 And I see that it is 5.30, so I'd like to open this meeting for the San Lorenzo Valley Water District regular meeting for October 5th, 2023. Holly, would you take roll please? President Smalley. Here. Vice President Hill phoned and he is running late, but we'll be here. Director Ackman. Here. Director Falls. Here. Director Mayhood. Here. For members of the public that are in attendance remotely, this is the closed session, which we will be having from 5.30 until 6.30. The open session is from 6.30 until we conclude. So given that, I'm not aware of any changes that we have to the closed session agenda. Holly, is the senior staff member here? No, there are no changes to closed session. All right. Oral communications regarding the one item that we have in closed session. Does any member of the public wish to comment on that? Seeing none. We will adjourn now to the closed session to the public. Please rejoin at 6.30. And we will see you then. Audio on. Just now. Oh, okay. Green ring right now. Just in case. So, we have a meeting for the board of directors for the San Lorenzo Valley Water District. October 5, 2023. Holly, would you take roll again? President Smalley. Here. Vice president Hill. Here. Director Ackman. Here. Director Falls. Here. Director Mayhood. Here. And we have nothing to report out as far as any actions taken in the closed session. Before we go to any changes in the agenda, I wanted to just briefly go over. Something that's in our board policy. After the last meeting, which was a bit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're bouncing around a lot. I wanted to just reiterate a few things. And I'm doing this more as much for myself because I'm letting it happen. So just wanted to review with everybody. And I'm going to be more diligent about trying to make it happen. So that it's not as chaotic. And I'm just going to go back to that. Thank you. Board members are. Given the opportunity. For. One opportunity for comment from each director after presentation from the staff. Generally public comments then. If there are any. Followed by. An additional opportunity for comment from each director. And then we have a meeting. And then we have a meeting. That's organized by the chairperson before speaking. We do a lot of. Interjecting. And talking over each other. To the point that. Some of the members of the public have stopped us in that. Saying we have hearing difficulties. We can't hear you when you're talking over each other. And I'm guessing also for members of the public that are attending remotely. It gets difficult then. To hear. We can't hear you when you're talking over that. And I'm going to follow that. Protocol. Each director may seek additional information or comment. The staff. On any question. However, the right of any director to be heard. Is limited to the particular topic. Of item. Of business. That issue. If I can see that we're straying off into the broccoli. Fields. I'm going to. Do what I can to check that. the item that we're talking about. If I stray off into the broccoli field, I'll ask the other directors to check me also. Chairperson shall endeavor to confine debate to the question under discussion. Shall not roll out and shall roll out of order any irrelevant or repetitious comments by directors or members of the public to the extent permitted under the ground. So with that, I'd like to continue with the meeting. Any changes to the agenda? Chair, I'd just like to make a quick announcement earlier in the week. I notified the board that Kendra Reed, the district finance manager, had submitted her resignation of employment to the district. Tonight will be Kendra's last appearance as finance manager in front of the board. This is a huge loss to the district because Kendra has been an extremely valuable member of the management team and I really want to thank you for your service. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the board. We say thank you for your service. Would you like to? Yeah, I do have something I'd like to say. So I've been with the district for eight years and this place in my co-workers have become my family. I deeply care for the district and have valued my timecare and all I have learned. With that said, I will be moving on to a position that will be less public and board facing and will be overall better for my mental health. When taking the position of director of finance, I had to navigate learning new things and dealing with the board for the first time. The extensive scrutiny, criticism, and in my personal opinion, disrespectful behavior towards staff and other board members from director Fultz has taken a toll. I want to be fully transparent and I know I'm not alone in this stance and I would hate for another valuable staff member to have to make the same decision to move on and put the district in an even more vulnerable place. I appreciate all the support I received thus far and I'm truly going to miss this place. Thank you Kendra. As the chair of the budget finance committee and the board member that's dealt with Kendra the most over three years that director may have been here, I'd like her to speak. I want to thank you Kendra for your many years working for the district and even before you jumped into the challenging job of director of finance and when we asked you to do that, we realized that that was requiring you to take on unfamiliar tasks related to capital planning, budgeting, and then the horrible, horrible thing, the rate study. And so both director Hill and I who are on the budget and finance committee have been really impressed by the hard work that you undertook and your growing mastery of all of this material and so we're very sorry to see you go. I'm also very sorry to hear what you just told us and I think that it's very brave of you to say it because it's not always easy to say things like that in public. But I had previously when I talked to you, you made it clear that it wasn't the whole board that was the problem, it was a single member of the board and Rick Rogers said earlier told me that he moved his retirement date up to early November because he could no longer tolerate the impact having to deal with director Fultz was having on his health. So we're now as a board in the position of scrambling to find an interim district manager and an interim director of finance on short notice entirely because of the damaging behavior of director Fultz. His treatment of staff has been a long-standing problem and it threatens the future of the district. I regret that I haven't done something about it before this but I think that the board needs to address it directly and publicly and for this reason I regretfully make a formal request to the board president to put a discussion of this issue on the agenda for the next board meeting. We'll discuss that at the next board meeting. Okay moving on to formal communications. This is a portion for any members of the public wants to speak on an issue that's not on our agenda tonight that is part of the district's overview of operations and I'd like to remind members of the public that this is limited to three minutes in length. So does anybody here have anything that they want to cover? A little question about it being on the agenda. I'm not seeing anything specific for the remote project. Is that something that's discussed this evening? I believe that's part of the engineering department. Yeah there's an update in my memo. Okay we can cover that towards the end of the end of the meeting then as part of the engineering department. I do see several members of public online who want to comment about something that's not on the agenda. Mr. Dolson? Thank you. Can you hear me now? Yes. So I attend all the board meetings. I rarely comment but in this case I do have something I'd like to share and in addition based on the remarks that have just been made I want to say that I appreciate what President Smalley's intentions are in controlling the meeting and I'm similarly very very sorry to hear about Kendra's departure and I think that's a huge loss for the district. I'll leave it at that. The comment I want to make really is based on the previous meeting there was a comment by a director which really concerned me there and it actually fits in with some of the things people are talking about because I would urge the board to seriously address this to put it on the agenda as well and gain some clarity on this issue. The claim was made that the repetitious and tangential remarks by board members are actually a good thing because they serve to inform the public and that that's actually part of what board meetings are intended to accomplish and my understanding is quite different it's that the sole purpose of board meetings is for the board to expeditiously provide the district with essential guidance that's as well informed as possible and the public is certainly free to witness the deliberations to provide oral and written input but there's no legitimate basis for directors to treat board meetings as a stage that they can use to address the public. This distracts the board from its mission it makes the meetings longer more tedious for board members and the public alike and so I urge the board to take this under consideration but but lastly I want to suggest that the board should not engage in any immediate comment on our discussion of what I've just said because this would just be another example of the behavior that I'm objecting to thank you. Other members from the public would want to speak on something that's not on our agenda tonight Cynthia Denzel. Thank you can you hear me now? Yes I would like to agree with what Mark said I had been wondering why Rick