 Okay, I have 5.30 on my clock. So with that, I would like to convene this meeting of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District Board of Directors for November 4th. Holly, would you like to call the roll please? President Mayhood. Here. Vice President Henry. Here. Director Ackman. Here. By the Director Falls. Chair. Jim. Director Smalling. Here. Okay. Are there any additions or deletions to the closed session agenda? Staff has none. Chair. Okay. Let's see. Do we have any members of the public here? We do. We do have people. And I just want to, so this is where we have the roll communications from the public on items that are on the closed session agenda. You might have mistakenly signed on thinking that this was the open session. So for example, if you're here about Big Basin, that session starts at 6.30. But if you do have a comment that you would like to make about the items that are on the closed session, please raise your hand, hitting the raise your hand button at the bottom. Okay. Hearing none, seeing none. Then we will adjourn to closed session. And see you guys back in a few minutes. For anybody else that is still on this meeting, they will be back at 6.30. And in the meantime, I'll just be sitting here or in the general area. Thank you. Let's see. I think we have everybody here. Yeah. OK. I have 6.30. So I'd like to convene this open session of the November 4 meeting of the board of directors of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District. There are no actions to report out of closed session. And can you now take the roll, Holly, for this open part of the session? President Mayhood. Here. Vice President Henry. Here. Director Ackerman. Here. Director Falls. Here. Director Smalley. Here. OK. Are there any additions or deletions to the agenda? Staff has none. OK. And I don't have any. So we'll go on to oral communications. This is the portion of the agenda that's reserved for oral communications from the public on any subject that lies within the jurisdiction of the district that is not on tonight's agenda. Is there anybody that would like to make a comment? I see Larry Ford. You have your hand up. Please go ahead. We'll allow you to speak and go ahead. OK. You should be fine now. Thank you. This is Larry Ford. It's the Thanksgiving season. So I just want to say thank you to all the board members and staff and committee members for enduring a really complicated and challenging 2021. And also I want to congratulate you all for surviving another fire season. And so it looks like we were very well prepared for this fire season. But it didn't turn out to be as dangerous and catastrophic as we all thought it might be. So thank you. Happy holidays. Well, thank you for those good wishes, Larry. And yes, we're all very, very relieved that the end of the fire season is here. Would anybody else like to address the board? OK. If not, there is no president's report. We will now go to old business. And the first item is the water master plan. Rick? Yes, and I'll ask our district engineer. I'm very happy to ask our district engineer to present this item to the board. And we do have a guest speaker tonight. Thanks, Rick. Good evening, everyone. As Rick mentioned, we do indeed have a presentation from Tony Ackle of Ackle Engineering, who is the consultant who has developed our master plan. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Tony for his presentation. And then we will take questions after. Tony, take it away. And awesome. Thank you, Josh. Would you like me to present from this side the PowerPoint? Please do. Yes. CTV should make Tony a presenter. There we go. Can you see that? Yes, we see it, Tony. You're seeing a presentation or are you seeing a movie? Because I'm putting a movie on the other screen. All right, very good. I want to thank you all for giving us this opportunity, President Mahoud, the directors. It has been a pleasure for our firm to an honor to have been selected and working on this very important project for the district. This presentation is summarizing the effort over the past couple of years. We actually started before the pandemic, and the pandemic put us on a pause for a little bit. And then we continued. So what is the water master plan? Let's sit here. Let me make sure I can advance the slide. Maybe if I do it here. Networking or not? There. OK. All right, there's a pause. So what is the objective of a water master plan? So what is it? How do we use it? And then the second item on the agenda is how it was developed. What does it include? And how was it developed? But first of all, what is it and how to use it? It's a document that identifies the water system improvements to service existing users, to service growth, of course. And then these improvements, we have to quantify them. What do we need? Quantify that and then prioritize them. We don't have all the money in the world to fix everything. So can we prioritize them so we can start spending our money's best bang for the buck, spend our money where we need to spend them first? And it includes costs. So we do provide estimated costs. How do we use it? The master plan, the most important element of a master plan, it's that it is a defensible guiding document for capital improvement projects, for planning purposes, and for budgeting purposes. I'm always asked, what is the most important thing about a master plan? It has to be defensible because we identify improvements that need to be fixed when it has a lot of costs in it. And so it has to be defensible. How does it include? And how did we develop it? The slide lists about 10 items. First one is characterizing land use. Of course, we base it on land use. We base on existing customers, we base it on land use. And of course, it has demands. We have to quantify how much are our current customers using water? Where are they using water? When are they using water? And how is that water traveling in pipeline? And to know how it's traveling in pipelines? Number three is inventory. Where are our pipelines? What size are they? What conditions, if you know, are they? Number four was the hydraulic model. This project was based on evaluating the system using electronic tools. A model is a computer program that allows us to see how water travels inside pipelines. It allows us to see the pressures that we expect in certain areas at certain times. And that was a very large investment by your staff. And that tool is available for use in the future. That's who does for making this big investment. Then number five, it's called calibrate. Calibrate means making sure that the model is similar to reality. Just because it's on a computer doesn't make it right. We want to make sure that it is predicting what we see in the field. That's the step that is also important. And then when we have that tool in our fingertips, then the fun begins. Now let's take our system to a spin. Let's see where are the bottlenecks? How can we make it better? That's what it's about. And then when we know how to make it better than number seven is recommend the improvement. What are the improvements? List them out. Show it to us on a map. And number nine is develop a so-called capital improvement program, which means costs. How much would they cost? And number 10, we're here for number 10. So number one, characterizing land use. So this is a map on the right-hand side that shows the land use in this district. There are about 5,677 acres. Existing means these are acres that are currently occupied. Future acres that are occupied, about 100 acres. Not many areas available for future growth. And the total is 5,700. Number two, how much water? These are some statistics. And I won't go over too much of those. But in 2013, our water, we used on an annual basis, 2.1 million gallons. In 2015, we used 1.57. In 2019, we used 1.74. So that's our range. This is how much we use as a district in terms of annual use of water between 1.5 and 2 million gallons per day. Maximum month, we use more. During the summer month, July as an example, or August, we use a little bit more. So 2.9 as an example is a value that was used in 2013. Inventory. The map on the right-hand side shows our service area. And it's color-coded. It's color-coded by so-called pressure zones. We have 35 pressure zones that we service. Apologies, the phone is ringing in the background and it's not closed. So there are about 190 miles of pipelines. And we have 55 tanks throughout that have about 9.6 million gallons of capacity. 33 booster stations. So it is noted, I mean, 35 pressure zones. That's a lot of pressure zones. And kudos to your staff that have to maintain all that. A lot of storage tanks, 55 of them. And that's because it's a challenging terrain that we have here. And everyone is not in one area. It's spread out all over. And so it's a lot to maintain. It's a lot to worry about. For mapping purposes, we broke the system into two plates so we can present them and talk about them a little bit more. And they are shown here. The north, we called it a north plate that shows several pressure zones or several parts of the pipelines and the south pressure zone. If I can make a note here, the transmission system, the pipelines where the 12 inches and larger are shown in red. And you don't see too many red pipelines. And the blue lines are eight inches and less and then a smaller pipelines are in brown. One of the things that you will start talking about is undersized pipelines. We have observed a lot of undersized pipeline in this system. So there's a lot of opportunities for enhancement. I mentioned we use the hydraulic model or a computer software program. What does it look like? That's what it looks like. On the left-hand side, if you heard about GIS, it works layering systems. So at any one time, we can, as an example, bring aerial photography behind it when we want to. At any one time, we can not show anything else except the pipelines. When we're doing analysis, we just show pipelines. In this case, we're color coding it based on pressure zones. So you see big steel. You see lion on the left, leader on top and blackstone. When we analyze, it gives us a lot of tools. On the right-hand side, it's a database. So all those pipes have information, the size of the pipeline and the length of the pipeline, friction in the pipeline that we expect. It's a lot of information that help us analyze. It's just intended to show what it looks like. This is your investment that you will be able to use very effectively in the future. Continue to use effectively. And then we said we want to make sure that the model, this model, this tool that is on a computer is predicting what the field, what we're observing in the field. And so those graph that you see show two colors, a red line and