequently the case in a disaster situation we are but quite frankly i i don't see that type of service we are on almost everything we have that operates the water system you know same day emergency service infrastructure no no no that's not what i'm sorry that's not what i'm talking about rick i'm talking about the over-the-air communication are we prioritized with the over-the-air communications higher than consumer service in the case of a disaster not sure about that it might be worthwhile asking them if we're because the cellular operators have different classes of service for the over-the-air communication and consumer then typically has the lowest priority i'm hopeful because we're critical infrastructure that we get a higher priority my understanding at and t offers that in the San Lorenzo Valley but Verizon does not but my problem is we have poor service with AT&T versus Verizon Verizon seems to work the best for the district but AT&T does offer that priority public safety service great thank you are there any comments from the public attendees yes Cynthia my question is how resilient is the cellular network during a fire one of my concerns is during fires our power outages with PG&E we lose our Wi-Fi i'm not sure what your experience was during the fire with cellular we lost cellular communications in a lot of the areas we lost why i mean we lost everything during the different parts of the fire i know the fire agencies and the county office emergency services are working on more temporary remote cell phone access that was one of the problems that was established during the cz u fire that all communications to the bullet creep fire were lost we lost cell communications we lost internet communications were horrible in the fire and we spent a lot of time driving around i don't think there was any one although some people had uh internet but we seem to experience a loss of just about all of our communications in the bullet creek area and in that situation we're lucky enough to where we have our own in-house radio system so we were able to communicate between each other through our radio system during that time and with the loss of power and the loss of everything it takes us to manual tank checks manual turning off pump turning on and off pumps so at that time it's just communication everybody's out and it's all hands on deck so i think i might be trying to interpret but i think what her question was getting at was if cellular communications were impacted that wouldn't prevent us from providing water service during a fire it would just eliminate our ability to have the kind of visibility into the system that we normally do everything is run by manual during those time frames but we're geared up for that and we have a procedure on how to implement on-site visual inspections and turning pumps on and turning pumps off but our district radio was designed for emergencies to work totally independent and it did and during the cpu fire we never lost two-way communications between staff yeah there there's different levels of disasters and impacts obviously if you're losing a cell tower that's it you're done but if you haven't lost a cell tower the next typical thing that happens is the cell towers get overloaded with everybody trying to get on at the same time and that is where having a higher priority of service you basically get put above in terms of getting channels on that air interface you get put above everybody else since your critical infrastructure verizon unfortunately has been shall we say not as zippy about getting that kind of service installed nationwide even though they have the ability to do so they just they just haven't done it and unfortunately with cell service now basically three companies it's effectively an oligopoly and so there's no real incentive for them to move so we're kind of stuck there as well can i can i clarify in question the the data that's being transmitted along these lines it's not it's not cellular voice communication right which is very high bandwidth demand it's it's just data packets which you know that's why they say text during an emergency don't make a phone call because phone calls don't go through but but data packets are more likely to so my guess is that the kind of communication that's happening via this system is is lower demand communication than voice communications and therefore probably doesn't see the same kinds of interruptions in lower level emergencies that you're concerned about bob actually the sms channels are different than the voice channels and the data channels are different typically it's the data channels that get overloaded as well particularly given our age of a lot more people on 4g high bandwidth internet that sort of thing so it's not like it's not like it's not like it used to be with the 2g and 3g world but yes um i'd like to make a motion to authorize the district manager to enter in it to a contract with emerson process management power and water solutions to perform service in the amount of 81 000 dollars second is there any more discussion if not holly please call the roll president may hood yes vice president henry yes director akman yes director false yes director smally yes motion passes there is no um unfinished business so i believe with that we are finished and so i will call for adjournment thank you all thank you thank you good night