 Can you folks hear me? I can't hear you. Oh, thank you. I'm sorry. That's okay. We're waiting a couple extra minutes in the hopes that board members Blotts and Grable can join us. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I fade out, I have my second Moderna shot today. So far so good. Chair Galvan, this is Secretary Athe. Mr. Grable is in our attendee list, but neither of us can promote. So, Chris, if you can hear this, maybe you can sign off and try to log back in. Thank you. There he is. Secretary Athe, I believe board member Grable is calling in. I don't know if that creates a problem for promoting him to a panelist. He is showing back up. Let's see if we can do anything. Thank you. Mr. Harris, board member Grable. Good. Chair Galvan, I was unable to get in touch with board member Blotts, so I don't know that she will be joining us. Okay. Well, it's after 1.30. I think we can go ahead and call the meeting of the Board of Public Utilities for the City of Santa Rosa to order. If we may have a roll call, please. Yes. Chair Galvan. Board member Baden Ford. Here. Board member Grable. Board member Walsh. Here. Board member Wotts. Board member Wright. Here. Good afternoon, everyone. Just a reminder to mute your phones or microphones when you're not speaking. Put your personal computers and cell phones away and try and leave the video on. I know board member Grable is only on the phone today, so we're going to try and keep the video on. So we've had some issues with some board members availability throughout the afternoon, so we're going to reorder the agenda. We're going to take the report item 7.1 first. Brian, this isn't logging the time. What was that? That's okay. So we're going to take the report item first and the two consent items, and then we're going to move to closed session because we really need to get through those before we lose any board members of the board. So we're going to take the report item 7.1 and then we're going to move to work or health or whatever. So I appreciate you hanging in there. So we'll go ahead and move right away to item 7.1. Director Burke, do you want to introduce Deputy Director Martin? Yes. Thank you, Chair Galvin and members of the board. Our report item today is requesting a community-wide action measures and Deputy Director of Water Resources Peter Martin will be making the presentation. Great. Thank you, Director Burke and good afternoon, Chair Galvin, members of the board. Recognizing that we are limited with our board time, so I'm going to be real quick and brief but try to get you all the information I can today on this presentation. Next slide, please. So I just wanted to kind of reopen kind of where we're at as far as the regional water supply outlook in this drought. We're obviously in the second consecutive critically dry year. Sonoma water's regional storage is at historical lows for this time of year. They haven't experienced levels, supply levels in their history of operation for this time of year. At this point, Sonoma water has pretty much done everything they can to actively manage and preserve storage in Lake Mendocino. If you'll remember, they filed a temporary sea change petition in February. I believe it was in January and it was granted by order of the state water board in February. They've been operating under critically dry releases from Lake Mendocino since then. Sonoma water has informed us that they will file a temporary sea change petition with the state, likely next week, asking for reduced releases from Lake Sonoma into the lower Russian river to better manage that water supply. That request will also include a recommendation for reduction in diversions which is commensurate with contractors like Santa Rosa Water needing to reduce their water use as well. Next slide. Lake Mendocino is currently at about 36,000 acre feet of storage and reservoir outflow has been at about 30 CFS. We did have some water that they've been having to make routine adjustments to ensure compliance with their current temporary sea change order and keeping those flow regimes in the 25 CFS range in the upper Russian river. On Monday at the water advisory committee meeting Sonoma water staff emphasized the critical nature of the upper Russian river situation. We were also reminded that the existing order expires at the end of July from Lake Mendocino and that basically if it's not extended through another temporary sea change petition and order along with substantial reductions to flows and also reductions in diversions they could see a critical situation in their storage in Lake Mendocino by October. Just kind of remind everyone Sonoma water doesn't have control over a lot of the upper Russian river users and their diversions and there have been ongoing conversations with those diverters and the state water resource control board trying to come up with voluntary reduction agreements over the next few months. Next slide. So as far as Lake Sonoma goes current storage is at about 149,000 acre feet or about 61% of their target water supply curve for this time of year. This has been kind of around 100 CFS in order to meet their 75 cubic feet per second minimum and stream flows on the lower Russian river pursuant to decision 1610 which governs their minimum and stream flows on their water rights. His Sonoma water files a petition for reduced flows or reduced releases from Lake Sonoma. We've been told that the target would be to seek a reduction in minimum flows or shed to a critical minimum of 35 cubic feet per second. Next slide. So a few things have happened in the last few weeks. One of those being on April 21st the governor made an emergency proclamation declaring a drought emergency in Sonoma and Mendocino counties. As you can see from these photos the governor stood in an area that typically is under about 40 feet of water I've been told and he proclaimed that this new normal gives urgency to building drought resilience in regions across the state and preparing for what may be a prolonged drought at our doorstep right now. The proclamation does request coordination for additional state resources for these two counties and also prioritizes and streamlines state assistance in the form of staffing to the affected area through the state agencies to be involved in a response. Next slide. Right after that the county of Sonoma also made a drought emergency proclamation with the chair chair of the board of supervisors saying there is no water to waste at this time and immediate water savings are needed from all members of our community including urban, commercial, industrial and agricultural. Notably this proclamation does request state and federal disaster relief asking the governor to declare a state emergency and it also covers the entire area of Sonoma County including all cities and special districts. So in the event that a disaster is declared that would allow for that easier coordination through cities like Santa Rosa in receiving assistance through a disaster declaration. Next slide. A lot of activities occurred on Monday as it relates to this drought on May 3 which was Monday this week the water advisory committee adopted a resolution requesting all water users increase water use efficiency by fixing leaks and eliminating water waste in order to help preserve storage in our two reservoirs and also urged water customers to reduce water use by 20% over 2020 levels voluntary. Next slide. At that same meeting they also take a revisit of the water shortage allocation methodology. This was adopted by the Board of Directors of Sonoma Water in 2006. It is delineated in the restructured agreement for water supply for Sonoma Water and its contractors in section 3.5. Obviously this shortage allocation methodology establishes a priority