 Oh, see. All right. All right. It's still not 601. Oh, is that what it takes? All right. 648. No, it was still 63. All right, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the meeting for November 5th, Soco Creek Water District. Did I say, what did I say? November? Is it November? Yes. Did I say the right thing? Yes. It is November. Okay. We got that. It's interesting. Our minutes say October 15. Well, that's last meeting. Oh, that's the minutes. Yes. Right. Check. All right. So anyway, we've now got all of the directors here. We have no public hearings tonight. We have a consent agenda and is there anything anyone wishes to take from consent? No. I see nothing here. Anyone from the public? Thank you. Becky Steinbrenner. I would like to discuss more fully item 3.4 and 3.5. 3.4 and 3.5. Yes, please. Thank you. I'd like the motion to move the others. Second. Moved and seconded for all of the other consent agenda items. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Excuse me. Do I get to offer a request? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you there. Did you have another one? Yeah. Colonel Maxwell and I would like to comment on 3.1. We're not doing that yet. We're pulling things. Is there something else? They're pulling them to comment. So you would like 3.1 removed from the agenda? No, not at all. Removed from the consent agenda? I'd like to make comment on it. You have to pull it to comment on it. Yeah. So that's fine. So I didn't see you there. So that's fine. We'll pull 3.1 for you. And 3.4. That's already been pulled. And 3.5. Well, in case I had to be redundant to Ms. Steinbrenner's request. One never knows how arbitrary and capricious your decisions will be. 3.5. Already done. And 3.6. Okay. And 3.4, exceptionally so. Okay. Well, so that turns out to be 3.1, 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6. I'll move the others. Okay. And I will second the others. We will revoke. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. And now 3.1. Now would be the time if you need to make comment on item 3.1. Your minutes from the prior meeting, if that's what it was, failed to be fully accurate in my view in the public comments made. So I'd like to have clarification of that provided by your offices when I come by for it. For an explanation of why all the critical comments by the public weren't mentioned. Especially the impact of the rate increases in the $400 a month people were impacting and so forth. Again, a lot of the negligence of this board was illustrated in the comments. And they weren't all included in my, when I read your minutes. And the other comments on item 3.1. I move approval 3.1. You wanted to comment. I second. Hold on. I would just briefly. Thank you. Becky Steinbrenner. I had not planned to comment on the minutes, but I will add to what Mr. Maxwell said. In reviewing your minutes over the years, I have seen a definite decrease in substance in terms of what is included from not only the public, but the public. Mostly what the public says. There used to be much more informative. And you could really get a better feel of what went on at those meetings. And now there are no names mentioned, whereas there used to be. And there's not even the subject mentioned in what the public comment was. So I think returning that to your minutes would be a good service to the public. And I really document what goes on in your meetings much more fully. Thank you. That's why we videotape everything. So you can sit there and watch the entire meeting. My name is Scott. Comment on the minutes. 3.1. I also had not intended to comment on the minutes. But I was here the entire meeting. And it was very clear that item on rate increases was about rate increases. And you really should have said it was on rate increases. There were 13 people who spoke up about that matter. It's really hard to believe that you wouldn't see the necessity to describe the unhappiness and or the concern of the people about the rate increases in particular that they were far beyond 9%. So thank you for your time. Thank you. You already commented on three point. No, no, sorry. I don't do that. That is not appropriate and not okay. Your minutes are not true. No, I'm sorry. You're done. Your minutes are not true. You want to leave the meeting. Okay. Thank you. And so our minutes before we had access to video recording were more detailed. And since we've had that available on live streaming, then we have cut them down. And so anyone who wants to watch any part of the meeting or comments, anything is welcome to do that. I made a motion. I made the motion. Seconded. Seconded. Okay. All in favor? It was Bruce Daniels. Second. It was actually okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Great. Alrighty. And next item that was removed from consent was item 3.4. Thank you. Item 3.4 is actually continuation of the consent agenda item of the last meeting 3.11. That was incomplete. That this issue has to do with the additional legal costs that the district is choosing to spend to defend the Pure Water SoCal project in EIR. And I think it's very unfortunate that you're choosing to spend $193,500 to fight this. And I don't understand it. But I am glad, Director Jaffee, that you asked that the itemized exhibit A be included. It was excluded by staff last time. And it is very telling what expenses are and what they're going to. And if I were you, I would be upset that the general manager had withheld that information from me when it was being asked of me to approve a very sizable amount of money. Not to itemize it and really substantiate its need. But thank you for bringing it back this evening. I'm sorry that it is so much. Thank you. Is there anyone else who has comment on item 3.4? Was this someone else's, did not start yet? Finally. We see the amount that you've wasted profligately, irresponsibly, in violation of the most fundamental principles of your oath on this board, in violation of your custodian ship and stewardship, consistent with your incredible profligate waste of your rate payers money by the millions, not just hundreds of thousands of dollars. This lawsuit defense, you're defending against a lady who hasn't even been to law school. I'm not sure Becky has a college degree. I apologize Becky. You certainly, you come across bright enough to have several. She's not even a lawyer. You pay Mr. Basso $8,000 a month reportedly and more. He's not, he's been there for 40 years, 35, and he's not competent to defend you against a little old lady litigant who's asking you to simply follow the California environmental quality laws and review all alternatives to $100 plus million profligate waste, unnecessary because there's alternatives like Lockwell for and others that you've neglected. Are you in bed with the contractors who want to waste $130 million of your rate payers money? I think two of you are. And I suspect Mr. Basso is, and some of your staff is, your senior staff. Why isn't Mr. Basso answer this? Let me have Mr. Basso answer it. Why isn't his $8,000 a month retainer adequate for him to defend against Becky Steinbrunner on her own? Why are you wasting half a million dollars apparently for this law firm in Riverside that charges you, charges your rate payers to fly up here? Why is the $8,000 you're paying Mr. Basso not more than adequate? It certainly should be. You know, I know something about legal billing, complex opposition brief, $60,000 to research stuff that's easily findable in the California computers on the law, opposition to a menomotion to change venue. Why would you fight her venue request? Because the judges involved are friends of Mr. Basso's. Mr. Basso helps people become judges here and they then do him favors, unethically. Yes, they do. As Gallagher did, former law port and former counsel here, he decided against the facts, the evidence and the law denying Becky a TRO to stop you from stealing technically, environmentally and financially from your rate payers. Have you no integrity? Mr. Basso has demonstrated he has none. Shut down this legal arrangement, accommodate with Ms. Steinbrunner and do not charge her the $60,000 extortion Mr. Basso is seeking his crooked friends in the county court to impose on her. Time is up. Anyone else on this item? This was informational only. We'll move on to item 3.5. 3.6. No, she was asked 3.5 as well. Thank you. This item has to do with essentially signing off a project in the Aptas Village project with sort of a satellite developer Aptas Ventures. Because I've been very familiar with the Aptas Village project and I've been reading over your information, I'm aware that when your board agreed to the service connections and supposedly the water demand offsets that I'm still not convinced ever were done at Cabrillo College because there is no verification at your office or at Cabrillo College. There was concern voiced among board members that there was a special deal being made for the Aptas Village project. They were being allowed to use bond money to pay the associated fees over time. As I understand it, so what I want to know is now that you're signing this off, this portion of the Aptas Village project off, what is the arrangement with this developer? Have they indeed paid in full all fees, water demand offset fees, everything that you were entitled to and that you agreed to in agreement in 2014? I think it was. Thank you. Any other comments on item 3.5? Any motions to accept the project as complete? Some moved. Second. Moved. Seconded by Director Christensen. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Before I vote. So I'm assuming everything's been done. Yes, according to Taj, I asked him about this, everything's been buttoned up and that's why it's before you on consent. I vote yes. Thank you. Item 3.6, somebody asked that to be pulled. Sorry, I'm blind in one eye presently, but I see well enough to see government incompetence and corruption. Start his time. He's talking. Start the time. You can start for now. Yeah, he's. Nothing new though. The Water Education Foundation's 36th annual Water Summit, October 30th in Sacramento and I'm not sure what the costs were. I don't recall, I'm not observing the total costs here. I think the public's entitled to more clarification about why you went, how many people went, was it really worth spending the ratepayers' money for, and so forth. And I'd like to request the specific PREDEM request, travel PREDEMs of anyone from compensated by the Water District. Any other comments on that one? Okay. I'll move approval. I'll second. You pick. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thank you for going. Very cheap. Yes, I know. Next it's time for oral and written communications. So now is the time for anyone to speak on an item not on tonight's agenda. The copies of this. Good evening. I'm Scott McGillver. I live in Live Oak. Don't have a vote Santa Cruz. Don't have a vote Soquel Creek. I have two sons. They each have families in Soquel Creek. I've been concerned about water for the last eight and a half years. The last time we talked presented information that demonstrated that there is water available, that water flows to Santa Cruz from the North Coast streams every month of every year. So I don't really think that's a question. The reason I'm here tonight is to discuss the communication between your board and Santa Cruz's board. We spend a lot of time in Santa Cruz and the people in Santa Cruz say, you know, Soquel Creek really doesn't want our water. And I said, yes, they do. Well, why don't they ask for the water? And I come here and I talk to Melanie and other people and you say you'll take any kind of water you can get. And I say, well, why don't you ask for Santa Cruz to send you some water? Well, we've already done that. We've written three letters. So we went and we found the three letters with a public records request. And we also went and found the CEQA permit that Rosemary Menard filed. It's only five pages long to empower the pilot program. And I found four things in it that are really exciting because they're opposed to conventionalism. Two of them relate to your position. First one, in Santa Cruz, they don't think they're ever going to get the water back. And you stated very clearly in two of the three letters that Soquel Creek is more than willing to discuss sending water back before the basin is completely restored. And that's very useful. Another thing that you stated that they don't think is true, they think you need to guarantee on water. And you've said you understand that Santa Cruz can give no guarantee on water supply and it's only water that's available. That's very good. Santa Cruz has also done a couple of things that you don't think are true. One of them is this $100 million dollar limit, 100 million gallon limit. I want to read you here. This might take a little more than three minutes. I hope you'll indulge me. This is what Rosemary filed in her permit. The amount of water that will come in any year is an average of approximately 115 million gallons, but will vary wildly from year to year depending upon water availability. In other words, if you were to ask for more water, if she has a lot of water, she's already got the permit to allow it to take place. This letter is a request to Mrs. Menard thanking her for coming to the meeting. And it asks that you could have more water. And in the spirit of the 500 million gallon five-year agreement, we've only taken 40 million gallons. And it says that as many as 270 million gallons could flow between November 1st and April 30th. I hope that you will take this. Your time is up. I know my time is up. And you know what I want you to do. I want you to re-understand forward. That's wonderful. Thank you for your time. Hi again, Monica McGuire. I'm so sorry to see you do that. It went so few people here. It just seems like it would be so much nicer to actually complete the conversations. I'm coming forward again because I'm so concerned with how many people here in Soquel Creek Water District are saying, what? What about this 9% supposedly? Why are our bills doubling and why is it so bad already? It's going to be like this every year for five years. What's going on? And I keep saying, please do your best. It's a very interesting story at this point. And as much as we could say, we understand that you are convinced that you need to go forward, the lack of sequel review of the better ecological choice continues to be the most interesting story that people keeping interested in, as I tell them, and ask them to please take a look and to call you. And do their best to go beyond the