 The board members opportunity to remove items from the consent agenda. Should they? I'm director Christianson. I wanted to perhaps talk about the 4.3 special board assignment status report. I just had a question on that. So should we talk about that or how does that work? If it's just a question, we can answer that at the staff level. And then if the board would like to have further discussion, then remove the item. Okay. So Mike, should I ask the question now or when we get there? Now? Oh. So former director Daniels was on the public outreach group. And I was wondering if that's a special board assignment, right? Well, the special board assignment is, no, it's not. It's not ad hoc. These are just items that the board said address at some point in time in the future. And so we keep a list of it to make sure we don't lose track, but he was on a committee. Okay. And I think we have few just backfilling that slot. Is that right? Am I wrong? We're going to bring it to a board. We're actually planning to bring an item at the next meeting to review the standing committee appointments. Good. Then I'll wait till next meeting. Thank you. Thanks. Good question. Any other items? Move approval of consent agenda. Oh, well, we're going to have a public comment. Sorry. You are correct. And then I'll second. Okay. Is it all just all in favor? We don't need a roll call. Okay. So we have a motion and a second and all in favor. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That's approved. Okay. Is it summary instead of pass? You should say pass unanimously. Oh, pass unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Oral communications. Members of the public. Thank you. Becky Steinbruner. It's too bad we couldn't have traded places with Congressman Panetta because they have a lot of people standing outside and can't hear. So anyway, I'm glad we're here. I, there's an issue that I did write your board about regarding the treatment, the advanced treatment plant on Chanticleer and my concern about truck traffic exiting the treatment plant a couple of months ago. I saw a large delivery truck coming out of the construction site at the Chanticleer site and it blocked traffic. So it was a visual, it really made me realize when the plant is up and running, there will be large trucks coming and going from that plant. Some of them carrying hazardous chemicals. And that was never anything that was addressed in the EIR or either of the two addendums. So I think it'd be who's your district to really look into that? How will large trucks coming into and out of the advanced water treatment plant affect traffic? And how will that be dealt with? Some of these trucks will be very large and that corner coming from Highway 1 southbound is a very tight turn. And I witnessed a large truck having to take up multiple lanes of traffic to complete that turn. So I hope that you will look into that and issue some sort of a traffic study. The overpass is in progress now. So that will be an added piece of traffic there. That overpass was never included in any of the EIR or either of the two addendums for the project. It needs to be included in study. It may require another addendum. So I request that you do that. No one ever responded to my communication about that issue. The second piece that I want to ask you about is regarding an oath of office for special districts that it seems the county administrative officer has put in place. I saw one for the first time for tomorrow's housing advisory commission. And I don't ever remember seeing that in your packet. So I request that you look into that. And then finally, I am watching the comment period open on the state's direct portable reuse guidelines. And I have submitted a comment and I hope you will too. Thank you. Any communications from the board? I got to attend my first conference in Monterey, the CSDA conference, and I did a day of pre-conference and earned a certificate in governance. So it was really helpful to just kind of learn about what it really takes to be a good board member. And it was wonderful to be there with Melanie and Ron as well. I wanted to just very briefly give you two little informational pieces that I thought were interesting. These were from people that I met at the conference. So one person I met was a man named Paul who works for East Bay Mud. And he told me all about what was happening there. But he said that his number one issue, I know it's a large agency, I think they have like a million ratepayers, but it's the PFAS regulations. And they are going crazy with trying to figure out how to do that. I believe that the state has involved the 30 top water agencies in California for the next two years or something. But I mean, these things are coming up. And so I thought that was really interesting to share that information with him. And then second of all, I had lunch with the general manager from the Paradise Water District. And she like talked me through exactly what they've been doing the last couple of years, recovering from their devastating fire. And the water and the hardware, and she explained everything. I wrote it all down so I could get it right. But it was very interesting. And then at the end of the conversation, she said the last few days she'd been in touch and on the phone with Maui because they'd been calling her to find out what