 It's 5.30, I'd like to convene this meeting of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District Board of Directors for November 2nd, 2023. If you do not have a pin, just press a pound or half. Director Smiley, you will be placed on hold until an organized start. Director Ackman here, Director Mayhood here, and Director Fultz here, Director Fultz is participating remotely. Okay, with no members of the public in attendance here, nobody wants to comment on anything on the agenda. Does anybody who is attending remotely want to comment on items on the agenda for the closed session? Seeing none, we will adjourn now to the closed session. The open session starts at 6.30. We will see you then. I have 6.30, so I'd like to convene this meeting of the Board of Directors of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District for November 2nd, 2023. Paulie, would you take the roll, please? President Smiley? Here. Vice President Hill? Here. Director Ackman? Here. Director Mayhood? Here. And Director Fultz? Here. Director Fultz is participating remotely. Okay. I'm going to segue for just a minute from our standard agenda. We have County Supervisor Bruce McPherson here this evening. He has another meeting that he needs to go to to address big basin water issues, and he is asked to speak for a short period so that he can get to the other meeting quickly. And this is on one of the agenda items this evening, but we're going to let him speak so that he can then leave. I really appreciate that, because we have a meeting in big basin in just another half hour. And I'm presenting a resolution to somebody who doesn't really want it or care about it. I'm going to read it as I promised you, because Rick Rogers is San Lorenzo Valley Water District. You know, the best of people will come out in the most challenging times, and boy, you've had your share of them. I know that. We have here in the Valley of the County throughout, but I think, heavens, we have somebody so dedicated, so sincere, and so much love with this valley that he wants to see it done right. So I just, whether he likes it or not, on behalf of the County Board Supervisors, I just want to say to Rick Rogers, thank you for your long years of service, your class act. That's all you have to say. You really are a great friend, too. I just want to say that I don't know what center of the valley would have done without him, and I hope the best of you in the future, because he laid the groundwork to move ahead from here. So thank you, Rick, and whether you're wondering, not you're a different person. I'm going to at least take a picture. One for the floor, just speak to two. Two, three. One, two, three. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Bruce. Appreciate it. Thank you. Good luck tonight. Have fun with that one. We're not in crisis. That's one. At least Rick's not in crisis. So back to the rest of the regular agenda. The Board has nothing to report out from our closed session this evening. Any changes to the agenda? Chair of staff has none. Okay. Oral communications. For members of the public that wish to speak on something that's within the district's purview of that's not on the agenda this evening. Does anybody want to speak? I see one hand up. Jim. I want to just also add my admiration and thanks to Rick Rogers for the incredible service he's given the value. Really getting us through these last three years of just. We've been so fortunate. And so we're. That's the first item on the agenda. But thank you for the comment. So moving on then to new business. Appreciation for Rick Rogers upon his retirement. I can't do the same justice that Bruce MacPherson just did. But the board also has a resolution. Likewise. I am not going to say. From it verbatim, but just capture a few things from it. Rick has been working for the water district since 1975. His tenure with the district. Brings a wealth of knowledge that he has had. His encyclopedic references to be able to say when things were put in is immeasurable. He has served above and beyond the call of duty for the district in keeping the water flowing during. A major earthquake. The Loma Prieta. The freeze emergency in 1990. Numerous. Floods or as we're now calling them atmospheric river storms. Over the years. The fire. In of CZU in 2020. At the same time. During the fire. I want to remind folks that it was during COVID conditions. So dealing with all of that. And still keeping the water on. I have to commend him. For that. Rick has also been instrumental in. Improving. Water reliability. In the valley in general. With. Efforts on the mergers of. Fulton. And the long people water systems. And consolidation efforts. With bracket brand four springs. With that. I want to read the last paragraph in the. Resolution. And make it a motion. I want to make a motion that. Now. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be it resolved. Be now be it resolved. By the board of directors of the San Lorenzo Valley water district. That Rick Rogers they share by commended for 48 years of dedicated service to the district. As a deep respect. Of all who have worked with him and is viewed with. I did want to say yes that that is a motion okay we have a motion now and I'll go out for comments to the board and the and the public that's here in attendance and online Rick did ask me to please keep it short so and I said okay then let's limit it to one minute for public comments so with that from the board Jeff so I'm here because I had a meeting with him a couple years ago I had a water issue that wasn't really related at all to this district but I needed some advice on something and we had lunch over at Heavenly Cafe and we had a really great lunch and that inspired me to get involved and I think he came back and said we've got to recruit this guy so sort of a mutual thing and thank you that's been very nice I will say that it's it's your tough act to follow for our customers as well you're somebody that is really trusted when people have issues they feel like they can reach out to you and you know that you will be really responsive so you know I I know that you'll be missed yes you will be missed by the board and also by the members of this community who have deep and abiding affection for you because you always talk clearly to them and tell them what what's up with us and you've engendered a lot of trust in that also the fact will miss you because basically in your 48 years of service you've embodied the modern history of the district you're walking encyclopedia in that regard and so that makes you extremely hard to replace and I just want to personally ask you for thank you for the relationship that you and I had the two years that I was president of the board and I really enjoyed working with you okay Bob Fultz who's participating remotely this evening yeah interest of keeping it short yeah I won't add on to what everybody else has said other than to say I wish you a happy retirement right thank you for your problem okay other here in attendance anybody want to comment on this I'd like to thank Rick for his 48 years of work for this water district what a rare if he was a ball player with your entire history as someone who has a few years of retirement under my belt I'm sure you're going to enjoy the coming years I'm especially grateful for your significant role in stopping the use of ground up and similar in the public water district as director of operations Rick was concerned about his work workers being exposed to dangerous we both knew people who were suffering from the effects of we work together to ensure our water district on the safer approach to weaving thank you and the next time we run into each other I'll buy your beverage of your choice and it won't be water okay this isn't closed session any longer no this is not thank you sir I just want to say really quickly but I first met Rick in 1980 40 years ago Rick has starred in this business as he did to a lot of us James and Scott he could testify that he's been a he was a wonderful guy to work with we worked through a lot of disasters in the 80s that it seemed like every other year we're having a major federally declared disaster that we had to deal with and frankly those experiences the earthquake the 82 store 86 store the freeze those are really some of the highlights of my career to this day working through those things and getting the system back together it was really a very rewarding experience and I can so remember long long nights working in the rain and freezing temperatures but mains back another highway died on the list is endless but Rick was a was the guy that if you know if you had he always had your back and if you knew he was behind the project it was going to get done one way or another you will come in with creative ideas not to do stuff and it was just a great example and he's been a friend there's always been someone I've been able to call and I've always appreciated that we're up in the last 43 years I can't believe that after tomorrow I can't call Rick for some advice so he's I just I'm gonna miss him and I think but as stated you are the San Lorenzo Valley when it comes to water you've been doing it forever and we're all gonna miss it okay anybody else from the public here are we speaking as a public are we speaking as staffing any of the chance let me go to the public that's fine I'm just wondering if we're public on this or let me go let me go to the spot the since we started with the public here yes I'll give a staff also the opportunity thank you for that reminder okay we're going up to public online I'll go back to Jim Mosier did you still have your hand up Jim I didn't mean to have my hand up I apologize for being out of order but after McPherson's resolution it would be proper but anyway I just want to echo what everybody else is saying it's been great working with you Rick and I hope that I can continue to work with you informally while you're not actually the director and thanks so much for all your dedication and help to the ballot okay um Larry Ford we go this is Larry Ford resident of Felton I want to say that I really enjoyed hearing all the accolades for you Rick I remember first meeting you sometime in the early 2000s when there was the flow effort to get the Felton water district into SOV water districts and you of all the people that we could have asked questions of you always had a very reliable and practical answer to our questions about what was really going on both in Felton and in in in the SOV water district in general and I so I I learned at that point to really trust your judgment and subsequently trying to be a faithful follower of SOV water district after we bought our way in and to be involved in politics I found you to be just as reliable as a source of accurate information I remember several times at least when you agreed to have coffee with me to discuss some fire management issues and I really enjoyed that a lot and so I I hope to see you around the valley in the future thank you hey uh Elaine Fresco this is Elaine Fresco Felton I just want to say I was honored to work with you Rick on the Environmental Committee and to observe you in on the board meetings I respect your patience I appreciate your responsiveness to the community I know your staff has always respected you and to me you'll always be the honorary district manager of SOVWD thanks thank you um Alina Lang hi Alina Lang Boulder Creek I just wanted to you know echo what everyone's saying and thanks your service Rick and it's been a pleasure sitting on the environmental and engineering committee for the last three years with you over there and I hope you have a happy retirement okay I've seen no what else online the staff like to offer coming yeah first of all so I'm just going to show from the hip like that so I started here at the district 18 years ago I'm in the trenches just as Rodgers did when he started here at the district in the trenches I've learned a lot from Rick over the years always encouraged to get educated get certificate move up in the world he's aided me along along that way I've learned a lot in the 18 years I've been here moved up in the district and feel pretty proud of where I'm at or the districts at or ricks brought the district to and I just want to say thank you thank you okay anybody else wish to speak if not I have one final thing that I'd like to take note of invention few of us got together Rick for those that can't see in the audience I will read to you and describe it's a clock with all fives on it so that it's always five o'clock where you are since you are no longer working you're off of the clock and it's after five o'clock thank you so with that I will leave that with you after the meeting okay I think we're can I have a minute first off I don't really have to go to a meeting chemistry to a big basin but I thank the county and Bruce for his kind words and I want to thank the board for their kind words and for working with me and for all the passports for working with me and staff you know a lot was a lot of good things were said about me but let me tell you if it wasn't for the management team and the employees of the district would have been able to pull it off through all those disasters the storms and what we do we have an excellent management team and we have an excellent staff we've been through some bumps there's no doubt the staff has been through some bumps to coven friend this loss of Joshua rock the district and the different disasters have been difficult and David there had reminded me of a humorous story that when he first came to work for the district I think it was the 82 storm and I had a policy that during emergency disasters that we pair up that no one person would be on the distribution system by themselves for safety and each person was assigned another person and they've got a sign with me so that subsequently was I think he didn't get home for three days later he was on my couch you know three in the morning to five and we were back out and again but he got the short straw on that one and we were up all night for several days in a row in 1982 that was yeah he was horrendous storm and it was a good three days before he was able to go back home but our employees are so dedicated and you know they live in this area CZU fire where two of our employees lost their home was why they were out keeping water flowing we have a crowded staff and one of the other great things about the district was all the people that I've met over the years it had to be hundreds you know the communities in felt and Lompeco and they are all in need of a necessity of life water and it was very important that the district you know brought that together and that was one of the high points of my career in the district and all the different people we've worked with even the adversarial so the people that weren't happy with what we're doing at the time we've worked together and you know we've come friends with some of them and a lot of what tended board meetings and a lot of good has come out of it so it's a very special place to work and I welcome Brian to the to the district and if I can help at all and give any information feel free calling me you got an excellent staff and again you know 48 years I went by in a blank I don't know where it went and you know it was you know it's hard it's gonna be hard to separate but I am looking at a lazy boy so I'm thinking that five o'clock clock and my lazy boy and you know and it'll be pretty good so again it's been great and you know still a lot of work to be done TVU and all and this district will always be full speed ahead and have twice as much work as it can handle so it'll get through so thank you the funny thing is rich lazy boys is about a tractor yeah he encouraged me as much as I could to try to keep this short so otherwise I wasn't gonna be able to make it through the rest of the meeting yeah so okay concluded on that I next up we haven't taken a oh I'm sorry thank you for that yes there is a motion on the resolution it's been moved in seconded so yes so president smally yes vice president hill yes director Ackman yes director may hood yes indeed director false yes okay next up we have a discussion on the interim general manager employment agreement for Brian for us um some background on this um in December 2022 of Rick Rogers identified that he planned to retire and at that point the board began a search with an executive search firm headed down that path the executive search firm we didn't get engaged until June of this year in August Rick identified that he