very specious statements about, supposedly, oh, don't worry, it's just this, that or the other. And the continued misrepresentation to all of your ratepayers is so disturbing. And I just had to come again. It's been a while since I could. And I wanted to say, I still trust and believe that you're under the surface somewhere there, waiting to hear the little piece that you go, oh, you didn't say that all along. Oh, well, now maybe we will hear. Maybe we should talk about this further. Because it just doesn't, it seems so difficult that this total lack of reason has continued as long as it has. And the simple, simple story that we've still asked you to explain, how on earth can you hold that cleaning rainwater could be anywhere close to as expensive as this huge project that you keep telling us you're going to give us no matter what? Please, here again, we are showing up again and again, because it's our future that you're messing with, by not doing the full CEQA job of seeing what's a better alternative. Anything you guys didn't get to read yet that you want more time that I can use? No, that doesn't work. We don't do that. We have your own time. Yeah, that's just so sad, you guys. If you're done, we'll go on to the next person. Yeah, well, I'm happy to. Everyone has the same right. Yeah. Please, please care more about your children, grandchildren, and everybody else and listen to the community. Get tired of hearing that, because we do care. I know, I'm talking to you because I do believe you care. And I'm waiting, as I said, for that piece where you say, oh! Your time is up, would you please sit down, Miss McGuire? Next person, please. So rude. Everyone knows they have three minutes. I agree with all the comments of the previous speakers. I think this project is not only expensive, but very dangerous ecologically and no guarantee it'll work. Wherever we are, whether we're in here or at your office, we're being assaulted by microwave radiation. I think it has an effect on the water, too, from various sources of cell towers, cell phones. And one of the articles here is a report in the journal of Weston A. Price Foundation about the impacts of cell phone exposure on human peripheral blood. And to let you know that cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the United States, according to this article. In both a caring condition and an active use condition, substantial degradation, degenerative changes in the blood were observed. Changes observed, let's see, with, my vision isn't so good, live blood analysis using a dark field microscope and digital video cameras to capture the images included dramatic red blood cell aggregations and stickiness as well as red blood cell morphological shape changes, including the formation of what they call spiky cells. Such blood morphologies, the red blood cells clumping and misshapen shells are frequently observed in ill persons and those eating less than optimal diet. Red blood cell aggregation is well known to disrupt micro-circulation aggregation increase in blood viscosity and this impairs blood cell. Important factors in heart attacks and strokes and we hear more and more of people having strokes and heart attacks and younger and younger people. So we can't act like this elephant in the room doesn't exist and there aren't problems. I'm going to leave you with copies of the article you can see for yourself. This is a big problem I know one of you is a veterinarian this affects animals plants, insects microwaves this microwave radiation causing very serious biological effects. Time is up. Anyone else? Thank you. My name is Becky Steinbruner I'm a resident of rural laptops. I'm going to give to you for the record a copy of an email to Mr. Michael Wilson of your district from Nigel Belton the arborist that's been evaluating your Twin Lakes Baptist Church area for the landscape. And I wrote you about this I have a lot of concerns because it looks to me like the district is going to be helping the church to landscape other areas of the campus. And I will give this to Mr. Basso for the record and hope that it gets included in your packet for next time. Because it says, Mr. Belton says, I understand that the water district may have the option of planting additional oaks that are required as replacement mitigations concerning some of the other projects they have undertaken elsewhere and that you understand that this project is being funded by public money under Prop 1 and I have a lot of concern about public money benefiting a private religious institution. So I hope that you will look into that. But I am happy that some of the trees are going to be replanted. They never should have been removed anyway. You should have used the Cabrio site. I really want to thank Mr. Belton. I am a member of the City of Santa Cruz. I wonder when are the surface water transfers going to begin? They can begin right now as I understand it November 1st. But I don't see anything in your packet. I haven't heard anything from you tonight and I hope that you will bring that up for discussion tonight because the reservoir is full and winter is coming and you will be able to continue to use it and let the ground water levels further increase in your area that you claim is overdrafted. So start it now. I also want to point out that there is still significant harm being done to your customers by your rate increases. The tier two is to pay for pure water so cal and you approve that in November before approving the project. I see on page 16 in the board assignment status reports that was in the consent agenda that no one is going to come back from staff to address Director Jaffee's request that you really get a handle on what is happening out there with your rate payers. No one is going to come back to you until early 2020. Isn't the second round of 9% increases due to occur at about that time? So I really urge you to rescind your rate increases. They're hurting families and fixed income people. And I also finally want to say that as part of Granite Well Way you should not be working on the weekend and I sent you the time is up. Thank you. It is. Colonel Terry Maxwell on public comments that are valid and married and accurate and truthful. And as much of the conduct this board does and your attorney I want to first of all compliment your staff when I go in to pay the bill and the people who install and maintain the water. I see your work a day staff I compliment them highly. And they will make excellent state of California government employees when this water district is transitioned to state water city council or the U.S. Department of Interior or merged with Santa Cruz and a similar regional consolidation that cannot happen soon enough getting away with you and your profligate waist full disregard for your rate payers money by the millions. Including your outside attorney wasting your money and the rate payers money. And my money. Including your overpaid, overcompensated They're redundant to the water needs of your customers and rate payers in this region. So the merger can't happen fast enough to eliminate you all and consolidate with people who will be honest with regarding respecting the rate payers' money and honest regarding the resources of this district and region hydrologically. Mr. McIlvray and Jerry Paul have presented alternatives to you to the Soquel Creek pure water, which should be called poop water inflicted on Soquel Creek, because that's what it is. That's what it is, chemically, hydrologically, et cetera. You'll never get rid of all the pharmaceutical pollution for certain and probably not of the viral and bacterial as well and other chemicals. Nuff said it's unnecessary. Why do you waste your rate payers' money? Why do you fail to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act? Ms. Steinbrenner, as I said earlier, she has bested the lawyer you pay $8,000 a month to who has to hire outside counsel to fight a little old lady to asking you to simply comply with the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires you to look at those alternatives. Instead, you hire outside legal counsel at half a million dollars or more because your lawyer is he so inept? Is he incapable of looking at the law books downtown that Ms. Steinbrenner, who's never been to law school, is capable of inflicting on you to obey the law? Why have you wasted so much money? Mr. Basso, he should make up that half a million dollars you want to waste with outside legal counsel defending against the Environmental Quality Act brought by a little old lady. You're not truthful. You're wasteful. You should all have to refund the money to your rate payers that you've wasted. Any other comments from the public? My name is John Aird. It seems to me that you have a great opportunity. You started this pilot program of sharing water with Santa Cruz or transferring water from Santa Cruz to your district. The pilot worked. You should be complimented for your part in making it work. You've defined an interest in expanding it for the next cycle. I think the proposal before you is that you accelerate that. I don't see any reason why you wouldn't. If the water is available in Santa Cruz and you request it and they can actually do it, I mean, they won't release it unless they're sure that water security, they're at a position to do it, but then they can do it. And I think it's your interest to do that because it shows your customers that you're doing everything to minimize the desperate situation that you've got. So I would request that you discuss this, not just shelved. You discuss the advantages to the district and to your customers in requesting a formal request. The last letter I saw was, I think it was 2015. A lot of issues have changed since then, and I think we should discuss it and either decide you're going to do it and do it. And then the ball is in Santa Cruz's court. And if you decide not to do it, define why you are not doing it. What is in the interest of your customers to not do it? Thank you very much. Thank you. Right. That's going to close the public portion of the oral communications. I have a couple of things I want to add, and then I'll hear from other board members. One is that just because we have such a good relationship with the city of Santa Cruz and we work with them almost on a daily basis, they are fully aware of trying to maximize whatever kind of transfers we can do. And I can get clarification from staff on what there is a reason why we haven't started yet. I don't think in November, but that's based on purely the city's needs. And I think the water in the North Coast streams. So just it's been a very good relationship. And I think I appreciate both the city of Santa Cruz and our district staff because they really work all the time together to try and work on that transfer to work on an agreement for further transfers once the pilot is over. And so I appreciate that. Another thing I wanted to mention is just that we got a letter from Congressman Panetta, and I just wanted to read in. As the Soquel Creek Water District seeks adoption of a resolution authorizing Proposition 1 Groundwater Grant Program funding for the Purewater Soquel Project. I wanted to reiterate my commitment to assisting the district in securing federal resources for this important project. I know that the groundwater emergency that your service area is experiencing is real and urgent and believe the federal government should play a role in contributing to its solution. The most recent invitation by the Environmental Protection Agency to apply for a low-interest federal loan through the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program was a well-deserved piece of what I hope will be a fruitful federal, state, and local partnership. As you know I've also been supported the district's application to the Title 16 Water Reclamation and Reuse Program at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and will continue to advocate for contributions to Purewater Soquel from that program. Best of luck with your efforts to secure any funding that will use the burdens on district rate payers and contribute to swift completion of the Purewater Soquel Project. Sincerely Jimmy Panetta, a member of Congress. And I also just lastly I wanted to just mention something about rates and I do very much want to see you know as soon as it is feasible I want to see in an evaluation of what the actual impact has been on our rate payers and there will be some things that you know whether whether we do get the Proposition 1 grant funding will change how much we need and so I do think you know as early and probably it will be early 2020 as we can I think we should look at what the effect is and look at what our alternatives are at that point because we can we can adjust downwardly whatever we is appropriate for the budget. So that's all I have. Anyone else? Carla? Yeah I also uh yeah I was disappointed our our regular meeting of the finance committee was going to raise that that issue of the rate increases and the effect and also the effect of potential grant money and low-cost loans will really change the trajectory of those rates but we can't really discern that until we finish through lawsuits and different things that we have different obstacles to the getting that grant money but we had a very successful rate committee it was open to all customers who were interested and wanted to participate in the rate meeting and that's how we came up with the rate structure that we had it was not the best most ideal rate structure but it was what we were legally required to do it was legally defensible and it's at the time I think we all agreed that it was going to be subject to reevaluation it wasn't going to last necessarily it would change change in the face of new data and new facts of what was going on and so if we reconvene that next year I would really encourage that and we don't have these answers because our finance manager right now has been incapacitated she cannot um she can't be here so she can't respond to your questions about the rates anyway but that's just one thing I had to uh you know at first I was just I was ready to just be really just had my feelings hurt literally hurt that you think that the district is willfully not asking Santa Cruz for water I mean we work closely with Santa Cruz we've been we set up this agreement to research of water transfers we are able due to drought uh drought conditions we were only able to get water for two years to even further the study and now uh as a result of this the contested uh water education conference I went to the meteorologist