 Okay, I have six o'clock now, so we will convene this special meeting of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District Board on January 30th at 6 p.m. Could we have a roll call? Director Hammer? Director Smallman? President Bachman? Here. Director Radcliffe? Here. Director Bruce? Here. Do we have any additions or deletions? Okay, we will now enter into the portion of this meeting for oral communications on any item that is not on tonight's agenda. Would anybody like to speak? If I look at the agenda item, this is kind of a pet piece, it says this portion of the agenda is reserved for oral communications by the public for items which are on the agenda. I would imagine, I went back and looked at a couple of agendas, it seems to be something that the board and the President has messed over the last few. Is that correct? Is it are or are not? This is for the portion. Are not. This is? Are on the agenda, not, are not on the agenda. Are on the agenda. Okay, this is a not. I wasn't sure. Right. I was under the impression that there was no need to have it for, okay, because each item has its own agendization. So will we be able to comment on the agenda? Oh, absolutely. Yes, you'll get multiple, you'll get plenty of comments at that time. So unless, having offered it, unless somebody had a strong opinion, quite a bit, okay. Is the Viara letter part of the agendization shall be available for public inspection? Intentional violations of the Brown Act are misdemeanors. Anybody who attends a closed meeting discussing information which is to be available to the public is creating, is committing a crime. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Anybody? Okay. Well, I want to be clear here. So I can talk about something, anything I want right now and I can talk later. Or do I can only talk next? No, you will. Go ahead and speak on something that is not on the agenda. Okay. In 2014, the last act of the previous board was to hire Brian Lee. Now, I don't know why he was hired. He had been an interim manager, but basically he's an engineer. Was it because of all the lawsuits they were having at Marina Coast? I don't know. I'm just wondering. The other thing that I looked at was the 460 form that Eric Hammer and Jim Radcliffe filed. And Terry Viara gave them a $500 donation for their run for the board. Now, I'm thinking possibly that that could be a conflict of interest. They went into their very first meeting, voted to fund the Terry Viara defense, I can think the word defense. And they, to me, they should have said, well, just in case there's a problem, we did receive $500 from Terry Viara. That's what you do if there's a possible conflict of interest, but that wasn't done. And I'm wondering, was this the conflict of interest? $500. I've had some dealing with a fair political practices. They don't like you getting money for anything that's questionable if it's conflict of interest. So that's one of the things that I'm concerned about and wonder why it was never brought up. There was a different attorney. Maybe he wasn't very good. And I also couldn't understand why they didn't realize that Terry Viara had a conflict of interest. I was on a board. You take ethics training every two years. One of the very first things is real estate deals. And your mother, your brother, your father, your wife can't be involved in that. You can't say, oh, well, my wife was a listing agent. You can't. So I don't understand what kind of training this board had about conflict of interest, about ethics. And I'm hoping they get some better training. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak at this point? Okay. Seeing none, I'll close out general orals on this then and we'll move on to our single new business item. And that is, I'll read it from the agenda, unless there's any informational response that the staff would like to be seeing none. This item is a potential lawsuit for injunction to prevent future unauthorized disclosures of the district's confidential and legally protected information. Receiving considered by the board public comment before deciding whether to proceed with filing a lawsuit for an injunction or other court order to prevent future unauthorized disclosures of the district's confidential and legally protected information. So I'll ask for staff. Okay. Okay. Did it lead this off? So the board requested that the district's legal counsel prepare the memo that has attached to the board meeting tonight along with the draft injunction. And hopefully everybody's had a chance to read that. I'd like to turn it over to Gina Nichols, district's legal counsel now, for any further comment. Okay. Thank you, President Glopkin. I recommended to the district's board to place this on the open session agenda prior to making a decision whether or not to proceed with filing a complaint against Director Smallman. Currently there's no requirement that the board have any discussion or make a decision tonight that's up to the board in its discretion. I do want to caution the board that the scope of this agenda item is on the merits of whether or not to follow the injunction. It doesn't extend to a discussion of what was previously discussed in closed session. And if board members start to accidentally regurgitate or talk about what was talked about in closed session, I will interject to try to steer the conversation away from that confidential information. Okay. At this point, I just want to let people know the general layout of taking public input tonight. We have a single item on this agenda. There should be ample time for everybody to speak and comment as they feel they would like to. So I'd like for any directors first to be able to have a brief comment, something on the order of one to three minutes, everybody speak once in this session, and then go to the public. So you get a little bit of information from maybe before we're out. And then we'll go to the public. Could I ask maybe how many people are interested in speaking tonight if you would raise your hand? It will. But the only reason for asking this question is, this seems like a reasonable number in three minutes is certainly well within the ability of us to do. So I'll take public comment for three minutes and then bring the discussion back to the board for a discussion. And then go back to the public again. I want to go back so that after you've heard our more thorough thoughts about the matter and our responses perhaps to some of what your initial comments were, we can go back and get a second thought from you. And then come back to the directors for the final time in which we will consider how we deal with the evening, how we proceed or not proceed or, okay, go forth. So would any of the directors like to say anything at this point or about what thoughts are about where we are and why we're here? You're looking at me like maybe we're going to start from the left. It doesn't matter to me. I'll look at both sides. My experience and perception is that in closed session there were clear admonitions from council about what was confidential and privileged. There was no question in my mind about what should be maintained in privacy for the good of the district to ensure our customers' interests were protected. When Mr. Smallman went to the media, to the press banner, and was interviewed and quoted in the media in violation of that admonition to maintain privacy and confidentiality, I felt that that was done not in error, but with intent. Not out of innocence or misunderstanding, but with intent. And I felt concerned that his behavior cast a shadow of mistrust and doubt amongst the board that needs to work together to responsibly steward the resources of this district for our customers. Thank you. I'll be good at that. Okay. Anybody? Well, one thing about this meeting, I'm, you know, I think it's really a shame that we have reached the point where this has been sort of our only recourse. I'm really disappointed and disturbed that we have had to go as far as we have. But I do think that this is the best forum for this very special kind of discussion to be explained and understood by the members of the public. And I think that's going to be a really important part of tonight's meeting. So I think this is an opportunity, I'm glad that we'll have time for people to have two rounds of comments being the thing that will be useful. It's, and I appreciate the fact that our legal counsel is going to be leading this because it is a specialized and complex topic. There's a lot of history here. And that's basically it. I'm going to be interested to see what questions come up and hopefully clarify this sort of very specialized little backwater of the Brown Act and its procedures for the members of the public. I'm going to skip myself and ask either of you if you want to comment at this point. The difficulty of tonight and the difficulty of speaking on this agenda topic is the fact that the majority of it and the reason behind it took place and still takes place in closed session, which makes trying to communicate clear enough to the general public why we're here today. Because my understanding will be is a lot of the examples and conversation that took place really we can't talk about out here. And that makes me really uncomfortable because it doesn't allow us to really provide a clear storyline of the incidents that have happened and what we're trying to do to not get to this place to start with. So that's my biggest concern. My second concern is the fact that the Brown Act is there to really protect everybody, board members, ratepayers, consumers within the district. And one of the things that we as board members need to be able to do is go into closed session, discuss legal strategy, whether it be for or against something that the general public may be for or against and know that we can strategize because one day we might be strategizing something that everybody in this room is totally for and that's how we might be strategizing for something that everybody in this room is against. And then the safety is taken away from us to be able to do our business because it ends up in a public page and a tabloid. It's really hard. And we have spent countless hours trying to find a way to be able to conduct the business of the district that's going to best benefit the majority of the big areas of the district. And right now we're handcuffed. And there's a couple of suits out there that we're currently in that have been on the agenda a lot and it makes it really difficult to have open conversations about it. And there's those that are yet to come that we all know will come. And finding a way to be able to really conduct business that protects this district and also protects its finances is really what I'm concerned about. And I'm very interested in hearing some of the public's take on it and I'm interested in further board discussion on where it's going to go. And what I'm not interested in is looking at any type of punitive damage stuff. I mean, I'm here today to try and stop that from happening, trying to find a way that we can solve the issue at hand and try to stop it from happening, especially the things that blatant violations of Brown Act have been proven to us and shown to us by our council that they're clear Brown Act violations. I mean, that's a good way to sum it up for me. Sure. You've known me. I've recently lost my job and recently divorced. And actually my father told me I was pretty stupid to stay on a serve on a water district board. So it kind of hurt. I mean, after all the time that I served on La Pico in 2008 and since then for nine years, I'm pretty proud of what we've accomplished. You're not going to find anybody more talented