wanted to retire sooner than what he was indicating to us originally and set a date of November 3rd tomorrow based on that the board elected to begin a search for an interim general manager in the period between September and in September and October the board received resumes after some searching from six candidates we interviewed three individuals and after interviewing all three elected to start negotiations with mr. Frost Brian's a registered civil engineer has worked for the city of Salinas as the manager of their water waste and energy division since 2017 and he lives in Fulton his resume is included with the agenda packet on this item so with that I'd like to offer Brian the chance to speak now if he would like so I'm sure everybody's familiar with the phrase that whiskeys for drinking and waters for fighting so as a beer drinker I'd still say that it's a little bit of truth to the fighting part after six years of dealing Monterey where they have seawater intrusion multi-million dollar ag industry depends on the pleaded aquifer and competition from peninsula interests because there's drought there's a drowning peninsula there's water start peninsula and I also kind of reflect that it thought it was funny that moving from the desert Arizona to the lush Monterey Peninsula when I was a kid it was the first time I remember having water rich down maybe I know why but anyway fast forward I met Rick 2004 I think I came up and did some work for the water district and you know since that time I think it just inspired me that I was hoping that maybe someday I'd be able to serve this district in some capacity so here I am on the embarking on that I've been a fountain resident for 25 years I was also very much interested in seeing those succeed and joining the district obviously a lot of challenges with this agency but I think that as Rick said this agency has never failed me or anybody I know in the valley for as long as I've lived here and I think we support our local troops here in the valley it's it's one of the reasons I live here it's a community it's a strong community so I wouldn't want to be anywhere else and I'm very glad to be okay so we have the memo in front of us and the attached employee agreement as the agenda item for this evening to discuss so I wanted to get comments questions from the board first on both of these items so yeah first let me welcome Brian and we're really thrilled to have you on board and I'm really looking forward to working with you my comments on the it's a little awkward making comments on the agreement with you sitting right here in the room but my my comments really have nothing to do with Brian per se they have to do with when you're writing a legal document that you want to cover all the bases and all the contingencies and I don't think that Brian needs any of these constraints but in general we should be writing legal documents in a way that protects the district and so there were a couple of things that I guess I would have liked to have seen some language about one is is that to make it clear especially now that a lot of people think they can work from home post COVID that this is a job that involves essentially being based in this office and being here most workdays at least for part of the day that I think it's worth saying something that effect I think that the granting of leave is appropriate the amount is appropriate but there should be some way of that the person has to accrue it during that period just the way the rest the permanent employees have to accrue it can't take all of it in a year the other is that right now it's clear that if we were to dismiss Brian without cause he gets the full six months and the sort of finishing bonus which I think is entirely appropriate because he's taking certainly a big risk and it's a big step to come here and leave a permanent position that he had and so he would certainly deserve that but I think there should also be something that's a little bit more explicit that if there were some reason heaven forbid that he had to be terminated for cause that we wouldn't pay that whole six months and the rest just out of fairness and the other is the language about indemnification and I think this might be kind of old in the sense that we've had the district has had some terrible experiences where the Vera case is a good example where we ended up paying a lot of legal fees for a situation where I think we went beyond the call of duty and indemnifying in that case of board member for questionable behavior and so I think there's language in the board policy manual now that corrects that problem that makes it clear that if a board member does something that's illegal or improper that there are limits to the indemnification and so all I would suggest is that we stay within the letter of the state law about having to indemnify employees but don't go beyond it okay those are those are my suggestions okay are you suggesting to amend this current agreement well I you know I would prefer to but I I don't feel super strongly about that I just think I'm just talking about in general in a process okay that all right you should write your legal documents with the worst-case scenario in mind hoping that they never ever come to pass all right Jamie well I think that for the purposes of the public discussion it's probably appropriate just to sort of talk about a little bit about what this means bringing on an interim and how the process to identify the permanent replacement is going to unfold so you know we've we have had a number of conversations about the you know a permanent recruitment because we were in that process prior to this and you know I think that that we intend to make a final decision about filling the permanent role and and I know that mr. first is a candidate for that and you know what but I you know how I guess what do we want to say about that I think that you know as far as I understand it as a board member we're going to be looking after the new year at sort of where we're at in terms of how things are running with the district and whether there have been other candidates who have in that interim period applied that we need to take a look at but that you know I think that it's our hope obviously that mr. first is a you know excellent leader and things are running smoothly at that point and you know I just I don't know if there's anything else that we need to say about that but I think that clarifying that there's still a process then I don't know if this is clarifying to your point or not but the board has engaged in executive search firm as I mentioned earlier we engaged the back in June they advertisement that that executive search firm has is still out there if they get applicants they intend to send those to us at some point the board would be looking at those also but we have not made as a group of the board in any decisions on going forward on any of that we want to see at this point what Brian brings to us and brings to the district so still working through the process but we're not closing that general manager search process that is still open at this yes thank you okay Joe so as my sincere hope here that this all works out I'm confident it will but this all works out and in six months we'll be talking about the permanent contract with mr. first and I think if the timing of Rick's retirement and such hadn't been changed as it was we probably be talking about the permanent position right now but I think Brian you will be on the driver's seat to make this work or not so welcome you wish you the best of luck and all of that and commit to support your efforts okay I wanted to get a comment from Bob Bob on the assumption that we're all going to vote the way I believe we are Brian welcome aboard and look forward to to working with you I think everything else is at this point time is speculation best not covered here tonight thank you okay then before I go out to comments I'd like to make the motion that the board extend an offer of employment to Brian Frost for the position of interim general manager as specified in the attached employment agreement second okay would anybody here in attendance for the public like to comment yes I would on this okay the member of public okay this is nothing against Brian Brian welcome but I do have an issue with the way that the hiring of the interim manager or doubt all district positions that are hired or posted to the district website and this position was never posted to district website was never posted to any local newspapers and it was brought upon staff that we had an interim manager coming in without the no so just on the board's behalf is that the legal and the correct way to hire a staff member that's my only question it's nothing against the board nothing as Brian just something out there as I know that all positions of district are supposed to be closed and this was not okay just throwing out there okay Rick did you want to comment on the discussion that we had about that or do you want me to well I this point you know I do know that the rules regulations state that all positions will be posted but I do believe it refers to management and classified I don't know about the district manager position and I did not research it but I do know that our rules of regulations have have guidance on on how to recruit that they are posted and so forth etc but I don't know about the general manager position and I would refer to council you want to get a comment from council it was my understanding that or we did post general manager position we didn't receive any any interest or applications up to the general manager position we did announce after one of the closed sessions the board's intent to seek the interim general manager and it was my understanding that no we did not need to post because this is a the district manager that we did not need the permanent general manager role was posted as is appropriate and this is a temporary role and therefore does not is not subject to the same conditions that hiring for a permanent position would be subject to okay okay I think that's correct that it's because it's interim and not because it's a general manager obviously interest for the board yeah but but I I guess I would go on and say that I didn't realize we didn't put it up there and I guess even though we may not be required it wouldn't have hurt to put put it up there and you know in the future if that arises again I guess I don't see the damage I just didn't know the rules on it and I'm just invested in the board I thought you also know that it wasn't posted and did we post the I'm drawing the parallels here did we post the interim finance director was a temporary role though as well she's an internal we did not with in-house recruitment we never I mean to get the contract employee again but you know this was a different process because we the board handled this process the board and the HR person did the manager didn't this was a board's process to hire the general manager so it was a little different okay okay I don't see anybody else online wishing to comment anybody else here in the audience seeing none Holly presidents Molly yes vice president Hill yes director Ackman yes director Mayhood yes director Fultz yes right well come on board before you leave Holly has something we'd like you to sign okay moving on then to the next item on our agenda is the cross-country pipeline the p-vine above ground construction cost us thank you the CZU fire of August 2020 resulted in substantial damage to Santa Cruz County including 1300 acres of the district owned watershed destroying approximately seven miles of above-grade HDPE pipe used for raw water conveyance from the district surface water sources to the water treatment plant and considering replacement the district solicited a request for proposal or a construct ability study and alternative analysis report the constructability report provided cost estimates for replacing the pipe and burying it to protect it from shade or fire the report did not provide a cost estimate for replacing the pipe to pre disaster conditions above ground at the September 14 2023 engineering and environmental committee meeting the committee requests to staff repair cost estimate to replace the p-vine to pre disaster design above grade staff prepare to cost estimate which is attached to this report for constructing the pipeline as a district did in the late 1980s above grade the construction was completed by hand labor using California conservation crews CCCs and local force account labor helicopters were used to deliver pipe along the pipeline route this technique was required as part of the environmental review as the pipe traversed the Ben-Loman Mountain and the use of excavators and road building was considered to be environmentally unacceptable during the design survey was found that large portions portions of the waterline alignment were likely not accessible by equipment large or small without very significant new road trail construction which would likely be cost prohibited environmentally unfeasible and unwarranted in light of the alternative installation method of placing the pipe above grade attaches the cost estimate for replacing the p-vine to pre CZU fire above grade utilize utilizing the same construction methods helicopter CCC hand crews living in spike camps and local force account labor CCC crews would re-establish the pipe bench and force account labor would install a new pipe now as of today the CCCs were out today and evaluated the pipeline and the discussion with the director of operations in the CCCs the CCCs may want to take on the installation of the pipe which again would considerably reduce the cost of labor the total cost estimate for the above ground construction is two million thirty six thousand and change and that includes a twenty percent contingency as indicated on the spreadsheet a considerable amount of the equipment was also be utilized in the reconstruction of the five mile clear creek suit order pipeline rebuilding project bringing the cost even lower FEMA grants would cover ninety percent of the cost to pre existing conditions the constructability study technical memorandum and alternative analysis report my friend and Lorena estimated the cost to construct below ground to between ten point eight twelve point five million dollars and does not include tree removal burying the pipe may have substantial cost to the district as the additional cost for burying are approximately ten point five million and would have to be negotiated with FEMA on October 18th 2023 the engineering committee reviewed the cost estimate and discussed replacing the pipeline a form of the committee president voted in favor of recommending moving ahead with the replacement starting with hazardous tree removal trail bench rebuilding and environmental review as needed and there is a proposed schedule a cash the engineering engineering committee discussed pipe construction techniques above glow below grade however stop short of recommending a technique citing more information needed it should be noted that a construction technique needs to be selected as soon as the tree removal is complete as formal bidding will be needed for helicopter services and material purchase the pipe must be installed as soon as the pipe benches reestablished to maintain the integrity of the pipe bench and trail that so the bank that would not rattle down and we'd have to go back and reestablish the trail time will also be needed to obtain staffing to install pipe which may not be as necessary today if the CCCs are willing to take on that portion of the pipeline of the pipeline installation attached to our some background and the Excel spreadsheet which Jeff pointed out some errors to that hopefully have corrected an actual cost for above grade staff is asking tonight the recommendation that staff is at the board review the memo the cost estimate to replace the p-bike cross country pipeline above ground and the engineering committee recommendation to facilitate hazardous tree removal reestablish of the pipeline trail and environmental review with that I hope I can answer any of your questions okay as chair of the engineering environmental committee I'd like to start with this item the committee did review the cost estimate and recognized that this is something that we've been asking for for on the order of eight months well months up so to finally be able to have this as the other portion of the information that I thought we needed is good I remember my recollection that the meeting was the additional