it shows a blue line. The blue line is what we measured in the field. We installed, your staff installed, monitors in the field that was picking up pressure, constantly picking up pressure between, that was just before the pandemic, November and December of 2019. And those were picked up and we compared them to how we were simulating on the computer. And so the red is the actual simulation from the model. And when the two coincide, we're saying now the model is predicting reality. Now we can run a lot of what if, show me what happens in summertime, show me what happens in wintertime, show me what happens if this pipeline is broken, it was broken. If we take this bank out of service to paint it as an example, what happens to the system, what are we going to do about it? How can we enhance operation? So we used this model to do evaluate the pipelines and they meet fire floor requirement. What about pressures? Do we have adequate pressures throughout the system where we have customers, the storage tanks, do we have enough water that can fight fires if we want them or can provide them with operation? But if we have a fire that we want with a specific duration, can we fight that fire? And finally, we have to send water uphill to boosters. Boosters force that water uphill. When we force it uphill, do we have enough capacity to force it up to the tank or to the customers? So now we're looking at some maps color coded that show the pipelines, but it shows round circles. So round circles are telling us pressures, what the pressure, in this case, it's telling us available fire flow. How much are we expecting to get in terms of fire flows, fighting fire flow? The map on the left shows a lot of red. Red means if you could see the legend on the lower left, less than 500 gallons per minute. What we would like to get in residential areas is as an example, I think it is 1,000 gallons, correct. It's 1,000 gallons for two hours. And in multifamily, we like to get 1,500 gallons per minute. And in commercial areas, we'd like to get 2,000 gallons per minute. So that would be, we'd like to get green in commercial areas. We'd like to get yellow in multifamilies. And we'd like to get almost 1,000 gallons per minute. So orange, we want to see orange in residential areas. But look how many red dots we have. And the reason for that is because our pipelines are not large enough. And that's what this effort was about, identifying what do we need to do to get to that next step? We can't fix it all overnight, but we need to start working towards that. So that the plate on the left is telling us the minimum fire flow residual pressure. So this is the minimum flows we can get as a snapshot in time. The map on the right tells us the same thing, but we want to make sure that the tank has enough water. Not that we're meeting that fire for about five minutes. We want to meet that fire for two hours. And if we don't meet that fire for two hours, show us a more red dot, that we can't meet that fire for two hours. And so to show recommended improvements, we would like to show them on plates and in more detail. And this is the figure 7-7. All these figures are in the master plan, by the way. We just selected a few to talk about. And so all the improvements are shown. This is a key map, figure 7-7. And the one on the right shows a typical detail. In this case, it's DTLC. And it shows pipelines in red are the improvements that we are recommending. We're also showing the size of those pipelines. The pipelines, if you've got the legend on the lower left, those that are color coded in orange, those are improvements required to meet fire flow requirement. Not just capacity, not just sending water to serve residents, but fighting fires. So we have those two isolated or identified differently. And these are two more plates. In this case, detail E and detail F, we selected two more representative to show you that there are lots of pipeline. As I mentioned, the system is undersized. A lot of small pipelines, four inches and six inches don't fight fires. Then we went into another analysis because this analysis is important to prioritize improvement. We don't have all the money in the world to fix the system. Our system is aging and needs to be, at one point in time, replaced or renewed. So how do we determine where do we start? What's the best bank for the buck for that? It's a process called risk assessment that we use. It's a different analysis where we look at every pipeline and we assign it a risk from extreme risk to very low risk. And those extreme risks are color coded in red. So the map on the right-hand side shows you those that we assigned as extreme risk. Extreme risk means they have a lot of flows. Means we cannot afford to have them break on us. That's why they would be extreme risks. And we want to make sure that they don't fail. These are because they have high consequences they fail. If it's a pipeline serving one or two residents, yes, we don't like that to happen. But the consequence of inconveniencing two residents until we can fix it is less than having a very large pipeline coming from a treatment plant or a storage facility. And that has a high consequence. We don't want those to fail because this is a business. It has to be run as a business and lowering the risk is very important. We also looked at saving and saving on energy. Energy reliability and efficiency analysis. We conducted that way, identified some improvements and your staff did not wait. They initiated some of those improvements and they can probably talk about those themselves. At the end of the day, how much? How much does it cost to take the system to the next level? And it's not inexpensive. As I mentioned, there were a lot of pipelines that need to be enhanced. And so you see at the end of the day in pipeline improvements, there are about $57 million. But yes, those include some contingencies. We cannot fix them today, but those are pipelines that we need to fix eventually, one of these days. So we have to come up with some plan and program and methods and means so we can start working on the system taking to the next level. This helps us go to the next level, reservoirs. Reservoirs, this is how much we store water for emergency or daily use for fire flow. And we have identified that our storage is not sufficient and we need to bring it up to our to meet fire flow requirement and to meet the criteria that we have. And in terms of storage, we have about 17 million to be identified for a total full of $75 million. It's a lot of money. It's going to be a plan that you work for towards. It's intended to help us with the budgets. On an annual budget between 2022 and 2027, we're estimating 3.3 to 4.2 millions per year. So we have annual budgets for between 2022 and 2025. We also have five year budget between 2027 and 2041 and they range between 10 millions to four millions every five years, which is equivalent to about three millions, two to three millions or four millions per year. They don't have to be exact, but that's what you would need for the next 20 years. That's the recommended budget that you would need for the next 20 years, let's say. And then finally, a big element of this project was also to look at improvements that are attributable to disadvantaged communities. And the table on top shows 75 million total. Then we identified improvements where disadvantaged communities exist. And those amounted to about $13.8 million, but they're not attributable to disadvantaged. After the $13.8 million attributed to disadvantaged communities is the $7.3 million. That's another exercise that we completed for this project. And with that, I think that concludes the presentation. I kept it short. I can, if you'd like, I can talk for the next two hours. I'm here to talk about this, but thank you for your time and patience. And I'm here to answer your questions. Thank you, Mr. Eichel. That was great. I've looked over the plan and it's really just a cornucopia of information that will take us all a long time to absorb. I wanna point out that we will be having another meeting on November 10th, where this is a special meeting that we've convened to present this to the public, which am I correct in saying that this will be an extended version of this or will it be similar? It will be similar, but I can focus where you'd like me to focus, if you'd like me to say to spend more time in certain elements, as opposed to the big picture. This is the encompassing big picture. What is it? How do we use it? What are the elements that are in this master plan? If there's something else you'd like me to talk about, I can gladly hear to talk about. Okay. In light of the fact that we have another meeting on November 10th, where we can provide more time for discussion, our goal tonight, I think, is to review the plan in order to decide whether to accept it. And hence, I would ask that board members and members of the public focus their comments and questions tonight on basically the technical adequacy of the plan and other technical questions that you might have, and that we defer a discussion of more wide ranging questions that are related to its implementation, which kind of involves issues of strategy and priorities and finances to the later meeting and also another one. Rick, did you have a comment? Yeah, I would just like to ask board members if there are any areas that piqued an interest that you would like, Tony, to expand for the presentation on the 10th to either speak up tonight or contact Josh or I in the next day or so, so we can make sure that's added to the presentation. Okay, that's a good point. Mark, I'd like to start with you because you're the chair of the engineering committee. If you have any comments. Okay, so the question that I understand is in front of us is, is this plan adequate? Are we okay with approving this as is? I have a few questions on it, mostly from a regulatory perspective. What is our regulatory deadline for submittal of this plan to the state? I don't believe there is, Tony. Absolutely, there's no deadline. This is not, I think if you might be referring to urban water management plan, urban water management plan is a definite document that is prepared every five years and it has a deadline. I think July 1st, it was up this past year was the deadline for that. And this is a water master plan that is used to, it's used for budgetary purposes, for management of the water system and for planning of the water system, for enhancing the water system. The other document is regulatory, mandated by the states. You have to prepare them every five years. This is a plan that you update when you feel there's a need to update it for meeting your storage requirements, for meeting your criteria and for planning the