for customers and allocations in a drought emergency and water shortage scenario and contractors are potentially subject to penalties or liquidated damages if they exceed those allocations. This restructured agreement also does notably allow for the water advisory committee to unanimously adopt an alternate method for allocating water during a drought. Just a reminder this allocation methodology historically was based on reasonable requirements for contractors. This takes into consideration things like basic human health needs plus the additional water supply that may be available and then it also rewards and encourages water conservation and recognizes demand hardening that may happen from cities like Santa Rosa making a huge investment in water use efficiency over time. Next slide. So at the meeting a proposal was made and was unanimously approved for an interim temporary allocation of water deliveries given that there wasn't consensus amongst all the agencies on moving forward with the existing water allocation methodology. The proposal was an equal reduction percentage for all the contractors for the next four months or basically the four months of July through October. The performance is going to be determined cumulatively rather than monthly at the end of that four month period. The point is to also try to avoid any liquid damages on any contractors based on that four month allocation by giving them that extra flexibility. I just wanted to note that this was unanimously approved but the tax subcommittee will continue to meet very soon to establish a new allocation methodology for future years. Next slide. So I just kind of wanted to go through sort of the next steps. At this point today we are going to ask that the Board of Public Utilities recommend that the city council adopt a resolution implementing a voluntary water conservation request. And that is going to be the same for all the contractors of Sonoma Water. That's what's been asked of the water advisory committee at this point. Santa Rosa water staff as I mentioned earlier are going to continue to work with Sonoma Water and the contractors to update the water shortage allocation methodology over the next few months. We heard that Sonoma Water will file a petition next week likely. And the State Water Resources Control Board will respond to Sonoma Water's petition and likely include requirements for reduced diversions and also cutbacks for Sonoma Water contractors as a result. Next slide. So as I mentioned this is a continuation the State Water Resource Control Board is going to respond to that petition. After that point staff will prepare for implementation of our water shortage contingency plan. And then we will report to whatever allocation we are given as a result of that. And then Santa Rosa water staff will then return to the Board of Public Utilities and the City Council likely in June or July with a recommendation for a mandatory stage of our water shortage contingency plan. Next slide. So we're continuously planning and always looking ahead. The water shortage contingency plan as you know is in draft form right now but we are prepared to implement any stages of that water shortage contingency plan. And we're looking at a variety of scenarios and the response is necessary depending upon what the shortage allocation is going to be from Sonoma Water. We're continuing to set those targets and communicating goals to our community. Outreach and actions to respond to those various scenarios are being planned. And then obviously continuing to think about adaptive and consistent messaging depending upon these conditions as we continue through the summer. And then of course we continue to coordinate very closely with our regional partners and regional water supply supplier as well. Next slide. So sort of to recap here we are going to be asking for a recommendation of a voluntary 20% community wide reduction in water use. And then in June or July we'll be getting receiving those allocations and get a better understanding of the water supply picture. And then that will allow us to basically implement the correct stage of our water shortage plan to correspond to that allocation. Next slide. I did want to highlight that this month we will be launching a new summer drought campaign. The tagline will be drought is here save water. The picture on the right is sort of a draft of the color schemes but that's sort of what we expect. Obviously this is a something that can be utilized by all the members of the SNOMA we're in saving water partnership. They can easily slide in their logo and make it their own. But what it does is obviously create consistency and messaging amongst all the contractors and the members of the SNOMA we're in saving water partnership. This campaign will have a goal of helping customers achieve the 20% reduction savings in their home or businesses. You'll see quite a bit of different things including you know various radio digital and print advertising as planned that will be in bilingual English and Spanish. And you will begin to see high visibility signage and advertising throughout Santa Rosa with this new campaign as well. Next slide. Just currently we've really started to ramp up our own activities internally. In the next couple months we'll be bringing back the regional drought drive-ups throughout the county so stay tuned for that. We're sort of initially targeting June 12th which is a Saturday for our next event. And that will be occurring in multiple locations throughout the county. And also we began our water waste patrols starting this week. That is where we go out early in the morning with our staff and start to look for potential water waste going on through irrigation outside of folks' homes. Typically when that is seen will issue an oops tag which you see on the left there which allows us to immediately follow up with that customer and you know provide them with a note and education on how they can fix those leaks as well. And also you'll see increased visibility of the campaign and resources like what I showed you before in order for us to ask that community to achieve those savings now and that 20% target. And as always we're continuing to really see an increase in people interested in participating in our WaterSmart programs. We're also offering WaterSmart tips, tools and resources for customers in helping them achieve this 20% community-wide savings that we're proposing. Next slide. And of course we're doing everything we can to help the customers meet that 20% voluntary target. We have a whole variety of rebate offerings that may create incentives to customers to make those immediate or long-term investments in water use efficiency in their homes. Obviously every little bit helps together as community. And these rebate offerings will be vital to our ability to help customers achieve water savings over this summer. We offer quite a few of these programs as you can see that have a variety of cash incentives for the investment by the customers. We also, I do want to point out, have quite a few other programs for our large irrigation customers and commercial accounts that are necessarily shown here on this slide. Next slide. I do want to highlight something very exciting. We have a new drought webpage that was launched last week. The new webpage is intended to be a sort of one-stop shop for information on drought for Santa Rosa Waters customers. Latest information on conditions and the conservation requests and restrictions will be hosted there. We're also in the process of creating quite a bit of new content for communities including various helpful info pieces and FAQs that customers are getting a lot of the same questions over and over again about how customers can save water. Those