Rogers was planning to leave sooner than what he had indicated earlier and I think most of us were very worried about that and to know that it has to do with discomfort with the attitude of one of the directors makes us feel even worse I am sorry that I personally haven't expressed more appreciation. Cynthia? Cynthia? Yes. I'd like to have that discussion next week. I think your comments are very often to what I don't want to discuss this evening. I'd like to deal with that next week. Okay I just wanted to express appreciation for manager Rogers. Thank you. Point of clarification though I do think it's important to acknowledge that oral communication for items not on the agenda is for items on the agenda and it's not your preference about what people say so I think we have to be careful about that. But it's something that we will cover. Correct but it's yeah okay she's right. Seeing no others on the we can move on then. I'm not seeing anybody else right now. The unfinished business and oh yes unfinished business the revenue model to be used for the 2023 rate study. Rickerson the finance manager will introduce this side. Okay so the 2023 rate study by Raft Ellis was the consultant company contracted to undertake this study relayed their goals of the rate study at the July 13 2023 meeting which was a workshop and rates 101 to kind of go over you know how a rate study is conducted in the process. The first financial plan presentation was brought to the board on September 7th and a discussion was had. And then at the September 12th budget and finance committee more discussion was covered and there were a few you know minor changes that resulted in the final presentation at the September 14th for special board meetings. I'd like to point out that the public was invited to both the September 7th and 14th meetings and the district did reach out to you know its largest users Bear Creek estates schools mobile home parks to encourage people to attend and provide their input to those meetings. Based on comments from members of the public and the board members from the September 14th meeting staff worked with Raft Ellis to slightly modify the models presented at that meeting to to arrive at the final versions presented here in. So we'll start with the water financial plan. This is basically the same financial plan as scenario one presented at the 914 special board meeting. This includes the 25 million in capital expenditures that are spread out over the five year rate period for CZU fire recovery and other natural disasters recovery spending and and other unforeseen repairs and maintenance. Staff is recommending this financial plan instead of the scenario two which is the higher capital spending for disaster recovery presented at the 914 board meeting for the following reasons. Scenario one would result in smaller revenue adjustments needed. The revenue adjustments would be 10 percent for the first two years seven percent for the three following years as opposed to the other scenario which would be the 12 percent for the first two years 10 percent for the two following years and six percent for the fifth year under the scenario two plan. The reserve levels there is more reserve fund coverage under the first scenario and our historical capital spending is limited to stock bandwidth. So basically with the retirement of the general manager the loss of our district engineer Josh in June and now with my resignation this will this decrease the district's capacity to plan it and manage the capital projects until the replacements are up to speed and Garrett is obviously you know getting up to speed but he's you know still you know getting you saw the project so it's it's you know it's going to take a lot more for you know a collaborative effort to come together. Next slide so this is just showing kind of a rundown of the scenario one and showing the revenue adjustments that are needed and this also assumes the 19 million dollar debt issuance in fiscal year 2024. There'll be no change to the fire recovery surcharge and it assumes 25 million over five year period of disaster recovery spending. So I kind of wanted to talk a little bit more about capital expenditure expenditures and the debt issuance so in fiscal year 2024 we have 24 million in capital spending slated for that so most of that funding is already in contracts 15 about 15.2 million in loan funded projects so that makes up the majority there's a 3.8 in other FEMA projects and 3.1 a million in grant funding so the need for capital expenditure coverage requires us to issue debt and that's 19 million at four and a half percent for a 20 year loan. This this debt issuance provides cash flow coverage to cover any of the capital expenditures that are needed with the lag of the FEMA reimbursement coming in. We chose a conservative 20 year loan because it results in higher animal debt service and issuing debt will spread the cost of recovery over the 20 years so it's not if we weren't to do this we weren't to issue debt we would need higher revenue adjustments to cover all of the capital expenditures and this just shows the breakdown of the capital financing so you'll see in the first fiscal year 24 the remaining loan proceeds in the dark gray is the majority of the loans that are in contract and then there's a few of the grant funding and then the light gray will show the how much is going to the new debt and then this is just showing the dotted line is if we're at our current revenues we say at our current revenues we won't have sufficient revenue to cover our operating debt service and capital projects. For the wastewater financial plan this one is actually going to be different from the three scenarios that were presented in the 914 meeting. This this scenario is assuming that we're not doing any type of upgrade to the collection system so no you know no capital spending. The revenue adjustments are just based on the annual inflation and what's needed to bring our reserves to target levels since the wastewater monthly charges are already very substantial for the barricade to state's customers we thought this would be you know a better approach since the connection to the county is outside of the five-year rate setting period so you know we think it'd be prudent and helpful to the barricade customers to defer the funding until a more concrete project can be proposed and all grant funding options can be explored um and Rick I don't know if you wanted to know that you did a fantastic job the Bear Creek working with the county it would be a expansion of the county's csa-7 which is the wastewater system at the Boulder Creek Golf Course the plan and what is looking to move ahead is combining downtown Boulder Creek and areas in CZU fire a long big basin way into the sewer system and also bringing the Bear Creek a state's wastewater down to Boulder Creek and then out to the golf course combining the csa-7 it's a much bigger customer base and and our initial studies with the county bring in they tend to lower the monthly maintenance cost to about 50% of what they're paying now it's a very significant lowering because there's much more connections and it's a much better system the one thing though about this is it has a long time frame 10 to 12 years of the county estimates but we are looking for grant funding or we hope to find grant funding to cover most of this we feel that that you know if we really don't have any projects to start building a capital improvement we don't have a project so it's tough to sell that to the folks in Bear Creek to tell them we want to raise their rates if you don't have a project yes we're not in compliance but the regional water quality control board knows that the district and county are working and I think everybody involved sees this as the final fix to the Bear Creek and the downtown Boulder Creek area we could spend money we could spend a couple million dollars on upgrading what we have out there now the operational costs would cost those folks more than they could afford but almost double it so at this time we're just kind of staying in status quo we're definitely have a little to build up their capital reserve because that is they have almost no capital reserve right now and then we're going to continue to explore grant funding for the final project on Bear Creek thank you and and then I forgot to share this screen this just shows the three percent for the five years revenue adjustments that would be needed under if we were to select this financial plan which is the no capital spending and so then with that we have a motion um and I can take questions okay all right um so we start with Jeff participated in the budget and finance so I'm actually very familiar with this and know what you've been doing and I'm quite happy with it as it is I'm not really having questions at this point okay thank you yeah I there's just two things I'd like to emphasize before we sort of open this up for wider discussion um already what we've heard from Henry and Rick has explained why we've ended up where we are and what the motion is in the packet for the board to consider but what I want to just say is that the proposed financial plans and the revenue model are just that models and models never capture reality perfectly they're just our best attempts at um trying to understand things for the purposes of decision making um the greatest values in terms of just sort of putting the boundaries on what the possibilities are not in exact predictions of the future so for that reason there's not much merit in quibbling about um small aspects of the model or changing input variables a little bit as Kendra explained we we already had Raft-Hellis