at a convention of a lot of research scientists state water board officials they uh they were taking it as a given that we are looking at a dry winter at least through january and that's very probable and so we are looking at the possibility of not getting water for that research project again just the little bit that comes from north coast creeks that's what we're legally permitted to take to do this research and uh so really are we going to listen every month to customers not hearing what we're saying we work with the city we want this water they make the decisions based on the environmental conditions and what they have going on their city and they have to make decisions for their customers before they undertake a research project like this so I just like to get to consider that before we keep on every meeting trying to decide why we don't have water we have good reasons for having started this project on november 1st and it's not in our control so so anyway to move on uh I did go to the water education summit uh I did it at the last minute so that's why that item's on the consent agenda and it was really I would recommend it's a one-day conference it was uh I would say it was uh at first I had dim the dim of hope sport because there were going to be so many state officials there but there was a really good mix of researchers and then environmental groups were there also so there is a pretty good robust discussion of some of the issues and the first one was what we have in store is uh Dr. Martin Ralph headed up a giant consortium of research you know uh USGS a lot of uh researchers stanford contributing to the the the quantification of this atmospheric rivers that everyone has heard about that they are predicting that this will be our main winter water source of water the atmospheric rivers uh but they're concerned because they've been quantifying the strength of them enable uh all of us to plan and anticipate the problems and uh they've ranked them and they said the most the strongest atmospheric rivers which are practically equivalent to a hurricane in strength uh cause huge amount of damage and provide for less water sustainability for our state so they're very concerned that the climatology uh forecasting is predicting that more the atmospheric rivers will be category four and five they will provide less water for our aquifer and for the snowpack up in the sierras and it's uh we're going to have to change and adjust to that and make plans for that so it was uh disquieting but it was a very good paper that was the plenary session and the i'd be happy to provide the agenda but there were a number of other papers uh adjusting to fire uh the delta the delta river recovery and it was very full and very packed thank you who's had something i do you want to go first or last i have something too so you can take a number what is what is work our way down the table sure sure first of all i heard what it was said and i encourage the speakers and people listening to verify all the facts that were were quoted um because some of information that was put out is misinformation and i after last meeting i went back and looked at the uh the finance plan and water rate study from january 2019 it's on the the website so this is one case and it puts out very clearly how much rates will increase with the same water use um with the with the new rates and it i don't know what water use the people spoke last time we're talking about but it it doesn't jive with with what the rates are what the rate increase increases were i one person talked about bills going from 80 dollars up to 300 dollars and that doesn't happen with the rates alone but it could happen with rates combined increased water use so um i will say that that the district has a long standing program and uh correct me staff if i'm wrong if people come into the office and need assistance with understanding why their bills are going up and also with things that they can do to keep the their bills low that that's a service that's all for roy and others i know i've been doing that for a number of years and then uh the last thing i have to say is that um i was meeting uh met with a customer actually today and uh out of nowhere they were very very um complimentary of our staff they had a leak why they were on a trip out of the country and um a flyer had been placed on their door one night but the next day there had not been a response so our staff followed up and called and through that call they were able to to get the message that there was a leak and uh they were very thrilled that that the district staff was you know was concerned about their leak and concerned about the water loss and followed up so kudos to the staff for doing that thanks bruce well i i wanted to talk a little bit about this issue we've been kind of wrestling with a little bit about you know what the future is going to hold for us in particular the immediate future um about you know what's going to happen water in particular this winter and the big thing that's happened is that there are all kinds of places and groups that you know give forecasts for what's going to happen that's been going on all summer but this fall suddenly all of them started to agree to exactly what the thing is going to be and they all think that it's going to be a a bad year and i i brought a couple of slides these are slides from NOAA but they they're the same yeah it's it's the it's the NOAA organization bring up precipitation first okay so that's the forecast for precipitation the the pink and i mean the green and and light green is where they're going to get more rain and that's kind of this kind of arrangement that is agreed with with this climate change is that the places that are wet will get wetter the places that are dry will get drier and in particular you notice that they're where we are on the california coast yeah we're we're going to be a lot drier this this winter then and this is for winter 19 so this is probably go through like march and so we will probably almost certainly have a dry winter from this stuff and as i say this is not just NOAA that you look at all the different organizations that estimate the future for that kind of stuff they're all saying the same thing which is very unusual the next slide which is the temperature one says that we will also have a very warm winter and the reason that's important for all for those of you who've heard my presentation on hydroclimatology every time temperature goes up one degree fahrenheit evaporation increases by four percent and currently 66 percent of the rainfall we get evaporates one way or the other so a four percent increase that 66 percent you know if we go up two three degrees in fact the last big drought we have in 2015 that was the worst drought we've had in 1200 years that's what the the scientists who study tree rings have come up with that was you know back in the year 800 15 percent of that drought was not caused by lack of rain but by loss of the rain that we did the little bit of rain we did get during that year and so that is looks like it's going to happen again this year i mean it as was mentioned that you know there's this blob as it's called which is this warm ocean water out there in the north pacific and it's really big this year it's even bigger than it was in 2015 because it goes all the way from Siberia over through Alaska to you know our west coast so it's not just in the you know the eastern part of the pacific it's all the way across and the other thing is that we have no El Nino this year so that's another thing that often leads to to rainfall and we're having neither of those and these two diagrams have been given to the city and that's why we're not getting any water this year because they're concerned that this could be the start of a big multi-year drought that's the decision they made on their own we have no control over that so you can come and complain why we're not starting it but it's not our decision and that's that's the issue about getting water from Santa Cruz it's completely their decision and that's why all these schemes that Becky and and others have mentioned are not are not alternatives because if you think that it's an alternative then give us water tomorrow if you think it really is an alternative give us water tomorrow and it's because you don't have control over the water the city has control over the water and if they don't want to give it to us there is no water and we will have water we will have water this year at a reduced rate maybe a little bit to tail in the next year but then after that we'll have to go renegotiate and they have said that they will not be able to give it to us at the reduced rate we're getting there's no more back and forth no sit down please excuse me no there is no more public comment it is we can have you leave the room we can have you leave the room if you we are we have the police next door so we'll have them remove you forcibly if you don't be quiet because it's not your time to speak why don't we ask them so anyway continuing on that's that's what's happening now as the city has decided there's a problem and they're going to hold off on giving us any water until it's more resolved and that might mean we get no water this year at all maybe I don't know I hope so but I hope so too but you look at this numbers these numbers that are coming out and it's a little spooky and they I think wisely if it would if I was running their department I'd say let's wait until we see what the winner is going to bring before you turn it on and so that's what's happening right now okay thank you Michelle I'm afraid to talk first of all I wanted to congratulate our staff on all the hard work they've done on applying for low interest loans I saw in the paper that they've received a federal EPA low interest loan for up to 45 49 million dollars for the project and that's great I worked on a lot of grants and loans and it is not easy it's competitive it's not like there's money just waiting for you so I want to thank you and thank our staff for all their work the other thing is that I attended the Cal Lafko conference and I was there was there was a lot about water because water you know is kind of the end issue they did a case study for the first day about Septiva water in Southern California and the water was being delivered to people that was brown colored and not up to the standards for drinking water so people were buying water who were low income and the state stepped in and took over and had the county work with them to straighten out the situation and this is a small a small water agency and low income people and that's the kind of problem that the state will step in for I learned that there's 7500 public water systems in the state and 90% of the violations of drinking water requirements are from systems with less than 500 connections we have a lot more connections and we have good water you know the water board is reluctant to accept any more small systems so small systems around here they would be encouraging them to join us because we are a large water system and there's quite a few actually in this county I took LAFCO 101 so I could better understand the basics of the process and the legal framework of LAFCO it was actually very fascinating we did some case studies where we worked in groups to figure out what our answers would be to some of the situations that have come up in the past and I learned about quite a bit I'm very I kind of like LAFCO thank you for giving me this opportunity the one session about the private water public water systems was called water water everywhere but not a drop to drink and there were more speakers I just wrote down the stuff that was kind of interesting to me but just because there's water around somewhere doesn't mean it's going to get here and they had a lot of discussions about that so it's a statewide problem and then the last one that I attended because I was interested is on housing it was titled housing is a municipal service and there was a debate what to do with the housing shortage and for median and low income workers and you know there's a push to provide more housing but then you have to have water and other services and it was interesting to me because Southern California and central the central valley have different issues than the coastal California I actually attended the coastal region roundtable and I met commissioners from in the area especially from Monterey County it was very interesting to hear about all of our different issues so thank you for letting me attend that conference thank you great may I follow up on three things first of all on the thank you for mentioning the EPA low interest loan I think it equates out to about $11 million in savings for our customers which is wonderful but mainly I want to point out a thank you to the board members because that was not even our radar to go go for that money until you went back to DC and I don't know a couple of months ago and you came back with the knowledge that the EPA was encouraging you to supply for that so thank you for that effort regarding the water transfer I want to be very clear the city of Santa Cruz did say they did not want to open the valve on November 1st they're concerned well first of all they don't have a legal right to serve San Lorenzo water but and they're concerned about the water up in the north coast that if it doesn't rain they gave us water the books wouldn't balance basically for that water so they're holding off until they have it in their clear sights doing the prudent thing you know environmentally and for their customers so for that and thirdly I want to correct a misstatement or insinuation that was made that we are improperly using prop one money for trees that is not correct so I just want to get that on the record okay thank you all right let's move on let's move on to item 6.2 this is for the water demand offset program I think Melissa are you doing that so tonight we're bringing you an update on the passage of senate bill 13 which impacts the ability of the district to charge accessory dwelling units impact fees like our water demand offset fee and this is just the latest California bill addressing fee and permitting requirements for ADUs several bills have been passed in the last few years to make the process easier for ADU applicants as a way to boost affordable housing we've been modifying our processes along the way to be compliant with the laws and we last adjusted our policy and resolution to be inclusive of SB 229 in late 2017 so this memo outlines the requirements of SB 13 and has some staff