things will be hosted there. And, of course, we'll be linking to tips and water use efficiency programs to meet the 20% target at the moment. And then, of course, we also have our reports for water waste that can be just clicked on right there. And then we'll be able to get the data from the community to come to something that ramps up during this time when we declare a drought as well. If you can start directing folks to SRCity.org slash drought, that is where they will find all of the information as we move through this summer. Next slide. On May 4th, the water conservation subcommittee saw a very similar presentation and ultimately the City Council requested community wide 20% voluntary reduction in water use. Next slide. So today with that staff, it is recommended by Santa Rosa water staff that the board of public utilities by resolution recommend that the City Council adopt a resolution requesting water customers reduce their water use by 20% through voluntary conservation measures. At this point, we are planning on May 18th to seek this resolution should the BPU recommend it today. And then I've got one more slide on there. Obviously we're always here to help. Folks can reach out to the Santa Rosa water use sufficiency team at SRCity.org slash WaterSmart for the number below. With that, I'm happy to take any questions from the board. Thank you Deputy Director Martin. Any questions or comments from the board? If not, we have a resolution. We would like to make a motion. Chair Galvan, I'm sorry if I could just ask a quick question. Absolutely. Thank you. Sorry, I have my screen blurred so I think maybe you couldn't see my hand. Anyway, thank you very much. You know, staff, we so appreciate you've kept us pre-briefed and briefed and along the way over several weeks and months and I certainly appreciate it. Just from a very practical user standpoint if I think through it as one of our customers you know a 20% voluntary reduction and especially as we kind of look into the future at potentially some more carrots and some more sticks around mandatory reductions how what comes up for me is how much water am I using? What does 20% reduction look like? Where do I go to find that information? How can I check in on it to monitor it? How do I know? That's a great question and we're bad for it and actually we are working on as I mentioned some frequently asked questions and that is one of them. We've actually been getting that question quite a bit from customers asking what do I need to do and so the messaging is being controlled pretty well and at this point it is voluntary and we're asking we're seeking a community-wide target those that are already very water efficient we're asking them to do everything they can right now and then those that think they can do more and just trying to pair them with the right resources to make those changes long-term and prepare for this drought so as we move further into those mandatory restrictions obviously there's going to be more prohibitions and requirements and those will all be hosted on that drought webpage including the frequently asked questions so we're looking to really direct as much traffic to that area and then of course to our water use efficiency and water smart programs pages as well. Thank you very much. And Chair Galvin if I might add and Board Member Baden for a great question right now folks can go to their bill and it tells them what their gallons per capita per day is so not only does it give them their monthly amount that they've used in their bill but they can also see how much they're using per person so that gives them a sense and then we are as folks I think the Board is aware we had finished our rollout of our meter upgrade project and so we have great AMI data and we are working very hard to get the customer portal up and running we hope to have that in the coming months so that folks can actually go in and get real-time daily data but in the meantime our staff has access to that information and so if they need help they can call our water use efficiency hotline and they can look at their data, look at their usage and let them know if they see areas where they can help them improve. Fantastic, that's what I was looking for. Thank you. Board Member Wright one also I'm off. I think for us regular folks with a home and irrigation and all that stuff the easiest way that I know to say 20% is just to reduce the time of irrigation by just a few minutes on your different stations and it's surprising just five minutes of reduced irrigation that goes on every night or every other night can save you 10, 15, 20% very easily. That's it. Thank you. Any other Board Member questions or comments? I'll entertain a motion for our resolution. I'll move that we recommend a 20% voluntary cutback for the City Council's approval when they meet next or when it's scheduled to go next. Second. We have a motion by Board Member Wright and by Board Member Baden-Fort I'll open it up now to public comments. We are taking comments on item 7.1 if you wish to make a comment via Zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Aether do we have anyone? We have no public comments. May we have a roll call please? Yes. Chair Galvan. Board Member Baden-Fort. Board Member Grable. Board Member Walsh. Board Member Walsh. Board Member Wright. Hi. Great. Passes unanimously. Thank you and Deputy Director Martin thank you for the presentation. I think I neglected to ask for any statements of abstention so I'll ask for them now. If there are any please let me know. That's item 2 of the agenda. Hearing none we will move to the consent calendar. We have two items on the consent calendar. Anybody like to make a motion? I'll move that we've approved the consent calendar. I will second that motion. Motion by Board Member Wright seconded by Board Member Walsh. So at this time we will take public comments on items 6.1 and 6.2 if you wish to make a comment via Zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star 9. Secretary Aether. No public comments. I'll vote please. Chair Galvan. Hi. Board Member Baden-Port. Hi. Board Member Grable. Hi. Board Member Walsh. Hi. Board Member Wright. Hi. Great. Thank you. Motion is approved by everyone. Thank you. We will now be going into closed session for a discussion of the existing litigation involving the city's petition for review of actions related to the city's renewed NPDES permit and the city's 2018 petition for review of the Board's water quality trading framework. We'll now be going into closed session. Thank you. Before we go into closed session we'll take any public comments on item 14.1 if you wish to make a comment via Zoom please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone please dial star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Aether. No public comments. All right so we will now ask you to please disconnect from the Zoom and connect via the closed session Zoom information that you're provided and we'll see you all shortly. Mr. Chair. Yes. We'll wait just a minute or two to see if Board Member Walsh is able to rejoin. We are back from our closed session. If Secretary Aether if you would do a roll call please. Yes, Chair Galvin. Here. Board Member Baddon Ford. Here. Board Member Grable. Here. Board Member Walsh. Here. Board Member Wright. Here. Chair Galvin. Here. Board Member Walsh. There is no action to report from closed session. Thank you. We'll now move back to the agenda. We'll go to item 3.1 which is our study session and ask Director Burke to please announce the presenter. Thank you Chair Galvin and members of the Board. Our study session today is on our 2021 presentation, Kimberly Zimino and Bob Reed with the Reed group will be making the presentation. Deputy Directors