do some minor changes based on comments that we got from the board and budget and finance so that's accounts for the changes between September 7 and 7 and September 14 and since then um Kendra Rick and I have worked with Raft-Hellis to do a little bit further modeling based on some comments that we got on the 14th answering questions like what would happen if you spread out some of the capital projects over a little bit more time like if you took five million and you spread it out or what if we took out a slightly smaller loan 16 million rather than 19 million or what if you took out two smaller loans spread out over time and what it turns out is that those kinds of changes have very little effect on the amount of revenue that we need you have to make much bigger changes like cutting the amount of capital expenditures that we would have for recovery in half or cutting the or doubling them or you'd have to cut the loan amount in half for it to have any effect and then the second thing I'd like to emphasize is just to remind people that tonight what we're really voting on is just on the first stage of the rate study process and that is the financial plan and the revenue model that sets the amount of revenue that we need to capture in the new rate structure for the next five years it does not set the actual rates that our customers will pay which is what's taken up in the next step and just as an example if we have say a 10 percent increase in revenue that does not automatically translate to a 10 percent increase in rates that our customers will see because for example where we to adopt tiered rates lower use people would probably see an increase less than 10 percent and then foolish people like me that has flowing pools would see an increase above 10 percent the other thing is that will be part of this next step is deciding whether we want to assign parts of the revenue to restricted accounts that could be used only for specific purposes and these might be things like disaster recovery other types of capital projects a drought reserve or watershed protection and also decide whether we would want such categories reflected in the rate schedule and on the customers bills so it was transparent to our rate peers exactly where their money is is going none of these things are on the table tonight because they are part of the next stage of the rate study process when there'll be ample time to take them up for discussion thank you well I want to make sure I understood what it is that we're being asked to vote on are we being asked to vote on the financial model that was delivered at least to me uh week and a half ago or so is that what we're adopting along with the low capital expenditure associated with the raw water just the financial plan that was presented in my presentation so basically the same from the waste the water is the same from the september 14th um meeting with you know some slight updates to what we're calling the scenario um and then the wastewater would be step is a new financial plan that we're suggesting recommending based on no capital upgrade spending just on regular inflation and bringing our reserve levels to target levels yeah sorry I need to be very specific so the model that was delivered showed a particular plan for revenue and operating expenses operating expenses growth about four and a half percent a year that's what we're being asked to vote on I mean I don't know when you were it was sent to you but there could have been changes made since then um but the so yeah I guess the what was presented to you tonight was a product of the model I mean I'm I'm uncomfortable voting on financial plans that have bar graphs basically as the as the output or for what I'm what I'm supposed to be looking at that's why I'm trying to relate it to the model that I got whether or not we're voting on that or voting on something different um it sounds like it's still very um flexible and um I said earlier about this being a model gail but we are at we will eventually be asking our community to do more than just participate in the model they're going to have to open their checkbooks and give us money and that needs to be a bilateral commitment and right now we haven't made that commitment as a district as a board but so so so we're well yeah but I mean I I'm trying to figure out what it is I'm voting on right now because and also for the community um I'm assuming that the that the attachments were meant to be hotlinks is that correct yes they're not working on mine unfortunately so I'm I'm the community may not be able to access that either um okay uh on the bear creek estates we're showing a three percent increase in rates revenue revenue um how much of that you also say that we're going to be raising it modestly and then creating a reserve what what's what's the split between operating and reserve out of that three percent that I would have to look into further um it's just I mean it's a blend of you know the uh assumptions from the inflation which work are consistent with the water financial plan and then also bring the target the reserves to target level what would that number be the target level uh let's see here and what would that be based on our reserve policy two and a half percent of the cost of the infrastructure yes okay so what would that number be that we expect to have in the reserve dedicated for reserves at the end of this five year period uh let's see here it's on the graph that yeah it's it's on the graph I just I don't have the sorry I'd be happy to look at it more but I wasn't able to get to it before tonight's meeting what should be in the memo oh here we go um so it looks like for fiscal year 25 we're up to um 100 thousand fiscal year 26 200 000 um fiscal year 27 a little over to like 250 000 and then by fiscal year 2020 300 000 okay so we're building reserves but it isn't going to be at the target level at the end of five years yeah it will be above the target level if you look at the graph the um the reserve target is the black line and so we're under in fiscal year 24 25 but as a fiscal year 26 we are above the reserve well the agenda yeah page 12 okay so we're valuing the current um capital infrastructure there at eight million dollars now we're taking two and a half percent of that and we're building up to that great any kind of violation for being out of compliance on the wastewater side is there aside from getting notices you know is there any other mitigation that we're required to do we are out of compliance right now and we are reporting that quarterly and working with them they have not been aggressive towards us as long as we're continuing to try to come up with a solution and I do believe that they're also supporting the CSH7 consolidation so they haven't been aggressive towards us but yes we are in in non-compliance by the nitrogen exceeding the 50% nitrogen reduction and I and I in the collection system is there any um uh legal jeopardy that that opens us up to like from lawsuits perhaps from other water users of the San Lorenzo River I mean I think anything's possible because you know look at the city of Santa Cruz where nitrate issues are a concern in the San Lorenzo River and obviously it's right along Bear Creek and Bear Creek flows into the San Lorenzo River but you know those are all monitored there's water quality samples and that it's a very little and I think it's almost negligent that we increase nitrate from Bear Creek but we're not meeting the 50% reduction so you know anything's possible Jamie I wouldn't say no to that but highly unlikely I appreciate that I mean I I'm in agreement that raising the rates without a clear project is a real challenge in terms of what we're asking the community but I obviously you know have concerns in terms of our environmental stewardship of the watershed watershed that we're responsible for um I wanted to clarify my understanding of the conversation that we're having tonight um I I think what we're looking at is is the basis on which we are going to then consider how we structure our rates the model is a tool that gets us there it's the outputs from the tool that we're now taking a look at right and so I um feel like we have done our due diligence here in terms of considering uh how we might adjust the model to ensure that we are giving our community the best understanding of the basis on which we are next going to consider our rate structure um and it is not our job as the board my understanding to then dictate the terms of the tools that is being used to give us these answers right so so the the model's tool the outcomes are what we're considering is that fair well I mean we do have some control excuse me yeah I mean so the once we select a financial plan based on the model from there you know the uh raft telescope structure um you know the rates and what the in the five-year rate schedule is going to be for each uh for the customers and taken to consider consideration alternative rate structures like y'all mentioned you know like potential capital improvement surcharge or drought surcharge or whatnot um but you know it's my understanding that once we select the financial plan we won't be making any changes to the model because that's what the you know financial plan is based on from what we select thank you I'd love to hear what director mayhood was going to say uh I was only going to say that the we're we're not given the model by raff tell us and and then it you know comes down on stone we we obviously have made some changes to some of the input values and we've provided some feedback right for it but you're absolutely right that that after that's happened then the result of the model