suggestions on how we could implement it to best utilize our current resources we're asking the board to consider the proposed changes to approve an updated WDO resolution as well and for approval for an earlier implementation date so effective January 1st 2020 SB 13 makes the following changes that special district shall not impose any impact fee upon the development of an ADU less than 750 square feet and that any impact fee for an ADU 750 square feet or more shall be charged proportionally in relation to the square footage of the primary dwelling so currently all new ADUs in the district have a offset requirement which is charged relative to the square footage of the new unit these categories and the new laws effect on their requirement is shown in the table in the memo as you can see offset fees must be eliminated per the law for the smallest size category of ADUs under 640 square feet and most of the middle category which is for units between 640 and 800 square feet but for any unit greater than 750 square feet we have a couple options moving forward the first option is to continue to charge an offset fee for these projects and as I mentioned earlier the new law requires that any ADU greater than 750 square feet can only be charged impact fees relative base to the square footage of the primary dwelling so unfortunately calculating new requirement using this methodology can't be done quickly or easily because we don't currently base the WDO requirement for single family homes on square footage of the dwelling we currently base it on the size of the lot to be more inclusive of the demands of outdoor water use so in order to be compliant with the law we would need to undertake an extensive overhaul of our existing single family factors and due to the time and data requirements to complete this work and the quick time frame required for implementation we don't think that this work can be done in-house and that we would need to hire a consultant quickly with additional funding allocated from the board for this purpose if this option is selected then the staff is asking that the board also approved draft WDO resolution 1918 that's included as attachment to the second option is to remove WDO requirements from ADUs over 750 square feet completely these this size ADU is not very common we have only had one completed ADU project over 800 square feet since we started tracking their sizes in 2010 the vast majority of applications are for projects less than 640 square feet and that is a trend that we expect to continue based on the lot size requirements by the city and the county and some reduced planning fees on smaller units through the county because there's not very many of these larger units and they represent such a small portion of the new demand that's why staff's recommending to remove those the WDO requirement from them as well at this time we believe that the effort to overhaul the single family factors to continue charging these few projects is expected to yield very little benefit to basin and require a lot of resources to really implement well and so if the board chooses this path the corresponding draft resolution that's included as attachment 3 would also go with that and one thing that we did want to note is that new construction ADUs are still required to separately meter from the primary unit and to abide by the green building code of standards for water efficiency and those both do serve a conservation benefit so I'm just going to the motions to explain those real quick the intent this is structured so that the board would either choose motion one or two and then additionally to vote on motion three regardless of which option is chosen so motion one would only incorporate the changes that are required by SB 13 and would incorporate those changes into the draft resolution as shown in attachment two and then staff would come back at a later meeting to get further approval for any necessary work to overhaul the single family factors and so motion two would incorporate the changes required by the law and would also remove the offset requirements from ADUs 750 square feet or greater and incorporate that into the resolution and included as attachment three and then at motion three or attachment three motion three is to enact the desired changes starting tomorrow the reason we're asking for that is to allow staff a little more time to process any refunds and to change our processes prior to a mandatory adoption at the beginning of the year so I'd be happy to answer any of your questions about any of this one thing that I was thinking about I mean clearly we have our WDO program structured right now as an impact fee we actually collect money from the developer but when we first started this program we didn't do that we just told them go out and save as much water as you're going to use and we didn't collect any money from them at all they just had to go and save water and I was wondering if we were pardon I wondered if we were to restructure things that way like we did it originally if that would be acceptable or not legally given the way that statute has been drafted and the way it's been enacted I think we'd have issues with that okay defending it okay thanks so just some real basic questions I'm kind of surprised there's ADUs between 800 and 1200 square feet as a category so what defines an ADU is that there's an existing an existing home yeah where do you draw the line yeah what yeah yeah so the reason that the units over 800 square feet are so uncommon is because the lot size for the existing home has to be so large and so for we talked to the city about it and they said they could probably count on one hand how many lots are large enough within the city boundaries to even accommodate one of that size city of capitol city of capitol but what about and then for the county their rules have been that within the urban services line that ADUs over 800 square feet weren't even allowed and that you'd have to be outside of the urban services line and meet a minimum threshold for lot size in order to be considered for an ADU over 800 square feet my concern is that somebody says oh no WDO fee this is an ADU it's you know my house could be an ADU on a big enough lot I'm sure so that's my concern with with with just saying no way no WDO for any size ADU but the criteria is that there has to be an existing residential dwelling on that parcel I agree there can be large lots with existing in residential dwellings where they put a you know whatever 1,000 2,000 3,000 foot ADU right they they do draw a line at 1,200 square feet okay so 1,200 that that's reassurance but that's that's my concern yeah and maybe this will help Shelly just handed me the table so new construction ADUs outside you should I do inside the service okay I'll do because that's I think roughly our boundary new construction ADUs inside the urban service line you have to have a parcel 10,000 square feet or greater to build an 800 square foot ADU and outside it has to be larger than an acre to build an ADU on that 1,200 square foot so they're limited lot by lot size allows you bigger the lot in certain categories three categories allows you a larger ADUs but the ADUs are capped inside the urban service line at 800 square feet and for lots less than 10,000 square feet they have to be 640 square feet or less and the law is 750 square feet is the that's the break point the break point so that to me that's a no brainer the 750 but once you get above I hear you're you're saying you don't want to put a lot of effort into this for a little for perhaps little return I wonder is there a way to to basically take it on a case-by-case basis instead of having a policy is that dangerous to do that if if something like if if it never comes up then we never have to do the work if it comes up then we'd have to do the work and and do something that's fair and equitable could I you know another way to look at that is to adopt the policy and then if you have a case that comes up you're willing to take it and maybe re-examine the policy that's another way to approach it at least staff has something in in place and doesn't have to do and hire a consultant to do the the numbers at that point well perhaps the policy should be that 80 use over 750 should come to the board and decisions be made a lot of demand asset by the board but they've got to be in in in alignment with SB 13 that's the which is based on the amount you offset and tell me if I'm right but research is relative to the size of the house that is which is totally a different approach and we've been using it certainly all can be done I just want to be clear so if you did take that approach then if one came up we would go back and have to we would do that methodology right I'm just myself I don't know if other directors of this way I'm I'm reluctant to to say yeah no more WDOs no matter how big I'd rather say no you know comply with the law no WDO for 750 and below and if it's above 750 comes to us or maybe just a suggestion maybe you could say the break is 800 given that there's so few that have ever been over 800 so it would avoid the big one that you're talking about yeah and as far as giving us more time we do have a conditional will serve project that has an application for a larger project and so we would need to address it immediately to recalculate that so there's already a project with the ADUs that are 800 and above there is a pending application in our will serve queue okay so that's just something to consider you have an estimate of how much cost it is to to come up with this what appropriate to be redoing our whole WDO program like how it's calculated for everyone no we wouldn't no we can do easy some 50s are all free then no it's only the big ones no because it has to be based on that we would have to redo the single family factors because the ADU the impact fee for ADUs over 750 has to be based or proportional to the size of the primary dwelling unit and because single family factors are based on parcel size and not building footprint relative to landscape area we would have to redo all of those factors and that would be a statistically derived study that would have to be conducted I'm not sure that we have enough data within our service area to do that we may have to go to other agencies and pull other data sets and re-run those factors for single family factors why do we have to redo everything because this is just ADUs we're talking about now so why do we have to redo our whole because the impact fees have to be proportional to the size of the for ADUs yeah not for everyone but for ADUs for the ADU it has to be proportional to the size of the dwelling unit and so we can't take the factors that we have for single family parcels because they're based on parcels and we can't proportionally determine what that ADUs offset would be so it's a reworking of the single family factors I don't understand that at all I mean all the only thing that that law says that you quoted is that it has to use this ratio of the size of the main house and the size of the ADU in square footage and we should know those two numbers I mean I imagine the assessor has the square footage of the existing house and we would have the square footage of the ADU so there's the proportionality factor right there if there go ahead but we don't have the ADU we do not have a will serve factor based on the size of the main house so trying to make it proportional we'd have to make a determination of what a WDO would be on the main house not based on the law but based on the main house and then turn around and make it proportional to the ADU that's the problem yeah our factors are for the whole parcel so they look at the indoor use and the outdoor use and we don't have a way of separating that for the different parcel sizes you don't have to then all you have to do is get it you can easily which is something you do all the time is calculate a WDO for a house you do that all the time right you've been doing it for 10, 12, 13 years so you calculate that number and then the number you use for the ADU is a fraction of that depending on the ratio of the square footage so you could do that you could go specifically if there's an existing main house you could get their water usage you got the square footage you could divvy it out that way that that is a possibility I think the overriding thing in our mind is a couple things one what is balancing the potential impact to the aquifer versus you know the level of effort the return on the investment and we'll do whatever the board says but we've got a person we're going to be one down here very soon so I think they are proposing up to a thousand square feet so you do that one in the mix if you look back in history we've had one since 2010 we did talk with the county building department official and he his thought was that you know most people are going to still be doing under 640 square feet one because of the lot size restrictions and two because the county has created some really significant incentives for people to cap it at under 640 so they're not paying planning fees and other fees and he thinks that that's going to continue and be a trend another thing that their adu survey showed was that the majority of adus that they were seeing come through planning and building were actually conversion adus and so they were on the smaller size because they're created through the square footage of the existing primary dwelling or a legally permitted accessory dwelling unit or not accessory dwelling unit accessory structure like a garage or a workshop or something of that effect so people aren't generally doing new construction adus as much and especially at the larger size I think the other important thing that kind of swayed us to the recommendation for one of the recommendations for consideration is it seems like this law I mean it's definitely evolved evolved and I think this is the third evolution that I could see it evolving beyond this this was probably a you know to include all adus so it was another thing so doing the work and then next year it's out but anyway that was all I think anything else that went into our conversations about different recommendations and both motions are up there just propose a question to the not getting the adu the wdo fees from an adu between 800 and 1200 feet should in my opinion I don't see how that would cause any less conservation and you're only getting it for the delta they're not getting it for the whole amount that would go into the but they're still going to have to conserve water based on they have to have a