orderly renewal and replacement. Following along that line then, is there any enforcement requirements then? And I'm guessing not in the state if they're not requiring us to submit this, enforcement requirements for us to follow through on any of these items, particularly the priority one, any that are fire safety related, or is it up to the district's discretion then on how we move through this, what we do without state input and oversight? Mark, this is a good question also. Again, this is up entirely up to the district to chart your path, your base, your budgets. You're spending the money, your budget. How much can you expend? How fast do you want? And you want to keep in mind one thing is that the further you, no action is taken, there'll be a time when you cannot catch up anymore. Right, this is an orderly plan that gives you a road map. That's what this is a road map and you can choose to do whatever you like with that. Right, you can only drive your car so long without changing the oil. Absolutely. Before the engine's been up and you're not going to drive it. Right, right. The final question that I have then is related to design criteria. And it's related to the 1.5 times. Big factors, average day versus yes. The maximum day demand. And since we didn't, since we don't monitor on a daily basis, our demand usage and we do it on a monthly basis, we had to derive this. You ended up using a factor of 1.5 times the average day. How sensitive are all of these various improvements if that factor was reduced? I'm looking at the total volume of dollars that you're recommending to spend and does that change or help focus our priority levels? It will change because this is a maximum day factor. We design pipelines, not only for maximum day factors, we design pipelines for peak hour factors. Right. And the first thing you look at is what kind of information do we have and we evaluate the trend and we could derive that information. But the next step is we also look at state guidelines. The state gives you some guidelines if you don't have information, they give you the guidance. It's okay for you to use those guidelines. So we fall back and state, but we also use our judgment in advising. Are these reasonable factors? Yes, they are reasonable factors for planning purposes and for the health of the system until we know better. Until we start monitoring on a daily basis and we get that information, then this is not a master plan forever. This is a master plan that we can, for now we can chart the path forward and it will be updated eventually, maybe in five years or whenever your district staff feel it's time to update because we would like to have different criteria, we have better information, but for now this is the best information we have. Okay, all right. Okay, thank you. Doni, that's my questions at this point. Thank you. Okay, Jamie, would you like to ask any questions? Sure, thank you. So I, first of all, I really appreciate the optimism in your thought that $75 million in today's costs, that feels like getting ahead of the game. It feels like we're already so, so far behind the game when I look at this plan, but I really appreciate that this is about sort of getting our minds around what we need to do long-term. So I'm taking a deep breath there. I was thinking about this in the context of other decisions that we are gonna be asked to make, not just tonight, but in the coming weeks and months. So when we look at this capital improvement program, I assume that it's contemplating everything that is within our assets right now and not anything that we would have to factory in long-term in terms of design and maintenance, should we merge with another water company that's within our geographic sphere of influence? Is that a safe assumption? Yes, Jamie, that is correct. Okay, thanks, Josh. So then I guess the question becomes like, how do we, if this is a living document, how do we continue to sort of reflect those changes as we make decisions as a body about how we are going to go forward? That would be where our dynamic model comes into play, the model that Tony was discussing. As we make changes or as we contemplate changes, we run those through the model, which is based on our static GIS model that we keep internally at the district. And as those changes are actually made, we update our static GIS to reflect the work that's been done and internally track what has changed in the master plan and either no longer needs to be addressed because it has been or needs to be addressed in a different way. Is there an opportunity using this modeling and these tools to get some synergies here where we might see opportunities to complete projects in ways that we might not have planned them together and grouped them together in that fashion to save money? Are those opportunities with this kind of modeling tool? Yes, we've actually already used it that way in looking at the very first project that we had Tony model, which is our lion pipeline, the new pipeline down to 36 from just below our treatment plan into town and down to the firehouse essentially. We have used the model to look at changes we could make in determining which areas are on which pressure zones, allowing us to look at possibly eliminating a couple of booster pumps, thus eliminating the need to maintain and provide power to those pumps, reducing operating costs. Okay, great. Thank you. That's all my questions for now. Thank you, Jamie. Bob? I had one clarification question and then several comments. The clarification question then is, it sounds like Gail, you're advocating for a slightly different motion than what is recommended in the agenda. That is correct. I think that the and direct the district manager to implement the recommendations therein is a little bit too grand at this point and too vague. And so I personally, I would have a motion that if you will indulge me says that move that the board accept the master plan and capital improvement plan as prepared by ACL engineering period. Thank you for that clarification because yes, this actually for me personally becomes a very important input point to a very wide ranging discussion about finances. As you know, I have a finance dense as well regarding operating expenses, what are operating and non-operating margins are, how much money is available, what we can finance, what our debt ratios need to be, all those sorts of things as Mr. ACL is smiling since I'm sure he's heard all this before from many, many people. So yes, I'm glad we're limiting it tonight. Well, that's my suggestion, but that, you know. Well, I think your suggestion is a really good one. So you're not going to get an argument for me. Okay. I do want to say that on a personal note, this is something that is, that I just find incredibly exciting. I've been looking for this kind of information for almost a decade relative to my involvement in the water district. And to see this come to fruition, to see the SLVWT team working this so diligently over the last couple of years and to get it to where we have a really nice model is just so exciting. I can hardly stand myself at this point. And what is really neat is that a lot of the numbers that Mr. ACL came up with sort of match some of the back of the envelope numbers that I've been putting together as well sort of independently. So I like to see that I'm not completely crazy about things, that's good too. I do have a number of very specific requests Rick, which I'll send you separately for the next meeting. And at that next meeting, I'm hopeful that we will begin that wide ranging conversation about not only the model, but how all of this fits into the financing of it, which to me, a plan really is not a plan if there's not a way to execute. And execution in this place means money and how that money is raised. There's a number of options to do that, but ultimately all of the money comes from the pockets of our community. And so understanding how to do that as efficiently and as low cost as possible is really, I think, the key thing. So again, Mr. ACL, thank you for your presentation. Very, very exciting stuff. Rick, thank you to you and your team for working on this through the pandemic. I know it had to be challenging, but this is a defining moment for our district relative to how we manage going forward. And I think we'll all remember this day for a long time. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Lois, Lois, you're muted. All of my questions have to do with money. And I look at the projected numbers and I have watched over the last few years how things are costing more and more and more. And I'm trying to think we have another budget to do trying to figure out how we can work this all into a budget. It's incredible information, but one of the things that doesn't really tell me is, well, it does say it's gonna be X amount of dollars, maybe five years from now, maybe X amount of years from now. But I've worked with money long enough to know that it changes rapidly. And this is exciting stuff, as Bob said. However, where's the money coming from? Because we have a lot of other things to spend money on besides capital improvement. And it would be great if we could spend all our money on capital improvement, but we can't. So I just wonder if he has a suggestion of how we figure out where this money is coming from and how far into the future can we look? I don't think we can look five years into the future. I think things are gonna change more rapidly than that. That's my questions. Would you like to respond to that, Mr. Eakle? I mean, absolutely. I can share what I know from other places. This is what we do. Our firm has a specialty in master planning. We don't get into the finance aspect. A lot of times we have on our team financial experts that look into the next step. That is the next step. But when you hire a financial consultant to advise you on how to finance this improvement, they want something defensible to stand on. This is it. What you are looking at today is this defensible tool that they can put there. That has as solid as you can get in terms of defensibility because they want to make sure it's defensible and then they will come up with your options, your alternatives. They will compare rates. You can look at grants, you can look at rates, compare it to others in the area. But that's the next logical step is looking at finance. So I think you are, Madam Vice President, I think you are right on. This is the next step. That is not included in this master plan. This master plan is giving you a roadmap. It's telling you what needs to be done. How much is the estimated cost? And that's where it stops. And typically would tell you this is attributed to existing users versus future user. In your case, they're