and you know you're muted. I hit that already. Sorry about that. Good afternoon Chair Galvin and members of the Board. I'm going to quickly hand this over to our consultant, Mr. Bob Reed and have him go through the presentation and then I have a few slides at the end of it. Thank you Chair Galvin and members of the committee, can you hear me okay? Okay, great. Thank you. I would like to present to you our recommendations for the water and wastewater demand fees and describe the basis and the calculation of those demand fees and what they mean for the city moving forward once they're adopted. We could go to the next slide please. So I'll briefly describe the framework and the methodology of the fees. We did spend some time in this update to look at water use factors associated with calculating the demand fees for each new development. So I'll summarize that information present the fee schedules and a comparison of those with some of the neighboring communities and then talk about next steps in the adoption process as we move forward with this. So next slide please. As you know, the demand fees often called capacity charges are one time fees generally paid by new development or those that want to have new connections to the water and wastewater systems. Sometimes they're applied if somebody is increasing the size of their business or something incremental fee is charged but generally it's for new development. Fees were last update the calculation of the fees were last updated in 2014. They are adjusted annually for inflation and we generally recommend that the calculation be updated every three to five years. So it's this is timely that this is this work is being done at this point. The legal standard for demand fees is pretty general. It's in the government code that demand fees or capacity charges cannot exceed the estimated reasonable cost of providing the service for what's their charge. So the fees need to reflect the cost of capacity in the utility systems and not exceed that amount. Go to the next slide. The fees are calculated based on what's commonly known in the industry as a system buy-in methodology. This is a fairly common methodology used in the industry. It looks at the present value of existing infrastructure for the water wastewater systems and divide that by the units of development or the demand that's placed on the systems by existing development. Some of the attributes of this methodology is that is best applied in areas that are largely built out or where the infrastructure is largely in place with capacity being available to serve those new connections or in some cases adding that additional capacity would be similar in cost to what the historical cost has been. It is a common and well accepted methodology within the industry and the development community is generally familiar with this approach and understands it. It's based on looking at the value or the actual historical cost of existing facilities rather than relying on plans or future cost estimates of what cost may be in the future but based on what actual experience has been with some adjustments to that. For that reason it doesn't rely on capacity analysis or the assessment of future needs. It's a little easier to calculate and then the buying fee also represents reimbursement for the past investment that's been made in the infrastructure and providing that system capacity. So once the fee revenue comes in it can be used for any capital improvement project related to those systems. Next slide please. So this table very quickly summarizes the calculation of the fees for the water and wastewater systems. The wastewater system is a combination of both the local collection system within the city of Santa Rosa as well as the treatment and reuse system, the regional treatment reuse system which serves more than just the city as you know including Rohnert Park and Katadi and others. The calculation of the fees starts as I mentioned with looking at the fixed asset valuation. We look at the fixed asset records within the city's accounting system for its assets. These are summarized in some broad categories here at the top of this slide. We take the historical cost and we also look at the book value and the book value is what that historical cost is less depreciation that has occurred since the facilities were part or constructed. We then escalate those to a replacement cost value. So if we take the original cost and escalate it based on construction cost inflation index to a present value that would represent what it would cost to build that facility new in a general sense and when we take that book value and escalate it reflects what that facility would cost today if we were to build it and then it was depreciated. So if it was depreciated halfway through its useful life that part would be reduced by that. We use that replacement cost less depreciation as the basis for the valuation. This recognizes that the facilities that people are buying into are no longer new that they're part of the cost. We also consider financing costs so to the extent that improvements were financed with debt we look at past debt issuance costs as well as interest costs that have been paid in the past we bring both of those up to a present value point and add those in. The cost of financing is part of acquiring the facility so those are added in. We subtract out the outstanding principle on debt. There isn't a whole lot of debt on the water system or the local wastewater system but quite a bit with the regional reuse system and that's reflected here. And then also to the extent that monies that you have in reserves that are earmarked and dedicated for capital improvements that is added in. That dollar in the bank is worth the pipe in the ground. But it's those monies that are dedicated and really earmarked for capital projects so it's your capital reserves, the demand fee revenue that's already in the bank that sort of thing. Debt proceeds that haven't been spent. So those are all added in so that helps us adding making those adjustments we get on a valuation basis. We then divide that by the current system demands and then we express these in 1000 gallons per day and then also 1000 gallons per month and the fees are really charged on 1000 gallons per month. So you can see in the boxes at the bottom of this table the dollar amounts of both the water and wastewater demand fees are higher fees than they are currently. But also we looked at the water use factors going into that and we are seeing reductions in water use both peak water demands are used for the water demand fees as well as winter water use which is used for looking at wastewater fees. We go to the next slide. Focusing on the water demand fees for a moment here, this table summarizes the water use factors. What we did as part of this study was we looked at the last four calendar years of data that were available. So it was 2016 through 2019. We looked at average water use for each different type of residential development. This was reflecting the fact that there's been some because of droughts in the last few years or going back to about 2014, 2015, the last drought seen some reduction in water use across your customer base and so we wanted the demand fees to reflect that hardening of the system if you will. The people have made changes to reduce the amount of water use that's generally needed. So with the water demand fees we are looking at the peak month water use. So summertime usage generally July or August time we looked at the different types of residential development and then over that four year period and took an average over that four year period. So quite a bit of data analysis went into this. But we were also able through that process to refine some of the