is what we're using thank you um in the presentation that you put together I saw the statement in here that the revenue model has a 25 million over a five-year period it requires reserves to be used for emergency uh projects um while at the same time we're recognizing that our reserves are too low right now so how are we balancing uh those two uh we're low right now but we're saying that we're going to be using reserves for purchasing projects so that's where the issuance comes into play so um you know the all of the FEMA projects we have to pay up front until we receive reimbursement um you know and reimbursement can be one to two years or whatever it may be down the line so to make sure we have enough cash flow coverage we need to issue that debt um to ensure we can pay for those capital expenditures so so it basically is issuing debt to make sure our reserves are not depleted anymore um I like what you've done with the wastewater plan changes uh based on input that we received from the community uh at the last meeting um and the council that and being able to go back and look and see uh when we would be doing um that unladderable to die into the county's new system with I think the county's on a an 11-year program to eventually get to that point we're not going to be needing to do any of this in the next five years probably it's on the order more like eight or ten years out that we would be doing something for that so good um and um the district has done a lot uh since we inherited that uh wastewater treatment system in in an effort to do upgrades to it um but the but the district has still not been 100 percent successful we've reduced it some but still not completely successful on that so I do recognize that um and the uh 25 million for the replacement of the world water pipeline I think is uh appropriate and this is the correct approach for us to take at this point so um with that it's only just Mark Lee has been patiently having his hand up since interested citizens uh he would like to address the board and he doesn't think we're seeing him oh okay right around Mark Lee uh Mark Lee here don't send a text in we haven't taken public coming in right okay when I get okay when I get to public comments I will uh address him then okay uh so uh at this point um I'd like to read out the motion and then uh solicit public cost it's gonna be a point of order would it be possible to split the motion into um I'd like to read the motion as we have it here and go from there if somebody wants to make an amendment to this we can we can consider that thing um but I'm gonna read this uh so that we all have it on the move that the board instruct the staff and reptiles consultants to use the modest disaster recovery spending financial plan described in this memo to develop possible water rate structures for the board's future consideration and to use the no spending for major upgrade financial plan described in this memo to establish a recommendation for the rate structure for the wastewater usage at Bear Creek Estates second okay so with that uh out there I'd like to solicit public comments um on what we've discussed here uh anybody here in the audience I guess what I've been hearing is the district is going to borrow its way to reserves but that's not the way I think of reserves think of reserves as something that can be used for any purpose to call the reserve they're not committed to something that's already going on um so I I think and I kind of wonder where everybody came from that you think that you can borrow 19 million dollars and call that reserves I mean that's what I've been hearing isn't it the district got into two long-term deaths in the last few years and there's financial information and the district borrowed 29 and a half million dollars uh two and a half years ago and more than four years ago and the the financial information here shows that there's as of uh August 31st there was still 17 million of the 29 and a half that had not even been spent and now you want to go borrow another 19 I have never heard of this kind of financing I don't understand um I guess um if you would I have my own law for the lifecycle of a project in construction projects included and my model is I wish there was a whiteboard I could draw this it's an S curve you start out slowly you wrap up you eventually get your stride and you have an inflection point when you're spending most of your money and then maybe it levels off at the top and you fit through the finishing touches so you have an S curve to a project and it looks like these projects that began in 2019 that S curve the inflection point is three years three years or more out which I think there's some IRS curve that says three years is the limit I'm not quite sure how you've gotten past 30 years but the way the kind of financing that the district is getting into with these certificates of participation it looks like you borrow the full amount up front and we start paying interest up front for the whole project but meanwhile this S curve doesn't really reach its inflection point for years in the future so we're paying interest and I guess you've already discovered last year that in this interval you've got a treasury management problem so it's not just a project management problem it's a treasury management problem what do I do with 19 million dollars when I haven't figured out how to spend it I've never seen this kind of financing I mean maybe Mr. Fulton now he's got a lot more experience than I do I have no idea how this this is the strangest thing I've ever seen um you have borrowed more than tens of millions of dollars for years and it's you can't even spend it you got 17 millions totally committed to projects and you got more you want to do it again the other thing I'm a little disturbed about is I came to the last meeting you've already decided you're going to go with the above ground I mean it's true Shannon in the last meeting yes the finance committee um came to a consensus on an agenda as to item last and now it's the same thing for the debt so there's 19 million dollars of debt it looks like it's a done deal there was any process I know you don't want to listen to me but I you're in your third year of borrowing money that you haven't even figured out how to spend thank you anybody else here yes I'm Eric Martin here local in Walnut Creek right by the proposed compensation is probably everybody knows um the construction company that's doing the work um anybody that lives on the other side of highway nine is this focused to it's part of the it's part of the projects and I don't know if you're aware of what's going on up there um but right now we're commenting on this budget model we do have a uh an engineering project summary that we will be discussing later in the meeting but are your comments related to this revenue model well I'll address the revenue model okay having no small amount of experience in the construction industry I agree with what Mr. Holloway said um borrowing money up front and then throwing it in the bank unless you have a really good investment broker banker is a fool's errand you borrow it as you use it all of my construction projects that I did my customers paid for them as in installments they didn't just get give me 10 million dollars up front say woohoo go expand it and I agree with that there needs to be a more comprehensive project and I do small I did small stuff and I don't know what he did but I'm looking at this going the math just doesn't make sense okay thank you um anybody else here in the audience otherwise I will go to folks uh attending remotely Mark Dalson I'm sorry I should have lowered my hand long ago okay um and I've been informed that Mark Lee would like to speak also is that correct see any okay really having communications with problems with Mark because he did text personally I understand but I can't yeah can't pull it out of the given that then we've heard from the public I'd like to solicit any other comments from the board on our second round so um just a couple of follow-up questions are there project financing rules that require us to demonstrate cash on hand in order to proceed through design and construction approvals or are you know like what seems to me I understand why we need to finance the projects because we can't raise enough money with reserves fast enough unless everybody wants to look at 25 percent increases in order to have enough cash on hand to proceed through these projects but I'm just wondering if there are financing rules that we deal with and you know if those limit our ability to finance things closer to the date of actually implementing construction to be honest um so I wasn't involved with the last loan so this would kind of be my first would have been my first time dealing with that so that um I'm not familiar with that piece of the information Rick maybe you have better idea I was thinking back to that but you know I know that you know we didn't move ahead with projects until we were sure that we received the loans um so we didn't want to go out and find out you know we weren't getting the loan so one came in and then what happened that money would have been spent it wasn't for the supply chain backlog and you know some of those projects were held up over a year during COVID supply chain that's why now we have such a big backlog and we're spending over and we're in construction right now of uh 15 million so we're catching up and that money will be spent shortly that money's going out in in large quantities um so we will be catching up on that but we like we like to make sure we had that money before we committed you know on projects and budget okay thanks Bob