separate meter they still have to meet the other criteria for a green building so I don't think this is a water saving thing necessarily if it's existing they don't need a separate meter if it's new they do well new construction is just any additional square footage so if it's a conversion unit they don't have to separately meter that's where that distinction is conversion adus at this time still have adu they sell the offset requirement but understand so and just to be clear it's so if you had under the existing law if you had an 800 square foot adu just by going by the strip rigs of sb was it 13 you could calculate an offset for 50 square feet so it's a delta from 800 to 750 I just want to so it's not the full unit so yeah so my yeah so it's so my impression is the law was designed to cover most adus like most of the ones that are being built are being built and other planning other governmental there are other influences on the size of it to drive it down into that thing and I'm wondering why we would stop go at 800 I why not just let everybody everything go and then if it turns out that there's something that comes through that looks like it ought to even be a duplex or something I mean it's not you know that would come to the board I think having anything that came up that was 800 feet I don't know I don't think there's that much benefit to that I think we're you know the state is trapping most of the adus that are going to be coming through our districts and I think that our intention is that we just want to make sure that any offset fee that we are charging for is you know as compliant with the law and that it's you know statistically derived and accurate and we're concerned about you know rushing through this for these couple projects and may not be able to get a real good offset calculation for for them so you know we we want it to be defensible and good if we're moving forward with that any other questions or comments any public comment on this item Colonel Terry Maxwell again I'm appalled as a rate payer of citizen and someone informed about what's been going on here with this water district by people who've lived here 40 years who describe your board as negligent most of that time and observing it myself for some of the last seven years and people last 25 years especially like Mustinebrenner who monitored you closely you are negligent you've been negligent regarding the stewardship for your employees for your I was just related to this I was talking about here's another sir how is this related here's another bit of negligence excuse me why we are done with public comment on random items well here's a very this has to have to do with this current proposal for ADUs and the water demand offset program your statement about ADUs and what policy do you think that you should no more profligate negligence comments related to nothing what do you think we should be doing here what is your I think you should let the ADU units have their water I've watched Mr. Basso sometime many a year ago castigate a lady who simply wanted to add a sink for her mother-in-law and he pushed to deny that to her and you granted so you granted the Aptos Village hookups it didn't really earn you granted a 17 unit hotel additional water draw inconsistent what's your in consistent about ADUs you treated the ADUs you're treating the ADUs discriminatorily and inconsistent with good water policy let the little old lady grandmothers have their sinks in their ADUs any other public comment thank you Becky Steinbrener this is this is a tough one and the the difficult part is that legislation is a moving target tomorrow at one o'clock the county housing advisory commission will meet and they're going to be is at one p.m. on the fourth floor in the large conference room at the county building 701 ocean street they're going to be reviewing pieces of legislation affecting housing there are six that involve ADUs and many of them are just bringing more of this type of thing trying to encourage people to build this infill small accessory dwelling units to address housing issues so it's got to be a real conundrum for you and I appreciate your good work I wonder what other municipalities are doing that have water demand offsets have you talked with any of them everyone in the status is under the same law and it will be changing and then to add to that I am aware that the county of Santa Cruz is changing its general plan and changing its zoning and making as you've said a lot of different new rules especially to encourage and incentivize ADU so I suspect that water will be a big part of that and I think you're going to see more pressure not to have any charges at all I do have a question in your proposed fees why a water meter for a less than 640 square foot ADU would be more by $40 than a water meter for a larger ADU it's $410 for a 640 square foot ADU $370 for a meter for a larger ADU also I want to point out that maybe you need to examine your water demand offset fee of $55,000 a square foot is that still defensible and also just to point out that your board did vote if pure water soquel is built all water demand offset fees would go away thank you thank you all right any other public comment related to ADUs so ADU water meters will be these so-called smart meters I assume right do people have any choice to people always have a option to opt out what does that cost $10 a month 10 a month for an individual read it's like an extortion fee where you pay not to get irradiated when the other meters work fine just increasing more and more radiation and do you inform people who are getting these radiation emitting meters of the biological harm that it's documented and is there a form for people to sign that they authorize this harm this experiment on them because I understand this is this not coincide with the Nuremberg principles not sure this is related to say that it is illegal to experiment on people we're just talking about really a policy related to charging for ADU WDOC is not about radiation they get water meters right so this is not different for an ADU than anything it should be safe metering that doesn't microwave this policy is related to what type of meter thank you all right so any other comment I'm gonna go ahead and make a motion then that we go with the second motion and the third motion which approves the resolution of attachment three I'll second okay so that is that is the one where we're eliminated them not trying to there's a staff recommendation okay so all in favor aye aye post okay motion passes by three to two they didn't they didn't get a vote for the oh sorry roll call vote sorry director lather yes vice president daniels no director jaffe no director christensen yes and president lihiu yes all right thank you next item is item 6.3 stormwater recharge it's number three wait wait wait I think there's another motion number three did we effect that I said two and three oh okay sorry the motion included two and three the motion included three so what is the effect that they do tomorrow why did you make tomorrow I'm curious it gives well elissa do you want to explain again why you wanted to start it's in the memo but I think it gives them time to not get people started down the wrong track we would also have to give people refunds that are applying for ad use now that would be it adds another step for anybody who's applying between now and January 1st that is we just have to turn around and and refunds them their 10% WDO deposit which is currently required so and there's no reason to wait till January let's work for staff if you do it tomorrow well I I think they would yeah I mean they less can delay until it the law until it became January 1st yeah I would I think it would be less confusing for customers too right so item 6.3 storm water okay so item 6.3 is an update and direction on the progress of stormwater recharge investigations and we had previously brought in September the results of our most recent investigation and at that time the board had asked that we come back to you prior to our budgeting cycle and give you any updates on grant funding that might be available and new developments with the project and go from there but in the interim in the last couple weeks the county our partner in the stormwater investigation projects has brought to our attention that there's a potential grant funding opportunity through prop one integrated regional water management planning and they have already submitted a preliminary application for that grant funding opportunity it's a 50% match and had a preliminary meeting with the state department of water resources panel on that grant and there appears to be a potential chance that we could secure funding for building a storm water recharge pilot project and so we wanted to bring it back to the board's attention and ask if you would be interested or would be willing to contribute funding it is a grant match and if so then the county would dedicate the resources to applying for the grant info which is a pretty significant amount of staff time and resources on their part so the real issue with the project is that well the county can offer up quite a bit in the way of in kind resources staffing and land use work they're strapped for cash funding and so it would require basically up to 120 dollars of the district's funding to carry out that project 120,000 120,000 yeah 120k so that's a little bit of what we're asking for and just to give you kind of a rehashing of the work that's been done on storm water recharge since 2017 we've carried out a bunch of different investigations they're highlighted in attachment one of the memo and really we started with about 30 sites that we were looking at most of those were within the district service area and over those two years we've really narrowed it down to about four potential sites at seascape golf course and the 38th and Bromer county retention basin site those were really the the ones that made it through the other investigations and looked like they could be feasible the most recent work that we did was actually going out and confirming with soil borings and percolation test whether or not those sites did hold promise and what we found was only one of the sites and that was at seascape golf course did show some feasibility for a recharge project and that was estimated to provide approximately 11 acre feet per year into the aromas red sands aquifer it would need six dry wells basically to get the water down below clay layers and into where we hope it could you know percolate down into the deeper groundwater aquifer and the cost of that was $1,600 per acre foot over a 20-year lifespan so that's the project that with funding we would propose to develop through this grant application process so what the district can is being asked to do again is the $120,000 up to 40 hours of staff time and that would be split amongst conservation and customer service field department with Alyssa and myself and as well as public outreach helping with outreach of the project to the neighbors in that area just like we did with the last round of investigations and drilling the county would submit the grant application including securing the in kind matches they would handle the contracting with necessary entities for additional engineering and construction of the project they would handle all the coordination with seascape golf course and the procurement of necessary access agreements and operational long-term agreements of a system and any funding in excess of that $120,000 the district would put up as needed to complete the project wait the county agreed to that yes anything above 120 yeah that's what this would be contingent upon and so we would if you approve this proposal tonight then we would need to go back and work with the county on documenting this arrangement and agreement moving forward now if it appears that more cash funding is needed that the county is not capable of coming up with through themselves or other private or public entities or possibly the golf course then we would not move ahead with a project because we wouldn't want to have a stranded asset you know we wouldn't want to waste our investment and our rate payers money so that's a little bit about how the project would be carried out and then as far as the pros and cons go what we found one of our key findings throughout all these stormwater investigations that we've done is that stormwater recharge has really limited potential as a water supply supplemental water supply source and you know it may have a higher level of potential as a seawater intrusion barrier but that is even a little uncertain and especially at at the levels that we're looking at here 11 acre feet per year of recharge so that those are the draw that's the drawback really of the project another drawback is that we didn't specifically budget any money in our 10 year finance plan in which our current rate structure was based upon and so that would require us to basically pull money from other projects that maybe were prioritized over this work and we do go through that as part of our annual budget process and go through and look at the projects that have to be carried out and prioritize them at a management level and then bring that back to the board for final approval so we would need to pull it from you know potentially main replacement projects that we have planned or other improvement projects and let's see here we don't tying back to the ability of stormwater recharge technology to really solve our problems we don't think it can be scaled up or expanded significantly within the district what we found is that there's limitations in terms of available land available runoff and geology and so those are really hard to get around the benefits of the project it could really serve as a proof of concept and pilot and provide additional information on stormwater technology projects and would allow us to take a look at the impact of of the project on our coastal monitoring well levels and it could significantly help with flood control and that localized area and improving water quality preventing contaminants from running off into streams and and the ocean so those are the really plus benefits of a stormwater recharge project so what we're asking tonight is for the board to consider whether to approve the proposed contribution of staff time in a hundred and twenty thousand dollars or approve an alternate alternate district contribution or take no action we do have Sierra Ryan here from county water resources tonight and she's been working actively with us on this and it would be the