residential categories. So if you look at these different residential categories they're a little bit different than what the current fee is and that's because we've got more and better information this time around to do that. So we're going to look at some of the changes that have been reflected here in some of the changes. For non residential development so commercial businesses industrial irrigation connections the amount of the fees determined on the estimated water use peak month water use for each of those proposed developments on an individual basis and so then the fee per thousand gallons per month is then applied to whatever that water use factors and go to the next slide calculate the schedule. This is applying that base fee amount from that fee calculation table to those water use factors here and you can see here both the current water demand fee and the different types of residential development as well as the proposed demand fee with these updates to it. So some of these fees are going down and that's because we're seeing while the fee amount is going up the water use factors are coming down and so those two things offset each other sometimes it's a higher fee sometimes it's a slightly lower fee for each of these different types of developments but this is reflecting what we're seeing in the water use characteristics at this point and then as I mentioned for the non residential development it's based on an estimated peak month water use for each individual development with the fee per thousand gallons per month being applied to that. We go to the next slide same situation looking at wastewater use factors here we're looking at winter water use or the sewer cap for residential development and again looking at that four-year history averaging over that period of time and then applying to the different types of residential categories and again for the non residential it is on a case by case project by project basis of how that's applied to the fees but here we're seeing reductions in again water use winter water use across the spectrum of residential development and if we go to the next slide we see that this is resulting in the proposed wastewater demand fees being lower than the current demand fees across the spectrum of residential development types within the city while the fee amount per thousand gallons per month is going up somewhat for the non residential development water use factors for that development is also being updated by the city at this point and so many of those proposed developments may also see a fee amount reduction because of lower water use offsetting the increase in the fee amount if we go to the next slide this summarizes the combined water and wastewater demand fees for the different types of residential development and the change in the fee amount from over the current demand fees so you can see for all of the residential types of development there are lower demand fees with this proposal moving forward and again for the non-residential it would depend on the specific usage characteristics of each proposed development it is a slightly higher fee in a thousand gallon per month basis but may be reduced when you look at the change in demand factors applied to those developments we then looked at these demand fees relative to some of your neighbor and community so on the next slide this shows both water and wastewater demand fees for a typical single family residential household so we assume the lot size between 6,000 square feet up to an acre is one of your residential categories for single family with a three quarter inch meter we did some comparison with other cities up and down the valley there in Sonoma County you are currently at the lower end or in the middle of the range but with the proposal you would be at the lower end of the range for the combined water and wastewater fee I will add that roner park is not listed here they've got a very complex fee schedule and it wasn't straightforward or simple to calculate what their fees would be there is actually very some understanding on where you are in the city and other complicating factors so we can include that in this graphic but with the proposed fees you will be at the lower end of the spectrum for a typical single family residential lot and if we move to the next slide please I'm going to turn it back here to deputy director Zunino to talk about some of the outreach efforts and next steps in this process will be available to address questions so before we get to questions and discussion we just wanted to give you an update on the outreach that we have done with the development and construction communities to let you know that we have been reaching out letting them know that this is happening the process that it will be going through moving forward we have developed an FAQ sheet for the demand fees for those we have also updated our current demand fee website so that the draft report and other information is available there in addition we took the FAQs and provided them to our internal department so that they have them in case questions come up from anybody who calls the city as well as taking those FAQs and creating a letter that was sent to all contractors and developers and letting them know that this was coming and that there would be a public process for them to participate in and then in addition I actually personally emailed the local associations for contractors engineers and developers and let them know that this was going out to their members and that if they would like us to attend any of their association meetings we would be willing to do that and we would be happy to be able to share our presentations and any information that might help them to understand the process and the currently proposed demand fees and the changes next slide please and here you just see the process or the timeline of the demand fees and what has been going on with them we have been to the subcommittee also on January 19th of 2021 and then on April 19th we went back and had them review the entire draft report and they made a recommendation to the BPU and today we are here with you with the study session and then we will be coming back to you on May 20th to request a recommendation to City Council currently we are having these listed as still confirming that City Council has a lot going on over the next month or especially in the month of June and so we are planning on going to City Council on June 8th with the study session hopefully we will get to keep that date and then back to City Council on the 29th for consideration of adopting the fees next slide so with that both Mr. Reed and myself are here to answer any questions that you may have okay a couple of things for me are we at all concerned that since the word is out there that these fees are going down fairly significantly that it's going to delay projects so we will likely bring forward as we did last time the recommendation that we would refund to the first time that it was developed and shown in a public meeting so we are looking at offering a difference whatever that difference in fee is for those developments back to the first meeting at the subcommittee City Council will have to approve that but that was the same process that we went through last time and that way anybody who had submitted and has had plans reviewed and fees calculated would have the opportunity to request a refund and we would set those fees back to as far back as December and we would set them at the new rate great because that was part of my second question because I remember one developer in particular a few years ago who wanted a refund and got into a big beef with the city so I'm glad to hear we've hopefully anticipated that and that the developers and contractors