yeah I mean at the last meeting I remember maybe the meeting before I spoke about the fact that we're uh as a board um and through the numbers that were put together by our consultant conflating real reserves with debt uh in terms of how we're looking at things to classify debt as a reserve is insane um but I understand that that's a typical thing that folks do um because it is money that's available uh to be spent historically since I was around for the last two loans I think there was some optimism that the ramp up time for the projects would be much shorter um as it turns out um you know we took the loan out in 2019 uh at the end of that year we started out in the first part next year we got into covid and then we got in 2021 we got into and the fire and in 2021 I think there was just a lot of um trying to do too many things at once basically so I think we were overly optimistic at how quickly it would take us to ramp up what isn't clear for me on the loan is whether or not that 19 million is required in order to cover cash flow um for uh for the district that is because of the incredible delays in getting FEMA reimbursement um we would run into a cash flow situation early on I'd ask for more of a granular um and especially for the public to be able to present a cash flow projection um I think we got something but I don't know that was really clear showing exactly why that 19 million was was needed up front um it is just unfortunately a fact of life that FEMA does not um there has not been reimbursing us very quickly I think we're going to cover that here in another agenda item the other thing about models because I do want to address the models the model should reflect closer to reality um the mon the model that was used in the last rate increase talked about 3.5 percent increases in operating expenses our budgets that were actually passed were consistently in the 6 percent the 7 percent increases or three points over what was in the model it is because of that that I'm skeptical that a model showing 4.5 percent increases in operating expenses given that inflation is now much higher than it was back then is in any way realistic and it is that concern about making sure that we are presenting to the community a realistic model about operating expenses it's really driving um why I'm advocating so strongly for that um I am willing to bet that the budgets that get passed will not be 4.5 percent they'll probably be in the 6 to 7 percent range which would be anywhere from 3 to 4 percent over the models the I understand the issue behind that which is if you show the operating expenses increasing too quickly you're then forced into higher rates and so that that is why I think there's this tendency to underestimate what the actual operating expense increase is going to be in these models and then what happens on the backside of that is you lose operating margin that then reduces our ability to um have reserves available to us and these are the reasons why the the model that's been presented by our consultant the numbers that have been presented by our consultant are not in anywhere um related to what the reality is going to be and it is for that reason that I I simply can't support uh this I think it's um I think it does a real disservice to our community when we don't present models that reflect reality. Okay. Yeah. Okay um to that 19 million dollar loan um is there any reason we would be taking that out sooner than what we would need to? What do you mean sooner? Like um front loading it uh to the point of having it in hand before um the engineering team said here are the here are the projects that we're going to be having coming up next year so that we would be holding it for years. I mean in order to cover the capital expenditure needs we would need to issue that then. Yeah. Um and I mean like the previous two loans they those those funds are designated for a specific project so it would be similar to that where we would designate you know specific projects to the loan funds um so but you know it is needed in the early on in the first year because of the big uh capital expenditures we have in just year 2024. Okay. So um we have a motion in front of us um did we get a second? Yes. Yeah. Okay. That was me. Okay. President Smalley. Oh excuse me I'd like to offer an amendment to that. I think we have to vote on the motion before us that's been seconded. I don't think that you can amend the motion once it's been seconded. I actually you can't. I'd love to hear from the board. Can you comment for us? You could ask to do a counter motion and see if you get a second. Thank you. Okay. So feel free to make a counter motion Bob. Well actually I definitely want to look into that a little bit more and all the boards I've been on once the motion has been seconded you can make an amendment. So um yeah we'll argue about it later. So yes I would like to move that the board instruct the staff and Raphael's consultants to use the modest disaster recovery spending financial plan described in this memo to develop possible water rate structures for the board's consideration period. Second motion I move that the board instruct the staff. You take one motion at a time if you want to make two separate motions you do one motion at a time you see we get a second on the one motion. Okay so Bob's put a motion out in front of us. Do we have a second on that hearing none is there reason to proceed with your second? Well these are two very different questions and I'd like to support one but not the other but okay if the board says I can't do that that's fine my apologies to the Bear Creek estates people. Okay the board will not allow me to support them. I think it's the rules. That's not the rules. We're following the protocol that our attorney has advised us. Okay we have a motion not in front of us. Holly did you take the roll please? President Smalley? Yes. Vice President Hill? Yes. Director Ackman? Yes. Director Falls? No. Director Mayhood? Yes. Okay motion passes. New business the public assistance and disaster recovery management services contract see that three times faster. Yes and the environmental planner will present this item to the board. All right thank you Rick. Do you want me to move a microphone a little closer can everyone hear me? Because I think you start off. All right there we go. Thank you Rick. Great thank you. All right so FEMA offers project management cost claims through category Z at a not to exceed rate of five percent reimbursement based on the total obligated project costs. In August 2020 the CZU Lightning Complex fires and December 2022 and 2023 storm events damaged or destroyed district infrastructure. This resulted in over 60 FEMA projects over the three disaster declarations. Due to staff bandwidth and the difficulty of reporting and compliance requirements associated with FEMA public assistance funding the district released a request for proposals or RFP for public assistance and disaster recovery management services. Can you all hear me? I'm sorry I'll slow down. The RFP outlined the district's need to complete the FEMA public assistance and reimbursement process. The RFP closed on August 4th and two proposals were received one from Aptum and another from Berquist Recovery Consulting or BRC. The district staff reviewed both proposals and found that each were substantially different in costs and hours needed. On August 28th the district sent out a project list shown as exhibit D for the consultants to more accurately define hours and costs. However the differences between the two proposals were still very great. After further review district staff were recommending award to Aptum. Aptum's proposal clearly defined objectives outlined a clear schedule and laid out hours that realistically reflected the scope of work. Staff is prepared to answer any questions. There's more detail in the memo. Okay all right well I don't know about the rest of the board but I have a lot of questions on this so let's get started with it. I'll defer to you go ahead. And I prefer to go last on this Bob. Are you prepared to come ahead? Okay I don't have shall I start into yeah why don't you because I actually don't have a lot of comments about this I think it's an important you know program and we just need to award this contract. The RFP and the proposal with or the proposal submittal they're both coming at us together here the proposal or the RFP or the need for the RFP wasn't reviewed with I don't think the budget finance committee? It was not okay. Care to comment on that? It's been in development since I believe July. Right I think you know if thought it was pretty straightforward that there really wasn't a lot to it okay that you know they needed those great me or um this CZU fire estimate damage you're now paving at 75 million? That's what the panel is on what we you know depending on which way we go and we have not determined yet on the construction technique on the raw water right but so it could be as much as that okay but that's your estimate for right now could be as much as that okay and the 2023 storms you pegged at four million. It's probably gonna be a little low but okay the RFP requests support for getting grants and it spells that out I don't know in four bullets. Are those grants separate from FEMA funds or is that grants that are kind of under this bigger FEMA umbrella? FEMA considers they call that what their funds grants okay so it's seeking FEMA funds in general and they'll also look at other projects or other grants to fund projects help us important okay um and I want to quote as best disaster related work is further stretching staff capacity and well you're laughing Kendra