 Okay, my clock says 6.30. And so we're going to go ahead and convene this meeting of the Santa Rosa Valley Water District's Board of Directors for October the 1st, 2020. Holly, would you like to call the roll please? Director Ferris. Here. Director Fouls. Here. Director Henry. Here. Director Moran. Here. President Swan. Here. Thank you, Holly. At this time, are there any additions or delusions to the agenda? Staff has none. It's our opportunity for oral communications from anyone in the public who's participating in this board meeting and who has something they care to share or say or comment on that is not included in tonight's agenda. We've got a few attendees. Okay, anybody have anything they want to say? It doesn't look like. Okay, moving on to unfinished business. Rick. Yes, thank you, Chair Swan. In your agenda packet under unfinished business, you have the CZU Wildfire Damage Assessment Report that was a link. It was not printed out because of the size of the document. We have a document in your packet tonight, the Wildfire Damage Assessment Report that was prepared by Sandus civil engineers and surveying partners. A little background on Sandus. Sandus came to work for the district under contract just as the fire was raging through our watershed. We bought Sandus on to assist the district staff in field engineering, damage assessment, plans and specifications for bidding, a whole host of engineering and survey practices. They've been working side by side with district staff, preparing engineering reports and which a lot of these reports and documentation will be used as part of the FEMA process to put in for FEMA grants. They've been very valuable through. I just want to give you a little background on Sandus. We do have a report in there and this is pretty current as of last Friday as agenda. It went out of where we are, the status of the water system from where we were before the beginning of the fire. We're slowly regaining our storage. We do have all of our customers back in water. I do believe we have a little over 300 customers still in a do not drink, do not boil area, which we'll talk a little more under underwater quality. We are moving on replacing the piping between the three large reservoirs, big steel, lion, little lion. Sandus has put together a plan specifications for that project. The area has been cleared of the dangerous trees on that site that were damaged by fire and we are starting a construction replacing that piping. That piping is being replaced. It was HDPE, it is being replaced in ductile iron, ductile iron pipe VIP and is being buried. It was above ground. It is probably one of our most critical sites, the district where we did not want to go back in with above ground HDPE and then have to come back. So we're moving with installing coordinate repairs with ductile iron and burying that pipe. We're also have put in temporary storage throughout the Boulder Creek area. I've been completed to several of our pressure zones that had tanks damaged. Just recently, within the last couple of weeks, we determined that our two biggest storage or two of our storage, our biggest storage lion and little lion tanks were contaminated due to burning HDPE. The tanks themselves were not damaged. However, the burning HDPE pipe that was going between those three reservoirs acted as a chimney, so to speak, and pulled all the soot debris ash right up into the tanks, actually coating the inside of little lion tank and coating a lot of lion tank, which isn't as bad. To date, the operations crews have been working with outside contractors and Sandus on trying to pressure wash clean at first to see if we can remove that. Last I heard it doesn't appear pressure washing is removing it. We've done some sampling and most likely we will be moving in the direction of having to recoke those two tanks. So that will significantly slow down getting the lion and little lion tank back online. As of, I do believe yesterday, we were able to put big steel tank back online, which wasn't damaged painting and coatings, but we went in and pressure washed and cleaned. That's about, I think it's a million, 1.5 million gallon storage. So that's a huge storage increase in the town of Boulder Creek. I can't speak enough on how important that was to get back in service. It brings a lot of fire flow back into the Boulder Creek area and actually most of all of Boulder Creek because that supplies as far as far north out of Bear Creek Road all the way to the end of system. It's a big zone in our service area. So that was a milestone yesterday being able to put that reservoir back in line. We're moving ahead on continuing on the piping there between the three reservoirs. We're also moving ahead with replacing the Forman Creek pipeline at this time. And you'll look as you see through the status reports, you see some pretty good pictures of the temporary construction up at the lion. You see some photos inside the tank. It takes a little bit to get oriented. But if you look, the coatings inside the lion and little lion should be white. As you can see, they're not white and that black that you see is the byproducts of the HTTB pipeline. That is pretty well adhered to the coatings. As we're trying to get it off of pressure washing, we use much more pressure and the pressure washing will be taking the coatings off. So most likely we'll be moving ahead with a bit spec to go to a very quick turnaround bidding process to recode those two tanks. With that, I've probably left some stuff out because there is a large amount of work going on right now. And I'll ask if the director of operations would like to add to any of that. James? Yeah, I got nothing to add. Nothing to add, okay. With that then, if you have any questions, we'll try to answer them. There is a lot going on out there trying to get preparation, in preparation for winter storms to move into the potential for debris flows and trying to move ahead and getting the do not drink orders lifted. Okay, thank you, Rick. Does the board have any questions or comments for? Well, I see you found the raise your hand button. Congratulations. I did, I'm getting so smart. You're a, you got to teach me. Well, I, since you brought up debris flows, I was wondering about, I've heard comments about maybe there's some way to catch the debris or just stop it, but I'm wondering if that would create a bottleneck if you put something to catch the debris that might be going down. Would it, would it flood things or would it just pile up branches? And I was just wondering if there's really a way that something could be done to stop all that debris. Well, Lois, to answer your question, you know, I'm not a civil engineer, however, we are working with Sandus, our civil engineers, and we are working with our fire management group who also have a lot of experience in debris flows and in, you know, in fire management. We're still looking at that. We've had meetings this week. We've had meetings with the county this week. We're having another meeting tomorrow to discuss if what an if we can do. I don't know about stop, but you know, slow down velocities, maintain certain areas, harden our facilities. So I really can't answer your question, but we are looking at that. There's a lot of different theories out there. You know, we have a short window of time and not sure if a lot of that work would be covered by FEMA or the county or would come directly from district. So we still have a lot of questions to be answered is the short answer. Okay, thank you. Bob? Question? Yes, thanks. Yeah, and that was definitely something we probably want to bring back to future board meetings as you find that out, Rick, because that is going to be a serious issue, I think for us. Couple of questions about the financial page that you had in the agenda packet of the projects that are here, which ones would be considered permanent versus temporary? And of the coming on to $2 million, is that coming out of the reserves and how much of that is recoverable from FEMA and or the state? First off, I think that's item B. I'm going to refer to council. No, it is, sorry. I mean, they kind of, they're all kinds of goes together, but I have a separate item to speak out in for B is the emergency contract status. Sorry, okay, never mind. Never mind. I don't know if I'm answering it, but I just want to be sure that council doesn't have a... Yeah, no, no, we'll hold off. We'll hold off on it then, thanks. And to answer the first part of your question, go Bob, in what we find out, we're having a pretty high level meeting tomorrow and it looks like there's an action we can move ahead and take. I do believe I would bring that back to the board to with an emergency meeting ASAP, just because it will have a big price tag, most likely, and we should discuss moving ahead on that. Thank you, Bob. Any other questions from the board? Any of the attendees have any questions on this subject? The assessment report? Okay, Rick, you can go ahead and move on to item B. Item B is the CZU Lightning Fire Emergency Contract status update and request for additional funds up on the board. It's recommended that the board review the memo and authorize the district manager to amend construction contracts to facilitate damage repairs to the distribution system from the CZU Lightning Fire in the amount of 1,555,000. To date, the board has authorized the district manager to enter into construction contracts to facilitate water system damage repairs from the CZU Lightning Fire in the amount of $550,000. Repairs to date have centered on a reestablishing water service and water quality to homes, installing temporary water tanks, installing temporary mains, main lines, water quality sampling, and a large number of trees, approximately 400 trees required removal due to fire damage. And on those 400 trees, they were, I do believe, the majority of those trees were located in and around the Lyon facility water treatment plant, a Lyon tank, a little Lyon tank, and big steel tank and big steel booster, all within reach of facilities or all a danger to staff working in reinstalling facilities. Registered professional forester was called in to evaluate trees and those trees were marked for removal by him. And those trees will also be tried to marketed to a local mill. Additional construction work is needed in the process of replacing the Foreman Creek wall, raw water supply line, replacing all piping between the Lyon, little Lyon and big steel tanks, and a more additional water quality sampling. Besides this work, we're moving forward on cleaning, the Lyon and little Lyon water storage tanks trying to remove toxic contamination. They continue those replacements