one completing the grant application if we go forward with that okay questions okay so my first comment I don't know what so much question is when you talk about the cost per acre foot you're looking at it not as our contributions cost but as the total project cost and when I do the math for us it's five hundred and forty five dollars and fifty cents per acre foot over a twenty year period and that's a pretty good investment the other thing is that I want to show some dedication to our water plan and our water plan includes stormwater it includes recycled water it includes surface water and if this is a project that we can do that's part of that plan I think we should support it yeah I remember that one of our previous reports on this we looked at pollutants that were in the stormwater and we did find some but in any case putting water into the ground like this we'll have to deal with the regional board and I was wondering you know what regional board has said to you and your discussions with them about the permitting that would be required step in Sierra so I'm actually going to be going to the to the state board on the 19th of November and presenting about this project with the division of water rights to the state board they helped fund the work that we've done to date and they're really supportive of this the regional board has also been supportive of this type of project the fine details of making sure the permitting you know that we're all in line with the permitting is part of the application process because all I've done is submit a pre-proposal I haven't done a lot of that level of due diligence yet but that would be part of this application process I just didn't want to go too far down that road if I wasn't going to be putting in the in the grant so that's part of the discussion and the design that we have takes into account the water quality work that we did and it does maintain the kind of standard of separation between a groundwater recharge project and the groundwater level is at least 10 feet and this more than maintains that so I know one thing that the regional board often requires is environmental documents do we know what level of environmental document we would need to be preparing for this so the other recharge projects that we've done in the county have all been negative declarations under CEQA and that's what we expect for this project as well it is a bit of a moving target because recharge wasn't under the microscope when we did the last round the way it is now so that is something that I'm going to be working on as part of the application process but we do have money in the grant if you looked at the the grant budget there's there's I don't have it off the top of my head I think it was about $30,000 for environmental review really okay which is probably much higher than it will end up being but I like to be cautious I looked at the numbers that we came up with and it looks like mainly those numbers have to do it's just the construction of the dry wells and it doesn't include things like if we have it we're going to add it over 20 years the regional board is probably going to require us to do some level of testing over that time and reporting over that time and that responsibility is going to be as part of what we've discussed with staff at least at this point it would probably fall to the county some sort of partnership between the county we have the water lab so we'd probably it's not a big deal for us to go out and do sampling and testing in fact our lab would love to do it so that's something that I'm seeing the ongoing monitoring as kind of part of our role and our responsibility and also we might need to actually put in monitoring wells rather than just testing the water that's in our well that we just put in the well look at it downslope kind of a thing and that probably also would need to be considered that's not something that I am anticipating that they would be interested in although I could bring it up when I do talk to regional board staff about it are you talking about water quality well even just simple things like a gas station leak they require wells to be drilled range around those so you see the flow of pollutants and not just did we put pollutants down there you have the pollutants down there they want to know do they get degraded as they flow or do they keep going and so again I don't expect that level of scrutiny from the regional board but I won't you know if they're going to be requiring something like that that might change the decision point on whether we actually submit an application I'm glad you're looking into all that stuff yeah and you had some preliminary feedback from them on water rights permitting and you want to talk about that yeah so that was part of my discussion with some of the state board I've been working with the the division of water rights and right now they're under the impression and I'm under the impression based on what they said that this project wouldn't necessarily wouldn't likely require any sort of water rights filing because we're not taking water from a downstream user in any way this is it's just stormwater runoff it's not coming from a stream that was actually a part of our decision making process to begin with when we were identifying sites and they first of all are trying to at the state level make it easier to do recharge because they recognize that it is an absolute necessity and secondly this project doesn't look like one that they would require water rights for anyway good excellent yeah thank you Bruce so since you're up there so in-kind costs and land valuation is what plus $20,000 right is what the county is is uh proposing right right right so basically the the total the project requires 50% match the preliminary this is a very preliminary budget that you've seen and it's if anything it's going to be on the high end because that's how I do my preliminary budgets and then as we get numbers we can more in more set in stone we can lower it but this is assuming that basically you'd be paying about 25% of the project overall project cost 50% of it would be coming from the grant the other 25% would basically be coming from the county is in-kind so that's my staff time working um other other environmental health or water quality team for example hopefully some from public works and then some cash match as well from from us that pencils out it should preliminary it did and I but there's not there's no land valuation involved so I do have a $15,000 line item in here for land valuation and that's something that I need to double check with the funders sometimes they allow that and sometimes they don't okay and this would all mean we didn't get that detailed budget no I know oh sorry well it's not a very detailed budget somewhat detail it's a slightly more detail I do assume some value of the the land that would be more like a donation from the the golf course to let us do the project there and then I guess more question for our staff one of the benefits is that was listed was a storm a benefit with the storm runoff because it floods so the people who benefit are they contributing anything to this the beneficiaries of flooding would be local homeowners and the golf course and we haven't approached any any other parties for any sort of funding this time I think traditionally that's seen as a public works kind of domain they I don't think they have a financial contribution up here but I thought I saw the maintenance is that yeah so part of the part of the negotiations as we're doing this will be working with public works and I've been talking to them for a long time their new directors really supportive of recharge projects as well as the recharge is in the county strategic plan is one of our objectives and that puts a little bit of fire under the departments to to move forward so part of this assumes that public works would be doing the maintenance which is something they've agreed to a long time ago on on recharge projects it's it's very low maintenance it's just going annually when they're cleaning out the storm drains they also clean out the catchments the sediment catchments at these wells and then possibly some cash match from them as well but yeah and is that is um is the 20 year estimate is that what's that based on so the engineer came up with the 20 year life estimate these torrent wells I think actually have a longer life span and that's something that we can recalculate I need to sit down with torrent and talk to them about that that 20 year life span I think that was a very conservative estimate based on the engineer Mercedes Miller engineering who did the preliminary designs I actually anticipate that this will probably have a longer life span which will lower the cost breaker foot when you do the calculations okay and then I don't know if you're the right person or our staff the relationship of of this particular recharge well to the coastal monitoring wells because that was one of the benefits was perhaps seeing an effect at coastal monitoring well and then the others the relationship to seascapes well that they pumped from it's actually fairly close to where a seascape pumps from and we could we do well or we could be doing well depth monitoring at their site to see if we see any change we could add them we do the the county does by annual I can't is that twice a year twice a year they go around and and do the CASGEM monitoring for example and some other private wells that we do well or water level monitoring in wells so we would probably add this to that cycle so that we could see if there's any impact at their well as for the coastal monitoring well leave that to staff how far from the coastal marketing well is it do we have any diagrams of that I'm not sure I I wouldn't know we would have to so it may not I would suspect I mean did did you consult Cameron on this I think we asked Cameron if he thought he would see much impact or effect from this amount of recharge in the coastal monitoring wells and he said he did not expect to notice observable differences but I don't know where they're located in relation to where that's just really close yeah I would not based on my and so are we really recharging water for the benefit of the golf course for them to pump more that would you on there no it wouldn't have to change the amount of water that they would be pumping they just happen to be a landowner who's willing to work with us and has a bunch of open open space I think they've got a problem in the future if we don't recharge if we don't get the water levels up let's see what I think you're right because they do they do have their own wells that they're pumping from but yeah I mean I just so you've talked with them they're open to this yes I mean they they have let us do all of this work thus far and again there will be some landowner agreement negotiations and access agreements that would be part of the application process okay Karla you had a question oh yeah I mean I that was really supportive of the project and all the work that's been done I mean it was a very thorough and the sound search for sites possible sites and it was really effective but I was just wondering in view of how little water is really rechargeable especially another drought year exactly is this the only site in the county is this the ideal site so really we focused our investigations just in the mid-county basin area it's I don't know we we did a pretty thorough investigation it's possible that there might be other sites in the county and certainly in Pajaro there are more sites that are suitable for recharge but they're not gonna cause any benefit to to this basin and once you get into the the perissima the recharge rates go down which is kind of how this area got focus got the focus in the beginning yeah I mean because it and also I was wondering about the the prop one funds are there actual funds and could you can you get a proposal do yes yeah so it's part of the IRWM proposal the way the IRWM projects specifically work is there's a number of pre-proposals that the process actually started about nine months ago because first you have to submit to the the local group and there's an executive steering committee for the regional water management foundation that reviews the first couple rounds of projects and ask people to submit next level and then at a certain point then they go to DWR to review preliminarily and that's what we did last month and then at that point all the remaining projects if they can get everything that they need together put in one application for the region so the Santa Cruz region would be putting in one application this would be one component of it it actually takes some of some of the burden off because a lot of the the background and introductory information is required for a grant that's all done at the the higher levels so really all I need to do to write this application say all as if it's not very much it's still a lot of work but it's the grants due December 15th so that gives about you know five six weeks to refine things we have the engineering estimates both in terms of the quantity of water and the cost which sets us up in a really good position the the things I need to still figure out are exactly where all of the other monies coming from you know I have a good sense of it but I don't have it on paper yet and the access agreements and then making sure that I'm in good standing with the regional board about how they would want us to proceed in water quality but that's all something that can be done I think I estimated it will take me about 40 hours to do this application um so yes it can certainly be done and by the December 15th deadline funding I mean we wouldn't be implementing this project until next fiscal year so it would be after after July that any sort of real work would be done because it will take them a while to review make comments do the contracting um I do anticipate that the region will get funded the Santa Cruz region the way IRWM works that it's kind of a an agreement that as long as you can put in an application and you ask for the correct amount of money um you're likely to get funded as long as your projects stand on their own and based on the comments that we received last month from DWR I think they they really liked the project they really like seeing recharge going in they're very supportive of that so you know in in addition to the benefits from water and the research component of this I think there's also it's a kind of thing that DWR and the State Board are really interested in right now so there's um it's a great way to put a