and willing to help rebuild this water district. I also respect the law as much as I can. I mean, we take those ethics courses and I take them very seriously. And I cannot support, I'm here to say that I don't feel that I've done anything wrong. I can't support not following the law, the role of the law, some of the basic laws that we learn from that we have to take a course on, ethics and etc. So I feel that I've done nothing, absolutely nothing wrong. Our primary obligation, this is not a large water district. And I can see that, you know, I know people, you know, this is a water district that is La Pico, I don't want to see the same thing that happened with this water district as would happen with La Pico. And as a project manager for a construction company, we are very, you know, when we do construction projects, we are very aggressive on not going over budget. Okay, any extra costs were very aggressive. I just feel this is, you know, I feel that these legal expenses, it's caused great division in this community. Okay, it's time to fill it, to get rid of that division, to start making smart, you know, that's what I feel that our primary obligation on this water district is to be fiscally responsible and to get your infrastructure rebuilt the most effective possible. And I feel that these legal side shows, they're not serving us any well at all. You know, they're dividing the community and they're throwing your hard earned money down the toilet. Okay, this isn't going to do anything. Period. Okay, this is just a complete waste of money. The information that I disclosed is very trivial. Everybody knew that Terry Vieira was going to sue this water district. And it's very trivial information that why I'm getting attacked by this. You know what, I'm here to help. Okay, and if you want me out of here, let me know. I have a large level of frustration with this, and I think maybe some of the other directors do, because I recognize the proper function of being able to conduct some matters outside of public view. I mean, one of the classics is doing real estate deals. Okay, that you, for you cannot talk about price in terms. But legal, and that may come up. We may need to do that at some point in the time as we deal with our facilities issues. And in those instances, I would certainly want to appeal that nothing would ever come out of closed session about that. But regarding the more recent ones, the way in which legal matters proceed, okay, are such that to level the ground between plaintiffs and defendants in some way, both parties go about their calculations among themselves and bring their issues together in a legal arena at some place. And in order for both plaintiffs and defendants to be on level ground, a district such as ours, regardless of whether it's a plaintiff or a defendant needs to be able to think about its matters and come to a way of getting to, okay, you know, the situation on which they are competing, you know, in bringing their case equally along with the other side. And in this realm in which we've been in, I haven't felt like we have had the confidence of being able to do that. And I want to have that going forward. Whether, and what's gone on in the past for me is not of the prime importance. It is getting to a position that going forward, that we can go into a meeting and discuss whatever is proper to discuss in closed session and certainly legal with the confidence that one of the five members or any number of the five members, okay, cannot override the combined thought process and deliberative action to come to the proper way forward. And we're in a position now that I don't feel like we can do that without fear that something we say among ourselves is going to go outside the arena in which it is allowed and affect the process going forward. So at this point, I'd like to take public input on this. And if anybody would like to speak, I saw John's hand go up first. So I'll come to Denver. So I wanted to say that I believe that this is a smear job on Bill, that this board has been trying to smear Bill since the day he got elected, that by not allowing him to be included in engineering meetings with where his specialty was, where any time that he voted any other way than everyone else, Margaret made it clear that her expectations were that everybody would vote together and that there would be no independence. There would be no independent thinking. I rather resent Director Radcliffe's use of the word backwater a moment ago, because of course that's the way that this board views Lompico and a director from Lompico was perfectly clear, perfectly clear that this board has been, has looked down at Lompico. This board has been attacking Bill from the beginning, not allowing him to go to a committee meeting just because your director has you all running around being led around by nose rings. Also, I want to just make one other point that you're talking about legal advice. This company's legal advice is why we're here tonight. That's why the lawsuits because of lousy legal advice that this board and your manager went forward on. Deborah Lohan Lompico. I'm here in support of Bill Smallman. Bill Smallman is a decent, genuine man of integrity. His professional qualifications and experience on the water boards surpassed any other directors here. His lack of guile stands out and makes him a target. He's the only board member here that serves the ratepayers directly every time. It is my belief that this is an inappropriate charge. It is a misuse of district funds and is meant just to intimidate. I believe a lot of this is very personal by several directors and the district manager and I think that needs to be gotten under control. I believe there's an element of retaliation. You lost a severe case and you're angry including Mr. Holloway's claims. I think it's a retaliation. I agree with John against Lompico and I believe that's inappropriate. I looked into this and I read that not all closed session communication is confidential and it's not all protected and in my research I found for example a couple of news articles. One was Randall Brown talking about what was discussed in a closed session and one was the general manager of Bradley talking about what was discussed in a closed session. I learned that not all attorney communication falls under the client attorney privilege. Press Banner printed an opinion from an open government lawyer who said that he felt that that letter was not privileged. So there's a question. This stuff to me it appears that director Smallman's opinion is protected and like he says I believe it falls very general knowledge. We came in in June of 2016 and already at that time there were plenty of rumors that Mr. Rear was planning to sue the district unless they paid for his defense. I don't know where that came from. That's just been out there on the street. The existing facts and circumstances are that I see a pattern of abuse and prejudice against director Smallman. I put together a timeline of events in the news and I don't think that all of this information fits I see in the claim but I believe the attorney has not been given all of the correct facts in history. She wasn't here until July 1st so a lot of this occurred. Most of this occurred before she was here and so she has to rely on hearsay and board member testimony. When she was interviewed she said this kind of stuff was not her area of expertise and asked two questions on what legal advice she would be giving the board. She said her duty is to take whatever legal path the board decides. In other words that's saying she's got to support you no matter how bad your judgment. She said she did not want to get embroiled in the politics behind the scenes. I believe the Nossam room firm is being dragged into the mud and I'm going to add to that, Valley Women's Club. Thank you. So anybody else? Does anybody else want to comment? Mr. Lee. Sir. Good evening. I'm Mark Lee from Ben Lawman. I have a couple of comments on the item that's before us. My questions and comments are if anyone have request records of the letters to the board over the last year would Mr. Vieira's letter would have been withheld as nondisclosable under the Public Records Act, PRA. What answer would the board or district manager defend that information as more damaging to be disclosed than to be revealed to the public repayers interest? That's the first question. If so what new information would be revealed by Mr. Vieira's letter that is already that is not already known by the district rate payers in the public? The litigation papers filed in the case that was already litigated would have already been a matter of superior court public record. Furthermore from news covers that's well known in this matter the SLBWD district defending and paying for Mr. Vieira is well known already by the public. So what confidentiality is being harmed here? Mr. Small in my opinion was doing his duty in defending the principle of the Brown Act vis open transparent government. I don't see any wrong going here. I think this current item that's on the agenda is going down the wrong path and damaging to the public and causing further friction among the rate payers and will obviously be will be become evident in the next election. So please let's discard this frivolous lawsuit by the district. Thank you. Thank you Mark. Would anybody else like to speak? You and I'll go to the gentleman there. Okay. I'm Bill Hoffman, Ben Lohman and I just have some questions. The first one would be for Gene Radcliffe. I don't understand why this is the only recourse. That's what you said. It's the only recourse. It seems like there should be some other considerations other than an injunction and creating all of them, you know, the harm and the feelings between the rate payers and the board and the board members themselves. Are there not any other recourses? We'll respond once all the public comments. Okay. So we'll get that done. As a new person in this district, we've only been here seven years and I just came here. It's somewhat shocked at the $50 fee for no water and then the additional fees on top of that having been used to San Jose rates, which are quite a bit less. And then a rate increase came across for 33%, something like that. And I got the letter and I didn't respond. I said, I don't need to do that because I know the rate payers here I'm going to put up with a 33% increase. Well, we got a 33% increase and then we found out that this is going to be another increase, a 65%, that's when I got involved. And what I found as a new member of the community and a rate payer for this rate is that there's a tremendous amount of resentment and disconnect between rate payers and the board. And I don't think that needs to be true. It shouldn't happen. Other districts I visited don't seem to have that kind of problem. And I think it's coming from the board and maybe some staff members and I don't understand it, but it's very deeply rooted and it's going to be very difficult to change it unless you start communicating. And what I don't see is any transparency whatsoever. And I think the only attempt at transparency, communicating with public through small and I'm very disappointed as a rate payer to be a member to all this embroilment in discourse. The other thing I'm wondering is how much it's been spent on legal fees already with respect to this case? Was there money spent on investigating the legality of it? Whether or not it's feasible to do this? Those are my questions. Thank you. I think I saw Bruce raise his hand for you. I'm Bruce Holloway from Boulder Creek. Let's see. I think this is a gross waste of public funds to pursue this. If you want to talk about Brown Act