and repairs. The additional funds will be needed in the amount of 1.55 million. To answer Director Fultz's earlier question, how much of this work or how much funds expense to date will be replaced by FEMA grants, the majority. There will be some items that are not eligible for grants, such as regular labor costs, because FEMA feels that you're paying regular labor no matter if you're out making repairs or doing normal weeks. Over time costs are eligible, possibly some of the food costs may not be reimbursable. The temporary labor is all reimbursable, and I do believe all of the other listed on the backup of that memo repairs is eligible for FEMA funding. For that, I'll try to answer any more questions. The bulk of this money I have, I tried to break down and get as much backup as I could for the board. You'll see that the district is spending a large sum of money on water quality testing. I think we've figured that each one of those VOC samples is roughly anywhere between six and $800 a sample. They are a very involved sample. You'll see there's temporary tanks in there. You'll see a lot of piping. You'll see construction work, construction contracts and Lewis and Tibbets. Lewis and Tibbets are replacing all of the pipeline in between the three tanks that I talked about earlier. Lewis and Tibbets also ran some temporary main forest and Anderson Pacific, another contractor that we pulled from one of the pipeline projects, also ran some above ground piping, and the Foreman line. The Foreman line is probably one that you may have questions. It's going back in right now as HDPE pipe. We are burying it as you've seen in some of the photos, the construction photos that Sandus has took and provided to the board, that pipe is being buried between two and three feet. If we put that pipe in temporary above ground, I'm afraid with debris flows this year that we may lose it off the bench just because that whole area was completely burned out and most likely we will have several debris flows so the temporary would be damaged. So we are reinstalling that pipe buried and a two to three feet of cover, that pipe will be fine if we were to have another fire in that area, it will be protected. HDPE pipe is a great product. Some may question, should we use it or not? But for these applications, for the raw water supply lines and the fall of the contours of the mountains, you don't have straight roads, you don't have 90 degree turns, you have a very snaked pipeline. HDPE is a great product. It's very resilient, it does not break easy, it does not damage easy, but yes, it is damaged by fire but by burying this pipe the entire length will be protected by fire. And with that, if I can answer any questions or the director of operations wants to add anything to this report, more than happy to take questions. Just a question, what percentage of the 900,000 for the Foreman Creek line is the result of burying it versus just pipe? I don't have it broke down like that, Steve. The pipe itself was $30,000, the dozer work is probably comparable to that and not more, and the fittings came in at another, I think, 28,000. I can get you a breakdown, that pipeline, we selected that to go back in right away because it's the shortest possible pipeline. We believe that we could bury it, that it did have pipe supports and it was a narrow trail, but we did go in and enhance the pipe bench. We were successful in completing a pipe bench from point A to point B, and now we're burying. So, and the reason we went with that first right now and instead of waiting was that we can start bringing surface water in as soon as we determine that surface water is potable. It may take months through the winter because of turbidity. We're anticipating the first two months of rainfall. Most likely we would not be able to take any water out of our surface sources just because of all the debris flows and that's something that we'll be talking about tomorrow. But as soon as say the sun comes out and the streams, turbidity drops to an acceptable level and hopefully our lion and little lion tanks are recoded, we will have our lion water treatment facility back up and running. Again, our system is a roughly 50-50 split surface water, well water. This is the time of year we normally use our surface water going into it. At the end of October, we start getting rainfall. This is the time of year we try to let our wells rest. It's very important that we continue to operate, but this year may be different just because of all the debris flows. Okay, thank you, Rick. Bob, do you have a question? We'll call that. Yes, several. Rick, on the Foreman Creek pipe that went in, my understanding is that we were putting in temporary pipe and that it would go in as a different strategy for permanent replacement. I've been reading a little bit about what happened up in Paradise even with buried plastic pipe. And while the situation may not be comparable, they did have situations where even buried pipe was contaminated due to the heating of the water. And that's a concern for me because my intention was that we would be putting some sort of metal pipe back in place. In addition to that, as the plastic pipe comes up and out of the ground, is that also going to be plastic or are you planning on putting some metal at that point? Everything coming out of the ground is ductile steel coming off of that pipeline. All the plastic will be buried on that pipeline. We understand the whole effect of putting metal pipe in but like Rick said before, this is not an area to put metal pipe back in. It's very snakey, it would have been very expensive to do so. I'm still asked to ask the question about whether or not heating the water is going to. Discussion is not over with yet on whether that pipe is temporary or permanent. We know from meeting with engineering and being out there a couple of things. One of we would have just went in and put it above ground temporary. That was my first original intent to go out and just snake a new 12 inch HCPE line out there just to start bringing water in. That was our first intention. And then when we started looking in the different soils folks and the county erosion, all the different people looking at the soils, it was evident that those soils were gonna start sliding down the hill onto the bench. And if you have the pipe covered, it should go right over those loose first foot of soil, loose soil and ash that's coming down trees, so forth. It's just sliding down the hill should go right over. It was determined that the loose pipe laying on top of the ground would be severely damaged or temporary would be severely damaged. So we said, hey, can we dig and bury its decomposed granite? We talked, yes, we can dig and bury. So we could still address, because we have to address this with the five mile and P line, these other ones where we can't just go in and easily bury like we did on Orman. So we will address with FEMA to see if they'll mitigate. I don't know if they will. We can address that and see if we can change pipe time. We're definitely gonna do, that will be a discussion on the five mile and on the P mine pipe, because right now to go in and do to bury along those pipelines is a pretty substantial project. And most likely it's gonna, you're gonna find that the type of pipe if you can bury along five mile is gonna be HDPE. HDPE is a really good product if we put it in correctly. And then there's other things we can do as well to protect that pipe. We can go in as PG&E does and keep a 150 foot center line of all trees and vegetation removed. There's things we can do and that becomes costly as well to keep the fuel load off of that pipe. I would not recommend putting HDPE above ground anywhere anymore. I strongly not recommend that, but we may get to a process with FEMA that instead of maybe seven to 10 million, you're looking at 25 million to put that in and they may not cover that. It's a discussion we're gonna have with them, but we haven't got that far yet. And I'm comfortable with Forman the way it is right now. In the case of Paradise where the pipe was buried I think three feet or so it's still got hot and still introduce VOCs into the system. At that level, you really don't even know that that's happening until it goes. So what I'm hearing is your plan on avoiding that is given that again, this is kind of a change from what I thought we had voted on is to just make sure we keep fire lines on either side of the pipe so that the ground will never heat up to that point where it would introduce VOCs into the system. That's correct. And when the fire did come down to our raw water supply lines, we saw it coming and we did isolate those pipelines so nothing would get in the treatment plant. In Paradise, we had a long discussion with the Paradise Irrigation District and what got into their pipe was steam from the hot water. It was a super hot fire. Steam got in and destroyed the pipe from the inside out. And at first they did not know about that. Each fire were learning more. But as James said, the ends of the pipeline will be in ductile iron and be up at the intake will be underwater in the stream. And the other end going into the treatment plant will be four to six feet. It dives down as it goes into the treatment plant. And so we have an engineer that said, this is very deep enough in order to avoid. Yes, we do. We still have to have this discussion on the other supply lines because burying them, this was relatively easy to do and that's why it was done. Second question on the list of projects, then which one of these would be considered permanent and which one would be considered, but I guess just which ones are permanent because then the rest are by definition temporary. Right, I would say, I do say the piping between lion, little lion. Is that lion tank plumbing? Is permanent plumbing. It's changed from HDPE above ground to ductile iron pipe below ground. Just changing the ductile iron pipe wouldn't work because James and the engineering firm did research and the gaskets would melt and cause the same problems the HDPE pipe. So you've got to bury it. So all of that work is considered permanent. Okay, so the lion tank plumbing and the Foreman Creek where our water and the intake are two that we could consider permanent. And then there's parts of some of these other projects like Blackstone and Ekley, we replaced the tank. Parts of those are going to be considered permanent. Okay, so one big steel, big steel and little lion are also in on that piping. Right. In all three of those tanks. And then what's the balance left in our reserves right now given both operating increase, I'm assuming we're down revenue up operating and we're taking in the capital here as well. That's our reserve level. I'm not sure if Stephanie is on the call or not tonight. My old son. Okay, so we had going into this 3 million in reserves. So we're going to be down roughly around 2 million. And Stephanie and I have talked that we believe that we should be calling a finance committee meeting and start running some hard numbers and talking. She has several plans, you know, once we get the FEMA grants approved, we can do bridge loans. And there's other discussion she's had with other financial institutes about bridge loans as well. Well, that would be a special finance committee since we have the finance committee meeting. That's correct. All right, thank you. Lois, you have your hand up again. Yes, I do. So FEMA pays about 75%, but that's not all federal. Part of that is state, right? Well, there's some additional that we can get and we're trying to define those numbers. We had our first FEMA kickoff meeting the beginning of the week. There's other percentages that we can get from the state of California and additional, hopefully additional FEMA monies. State of California is an additional finance state. So there is a potential that we can do better than the 75%. With the help of the state, right? With the help of the state, that's correct. Yeah, what is the state normally? I forget what that's called, that part of FEMA or it's- OES? OES, yes. So what is that normally? How much is that normally? I think that can be as much as 11%. Anywhere from 11 to 15%, if I got my numbers right from the webinar. And on top of 75? 