they should be doing about their water. And so just as a really nice person to person, she's told me we should be following exactly what Maui's doing because their district is exactly like ours. Like the location, the size, like a lot of it is reflective of what we are. And I just thought, yeah, we should be really following through on that. So just two quick things to note. I thought we're interesting and I wanted to share. Thank you. Yeah, actually even the more apropos is the Dan Lorenzo Water District and up there Ben Laumenden, that area of that place had similar devastation. You know, the plastic water pipe. Yeah, with the CCC. And then flushed back down. So even people who hadn't been burned out had contaminated, they didn't have access to water because it was contaminated. Burned up in the fire and that was another hard, hard thing to recover from. Just a quick note. Another conference that coming up in November is the Water Reuse Conference, which has been a really good interesting conference. I just wanted to point that out. And then also just the next meeting, I'm going to need to be remote. And I don't know if that's possible for MGA. So I'm not sure who my alternate is or herself. I don't know if you'll be here for the 19th of September. Or 21st is there. I just wanted to bring that up to figure it out. I can check and see if I can do something remotely there or not. I can check with Tim. That would be best because the last meeting was in the Capitola Library. I don't know if they have it out there. We'll see. At this point, I don't think we can do anything. It's not on the agenda, so we can't. You're just laying us down. So we might only have one representative of an MGA. I'll be there, so I will take notes for you. I'll be there too. That's the... Okay. Anything else? Maybe we just want to add that also at the conference last week, thank you Director Balboni for attending as well as President Christensen. The SoCal Creek Water District was also recognized with a special award for technology. It was an appreciation for us using the technology of SkyTem to better understand the water conditions of the groundwater basin. We accepted that on your behalf. Thank you. I wanted to add a comment to that too. It really took me back to... Well, it wasn't really that long ago, but the way things moved to get the project done, we just do that, make the decision, kept moving on. It took me back to that. What a phenomenal proof of concept it proved to be. It was really actionable. We all came together. It was very, very worthwhile. And that's what we, the award was for. Those were all divulging our plans for the summer or whatever we're in now. I will not be able to attend the October 17th meeting. Okay. I can't even do it remotely because I have no idea what the time difference is. Is September 21st? Oh, this is the... Yeah, September 21st I'm going for parent weekend. Oh, okay. I'm all over the place. And then you're not here for the... But I can be remote? I know, you might as well write it now. Okay. No reports. I'm six. I'm seven. Seven point one. The additional wills are none. And... Oh, so here's something good coming up. The water... Seven point two. The water harvest festival. Yes, good evening. I'm going to be presenting a little bit of information on the upcoming water harvest festival that we will be hosting on October 14th. In 2018, the district hosted our inaugural water harvest festival. Primarily we started this to promote environmental stewardship, environmental protection, and to get the word out related to the conditions of our groundwater basin, and also the community efforts to collaborate. We had done a lot of partnerships through the Water Conservation Coalition around the same time with the Santa Cruz County Fair. We also wanted to make something that was a little bit more local and more intimate within our service area boundary. So, Becca Rubin and Vitehi Campbell had been talking to several water agencies that held festivals similar to this in their community. They wanted to spearhead and do something directly within ours. Our first one was at the heart of Soquel Park, right down there in Soquel Village in the fall time. We had costumes and pumpkins, and we had quite a few community booths to kind of share more information about, you know, activities and events related to environmental stewardship through other non-profit organizations as well as the city and the county. Subsequent to that, we have moved the festival around. We did have it at Blue Ball Park in 2019, which is a year that we also started to dedicate the Water Harvest Festival in memory of Vitehi, and we have been able to continue that tradition and hosting a Water Harvest Festival during COVID. We went remote, and this year we will be having it over at the Chanticleer Park, which is just down the street from the Pure Water Soquel Facility and kind of in a very mid-central area between Santa Cruz and the district. We've also been able to get some sponsorships. As people of booth, we have over 15 community booths that will be at the event, as well as some entertainment. Previously, we had the Banana Slug String Band, and this year we're going to be having Sambedah. We'll also be having a food truck, and we're also going to be unveiling a project that we have partnered with Orange County Water