information that we asked for and that I asked to be brought to the board was tell us what the next tasks would be give us the timing on those next tasks we did talk about construction methods above ground below ground but I don't remember saying that we were deferring on on recommending a technique citing more information need I don't remember what other information we were thinking of that we needed other than tell us what the other tasks are tell us what the timing is and that you've presented to us here in the mouth so I want to hear also what other folks here on the board say but in particular I wanted to hear first from director folks and sees also on the engineering environmental committee so that we can begin this discussion of we had a point of making a decision so Bob yeah this is something that I think does require a little bit of a background here because unfortunately there still seems to be a fair amount of information out there that doesn't accurately reflect what we talked about and including some things I saw on Facebook recently the discussion and conclusion that we reached at the committee was to recommend to the board to take the next step of removing the trees and doing the environmental review and clearing the bench it's important to note that a bench already exists for most of this pipeline it's about a six to eight foot bench that that is already been cut out and that does need to be restored in a few places doesn't need to be cleared in a few places but we did not recommend moving forward with a particular installation method given that the method that at least I've been talking about for quite a while that continues to I guess maybe not be well understood is whether or not there's any possibility of being able to leverage hand digging or embedding the pipe into the bench in a way that would allow us to get sufficient cover to be able to protect the pipe from the fire I think there was also a little bit of discussion about the fact that you know the trees were going to have to be removed anyway regardless of which way the construction was going to go and that it was well past time to get that activity done as soon as possible in fact it would have been better if it could have been done this this past year so that's my record recollection of what we decided on at that committee meeting hopefully that's reflected in the minutes we did not recommend to board to vote on above ground or below ground or any particular installation of the pipe at this time I believe there was going to also be an evaluation of the bench relative to whether or not there was a way to be able to either hand dig or pulse left down or what have you over the pipe in a way to be able to give it sufficient ground cover that I have a whole series of questions around that but hopefully we'll be able to cover the future committee meeting but but we didn't go into a lot of that and that wasn't my recommendation my recollection of the recommendation for the board just the trees just the bench just the environmental okay and I agree that no we did not get to a point of recommending a method we didn't talk in detail about that I don't believe that there was any commitment or discussion of the further evaluation of hand digging but that's something that yes I understand you like that discussed further so with with that mark mark if I if I may I believe that we owe the community that relative to some of the comments that were received in wake of the fire relative to the pipe burning right okay so that's our recollections reflections on that committee meeting so with what's in front of us here I wanted to hear the rest of the board's questions on this item so Jeff so I'm looking at the recommended motion and the recommended motion basically agrees with what director fault said it says move forward with the tree removal reestablishment of the trail and environmental reviews and then a phase two which is to continue discussion and regards to burying the pipe and make a decision in the next couple of months as to what to do about that and I think that's very much in agreement with what director faults was just saying and I also personally am in an agreement with it there is a large amount in the in the memo there's a large amount of information on costs for equipment and and and pipe and various accoutrements that would be required to work on the building the pipeline itself but I don't think we're being asked to I think that's that's almost a distraction at the moment because we're not being asked to vote on that stuff so it's nice that we have that information but I don't think it's essential to voting on the on the two motions here that are included in the recommendation okay Jamie well I agree with what Jeff was saying I would need to understand in the context of an environmental review I mean hand digging how deep would you have to go in order to protect the pipe from from burning that feels like you know you would just be doing something cosmetic but I don't know I'm not you know that require environmental review in order to make that kind of determination you know I guess my primary question would be if we are moving forward with a plan to put this pipeline above ground does that in any way foreclose us from choosing to underground the you know larger project if we so chose I know there's already been you know some discussion at the board level about that but you know would that what would we be creating any kind of a problem for ourselves down the road with the five mile project well once the pipe would be and I would say that you're committed if p-vine goes above ground we're committed to know what yeah when p-vine goes above ground you're not committed now you may run into this hypothetical you may run into a problem with FEMA saying you did it with one why aren't you doing it with the other because this is substantially cheaper and you know you could replace from what we got from F and L's cost estimate of varying of 10-12 million you can replace that several times by putting it above ground and you know that was one of the parameters early on that parameter doesn't seem to be an issue right now the cost I will say though you know director Hill is a hundred percent right we listed the recommendation as the engineering committee requested or made the motion but if you commit to the reestablishment of the trench you need to very shortly commit to a technique you're above or below ground you said reestablishment of the trench I'm sorry of the of the bench but if you commit to reestablishing the bench and have the seas you know once we lock the seas in for a four month stand we need to be moving ahead with the piping because you've got procurement formal bidding you've got staffing we may use the seas to do it but it's not something you can just decide tomorrow what you're going to do so I would not recommend moving ahead with the bench not unless you had a technique or you thought you would come up with a conclusion a month down the road or two at the most because you have a series of quite a few events that you have to do the plan right and as well as the environmental review you need to know what yeah what direction we're going or we can't really review the project itself so under grounding is also a much longer construction process than going ahead with what were the proposed aboveground inflation and you can't underground the full length of the pipe because there's no a bank of air it's in the air and you will be on telephone supports and so that you would have to address that different as far as the crash review yeah okay all right I guess I have a different reaction to this I I did I didn't find the motion very helpful for the reasons in part for example what Carly said is you can't do an environmental study until you know whether you're going in there and doing it by hand or whether you're gonna have to establish a 12 foot wide bench that is got big tractors going over it I guess my reaction is is I think we have enough information in front of us to make a decision on this the board you're asking about do we know you know how far we have to bury it that that was in the study that was the first one FNL did and it tells you exactly how deep you have to bury it before you get to temperatures that the HDPE won't melt or off-gas I think the idea that you're gonna go across and hand trench something deep enough to protect an HDPE pipe in granite metamorphic rocks is that you just that it's not doable right so to me my reaction to this is Rick has done everything we asked him to do which is figure out how much it would cost to put it above ground an HDPE pipeline what he's shown is it's about one-fifth the cost of what it would cost to bury it or the other way of putting it is as Margaret Bruce said it you could replace that five times for the cost of putting it underground but what also concerns me at least as much is the environmental damage that would go with burying and you know and is the damage to the forest because the width of the banks that you have to put in to get that kind of machinery in to bury the pipe I think most of our community will find unacceptable that live in the Valley I also am concerned about whether FEMA would reimburse us if we did it differently than it was there I mean that that's always a risk so I mean I would prefer that we just go ahead and make a decision and I would offer an alternative motion to the ones that has been there which is that we direct the interim district manager to begin replacement of the P vine raw water supply line above grade with 8 inch a deep P pipeline starting immediately with hazardous tree removal reestablishment of the pipeline trail and the necessary environmental reviews which you could do because you know what the scope of the project is okay I do see that Bob has his hand up before I ask for comments or a second on that revised memo I'd like to hear from Bob first I just want to add to what she said on that motion is the also going to get you pursuing contract with CCC's in that motion while we're doing this review and reviewing the trail for a contract with them because that's where we're looking to move forward with as well okay you want that language because that's what we're trying to pursue right now they will be out about today and if that could be a motion that I create that way we can move forward we don't have to perfect maybe I'm the only one that thinks that we're talking about yeah so what we're talking about here is in my opinion dashing into a decision where we have where we are still in my in my opinion not looking at this in a straightforward fashion first of all we've not asked or if we've asked we haven't worked with FEMA yet I'm figuring out what they will or won't pay given that what we're trying to do here is protect up to 60% of our water supply so the next time a fire comes through we aren't dealing with the kind of issues that we were dealing with before I also want to remind people that that bench that's there was was carved out of the hillside and in some places the open space up against the hillside is up to four feet high so saying that something can't be dug I think is just just not the case there's all sorts of techniques you could use there and in fact wreck even talked about some of them during the meeting which is one of the reasons why the committee came away with the notion of doing this in stages which is tree first it's going to take some time to get that down and then you go in there and do the bench and environmental and in that time period we would continue the discussion about whether or not it's feasible to be able to put this underground but I understand that there is a on the part of the district manager a high desire to get this done above ground but I don't believe and we may have to do that for clear creek and sweetwater just because of the terrain that's there but I've not yet walked the entire path of pee vine the part that I walked I didn't necessarily see that there were places where we couldn't address how to protect our water supply and the last thing that I want to do is have a group of people similar to the group that we had during the fire that we're reviewing why our pipeline was above ground to get burned yep you might be able to replace it again but that's not the issue the issue is how do you keep the water flowing during that time in addition clearing the trees out is also going to give us additional protection that we talked about but I think it's way too premature at this point to just say okay we're just going to go down the path of putting it above ground we're not going to explore the hand dig option I don't think by the way I don't think there's anybody at this point in time that looks at least I didn't hear anything in the committee that looks at the notion of building a roadway to take equipment up there as anything practical or reasonable or anything that anybody wants to do so from the point of view of comparing X and Y X is no longer at least in my mind even a consideration and it hasn't been actually from the time I saw the drawings and how wide that bench would have to be but I completely disagree with the fact that hand digging is completely infeasible without doing a little bit more diligence on our part to figure out whether or not that's true that diligence has not been done because of the fact that there seems to be this push to just pay it let's just put it above ground and be done with it I will not support that of course the board could vote to do that tonight I would not support it during the committee meeting and I think during the committee discussion there is a pretty good consensus that came back and said no let's wait in that a bit let's get the tree removal done first and then let's in the meantime let's talk about the methods by which that would be done I think Rick I reflected that pretty well in the motion of phase one and phase two if the environmental review can't be started until that further discussion has been done then that's fine but just because we pass the motion saying do this doesn't mean it's not going to be done in a reasonable fashion and staged as you go along starting with the trees so that's why I would oppose what Gail is proposing and I think our community would want to make sure that we're looking at all options to protect our water in the event of the next fire which I don't believe we've done at this point well since the question of hand digging is coming up in this discussion I do want to reflect on that I walked a good portion of the peevine alignment along with director Foltz about a year and a half ago as a licensed professional geologist I want to say the possibility in my mind of hand digging that is not feasible I was walking on rock a competent rock along portions of that line that says I'm going to be hitting bedrock within the next several inches of there were areas that we didn't walk on where I could see it diving into the creek where it was on competent rock so for that reason and the feasibility of trying to hand dig a mile I don't I I'm rolling out completely with without having to go out there and do hand dug test pits in these areas and I don't doubt that you could dig limit very limited areas but we need to if we did this we need to go look at the hardest areas first because in those hardest areas where you're gonna have to get through in order to make the whole thing feasible so with that before we pinion on the on the motion can I just add to what Bob was saying you know I'm wondering if maybe we're just getting a little bit hung up here on on the semantics of it because it's not that I'm not interested in doing anything to fire harden the HDPE line I mean I think there are things we we can do for example there might be places where you purposely let the the face of the bench slough over right so in other words you get 12 inches of coverage just naturally there might be some places where you could hand dig it I don't think there's going to be very many but there's somewhere you might be able to do that so I guess what I would say is I I consider both those ideas that it's essentially above grade we're not going to go in with big machinery trying to bury everything underground and so actually when I wrote this I wrote it as two two parts one would be that we agree to move ahead with the principle that it's largely above grade but we would also investigate other things like letting it slough down and installing video monitoring and automatic emergency cutoff valves and so that we could do some things that would you know at least