positive spotlight on the region and the partnerships that we have here yeah I think in a in summary and Sierra correct me if I'm wrong what what is asked before you tonight is what level of commitment we've put fourth one one hundred and twenty k is the district willing to commit so and Sierra can make a go no go decision because of the grant timing so that's what we're faced up is that fair yes if if you guys say tonight that you know thank you but no thank you we've enjoyed doing the research because you know this has been an experiment all the way up to this point and honestly the results aren't stupidness it's not a huge amount of water that we're talking about getting into this site I think we were hoping to find something a little bit better when we started the process but it's been a really good endeavor and I think you know we've received a lot of good feedback from the state just for what we've done so far and we can call that a win and stop now but if we do want to take this to the next step and do the implementation you know now's the time the money's available we have the support I can I'm willing to take on the administration part of of the application so it's it's kind of a up to you tonight if you're not but if you're if you're not willing to or able to for whatever reasons move forward with this amount of money now that's fine with me it will mean that I don't put in the application because I'm not going to be able to find this money elsewhere in the you know next five weeks that was one of my other questions that what would happen if you deferred it to next year that we would review the budget there is no next year there's no next year yeah the this is prop one money it's available now it's not this is through the IRWM pot it's not going I'm pretty sure that this was the last round of the IRWM funding that was in prop one and it wasn't in prop 68 in this level it doesn't mean that you know recharge projects are going to probably be able to be eligible for funding in the future so I'm not saying that this kills the project absolutely it certainly might not there might be other grant funds either through IRWM or through stormwater grants or through the groundwater sustainability grants that become available later and we could come back to this then if it's more appropriate I know there's a lot of things up in the air right now that you are dealing with that are probably a higher priority so it's up to you really well certainly going to impact I mean it would either we'd have to if it's in this year's budget which we would commit to it would have to come out of either OCR or out of another cancel another change out for another project why does it have to be committed to this current fiscal year when we're not even going to get approval until next fiscal year all right okay you're right you're right I'm sorry yeah so it have to be included in next year's budget and that's you know 120k of one thing or another I mean that's what it equates to or whatever amount you decide to if you do decide to allocate to it the yeah I had a question still okay I'm like sitting here have these questions if if we committed to the 120k but you like one of the things that I I'm having issues with is that this is a flood control issue and I don't know if the department of public works has flood control funding and you know like a like a budget for that area because I know they have different districts and all and I just happened to have a house where the drain is just coming from and I researched it and I was told that you know they didn't but I would want you to still try to get money from public works and reduce our contribution right now as I'm planning it I'm planning to go to public works to ask for money you know it I'm not going to make that effort if you guys say no because I'm not going to get $120,000 from them but I will be asking for money from them and I think I can make a very good argument for why they should be pitching in and I do think that they will be receptive especially because that we're talking next fiscal year and that makes things a lot easier when it's a little bit in the future so yes I do plan on asking that for them the other thing that I've found working with IRWM because I've done that in the past is once you get your foot in the door and they see that you do good projects and they are happy with your project they're more likely to consider you for future projects there's a lot of I don't know I want to say camaraderie but there's a if they find somebody that really does good work it is very it puts you in better light in the future as well as if they find somebody that never gets to the finish line they're not going to be as in you know they're not going to be as excited about trying to fund them in something else and this is the best project though that's that's what I'm kind of concerned about I'm still stuck I'm at 11 acre nobody contributing to storm water you know flood control or anything including the golf course you know it's just it was a really fascinating research project I really do really appreciate the article and the context it was a lot of work has gone into this but I just still don't know whether we are looking at the right place in the county what I mean I mean yeah it's a good couple people learn a lot for the rest for a a proof of concept recharge project that's that means I've been supportive of this from the beginning and I'm really you know happy with all the work that's been done so far and I know it's only a small amount of water I'm still feel like we should be trying to get whatever small amount we can get because from all sources that's part of our community water plan but I so I just I wanted to make sure like our contributions from the county and us are somewhat equal or at least close I feel like is there I don't have any idea like how much that you said we would need to put in some staff time they would put staff time there's ongoing you mentioned that that ongoing maintenance would be taken on by the county so I assume that would be in the agreement and I also I would want to make sure that if we do commit that we wouldn't be stuck committing and then the project wouldn't go forward for some reason you know don't want to waste that money so you had mentioned a way to ensure that I wanted to just yeah and that would be not actually moving forward with going out to bid for the project unless we were sure that we had adequate funding and all the agreements were in place to say that ongoing monitoring would be taken care by the county or public works perhaps and could it potentially be less of public work than 120 of public works or somewhere else contributes yeah and again this is a it is a preliminary budget it could be less if either I've patted the cost too much when I go back and and really start evaluating things the total project cost might be too high in here the contributions from public works could be higher I can you know certainly we can approach the golf course and ask them to pay cash match in addition although I I don't think that's very likely but we can certainly ask them and in terms of your contribution right now this is about an even you'd be paying about 25 percent of the total project costs the grants 50 percent the other 25 percent is coming from the county primarily except for a small amount from whatever the valuation of the land is yeah there's more logistical question like so if we approved that contribution I'm assuming this would come back to us with a more specific agreement at some point yeah as part of the that would be part of the sorry I'm just answering all these questions what will you do I mean so we would because of what I'm thinking is like so we approve it but we would still have another chance later on to say if this didn't look right yeah we could say off okay we haven't really spent that many yet right and we couldn't put it all together it doesn't look appropriate for us we could still put the brakes on or if the golf course doesn't agree to the whatever yeah so we would have another opportunity correct things that have to be yeah I think you're being asked for a good made effort tonight and yes if if something doesn't pan out while I'm writing the application I'm going to pull the plug because it's not worth doing a lot more work if something's not gonna going to work out but yes you would have an opportunity during the grant contracting period certainly if not before then there would be things that need to be signed okay okay I just wanted to clarify question do you think there's any other opportunities for additional grant funding or is that generally frowned upon to get multiple try for multiple notes on a project I mean certainly the thing about these is that it's usually it would have to be a non-state fund to be able to leverage it for the state money so any additional state funds couldn't really help offset the the other costs and I I don't know of them although we can certainly mention it at the state board when we're up there in November and on the 19th I don't know of any local or federal funds that would pay for this right now okay okay any other questions or I just have one question yes sir only because of what director Lather said is this going to directly benefit your property in any way oh no okay I'm not being flooded and you mentioned the water well I have I have a drainage behind my house that goes out into that direction so I but it's our it's still going to continue to drain it's still going to drain it's still going to have the same amount of water I don't get to benefit all right thank you thank you for clarifying that yeah thank you for asking yeah okay so why don't we see if there's any public comment or on this item Colonel Terry Maxwell on item 6.3 specifically why would you hesitate for a moment to engage in surface or storm water recharge given the why did you hesitate to do it for the last 25 years obviously you should approve this and the $120,000 estimate on page 48 of 51 is easily findable ladies and gentlemen by reconsidering the outrageous $193,500 you've approved in your budget for Best Best and Krieger to defend you against a proper environmental lawsuit that you pay Mr. Basso $8,000 a month please keep it please keep your comments appropriate to that it's not I'm addressing the source of the money Mr. Healy we understand that but stay on the subject reconsider before you leave tonight this $193,000 of yes profligate wasteful unnecessary get off on another subject have Mr. Basso earn his $8,000 and attempt to defend you against Mr. Steinbrunner no it's you are here's a source of money you yourselves ask for money we need to we're going to throw you out of here Colonel Maxwell your own members you're going to be gone there's where the funds come from thank you Becky Steinbrunner I am really encouraged by this report Sierra and thank you and NTU also Shelley because I think this as director Lather put it so beautifully this really shows a good faith effort in doing what you have included in your community water plan maybe it isn't a big amount compared to others maybe you can't consider it a supplemental source but it does recharge the ground water levels and it does improve the environment and those are all qualities that you stand for and I applaud you for that so I think you've got an excellent deal here before you $120,000 for you is really not very much I mean you've you've applied you've approved consultant contracts for much much more and lobbyist contracts for much much more so here's our wonderful county willing to do all the work if you just give them a little bit of money and I really hope that you will approve this because as director Lather says it really shows a good faith effort and willingness to to follow through on what you say you stand for I also think that you could consider some of your water demand offset money to be used for this because as I remember the definition of what your water demand offset money could be used for was for projects that would not otherwise be done to help with the water levels and you certainly are collecting those at a $55,000 an acre foot for your new hookups I also want to encourage you to perhaps down the line look at a permeable paving that can be used for this same purpose and has been very successfully done at the scott's valley metro center and they even use it as a demonstration so you could get some really good bang for your buck on this not only helping the water levels reducing pollution but also a really good face with the public and I think you would like that now thank you again director Lather for really calculating the actual cost per acre foot to $545 for the district I appreciate your astuteness and your dedication to groundwater recharge Andy Fisher would be proud of you thank you thank you Becky is just tremendous I couldn't agree more with what she said groundwater recharge sounds like something very worthwhile to do permeable paving is another thing and the money comparison it sounds like so little compared to what other money is going for to me doesn't seem as worthwhile as groundwater recharge and I have a question when you speak and you use what is it called acronyms when you're saying letters I or something or other it's helpful if you state out what it means because I keep going what does that mean what does that mean and here's my other question we often hear about grant money where what are the sources of grant money where where is that really originating from could someone clarify that or the different grants is it ultimately from the public money anyway that's a question I have been coming to money's meetings for years city county government and and I keep asking that perhaps someone could clarify that for me and anybody else who might have that question thank you undefined acronyms are kind of one of my pet peeves so apologize for that we should be defining every time we use one of those acronyms and as far as the grant she's talking about I think it's proposition one which was voted on by the state of California to you know as a bond issue at one of our election I don't remember how long ago prop one was voted upon and it was passed by the California voters to have this money that then is available to different entities to apply for projects such as this okay so it comes essentially from from our tax base but from the state of California okay okay oh yes thank you yeah I'm not from the wire that actually is a great point for Maryland to bring up and I'm glad you addressed it as you did because when we let a word like grant be used when it's actually