75. Okay, so- It'd be hard to get them. Well, come on, we need to try to get it. Well, I don't say we won't try to get it, but I don't want to say it's a sure thing. No, I know nothing is assured that tomorrow isn't a sure thing. There's also another side to this that there's also the district is insured. We have insurance for contamination, pollution. They will pick up areas that FEMA will not. It's my understanding that we haven't got it writing yet, but from our verbal meeting that we had with SDRMA, their adjusters, district council and myself, they will pick up regular salary responding to this event. So there's funds that they will pick up that FEMA will not. And there's also funds that FEMA will not pay and let SDRMA pay. So- I hope we're back in more. If something's insured, we will not be able to get FEMA reimbursement or FEMA grants for. Okay, so if the insurance pays, the insurance pays, do they have a big deductible or is there deductible only for lawsuits? I can't answer that. Gina, have you looked at that? I know, I think it's a $25,000 deductible. No matter what. I'm pretty sure it is on property loss. We have a number of potential coverages in play and the deductible varies depending on what the coverage is, but I could be wrong, right? I haven't seen anything in the FEMA documentation that indicates that deductible amounts couldn't be covered if the repair exceeds insurance coverage, have you? I have not. And they didn't really address the insurance coverage on the webinar of that closely, but they do have contacts on that. And when they come down and they do the one-on-one, you know, the state and the feds come down and meet with the district and go over, you know, our grant requests that will be discussed because they have requested our insurance documents, our policy and we have provided that to them. Okay, so I agree we should have a budget and finance committee meeting at some point. We also, I mean, we agree too. I mean, we think that should be sooner than later. Absolutely. Because I want to leave town later. See if I have my hand up if Lois has done. Oh, I'm done. Yes, sir. Rick Moran. I just wanted to add on to what Bob and Rick were talking about here. And so quick question, Rick is, is there any flammable material left around where these pipes are going to go, particularly on form, that we burnt everything? So if we created defensible space, not yet, we have not, there are still a probably a large amount of trees that need to come down. And FEMA covers debris removal when it's in reach of a facility. So anything in reach that could damage a facility or injure staff is covered by FEMA for removal. So in a sense, we haven't really got off of our sites, our facilities, the lion area and the form and pipeline in the early or in the front footage areas leaving the treatment plant. We haven't really got out. And there's a lot of trees to still be removed. But the plan is to remove them. The plan is to remove them or to have a forester come in and either say, fall and leave in place, remove, we haven't quite tackled that end of it yet because some of the redwood would be marketable. So we ought to recover any costs or any funds that we can from damaged trees. Well, what I'm suggesting is that in a sense, we've created defensible space around these pipes by these trees burning. Is that, but they still need to be removed. We still need to clean. As far as the removal, part of the debris flow and stuff like this, sometimes leaving those trees laying on the ground is a part of debris flow mitigation, okay? That's correct. So I agree with all the talk that's gone on about the dangers and the pluses for the HDP e-piping. I just wanna make sure we touch on this because a lot of people were critical of, or some people were critical of finding that out when our pipe burned. So I wanna be thorough and make sure that we go through this. Nothing is 100% saveable in a catastrophic fire, but we gotta do as best we can. And I think creating a defensible space around a buried pipeline puts us in a different category than what maybe happened in Paradise. Maybe trees were around there and now we have an opportunity to keep that fuel load as you called it, Rick, away from there. So I think as long as we keep the fuel load away from these HDP e-piping that we're doing a better job than in the past. So in that regard, I support you going ahead and doing this at the Foreman site. Thank you, Rick. Are there questions? I see Bob, I see you're there. Go ahead. Yes, thanks. So Rick, I understand your point, but it's not just as simple as taking down trees, I don't think. One of the things that I think, at least I learned about this fire is that the stumps actually themselves are as much of a issue as the tree itself. But particularly as it goes down into the ground, I think I was, you heard somebody say that there's some stumps up there that are going down many feet into the ground. And if those stumps are next to the pipe, that's an issue. And so this is why I think there needs to be a much broader conversation about what we're going to do for permanent versus temporary. I certainly understand the urgency to get water down to our treatment plan as quickly as we can. But I think this is a bigger issue for us. And certainly for the community, as we try to make sure that these sorts of things don't happen again. And just because it's burned through that area once doesn't mean that it can't burn through it again at some point here in the near future. So I have to admit, I'm still a little concerned that we are gonna have to address this head on. For my point of view, I don't know that Foreman is a permanent solution at this point. Okay, and I do believe, and James correct me, I think we did remove the stumps along the new Foreman pipeline when they went in. We took a dozer in there and removed all the stumps. The stumps along the pipeline were removed. The stumps between the tanks were not removed. That's correct. And how far from the pipeline does it need to be removed? Well, our dozer line is about, it's roughly about 12 feet on average going all the way through. And then the upper stumps, obviously, they carved in a little bit further on the upper side where there was a stump and pulled it down off there. So I mean, the trail itself is pretty safe at this point. It's the fire line that I'm concerned about. Yeah, I mean, it looks really good up there. And I mean, there's a lot of trees still, dead trees around it, but burying it. I think it's gonna be protected from all that and falling down and stuff. So I think we're pretty good in that regard. Now, and I'm Bob, the five mile and p-vine about almost seven miles of pipe that we have outstanding to replace, that discussion needs to happen and it will start to happen soon. I just think we should be including Foreman in it as well, because any remediation we do on any of those, if plastic were to be used, we still have the same concerns as with Foreman. Okay. Thank you, Bob. Any other questions or comments from any of the directors? If not, we'll go to the, who has their hands up? First off, Joe Kuchiera. Thank you, Mr. President. I certainly understand and law the temporary emergency repairs that are being made. I share some of the other board members' comments, concerns. Has the district commission from their engineers a dedicated engineering cost benefit analysis for what is the best permanent solution for replacing the lines that were destroyed in the fire? I asked that question because it would be not only useful for the district in deciding what kind of permanent repairs they wanna make, but it would go a long way in discussions with the state, FEMA and the governor and federal administration to argue why we need additional support to do a better job so that we don't keep repeating this problem. And that is something that the federal government typically is responsive to. A good analogy is in flood zones, if you can come up with a mitigation measure that is gonna be less costly in the long run, such as relocations, even though it may cost more initially upfront, when you look at the long-term cost and benefits, it oftentimes makes sense to spend more upfront. So that's one part of my inquiry. The second is, has there been any progress with regard to getting the state to request 100% financing from FEMA, from the federal government for the district's repair cost? Because this is more than just the state helping you bank the 25% local share, the federal government has the ability to pay 100%. It has to be requested. It has to be justified. And it has to come from the state, but it also has to come from the federal representatives for the county as a whole and specifically for the district. And it's one thing to go with handout to the state and say, please help us with the local share. It's in the state's interest to get 100% financing or as close to it as possible from the federal government. And my third point, which I'm not trying to sound like a broken record. That's not my intent. Joe, you're running out of time. We've got a five minute limit limit. Let's