protect portions but you know one of the problems when you're dealing with HDPE is that if it burns the gases go places right and so you know that's I think that's one of the reasons Rick said you know burying parts of it doesn't really solve the whole thing but it could help if you got lucky that it just happened the fire just happened to go through you know as a smaller fire it wasn't as horrible as CCU that just happened to go through an area that you had done something to ameliorate it by letting this slope slough or whatever so it's not that I I don't want to do anything I just think that given the cost differential the difficulties the environmental impact and then what Rick said which I hadn't really thought of but clearly was that once you do that bench you have to go in and start the work right away because it you know if you rate weight one rainy season one atmospheric river it's it's you're starting all over so this is why you know between the environmental study and that I don't see how you can stage this that you know this has to be a decision one one way or another and so it's really not to me it's that the principle that we're putting it essentially largely above above grade and there might and we're going to do it we can locally to fire harden it but the idea of digging a mile more than a mile long hand dug trench across metamorphic and granitic rocks is just not that can work yeah okay how was the bench dug to begin with in metamorphic rock there's enough loose cover in the first several inches to a foot out there that they were able to cut the bench into that but some of those faces but let me finish but as you go deeper than that on in most of the areas I was walking on reasonably competent on not bedrock but reasonably competent rock which is telling me I'm gonna get to bedrock fairly soon under underwear walking yeah yeah mark I mean we we were walking on a place where the faces on the cut for the bench were anywhere from two to four feet high right yeah that's where the supports were you're already digging you're already digging in rock to create that bench and especially since the bench was anywhere from four to in some places 68 feet wide those areas were not benched those were on supports right well like I say I like retaining us so I we have the motion that has written that's been put in front of us we've had an amended motion that Gail has put out I haven't fully said it but I could we have we have thoughts of it we have the thoughts of it rather than the full thing at this point in my opinion we either approve and we've requested this portion already the hazardous tree removal I thought in a previous board meeting we said bring us the cost for the hazardous tree removal so that we could we don't need to do that so that we could do that so that I think it's already give us the cost for that I think the rest of this reestablish the trail do the environmental review and decide on the method I think that's all together you're pointing out to us right well we need to be prepared if we reestablished the trail we're ready to go that method if we reestablish the trail by hand with the CCC crews and we conclude that we don't want to put this back on top of the ground did we then spend whatever the money is for the CCC crews and not utilizing it correctly because we don't need the trail then if we're gonna use equipment we're similar to that so I think I think you know it changes you know I think if you could I think anything you do over the trees you need to do it all or none because right you know I know right we can't seem to move quick enough to get this information and I don't know you know how far we'll keep going on different methods and it'll take us we'll blow this year to be the seas are out three to six months or at least six months out so this stuff takes scheduling yes and to get that information for the board to make another decision of different techniques I think you know that you probably would forget this construction season next year I would recommend it you know there's a lot of water up there you know it's kind of when I saw it today for the first time we need that water right we don't debate yes we want to get that surface water source back in production everybody on the board agrees with that we're still not of the same opinion on we get that point there how we put it in place so I wanted you've you've heard from Bob couple times Gail and both and me several times I want to know if either Jeff or Jamie have anything else to reflect otherwise I'm going to solicit from the public and then come back to this we don't have a second motion on the floor yet we don't I wanted to see what other comments we had before we do that so where I'm getting to on this is that we either decide to go forward with above ground or we decide to go forward with tree removal and come back to above ground versus buried at a future meeting and I don't think there's anything in between that because if we go beyond tree removal then then we continue to push out the other decision doing the bench work and stuff like that is as pointless if we're going to get into winter and so we either approve the tree or mobile tonight or we approve all the way through to doing it above ground and I don't think I don't know if we're ready to do that or not right and that's what I'm trying to get a sense of yeah and we see from the schedule when Rick anticipates that we would be able to do these things tree removal February yeah really tough to do up there in February obviously weather preventing a lot I mean with with bench reestablishing the bench June yeah so Jamie well I just wanted to follow up on so you know I first of all agree with the direction that Gail is moving in to be honest with you I felt like we needed to get staffs more direction about this for a while now but I wanted to you know I think that what Carly said was important that that they need that direction from us in order to pursue any kind of environmental review and without that environmental review these questions that we have can't answer so you know I feel like at some point we have to make the hard decision and you know allow staff to move forward on this okay so I heard you say that you wanted to be honest with us if you're doing was yeah what gales is thinking yeah suggesting as far as the motion here okay again before we put the motion out there and I wanted to see from the public comments on what we've been discussing here so from those that are in attendance here please morning from boulder creek what I'm hearing here is a series of questions that kind of interlocked together you're talking about above ground versus below ground you've got geology sir somebody can find somebody from the dirt community that can go out there and get some topography and let us know what's underneath that that's one hazardous treatment and tree removal means one or two things one you're going to remove them out by truck two you're going to move them out by helicopter or three you're going to lay on the ground you put your plastic pipe on the ground you got a bunch of hazardous tree debris on the ground and that catches on fire that just exacerbates the problem so we're looking at this this pipeline as being a for the most part by definition a temporary installation because unless you send crews out there every season to clear all the brush and all the flammable debris away from the pipeline we're going to be right back in the same boat that we're in if there hasn't been a geological study on the proposed path you're not going to hand dig if i've been up in these mouths for 40 years you're handing that stuff you we'll be looking for water along after we're gone so you're going to have to bring if you're going to remove the trees either helicopter clean footprint going to move trucks because trees aren't light i was working on trees all day they're not light so you're not even talking to the minimum small construction equipment a four foot road probably not going to make it you're going to need six or eight depending on how tight the turns are then you've got to get the logs on the trucks then you got to get those hauled out that's not an eight foot road that's a 10 to 12 foot road so you've got a whole bunch of things that are all tying together and knowing what you're going to do either above ground or below ground that's going to determine how all of this other stuff goes because if you don't create a clear firebreak around your fire around your raw water lines this is just the whole thing starting all over again and that the district is going to have to pay to have those areas continually cleared just like we all do and so determining what you're going to do based on what we're just talking about whether we're going to decide above ground or below ground and then make the the facts fit the scenario seems somewhat backwards it would seem to me that you would want to know what's underneath the ground that's going to limit your ability to a move those trees out unless you're using helicopters i really don't want you spending my money on helicopters because i don't want those guys not unless you absolutely have to but moving hazardous trees with helicopters there's no return on that you're going to pay somebody to haul away you're paying somebody to pluck them out of that out of the ground or off the ground and put them in a truck it just seems to me need to do the fundamentals of decide the geography first and the geology and then base your decisions on that and accept the fact that it may not be feasible to put it underneath the ground then it's going to be a temporary installation with the required maintenance that goes with it thank you okay thank you um i have a continued concern about this issue i was on the board when the fire hat uh it was devastating to all and i still carry some of those scars associated um but i want to be able to say to future generations that we did something to improve uh this risks that are up there we all know we live with risk but we did something to improve these risks and i want to refer to um the fml peer review statement back in 2022 um it says uh for recommendations recommendations for the next days point five mechanisms and protocols to isolate areas of the pipeline and shut down the district's water treatment plan might help minimize risk associated with fire damage to the water system that's what i'm trying to focus on all right i have previously suggested that the pipeline have a few isolation valves to try and prevent a total loss of pipeline i'm particularly concerned that a valve at the intake side of the lion's tank be fire hardened and have redundancy so if you know i served on a submarine and for three years i slept in a bunker that was this far away from a great big valve that was the emergency valves tank operation valve very important down right that was right there that valve had redundancy to be operated remotely could operate locally by pushing a cell and it could be operated manually i think those the valves that we choose to use here need to have that kind of redundancy right also our fire management plan should include a maintenance schedule going with uh previous speaker here include a maintenance schedule for monitoring the fire potential along the pipeline i just want to clarify to people here from my understanding of uh listening to the environment we're not talking about tree removal the plan was to tree to cut the trees down and leave them there so um we don't have to we're not trying to worry about that cost of helicoptering the amount of other kinds of removal thank you okay um does anybody who's attending remotely uh wish to comment ask questions on this if not uh i do want to reflect on both of the speakers here one on the tree removal or cutting down the hazardous trees uh rick or carly what are the thoughts or recommendations from our uh is it the license forester and the removal that we have yeah what just to leave in place cut the lop and what do they call it lop and scatter lop and lop and scatter they're already in the forest so they would cut them and we would make sure they were cut off the trail and right far enough away so they wouldn't you know add to fuel okay um that's for sure yes okay um and to the uh suggestions of uh either isolation valves um other aspects i think i've heard similar from uh from gail and what she was suggesting so incorporating that into something right so well and we thought about you know and there will be isolation valves and just to be a clear point during the cz u fire the director of operations james worked with our fire management group on uh infrared satellite heat maps and they they they followed the fire and they did shut down the treatment plant and did isolate you know isolation valves could be used uh and now you know cellular capabilities and remote uh automation is getting better and better we could have isolation valves um in the field and even if it was above ground they could isolate in those sections of main i would not say any of this pipeline in this fire we had no they wouldn't have the fire went over the entire blend of the pipeline there right so any isolation valve out in the field was irrelevant and that's so that far where we shut it down at the treatment plant right save the water system the actual distribution system itself by not getting contaminated by dorsi um i'm not suggesting that that we put isolation valves in i think what i'm hearing is um let's go back and think about one other protection measures either um if isolation valves or other fire uh fire hardening or maintenance along the line or there should be things that have uh that technology brings us in the how many years rick 1984 85 when when we put this in before 95 so um that in the last 40 years that have been developed that would better be able to service for above ground hdpe if that's the way i agree with you mark but those technologies need to be used to keep the fire starting because once the fire got on that watershed okay there was no access they didn't use aerial if i'm not going to critique the fire if staff concludes though that there's no point that there is that there is no we're not saying just but no isolation valves are good for maintenance for multiple reasons just so and we would have them uh and that's a wwe spec i don't i don't i but i don't want to try to design that all i wanted to point out is we're hearing a suggestion from uh former director consider that i know i'm hearing from gail consider other technology aspects but if it benefits the line we're not saying do any of this i'm finding the discussion in the audience distracting so if we could hold off on audience discussion there was yeah isolation valves are a good thing to have okay on a pipeline to carry it for multiple reasons but you know i wish no fire and the rest of them and they must be doing some things of that type but we're not saying do that right we're saying consider other techniques that may not have been available in 1984 85 when this got put in place given the fact that we know it's going to burn up there again we don't win so okay um i've heard nothing else uh then i think we need to consider uh you know you put you said you didn't read what you wanted for emotion well i i yeah i had two parts one would be the first is move that the board directs the interim general manager to begin replacement of the p vine raw water supply line above grade with eight inch hd pe pipeline starting immediately with hazardous tree removal reestablishment of the pipeline trail and necessary environmental review the second part would be move that while this work is underway the board directs the gm general manager and the environmental excuse me engineering and environmental committee to explore ways in which an above grade hd pe pipeline could be made more resilient in case of wildfire and i i could list a bunch of things but i don't think i need to put those in a adult emotion but they would include things like allowing material to slough over over the pipe so it's covered locally video video monitoring where you might have cameras up there that are telemetered in automatic shutoff valves the other thing is you know earthquakes maybe you'd want something triggered by ground motion mudslides but i i don't think again i don't think we need to go that doesn't need to go in there i think that's the committee to decide how you exactly that's what that's what the instruction is so let me just say that again that is could is to direct the general manager and the ene committee to explore ways in