will know what the cutoff date is for potential going back for a refund so that's good thank you we also let them know as they come through with their permits especially if it's right around the time of the change we'll let them know if they have the ability to wait a couple of weeks wait a couple of weeks and pay them when we can actually use the adopted fees and so we'll continue to work with them as best we can to try to make it as easy on them and us as we possibly can great other board member questions or comments board member right yes regarding the outreach to developers and engineers and planners and all that have any taking you up on the offer have you made presentations to these associations or the large you've been quiet I have had one developer who has reached out to me after looking at the report and the fees it's mostly residential but they are developing and he's just hoping that it will go forward to get past that's it thank you other board member questions or comments I just want to thank staff and Mr. Reed for putting this together very well done I appreciate their methods in the presentation thank you any other board member questions or comments if not we'll open it up for public comments on item 3.1 you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star 9 to raise your hand secretary aether do we have anyone we have no public comments all right thank you thank you deputy director Zanino and Mr. Reed excellent presentation this is always a touchy subject and it's a complicated one in terms of how these fees are calculated so you made it seem pretty understandable so that was good thank you all right we have next item 4 approval of the April 15th minutes so those will be approved and they will be entered we'll now move to item 5.1 staff briefing on the water administration division overview thank you chair galvin and members of the board and this is the continuation of our staff briefings on the various divisions within the water department and today as you mentioned is the water administration division overview and deputy director Kimberley Zanino will be making the presentation thank you all right good afternoon again chair galvin and members of the board as director Burke said you have been seen over the last several months overviews of each of our divisions and today I'll be providing you with an overview of the administration division I know that in previous presentations there was another division that called their team small and mighty so in comparison I think I'm going to have to call mine tiny and mighty because we are a very small group we have just five members but we have a lot of big tasks and we support the entire department since we are so small I'm going to name them all on our team we have Nick Harvey Johnson, Nicole Dorotinsky Roberta Atha and myself I'll admit that I had a little bit of a tough time figuring out how to make our presentation interesting we don't have really any pretty pictures to provide spreadsheets and regulatory documents don't come across quite as well as those pretty operations in the fields pictures do but we all find our work very interesting and I really cannot say enough about our team that that works with me they are all very dedicated hardworking people that really have the best interests of center as a water and our customers as a priority in everything that they do next slide please so one of our main roles is to plan and develop the budget each year this is a significant undertaking for a budget that has approximately 550 various line items and averages about 150 million plus dollars a year we begin at least six months prior to the approval for the fiscal year budget by collecting the financial data from previous years so that we can provide all of our managers tools to budget responsibly we provide direction based on Santa Rosa waters goals city council goals as well as the overall citywide direction that is being given by the city's executive team all entries by the budgeting managers are reviewed line item by line item to assure they are input correctly and if there are any concerns or changes that need to be made to the budget requests we take all of this work and coordinate with the finance department to prepare the annual review by city council and as the budget subcommittee members are very aware the review process is long and detailed we provide overviews to our to the subcommittee we provide also many presentations to subregional technical advisory committee the finance budget team the cfo the city manager you as the full board and the city council and in addition over the last several years you'll be very aware that we also are doing more individualized budget reviews with each of the bpu members and their appointing city council members to be sure we are addressing any concerns early next slide please creating the budget is just one piece of financial health for Santa Rosa water it is very important that we monitor both expenditures and revenue to be sure that any adjustments that need to be made are done as soon as possible we generate reports that reflect this and are shared with all of you on a very regular basis and it will not surprise you to know just by the number of times you've seen me this year that we are also responsible for fee setting rate setting we are also responsible for securing funding through bonds and grants and then the one item that I did not put on this list is recovery funding as well and we do a significant amount of work to recover or secure any funding available to us based on emergencies that happen in our area which have been far too frequent unfortunately next slide please so two of our team members then the majority of their time including all of the CIP projects for the city not just waters this year's combined budgets being managed by our team is about $93 million the CIP projects are funded by multiple sources including not only water and wastewater funds but general fund gas tax bonds and grants capital facilities fees park development fees and other enterprise funds and the majority of this funding sources are very restrictive as to how and what they can be used on so it's a very complicated funding process our team works with the project managers as projects are developed and then yearly on the active projects until they are complete and then they do the final cleanup for the funding at the end of the projects so as projects are identified by departments those staff need to consider criteria such as regulations city council goals the communities needs whether or not they conform to master plans safety and risk factors so our team works with these engineers all of the CIP engineers to not just fund the projects but to understand these factors to help develop the best funding strategy for the entire program they also develop the documents and reports necessary for the annual review and they coordinate many of the presentations that are part of that annual budget process next slide please in addition to financial support we also have some other functions one of them being regulatory monitoring and compliance support San Rosa waters operations are highly regulated and it goes everywhere from rate setting water and sewer fees under Proposition 218 to if how and when we discharge pursuant to the Clean Water Act with the evolution of laws and regulations staying in front of the emerging issues is extremely important to create effective change when new legislation and regulations are proposed we ensure that San Rosa water has a seat at the table to engage with policymakers and build awareness around unique the unique aspects of our community and infrastructure and how essential functions that we provide may be affected and even before regulations become