get some answers to your third question. Or we get to your third question. I didn't hear the last thing you said. Does anybody want to address Joe's initial question? First off on the cost benefit analysis, we are collecting information right now to move in that direction. We've had James has been out with contractors that do work in this type of area, do hard to install to try to get different type of construction techniques to start looking at that cost benefit analysis. We will be doing that. That's a must in moving forward on our all our supply lines. On our pipelines that, all contamination that we had to my knowledge, not let staff can tell me different was from most of it was from customer service lines from the meter to the house. And there may have been some, and there was some from the HDPE above ground between the tanks. None of the contamination came from the raw water supply lines. As they were all shut down, I do believe at least two days before fire reached them. So what we're doing now, we feel comfortable that replacing the piping between the reservoirs in ductile and burying, and we're out to actually sampling service lines out in the distribution system that are HDPE that we're finding that the contamination is coming from the home back into the service line. So there is a lot to this. We will be working, we're just getting FEMA is just starting the setup assessments and just starting to talk with FEMA and talking with Bruce MacPherson. And he's been talking with our state legislators on additional funding. Everybody's open to talk. We're just, we're just getting there. The fire was just in containment here last week and we're moving now into the recovery phase. And I didn't hear Joe's third question. Has there been any discussion started about getting an Army Corps of Engineers project assistance for the permanent project, for the permanent replacement project? Not at this time. We haven't even got approval on the permanent replacement projects yet. I raise that because it can save engineering costs for the district and the Army Corps is also capable of actually doing the construction project that is then paid for by the federal government. Got it. Is that it, Joe? Yes, sir. Okay, thank you, Joe. Beth, you had your hand up for a while there. I don't wanna take you off. Please go ahead. You're on me at Beth. Hi, Steve. Thank you. Some of what I was going to address has already been addressed, but one thing I think would be really helpful once some of this gets figured out because the HDPE pipe line was very controversial in terms of the conversation in the community. And I know it's a much more complicated story why it was there and what the decisions were that caused it to be there. And how we're going to replace it and why. It would be really nice if some kind of a concise communication about that once you get to that place is made to the community because I think it will relieve some people to know that there are some good reasons for how it was done. It wasn't some horrendous mistake and that there are plans made now to mitigate possible damage upcoming from what we've learned. That's all. Thanks. Thank you, Beth. That's a good idea about the communication side of it. No, I assume, Rick, do you have any comment on that? No, we will do a cost benefit analysis. I don't believe at the time when we selected HDPE pipe it would have been the difference of the environmental impact of doing something different of cutting trees down. It wouldn't have been acceptable at the time. I'm not even sure of it's gonna be acceptable at the time now except a lot of the trees are damaged and we may have to go in and remove those trees anyhow. And to actually excavate seven miles across the Ben Lomond Mountain there was a lot of environmental concerns. A lot of erosion concerns. It was all looked at at the time and HDPE, yes, they knew it that we knew at the time that fire could damage the pipe. That was probably the only mudslides trees falling on it. You name it, it was pretty much instructable. But one thing that it did have impact on it was fire. And we knew that going in. And that's about what I'd say. We'll do a cost benefit analysis and engineering work on it and we may wind up back with the same solution and have to make a decision or not. It's gonna be cost and it's gonna be environmental impact. And we have had things happen like trees fall and earth move on that pipeline but it was very easy to go in and fix. Or a lot of times it just pulled off the bench and you drain the pipe and you come along the pipe back upon the bench. It a very resilient pipe and it snakes. It's a welded pipe that is flexible. It snakes through the contours of the mountain where metal pipe either be welded fittings or ductile iron pipe, you couldn't leave it above the ground, you would have the rubber gaskets and the amount of fittings in these 18 foot rigid lengths. You would have a one heck of a cut in the embankment to lay that pipeline out. But that'll all come out. I mean, it needs to be looked at not just me sitting here and telling you that. We need to have it well engineered cost benefit analysis, have discussion at board level. We don't have a lot of time to, FEMA has time limits so we can ask for extensions and we can do this at the same time we're doing environmental review. Environmental review for replacement of these pipelines during the non-emergency time, it'll be extremely lengthy. There'll be a lot of discussion. You will have people right down telling us that maybe we shouldn't be taking the water at these locations and maybe picking it up somewhere else. There's going to be a lot of discussion on replacing these pipelines. Thank you, Rick. Are there any other questions from the attendees, public? Back to the, back to the board. That's a request for a motion to, to authorize the district manager to amend the construction contracts, to increase them up to 1.555 million dollars. Is that correct? All right. Okay. Can I, I think a correction needs to be made. I think that's by 1.55 million dollars to a total of two million. All right. Thanks, yeah. I mean, what's your name? Counselor? Gina, sorry, Gina. You're getting crazy. Rick, you have a- So I'll make that motion to authorize the district manager to amend construction contracts to facilitate damage repairs to the distribution system from the CZU lightning fire for 1,555,000 dollars. I'll second that motion. In addition to the already half a million dollars he's been on- Yes. Right, okay. In addition, we- Okay, we have, and Lou just seconded that. Okay, we've got some more hands up here. Lois, did you have a comment or- No, I was going to second it, but- Oh, okay. Lou did. Each did a bunch. Okay, great. So, Raleigh, would you like to go ahead and record the vote? Director Ferris? Aye. Director Fultz? Yes. Director Henry? Yes. Director Moran? Yes. President Swan? Yes. Okay, we- That motion passes. Thank you, Raleigh. Rick, go ahead. Our next item, 4C, is an update on the CZU wildfire water quality of the district. I've also asked our water treatment and system supervisor, Nate Gillespie, to join the meeting tonight as we go through this memo to help answer questions. This becomes very scientific at times and Nate's knowledge isn't very valuable. It's recommended the board review this memo in regards to the wildfire water quality update during the lightning complex fire that started on 816. Identity polyethylene, HCPE mains and the direct line of the fire were damaged and melted that resulted in a depressurizing of the water distribution system. Immediately after the discovery, the district contacted its regulatory agency, the state water resource control board who recommended additioning a precautionary do not drink, do not boil. I noticed you all affected residents in the depressurized zone. I think early on, and James, you can correct me, I think I was around 3,000 customers in the beginning. In preparation for the fire, the district was able to isolate several areas of the distribution system before some of the HCPE pipes were destroyed. Volatile organic compounds, VOCs are possible contaminant of the depressurization zone due to the melting of the HCPE. Before the issuance of the do not drink, do not boil order, the district collected water quality samples for VOCs, all organic chemicals. There are possible contaminant from the depressurization and the melting of the HCPE mains. All VOC samples collected were analyzed under EPA method 524.2, which includes a screen of 84 different VOCs, included in the EPA method 524.2, or trihellomethane, which are disinfectant byproducts. Trihellomethane are commonly found in public water systems that use chlorine for disinfectant and were found in all samples collected by the district. Trihellomethane include chloroform, chromoform, chloro-bio-methane, and dichloromethane, or methylene. I knew I was going to butcher those. I told Nate I would have a tough time with those. The health-based state standard maximum contaminant level, MCL for the THMs, is 80 parts per billion. Sounds of Valley Rachimi monitors just in the distribution system for THMs every quarter. In 2019, the detection range of THMs in the distribution system was one to four, 40 parts per million per billion. On 98, 2020, the district learned that benzene was detected in a water sample taken up on Creek Drive in the Riverside Grove neighborhood. The sample was taken on 9-4, the part of the Riverside Grove neighborhood, where the samples have been taken, are still under a do not drink, do not boil advisory. The Riverside Grove neighborhood was heavily impacted by the CZU Lightning Complex fire. Evidence from the wildfire suggests that benzene contaminants likely to occur where structures were damaged by the fire. The district found that none of our distribution system was damaged by fire. It was a system that was put into good construction standards back in the day. All service lines and main lines were buried underground at the proper depths. When structures burn, the water system experienced low pressure, plastic particles, gases, and other fire-related contamination can be drawn into the water system through the connections and may get past the meter into the public water system. Currently, the district is sampling several of these laterals to structures that were damaged by fire, or VOCs in the Riverside Grove neighborhood. These samples are collected after the water has been stagnating in the service line, service laterals for 72 hours. That's the, it's not the minimum, but the district decided that longer was better. I do believe Nate with the minimum was 48 hours, and we wanted to go to 72 hours to be sure. To