violations, I think the list is far longer on your side. I'm not going to try to defend leaks out of closed session. But what I read in the paper, I read the draft complaint and as far as I can tell, there were three separate instances that were named there. The third, I'll tell you, it said that Director Smallman said Gina said some boilerplate about keeping things confidential in closed session and grand jury proceedings. That's boilerplate. I don't see any confidential information whatsoever that was disclosed there. The only thing that I guess you're saying is confidential is that Bill said Gina said or something like that. As far as the other two, the first one that was in the paper, as I understand it, was retrospective. Sometime around August, there was some information about what happened in April. We already knew in April that there was a VR letter because ex-president Ratcliffe told us that. That was the first I knew that there was a VR letter and we already knew that as of April 3rd. I don't know whatever Director Smallman might have added to that. The other thing was prospective. That was that Terry Viera was threatening to sue the water district. Ultimately, that came out in a letter from Whitworth and Parthen that was revealed to the public that Terry did make some sort of a threat that he expected the district to pay his judgment. From my point of view, I guess both of these disclosures, Director Smallman was advising the public of illegality by the board. The first one, if the VR letter is a public record, it should have been disclosed to the public in 2014. I haven't seen it, so I don't know enough about it to be able to say whether or not it's a public record, but it sure seems like a public record to me. The second thing about if Viera was suing the district, when you discuss Holloway v. Viera, if Terry Viera was threatening to sue the district, that is not a topic under the Brand Act. When you caption something as Holloway v. Viera, that is not enough. You may have been repeatedly discussing items in closed session without captioning them properly, and it may be that Director Smallman was the whistleblower, and he's within his free speech rights to say that what you did behind closed doors was illegal. I'd like a little bit more. No, there's another time after this. Well, I wrote this all out before I came, and I'm going to be repeating a lot of what other people have been saying. Director Smallman has been bullied and treated as a pariah from day one. Those attending meetings have seen this time after time, and it's been mentioned even though Bill is an engineer who worked on water projects and could not attend committee meetings during the day. All committee meetings for the engineering were held when Bill couldn't be there. Any normal considerate board would make time for a board member who works, and I've known a number of water districts, and they have people who work, and they have meetings at night for committees, they have meetings on the weekend, but here they could only be at 10 o'clock in the morning or some ridiculous time. I want to repeat some things that were reported, closed session actions that were reported in open session. January 24th, 17th, the board authorized a motion for a new trial in the Vieira case. Four to one, Smallman opposed. March 22nd, 17th, director manager, district manager was given a satisfactory evaluation. Four to one, Smallman opposed. I can't help but wonder if board members pressured and bullied Smallman trying to get him to vote their way in closed session because they want unanimous votes, but Bill is stubborn, believe me, I know. He didn't cave, and he didn't give in, but if they, and I have no way of knowing only you guys know, try to pressure him, bully him into voting the way they wanted, they broke the law. On April 3rd, the board voted unanimously, yay, to stop all financial commitment to the Vieira case. President Ratcliffe also mentioned a letter from Vieira, had been received. Why did she mention it? If we can't know about it, and I didn't talk three minutes, and if they didn't, they said they had to defend Terry Vieira because he was an employee. Does that mean Bill Smallman's an employee? They had to defend Terry Vieira because if they didn't, only the rich would run for the board. Really? So you're going after Bill Smallman, you're talking about him making him pay, which I don't think you can do, but that, what you're being hypocritical. If the three minutes wasn't up, I hadn't talked that one. I just want to say if we're going to be fair, you know, Mr. Holloway wasn't given any excess time, if we're going to stay there, we need to stay there and make it possible. I agree with you, Eric, and if the public can respect that, that will make my job easier if you don't make me try to get you to quit talking. There will be another time, if you, if you have further thoughts on this matter, we're going to come back to everybody another time, so please, you can't at least wait till that time. Mr. Fultz. About Fultz-Pollard Creek. So, you know, when I first heard about this, it just sort of seemed like a little bit of day job, you know, another day, another lawsuit, and another amount of money that we're going to spend. So, I really want to make sure I understand what it is that's trying to be done here. It seems like, when I read the complaint, that the board is trying to establish that there's a pattern of behavior here, because, I think, typically injunctions are for instant behavior, not retrospective, or prohibiting something that's going on in the moment. So, it's like we're trying to create this pattern of behavior that's over some very long period of time. Mr. Hallway talked about the two incidents last year in August and early September and late August. And then there's other information here. I wanted to make sure I understood what you guys are trying to get at. Upon information and belief, Director Smalls made other unauthorized and unlawful disclosures of district confidential information. Is that documented somewhere, or is that just almost like hearsay? Because it's on belief. I mean, someone raising their right hand and saying, yep, this is happening. Here's what it is, chapter and verse. There's another line down here at other dates and times using social media, such as Facebook, establish a pattern. I would think it was on social media, it would be in here in his exhibit. Is that also a factual thing or is that more of a belief? And then the full extent of Director Smalls' unauthorized disclosures of district confidential privilege information is unknown to the district and may be extensive. Well, I mean, you could say that about any director that you really don't know what they're doing. Is this, again, more hearsay or is this trying to do a pattern and behavior and try to get that injunction? And with all that in there, what are the odds really of winning this, extracting money from Director Smalls? I mean, from a business point of view, just what's the dollars and cents? Let's say that you really have a good case. Is there something here that you're really going to get that you don't already have? That is, there's no specific infraction that has a specific date and quote since last September. So I'm not sure what it is you guys are going at. Hopefully you might be able to help enlighten us by giving us some of those other examples we're talking about. And then finally, when we get to the court process, is it a closed session hearing with the judge so you can talk about all these disclosures that Director Smalls has done that the public has excluded from? Is that how it works? Or do you actually have to go through a public process of disclosing all the information that supposedly he's violated? Because usually trials are not closed session. Those are sort of like different kinds of trials, star changer type trials. So trying to understand what it is you guys are really going to get to proceed to right here. Whatever it is, it's big waste of money. After we're done with public comment, I'll come back to the board. Any other public comment? It seems that it seems to me that the board started having a lot of trouble back when they tried to raise the rates about six years ago. And a group of people formed, they called themselves the watchdogs and they started to scrutinize every record that the board had for years back to try to find anything they could depend on the board. And then at some point along a group of people seemed to find some way to trump up some sort of grand jury thing. So then they got the grand jury to look at it because they trumped up stuff. And I noticed in the meetings that they were directing questions that could be used to prompt the board. And then the Long Pico thing. So now we've taken in Long Pico, but there's a lot of sour grapes there. Long Pico didn't really want to give up being autonomous. They, as far as I can tell from them, so we have a lot of people who aren't here, okay? Thousands. We have these, like, three groups of people who show up who continuously give the board bad time. I would like to see Mr. Small and play nice in the confidential meetings. I would like to see everybody, you know, run the board. When you have this sitting on the other side of the aisle from me, it is definitely everybody's trying to find anything that you say they can trip you up with. They're all just sitting here writing notes that trip you up on something. And I know these legal things have gotten a little out of hand. And it's time to rein them in. I don't see the sense in injunction. I think that there's violations of the Brown Act, aren't there state attorneys who may take an interest in it and you won't have anything to say about it? So that's always a possibility. And the more this gets going, the more likely the state may decide to take a look at it. So I would think that you guys need to learn to run the board the way it's supposed to, having the confidentiality for the things you need to. And I get the feeling that a lot of this pressure should start to die off. Because it all started with those rate increases six years ago, seven years ago. And then each time there's some kind of thing like there was all that trouble about the water pump down there out on the Olympia, you know, which ended up being built anyway. There are a bunch of people who just get angry about one thing and they're determined. They're very determined. And you can't blame them, I guess, when people are determined. But let's face it, the majority of the people who you serve aren't here because they think you're doing a fine job. My name is Nancy Gurd. I'm from Felton. And 10 years ago, you guys built our water system in Felton. And I remember that day because we were ecstatic that we finally got out from under the thumb of Cal Am. And if we hadn't, our rates would be twice what they are today. And they'd probably be bottling our water and selling it who knows where. So it's interesting, I mean, people end up on different sides because of their position. For me, and for a lot of people in Felton, we are eternally grateful that we are part of a Public Utility Commission forward outfit. It's like I'm grateful for it many times during the year, just thinking about it. So even though the rates are increasing, it's something that I'm not surprised by that I do kind of expect because we have many miles of pipes and pumps in this water system. And it takes a lot to run it. And so I'm sad that there's so much discord on the board. I know how stressful it is for everybody, including people who are in the audience here. And I guess my hope is that people can find their way through it in a manner that will make everyone at least if not totally happy, somewhat give them something people can live with down the line. Anyway, thank you. Thank you. Anybody else from the public who would like to speak? Felton, I also come from Felton. Love, love, love, you guys. Love that I don't have to go to Germany to be angry at someone. I'm right here. This is much better. And those miles and miles of pipes go up and down and through rivers and over streams and through all kinds of hills. I realize it's got to be expensive. We've done the best we can. And I so feel so bad for the board that you can't defend yourselves. The public can say whatever they want, whatever they want. And the board has to sit there and zip their mouth. I hate that. But that's how it is. And I'm hoping that the story, the true story, comes out and people start realizing we're in a very small community. We know how hard it was to get here tonight. Highway nine was a parking lot. That's the way the emergency people have to come in. We have to work together, folks. Thank you. I have a question respectfully. I'd like to ask the board members what they've done to help guide, train or warn Bill about his behavior. Last month we heard several of the board members talk about going to a conference in Monterey to attend a teamwork session. To me, a team supports and defends each other first and foremost. And I would just like to know what you have done in support of Bill in this regard. And if the answer is yes, I would like to see the evidence, the documented evidence of that under FOI so I can read it and digest it. I see the rest of my time back. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Any other public comment, sir? Glenn Lyonsch and Felton. I wanted to echo the support comments. We remember how hard we fought to become a part of you guys and how ecstatic we were when that happened. And for our newcomer you would have seen water rates that you wouldn't believe. It's more expensive to have water here. We have, you know, we have a huge distance. I mean, it's just different, you know. And this is maybe a little abstract, but I feel like some of, you know, I used to come to all these meetings and I don't have to do that anymore, I thought. It's the first time I've shown it up in a long time. But I've been hearing, it feels, and this may be seen out of left field and a little abstract, it may be even wrong. But it feels like some of the attack on the board is part of that larger picture in this, in this country of people who just don't trust government. And so there, it echoes what John said. They're out to, you know, I didn't follow the Terry Fierre case and the merits or whatever. But if Bruce Holloway hadn't done anything, would we all, you know, principal or not, would we all be in a much better place? My guess is we would be. Which isn't, and again, I don't know the details of that so I'm not even saying anything about the right or wrong of that. But I think we need to to work at trusting each other. We need to work at it in this country and we need to work out it in this community. Thank you. So. Bill Kennedy from that moment and especially I just have to weigh in on your comment about the Terry Fierre letter that you admitted that you didn't know about it. Okay. Tell us about it and he'll hear what you have to say. Um, yeah, just tell us about what your response to him not to know what you're talking about. In other words, to say just outright that there's this this blanket condemnation of the board's behavior. And that it's because of some big issue, the Viera matter that may or may not matter. And we should just let that go. I'm sorry. That shouldn't just be let go, let go. Um, and the point is, um, it's as bliss and again, respectfully, if you if you don't know about something, it's just like, well, it didn't happen. It doesn't matter. But it did happen and it doesn't matter. And it's a it's a big deal. I think it still is a big deal. It's not resolved. And I think that to in the future as it becomes farther and farther in the past, people will step in and say, Oh, that happens, you know, way back then. It doesn't matter anymore. It still matters until it's resolved. And to say that the combination of the board results from just a general unhappiness of government. It results from people to do know the facts and have followed the issue. Frankly, and sorry, but that's your pleasure. Speak of it again. Okay, thank you. Other input. I, um, well, I'll close out of worlds and I'll get, we'll come back to the board here. Any other public input from visitors tonight? Okay. Seeing none, we'll come back to the board and we'll have some discussion and we'll come back to you. Okay. Can I go first and just address the question that was directed at me by this a seven year newcomer? I'm sorry I didn't get any. When my comment about, I felt there was no recourse, my use of that is because we have, we have worked as as fellow directors with directors Smallman and our, just a caution. Okay. We have, we have, um, this is, we, we have made efforts that, that's I guess all I can say. And then to Mr. Ferris that I attended along with director Smallman the CSDA training in Monterey this last, I believe it was May. And I attended a fair political practices commission, um, session on conflict of interest. I, um, attended a Brown Act and public records act training session. And both of those I thought, and I, um, attended a governance session on, on board policy and board conduct. And those are all issues that are very important currently in the past year for our district and director Smallman did not attend those. And I was disappointed because I thought that would have been a really excellent opportunity to address specific issues. There were many concurrent sessions and I, he had different interests, but I thought as far as there, there was an opportunity and I thought there were specific interests to us in our current situation as a board. Um, but you know, we're all, we're all equals. There, you know, we choose to attend the trainings that we find most relevant or most most interesting. Separate those on purpose so that you would go to the, we try to cover all the different classes. So we met to, are you done? Okay. Speaking and I'll come to, okay, I can bring it to Bill then. Okay. If you want to. And then the other thing is I, and maybe this is more a question for our attorney rather than a comment on, um, um, are we going to be, are, are we going to respond to the questions about the, the language or is that something that you can help us with since there were some questions about the law on the Brown Act that were brought up during the oral communication? This is a tough area for me to address in a public setting. The language in the draft complaint is very purposeful. Um, I, um, believe it's all appropriate. Um, it has been carefully thought through. Um, I really do hesitate to go much further than that because we're in the very awkward position of having a discussion without a potential defendant. And then my, my last question again to yours is, is your analysis in this, in the staff memorandum that's, that is my, uh, analysis on behalf of Nelson. Okay. Thank you. Um, before I go to, okay, other two directors here, I, I want to second, okay, what Gina just said about what we can discuss tonight because, I mean, there are some people, um, who I wanted to inform about tonight's meeting and what the content was of the meeting. And basically I said here, read this. Okay. So this is the public document that brings this, um, um, you know, into the view of everybody. And I'm, one of the things when I first read this that I was most struck by is it's basically a general readability. So if you haven't read it, um, you know, maybe it'll be, you know, if you haven't read any legal stuff, you know, maybe it is a little bit thick, but as legal documents go, Gina's done a really good job on this. Um, and some of the issues, some of the discussion about, you know, what the issues were are laid out here very carefully, like section 17, for example, in this goes through that in a very clear manner. Um, so I want to let Bill respond first since he wanted to. Okay. Um, okay. Uh, I wanted to include a story that I didn't include in the beginning because my, my father was, um, he served as an attorney for a special district for two special districts. One was for the city of Marin City, which I'm not familiar with the African, African American community that was created by Eleanor Roosevelt to build ships. It's in Marin County. It's mainly comprised of, um, African American community. And they also served as an attorney. I thought I had a little bit of story here and I know everybody's here for a meeting, but also for a, um, city council in Tarrelinda, more of affluent up north of San Rafael and Marin County, all white men. So he would, he would go to all these meetings and basically the, um, the African American community followed the law flawlessly. I mean, they respected the law, their meetings were very tight, no tax, no political tax whatsoever, period. And their meetings went beautifully. The people served on the, on the board on that city council to the, you know, they listened to the public, et cetera, goes up to the meetings up in Tarrelinda, all white men, affluent men. They were getting in fist fights out in the parking lot. And so that's why I felt my dad told me I was dumb for getting, serving on a public water district board because sometimes there's these political attacks that are meaningless and they literally waste your hard earned money. So I'm here to say, let's, and I know this whole issue about Terry Vera has deeply divided this community. Let's just say no to this court exemption against me. It's going to cost money, but it all adds up. We're not, we're a small wall community, small water district. Let's just work together. That's, you know, Lois and I came from, uh, Longpico. We ran it on the shoestring. We know, we bring, I had no, I had no dreaming of that. I thought that this, I would not face these issues getting elected. And so I just want to make sure that that we just, and it's the fish, and the other very important thing about this disclosure about leaking close information. It's all due to this whole Vera case. Everybody, I believe knows everything that's involved with that. So you know that I'm against it. So, you know, I mean, I know that people feel that I broke the law disclosing public information. It's not going to happen. A big part of this whole thing is so that I, this doesn't happen again, so that we can have the freedom to go back in the closed session without me disclosing things. There's nothing more, there is absolutely nothing more for me to disclose. And so that's why, again, why I believe that this is an entirely waste of money. And believe me, you may think they're and say, oh, well, it's just $15,000 there. It all adds up. And you know that I did vote for the rate increase. But we can discuss rate cutbacks, but we can't do that unless we decide to become more, much more fiscally responsible with our money, with our community. And that's what I would like to contribute as, and I'd like to continue on as your director on this water district. Thank you. First, I think I want to make it extremely clear. This has absolutely nothing to do with the terror of the era case. This has 100% to do with radical violation in the closed session that stop us from doing our job on current legal matters and future legal matters and has hurt us in past legal matters that have cost everybody in this room more money. That is what this is about. And about the concerns that we have of being able to do our jobs. You shake your head