mostly existing. It's an existing system. So the burden is on the users that are using the current system. It is undersized, it identified and prioritized. It doesn't have to all to be done today. This is a plan that you can take it as far as you want. You can look at the 10-year plan and say for the next 10 years, how much do we want to spend? How much can we afford to spend? This is the expertise of a financial consultant that will come in. I'm sure Rick and Josh will bring someone on the team to take a look at the next step. This is providing you with the support that they need to look at to help to advise you on what's the next step. Okay, that makes a lot of sense to me. We do need someone with a financial background to look at what you've given us and tell us how we're going to get there. I'm not sure we can do that by ourselves. I'd like to go out now to members of the public. Let's see if... Wow, we have 42 members of the public here. That's great. Do any of them want to address this question? If you do, please raise your hand. No, okay. Seeing none, hearing none. If you don't, I'll come back to the board and... A hand popped up. Oh. Okay, Jim Mosher, please go ahead. Hi, everybody. I want to thank the board for all its hard work. I want to echo what Larry Ford said at the beginning of the meeting. My question about this is I'm wondering if the model allows for estimating potential savings based on conservation. In other words, if we were to have the heavy users in the district use substantially less water, more along the mean of water use among most users, would the model allow us to estimate how much would be saved? I'd imagine it could be in storage primarily, but I'm just wondering if that's something the model would be capable of doing. Thank you. And that's also a great question. Water conservation, I think water conservation has been taking effect, has been in progress as I think as I mentioned, your water was at one point an annual basis at two, and then it has been going down. So you have been seeing the effect of water conservation and we have used the trends. We did not overestimate. We used actual where we are today. So we have to use the existing use. We want to make sure we can meet the current characteristics of how customers are using water today. Planning for the future. Yes, if we see a trend say in five years we see the water has been reduced further, your residents are conserving more and the state wants you to do that. I think I mentioned the urban water management plan. The state will continue to squeeze down whether indoors or outdoors. They want us to use less and conserve more. And if that happens to be the case and in five years you revisit this plan and find out that yes, indeed water is being used less. I think you'll find that some of the storage tank as an example will be reduced in size, maybe, but not by much, but there'll be some cost saving absolutely and every bit helps. On the pipeline, some might be reduced, but when you look at fire flow, fire flows will not, there's no water conservation in fire flows. If we need to meet that fire we need to have that amount available. And we are, our system is way undersized in this case here to meet fire flows. So there's a big need to enhance it. And again, when you look at big numbers like this it's very understandable to not expect it to be done overnight, but we don't want to under report. It's better, our job is to provide the technical answer. The next step is looking at priorities. We cannot fix it all. And what can we do with the limited funds that we have? And maybe we can come up with, maybe the financial consultant come up with ideas to finance it in different ways, smarter ways. But like everybody else, the system is aging, our infrastructure is aging. It's not our fault that it's aging. It needs to be fixed at one point needs to be replaced. So as it ages, maybe the pipelines are gonna age anyways. So instead of replacing that four inch with a four inch, we need to replace it with a eight inch and make sure that it has the capacity to pay a little bit more. But the pipeline might be reaching the end of its life cycle anyways. And we'll take that opportunity. So it's not all, that's all fixed right now. The pipelines are gonna age and they will need to be replaced eventually. And when that time comes we want to make sure we replace them with the proper size. Bob? Were you calling on me, Gail? Cause I know- Yes, I was. Oh, I'm sorry. There were a number of community members that are raising their hand. Oh, I'm sorry. There's one more. I didn't see that. Nicole. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can, Nicole. Okay. Hi, good evening. A couple of questions. One, is this master plan available on the website for the public to view? It is, Nicole. It is found on the engineering age on the district's website. Okay, great. And then I was just curious, just based off of listening to the news today, it's hard to, I appreciate you keeping the presentation short. It was very interesting and leads you want to read more. It speaks about the diameter of the pipe. So I'm curious whether in your process did you identify any pipes that needed to be dealt with because of the type of material where there might be lead or anything like that. Is there that type of identification in this report as well? I'm sorry, was it based on type of material? Was the material is adequate or not? No, no, whether it poses a health risk. In other words, she's worried about lead and pipes. So I think the question is probably geared towards your connection, ladder connections that go from the pipeline industry to a residence. We looked at pipelines that are in the streets. The ones that are being used to convey water from the source to the tank and to the streets in front of residences. I think we did not look at pipelines that go from the street to the house and what material they are and all that. That's a different world that we did not look at into that. Okay, then one last question. You had indicated that four-inch and six-inch are not sufficient for fire flow. If you are in a dead-end area, smaller part of the neighborhood is six-inch sufficient as long as you're getting enough pressure? Right, so when you come up with a cul-de-sac, we see that as common practice to give a 50% credit. I've seen that and I've seen that in places where they say no, no credit. But it's a cul-de-sac. You say, okay, we're going to give a 50% credit and it's okay to allow the fire flow not to be a thousand gallons per minute, but maybe 500 gallons per minute is sufficient for a cul-de-sac. So it all depends on what the criteria is. I've seen it both ways. I mean, of course we all want to have that. And the six-inch, I've seen six inches a lot cul-de-sac. That's what you see, but four inches, not recommended at all. Right, right. And after going through the fire, none of us want that. Yes, it's a risk. Again, it's a risk. It's how much we want to buy in terms of insurance to make sure it doesn't happen during the fire season. We all want to get that risk. And nowadays, we probably can scale back and relax a little bit. But it's, your staff worry about this, your engineering staff worry. They want to make sure that the system is property-sized, can defend when we need it to defend, can provide the capacity when we need to provide the capacity, has enough reliability when we need it. Thank you. Any other questions from members of the public? If not, go ahead, Bob. Well, I just wanted to say, in regards to an earlier question, unfortunately, I'm not sure we're going to see significant savings in capital infrastructure based on conservation alone because of the fire flow and storage requirements to support fire flow for the time period that is required to meet sort of best practices, unfortunately. So really what we're looking at here is being able to figure out how to do things as efficiently and economically as possible. And I think that we as a board do have some tools available to us to set policies around supporting how to do that. Yes, there are financial experts available to us that we've used in the past for the financing. There's bond issue options. There's grant options, that sort of thing. We have now a grant writer. So I think we're using those levers and we've established policies that are going to take us down that path. But ultimately, at the end of the day, the board is the one that's going to determine increases in operating expenses and non-operating expenses, which determines our margin, our rates are going to determine our margin. Those are all decisions that we make and that I think we need to have a robust conversation about at a future time. And I'm looking forward to having that and having that conversation with you, Lois. I think that'd be a really good thing for us to do. Are there any more questions or comments from the board addressing the technical aspects of the report? If not, I would like to just repeat my revision of the staff recommendation, which is that we move that the board accept the master plan and capital improvement plan as prepared by ECHO Engineering. Second that. Okay. Any questions or comments about that motion? All right. If not, Holly, you want to take a roll call vote, please. President May hood. Aye. President Henry. Lois. Are you muted? No, I'm muted. Yes. Director Ackman. Yes. Director Falls. Yes. And Director Smalley. Yes. Okay. The motion passes that we accept the report. And thank you, Mr. Echoll for coming and speaking to us and answering our questions. My pleasure. So generously and nicely. We appreciate it. Fantastic. Okay. Next, we move to our second item of old business, remote meeting authorization under AB 361. I think district council will present that to the board. Thank you. District manager, Roger's chair may hood. I'll keep this brief given that this item has been before the board a few times in the past couple of months. Who approximately a month ago, the board did adopt resolution number 21 dash 22, which is in your packet, which approves the district to continue conducting remote meetings of the type that we're conducting right now under AB 361. In order to continue to conduct remote meetings under that law and this resolution, the board every 30 days has to make certain findings that are set forth in that motion. In short, the key findings are that the statewide declaration of emergency continues in effect, which it does, and that state and local health officials continue to recommend social distancing measures, which they do in particular County public health recommends the use of face covering indoors and moving activities and meetings outdoors to the greatest extent possible. And on that basis, the proposed action for the board