um fires happened three years ago and and I think at least on the engineering side I've been asking for questions do we need help do we need help I've been hearing no this is a bit of a change for well so the problem seems to be getting FEMA to respond and and these folks have a track record and the staffing to continually inquire with FEMA and to work through them and are generally seem to move to the top of the list the one when we spoke to other northern california fires uh paradise and and therefore and then the same people that are found with their insurance companies it's very similar are bringing in a consultant to and understands the fine lines of FEMA or the insurance have a tendency to move it I had faster we're at a standstill on cz here okay so have we been reimbursed anything for ccu fire costs yeah um does it been so grand total is like 475 000 oh yeah out of how much have we spent on cz here oh gosh almost five million I want to say and I do believe that uh okay okay the initial real best for the reimbursement was for the emergency response right it was the nickel dime stuff in the very very beginning okay and minimal so far right and keep in mind not only we haven't received the money mark but we haven't had these projects obligated to say that that they will pay to do these projects okay who who will manage this consultant for us bring this consultant on it would likely be the management team um it will be it will be the management team depending on where it's at because there'll be finance there'll be engineering there'll be operations right okay um so most likely it'll wind up the majority of it in the engineering department but also finance will have a great role and develop on that okay so it will be I know what you're looking for you want one individual that well will coordinate the district manager so it would be the district manager who is responsible okay would be the person who would be the person that's right because can I see is um apt him is that a general manager is that them apt them yes apt them um they have a list of I don't know 12 different personnel or so at varying rates that they would have involved in this sounds somewhat similar you would have the appropriate staff working with them but with district manager or general manager that was the point person focused on this okay um I see that apt them's proposal provides for um a little more than 2000 hours over a two-year period that's one individual working half time so I take that as a fair amount of involvement over that period of time and I realize it's not one individual that they're providing us because they all provide different levels of expertise into that it's providing for a two-year period what's the likelihood that we're going to need this beyond two years given where we're where we are now I mean it's keep in mind it is a not to exceed contract so you know if they were to be able to finish up the work within you know one year I don't think we would extend we obviously when that's what he's asking okay that's all I'm sorry well um what's the recovery time frame for getting money from FEMA I think it's going to be longer than the two years given where we you know what we've been able to recover so far is it likely that if we're working successfully with a firm like this that so so the big they're going to be coming back to the somebody else well the big thing is coming back to say yes the big thing is getting the project obligated because once the projects are obligated that's when we can start submitting for all of our expenses incurred to date and whatnot and once they're obligated you know the the invoices that whoever consultant we choose those are also reimbursable as well and you know these companies have extensive knowledge in working with FEMA and working to move the project along and get it obligated so you know having them to help us with that especially with our you know short staffing would be beneficial to start getting reimbursement it will be it may be years because you gotta remember they don't reimburse until the project's completed right we pay so but we'll break off on this company once obligated and once that we have a a obligated project which means as long as you don't go out of the scope of work FEMA pays actual construction costs so that's a benefit let me clarify one thing he said if it's a large project which you know the raw water pipelines would be in all that right and it is obligated you can take project drawdowns you don't have to wait till the project completion to get the full funding so you can draw down what you've expensed to date on that so and i wasn't clear about what you were saying earlier carly with the this project z level or category z not exceed so can we get um aptum's fees uh covered by exactly so the category z would would pay for this project management consultant it's not to exceed five percent of the total obligated project costs right but at their current we would need to have a project cost of seven and a half million right okay and they re-expense for uh reimburse for our time spent as well so we're we track our time understand that but in the same category this is a recoverable cost that we have here if they are successful in getting us yes okay um and we checked any references on aptum we have not they're actually from a reference um yeah from paradise we during the fire we worked very closely with paradise on our quality and so forth so we established a relationship with them and this is their recommendation um highly recommended okay so yes we do okay and um a technical point on page 17 of the contract that we asked aptum to sign already because I see their signature on you have a district council name no longer or of course Gina's name is still on that contract so excuse me I couldn't hear you uh the uh the name change district council okay correct on the contract okay all right um that's all of the questions that I have on it to the rest of the board yeah so I believe I've got this right but my to put it in real simple terms the staff does not believe that the district has personnel who have the available time and the specific expertise to manage the claim process with fema in house and therefore these are consultants who do that as a we're living and the belief is that we will be reimbursed more quickly and perhaps more richly uh because of their expertise does that put it in a nutshell okay that's that's what I thought okay all right and just yet one more thing that we have to uh pay for up front but but I totally understand why this is necessary yeah and the grant writer has more than exceeded our expectations yeah I'm just grumbling I'm not I'm not arguing against it just I understand all right I'd like to move uh that the district manager entered a contract with aptum in an amount not to exceed 365 121 dollars with purpose of public assistance and disaster recovery management public comments anybody here anybody online I saw mark please and pop up for about six seconds and it's gone mark I think he's having problems like here okay uh not uh seeing anybody else online okay sorry we come back to all that I'm sorry that that's right yes a second a second round Jeff yeah the only thing I had their question on is whether or not they had some forecast on uh how this would impact our cash flow that is are they going to be able to advance the reimbursements to the point where our cash flow requirements are not as severe are you asking consultants are going to do that or yeah I mean what's when when you're talking with them about paying them this money what and they're and they're really good at it which is what I'm hearing are they going to be able to start delivering cash to us so that we can accelerate the cash flow from FEMA so that we can be a little bit more flexible and taking out that 19 million dollar loan that's our plan to get to use this company jumpstart FEMA and they keep this start getting our reimbursement did they give you any ideas to how long they thought it would take to ramp up on that what that that's correct I have a question now but I'm not sure they they gave us any projections of when they would say cash would start rolling in Bob any any examples of previous clients in terms of when you're checking references how quickly they were able to start getting money in the door and that's really what we're paying for here right is is making sure that we get obligated but more importantly that we get cash faster any yeah I don't believe that question was was asked directly Jamie follow up questions please um I I don't have any follow-up questions I I I appreciate the concerns from director folks about how quickly we can move this process forward I think we're all eager to see FEMA begin reimbursing us as quickly as we possibly can I would assume that what Paradise shared with you about them was that we they saw you know improved returns by using these services or either that and Paradise had some issues with damage by not being obligated that being turned down and so they had to go a different avenue finally get like their pipe was damaged from steam and they wanted to replace all of the pipe and FEMA said no just the part that melted and this company through testing and working through them got them to finally approve to the appeal process to replace all of the piping and all of the services Paradise having being the first one that had this contamination and having issues Paradise went through a lot of different problems being the first one that we were fortunate to learn from Paradise right and so one assumes that it would be foolish for any consulting organization to make a specific commitment about a