how you want, but I'll tell you, that's exactly, no, you can't. No, you can't. And what I'm really concerned about is how to answer a couple of questions that are really legitimate, great questions coming from the audience, especially to gentlemen out here that I can't remember your name, Sarah. But I'm going to try to answer them as vaguely as possible because I cannot be specific. And I want to be specific. A question was asked, why is this the only alternative? There are a multitude of other alternatives that are out there. But we've come up to this. So the fact that I know that there are a ton of other alternatives. This is the tough part because we want to be transparent as possible. And in a lot of ways we can't. We cannot provide the written documentation that's necessary to be able to back up where we're at today because we can't. What we have done in transparency, through transparency, is to take something that didn't necessarily need to come to the public, out to the public, to let the public see what's happening. Okay, okay. Cautious. That is because we want to be transparent and because we want, honestly, want to get people by and their opinions on the direction that we're going. And that's the big reason why we're here today. And it's very difficult to sit up here not to be able to answer some very specific questions. I will take an attempt just for a second on something that was brought up by Mrs. Henry. And regarding the engineering committee, just because I know I'm going to work with Santa, I'm going to talk to her for a minute. There was a multitude of conversation in public at those engineering committee meetings and trying to set the engineering committee meetings to try and work with Director Smallman within the confines of his work environment. And I would say there was at least a half a dozen or more suggestions or ideas that were put out there on how we could work with Mr. Smallman. And I'll give you just a couple quick examples of, hey, there's a way that we can do a conference call. You necessarily have to be here. Can we do a video conference call? Can we do earlier in the morning? Can we do a little later in the afternoon before you pick up your daughter? There was an immense amount of conversation on trying to make that work. So it wasn't just set at a time, so there was one. And I know that there could be some controversy around that, but I had to be transparent. Those conversations happened. There wasn't anybody who was avoiding one specific time. And there was also a lot of conversation with that around staff time, expenses around that. And so there was all I'm trying to put up there is that there wasn't, there wasn't an attempt. And there was quite a bit of communication around that issue. It wasn't just a bulldog pulling into a corner. And it had to look me up. So is that what I could talk about? Because it was completely, the dialogue took place in a public meeting. It took place with transgress moment present. So it wasn't an attempt. And I wish that I could go further into the past and send a little dose of these hands. That's right. Hopefully I don't transgress because Gina can't kick me from here. So there were several comments from the audience that I want to speak to because I think that there's a misapprehension about how this board works. Unanimity is not important. We do not come to these meetings with a unanimous opinion. We don't come to a closed session with a unanimous opinion. We come with the information that we have learned from the board packet from conversations with the district manager about the board packet information and from our own research about the topics and the issues at hand. Many, many times we have come into board meetings, closed session or not, with very different opinions. Chuck has persuaded me to change my mind on many occasions. I think I've persuaded Eric to change his mind on maybe once. We all influence each other by bringing our thought and opinion and considered positions. And we make our best case with one another here in the public. And if we happen to be unanimous, that's great, but it's not necessary. And there is no one of us trying to compel or persuade the merits of the issue compel our vote. Our deliberations as a board inform that position inevitably. So if anybody thinks I'm strong-arming somebody behind the scenes, they clearly don't know me that I have not enough time to do that. I work full-time. And wouldn't anyway, because I value the different opinions and perspectives of my board colleagues. They shape and inform my opinion and I am not inflexible. None of us should be inflexible. We need to listen to the public and one another and the information we get from and counsel that can inform our decisions. And I wanted to speak also to the issue of transparency. It looks like closed session is intended to not be transparent. What it is intended to do is protect the few, very, very few kinds of communications that the board has that are around sensitive negotiations, maybe it's real estate, maybe it's a legal case, maybe it's a personnel matter. But they're there to protect those sensitive negotiations and they are then decided upon and the decisions are disclosed to the public. That process is private to protect the district's interest, to protect right-payers' money, to protect the interests of this district. So if you feel as if we're not being transparent because June is kicking this under the table and saying don't say anymore, it's because of that desire to follow the Brown Act and be protected and avoid risks. And someone asked what have we done as a team to support and train Mr. Smallman according to the Brown Act? As a member of the audience pointed out, he had been previously on the Longhiko board and so in that capacity for a number of years and now in this capacity has to take, like we all do, ethics training. And part of that ethics training has a segment on Brown Act compliance and in that section there's a section on how you were supposed to treat closed session and confidential information. I know that each one of us, when we complete our ethics training, there is a certificate that we're given that you complete your test and the certificate is sent to your district and that is available for anybody who is interested to see if our certificates are posted. And I believe you can find that information through the district secretary. So do we document our conversations in closed session? No. We can't share them with you even if we did. But the ethics training is part of that and there are classes and workshops that each of us can avail ourselves of and we certainly encourage each other to make sure that we stay current on our ethics training. And I wanted to echo Director Hammer's point. For me the issue isn't the Vera case or any one of our particular opinions for or against it good or bad or indifferent. The issue is not that particular case. The issue is is the is that framework of a closed session, a private and confidential space where each of us can feel free to voice our contrarian opinions, our strongly held beliefs and opinions, our you know bring every bit of decision making, vetting to bear in that moment without fear that confidences will be breached without the risk of confidential information being disclosed. I want to make sure that that sanctity is preserved and that we follow the Brown Act, we follow the law and that we respect each other's differing opinions in that closed and private session. I have one very simple comment. We were asked one question here which says was did we press your bill in closed session? It's exactly the sort of question we cannot answer tonight. So um and that's unfortunate um that anyway um but um it's but another but the other point that was brought up was by the gentleman over here on the right Bill who says is this our own ask the question is this our only recourse and um I hope not. I hope there's some way we can get to a point where we have the assurances that the sensitive matters that we have to discuss can be discussed and only as much of it okay brought out of closed session as the entire board decides is appropriate but um but I but there's two quotes that director smallman said tonight okay that troubled me one was I have done nothing wrong and that um given that to reveal closed session discussion is illegal I guess that falls within my general um tent of being wrong and think indicates a lack of responsibility for um for what he has talked about and another of those comments is there is nothing more for me to disclose and when I hear that um that's you know maybe there isn't now maybe there is okay but there will be times in the future in which there will be sensitive matters that are being discussed and we will disagree um and and we'll end up needing you to take a vote at some point probably in that process and whether it's okay unanimous four to one or three to two um that isn't um that will have to be determined and I have no and I don't believe the other directors have any resentment over anybody voting okay contrary to what our desires are I hope to have a discussion getting to that point where um the different different opinions have been bought brought respectfully intelligently informed opinions but when they're done um I respect the descent and I believe everybody else does in that manner so um for me this evening is about how to proceed and we're you know I'm getting to the point here I'm going to ask for another okay for a further input from the public about what we have talked about I'll do it in just a second okay I'll then we'll take very long um and then um and then we'll come back and see if we can get um a path in front of us so um gentlemen in the front and then I'll come back to you okay okay mr. Kennedy I have a brief question about what is um and is not allowed to be conveyed from private session what is this brown act um required that every word that's spoken in the closed session be retained within that session or there's some items that can be disclosed um I've read recently as many have probably that some things can be discussed some things cannot if that's the case then it becomes like how do we decide how do you decide on the fly in the meeting what can or cannot be discussed afterward and then afterward if there's a disagreement if Bill Smallmore or somebody else says something then maybe they can say well as far as I can tell that was disclosable and that this is constantly a matter of adjudication or am I am I way off here is is everything required to be um confidential or are some things not do you know the answer to that well I'm probably going to refer maybe in this session if could could I get an idea how many people maybe want to come back and ask something again to see okay um the reason I was asking that is that I want to um you know maybe take a question you know as it comes up um how do we feel about I mean Gina for example would you want to at some point either now or at the okay later discuss willing and prepared to answer any question that the board chooses to refer to me in the course of this discussion um I may have to defer or limit my answer on some topics if I think it's going to reveal specific legal strategy or go too far into the analysis of a certain item but um I will do my best at the board's and request to respond to specific questions okay so I'd like to exercise a little discretion here and if you could answer this I think he's asked this very well um and worded it very well so okay that is very specific as to what's allowed and what isn't and it's the exact provisions that govern what cannot be repeated out of a closed session are copied in the board memo um that you