which an above grade hd pe pipeline could be made more resilient in case of wildfire okay i would second to that motion i'm compelled by okay it is that one motion or two i i i'm happy to have that divisible if you want bob that that would be great thank you okay so the first motion then so we would vote on them separately right right okay i would still second the the initial motion i'm compelled by the idea that well i i want to fire harden this in any way that we can um i think that the the likelihood that we will have landslides that affect this pipe and if it's underground become even more challenging to address over time is is um you know probably more likely than you know a another cz u level fire in the near term so i second the initial motion uh that gail has made okay we have a motion out in front of us holly presidents molly yes vice president hill pass director akman yes director mayhood yes director false no okay so like me to read the second motion again and for a second so because we need a second on that please okay yes move that while this work is underway the board directs the general manager and the e&e committee to explore ways in which an above grade hd pe pipeline could be made more resilient in case of wildfire okay second okay president smally yes vice president hill yes director akman yes director mayhood yes director false yes okay um concluded on that item uh we'd now like to uh move to the discussion of the rate study so he's got his marching orders um the 2023 rate study excuse me just one moment can i ask um ctb to please uh make panelists of um let me see all the names that i have here teresa jurotich and and heather pol at polenty would you please make both of those people panelists please and oh and melissa ellion as well thank you so good evening directors uh teresa jurotich also thank you ctb thank you chair excuse me okay are we i just wanted to make sure we move we move the individuals over uh the panelists that's correct jay me has right i'm going to also um we can we can continue yes take breaks as needed um the next item is the uh continued discussion on the utility rate study uh uh rick i'm going to ask is heather on the call yes i am i'm going to ask heather to take the lead on this one i've got it thank you good evening boarder directors i'm heather i poletti senior advisor with regional government services serving in the role of interim director of finance as a way of introduction on october 5th the board of directors adopted the financial plans the adoption of the financial plans was an important step that information has been used to develop the rate structure the first two years of the financial plans are essentially the board approved budget on october 23rd six rate options were presented to the finance and budget committee the committee unanimously voted in favor of one option a 45 percent fixed three tiered rate with an expansion of the low income rate assistance program a couple of items have changed since that last presentation the private fire rate was slightly revised for accuracy and the sewer rates were increased in the later years to agree with the water inflation assumptions where the first two years agree with the board approved budget the rate presentation changed many times this week we received a significant amount of input and our goal was to make the presentation as accurate and clear as possible we are not asking for adoption tonight the board and public will have additional opportunity to comment on the proposed rates before staff asks the board to accept the rates in summary the plan is to come back to the board on november 16th with a motion accepting the proposed rate structures and directing staff to prepare and mail as required by law a notice of public hearing on the proposed water and wastewater rates with a public hearing to be held on january 18th 2024 and with that introduction i'll turn the presentation over to charisa from raff tell us thank you thank you for having us back to talk to you about the rates just a refresher of where we are in the process we're about halfway through we've been through the financial planning as heather mentioned and then we've been working with district staff to develop the cost of service and prepare proposed rates for your consideration once we get through that process we would be looking for board authorization at the next meeting and then moving through the process with the prop 218 mailing and then the public hearing so as a reminder the selected financial plan for your water enterprise was to do overall revenue adjustments of two years of 10 followed by three years of seven percent per year as a reminder this is the overall rate based revenue adjustment individual bill changes will increase less or more than the overall percentage adjustment based on the water structure that gets adopted and the amount of water used as well as your meter size so just a quick reminder on the cost of service um this is a method where we uh recover costs we allocate costs between fixed charges your fixed monthly bill and your variable rates so what changes based on how much water you use and then this is we also look at how to how the customer classes use water and place demands on the system and allocate um costs accordingly to those different customer classes and this methodology follows industry standard best practices by the american waterworks association and the water environment federation so i the as we do our cost allocation we have some major main cost components the one that i'll bring your attention to is the peaking cost that's where we're looking at how the different customer classes peak and place those demands on your on your system um um so in terms of looking at peaking do we need to let Alina know that we can hear her somebody we can hear having a personal discussion um so this this graphic is to give you sort of an idea of what um the the impact is on on peaking so the this is uh imagine these are pipe diameters for your your water system um your average day you could see there um your maximum day and then your max hours you need to you know size your system or your pipe um a lot larger why did that do that um a lot larger to meet your um your peak hour demand than you would if you only had to size it to meet your average day and you'd have a similar comparison you know for your storage tanks um etc so that's why it's important for us to look at those type costs um so this slide is looking at the cost of service alignment so what we looked at is removing the proposed 10% revenue overall revenue adjustment for the test year we say how are the customer classes currently recovering costs um based on the cost of service analysis so you'll see the customer classes there in the first column um and then we calculate the revenue that is um generated by those different customer classes under the current rates and then based on our cost of service analysis we say what revenue shouldn't they be recovering um and then you can see from the graphic here that the industrial and I'm sorry the plus and minus sides are awful awful a little bit there the commercial and industrial um customers are slightly over collecting what they should be and the single family irrigation hauled water and private fire service customers are under recovery under recovering so what this is telling us is in addition to the overall revenue adjustment that's needed um we also need to realign and um redistribute those costs to the customer classes so that um we are meeting equity and um requirement um so I'm trying to ask you to pause for a second there's someone on the line who's having a conversation at home and we can hear you if you wouldn't mind please muting your phones your if you're on the phone so that we can really hear uh Heather giving her presentation that would be great thank you okay go ahead please I'm sorry about that that's okay thank you um so as a refresher um from our earlier rates 101 conversation back in the summer um three priorities for the district um came out of that discussion um revenue stability affordability and conservation and so we kept these priorities in mind as we were developing alternative um a water rate schedule um we do want to note that you know an increase in revenue stability is is met by increasing your fixed charges and that has an an impact on your lower than average water uses it it impacts them more than it does your higher water usage so that kind of is a little bit in contrast with the affordability potentially um but we then address affordability through the tiered residential water rates um as well as a proposed increase in the low income rate assistance benefit and then the tiered rates also as well as the customer class um proposed customer class rates that you'll be seeing here those help address the or address conservation um the district does um seem to have a pretty good conservation program and uh low water lower average water use in the single family um class and we might see in and um some more other customers um so uh it looks like the program has you know been going well and this this will just sort of further those efforts um so when we went to the budget and finance committee uh they kind of kept in mind as we were looking at the alternatives that each alternative recovered the same amount of revenue that that was determined in the financial plan but that each alternative has a different impact on the customers depending on water usage meter size and customer class so your current water rate structure um there's a monthly service charge and then there's a volumetric charge and all customers um pay a uniform rate a dollar per dollar per ccf unit rate and then there's a separate uniform rate for your hauled waste customers and currently about 31 percent of your rate based revenue comes from that fixed charge the rest the rest comes from the vol volumetric charges um and then the graph on the right shows you a breakout of your revenue sources so you can see that your rate based revenue is over 80 percent of your revenue sources so we um and reviewing the water rate structures we first looked at the fixed charges so we looked at um do we want to look at uh a 35 percent recovery of the of the fixed charges the revised cost of service and where costs are falling um it would automatically increase your fixed charge recovery to 35 percent um and then we also looked at if we increase that even further to 45 percent to help address the priority of revenue stability um we've also created a capital specific fixed charge to recover capital related costs and provide greater clarity and visibility into um what what your the build the your build your bills are going towards like how you know what so that there's more transparency on the bills for customers to understand what what's going towards what to pay to pay for what excuse me um and then we also created a private fire service fixed charge for those customers that receive this special service um on the volumetric side we evaluated three options the first one is the current structure that you have the second one looked at creating a three-tier structure for single family residential and then uniform rates by customer class with three new customer classes commercial industrial and irrigation and then we also um looked at a third option um that looked at a two-tier structure for single family so after reviewing the those rates and the impacts of them the committee recommended uh going going with the the three fixed charges we talked about the monthly service charge the capital charge and then the private fire service that would only impact those 87 customers that have that service and then increasing uh the charges such that your recovery um that 45 percent of your rate-based revenue would be uh come from fixed charges and then on the volumetric side uh we went with the three-tier single family residential so the first tier is for usage up to four ccf that's 100 cubic feet um 100 cubic feet is 748 gallons um that four ccf is based on the lowest average winter month that's a typical method for helping to set tiers the second tier would be for usage um over four and up to eight ccf and that top of that tier is based on your highest average summer month and then anything over eight uh would fall into the third tier and then as i mentioned before we have a uniform uh rates for cost by customer class with three new customer classes and then maintaining continuing having a separate uniform rate for the hauled water the committee's rationale for choosing this rate structure um is that you know the higher fixed cost recovery uh results in more revenue stability to help with weather droughts to help weather droughts and emergencies um creating the different water rate structures water classes corrupts the inequities that we saw on that earlier slide um that you have under a current uniform rate for everyone then creating the tiers for the single family residential customers helps pass along the higher cost associated with peaking to those users that place the peaking peaking demands on the system and then keep pass along the lower cost to those customers that use less water and don't place peaking demands on the system um option the option two the three tier option was selected because the option one which was the maintaining the uniform rate for everybody impacts the lower water usage more strongly than either options two or three and then um while options two and three the results were similar the three tier option provided a lower volumetric rate for the low water usage customers and a higher rate for the largest users so before we go in and i show you kind of the rate derivation and the proposed rate schedules um the components of the water bill would now consist of the monthly service charge plus the monthly capital charge plus the volumetric charge and then for those 87 or so customers that have private private fire service they would also see a charge for that private private fire service so this is um how we come up with these with the new service charge the main components of that are a meter charge and a customer charge the meter charge varies based on meter size because uh costs increase as you are maintaining those larger meters the larger meters themselves cost more than the smaller meters etc so it's reflecting those costs and then we also have the customer cost which captures costs related to billing customer service etc and that does not vary by meter size and we add those two together to get the new proposed charge for the service charge and then on the capital charge this is recovering any of the or all of the capital related costs that have been identified in the financial plan and those are allocated out based on the meter capacity ratio because of the the greater impact that the larger meters place on the system so that's why we use the meter capacity ratio for those charges um the private fire service charge this is also a new charge um we allocated costs to that based on fire capacity needs and um these are ratioed based on uh fire demand uh ratios and you can see the proposed charges there now we move on to the volumetric side this graph is showing you the cumulative single family bill the usage so if you're looking at this you would see if you look at the two ccf on the on the bottom on the horizontal axis there what it's telling you is that bills up through two ccf per month account for a little over 20 percent of the annual usage from the single family customers this is about um a tenth the tenth percentile for those in the audience that um are statisticians um four ccf is uh equal to the median usage and it's also that average low winter month um and is the top of tier one for reference the sixth ccf is the average usage across the entire class across all of the bills for an entire year the eight ccf is that average high month that we're using for the top of tier two and then um ccf would be kind of the equivalent to the two ccf that's the 90th percentile so for the volumetric charge it's composed of a base plus peaking plus conservation component the base component is capturing um the costs related to average delivering average supply um to to all of your customers so that cost stays the same for all of your customers the peaking cost is where we take those max day and max hour costs that we identified and we distribute them between the customer classes and to each of the tiers based on the characteristics of the peaking usage within those classes or tiers so that's why you see that um varying between the three different tiers