tax money that's also confusing so thank you for clarifying it at every opportunity that's really important it is directly to the point of stormwater is an incredible resource that can be utilized as we've asked so many times and corralled and allowed to percolate into the ground it's of course better for the bay it works for so many goods and at the 55,000 for the water demand offsets it's three of them could pay for it so I again urge as well wow it just seems like such a great deal and hard to imagine any reason possible that you would actually say no to it considering all this and would really love to hear more if there was a good argument that way because so many things are strange that way we will be tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. and the court learning more about what Becky's got and all the questions of the sequel laws and such we're talking about stormwater yeah but the the decision is because of the department to need for people to understand what's going on where they can go downtown tomorrow at 10 a.m. that's not appropriate for this item I don't know that people know otherwise so anyway you can have a comment before closed session before we go to closed session but not on this item okay well thank you for asking us for help on all of this too because it's why would come all right I'm gonna go ahead and make the motion to like to discuss oh sorry go for it I know you want to get out of here no I want I also been wanting this for a long time yeah yeah I don't like where the project is I think it benefits the golf course and they should be paying for it however it is an opportunity to learn more about how to do these projects in our county and the county is very cooperative so I'm very torn on this one so I don't know if any of the other directors have any thoughts on it or whether they just want to proceed I was all set to vote no because I think the project is fairly undefined and and unestimated there's some things in there we don't know how much they're gonna cost or what the requirements are and I was all set to vote no but given your question about can we turn this down at the future that would allow me to vote yes and maybe then we can get some answers to some of these things that I've been asking for for the last year and we still have it gotten you know we still don't know what our requirements are from the regional board we don't know costs are gonna be we don't know and so I think if we go forward we might get some answers to those and if we don't then I will vote no for the final thing so okay and another discussion and go ahead do you have anything well I was gonna yeah I was I was concerned too I thought it was really worthwhile research project and it seems like it might have some really solid value for that rate too I don't think it's an ideal recharge project honestly because lemonade could it could be but but we as a district have always supported research active research and moving forward on on these fronts and stormwater was part of our stormwater recharge was one of our fronts that we were committed to so you know I would think same thing that I'd be prepared to vote for this but you know the other factor is that people are protesting rates and so this is an additional cost to people who are already paying and that's in addition to other things that we're doing it's not in lieu of other things because everything that we're doing I feel is necessary so for the future of the basin but you know have to take that into account as well $120,000 I hope it's the motion is up to $120,000 because I'm hoping that that the the county will you know see the the benefits for the stormwater but you know that's about a little less than $10 per hookup so it's another way of looking at it are people willing to who live in the district who pay for the water are they willing to spend $10 towards this how can I make the motion no I wanted to make the first motion which is to prove our contribution up to $120,000 and the staff time period I was going to suggest that you make it 25% up to $120,000 in case it goes up or down and I mean if the cost goes down once she she pencils it out a little bit more up to that and then I mean we're going to get another more at the 25% is important to you yeah well the 25% that means that we are going to stay at the 25% mark if the price goes down so that would be like let's say it's $100,000 I mean that was yeah that's that's fine I can add that to the motion okay okay all in favor aye aye opposed okay thank you Sierra thank you Alyssa yeah thanks for your work Shelly thank you and Shelly I know you guys have worked a long time on this and I think you know we've done research over how many years trying to find a site and you know use the sky tem type technology to try and figure out the best site we have a lot of invested in this yeah and I I'm happy to see it so are you going to stop me and clear that let two minute break before closed session so what we'll do is allow any public commenters for the closed session and then we will go into closed session after a two minute break thank you my name is Becky Steinbrunner I'm the petitioner improper for public benefit bringing the action and um there is action tomorrow as you will hear from Mr. Basso for a change of venue and I'm I want to make it clear I'm not saying that judge small is I'm not trying to disqualify him I've been accused of that in some of the documents it's just that I think that this is a very complex case it is a complex environmental case and it merits hearing under a seasoned judge familiar with environmental law and many of the some of the causes of action have to do with the projects sense of urgency being claimed and that it must be done to meet the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act which is a state mandate and there there is some real question about all that and that really needs to be researched and that really needs to go to Sacramento so I'm hoping that this will be granted tomorrow I am not trying to cause unreasonable delay I am trying to do good research and really bring to light some of the violations that I see such as no written consultation with schools within a quarter mile 30 days before you approve the project it's not in the record it's not there that's you broke the law and while council says well it's okay because nobody brought it up it's the law and you broke it and it's that level of wanting to make this project go at any cost to the environment to the people to your rate payers you approve this rate to pay for it before you approve the project and that's what your customers are screaming about now and they will continue to scream but for your district for your council it has become all about getting the money it has become this the focus is we can't delay or we won't get the grant but what has lost side of in your district is that the environment matters and it's it's a complex issue and that is why I'm asking for a change of venue and that is why I'm asking to amend my complaint on Friday if the venue is not granted and that is why I'm asking for continuance on Friday if the complaint is allowed to be amended not to cause delays and be vexatious as I've been considered and I don't appreciate being sanctioned $40,000 time is up thank you thank you Dr. LaHue I'd like to make a comment okay but let's let her sit down first $40,000 in sanctions there's another your time is up and there's another person waiting the newspaper will love it so I'd like to say again there was some misinformation incorrect information the rates were not approved before the project was approved so thank you excuse me we have one more public comment Secretary Maxwell I endorse and compliment Ms. Steinbrenner for the accuracy of her comments and also the appropriateness of her lawsuit asking as a concerned citizen and resident asking you to simply follow the law Mr. Basso and advise your clients to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act which you didn't do and as for the judges I'm not reluctant to talk about the reality of the Santa Cruz judges many or most of whom are got their appointment nomination and election because of Mr. Basso's efforts that makes him a real fixer in this county that makes him also I've watched the judges I've watched your former law partner your former counsel a way way later I watched him the former counsel we're not yes he brought up the judges you see did okay the judge I'm not you just finish saying what you're saying okay now we'll go this is before a judge this is in the Santa Cruz I watched Judge Gallagher ignore the facts the evidence in the law to accommodate your client wrongly unjustly and unethically and that's something Mr. Basso you've got a reputation for engaging in all the time so your clients win and for you to engage in your abuses seeking sanctions on Ms. Steinbrenner who's done the right thing to protect the public as I've said before have you no honor Mr. Basso have you no integrity have you no ethics let's quit the attacks and I say to the board have you no integrity not to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act that's all she's asking you to do and your attempts to abuse her intimidate her Mr. Basso with these preposterous sanctions in front of a judge who warmly welcomed you to his class his courtroom gave you 20 minutes or so and gave Ms. Steinbrenner less than a minute to respond I watched it and Judge Smalls is unqualified he shows a bias that he showed before to even consider this tomorrow as are all the county judges because Mr. Basso apparently has the fix in with too many of our county judges some of who have behaved observantly corrupt crookedly unethically to accommodate the county when it sues people to accommodate the water board when it engages in litigation unfairly and unjustly and I'm tired of the judges in this county engaging in unjust results because people like Mr. Basso get their way and I'm tired of this water board not complying with the law and showing disregard and disrespect for your ratepayers money that you're supposed to be the trustees for you just negatively spent $193,000 today or proposed to tonight for a lawyer you don't need because Mr. Basso doesn't come close to earning the $8,000 a month you're paying him and retainer to engage with Ms. Steinbrenner a little old lady who's properly brought evidence, facts, and law that you violated the California Environmental Quality Act that is there to protect all of us now you said you were getting tired of a lot of things I'm getting tired of some things too so I'm Monica McGuire and coming again to ask that anybody watching this understand that the information is fully available about the lawsuit I'd be happy to forward it to anyone anyone's welcome to email me at monica at monica McGuire.com and I will forward them the documents that I'd like to read from and invite them to come tomorrow morning to the court at 10 a.m. in department two with Judge Tim Schmall because it would be so much more helpful if more people understood the details here such as in the declaration of Ronald Duncan in support of SoCal Creek Water District's opposition to the motion for petitioners request to transfer this case which has been discussed she's asking that simply because it's better for a fully qualified CEQA judge to be looking at it who has the time and that we have the problem that there was this huge amount of paperwork that was demanded to be given that makes no sense in a county where that we supposedly have laws about trying to be responsible to have to put in 90 binders I think it was of 15,000 pages and such 30,000 on top of it it was a ridiculous amount it's impossible to even fathom it that we'll all will very likely never be looked at and that that was not allowed to be electronic makes no sense whatsoever and it's a fascinating study but also that if the court carefully reads the good evidence the opposite of what Ron Duncan has said is the case on page four of the report the discussion of the groundwater level trends shows relatively few of the 13 plus monitoring wells having decreased groundwater levels in the aroma area so-called creek water districts monitoring wells SCA3 and SCA4 have stable groundwater levels over the last two years that's coming from your documents in the discussion of groundwater pumping it's stated overall basin groundwater levels have been recovering over multiple years through water years 2017 due to increased groundwater production and you can see figure two in water year 2016 municipal pumping in the basin was at the lowest recorded since 1977 and the decrease corresponds with increased public awareness about the importance of sustainable water conservation through conservation and curtailment programs instituted by local water agencies and drought-related action by the state of California all of these items are why so many of us have backed and been thrilled that Becky has the wherewithal to act as a lawyer and say those are the reasons we're seeing this doesn't make any sense on enough levels and we haven't been answered and there's more and more of most of this reads like an amazing script for a movie the number of things that have gone haywire and not been addressed continue to confound your time is up and thank you to the three previous speakers I applaud Becky Steinbrenner for her research and her efforts to protect the water defend the water from major problems with this project that's expensive can't get out the pharmaceuticals I think the venue does need to be changed and I think there's so many issues here and I've asked before but maybe I have to submit a document I remember at one of the workshops on the pure water it listed the different corporations seems like there were about nine that would be participating in this project to make it happen and the finances and the corporate interest in it is another very large disturbing question and injecting chemicals into the ground water for a dubious project and charging the rate payers huge amounts it's very unsettling extremely disturbing to me we already have enough trouble with water contamination from the various pollutants we have all over the place this seems to me to add more to it and because you put a title of pure on it doesn't mean in reality it's pure I think it's purely deceptive and I really consider it poop water that's tertiary treated and I would like to see this project of pure water not go forward thank you all right that is all for tonight we are now adjourned to a closed session we will empty the room and come back up directors in a couple minutes