date, water has been restored to most of the district customers, while 333 customers remain on the Do Not Brink, Do Not Boil advisory. These 333 customers are mostly located west of Highway 236, the Payone Drive intersection, West Park Avenue, and in the Riverside Grove area. The district will be sampling these areas for VOCs on the week of 928, and we'll post lab results on the website as soon as feasible. It takes us about a week after the sample is collected to ship it out, have 24 hour analysis, receive analysis back, have the state review, have district staff review, and get it posted. So it takes about a week to get this information out to the public. The district will also be continuing with sampling service laterals to burn structures, and the district continues to monitor for VOCs via the EPA method 524.2 throughout the areas affected by the Do Not Drink, Do Not Boil, and those. And correct me if I'm wrong, Nate, we're also collecting samples in areas still that were not impacted by fire. Yeah, that's correct, Rick, and just to add on to that too, we're also in the process of coming up with a long-term monitoring plan with the State Water Resources Control Board. We're currently drafting that plan to, again, just continue to monitor for VOCs for the long-term in the affected areas as well as the areas that were not affected. So with that, Nate, if you don't have anything else to offer, I'll turn it back to the chair for questions. Thank you, Rick. Director Moran, do you have your hand up? Rick, do you have a question? So now all our water is being filtered at the, treated at the Kirby plant, and I'm wondering how is it doing? Is it keeping up with that? Can it keep up with that? What's, now that we're not using lions and how's the treatment process going? I guess, to Nate? Yeah, so some water is coming from the Kirby treatment plant only on an as-needed basis. Right now, water is coming from the quail hollow wells as well as the Olympia wells. Only when we can't keep up with those wells are we sending water from the Kirby treatment plant to the SLV system. But the Kirby water treatment plant is, yeah, it's keeping up just fine right now. We're not seeing any turbidity issues at this time. pH is a little bit higher than we'd seen in the past, but really that's the only foreseeable or only remarkable thing going on with the Kirby treatment plant. Is that? One other question would be, how are we communicating with those 333 people? I know we've been, tried to be really good about that. Just maybe if you could tell us how you're doing that, Rick. I'll let Nate, Nate's been communicating quite well, so I'll let him. Yeah, a lot of the customers are, they're calling me directly and I've been calling them back. I know we've also posted a little bit on social media, what's going on out there that we were gonna be out in that area sampling this week. We're also communicating with a lot of folks when they come in to get bottled water, our front office staff are answering a lot of questions. We're taking bottled water out to some of the neighborhoods, the far reach neighborhood in Riverside Grove, especially so folks don't have to come all the way down into Boulder Creek. We're receiving quite a few emails from people and the most common question is, how much longer? People seem to know that either they're in the do not drink, cause we've actually went out to a lot of houses, house to house with notices. And we've had some little pocketed areas that we've been concerned on, that several of the neighbors home was burned, but there's still several homes in those neighborhoods. So those neighborhoods have been, they're lifted, they're allowed to drink, but we're monitoring those neighborhoods very closely just in case. And we're not finding any detects. And so we're trying to communicate as much as possible. Very good. Thank you. Lou, you have your hand up. Thank you, Steve. I have a question for Nate. Nate, what is the standard practice when you're doing water quality testing and you find an excursion above the potable water limit? I assume that you probably do a resample retest, but my real question is, what do you do when that retest is both within potable limit or confirmed that it is out? What's the action taken on those two options? You know, it'd be kind of a case by case basis. We'd be reviewing that data with our regulatory agency and taking into account the hydrologic model of the distribution system. You know, really hard to give a hard and fast formula for it. It'd be more of a case by case. But yeah, sampling and resampling and resampling, you know, and any sites that do, you know, show any remarkable data is certainly what we do. So when you say resampling, resampling, does that mean that you retest at least twice to get a preponderance of data? If you have an out of spec and then a retest in spec, to me, you still can't make a decision yet because you don't know which one is right and which one is wrong. So is there a standard practice to do at least an additional retest for preponderance of data or is there some other standard practice? Yeah, I'd say, yeah, multiple sampling. You know, our sample that we detected benzene in the Riverside Grove neighborhood, that sample site has been sampled. I don't even know how many times off the top of my head right now, but it's been sampled several times. So yeah, we're keeping an eye on any spots that are of concern and sampling them multiple times. Okay, thank you. Hey, thank you, Lou. Lois? Yeah, Nate, is he there? Is Eurofins doing most of your testing? Eurofins is doing all of our VOC testing. All of it, okay. And they're worldwide, what do I wanna say, testing people, they have really good reputation. They have a very good laboratory. Yes, we've had a long-standing relationship with Eurofins. They've got a very good program. They're ELAP-certified and they're turning out samples quite quick for us. Okay, thank you. They're able to handle a large volume where some of the other labs are not able to. Thank you, Lois. Bob, you have a comment, a question? A question, about how long do we expect the enhanced sampling and testing protocol to go into the future? Is it a year, two years, five years? What's the, what expectations should we all have? I'd say at this time, and again, we'll probably, we'll be hammering out these details with the State Water Resources Control Board, but I would think roughly in two years. And not at this level, Nate, we'll be able to reduce the amount of samples that we take. I was gonna say, is that at the same volume of samples that we've been doing here recently? No, it would be a much reduced, it would be more, you know, we need to identify the best sites that would be good representation of our system in our long-term plan. So yes, in the future, it would expect to ramp down quite a bit. Once we are out of the do not drink, do not boil notices, I would expect testing to significantly ramp down. Not to say we aren't gonna still be testing, but the volume of testing will go down. And can I add to that, please? Not only that, but the samples will be cheaper once we get into the long-term monitoring plan because we'll have a longer extended, we're not getting 25 hour turnaround. That's why they're so expensive right now. And so we'll just go on standard turnaround and the cost is hugely different. And we would still retain though, a focus on the neighborhoods that were most heavily impacted, which are really the ones that are still on the do not something standard right now. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Well, the lion's zone is still on it right now because they were the last ones to get their temporary system in. It was a very hard temporary system to get into them. All the temporary that we put in there was brand new. We aren't sure if that is contaminated yet. We haven't got results back for that zone. So it might not be that bad. It just took an extended time to get that system back up and running. Yeah, but I'm focused on like the rivers, like the places they're currently in that do not whatever zones, Riverside Grove, et cetera. Those we would still retain an enhanced testing focus on, I'm assuming. Right, but I was just reverting back that little, the lion's zone is still in that too, but it's not the same scenario as of yet. But Nate, we would still be focused. We would still maintain a good focus in those areas, correct? That's correct, yes. Great, thank you. You Bob, any other comments or questions from any of the directors? If not, we'll go to the, I'll end participants. Anybody on the attendee list or have a question or comment? Joe Buchera. Thank you, Mr. President. At the September 7th Board of Directors meeting, I made some inquiries as well as some suggestions having to do with the water quality sampling and reporting. And the response at the meeting was that it was preferred to send me an email the following day, which would have been the 18th. I never received any response from the district. I have some continuing concerns. I'm not gonna restate what I did on the 17th. You've got that on your record. It'd be nice to get a response to it. What is the sampling rate at the various locations? How often are you sampling? So we've got roughly almost 60 sample locations. We've sampled that to date and we've collected over 200 VOC samples. Sampling rate, it just really depends week to week. This week, we sampled our lion pressure zone. So we took several samples out there this week. It just really varies day to day. Because I know it's been represented that you're doing continuing sampling throughout the district. And if you look at like locations three, four and five, they were last, at least what's posted on your summary table, they were last sampled on either September 12th or September 18th. And I was wondering how frequently you're doing the sampling. Again, yeah, it's a case by case, or a site by site, site by site case. So sites two, three and four, for example did not have any detections on them. We've kind of narrowed down into more downstream representative sites of those. And we're just kind of sampling our localized zones right now. Is it possible on your maps, you've issued some nice maps with the various sample locations, is it possible to show the outlines of the different zones within the district? I suppose it would be possible, yes. Yeah, that's no problem, we can do that. That'd be really nice. That's an easy layer to add, we'll just ask Dan to do it tomorrow. That would be really helpful. And I notice you're showing the MCLs when you've got a detection like on the benzene or the VOCs, is it possible just at the top of the tables to show the