within single family and then for each of the customer classes and then the conservation charge the conservation component is applied to across all of the customers because the um the district mess messaging is for is for all the customers um so we apply to equally to to everyone and if you sum those three components across for each line you get the proposed volumetric charge for each of the customer classes or tiers so you can see that for tiers one and two in single family that those would actually be a lowering from the current volumetric charge for the customers and that for tier three it would be an increase you can also see that um commercial is an industrial are decreasing reflecting that they are that cost of service was showing that they're kind of over collecting so we're doing a course correction for them and then irrigation and hauled water increases are going up um can measure with their cost of service so this um shows the proposed schedule for the two fixed charges this monthly service charge and that new monthly capital charge so you can see um out through the five years the proposed fiscal year 2024 charges are based on the cost of service analysis that we've done for fiscal year 2024 the subsequent years are based on the prior year times the revenue adjustment so fiscal year 2025 is the fiscal year 2024 times that 10 percent revenue adjustment because we've done the cost of service realignment in the first year um here you can see the projection for the fire service charge so again the derived charge for fiscal year 2024 based on cost of service and then the escalated um charges based on the overall revenue adjustment and then similarly for the volumetric charge you can see the current charge there and then the proposed charges for the five years and then this is a a chart of the single family bill impacts I will note that the sample bills do not include the fire recovery surcharge since that surcharge is not going to change um we did not include it in this analysis um so this is just looking at what what is what is changing so you can see um at the various usage levels I will note that for the three the three usage levels on the left the 1626 and 46 ccf usage above about 15 ccf accounts for about five percent of the bills um in the single family customer class annually so about five percent of the monthly bills are for usage at amounts greater than 15 ccf in a month in addition to this the budget and finance committee recommended an increase to the low income rate assistance program and then it be implemented at the same time as the new structure currently there are 78 households enrolled and they received a ten dollar per month reduction in their bill um a possible change would be to increase this reduction to 15 dollars per month with the new rates for fiscal year 2024 going to effect and then increase it to 20 dollars per month in fiscal year 2025 and then uh lastly on the water side of things this is a comparison um of the single family bill for that average six ccf per month bill with a five inch meter um against some of your some of your neighbors I will note that Soqual Creek is in the middle of doing their rate study so we don't have their proposed fiscal year 2024 rates so this is based on their current 2023 rates that are in effect so you can kind of see where the district would land with the proposed 2024 rates um comparatively for this assigned visitor and usage and then on the wastewater side we have revenue adjustments uh following along with the anticipated increase in O&M from year to year and then you can also see the proposed charge per month since these charges are on a fixed monthly basis and they go to all single family homes there's no cost of service differential here so the revenue adjustment is directly applied to the rate to come up with the new proposed rates and then lastly just reviewing the schedule for adopting the water and wastewater rates this is based on having rates implemented on February 1st um we have tonight's uh initial discussion with the board and then a plan to come back in two weeks at the November 16th meeting to hopefully receive authorization to move forward with the rates and doing the prop 2018 notice um getting that mailed out by December 1st and then having a public hearing on January 28th thank you very much for having us back here this evening to share this with you okay thank you Teresa um Heather do you have anything you want to comment or add to this or shall I solicit questions um let me just add one little piece Teresa you did a great job thank you very much um there will be a um I want to say the administrative committee um Carly please check me if I'm wrong but um the committee is meeting on Friday tomorrow to discuss the public outreach reach portion of of this plan so so that they're ready to go and we'll we'll we'll know more about that after Friday's meeting but that is all I have thank you okay thank you uh so I'd like to get uh comments from the budget come up budget and finance committee uh members first on the board I just had a quick note here on the slide about components of the water belt since we have not excuse me I had a frog in my throat here um since we still have the fire surcharge uh that probably ought to be listed there on that slide that the fire surcharge will be there until it uh ends as scheduled okay so okay uh any since you're speaking this member of the what we saw here is an in alignment with what we were discussing on the budget and finance committee and um I I'll defer to Gail on uh any comment she may have it's an alignment with what the committee said was okay and what the committee but the committee agreed uh okay okay thank you well I guess um what I would say is that this anybody looking at those tables will say this is painful um you know that we're going to have to increase rates but we really don't have any choice if we're going to bring the district into financial stability and get us to the situation where we can uh both get our reserves to appropriate levels and can complete all the capital projects and improvements that we need to on our infrastructure but I think that um the budget and finance committee worked hard to figure out a way to do this in a way that had the least impact um on the lower income folks in the valley um and that also produced um a greater reliability in terms of our uh revenues and we did that by increasing the fixed portion of the rates from its current 31 percent to 45 percent and the rates are going up but the impact for low and moderate users is relatively small and um the largest impact is going to the high water use folks and we've done that by imposing very steeply tiered rates across the three tiers so that's all I'll say okay all right Jamie um I I am you know in support of the direction we're moving with the rates not because I like what we're proposing to do here because I agree it's painful but um you know I have worked uh for other water utilities the imbalance of volumetric and fixed charges is always a problem because our costs are in the fixed charges um that's you know the largest percentage of our budget is fixed and and the volumetric charges um you know the more we can do to balance those two pieces of the rate the the more stability we will have long term so I appreciate seeing that um my concern is and I'm going to be a bit of a fly in the wait here the timing of things um we uh I think this is the first time we as a board are seeing what the rates will look like and of course it's the first time that the public has an opportunity to see what the rates will look like I think that we need to have at least one public meeting before we as a board pass the rate authorization in order to take public feedback on what is being proposed here and unfortunately given the timing we would be authorizing these rates at our next meeting and starting the prop 218 process and I don't think that we'll have had an opportunity at that point to have had some sort of a public outreach meeting just to more broadly socialize what we are discussing here so I I recognize that we're under you know a very tight timeframe because of you know the the the budgetary issues that we are facing next year but I wonder if we could consider pushing the board rate authorization to our December meeting so that we could at least try to have some sort of a public outreach meeting to to you know collect some more feedback before we actually authorize these rates and start the prop 218 process I will say that our neighbors who are going through a rate study right now so Cal they're not even having their public hearing until next February and they are already collecting feedback and doing some pretty significant public outreach so I feel like it's a bit of a you know missed opportunity here if we don't have a little bit more time in the schedule um that's kind of where my concern is about this okay all right uh Bob I'd like to hear from you yeah I have a few questions that hopefully will clarify a few things for me what is the total amount of the low income rate assistance program as uh with the proposed changes currently I believe we've authorized up to 25,000 is does Heather I I do not have that number off hand I can do it okay all right uh I mean is is my question is are we proposing to increase it beyond 25,000 gals been in the discussions with budget finance so the answer to your question Bob is is right now that we're the program is is very underutilized and we have less than 100 people enrolled we think from looking at census tract data and also information from PG&E that potentially there could be 200 300 people that could enroll in this and so right now we're uh the amount of money that we're spending is a little less than $10,000 so even if we doubled it or um you know went up by 15 to $15 a month there's we're still under the 25,000 authorization so I'm I'm not making any formal recommendation you might have noticed on that slide it was just here's a possible way that what we're trying to do is target low income families and there's definitely room within the existing program to raise it and and accommodate more people okay so no change beyond the 25,000 contemplated at this point not at this point okay um I uh noticed that there was no mention of a um uh drought surcharge construct is has that been dropped completely uh the idea of needing a drought surcharge would have been if we had a lower fixed cost but with the fixed cost percentage of 45 percent we believe that that will give us enough stability so if the um if conservation is is is increased and are we receive less in volumetric rates the fixed cost will cover that that is one of the reasons why we increased it from from um 30 to 45 and not the 35 number was for stability is there going to be a pro forma p&l done on our for our current fiscal year reflecting these new rates hadn't thought of it but I could easily do one of those it might be I mean I'm given the fact that when I look at the numbers it seems like most of them are are going down except for a handful of um at least for the current fiscal year let's be honest for the course of five years um at the end of that five-year period we will be uh 250 percent above where we were in 2013 um but in terms of just understanding where we are with at least the current fiscal year um I think that would be a prudent thing to do there these rates once they get adopted aren't going to have a huge impact on the current fiscal year especially if we push out that public hearing date they probably won't be able to go in effect until march so these rates would only have an impact of four months so it's not going to be a large impact in the current fiscal year it'll be future years where we see that increase that might be worthwhile to do it for 2025 then if if um okay um basically what I'm trying to do is get an excuse me um still recovering from some things here so apologize for my my scratchy voice I'm just trying to get a sense of how the actual numbers line up given fairly significant changes in how the rates are structured um the next question is on the the peaking costs so I'm a little unclear as at one point in time in order to have tier rates um you had to have justifiable costs associated with those tiers is that no longer the case of the court cases basically wipe that out so dear or Teresa can you answer that question for me no we still we still have to you have to still have to show the cost basis for each of those tiers so that's why we treat those individual tiers as sort of many sub subclasses if you will so we look at the usage that would fall into that proposed uh first tier and say what's their max month what's their average month etc to get their their peaking impact so we see that we do that for tier one we do that for the usage of falls within tier two same for tier three same as we do for the commercial class the industrially and the irrigation classes so that's um that serves as the cost basis for those tiered and the uniform customer class rates yeah I'm I'm still not sure I'm following that sorry so um the the justification for the different tier rates has to do it sounds like with costs associated with peak time um what is that peak time and what are those costs peak consumption is what we are looking at that is you know compared to the average usage how much they are peaking and as we Teresa mentioned excuse me sorry but that's peaking inside of the overall system correct that's what's driving costs not whether or not somebody I mean whether for example if someone had uh an irrigation system where they did all their irrigating between midnight and two a.m that doesn't have the same peaking cost impact on the system is if they were doing it at the system's peak hour what is the system's peak hour and what are the costs associated with that peak hour that justify the tiered costs so there are two ways of looking at that one is called you know what you've just mentioned coincident peaking versus non coincident peaking the methodology that we are using basically looks at the non coincident peaking so we we look at individual peaking factors not looking at what time of the day they're actually peaking and how that is impacting the system we're looking at individual peaking factors we don't know when that water is being used by what customer so we just look at the actual peak that is generated by each customer class and by each tier to come up with the rates that we have come up with the cost associated with those peaking are based upon the system design you know the over design that is required to meet those peaks right but if the overall system design which presumably is mostly around the the infrastructure the size of the pipes in the lake which is what i think i gathered from your presentation that directly relates to in fact what the peaking is the peak hour is for the system that's right right so what is the peak hour for the system and what is the utilization of that and how does that um and how does that relate to costs associated with justification for peak hour charges so we have the max day peak at 1.5 which means that you know on a max day you're using one and a half time but the average usage is the peak hour is two and a quarter which means that it's two and a quarter times the average daily usage so is there actually is there actually a period of time on our system that reflects that or is that just a calculation that you guys are doing this is based upon you know information that we receive from the district could be part of the master plan and or you know the i don't Teresa i don't recall where we got this data from but this is related specifically to your system yeah it was provided by district staff yeah and so what what time of day is the peak hour the peak hour just on a system-wide basis just measures the total peak usage that is compared to the average usage so on the on the day that you have the maximum day usage you look at the maximum hourly usage on that particular day to come up with the peak hour and what and what was that i just said it's two and a quarter times the no no what time are you actually looking at the for the time of day so i i spend most of my career in telecom and we do the similar thing with with peak hour peak busy hour for telecommunications and i can tell you precisely what the hour is i can tell you precisely what the utilization is on the system at the time i'm trying to get a feel here for is this a heuristic calculation that we did on peak hour is there actually a peak hour and we know that that drives costs