is to re-adopt and ratify the existing resolution number 421-22. Okay, so the motion that the staff has put before us is that the board ratifies and re-adopts the attached resolution number four so that it continues in effect for another 30 days from today's date. And I'll go ahead and move that. Is there a second? Second. Okay, any discussion? And I guess I probably should go out to members of the public to see if they have any comments on this. You do raise your hand. If not... Oh, sorry, Mark Lee. I'm sorry, I lowered my hand. Okay, it's all right. Okay, then it's been moved and seconded. Any more discussion by members of the board? If not, can we... If not, can we take a vote, Holly? President Mayhood. Hi. Vice President Henry. Yes. Director Ackman. Yes. Director Falls. Yes. And Director Smalley. Yes. Okay, the resolution passes. Next, we move to our first item of new business, which is possible consolidation with Big Basin Water Company. Rick, you want to begin a presentation on that? Yes. Thank you, Chair Mayhood. On October 26, 2021, owners of the Big Basin Water Company requested that the San Lorenzo Valley Water District explore possible consolidation with the company. The district pres provided some emergency assistance on a limited basis to the company and to its customers since the CZU wildfire seriously damaged the company's water system. Most recently, on October 20th, the district dispatched a repair crew to facilitate repairs in the Big Basin Water System after a mainline break caused a system outage. The district prides itself on providing reliable, safe and high quality water to its customers at an equitable price and its history of extending service to neighbors and consolidating with smaller system. The district appreciates the interest expressed by Big Basin and a possible water system consolidation and the willingness of the County of Santa Cruz to consider taking over the responsibility of the company's wastewater system, which the district is not in a position to operate. I'm asking the board tonight to adopt a motion to direct the district manager to proceed with exploring possible water system consolidation with Big Basin Water Company, including authorizing to incur legal and grant writing expenses was in the amount of the district manager's purchasing authority. And for clarification, this proposed motion would not authorize additional expense for consulting work such as engineering studies or reports that would be needed for a water system consolidation or annexation into the district. It is anticipated that the district in the Big Basin Water Company will enter into written agreements along the following lines before additional district expense are authorized. And we have three areas that we would legal counsel in the district like to move forward with and that's the company should enter into an emergency operating agreement with the district that governs the party's relationships while exploring consolidation and any request for emergency assistance by the company. The company should agree to cover costs incurred by the district less than the amount of grant funding obtained by the district to help cover such costs with a view towards minimizing costs absorbed by the district during the consolidation process and any cost imposed on Big Basin residents including any assessments of water surcharge imposed as part of the consolidation. And the company should agree to include the district in any negotiations involving the proposed sale of any company assets and to cooperate in good faith with the district to ensure that any such sale includes appropriate protections for the integrity of the water system including without limitations easements including easements in the company's watershed to protect the water quality, water rights and access to facilities. Since discussion with Mr. Moore and even before there has been a great deal of support with county and state elected officials have received many emails and phone calls from supports from the residents and customers of Big Basin water. As you know, we are working with Brackenbray and Forest Springs on consolidating as well as they are now customers of Big Basin water. I am asking the board to consider these recommendations and I'd be more than happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Before we go out to members of the board I'd just like to say that Bruce McPherson our representative on the board of supervisors has asked to address the board about the county's support of a potential consolidation and I thought it would probably be good for him to do that now because maybe some of the board questions would also be directed at him as well as at the members of our staff. So Bruce would you like to address us now? Thank you Madam Chair and good evening and thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight. Very interesting presentation straightforward on the master plan. But on Big Basin I want to thank the district board and especially just manager Rick Rogers for agendizing the side of tonight's meeting. I do know that I speak for many Big Basin water customers when I say we appreciate your consideration of exploring this further. It demonstrates really the district's commitment to the community and being a critical partner in the valley for all of our residents in Santa Rosa Valley. And I was there when they were taking water from the tap right there and talked to some of those members. They're surely appreciative of everything that you're doing for them in this crisis situation. As we know for many months maybe you do not know my office has been in close contact with your district the state water resources can pro board and our state elected representatives to work out a possible solution for the Big Basin customers about 500 of them. I want to thank them most especially Rick Rogers for their many efforts to date. It's taken longer than I think we all would have hoped for. I think we hope we can come to a conclusion very soon. But if you choose to take the next step tonight I can assure you that the county stands ready to provide resources through my staff and our county water resource division and the staff of our office of response recovery and resilience to work alongside with you on this idea of a consolidation. We know this process if you move forward will eventually include exploring grant operations at the state and federal level and navigating different regulatory agencies some of which will be complex at times. But I believe that in the investment of the time and energy to date and moving forward will benefit all of us not just the water supply and reliability for a big basin customers but also for the sustainability of the valley overall. So I just want to thank you and especially your district manager Rick Rogers again for having the discussion tonight and I look forward to you working with the district on this should you go forward tonight on identifying what consolidation process you might what it might look like. I think that Rick Rogers has outlined that process where the needs are as recommended actions. I support them wholly and I sure hope this comes through fruition in the very near future for the people of big basin and for the Santa Rosa Valley in general. Thank you very much Supervisor McPherson. Let's go ahead and ask members of the board ask any questions of staff or of Supervisor McPherson. Jamie can I start with you please. Thank you. So first of all I want to start by saying that you know I think generally when the subject of big basin has come up in these meetings over the several months you know what I have always heard from our fellow board members is that we take our responsibility as a member of the community and therefore supporting all of our community members not just Salarons of Valley Water District customers in the recovery effort here in the valley. So I really appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation. I think you know it is important that all of our community have a way to continue to have a you know safe healthy reliable water supply because that is so critical to your basic quality of life. So you know that said I just want to sort of think about as we are going forward in this process you know one of the things I know in my past when I was with working in the water industry in Silicon Valley and we looked at the potential for taking on water acquisitions it was really important to us particularly because we were a CPUC regulated utility that we not be requiring that our existing rate payers incur the costs associated with upgrading the new system we are taking on. So you know I guess my question would be as we start having these conversations is there a point where the California Department of Water Resources gets involved because I know that there are some very prescriptive requirements that they've set out for Big Basin and you know how do we navigate those in a way that you know successfully you know gets us to a conclusion without impacting our existing rate payers that's my first question and my second question is is it possible because of the number of customers and connections that we're talking about that we would not have the the requirement to rebuild as much infrastructure to serve these customers as Big Basin would have to rebuild in order to continue to operate independently and I get that that's a lot of a lot to ask we may not have that information but those are my questions you know I can take a stab at answering your questions Jamie they're both great this process is intended to and as the motion tonight is intended to find funding outside of the district such as in grants and other agencies and some funding may have to be by the customers of Big Basin we are not looking for the district customers to provide funding for the improvements and repairs again there is a lot of money I've been receiving a lot of support from our county elected officials there is a lot of grant money available right now for drought response for consolidation of a smaller agency into a larger agency and once if the board approves this motion tonight moving forward that will be our next step working with our county and state elected officials on facilitating and locating grants to apply for but there is some legal work that's what we're asking tonight on your second question I have spoken to the state water resources control board and most likely all of the requirements that Big Basin all the requirements have been placed on Big Basin will be placed on whoever takes over ownership of that agency and they're not going to back off on those they're health and safety and water supply issues Bob? Thank you Amanda just to clarify that it's possible that we would not have to build another treatment