MCLs for the various constituents that you're testing for? I know they all don't have one, but the ones that do, it would be good if there was just a standard showing of the MCLs for everything that you're testing and one place to put it so that you don't have to be redundant would be at the top where you are labeling what constituent you're testing for. If anything, I think a legend is what you're looking for. You could do it like a legend as well. Okay, yeah, we could add a legend, definitely. I think if I understood you, you were thinking maybe more like a column for each of the VOCs, is that what I understand or? I don't think we take it that far. I don't think we take it that far. We do it as a legend at the top of the page for the MCL and then from there, they can figure it out. Yeah, we can certainly do that. On all the different things you're testing for, not just the Benzanes and the VOCs, but all of the constituents, that would be very helpful. Is there any way to know when you will be testing some of these areas again, or is it a hit and miss? You know, it's just kind of a scheduled testing, I guess we're looking at what we have in sample lately and again, we're focusing right now on the lion pressure zone, because we don't have any data there. So we're focusing our efforts on generating data in that zone right now. So yeah, it just really varies week to week. Once we get the long-term testing plan in place, that will be public information at that point. Yeah, no, I fully appreciate that you've got hotspots and problem areas that you're keeping a closer eye on. Overall, for the entire system, it's good to just check to see that part of the system hasn't leaked in some unknown way any of the contaminants into another one of the zones. Yeah, correct. And we actually did a sampling this last week, it was kind of a repeat sampling of revisiting a lot of these old locations. So probably by next week, you'll see some more lab results on some of these sites where you visited. Thank you very much, Nate. Thank you, Joe. Okay, Danny, any other questions from anybody? Any of the participants? Okay, bring it back to the board then. So we're not being asked to make any action at this point, are we? I don't see one specifically. Just quickly informational to keep the board informed on our water quality. Okay, thanks, Rick. Then in that case, we can move on to 4D. Right, item 4D is the water bill adjustment policy proposed resolution and district council is here to present this to the board. Okay, thank you, Rick. And thanks, President Swan. I'm going to go through this item fairly quickly unless there's a desire to spend more time on it. The purpose of this item is to formalize the policy that was approved by motion of the board at the September 17th meeting, where the board decided that customers August 2020 water bills would be adjusted to reflect the July 2020 billing unless the August 2020 bill is lower. And of course that applies to customers who are not under the catastrophic loss policy due to unfortunate losses of homes and the like. So again, the purpose of this is just to formalize and document the reasons for that decision. So I won't rehash some of the reasoning and discussion from the last meeting except to say you have a resolution that tries to thoroughly present the background and the reasons that were discussed at the prior meeting. And I recommend approval of the resolution because this is kind of an unusual measure that's intended to be one time in light of the very particular circumstances of the event. And I think the resolution will help establish why this was done and what the parameters for it are. I would note I did catch a typo in the resolution in the fourth whereas paragraph. There's a word damages which should be damaged. So following the discussion of the board and the public, I just clarify, I recommend a motion to approve resolution number four 2021 with that one modification that the word damages should be damaged. And I'm happy to answer any questions or go through it more thoroughly if there's a desire to do that by anyone on the board. Hey, thank you, Gina. Does the board have any questions about this? Proposed resolution? Bob? Let's, excuse me, not so much a question as a comment subsequent to our motion last time, there were a number of questions on social media about the fact that the folks that were in a do not whatever area were saying, why should we be paying anything when we were basically out of water? That is no monthly fee or a prorated portion of the monthly fee as well. And I'm assuming that this motion does not take that into account. It basically is assuming a full month regardless of whether they were in that zone or not. I think the wording and the motion was the fact that if your water bill was less in the subsequent month than July, you would pay the lesser amount. You understand that. So, the water bill is comprised of two components. One is a fixed fee, the other is a variable fee. Certainly if you're not in your house, your variable fee will be less. But if you're not able to use the water while you're in your house, in some cases, some utilities, I think mostly private, there's a proration process that you're able to get a credit for even the fixed part of the bill in the time that you're not able to use it. We decided not to do that. And I just wanted to make sure that that is correct, right? Gina, that it is, there's no credits in that regard. Right, this resolution is very straightforward and really just parrots what the board decided by motion last time. And it does not address that circumstance that you just described, Bob, where, yeah. And I appreciate you putting that line in there about the catastrophic. I think it's important when we make these adjustments that we're clear that it does not impact any other kinds of policies that we have in place for those people that tragically lost their houses and are really suffering right now. Okay, thank you, Bob. Lois, you had a question? Well, on the set fee, normally, if you, let's say, you decided to go to Timbuktu for three months and we're gonna be here, you always have to pay the set fee to be part of the water district is what I'm, I'm assuming maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that this, I can understand people, their houses burned down or some of what's gone on here can maybe affect the set fee, but normally I wouldn't think the set fee is changed. Unless it's some dire circumstances like right now. So, I mean, Rick knows that, but I'm just thinking that that's the way it is. I mean, this is not your, did you bake that tonight? What? Because I do have a lot of comments I can make about that, but I don't think we're here to debate that tonight. Well, I didn't want to debate that tonight. I think we're here to debate that tonight. Well, I didn't want to debate it. Actually, I'd like to make a motion to approve number four. Hang on, Lois. 2021. Hang on, we're not at that point yet. Okay, well, let me do it when you get there. We'll let you make a motion. Okay. So, I'm sorry, Lois, so do we have any other directors that want to make a comment or ask a question at this time? And if not, we're going to go to the public. Does the public on the call have any questions or comments regarding this matter? Okay, Joe, let me start my timer, Joe. Thank you, Mr. President. This is a quickie. I've gotten a few calls about whether or not the district has a low income or financial hardship category for payment of district water bills. And I don't know the answer to that, but I said I would ask it this evening under this item. Is that something the district has or would consider? Many utilities do have kind of a threshold level of income after which there's a special rate structure for payment of utility bills. Payment of utility costs based on income. Right, we do have something like that. Yes, I think it was. I'd recommend referring to the comments back. I couldn't hear what the district manager said. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Steve, I didn't hear you. I didn't mean to interrupt. No, no, go ahead, Rick. Joe, I would recommend that they go to our district website. We do have a pilot program for low income. There's an application. There is still funds available. It's a new pilot program that the board just adopted as a pilot for one year. And all the information on how to apply is on our website and the folks are not able to go on the website. They can call our customer service staff and they'll send them the application. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Joe. Any other questions or comments from any of the public? Okay, seeing none, come back to the board where Lois, you don't even have to raise your hand, Lois. I'm just gonna ask you to go ahead and make a motion. Well, thank you so much, Steve Swan. I'd like to make a motion that we approve resolution number four, 20-21. Hold on a second. If I could offer, I'm sorry for this, but if you could include in your motion, Lois, the correction, the word damages should be damaged. Yeah, I forgot. Sorry, I heard you say that. Okay, can I amend my motion to include the word damaged instead of damage? What, where is that? Anyone? Damage versus damages, I think that's the correct one. Yeah. Damage? I had my hand on that and then threatened damages. It should be damaged. It should be damaged instead of damages, right? Thank you. Is it damaged or damaged? Damaged, damage, D, E, D. Fasten. I'll second that. Okay, it's been seconded. Holly, would you like to go ahead and record the vote? Director Ferris? Aye. Director Falls? Yes. Director Henry? Yes. Director Moran? Yes. President Swan? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you, everybody. Rick? Okay, item 5A is a policy or a political activity during the 2020 election season and we have district council to present this item to the board. Okay, thank you, Rick. And this is a little bit of a change of pace from the discussion of issues related to the wildfire. But despite the focus on the wildfire, I thought it was important to remind, to provide kind of a reminder for the board and also for staff members and senior staff regarding ethical rules that apply to public service during election season. I mean, they apply all the time, but they're especially important to follow during the election season. So I'm gonna go through some of the key rules to keep in mind as we go through this election season. And I also wanna point out that I'm happy to respond to any specific questions that you may have that aren't addressed by the memo with the caveat that of course I can't provide advice to anybody's election or campaign, but what I can do and what I think it's important for me to do is district council is to answer questions about how folks who are currently holding rules of public leadership and service, how to follow the, or how to comply with the ethical responsibilities of those offices during the election season. So the first important rule to keep in mind that I know you're all very familiar with is the central rule against misuse of public funds. The essence of this rule is that no one can use the resources of a California government entity for private purposes, which include advocating regarding election issues. So this, the typical examples of this have to do with like a staff member who has a district issued a laptop or a cell phone. This prohibition prevents folks from using those devices to engage in election or campaign activity. It prevents folks from using staff time, for example, while you're on the job with a public agency engaging in election activities. It's the basis, it's partly the basis for why I can't answer questions that involve providing advice to an election or campaign. All of those things would constitute an improper use of public funds for private or election campaign purposes. The second rule that I've outlined in the memo has a number of different aspects to it. I've kind of summarized a lot of principles under the heading communications. And this, these rules apply when actually participating in a district function or in an official capacity. So for example, the staff members as well as board members have a First Amendment right to engage in political activity as a private citizen. The problems occur is when that type of advocacy overlaps with participating in official functions. So when you're actually, you know, sitting on the desk in a board meeting, a recent example would be, you know, board members handing out water at the district. That would be another setting where this type of communication would be prohibited. Also, I mean, just as an example, if somebody calls you to talk to you about board related issues, you know, a member of the public calls you as a board member to talk about board issues, that would not be a good setting to bring up any of the issues that are prohibited. That are considered prohibited communication. So this is just a partial list, but some of the key rules are not to refer to a director's position being an elected position or to the election cycle. Again, while serving in a district function or an official capacity, not to refer to anyone's candidacy or an opponent's candidacy, not to refer to an election campaign. And this includes slogans wearing pain buttons, et cetera. So for example, wearing a campaign button while passing out water for the district would be an issue. Not communicating in a manner that expressly advocates the election or defeat of any identified candidate and not to solicit campaign or election related contributions for anyone, including yourself. And there are things that go beyond these prohibited communications that can cause issues in terms of a board's functionality and governance. And I don't wanna get into all the different ways that that kind of thing can manifest. I would just encourage the board during this election season to think about how any election activities that you may be participating in could affect your ability to work together post-election. So I think it's something worth keeping in mind, but also something that's up to each director and their individual discretion. So the third rule against mass mailings, I'm not gonna belabor this point because I think the key point is that if you're gonna send out any mass mailings as a director or as a district, especially during election season or containing election related messages, please clear them through me so that there aren't any problems with FPPC issues. And if it's a campaign related mailing that I can't comment on, I will tell you that, but I'd rather be consulted if it's potentially a district issue than not. So feel free to contact me about any questions or concerns you may have. And if it's something that I can't answer because it gets too far into the realm of campaigns or elections, I will say that. But again, I'd rather be consulted than not if it bears on the district's business and functioning. Are there any questions from board members or staff for that matter related to this item? I've got a question. Lou has a question. Hey, Lou, you're on mute, Lou. Thank you, Steve. Gina, to the extent that you can answer for an incumbent that is running for reelection and either a rate payer or a group of rate payers asked what is your basically platform or stance on priorities for the future? What are the guide rails around that for you? So you're saying, make sure I understand the question. You're a sitting board member and you could ask what is your platform or your stance on some issues for the future? For the future, right? Yeah, I mean, I think the only rule that comes under the rubric of political ethics for sitting board members would be that if possible, you wanna make it clear that the opinion that you express is your opinion as a private citizen or a candidate and not your opinion as sort of in your capacity as a board member or in particular that it's not the opinion of the board or other members of the board. So that's the key rule is make it clear that it's your private opinion as a citizen and or a candidate and not a board or a district opinion. Okay, thank you. Lois? Hey, thank you. I have a question about mass mailings. You're talking basically about mailings that the district puts out or could it concern mailings that candidates put out or maybe board members who put out mailings? I mean, I don't quite understand your mass mailing. Yeah, well, and this is a little bit of a confusing one because it's not that common for members, I think of a board members of a water district to engage in these types of mass mailings whereas a city council person, for example, may have an office and a staff that routinely communicates with the public on behalf of a council district or something. And so that it becomes a little more critical in those circumstances, they may have letterhead like from the council district. And so then they have to be really careful when they're sending out those kinds of communications during election season. I would frankly be surprised if any director of the city council or the city council a director of the district was sending out mass mailings that could potentially trigger this rule, but I wanna make you aware of it because if there are questions, I'd rather be consulted than not. So what if the director's name is on, I say as a supporter or something that a candidate fits out? Well, if it's coming from a campaign, then the campaign should make sure they're following election rules, but it wouldn't trigger the prohibition against mass mailings which has more to do with mailings that are paid for by the government. So if the district paying for it or if you had an office, for example, as a district board member and the office was paying for it, that's where you can have the problem. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Lois. Any other questions from the board? Yeah, can I just a quick comment that Gina used the example of handing out bottled water and several of you have done that and please we encourage you would like to donate your time to come down. It's a great way to talk to people in the community. And please don't stay away. You're more than welcome to come down. We enjoy having four members. No more than two at a time. But we do enjoy having you down to solicit water and we probably won't be doing it too much longer. So. Well, and I apologize if I suggested in any way that that activity is discouraged or prohibited. It's just a question of being conscious of your communications while you're doing it so that you're not tripping over any of these ethics rules. Got it, thank you. Do we have a question here, Cynthia, Colin participant, Zenzel, your hand is up. Do you have a question on this? You're on me. I just had a comment in response to Joe Cuchara's question about people in financial difficulty now and I wanted to make the suggestion that Valley churches is helping people with their water bills. Right, thank you for sharing that, Cynthia. That'll make it into the minutes. Okay, back, if there are no other comments from the board then we can move on. Thank you for that warning, Gina, making us aware of election laws. Rick, back to you. Item five B. On the, okay, item five B is a memo requesting the cancellation of committee meetings for October and public committee member recruitment information for 2021. We are still, staff is still working and getting trying to, we're starting up with FEMA now. We have an incredible workload as a result of the wildfire. It would be nice if we could hold off one more month on a heavy committee schedule. We do think that we're going to need a finance committee meeting, but we'd like to hold off bringing back a full schedule of committee meetings to November. And also the part of this memo is that the year's coming to an end and previous years we found ourselves looking for committee members and recruiting committee members and trying to appoint and taking time and it was going into February, I think, that we're still trying to appoint committee members. So we decided that we were trying to get a jump on it this year and bring to the board to start talking about moving forward. I know it's October, but I can tell you right now December is going to be here. And what Holly, our meeting schedule coming up is what, one meeting a month to the holidays in November, December. Is that correct? So first off, I would like to ask the board if you would allow us to cancel the committees except for a finance, a special finance committee and then talk about committees. Okay. All right, so that's the request from front of us. Lois, you have your hand up. You must be quick on the draw tonight. I have to be, you know, I'm getting old so I gotta get ahead of the game. So I understand that our district staff right now is extremely busy and they find themselves very much involved in these committee meetings. And it seems to me that it would be better to wait until November. The days are dwindling down September, November. Anyway, except for a budget and finance committee meeting, I think that has to happen but we need to look at the workload that staff has and realize that they've got some very important things that they're still working on. Yeah, thank you, Lois. I tend to agree with you. I think the staff is making a request like this. It's not capricious. Bob, you