timeline that FEMA is going to pay us on because they actually don't have control over that but what they can do is help to speed the process because they have the time the bandwidth and the expertise to navigate those conversations in a way that we just simply don't have staff that have dealt with the FEMA process often enough to have that expertise and that's why you know when I saw the staff report I immediately thought this is exactly the right thing that we need to do right now I just wanted to add one comment to that to sort of the process that we have been experiencing because we talk a lot about the history of what didn't get done or what didn't get spent when there was a pandemic a ceasefire a terrible series of winter storms we lost our original director of engineering and had to replace him during this period for so for a long period we were without that important staff role and so that slowed down our ability to move these projects forward then we hired someone who unfortunately passed away not very long into his tenure in that role and you know that obviously has direct impacts there have been other staffing changes we've been unable to fill the project manager role which was the role that was going to help us deal with these things so I appreciate that staff has been trying to find paths and reaching dead ends for years and this is going to be a tool that will help us move forward at a time when we really need it so I view this as staff augmentation don't have the expertise here right now we have a motion in front of us that's been seconded to holly would you uh take president smalley yes vice president hill yes director ackman yes director falls yes i beg your pardon yes yes director may hood yes yes uh moving on to the consent agenda anything that's here moving on to district reports then department status reports first up is engineering okay um so um to the board members uh first uh yeah how about comma yeah well you know that mr martin to ask about his i was curious about fish ladder um situation we have 10 days yeah so i was just at the fish ladder today and they're currently placing the roxo protection between the control we're existing we're one and uh there are some difficulties placing the half ton rock on the opposite bank so they're actually placing a smaller class rock that's going to be concreted in place and that's currently what they're up to and um they're still on schedule to get out of we are asking for a one week extension from fish and wildlife so we'll have until the 20th to remove the cofferdam and the bypass it might uh still be removed by the 13th but that will give us a little extra time in case it pushes another week and as fish and wildlife said yes we've received the extension from the state water resource control board thus far with some extent with some extensive uh water quality data sampling that we have to complete daily but we have been granted that and then the fish and wildlife we're still waiting to hear back on okay but i mean the fact that one yeah it's a good indication the other one probably well okay um the uh felton heights situation where are we on being able to move that one forward so we received proposals for the survey and we just need to enter into the contract with the selected surveyor okay that's good news thanks okay i'm from jimmy okay i do have one question before i go out to the public for questions on this um let's see on breckenbrain four springs uh sands is close to wrapping up on their portion of the work and they're going to be ready to begin to prepare an rfp of one of the uh things that they're going to finalize or their cost estimates i'd like to bring their cost estimate back to the engineering and environmental committees so that we can take a look at that again i'm concerned their cost estimate is here the dr is giving us this much of the money uh and uh i want to be able to have a discussion to um do with any shortfall based on our engineer's estimate it's not the contractors but it's at least the preliminary it'd be my pleasure to bring the cost estimate to the committee meeting okay once once you have that in that yeah it's my understanding they're going to be done with that very soon okay okay good all right uh so i mean um are you moving past engineering at this point or i i wanted to because we do have a citizen out there there's several folks here that have questions i believe all the engineering projects that we're doing so that's what i wanted to offer so please i'm going to brought you to forage i live from the furman area at lord harbour i have questions um and comments about projects going on down there um quick little background like richard p gd undergrad construction gas electric project for last 25 years um managing projects like this as well um when the project started down there we were getting notice um a five-day notice that the project started and uh the project started next day but the notice we were given was a five-day notice it was for another street in lord gree the kind of the history about the water permanent day down there it's been leaking for probably 30 years or more um there's probably been 50 to 70 leaks since we've been for the last two years um and what our concerns are that's it's damaged the road base underneath it the asphalt is all alligator from the continuous leaks that have been going on um we really appreciate the work that's been going on recently to get it done but uh the we're concerned about the restoration of the asphalt surface after you guys leave um if you know we want to know what the plan is for the restoration of the asphalt um the contract you guys have during the work is just incredibly incredibly complicated um working with p gd uh i mean if we did work like that we would be soon left and right you'd be this contractor i mean they don't use traffic control they don't use cones they don't use signs they don't open trenches i got pictures of an eight-year-old gentleman carrying brush stepped over a trench with nobody around they don't direct traffic they close the roads down they don't tell the fire department they don't tell the post office they don't tell the residents um i have a business there they don't they just literally shut it down to my customers they tell my daughter drive my wife it's closed period i know that the uh the post office has had concerns they talked to foreman um maybe to the project manager before um the project's been managed terribly terribly um the uh i'm just i put the end project on i hope it's coming to you know to close quickly because it's just it's terrible the traffic in the back it's been horrendous um the restoration i really hope we talk to the tactic there at once i talked to your camera who's been prayed um they said they're gonna overlay the asphalt i really hope that's not the only fix it's going to be complete because the road base below the existing asphalt is wasted it needs to be asphalt removed recombined and new asphalt put on um on her mosa oak especially fernwood i mean literally the we come down the road i mean literally the water's leaking out of holes they just fixed the day before i mean there's i'm not exaggerating 50 to 70 leagues on those three streets i mean we call it documentation by emails so we appreciate the work that's being done the but the the way the contract knew the work just unbelievable unbelievable we've talked to the foreman numerous times um i think the only stable grace is that they're off our street right now they're somewhere else um they they've literally piled dirt up against our redwood fence it's been sitting there for the last couple weeks without talking to you know customers i think that's just like again in my world the piece really if we were to do stuff like that mess with people's driveways literally put in equipment people's driveways um it's just close my mind without permission no now i i have to apologize for the level of work that the contractor is doing out there but i do want to ask rick are you aware of this yes i've spoke with the neighbors we did get off to consider a back start down there the contractor is extremely messy i agree it's not the easiest thing in the world to control contractors but we have we have snapped down there all day long cameras down there as an inspector garrick spending time down there um i don't believe that rocky's exaggerate i i think he's right on uh like i have talked with with garrick about uh um conversing with the county because they are county roads to talk to them about you know re-establishing the roadway to the depth of what we should do to repair not just the overlay right um you know uh that pipeline was we had pipe that when actually that pipe was replaced not that long ago but we had to have we must have got some type of defected pipe because the pipe developed pinhole leaks like a soaker hose and has been a terrible problem down there not exaggerating the amount of weeks um for the last few years you know that's why it's being replaced but um there is a lot of cleanup and i have to agree that a better job needs to be done down there and that uh we need to get the contractor to clean that mess up and you know we do hold the purse strings and we will ensure that the road and the yards and everything are put back uh to the pre-existing but we'll do a walk through with the neighborhood um and and make sure that we make this as right as possible okay um i would like to hear about this project uh at the next board meeting then so um with that okay i appreciate it thank you okay thank you um anybody else ask on your engineering projects Eric Martin from Boulder Creek again uh just to carry on what this gentleman