may or may not have a copy of in this session but in general terms um it's confidential information that can't be repeated so it does have to have some confidentiality but overall there's a presumption of confidentiality for anything that was discussed in closed session if that's its source but then secondly whatever limited exceptions there are from those protections are solely for the very limited and specific purpose of discussing of providing the nature of any illegality or wrongdoing and they're very narrow in that regard so it's not much it's not much it has to be considered to be illegal by the um the person who's well it's not just by the person who's speaking it's more of an objective standard right but I mean that has to be the first rationale for the person who takes it outside of the session yes it has to be illegal or potentially illegal and the disclosure has to be carefully limited so that it is no more than exactly what would demonstrate the extent to nature of the illegality okay so Mr. Smallmore perhaps I'm that his disclosures were based on his observations that what was discussed was illegal in order for him to be clean in this case does that make sense or don't go further than this comfortable but okay I think that's a that's a fair summary okay I'm just trying to understand what the thinking is of Mr. Smallman and everybody else here is to what happened and why it was considered to be okay and right in fact and imperative that he disclosed uh Mr. Smallman and why everyone else is no that should not have been disclosed and it seems to me that it must come down to that issue of legality and the conversation conversation itself was illegal or the matters being discussed were illegal but some issue of legality that um made it right for Mr. Smallman to take it outside of the closed session was that um well that he's right is another matter yeah whether he's right I think okay is yeah I mean my opinion is set forth in the board but there is no basis in the Brown Act for the specific disclosures my my professional opinion that there is no exception in the Brown Act that provides the specific disclosures they're outlined in the complaint is set forth in the memo that's in front of the public in the board tonight but you did say there's an exception if it's in the legal act that's observed in the meeting is that what you're saying um I think I think she's and okay it's very delicate okay without talking about closed session to say this and if you listen carefully um I think you'll hear the I think you understand I guess is what I'm saying and then you forward you'll get the answer okay you're a great person to have a discussion with on this I think I need there's a lot of people who need to talk thank you you've done a good very good job of bringing one of the cruxes okay um um to us so I saw a person in the back row first I'll I'll find find you okay um I think a lot of the frustration is that things have come into um a legal action or potential legal action um it seems like in the policy manual there should be some way of handling this like first step second step third step before you get to legal counsel and whether these things have happened in closed session or not you can't talk about I understand but it seemed like there should be an outline and so all the directors understand what's expected of them and not saying Mr. Smallman did something egregious but something terrible and really undermine the ability of the board to act there should be a way to handle that procedurally so it's it's you know cut and dried black and white everybody understands so to get to the point where you have to go to council seems you know if I were using a bazooka for a set of a fly swatter um was first of all I would like to say like Superman I believe in truth justice and the American way and Lompico was thrilled to death to be part of SLV we worked hard we went through hell to get here but since we've been here we haven't been too thrilled because there's we thought we had an agreement okay but that has nothing to do with this just so you know I didn't I'm not a big whiner snibble there's a great picture of me with with Rick there with his head chopped off and another Lompico board member because hey we passed it we're thrilled anyway I I think that Bill Smallman had no idea what he was getting into when he got here I really don't think he realized he just he has this focus fix the infrastructure fix the infrastructure that's his focus that's what he talks about and he doesn't just mean for Lompico he means for the whole district and I'm sorry to see him he treated this way and I agree with this fellow who's or Ruth who said there has to be a better way to deal with this why are you giving him such a slap and is it even legal what you're doing I don't know but to be to have in the past said you had to support a board member because he was an employee and you're worried about rich people running for the board if you didn't support him what are you doing here I just don't get it I don't know how many times I come to meetings and say I really don't get it I guess I'm just a Mr. Schminder I first of all wanted to ask a quick question the gentleman here in the green had asked a question and got answers from you can I have that same privilege please if you got an answer from you please ask me and I'd like to ask your attorney a question or ask you a question well ask us and we'll try to so I know that handle things that it's been said tonight that the Viera thing that this isn't what this is all about and I get that but but it is a major part of what this is about yeah at least in my mind and the release of that letter I mean I quote I cited the code that talks about in California that if someone threatens legal action against a public entity that that is public information that needs to be disclosed I would like to know why that letter is not being disclosed to the public I would like to know the legal rationing why that threat of litigation which is according to the code that I read meant to be public information why that is not being disclosed you can't just say it's confidential I want to know the law I think I could say something but you'd probably say it better okay well um we recently received another request for that very document from an attorney for Mr Holloway and responded in I think as much detail was the district ever has to that particular request um so that response is available if anybody wants to see it that response is available to the public where would we find it make a public records I request and you'd be supplied I think there's no I think reason otherwise um is it on your website it hasn't didn't leave anyway I don't want to talk more about it but um it is a public document okay somebody requested somebody requested it okay um that doesn't mean it's a public document did they know that that's I suppose what I need to say is that if somebody requested it is a public record that could be disclosed to them the answer is yes I think request the document then okay it doesn't have the document please I think you just did okay um and the other thing I catch me quickly in this you ask a question that had an if in it okay and you said if this then this because I'm not an attorney I just know I'm just saying that when you ask that question you know the answer might be that the if was not fulfilled oh I get that okay okay um I'm requesting it here Holly has my email we exchanged emails today okay okay um sir mr. Pratt um Ed Pratt won pico and San Rosa Valley my question is this thing happened in your court here on august the fourth in the valley press and september first or third or something like that something again in the valley press that was five months ago when the first thing happened august fourth you had a closed session after that was it ever brought up by your attorney who was new at the job at that time and by the way the district's attorney is responsible for the training of the board or at least keeping them informed on all the laws concerning brown actor closed session or whatever was that brought up to mr. smallman and the entire board at the same time in other words you have a little leak it gets a little larger pretty soon as a flood and that's what's happening here you let the september the august fourth thing happened then the september first and then after that there's some information and belief like you believe in sanik laws that there was some public some social media done which you don't have any evidence of why wasn't this caught at the beginning stages and addressed at that time and not come to this extent that you are doing right now i feel this is completely you need to take care of things when they start happening it's like i was road manager for 30 years on a road when we had a little hole pothole you could fix it in two minutes but people kept driving over kept driving over it no one fixed it no one fixed pretty soon you have an hour job pretty soon it'd be two hours job or a thousand dollars it just it gets away from you attack it when it's early and you all can talk to each other you evidently do why didn't you talk to bill say was it ever said you know you got to cut this out this is harming us was that a question or statement a question and statement okay is it a question well i know the one thing i want to say mr. hammer every time i ask a question or make a statement you always rebut it where i can't rebut your statement so i i love it i really don't want to have you answer anything okay i i'm i'm going to be the one that negotiates this okay and okay um let's let's both okay um we do ethics training when is the that's not ethics well brown i can say did you he made a mistake you you felt he made a mistake you knew about it almost immediately because you read the valley press and the different manager i know was definitely in touch with it did you them talk to him about it um can you speak to that point yeah i don't think we can so sorry there were multiple closed session meetings can we enter it's actually get our question really can't go down this road unless the board makes a decision decision to all of the background after we take well what we do afterwards we'll think about okay but let's get through public discussion on this right now so we have all your input before we go to that discussion louis i think i know you you said exactly what i was going to do we please get back to the public time okay so we can finish that and then continue okay because it's back and forth too long um bubbles and then yourself mr. Hoffman above for the creek so um i'm guessing from the i mean people know me know i'm a bit of a skeptic when when statements are made about things that are represented as facts but earlier like opinions i mean there's a famous guy said you're entitled to your opinion but not your facts so i'm i'm guessing from the non-response the questions i had about the other allegations that were i believe purported to show a pattern and since there hasn't been an answer on that that there's probably not going to be one forthcoming and so you know while i'm not really sure where to come down this i i kind of take that as the trust me that's kind of hard to do right i mean because this is something that is so politically charged forget the legal part of it which is big enough as well this is a political thing and so mr. Smallman's name is going to be associated with brown act violation even though there are others up there that have that have that same association maybe inadvertently but whatever and so there's a political aspect of this as well so is the court hearing going to be hey four people get up there and say trust me and the