have a comment? Yeah, I mean, I think in addition to October, it's very possible it might stretch into November as well depending on how the workloads are. So I think we just need to be, you know, prepared for that. It's been a really tough year for committees and certainly this wildfire was just sort of the last, you know, mail. I would certainly encourage everybody sitting on committees now to reapply because, you know, they kind of didn't get their full time in. So I certainly do hope people that are on there now do commit. And yeah, Rick, thanks very much for bringing it back this early and absolutely as needed to be done so that we can make sure that hopefully we can appoint committees at the organizing meeting in December so that everybody can be hitting the ground running come January. And hopefully 2021 will be a better year for all of us and we'll get the folks who want to rebuild on the path to rebuilding as quickly as possible. Thank you, Bob. Rick, Moran? I respect the staff's workload here and reprioritizing committee meetings is, well, you know, we don't need to do that. And I respect the work that the staff is doing. Thank you, Rick. Any other comments, questions from the board? If not, public, any questions or comments from you? Okay, back to the board, no questions from the public. So... And, you know, just if we do need to come back maybe we'll still have a full workload on our capital improvement projects. The Lompeco tanks are moving full speed ahead. We're starting to get ready to disinfect and bring the new tanks online. That construction project is going full speed. The pipeline projects north of town and California Drive will be coming up soon. They're a little off schedule because of the fire. And then we're gonna be needing to get to committees especially environmental and engineering on the watershed damage and the talk about the types of pipes and final repairs. A lot of this will start in committees and wind up to the pool board. But we're gonna need committees. There's no doubt probably sooner than later as we start getting into this engineering and get into this environmental. We still have the swim tank that we'll bring to the board here very shortly on the environmental review. And then we have other environmental reviews to come up on a couple of other tank projects that, you know, as part of, we just can't stop doing our normal work. We have a heavy capital improvement project load that we must keep going. At the same time, we must start addressing fire repairs. Well, it's gonna be busy. There's no doubt. Are you ready? Lou, you have a comment on the question. I have a question for Gina. Do we need a formal resolution to cancel the committee meetings for the month of October, or as a voice vote adequate? A voice vote would be more than sufficient for this purpose. I mean, a motion. Do we even need to do that? No, I think if the board is unanimously directing staff to cancel the committee meetings, that's sufficient. We've done that in the past. So I don't have an issue with cancelling any committee meetings during October. Anybody else? Everybody in there? Fine. We're good. Okay. I think we're good. Okay, thank you. So there you have it, Rick. Now, step two, you wanted to, did you want to go ahead and have everybody agree with the suggestion to go ahead and send out the notice of accepting applications for the 2021 committee member? I'd like to get some direction to kick that off. And I do fully agree of the district secretary. She was strong on talking about, carrying over some of these committee members or at least to make sure we invite these people to carry over, you know, it's a lot of work going out and advertising and filling committees, but I do want to get the board's input on moving ahead and how you would like to, if anything, different from our normal procedures or just go ahead and start the process. I don't know if we have any, I don't have any specific direction other than to go ahead and initiate the process. I think Bob said it very well with the, you know, a message to those current committee members to please reapply so that they can be considered so that we don't have a hole in the area, but. And I would like to bring back, I wasn't prepared tonight, but bring back for the facilities committee on the building, you know, that committee barely even got to meet with COVID and then the fire, I think that had the sunset that committee, but I need to research that a little better to like to bring that back and definitely invite those people because that's a, you know, all the committees are great, but that committee was really had a lot of good experience and long-term residency of the Valley and kind of understood the district's needs. And we just didn't get into it. We were interrupted and I'd like to see that committee reestablished and continue again. Sure. That's good. Any other comments by the directors? Oh, well, I think Holly had something to say. Yeah. And then Holly. Hi, I was just going to suggest that perhaps instead of going out and recruiting public, more public members, if you would consider just simply rolling it over with the, if the public members that are still on net, that are on there now would like to just, just not go through the whole process and just have these people go for 2021 since they most have only had two meetings this year. That sounds like a Gina question. If we can do that without stepping on our toes, is that something we could do, Gina? Invite people, but also make mention that there are committees that will be starting up again and invite people to, I don't know, do we invite them to join if we get a group of the existing committee members that want to retain their spots in the existing committees? And this is certainly within the board's power. I'm depending exactly what the board wanted to do would affect how, you know, it got documented. It's a significant deviation from the board policy manual. I would recommend a resolution if it's very minor adjustment, you know, motion's probably fine. Okay. We have a couple of questions or comments from board members. Rick, Moran? Yeah. Well, I support doing both. And I think if people are willing and able to be on committees, this is gonna be a challenging next few months here and next year. Interesting things are gonna be happening. There's a lot of public interest in this water district. So I don't think it would be too difficult to recruit some new members, but we also should encourage those members that are already here to continue to be on the committees. And the one thing I liked about the formation of the committees in recent years is we've increased the number. So I don't see anything wrong with doing both, encouraging the people that were on committees to stay and to also encourage new people to join. Okay, great. Bob, you're next. Yeah, I agree with Rick. I think that's really the best way to go in the interest of, you know, continuing to do outreach into the community to get new faces, new ideas, new perspectives under the committee. I think we need to open it up for people to apply. But I do say that the people that were on the committees this last year, you know, I would very much like them to reapply and that would certainly in my mind anyway, give a lot of consideration for that. So I think Rick's spot on. Let's do both. Okay, thank you, Bob. Lou, you have your hand up. Yeah, I just want to add my voice to what Holly said and Rick Moran said and Bob as well said that a combination of both of those would be a great idea. Both encouraging people to participate but also making sure we keep those members that we already have. Thank you, Lou. Lois? I agree with the last three board members who spoke. So I go along with doing both things. Okay. Holly, is that what you wanted to hear or is that something in addition to what you wanted to hear? It's up to the board. So if I understand that right, we're going to go out, advertise and send out notices to the existing committee members encouraging them to reapply. Right. Because some of those committees, I think they had sunsets and so forth, we'll take a look, but we'll just encourage everybody to apply. You have some people on committees that are running for office that, so things may change no matter what. So we will do that. We will do advertisements and we will ask people that are already existing on committees to if they would wish to reapply. That's what I think I heard. And Rick, we may need to specifically look at the facilities committee. You raise a good point at being differently constituted. I don't think it turns over at the end of the year way the other ones do. They just need to be extended. They didn't have a sunset on it though, Gina. I don't know that it's the end of the year, but it might be like February or something. Right, that's what I believe to be the case. I don't think there's a limit to, if you were on a committee that you can't re-up, I think that's up to the board. There's no limit in the board policy. I think that's all up to the board. So it should be pretty easy to do. To facilitate this. Lou, you have your hand up for another comment. Yes, Gina, if I heard you correctly, it sounds like you believe we need a resolution from the board to do this. Is that correct? No, and maybe I may have been confusing two things, the ad hoc committee regarding facilities and the regular committees. I don't think any action is needed by the board to provide direction to encourage existing committee members to reapply while soliciting new applicants as well. I think that's consistent with the existing processes, but we do need to take a look at the resolution that constituted the ad hoc facilities committee because I believe it sunsets in, like you said, Bob, like February or March or something. So it's not going to automatically get new members, but it may need to be extended or something. But that will require a resolution to change how it functions and what its term is, but not urgent. Thank you for clarifying that. Okay, thank you. As we got some public here, any comments, questions or so from the, understand sort of the direction we're heading. Any public comment? It's being done. Okay, we're back. So moving along item six, consent agenda, minutes from the last meeting would be added in. Anybody have a problem with that? Okay. And then we have written communication in the packet and informational material. German is coming up right now. So, unless there is anything else anyone wants to bring up right now, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you all very much for your participation and especially to the attendees. Thank you. Good night. Thanks.