and right um there is not actually a peak hour on how these rates were actually calculated that is not the data that they received so based on what tressa dear have said that is not information that they can provide you i am happy to talk with our engineering staff and my guess is they can probably give me that information to provide to you but that's not how the rates are based on a particular i'm just trying to figure out how to relate peaking costs to to peak uh in order to justify the tiered rates and i i'm not i'm having a difficult time uh reaching that uh conclusion okay um next one was on capital charge um what is the capital charge intended to cover if we cover the capital related costs so um any debt service you have and then any cash financed capital that you may have um so is the intent to cover 100 percent of that or some fraction of yeah so any anything that's not anything that's left over after all of your grants and FEMA etc that goes into the capital charge and that's what we're recovering through that charge okay so our current debt payments i think run roughly two million dollars um and that doesn't include any other you know capital infrastructure that we might have i think i calculated the capital charge at about 800 thousand for the year uh at least for the net for this for this coming year the first year obviously we'll go up from there but so what i'm still not clear as to what that capital charge is covering if it's intended to cover all of our uh debt service the capital we net out other there are revenue offsets we net out so like your taxes and assessments and things like that can be used towards paying that capital so some of it is as netted as netted out okay but it's on the on operating side as well but it really it sounds like it's more of a debt service charge not a capital charge because our capital requirements each year run between four and five million dollars that is in terms of the infrastructure that we have to replace every year in order just to stay current that's based on the asset value of the of the of the entity so the the capital charge is really a debt service charge net out property tax revenue that we get which is roughly in the order i think of a million more or less um and is focused strictly on debt service only and any any cash capital that you would be paying which right now um the finance doesn't show that we look at you know on the on the financial plan that was approved there's debt proceeds and FEMA funds grants etc that are covering that so there's there's not a separate cash component too but it's any capital related costs net any offsets but but again it's it's it's debt related because our capital requirements are way more than 800 000 a year yeah that's what i'm saying that's why it's capital related so any cash capital and any debt service okay last offsets i i think the the vocabulary may be the issue there because when i think of capital charge i think of um overall capital um cost of capital that is what is it what is our district require to spend every year in order to keep up with the um infrastructure that's aging and needs to be replaced um your uh the way you're using capital is within the context of debt service capital um understand that now thank you very much for for clarifying that it it's in the first year basically that's what it is yeah it's basically our debt service yeah offset by the taxes and the revenue requirement from that from our perspective is just under 800 000 yes and um does that did that reflect the additional loan that you were recommending that we take out immediately in order to quote unquote have reserves or does that reflect just what we're currently um i am we uh show given the timing of that we wouldn't expect you to have any debt service payments until 2025 so for that new loan okay so then will the let me just quickly pull up the numbers here um will the capital charge then reflect is it being increased sufficiently over the course of the next year to accurately reflect then what our debt service capital charge less property taxes will then require in order to cover effectively three loans not just the two that we have now Teresa hold on let me ask a question of you and Sadeer to see it make sure if I don't make sure I understand this well and so I can help the director um um the fixed charges are not meant to cover 100 of the capital costs some of the vol volumetric charges are also going to be paying for some of that capital cost that is when we had that discussion from going from 31 to 35 to 45 percent is going to be a fixed component it is not meant that fixed component part of the rate is not meant to cover 100 percent of the capital costs Teresa am I correct um as as capital sort of varies from year to year then you you may or may not be covering 100 percent but uh you know we're not yeah but I mean the volumetric charge will make up for any difference correct that's Julia okay well I mean I understand from the margin point of view a final question on the capital charge is that then a dedicated fee that is it can only be used to offset our um debt charges that aren't covered by property taxes and perhaps other cash we get and cannot be used for operating expenses that would have to be um an accounting decision policy whatever on on the district side yeah it doesn't have to be restricted only to capital costs it can be used it's just an a way of separating out from the other fixed charges and the volumetric rate but it doesn't necessarily tied only to paying for capital costs you don't need to do even separate accounting on that per se basically just a way of collecting those costs separately to increase the fixed charged component well I mean depending I mean what we're really doing is we're going out to the community with a contract effectively um and if for whatever reason we're making this a separate line item there there ought to be some background around the contract that's being entered into with the with the community if it's just mainly a accounting gimmick um then I don't really see any value in it um if it's a dedicated specifically for capital and not to be used for operating expenses then there might be some value to it at least that's the contract you'd make with the community uh thank you very much for your time I appreciate the the background on this okay um I appreciate the presentation um and the clarity in my mind that's in the various tables that are here um I spent a fair amount of time this week going through these um and like the way the presentation um is done for us it made a uh non-financial person for me being able to uh go through this and understand what was here um I agree with the fact that uh this is not a a pleasant process that we're going through here this is difficult and somewhat painful but um in order to keep the district um um solvent we need to be able to increase rates uh in order to build up reserves we need to be able to increase rates um we've set the rate or the recommendation in here at uh 45 percent of a uh 45 percent on the fixed charges um is that uh typical for other districts now from what you're seeing uh Teresa Sider um it varies by by district or city I had summer you know in the 30s and I have others that are over around 50 so it's okay so so we're not out of the um out of the we're not even at the high range yet no okay okay can I just add a sure point to that um we're we're within sort of the norm but one of the interesting things is when you look at some of the smaller districts like in the Sierra that are spread out mountainous have some of the same issues they they tend to be on the high side of fixed some of them are like really large so we're definitely you know kind of okay with that okay um I do want to uh come back to the uh question on schedule of it's being asked uh by uh by Jamie uh as to whether uh we put this in front of the uh the board at our next meeting or whether we uh allow for another uh period of time uh we invited uh numerous uh groups to a previous meeting I don't remember when that was that that's right it was in September that we did that and from my perspective we had a a low turnout at those meetings am I correct in that that it was and it was to talk about this well that's a different I'm sorry if I could you're talking about very different things right so talking about the theoretical you know structures of you know whether we want to pursue this kind of uh rate structure that kind of rate structure I yeah most people aren't tuned in at that point people tune in when you put dollars to it and that's what we've done for the first time here and so I I take issue with the idea that that should one supplant any um you know need for additional outreach and two I don't even think it's the same thing we weren't talking about what people's actual rates were going to look like under the proposed structure we were just talking about different approaches to the rate structure at that point so I'm not sure that we've given them the opportunity to see this right to amplify somewhat what Jamie has said if we had it to do over again I wouldn't have even had those early sessions because that the subject matter was if you weren't an expert if you're not in our budget and all of that was was very difficult to follow anyway so right too high of a level yeah two abstract yeah we were just strategic level at that point now we're down to the tactical with here's what people want to know what it's going to cost yeah yeah what's it going to cost me and that is you know one of the slides here what's it going to cost a typical uh for six ccf yeah okay okay um I I get your point Jamie and it really only matters when it people can look at the tables and say okay this is how it's going to hit me but I would notice that um there's only three people in the audience here and maybe a few online and this is a time that people can look at the numbers and you know that we're we're offering people an opportunity to talk about them tonight and so I I'm sensitive to what you're talking about but I think we also have to balance that with um every week we put this off it costs us about $20,000 in revenue for the district so but you know we we have to decide what what do we gain by putting off um this in terms of what what are we going to get and feedback that will will actually be able to change things here's here's my view of this is that outreach at this point is trying to explain the plan right and educate people and you hope that you convince them that this is the right path but maybe you won't and they will vote against it but I really have a hard time imagining a situation where we're going to have uh individuals in the public come in and say well this is too much um here's what how I want you to fix it I only want my bill to be x you know it's it's hard to see how feedback in that way is actually going to effectively do something it may make you feel better that you've you've gone through that but um I I just I'm just trying to figure out like okay you get feedback and then what do you do we can get feedback on things like how we might expand malaria program or things that you know can easily be done but to go and redo a rate study because people don't like the numbers I I just don't see that happening so you know that okay okay I I appreciate that it is unlikely that we will get public feedback that would materially change what we're proposing here but I I also think that as a public agency we have an obligation to seek it whether we you know whether it's going to materially change it or not we we have to do our best to try and reach people and I yeah people aren't here tonight there's also a big meeting going on right down the street about big basin water tonight that's happening you know coincident to this so not to say that they would all be here but I'm just saying like there's other things that are going on and we have not done the work of going out to the public and saying okay here's what you're looking at tell you know here's your opportunity before we vote to start this process and you know I I have I think that that we are missing a step as an agency if we don't at least have that opportunity for for the public to comment before we are voting on moving the rate study itself forward um I do I do want to reflect on that but I did want to come back since Bob has his hand up also Bob yeah I mean generally I agree with with the sentiments that that Jamie's expressing I I think probably the maybe the the cynicism part of this is you know within a prop 218 process which doesn't really follow any of our democratic norms including you know a minority report or pro and con arguments um you know what's the practical effect going to be relative to whether or not this passes um I mean I think doing this whole process over the the holiday period is the opposite of transparency people will I mean starting in about two weeks people are going to be distracted for most the rest of the year um so you know they're they're there we are I think a stronger communication to the to the public would include the commitments and the contract that we're made that we would make with them we've chosen not to do that as a board um so you know I don't I don't know that you're really going to communicate anything to them I mean at the end of five years we have no plan for getting our pension issues down we have no plan for maintaining our steel tanks we're going to be still spending about half of what we need to be spending every year just to stay current with our infrastructure and our operating expenses are going to go up more than what is in the model because that's historically what has always been the case so I mean while I tend to agree with with Jamie on on the concept and would certainly support her motion to delay this a month the fact of the matter is the board isn't doing anything substantive to really communicate to our community how we're going to manage this money other than we're going to continue doing what we've done in the past and it's never matched what has been in the model um Jamie youth you threw out the possibility of um and have staff return instead of december or instead of november 16th uh december second is it second second that we meet um december 2nd uh wait the the first meeting in december whenever that is oh sorry that's the seventh yeah okay um right this december 7th um you really just strictly think that uh the you the admin committee could put something together in that no the subtype of uh presentation would you see doing that at the next board meeting uh kind of how would that uh because I'm sorry I wouldn't I wouldn't want to go beyond that but if but if there's the value in that and it could be done so what's your thought on how well unfortunately the admin committee is going to be receiving um a presentation from our public outreach consultant tomorrow on this issue and what I had planned to discuss in that context was um a virtual meeting uh separate and apart from our our board process where we would you know choose a different day different time maybe you know I think that we need to hear from miller maxfield on that but um where people who may not be able to come to a board meeting for various reasons would have an opportunity to hear about it and learn about it and um offer comment in in a in a virtual setting so um you know and not as a full board discussion um and you know then we would then have that feedback and and convert you know from that virtual meeting to consider when we make the vote on whether or not to proceed with the prop 218 process so I you know um with Thanksgiving in there I know it's a challenge but I would I would hope that we could put together some kind of a virtual meeting where we would essentially be presenting a very similar presentation to what um Teresa and Heather presented tonight um to those who you know are able to attend that and learn more about it before we take the next vote um that was my hope with the conversation that we're going to have tomorrow at the admin committee meeting so okay um okay well um we have a motion in front of us here maybe comments oh I'm sorry um no let me let me go to this we have a motion in front of us here um but uh notice very similar to the to the last discussion we had on the p-vine before we resolved on a motion to put out a solicitor public comment I'd like to do the same on this one because I'm not getting a sense of concurrence from the board on on this uh at this point so um does anybody here in the public um want to comment on this uh aspect thank you I was