requirements we work with the individual teams to assist with preparing for and developing programs to comply with the new rules and laws we also collaborate with local regional and state organizations to build coalitions on important issues such as protecting our water resources and environment and securing funding for rate assistance programs and infrastructure projects next slide please so there's a specific person associated with this slide that you are all going to be very familiar with she serves as your secretary and she is on my team I think you are well aware but I will still point out that the amount of work to have a smoothly and well-run public meeting is a huge task in addition to the full board meetings there are also subcommittee meetings and liaison committee meetings that also require adherence to all of the rules for public meetings there's also a human resources there is some human resource assistance provided for some of the employee programs as well as some budgetary responsibilities and then finally something that is very important is the effort to make this a better place to work and even with all that has gone on over the last several years and the stress of the last year especially there is a need to support morale in the department and secretary Atha continues to create an internal newsletter that provides great department information for our staff but also highlights employees achievements personal accomplishments and successes and in addition there are employee activities that our team along with staff from other divisions are involved in usually on a yearly basis this year some things have gotten sidetracked so we've done the best we can in the virtual world but I want to point out that well to make them successful it takes a lot of organization which secretary Atha can be given all the credit for these events are 100% employees sponsored so that means raffles bake sales and donations and she keeps this all on track to support our employees next slide please I'm happy to answer any questions now about our division but before I do I would like to just say one more time how grateful I am to have such a professional and competent team which always which always is shown in the accuracy and quality of the work that is provided by them they really do care about the employees in this department and take great pride in the work that San Rosa water is able to accomplish and are dedicated to doing their part to provide these essential services to our community. Thank you deputy director Zanino very good presentation we always knew you had a great team on your board for you that's excellent any board member questions comments comment Mr. Chairman Walsh I'd like to thank deputy director Zanino and director Burke for job well done their staff I appreciate the presentation and I think the water utility sewer utility accounting and finance functions are the most complicated if any department you'll find in local government has a direct impact on what people pay so they're paying attention and I appreciate them doing a professional job thank you board member Ray just one question on so this is on regarding this CIP development so did I hear you correctly that water is preparing the CIP for public works and parks and other divisions as well so we handle my on my team I have a team member that handles the other CIP budgets and helps actually assistant city manager not quite a bit with a lot of that work he does charge out for that though so that is not charged to the water department charge codes that he uses in order to complete that work but he sits on our team so are there projects being developed through the asset management process or do the different departments help their own projects and then more or less hand you them to put in the budget they are developing their own projects I'm sure that as we move towards a newer asset management system there will be more asset management work involved in the development of those obviously I think it's pretty understood that their funding is a little more restrictive and a little bit harder to come by because for their funding and so it's quite an act to continue to move that money around and make sure that the projects that need to be done get done and so they do not use necessarily like the Hansen system like we do in Santa Rosa water although some of those departments do use that system but they do develop their own projects and then submit them and then work with members in order to develop the budget for them thank you good presentation and thank you all administration folks for all the good work you do the other board member questions or comments yeah this is board member I just want to echo my colleague comments and say that was a great presentation and more than that your department's work specifically is just over and above comparatively regionally, nationally and the little work I've done with other government agencies and other jurisdictions it is obvious that just how stellar our team is and so thank you really grateful thank you board member Grable we'll now open it up for public comments on item 5.1 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand you're dialing in via telephone please dial star 9 secretary atha we have no public comments and that will conclude item 5.1 we'll move to item 5.2 director Burke thank you chair galvin members of the board item 5.2 is our recycle water supply update and deputy director Emma Walton deputy director of water reuse operations Emma Walton will be making the presentation chair galvin and members of the board I hope I'm coming in at the right time my video cut off so I assume it's a month we'll wait for the presentation to load all right here we go here today to provide a very brief recycle water supply update next slide please we continue to receive very little water here at the treatment plant and produce record low amount of recycle water available for our users next slide please we are currently the lowest we have ever been in storage at this time of year we you can see the our storage is starting to top off and we'll be heading in the downward direction we did begin irrigation season two weeks ago so we're starting to see the demand start to impact our storage next slide please as you are aware we did put all of our agricultural users on allotments we made 600 million gallons available for agricultural use this is compared to on average about 1.7 billion gallons available for ag use so it's about 40% of the historical usage we based the percentages on the years 2017 2018 and 19 and did not include 2020 due to the odd water year we had last year as well we as I mentioned began our irrigation season on April 19th two weeks ago we are beginning to do our monthly meter reads and updates to our users and just again as a reminder we have allowed our users to trade allotments and some of our users have chosen to do that we worked really hard to make sure that the limited water supply had as minimal impact on our customers as possible and part of that we felt like we with the amount of water we were able to gain in storage by under delivering to the geysers we were able to not put restrictions on irrigation schedules and we are only limiting irrigation on Sundays except for our vegetable growers who will be allowed to irrigate on Sundays if we find ourselves in a position where we are losing water in storage more quickly than we anticipated we may have to further implement irrigation schedules but as of right now we don't anticipate needing to do so. Next slide please. We are continuing to communicate and cooperate with both our partners regional partners and our customers. We have ongoing and consistent meetings with our customers. We are meeting monthly with the