District of utilizing near and making kombucha. So, you know, as a way to kind of get information out, have people understand that the water is purified. We've been passing out bottled waters from Orange County Water District. This year we're going to be using and partnering with Swell, I think what's living Swell. It's a local kombucha company, and they are going to be producing 15 gallons of purified kombucha that we'll be passing out. We'll also be kind of documenting and kind of illustrating through photographs and later a future story on how we created the purified kombucha. So, we will have face painting. There's quite a few activities there. Each booth is required to have kind of an activity for children and school aged people, and then we'll also be having a raffle. So, we're anticipating quite a few people to come. We are inviting the board, and we are starting to do a lot more outreach with some advertisements, as well as some social media posts. So, we are excited to have it. This is our fifth year event, and of course, if you guys have questions or any kind of suggestions we're open to it. I think it's great too. What flavor of kombucha though? I believe. Yeah. It's a surprise. Sorry. It will be blue. I'll say that. Oh, interesting. And the other question is is it mandatory for directors to get their face painted? No, but it is a lot of fun. I understand that the MGA is going to put a booth this time. Good. I can see this growing. I have a procedural question. Is there a public comment on informational item? Yes, please. Thank you. Becky Steinbrenner. I am happy this is happening, but I really think it should be in the district's area. The Chanticleer Advanced Water Treatment Plan is not in the district's service boundary. And I understand maybe why it's a good public relations thing to have this activity there in Live Oak, but they're Santa Cruz City Water customers. We're all in this together. I understand that, but I think Blueball Park was a good location and I wonder why it isn't there now. I want to suggest one of the most educational and it is still stuck in my mind displays that I've ever seen at any of the many water events I've gone to locally was at Pajaro Valley water management agencies first outreach meeting about the College Lake Recharge Project and they had a very large clear plexiglass tube with representational strata of the aquifer. And I think that would be a great thing to build and to have at these events. I really miss Vi. She was a gem and just in closing, you know, I read through the agenda and saw that there was going to be vibrant blue kombucha and I have to tell you the first thing that came to my mind was a tidy bowl toilet bowl cleaner. You might want to change the color being what it is especially. Thank you. I have no problem with the blue kombucha. I drink blue herbal tea all the time. I have no problem with it. That's my only comment. Thank you. Any comments? Move on to 7.3 2023 of water protection consumption reduction. I will take that one. This was brought about by Dr. Jaffe expressing curiosity around why is our water use roughly 13% year to date below the previous year or what we budgeted for and I know this was not a scientific approach but I couldn't help but taking the advantage of my colleagues from other agencies so why we were at a luncheon together. I showed them this graph and we were doing it virtually and I said this is what we are experiencing or others experiencing the same thing and we had every general manager from every agency and Watsonville said we are at 13.75 below year to date and we were last year and all the others said the exact same thing and I asked them what do you think that's going to attribute to think about it so we don't influence each other and everybody went around and they thought it was the weather, the rain. It's nice to be able to see us and have other agencies that are experiencing the same thing whether that's exactly it or not what cause and correlation are not always tied together but it seemed like a good place to start and I know there may be other questions and I have done a little bit of research but very drafty at this point so here for questions I appreciate you getting the report where were the districts it was everywhere from Bajaro to Santa Cruz Watsonville so they were in our area all the local GM's San Lorenzo Valley but basically in the same weather pattern down in Corralitas it's a little drier but roughly the same as close as we can get as far as comparison with other agencies that's for sure it will be interesting to see what happens now in this part of the year and you can see the weather it's kind of spiked back up what is that July and then I did run some other numbers just thinking that there might be some further curiosity it was done late but I'll just throw out some things that we noticed is we looked at just how irrigation accounts alone had reduced from their previous year and the numbers they greatly vary from like 20% up to 600% the account itself decreasing but when you do assume that's 5% of our usage which I don't know why that number sticks in my head but you know that's a 30% reduction down to a 1% so there you can see a fluctuation in that but irrigation accounts are not always the right place to work because of the way they're operated they don't always respond like