still written right and I was still I'm full heartedly support having a tiered system to promote conservation right I've argued for that in the past and I support us going ahead and actually reinstituting a tiered system um when Miller Max Vial the public outreach company here is doing this outreach I would hope that they would follow a format that or given opportunity I understand Bob's point about the 218 process itself doesn't call for a pro and con thing but I would think that to promote participation and you know conversation about this that we give people an opportunity to see some somebody represent the side that is not necessarily in favor of the recommendation okay so we see that in all our state elections we have pros and cons I think we should follow that some sort of system that uh duplicates that um also if the public meeting can be held in a large facility like the Belmont Senior Center or the Felton Community Hall that would help promote the greatest public participation now um it's a great idea to have virtual meeting as well but uh the last uh rating increase was well attended and it was held at the senior center so I think that people will attend once the dollars are associated with this thank you very much okay anybody else there if not uh Mark from Boulder Creek again um I hear a 45 increase you know based in over four or five years um but what I'm not hearing and outside of what Bob was talking about as far as debt service or whatever I think the goal should be to create some sort of messaging that the average high school freshman or sophomore would understand most people when they come home from work they've had a long day long commute and then they got and then they got a brain power through something that is important but if they're out of brain power they're not going to read it they're not going to pay attention or they're not going to participate this needs to be something that they either is a mailing or some process that they can use my language take in the bathroom have to sit down and read in language that they can understand when I heard capital I'm thinking oh okay tags or pikes or buildings or something like that I never would have connected debt servicing for that and which is necessary don't get me wrong but this goes to the transparency and the understanding just because there's a language that people in that world use not everybody uses the same language and so you tell me what I'm getting for my bucks 40 for 45 rate increase sounds horrendous 45 on a 60 or 70 dollar bill you know what if that's what it takes to run the place I don't have a problem with that just tell me what I'm getting and again flogging the dead horse I don't want to see the same stuff happening over again we had CZFIRE which burned out all a lot of probably almost eight years worth of fuel and now with the next project you're talking about adding new fuel on the ground because you're not going to take the trees out and then you're going to put the flammable pipe on the ground sounds to me like you're looking at that process as a temporary short-term we'll fix it next time we'll fix it next time we'll fix it next time but if that's not the case then put in the surcharges that you're charging for the plastic plastic laying plastic on the on the forest floor and you're waiting for it to burn and we need some light so when it burns we can put it in next time but this a lot of the language was incomprehensible to a lot of people and me included like I said I never would have guessed by just reading some of those charts when they were actually talking about and that goes back to the transparency thing thank you okay um folks that are online April uh supper hi thank you I'm assuming you can hear me unless you tell me otherwise um yeah I appreciated the presentation tonight it was rather dense the slides went by really fast I do look at financials sometimes but um I had a hard time wrapping it all up in my mind and I agree the vocabulary is specialized vocabulary and it would be very helpful I agree with Jamie that it would be really helpful for the community to be able to come to a meeting or get something in the mail that or watch a recorded presentation that's um pitched to the average person who doesn't have a financial background so that we can all understand what's going on and me being a low water user I'm happy my rate is not going to go up but I'm sure other people who have big families are going uh oh so it would be good for us all to understand that better thank you okay um anybody else um online want to comment seeing none um then I'd like to come back to oh we have a motion as written in front of us I'm not uh can you read the motion please sure um board accepts I know that the board accept the staff report concerning the utility rate structure and direct staff to return on November 16th 2023 with us with a resolution authorizing staff to move forward with the prop 218 process with the presented rates I don't even like the motion to be honest with you because it's like we're telling we're saying we're gonna um approve this on the 16th I don't know it feels like I'm I'm willing to um listen to uh an alternate or revised motion the one that doesn't appear to be as much of a done deal well I think you need to add in there um something about community outreach a community outreach with a simplified version of the presentation okay I I like what you're going so so that if we said something like the board accepts I just uh I I actually don't know why we need to take this motion tonight like the the staff can bring back the the rate study um on the 16th that they want to and ask us to vote for it we don't need to direct them to do that so you know why can't our motion be that you know we are directing staff to take the necessary steps to ensure that there is a you know public outreach opportunity um you know the question becomes when but you know within the next 30 days I want to see if we can get you know some dates certain into this um with uh you know we're talking about board meetings on the 16th and November the 7th of December and I certainly hope that we're at a point I know later than December 7th right but so what um what are you then proposing that we're asking staff to yes they could bring this back to us on the 16th uh Gail well I think what I would say is one thing you could vote on is that at the minimum as part of the motion that you accept the staff report that we heard tonight okay so in other words you're not telling them when go totally back to the drawing board when you reject this out of hand um I mean it's not that we're we're approving it but it's at least it's that um beyond that um whether you want to you know what you want to specify I I don't know I I I'm with you mark I really don't want to put this off past the 7th of December that's kind of uh I I go ahead only um I just wanted to point out that first of all a large public meeting is not recommended I was just at um a hospital today and they are back to wearing masks it's a mandate that they started yesterday and so I don't think that's a good idea I think that possibly a virtual meeting could would be a good idea but um really getting together as a large group is not in my opinion recommended so I don't think we normally think about we don't we don't really have to vote on anything like this with the moment um first of all the admin committee is going to talk about outreach among other things tomorrow and we would come back to the board meeting the next board meeting the outcome of that meeting uh whatever recommendation we come up with and uh and I wish I could talk better and this proposal can come back to the board at the next meeting and we can decide to vote on it or not we don't have to vote on it tonight I mean we don't have to we don't have to vote to have staff bring it back next week for in two weeks for another vote we can that can just be arranged on the agenda um that's a good question I uh Gail was making this suggestion of uh we accept this um report yes is that the is that the way you were saying that we accept this as presented this e-guess so that we can say yes we've done this part of it so um and then the aspects of what next we can begin to craft that also okay um yeah before I go to you uh Bob said his hand sorry I want to see what Bob uh thanks Mark yeah I mean you know I've been through a number of these now and and at least at the San Lorenzo Valley water district they all kind of follow the same path and we're we're on we're on that same path where you know for whatever reason the outreach around rate increases it has has looked to me to be more ad hoc rather than methodical deliberate structured and sustained over a fairly long period of time I mean there's the occasional Facebook posting but but you know that that's about it um I I'm I'm perfectly fine you know having trying to do more in in the month of November prior to a meeting in December but given that we're that you're just getting that presentation tomorrow I mean I do have to ask is there I mean I'm completely opposed to having this over the holiday anyway let me start there because I I think that is the antithesis of transparency with your community but given that you're just now starting a presentation from your um from Miller Maxfield who again their track record on outreach is also mixed um are we really looking at having anything substantive do you think anything's going to come out of it tomorrow that's that's really going to be in the in November um that's significant I I want to defer to the admin committee and give them the opportunity to have that discussion okay fair enough because because here's the schedule you have the meeting tomorrow you've got two weeks before Thanksgiving week people check because Thanksgiving is a little bit earlier this week um and then after Thanksgiving you've got basically um one and a half weeks before the next board meeting yes I think we're all aware of that here you think that's possible to do anything substantive basically that last week in November that's what I have to I don't know what you would define as substantive Bob but I I think that it is possible to do um in my opinion a virtual public outreach meeting um where we break this presentation down uh in a more approachable and accessible manner so that people understand what we will be taking up to vote on on December 7th um prior to having the the staff come back with a resolution to begin the Prop 218 process so I'm sure that you will take issue with whether that's substantive but I I do think it is possible to do that no I'm I'm I'm actually glad to hear that and hopefully they'll also have insights on what they will do in the next two weeks after tomorrow to sort of help lead up to that right um because we've we like I say we've not really had a sustained methodical communication from uh the district um up until recently okay no let's let's try it out and see uh Jamie I definitely want to give you the uh a lot of leeway and runway here to do that okay gill I I would just say that in your conversation with bill or maxfield I think that um people's attention is really going to happen after they've gotten the notice right and so one could argue that that's you know when the most conversations and education and should happen so I hope that even if you insist on having one before we vote that there is also something after the notices come out because that's when most people are going to be paying attention I just predict you're not going to have much attention before that because just there's nobody here tonight um not quite nobody well I'm sorry and there's a you know relatively not many bodies out there here or elsewhere so uh but I do have a technical question that I'd like to ask um Heather and Theresa she's still there is are we actually talking about putting together two prop 218 notices one for the wastewater and one for the water or are they together it would be going together it would be one prop 218 notice okay I don't I don't like but they but they vote separately don't they they do indeed yeah so the reason I'm asking this is I'm wondering whether whether this is again a divisible question that we can say please go ahead and prepare for the next board meeting the prop 218 for the Bear Creek Estates water is that wastewater wastewater excuse me wastewater um you know if but maybe there's no value in in doing that but I I do believe that it has to be separate because it's a different voting public okay yeah in fact having outreach to the wastewater guys can be fairly easy to do yeah there's there's only 54 of them or something like 56 but yeah it is is that so in other words like what I'm saying is we could have a motion that says tonight that we accept the report and a second part that says basically instruct blah blah blah but for the wastewater part yeah is that yes um and we're requesting are we requesting anything of staff at this point on this outreach aspect I would be directing staff to ensure that we have a public outreach meeting in advance of the December 7th board meeting about here we're not directing them tonight staff to do anything but that'll come out we could we could I mean we know we're going to get a presentation from miller maxfield tomorrow that's outlining what we can do right for public outreach but we can tell the staff tonight like it's our expectation that that something happened before we come back to um pass the prop 218 process I understand we can do that but if we direct them to do quote something they won't do anything because we haven't really told them what to do well public I'm saying we're directing them to hold a virtual public outreach meeting I understand that we're that's putting the cart before the horse a bit in terms of miller maxfield but um that's where we are the direct staff to to conduct public outreach with guidance from the admin committee there you go okay there you go okay yeah is that does that kind of get get us there let you have the discussion with miller maxfield let you filter out what what you think you can do with them yes and the timing with them um and do that before the next okay but we but not but yeah I asked a clarifying question please sure um what I hear from this board is that you want to um assuming it can be done and and we'll know more tomorrow a public outreach done before the rates are presented to you again yes and you at this point don't have expectations of that occurring November 16th that it'll occur December 7th instead I mean that's I don't think it's realistic to think that we could have a some kind of separate meeting with the public before the November 16th meeting I completely agree I'm just making sure it's all really clear on on the expectations of the board right well that's what we're trying to okay um then what about this um moved that the board accepts the staff report uh concerning the utility rate structure as presented on November 2nd 2023 um direct staff to conduct public outreach based on input from the admin committee um um and and uh what in return um by no later than December 7th 2023 with resolution authorizing staff to move forward with the 2018 process with the presented rates yes I put a motion out I would second that motion okay I noticed that there's a member of the public with their hand and I've searched for that and I can't see oh okay my eyes are blanking at this point um okay we have a motion out in front of us now we have a member of the public wants to comment uh mr smith go ahead mr smith you're muted okay uh can you hear me at this point we can okay this is michael smith I'm a third-generation uh property owner off two bar road and it's like to say that I'm one of the your public that are watching us on virtual and will continue watching very interesting I'm congruence with mr obfault and his attitude and his uh methodology for helping us understand as a public and it's really helping out a lot that was my comment and thank you very much okay um we have a motion out in front of us um we're ready are we ready to vote on this yes okay I get that feel uh holly would you take a president smalley yes director vice president hell yes director ackman yes director mayhead yes director calls no okay motion passes um it's past 9 30 but we still have a few procedural things to take care uh any um comments on the consent agenda item that's here during the uh district reports uh does anybody want to uh comment or question on those uh not seeing any hands up here uh not seeing any online then I think we can adjourn thank you thank you