plant I think that might have been what Jamie was getting at I don't know Big Basin water in our staff there's no Big Basin water obviously as well as our own system but we will one of the first things we will do and we need to find some money it takes money to apply for money and hopefully yes we can do an engineering analysis where we could bring the surface water and I don't really want to get in the week but bring their surface water over to our treatment plant eliminating a very costly treatment plant and O&M ongoing O&M but that will be something that needs to be worked out and those were the engineering studies come from and the type of things that we need money up front or pledge money up front so we'll either reimburse the district or pay for up front because the district is not in a financial place to be able to pay for those services well that was going to be one of my questions but I think I knew what that answer was already but I think it's important that people hear it I'd like to preface my I think last remaining question with some comments about this you know my personal policy as a board member is that we need to do everything we can to support our neighbors during times of crisis so I was very pleased that we were able to provide that water station and continue to do that kind of support as needed during emergency situations it's also my personal policy as a board member that we respond to these kinds of requests that is the request that come into us not that we're going out and seeking them in a way that is in line with our community's culture about how we want to work together and support each other in these kinds of things so from that point of view I think this is a very good thing to do that said I've been in the valley long enough and have gone through a couple of acquisitions before Felton and Longpico where we have learned things about the process of doing that and how things you know don't always necessarily work out the way that you want them to do financially and making sure that our existing rate players are not paying for the cost of this is very important so I'm very glad to hear that we are looking for funds outside of the district to do that I know that it is a state policy to consolidate as many small districts as possible I think there's still a question about what small means but I think certainly 500 is in their range of where they want to see this consolidated so hopefully that will be reflected in the grant money that comes forth so I think from this point of view a lot of things we've said already Rick are really good and answer a lot of my questions I did have one last question that at some point soon we are going to be involved in a rate study and is it possible that the rate study would be able to include the possibility of the consolidation as part of looking at what costs really would be for Big Basin if they were to become part of our district that's a great question I think we can put the RFP together and the consolidation process is moving forward and the annexation process is moving forward I would recommend that to the finance committee on putting the RFP together and I think that would be a smart addition to our rate analysis and we could probably single that out from the rest of our system but yes Bob always by Jamie and her emphasis on making sure that we are communicating and messaging well to the community not only San Lorenzo Valley water district community but Big Basin community about this process as it's going forward I really would like to see us think about that perhaps that's an admin committee type discussion but I think the messaging around this is going to be so important because there's going to be a lot of concern on the part of people justifiably so about where things are going what the status is all that sort of thing and communication in that area making sure that everybody can get to information as reliably and quickly as possible I think is just going to be essential as we move through this process and I agree not getting into the details but the number one question I'm hearing from Big Basin customers is that they want to know what's going on and we've already discussed putting a section on our website this moves forward just like we did with Lumpiko develop frequently asked questions get some neighborhood meetings going the only way this is going to move forward is with the support of Big Basin water folks and so you are 100% correct that that will be a number one priority to work with customers without reach and then just to wrap this up I do want to recognize and acknowledge the moors for making this request this is you know their life endeavor something that they've worked on for a very very long time and so to come forward in this fashion I think we need to acknowledge that that took a lot and I want to thank you for making that outreach to us and let's see if this is something that can be done I strongly agree I've worked alongside Jim Moore probably for about 40 years and you know it's unfortunate that a small agency like that can't keep up with the state regulations can't keep up with PSPS power outages, COVID fire and drought the state is pushing the small agency out of business so to speak and he's I think he's done a pretty incredible job over the years Jamie did you just have a follow up on something Bob said? Yes I appreciate all of the kind words about the moors I was just thinking as Bob was saying that because they are a partner in this process they will be one of our best assets to helping to reach their customers and that is a concern that I have heard from some corners about you know making sure that all big basin customers where as many as possible are really deeply involved in the process and also on board with it because you know there may be pockets of concern out there that we need to address There will be, there definitely will be but that's okay that's part of the process Okay Lois I would like to thank Director McPherson for promising his help also I know from my own experience that SLV helps their neighbor they go out of their way to make things better for their neighbor however it's also up to the neighbor to do their part and part of the problem that I'm aware of is when part of the community doesn't want to go forward with this if they delay and delay things prices continue to go up so we really need to work on getting people in Big Basin to understand they need to put their support behind this it's going to cost them some money I believe maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me it's going to cost them some money they need to know how much that's going to be and the longer they wait the more it's going to cost and I know that our district manager once he gets to go ahead with this and can work on it he will move forward with it and get this work done in a timely manner Mark Yes Rick you alluded to funds that either the state through DWR might have or that the county has in the form of grants and I've heard it from you but I'd like to hear from Supervisor McPherson specifically since he is with the county and comment on that Supervisor McPherson are you able to commit to bringing funds to this effort particularly where Rick is addressing the need for upfront costs and to help from the county's perspective doing some of this initial funding so that we can make that happen within the near term say within the next 60 to 90 days to help a lot of this initial work. Thank you. Because it is a private firm we're seeing by the state the funding is going to be coming from state and federal sources and I think Rick can speak more directly to that we can. We have numerous districts water, recreation, sanitation so forth throughout the county that are facing some tough times now and so we can maybe address them but in an independent agency such as this we would look for state and federal support and but believe me we have been in a lot of discussions already with the PUC the state water resources control board and the state Assemblyman Stone and Senator Laird they are very well aware of the situation and that's where I think we're going to get the help and I think we might I think we're I don't want to overprime I think we're in a pretty good position to get some of that funding in the short term too I don't think we're going to have to be waiting for four or five years but I'm probably speaking beyond what I should be saying Rick would probably have a better sense of that but from the people I've talked to they know the crisis situation and that's where the funding frankly would be coming from as a state You've clarified for me then not the county for funding because we have we're not sure we're going to get 12 million dollars we thought was coming to us and so we're kind of waiting ourselves on some things too Yes and I understand that I misunderstood Rick saying that possible grants from the county so okay you've addressed that question Rick staying on the financial aspects does big basin water company have any of the financial resources to support or engage in any of these upfront costs that you're aware of in particular doing some of the initial engineering feasibility aspects to determine what is this overall bill going to be Great question we're not there yet until and that's what these agreements and once the board authorizes we will sit down with big basin they have provided a lot of their ownership and corporation documents to council for review so once the board approves moving forward then we roll up our sleeves and start discussion with the owners of big basin okay outside of the financial then I have a question or two on their regulatory aspects the lack of response from what I've seen in the packet from big basin water to the state from their April 2021 citation and then the follow up that I see from the state with another citation in September is concerning to me if we're getting involved in this process are we then becoming implicated in that are we then becoming responsible to DWR as part of that citation aspect until we and until we take it over who is doing that I've approached that subject just recently with the state water resource control board Monterey who issued the citation and once they knew that the board was moving in consolidation and annexation we would sit down and put together a scope of work and a schedule to make those improvements if the annexation goes through and they've indicated to me that they would dial back on any of the citations if the district was moving towards ownership and if the district put together a plan for improvements now they're not going to back off they made it clear to me on water quantity and water quality there's a lot of things they will back off but they're concerned about