judge is going to go yeah i mean preliminary adjunctions you can get pretty much routinely i mean every judge pretty much hands those out just because the downside of not granting one is larger than the upside is that what that's going to be like i mean is that what mr. Smallman's going to go through is people just going to go up there and say hey yeah he did something there for you got a trust in this look if someone says it's not about the money it's always about the money if it works if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck and looks like a duck it's a duck so what are we going to do here are you are you guys really going to take this to a court and say trust me or is this just the opening shot of a negotiation that you guys want to have a team thing i mean i get the team and all this dissent and all that but when i hear director hammer say to mr. smallman you'll never get a second while i'm on the board that's not teamwork inducing that is not only disrespectful of a fellow board member but also disrespectful to every single voter that voted for mr. smallman and so again i come back to this what are we doing here and are you really going to just get up there and say trust us um he did all these bad things and he needs to be punished and he needs to pay his money i think there needs to be a little bit more than that i hear though it's not going to be forthcoming so i'm kind of left in this quandary of trust you it's hard okay okay just a second i just want to okay and this gentleman but then i'll come to you um for the pattern of i read the doc read the draft version of this the pattern is but this is not a you have two very specific examples and everything else is belief and innuendo and person so be specific going forth i may not be able to respond with brief informational bill well i think i have to follow bob because i'm confused actually i don't understand we were talking about a via a letter and that's all it's all a public notice is that there's some letter and what's the you know there's a lot of uh talk about what like that letter contained you know is it something that the board doesn't want everyone to know because it's incriminating or something like that but it seems like there's a lot more to this than we can be told so i don't understand if this is just about a letter that he wasn't supposed to say there's a letter uh why why does this have to go this far why can't we you know a little bit more about my background i have a science background i was a headmaster of a private school for 14 years you know and when we took care of disciplinary problems we said bill don't do that anymore and you know bill won't do it anymore i guess this hasn't worked for something but we have the public doesn't see any other disclosures or secret information other than there's some mysterious letter we've never seen anything so what is it that's been disclosed it's so bad what the public is going to think is that this is some sort of railroad problem on bill smallman because he's a dissenter he votes against what we say okay well he explained that you know it's okay to not have the same opinion as everyone else but it's still going to be public perception i don't know how you're going to educate those eight thousand ratepayers out there you know i've talked to a lot of them i'm i'm also a proud member of the the salarones of valley water district protest group i i did step up on the second rate increase but just so you know i'm not against rate increases anymore i know that you've got infrastructure problems i am against what bill smallman is against and that is a the relentless spending of money for lawsuits and and other things what we see is that you're hiring public relations people you're hiring attorneys from los angeles we have to pay for their staying here flying here there's a lot of expenses i saw that you had i think 10 million dollars in reserve money three years ago it's gone i i might be wrong but this is these are things that are showing up i've looked at your budgets i know that you you know you have 34 employees now your reserves ran out last year you hired nine more employees you had 25 you had more why what are they doing everything i see you guys do here is okay we gotta get this done let's go out to contract you know somebody to do it doesn't anyone here do this work we don't understand the public needs to know more about what you're doing actually about this infrastructure because i don't see much happening you know we had a fish ladder or something going in but there were funds for that coming from other places from what i understand so there's a lot of confusion going on and we don't want to see this kind of thing happening to a person we feel represents us i don't feel like this board represents the rate there's we feel like we've been shut out that there are things that you do so that we don't get information we can't find these tapes we can't find minutes secret recordings that get erased and then i found out recently apparently it's okay for you to do that maybe i'm wrong but this is the kind of information we get as the public so what's the truth what needs to be done i think is that we need to forget about this injunction and try something else even though there is no other recourse thank you sir i wanted to speak at least a little bit to the whole trust and the statement apparently eric doesn't get to answer the question because he's eric i guess seems like but i would just like people to think logically i and then i'm not even saying pro or con about the board going on the injunction which seems like a pretty drastic thing seems like it's gonna cost a lot of money and at the very least i guess i would hope that you guys work something out so it doesn't happen but that's not to say that i think that you just decided to do this does anybody seriously think that nobody talked to him before and said hey you can't do this multiple times i mean that just defies all logic so that's not to say who's right and wrong in this it just to say have a little bit the people who are so pro bill smallman to have to see a little bit of i listen to these people and they at least they sound to me like they're trying to be reasonable and so i tend to think that they have tried pretty hard to work things out with bill and and i also the last comment that he made about well i don't have anything more left to disclose kind of ominous i mean it's like what's that saying i've disclosed everything whether i should have or not and now i'm done but how would you feel about that going forward i mean just logically how would you feel about that going forward anyway that's all i have to say okay um thank you deborah i'm thinking back to bob fulc's remark on what is the outcome that you won out of this and i had thought about what's a good outcome i think it's going to be released of the vr letter but i don't see any other advantage to any of us here i'll be proceeding except to know it's in that letter and i know you say that's not what this is about but it is certainly the heart of this and it is mentioned in claim so it is part of it i'm a little concerned because there's been contradictory statements and i'm also with ruth if we weren't supposed to know about the letter why did gene wrackler tell us about it what she told us about it is now in contradiction to what the attorney is alluding is what is who is addressed to what is the content of the letter so now i'm really confused and i think if you proceed that is some one can of worms i think you're going to be opening up if you're going to have to come to some conclusion we're members of the public told incorrect information because you didn't want to reveal what was really in the letter and i think it's a valid point i'm also concerned that you might be considering going back to a superior court where you told a judge that you believe that he made an incorrect judgment and not only must but twice he took it back to him and going back into that kind of an environment the district's reputation is on the line i think you're going to have to address serial meetings because there was a facebook post by one of the directors well over a month ahead before this appeared on a closed session item saying that you were going after bill smallman i believe continuing all of this what results you're going to get is a rate payer revolt that's bad news for you but that's good news for us yeah mr smallman strong got very strong support in the november 2016 election and he maintains that support that's what you're going to be going up against i agree with all the people that say there's a great deal of great pay or distress and i think a lot of it has told basis one of the main points being ways to fund and i think continuing this kind of thing in this kind of way is only proving to all of us that you are really out of control and i really urge you to just stop tonight and drop it thank you mr schmider one last comment i wanted to comment that when bill said he had nothing more to disclose what bill was talking about was illegal activity to disclose what bill was talking about was the fact that this board in closed session has kept a document which is legally to be available to the public that this board has kept that document closed to the public and bill reported illegal activity going on in that session and by the way one of the things in this in this induction is disclosing the letter which you just said is public should be public so bill reported the illegal activity of this board keeping public information away from the public um thank you mr halloway and he had nothing more to report on that mr halloway there's there's more ways to violate the brown act than regular confidential information and this this board this district has been violating the brown act for years um uh let me begin uh in 2012 uh marvin bruce was uh pointed to the board of the first environmental committee meeting after she was appointed to the board she was not on the committee but she came to the committee meeting when she participated i raised my hand i said it's a brown act violation to have three board members participate in a committee meeting it's a very new board and larry prather was the chair of the environmental committee told me i could sue the district if i didn't like it and marvin bruce continued to participate in that committee meeting in 2012 so this was a topic of the grand jury report in 2014 um in 2014 i went to a meeting of the valley women's club environmental committee meeting nancy macy is the chair i've been the chair of the valley women's club environmental community for many years um i heard her after the meeting and talked to someone and she expressed with great authority with the status of the negotiations with district manager jim muller were in 2014 all of us had observed uh about six different closed sessions evaluating jim muller's performance uh approaching june of 2014 and uh this was at this time nancy macy uh said that uh his contract was going to be extended by 18 months from my point of view i knew that mr muller's contract ended on june 30th and it was extended here by year the 18 months that was a whole new thing that was the only time i ever heard about an 18 month extension but it came out of nancy and she spoke with great authority i thought maybe she got the lead from larry prather maybe she got the lead for margaret bruce i'm not sure um on my phone here somebody left me a voice mail in 2016 uh they ran into margaret bruce at jenna sues margaret bruce it's two minute you know i'm not going to play for you but it's two minute uh voice mail where margaret bruce gives him the rundown of uh the status of my case