was talking about um the construction company is absolutely horrible no traffic control uh 236 anybody that lives on that side of highway nine 20 to 30 minutes and if they're smart enough to go to west park this morning the 10-wheel dump trucks started going down the street 40 miles an hour and 25 mile an hour posted at quarter to seven backup alarms loaders all kinds of stuff going on this in any other planet would just be not accepted the the complete lack of traffic control or even concern for the people that that live in the area when i see a 10 cubic um 10 cubic hour dump truck going by 40 miles an hour where people are walking with their kids and their dogs um i get a little excited because what's going to happen they're going to run over somebody they don't stop at the stoplight at west park ridge i haven't seen one truck so granted every single grant truck has blown through that stop sign oh probably for the last two weeks maybe three that i've been paying attention and the same thing with all of their all their equipment the yard they've taken over at the corner of west park ridge it looks like an industrial dump and that starts at 6 30 in the morning and it just continues on and on and on it's a it's a nose to tail stream of heavy equipment backup alarms my house we today had to have all the doors and windows closed because the trucks were going to buy blown up so much dust that we couldn't even put our food out on the table so that's what you brought to our neighborhood thank you um i do have to ask brick is this the same contractor that's doing both of these or is this the same project on mine well if they are actually granted i don't believe we have to grant a workforce but it may be grant delivery okay grant delivery sorry okay that's a cement truck yeah okay got you but the dump trucks i there's multiple projects going along 236 in west park but i do know that we have had these issues with the contractor and we're to the point that we're we're just going to have to stop work to get these just an issue stop work notice to get these contractors attention because it's a daily event trying to get them and i i i agree you know they're driving too fast at times when you talk to them it's it's difficult to get control of the project we're dead in the street so when they come off our homes around the boat they're falling i mean they're i i totally understand you but there are contractors do we need to go so far as for that that's probably the our our final resort to be we would have to shut them down because garret has spent time with them camera spent time out there we've asked him not to start they do have working hours if we have a construction management firm well the construction manager firm is not on this project this is our project we're managing okay um do we need do we need other help on this who's the council who's what's the name of the contractor that we put on this project jmb thank you there's more damage than repairs they damage they may fix the pipe but then they're breaking up the road they're don't give things to people's driveway they can't come home and i agree it's this but some of that's part of the construction and they will clean up we will ensure that you clean this up and repair anything they damage some of that is part of you know these roads are so narrow and it is difficult to work on it but it doesn't excuse although it has a final um and we will do we we will address this more do we do we issue a stop work notice i'd like you to talk to our i think we'll talk to leo council first and yes and before we go deeper into this tonight here at public meeting and um yes we'll see what our options are i'll speak with garrett and we'll look at our contracts and we can go from there all right okay for a minute for some one small thing out if you want to control the traffic schp strategy another alternative all chp why they won't do anything they won't listen to us i'd like to put a hold on on that um yeah i rick actually addressed again i've referred to the contract i i would be curious at maybe one of our engineering committee meetings to have a review of our contracts because if we don't have any mechanisms in the contract to control behavior our ability to do anything shutdowns is going to be limited garen ever spoke to that to make sure and we're keeping a running list of what we need to like for for instance the storage yard needs to be fenced and that's not in we don't want to cover it down right so we will talk to our specifications and see what we can do right now i agree to get this to get this back under control very uh they're they're describing trucks that are going well above the speed limit is there a an accident waiting to happen there oh yeah absolutely my ability that you guys that they're going to be so okay all right um our entrance to our driveway or whatever with their sand and their gravel and and then people are trying to drive around it and they're telling neighbors to go into other neighbors property and bar and trenches aren't we want to encourage that we have a public comment and not a two-way conversation because this is a board meeting okay all right uh thanks for the comments on this the district management staff is aware of it okay other questions then on the engineering reports i've looked at the minutes of the engineering meeting uh which i attended and um i thought that there was some decision or some recommendation made taken out to 500 trees along the peave on pipeline as i recall the district manager doesn't want anybody walking out there look at the the place where the pipeline used to be and i thought we discussed this and i didn't see anything in the minutes about it so just the district need to borrow 19 million dollars before they can send out the trees along the peave on pipeline we've asked the district manager to get a contract for tree removals i do believe we're out to bid or we're getting ready yeah okay um okay um i understand that minutes don't necessarily reflect everything any comments from uh members of the public online regarding this um if not i'd like to see if we could move on to uh the environmental uh reports um on the grants ongoing section currently um are all of these in process or did we receive money in 11 months we did when did we receive the money yeah so i think i believe the table was put into the memo this time it's so it's so tiny it's so hard to read i see yeah and embedded uh spreadsheet might help right okay we can we can make that change um so the irwm has been awarded which is for the hardening of the pump stations the wooden pump station structures and then the start going through proposition one that's that one the fuel reduction has been awarded but we're waiting on a couple different agencies who are running those projects that's calpire grants and then the other the usda one we're looking into this next week with our grant writer to see if it's a possible fit um okay yeah because while the grant money's still out there we definitely want to go after as much as we can right and we still on track for the um habitat conservation plan to come to the committee in october i believe so yeah uh jody's understands that we're trying to update the committee in the board and she'll be prepared with the schedule right i'll make sure i'll do one question on the environmental um there's a reference for the ultima project uh fema meeting for the environmental historic historical preservation right so what's as part of the fema process you have to go through an EHP review which is environmental and historic preservation where they pretty much check off the NEPA requirements so we do go through sequa but then there's the NEPA which is the federal level so we checked we checked the state but we didn't check the next so now we have to go through so is the project we're trying to not have it go on to awesome either they're want to start the work in the next two weeks we have a meeting with fema tomorrow okay um unfortunately how fema likes to organize is instead of just having a call or an email they want to organize a 20 person meeting uh which is really difficult to schedule um with everyone's time so we finally got it on the calendar for tomorrow um okay and i would hope that this is uh the flag putting up for us uh on other projects that you have fema involvement uh this is going to be sounds like you need a firm uh advising you on the fema projects do you know anybody like that some of this broke through the cracks when we lost josh because it was he was on it i understand they broke through the crack i'm not blaming it just happened but sounds like you need an outside firm anybody okay all right uh moving on then um questions on uh uh finance uh jeff uh jamey committee reports uh oral community good written communications um i see nothing uh there we need to bring up do we want to bring up one email communication we've received uh from kelly fuller email uh from an instrument or something on uh 433 western avenue in brookdale could you is that part of the agenda it's not part of the agenda uh but since we've addressed it okay then in a future meeting just yeah we we have addressed it with your brother and gave her guidelines on that okay i have a question about that so i'd like to cover in the future okay okay then rick did you would like to cover that in future meeting okay okay i'm sorry i didn't hear what what is uh i have her printed email here i can leave it with you this is from kelly uh oh i and so i'm i'll talk to legal counselor it may have to be in closed session because this is pending litigation at this time okay fine if that's better that's fine yeah that's what we're doing