the availability of water supply for big basin and they're concerned about quality which is totally understanding and we can work on that we can work on an emergency intertie we can do a few things we've got to get up front money we're going to need some money for preliminary engineering and this is where we're going to have to go out to our state legislators to the state water resource control board we have to go to the governor for an emergency grant the governor gave a lump echo an emergency grant for the intertie no questions asked that the lowest board applied for so we're not going to take no for an answer we've got to get t-shirts made up with a slogan don't take no for an answer we'll do it we need money and I can't emphasize that enough and all of the people all of our politicians and our local leaders who stepped up and pushed for consolidation we got it now now we need your help Lafko has stepped up Joe Charano has been a great help we'll do whatever he can to help the annexation process the outpour from local leaders have been really extraordinary I mean it's been no questions asked what do you need we'll help you Bruce's office the new county water resource Sierra Ryan has sent us a list of grants and definitions of which grants to apply for for which I mean folks are on board and already trying to help facilitate this okay thank you okay I guess that leaves me I am in favor of the motion that's in front of us that the staff has recommended and I will be voting positively on it I feel comfortable doing that because of the clarifications that also follow which I feel protect the district financially we're following the CCU fire we have our own financial problems we're not as good a shape as we were for example before long pico or felton acquisitions where we could afford some of these things so I feel that the way we've authorized certain kinds of expenses to get the process started is correct and that we'll have to come back for other funding that hopefully will be paid for out of grants but I think this makes me feel that also it protects us because this is a process where as we saw the current owners have not been responsive to the state and so that may produce difficulties and of course we have to as lois said make sure that a majority of the people of Big Basin are on board this and so there needs to be a little bit of protection for us but I feel like this memo provides that and so I'll be voting yes. Is there any more comments by the board before I go out to the public sure may before you go to the public there seems to be a large group of folks from Big Basin that may want to address the board we may want to limit public comment to two minutes . Okay. I think there's quite a few people . We don't know how many people want to speak but I think let's limit it because we have 43 people in attendance let's limit the individual comments to two minutes we do have a timer that will appear on the screen so you can track yourself and I'd also ask that you not repeat things and you can talk up and say yeah I agree with that and then stop that would be great but I mean because we want to hear from you all but let's try to keep the repetition to a minimum okay so I see Mark Lee has his hand up so go ahead yes thank you President Mahood and thank you the board I think the proposal by Rick Rogers is an excellent I think we should proceed forward with a vote of approval thank you that was short and sweet yay Jeff Hill it might be helpful if people identify what normally you give your name and where you live so it would be good to know if people are from Big Basin or if they're other what their affiliation is just so we have some context if you don't mind okay so I'm Jeff Hill on the district's budget and finance committee earlier this evening we heard a really good presentation about the engineering operational model that was used to build the master plan and it occurs to me that we might want to take a quick look at how hard it would be to plug the Big Basin system into that plan and see how well that plan integrates yes I think and also Forest Hills and Brackenbray as well there's a good model there unless it's really expensive we probably ought to take advantage of that model and plug those systems into the model and see what it does to the rest of the system so Mark would it be fair to say that the engineering committee could take that up yes I think we can discuss that at the next engineering committee meeting and modeling is already included in the cost to consolidate Brackenbray and Forest Springs we're still waiting to hear on that grant but that was part of that engineering is to model that system yay Nancy Macy thank you I appreciate the opportunity to talk I'm speaking for the myself Nancy Macy a resident of Boulder Creek not in Big Basin Water District and I am speaking for the value of the environmental committee bravo we have received so many comments and urgent questions and people reaching out from Big Basin Water who are so concerned with what's going on and the lack of reliability and all the issues that they're facing and they have repeatedly said they are grateful for SLB water for all the emergency help that went beyond just applying providing water it included actually going and digging in the dirt for just within the past month so many thanks and I admire Rick for the very careful phrasing and thoughtful recommendation that he's come up with and we strongly support it thank you for the opportunity good luck Julie Jennings go ahead Julie now can you hear me I'm sorry I'm a Big Basin Water user I guess and one thing I heard and that was a little concerning was that I heard annexation and I don't quite know if that means we're being brought into Sandlin San Lorenzo Valley Water District also if we were I also heard some of the directors saying that they didn't want to take money that they currently have for their district and use it on the Big Basin Water customers which I understand and compassionate on that and if that's the case then I hope then if we were annexed or brought in that the Big Basin Water customers would not be paying that very large capitalization that you're currently looking at so I guess it goes both ways so that would be my only concern on that if that wasn't the case if they're going to come and help build this back up I have 100 more people that are helping to pay for that so I just think it needs to be fair either way so that's all I have to say thank you for that input Julie let's see we have Mike can you hear me now yes we can Mike's muted still Mike can you talk to us otherwise we'll yeah here I am okay so we're in the house in the August 2020 wildfire and we're going to the long hard process of going to rebuild but yeah it's been very scary to build a massive investment with water systems that aren't assured in going to the rebuild process one of the things I want to make sure is that we don't get hit doubly in other words right now we're requiring 10,000 gallons of storage which makes up for the lack of infrastructure from the water company I just don't want to get hit with both expenses of you know buying into the water agency and putting 10,000 gallons storage anyway something to think about and I for one would be interested in working on any citizen committees a part of you know big basin annexation and so forth I work for a big water agency over the over the hill in a daily life and have some good water experience so thank you you make a good point there Mike about that potential issue which I thought about and please go ahead and send an email to Rick Rogers volunteering your time because I imagine at some point if this goes through we probably will have some ways in which we want to reach out to people in big basin right and we can reach out to the county Dave Reid and talk about folks that are rebuilding and that issue he brought up about fire flow it may be complicated but we should be able to work something out with the county okay Anne yeah hi this is Anne thrift I do live in the big basin water area I've been relatively vocal publicly and that's a publicly about the problems here they're pretty extreme at this point as far as I can tell consolidation with San Lorenzo Valley water is the only option left for this company except for state takeover and my understanding is that that's not likely to happen the state doesn't really want to do that but we are in an emergency situation and it's been going on for a year and it's been getting worse in the last few weeks so I really really hope that you guys decide to move forward I would be happy to be on a citizens committee to help in any way to make this possible I don't know what I could do but I'm happy to help if that's something that's useful and I wanted to say again thank you guys so much for all the help that you have given us after the fire especially with that water station so thank you you're welcome and Carl DeSoto hello yes we can hear you Carl hi I'm Carl's wife we one of the issues we do live in big basin water territory for customers and I guess our really big concern from the very beginning we've been here six years it's just a lack of basic communication we often only find out that we can't drink the water and we have to boil it via email I mean not email excuse me via next door or Facebook groups there's no telephone calls to us there's no emails there's no way of contacting the customers so we're just wondering first of all we're totally in support of the whole idea of consolidation and it is a very dire situation here we never know if the water is going to be offered on at any moment you can walk up to your faucet and it just nothing comes out and the only way you can find out why is again to go to social media so during the consolidation this happens how will we be communicated with will you guys be able to communicate with us about outages and those sorts of things and do you guys have a system that allows us to find out right away what's going on Rick can you answer that I'll try to answer that because until we move to the next step and sit down and work with the moors to find out that they would like to see the district with right away during the consolidation process if they would like to see us work with them on notifications and so forth we would step up until we have those discussions with the owners of Big Basin Water I can't answer that but we do update social media we do update website we do have a reverse calling page temperatex system that we can let folks know but once we learn the extent that Big Basin Water wants the district to work with them then we can take that next step but we would be willing to work with Big Basin and to facilitate that it need be but that's where these first agreements will come