the status of the dbert case this was in uh 2016 um so anybody can subpoena this voicemail if you want to hear um after the last regular board meeting on the 18th um i was walking out of the meeting director hammer vice president hammer intercepted me i was trying to talk to a woman named barbara and in the end uh she said uh call me tomorrow because vice president hammer needed to talk to me so she went off and he had his thing to say to me um what director hammer told me about was what happened in uh closed session he said that uh that they that the board discussed the three minute gap uh on the 18th and that brian and chuck were tight they were solid so um you know i if you want to get an injunction against our director's moment why don't you get a direct injunction injunction against vice president hammer did you had your hand okay um anybody else um barbara the most disturbing thing i've heard tonight and bill you said i don't think i did anything wrong and if whatever they said to you didn't get through but not to continue this may be the club that gets the job done or maybe you could self reflect and figure out what was wrong and then apologize and move forward that would just make life so much easier and then no going forward what not to disclose i'm on boards too we all need to learn how to do this stuff or i don't know who's going to take over thank you for your service though um i think they saw mr lee have his hand up hi mark lee again from down woman um i want to reiterate again we are heading down the wrong path this is not a action you want to take it has political consequences and it's it's wrong there have been brown act violations by every one of these people on the board we've been here watching the board for what the last eight years we haven't said anything about this but let it go i mean this is a terrible decision regarding the pierra letter we still have not gotten the decision why it should not be made a public records everyone knew about the terry dere letter and it was published in the press banner everyone knew that what was going on there it was in the superior court documents which of course we are lost this whole thing originated with a bad mistake by the board of trying to defend it here in Europe okay so getting off that subject let's get back to bill he's but he's just been elected to the board he's very experienced he's a good engineer to drag him through a court hearing it's just going to be throwing mud on yourself it's going to be a backlash i can't believe that you're actually having a public hearing on this wasting our time and wasting taxpayers money i want you to think clearly on what's your what your decision is tonight go back home think about this we've already learned our lessons in the recent litigation which has been a waste of time and the appeal process is even a further waste of taxpayers money this has nothing to do with ben lovin versus felton though i appreciate the kabuki theater of the cheerleaders from felton and i understand where they're coming from but it's important to do the right thing this is a waste of time there was information that was disclosed it was public it was already out there don't punish a hard-working director it's ridiculous thank you um anybody else sir i would i would really like to see the board get together with bill and i'd love to see bill decide that he's going to work within the the rules and regulations of the board especially when it comes to closed session it'd be really good to see all of this lead to us having a better structure when it comes to our closed meetings so that any of these slip-ups can't occur because everyone is is all about it let's all behave as best we can i would like to see them not this injunction not take place i don't see that it's going to produce anything valuable that can't be done with a handshake and a few people deciding really deciding that they're going to follow all the closed session rules and regulations anybody else i don't okay um if somebody on the board and so would you identify yourself uh kim bach if somebody on the board feels that other people on the board are doing something that's not legal what is the proper legal channel for them to report that rather than learning a new newspaper is there one um i think i can ask okay jeana yes they're um the brown act provides for certain remedies including reporting it to the da or the grand jury i'm wondering if that is done or if you can tell us that can i interrupt e1 is what she said but e2 e2 is the uh newspaper so i'd like to return to this one if that's possible like what would be the proper way to go about this so that it didn't cause this mess e2 okay discussion at this point on this well this is one of the proper ways to go about it but for so so if somebody wanted to if somebody on the board wanted to disclose something they felt might be illegal the proper thing to do was to put it in the newspaper right okay right what is this done i mean i mean if the problem is that things are not done through the correct channels and that's why we're all here tonight i was just wondering if things did go through the proper channels as well or is that all still up in the my understanding is that us or that's actually the purpose of the grand jury so we're we're allowed to say anything to the grand jury um which which i another reason why i can almost guarantee well yeah i'm not i'm not i'm not i'm not i'm not saying that i'm just saying that i i'm moving moving forward that perhaps i'm sorry i'm really sorry that people feel that it was bad to the you know perception of things to the press but and when i should have acknowledged that as directors we we are allowed by law to let the grand jury know every everything and anything it could because they keep it confidential and that's what moving forward that's that should be um what what i will personally do i don't foresee having anything to do but anyway i just wanted to i don't want to clarify that um that we can that would be that would be the better course of action if there was something that i felt as a director was it happening illegal we'll just go to the you know so you're saying i'm i'm i'm legally i'm i'm legally i'm legal obligated to you know to send my complaints or whatever to and i'm free to do so legally to the grand jury right just to clarification there's no obligation to do so you do have the right under the brown act to bring to the grand jury's attention matters that are legal or potentially illegal and to disclose only as much information as it's absolutely necessary in order to work them to the nature of the illegality so it's not a blind check to disclose any confidential information to the grand jury but you do have the right under the brown act to make a narrow disclosure just to the extent of the illegality okay right pretty good answer if you ask me okay bill hoppin yeah bill hoppin below me i just like to quote from san lorenzo valley water district protest the scripture that he who is without brown act violation cast the first injunction okay i am not keeping real good trust thank you good um okay good quote um anybody else okay um want to comment before we come back to the board for discussion i don't see any so i'm going to close out our second round of uh public input and bring it back to the board for responses or suggestions or what do we want to do that we take the information we have and then we can be at our next closed session and continue dialogue the direction we want to go since it is a legal matter and we can't hear you since it is a legal matter i feel that we should take take this and take the information we've heard tonight from the public take it back and bring it back on the next closed session agenda item uh for further discussion uh legal counsel the direction that we the board want to go okay that would be mine okay i think we are weighing taking this course of action if we take the course of action to file the injunction it's a cost it's a distraction it utilizes our district counsel's time and resources in ways that you know there's always opportunity costs and against the other side of there are risks and exposures if we don't address this future implications to how the board conducts its business as a group that i i want to feel assured the risks about those future exposures are put in balance and and i think it's really important to say this has we must conduct ourselves all of us we must conduct ourselves with accountability and and in a you know clear adherence to legal counsel's advice and so i i agree with eric i'd like to take it back for um some gnarly discussion and i just sort of want to make a general comment um i i'm gathering from a comment this evening that not everybody has had the opportunity to read the agenda item um it is posted on the website and because it's got a lot of detail in it i think it's useful for people to know that they can go there and read the full memorandum and the proposed legal language um because i think it's without having it in front of you perhaps it's a little hard to observe the details but it is posted on the website and i would recommend that everybody have a close look at that because i think it's i think that would be also very useful oh i like to do what somebody did in my dad's courtroom uh 30 years ago oh scotty it's captain kurt uh please beam me up hostile planet immediately i'm in trouble too sorry okay thank you um i would also like to take a moment to set the record straight when i was first appointed i did attend an environmental committee meeting and i was admonished by counsel and i was also admonished by the chair of the committee to not participate being newly appointed i was not within days of my appointment i was not fully appointed with the expectations of the brown man that never occurred again and that's the difference okay i i think it is good for us to have this discussion again and but they've had two suggestions um after we'll shoot a closed session we'll discuss and that could be an act that could be of course that we decide in closed session to do so um so i've heard two such um we don't usually agendize in this but i think it would not be improper to do so is to say um to hear sort of emotion there that we you um um we don't need a motion to for just there's no action out of necessities to take a to properly agendize this right i'm pardon yes absolutely just a comment that the reason why the safe harbor language of the brown act provides for anonymity in terms of how the matter is described on the closed session agenda is to protect the district from having the nature of the matter become known before an action for example is filed here because the nature of the matter has already been made public it could be clearly stated on the closed session agenda what the matter is and therefore the public wishes to comment prior to that discussion they would have an opportunity they would know what was being I think that'd be very good rather than having great okay initialization of okay litigation or whatever the wording was initially when we did not know that we would be coming okay I just like to add one final thing because I didn't you know I'd like to address the barber coin I do take this seriously and you know I feel that that that that is very harmful on certain confidential informations and you know I mean I hope you understand the reasons why um I did this but I I mean I I want to sincerely say that um you know I definitely do take this matter very seriously and I don't want to see it happen again I basically want us to move forward as a water district in the community yes I don't hear any protests from anybody okay we are adjourned at 8 10