farm bureau as well as continuing to work with Windsor and the town of the Sonoma County water agency excuse me with respect to recycle water we'll be reaching out to other regional partners as well to explore all of our options. Next slide please. In my last report we would be doing a 30-day shutdown beginning in May or the beginning of May. Unfortunately the shutdown is being pushed out to May 26th due to some complications getting some of the parts on site. We will be anticipating doing a 30-day shutdown on May 26th and our staff is working really hard right now to prepare for that and make sure everyone is ready for that major effort. Next slide please. With that I would be happy to answer any questions. Thank you Deputy Director Walton. Board Member questions or comments? Board Member Bownford. Thank you. Just a quick one. Does the the delay in the project does it end up operationally mattering much for our agricultural customers or any customers actually? Does the change in the timeline of that shutdown? It shouldn't impact any of our customers. We're hoping because we were able to gain so much in storage more so than we would have had in the past. We were hoping to benefit from a little bit of additional water early on in May but we were able to make really great progress that it shouldn't impact us at all and we'll have plenty of water in storage to get us through May 26th and then all the water that will be not sent to the geysers or some of the water not sent to the geysers during that time will then become available and increase our storage a little. It shouldn't have any impacts if it does, if something unforeseen happens we'll make sure to notify the board as well as our customers immediately. Thank you. I got a gut punch when Deputy Director said we're at the lowest supply level of supply is that ever in the history of the last what, 18, 19 years that this we are at the lowest level of storage is that what you said? That is what I said. You are stewarding us through officially an unprecedented couple of years. Thank you so much. I will now move to public comments. All right. We will open it up for public comments on item 5.2 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand. If you dial in via telephone please dial star 9. Secretary Aitha. We have no public comments. Thank you. We will now move to public comments. Please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone please dial star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Aitha, do we have anyone? No public comments. Thank you. We have no referrals. We have no written communications. Subcommittee reports. I believe we have a couple of them. I can start. Chair Watt. This is Board Member Grable. The chair of the water conservation committee is Mary Watz. She's not in attendance so I was asked to present. We met on May 4th and staff provided us pretty much the same presentation that we received earlier on the recommended voluntary 20% conservation from our clients and we were also given a summary of the WAC, the water advisory committee meeting from May 3rd and we also unanimously recommended the 20% community-wide voluntary conservation request below 2020 usage. So that's about it. Thank you for that report on water conservation and I believe Board Member Wright. Yes, also because Board Member Watz is not present today, I'll give a brief report of our meeting. So the budget subcommittee met on April 19th where the regroup and staff presented information on the 2021 water and wastewater demand fee study including an overview of the demand fee framework and methodology, the water and wastewater use factors and the proposed demand fees and schedule. Staff provided an update on outreach which includes letters and emails to developers, contractors and associations that do business with the city, the development of web page providing information on fees and process as well as the development of FAQs which have also been provided to the development community. The subcommittee had reviewed this at two previous meetings and at the April 19th meeting unanimously recommended this for the BPUs or recommended the report and the fees. Anyway, possibly did. Thank you. Any other subcommittee reports? I think that covers it. Any questions for either of the subcommittee personnel? If not, we'll take public comments now on item number 11. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone. Please dial star 9. Secretary Aitha. No public comments. Thank you. Item 12 is board member report. Yeah, this is board member Gravel again. I was asked to report out. I had the honor of being appointed by Chair Galvan to sit on the panel for review of the Kelly Farm Mitigation Development Project. So we did a series of consultant selection interviews with two really outstanding applicants and just a little background on this for the board and the public. This is an exploring a mitigation bank for California Tiger Salamander for viable and thriving habitat for the California Tiger Salamander that would mitigate any impacts to the salamander habitat and species in other areas that we do with our projects, specifically the flood wall project at Laguna Treatment Plant and some other high impact developments that we do that are within the species range. So this project specifically is similar to a habitat conservation plan or HCP. This is a mitigation bank development of prime wetland specifically designed for California Tiger Salamander at the Kelly Farm Kelly Farm property. I just report I can't get into the specifics but I can report that there were no bad applicants. We really had some outstanding proposals and the recommendation will be forthcoming to the contract review subcommittee and the full PPU. Thank you. Any questions for Board Member Gravel? We'll now open up for public comments on item number 12. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom please raise your hand. If you're dealing in dialing in via telephone please dial star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Atha. We have no public comments on this item. Thank you. We'll move to the Director's Report. Director Burke. Thank you Chair Galvin and members of the Board. I only have one quick report for you today. As the Board recall, this winter was the first winter in 25 years that we did not compost our wet weather biosolids at our biosolids composting facility. Instead from November 1st through April 30th the city successfully delivered over 10,000 wet tons of biosolids to LISTEC for enhanced treatment to a Class A bio-fertilizer. A unique component of this multi-year agreement that the city has with LISTEC is the sharing of revenues from the sale of the product. So our agreement with LISTEC allows for a percentage of revenues to be shared on an annual basis and this year LISTEC presented us a check in the amount of $500 in recognition of our successful partnership. So as LISTEC continues to grow their business and attract more customers we are looking forward to continuing to benefit from this annual webinar sharing agreement and that is my report and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Any questions for the director? Seeing none, we'll now open up for public comments on item number 13. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom please raise your hand. If you dial in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Aitha, do we have anyone? We have no public comments. All right. I think we have made it through the agenda. I want to thank the board members who had issues that was maybe going to cause us to not have a quorum. So I appreciate you all hanging in and we wish that hopefully board member Watts is feeling better and we will be adjourned and see you in a couple of weeks. Thank you all.