a homeowner will look at if you take the data from the finance report the July 1st 2023 finance report item 4.4 it shows we don't have it here but it shows build consumption by tiers tier 1, tier 2 for residential and other sectors and even though it was for a full year to date what I saw there was in just simple math a 7% reduction year this year from the date all the way around and then last year from that same time period a year earlier a 7% this year we reduced 7% in tier 1 compared to last year or what's budgeted and then in tier 2 the reduction was 23% so at delta between us to a 16% so not exactly apples to apples but it's another not at all because there's so many more tier 1 accounts I would imagine there are a lot of tier 1 and it wasn't even over the same time period either someone acknowledged that well I'd appreciate that you looked into it but this is exactly the type of thing that I would base decisions on rates about just and you know I appreciate the anecdotal information but once when you start looking at the entire water use of the district and how it changes over time you could tease out how much is perhaps due to the weather how much is due to other factors and that's the type of information that I would like to have to be able to determine what a fair rate structure is yeah and we are following up on the Sioux hold stuff so that if that plays into it and I was looking for the if you remember I think what if I get the essence of what you're talking about that remember the bell shaped curve we used to have and residential water use home water use was 30% of their total overall use because that big bell in the middle of the summer months you know that if you look at we haven't seen that curve in a while and we didn't have time to reproduce it today but that curve is definitely flattened right and so I think that's what you're talking about the bell part at least for residential right that and more that more okay yeah I mean I think I sense you the what I got from the memo that Sioux I I went and looked at that memo because you cited it last time sent it to Leslie I sent an email but the again I don't know if the other directors thought process or information needs are the same as mine but I get a lot out of looking not at averages but looking at looking at the details we want to give you what you want to help you with the rates I mean that's our job I thought the question you were asking is why the big drop right now well yeah that was last meeting okay okay that was I nailed it I made the bridge to the rates okay okay that's having more information helps me with the decisions well maybe outside this meeting we can meet and we can see what else you need and I would hope that there's a presentation on what Sioux did in the near future to let the other directors especially Jennifer and you weren't here either Carla it's just us too I know Tom that you get valuable at the time yeah to tease out what we could get information from seeing how it's changing I think would be even more valuable and I'm sure it has changed just to add in this time of big data it seems to me that the more information we have the better decisions we can make I'm all for that yes so following on that we are looking at what Dr. Holt did and making sure that it's either part of the analysis done and the water rates or coming to USA and hey is this do we need all this or what so we're evaluating that right now and we can bring back Dr. Holt's presentation on its own I mean it's quite informative when you look at it it'd be a good starting point okay I'll do that and it doesn't have the entire presentation well the visuals are good she did something kind of interesting that was done where she hooked things together yeah it's done I'll just bring back the memo and that's okay any comments on the public thank you for following up on director Jaffee's question I would like to request that you're all talking about the presentation by Sue Holt but it's not in the agenda packet and I would like that you included in the agenda packet so that we all know what you're talking about only two directors are aware of it or the public maybe not at all bringing it back so that people can bring it back okay alright so it didn't come up before this okay it's referenced in the memo so anybody can go online and find it right now so it's available online okay thank you I didn't see it in the agenda packet I I want to say that I'm very curious to see the state funded AEM study results to really show where the salt water freshwater interface is and it ties in with this reduction in use reduction in production that's happening and I'm wondering if this all will be tied in not only with the rate increases which could be part of why people are using less it's so expensive many people I know are having a difficult time paying their water bills and they're conserving all they can in your district but also will this discussion be included in the optimization study that I think is for coming up before your board and I learned about this at the Sanctuary City Water Advisory Commission they were talking about that and they're going to be reviewing that at their meeting this month thank you thanks again for digging up that stuff and bringing it and I look forward to more of the information in the future I'll see you alright thank you