and when we sit down with the moors and we'll move this forward and we'll also have to work with State Water Resource Control Board so there'll be a little I guess I would call start up and to the same folks that said those questions that Big Basin that want to be involved both when we did Lompico and we did Felton consolidations we had steering committees made up of individuals that live in the area that met regularly with district staff and the movers and shakers which worked very well to keep good communications and input Thank you Dan Hughes Dan are you there Yeah sorry I just had on you Everything I've heard from the golf course area and everything I've heard about the merger so far is very encouraging there's been multiple articles and different publications regarding concerns in the state of the Big Basin water in the last year in the one recently by Hannah that was put in the Santa Cruz Sentinel on yesterday I think pretty much hit the nail on the head with issues and concerns it was mentioned in this meeting that San Lorenzo Valley water would need the customer constituent Big Basin support customer support for this merger and I'm wondering how that can be conveyed there's probably old timers in this district that are pretty staunch supporters of the moors on a personal level and may not support merging with a bigger company regardless of the circumstances but yeah I mean I would like to if you guys could speak on how we could convey support for this merger just real quick Dan you know in speaking with the moors and I speak quite frequently with Jim Moore he is highly supporting this merger and will be out supporting this with his customers in Big Basin so I think that'll go a long ways with the old timers but and I do understand that some people don't like change and then there'll be the Lafco process where there'll be considerable outreach and discussion through that and at a little later date and time we will get the executive director of Lafco at a Big Basin meeting to explain the Lafco process it's kind of complicated I don't want to leave anything out if I try to explain it but it is a long process and Mr. the executive director has already offered to attend meetings to start getting information out on that annexation and again for the district to supply water outside of our service area and our sphere of influence which Big Basin is outside of it has to be annexed into the district and that process is lengthy it'll take about 18 months but a lot can be done during that time frame Mr. to explain that process in detail and it's important to say that that involves public input on the way so there'll be plenty of chances for you to express your thoughts on things Dan Bruce Holloway Hi I'm a little fumble fingered here could I make it work? yes okay thank you I didn't hear your announcement they started the meeting so when I saw supervisor McPherson speak a couple times on this item I thought he's an adversarial party because the county has been suing our district so when I listen to his remarks he's offering the support of the water resources department but meanwhile there's another county department that's costing us money every time the attorney has to address it my understanding is if an ordinary house wanted to a single house wanted to join SLB water district even if the water main already exists on the street in front of that house the cost for one house is $20,000 approximately it's 19 something I think as I recall when for example when the Olympia Mutual Water Association was annexed by the district they paid about a million dollars for 50 houses which is about $20,000 a house and so I just want to start throwing numbers like that around so that people are aware of how these annexations usually were for 500 houses $20,000 a house that would be a $10 million that they would need to raise and I think somehow you've got to start putting some numbers on this so everybody understands what's really being talked about another thing I wanted to say was that when the Felton Library got built as I recall there was a million dollars that the state appropriated assembly member stone was able to add a million dollars to that so I hope that I think Boulder Creek has suffered enough because of the fire and everything and I hope that there can be substantial support from the state thank you Thank you for that Are there any members other members of the public that would like to speak at this time Jim I'm sure Thank you chairman hood I am in support of helping our neighbors and I want to echo a lot of what we've heard tonight and I appreciate the efforts by Supervisor McPherson's office and by Rick Rogers to move this forward I think my main concern has been hardly addressed by some of the speakers tonight my concern is that I would like as a rate if he's hearing from the rate the residents in the big base and the rate payers up there directly and for them to be more active in communicating the need to do this and for the further to be a building consensus up there that is actively organized and led by the rate payers I'm a veteran of the Felton Felton merger and we had to do a tremendous amount of organizing to take on a private water of course a huge one not like the small one you're dealing with but the owners of private water districts have very distinct interest from you as a rate payer and as you join our district it's a very different role that you have you become owners of the district as Bob Foltz is like to say it needs for you to be much more active in engagement and so I'd like I'm hoping that through this process that is more leadership from the rate payers and that this doesn't become an exercise in which government agencies and government officials are the ones who service the leadership because I think that will lead to some bad feelings and some potential ill will down the line when you find out exactly how much it's going to cost we raised $11 million in Felton for our merger thank you Jim Allison Breeze can you hear me yes we can Allison can we let Allison speak please can you hear me again now yeah I was just hoping that the board the manager could perhaps address a little bit what the prior two speakers have brought up with regards to what the order of magnitude of cost would be for the big basin rate payers for each individual household I completely understand that this is very premature and that you don't know numbers yet but just order of magnitude looking at something like each household having to provide $20,000 for this to happen because I think that that is something that the big basin customers need to be aware of going forward very early what they are to expect because a lot of people are still struggling after the fires the pandemic everything going on and that I think will influence and enter into some people's calculations okay Rick I mean I don't want to put you on the spot I strongly agree that the number one question that most people will have is you know cost to them and the cost of water I mean big basin water I think is only a third of the cost per unit than SLB there is a lot of concerns on the cost we need to develop those and I don't want to give a hypothetical because I may be too high I may be too low at least be a guess grant you know our guess may be a little better than somebody else's but I'm not ready to give that and I don't want to give a false sense of it's too high too low that'll be one of our first orders of business is to find the funds in order to do the engineering to get cost you will get those costs way before you know you need to make a decision whether you want to protest the annexation or that you want to move ahead that's our first line of business is to try to get engineering studies we're in for grants right now to do some of the intertie work between Brackenbray and Forest Springs that will be used for a big basin as well so once we start getting some information we'll get costs and then we got to figure out what we're going to get in grant money and that grant money will take away from what we pay but undoubtedly the homeowners will pay something you know I doubt it will be able to get 100% of this covered by other source of funding so there will be some costs I just can't tell you and you've heard other people say that people will pay up to $20,000 on consolidations and so forth the one thing that we do do and we've done in the past that we'll ask the board to do we will ask the board to pay up to $20,000 of the $10,000 per connection as you are putting funds into the water system to rebuild we'd rather see that money go there so there are some things we can do to keep costs down that we've done in the past and we will continue in that direction okay Mike I think we already heard from you so I think I'd rather go back if you don't and so Jamie you had your hand go ahead I understand that we can't put any numbers around this but I do think we can maybe put a tiny bit of context around what those numbers when we get there will represent so when right now big basin water customers they are customers to a private for-profit water utility we are a public agency we are not a for-profit business and so what we have to do and what Rick is talking about in all of these studies is determine one what the value is of big basin water company and its assets and then two in addition to that we have to look at all of the work that has to be done and get to some kind of a number around that as well and then all of that factors into what our if we are going to merge that water company into our district what are the costs going to be to us and what does big basin as a private for-profit water operator need in order to you know merge the business into San Lorenzo Valley water district and then we will begin the process once we have those numbers of seeking grants and state support at that level we'll work with our county supervisor who's here tonight to pledge his support to that for that and of course you know we'll look at what costs may have to be born by the big basin water company customers as well so that's just some sort of context for what those numbers represent when we're talking about them that's all that I wanted to say yes Rick I think some other context might might be important as a private company is big basin water eligible for FEMA funding for there to help in their recovery I have been reaching out to FEMA and I'm going through the chain of FEMA leadership and I'm getting all told that because this is a private company that FEMA money cannot they're not eligible for FEMA grants however there's always political pressure against FEMA and Cal OES that if we start applying political pressure we may be able to get them under a late claim but they're saying it's doubtful as soon as the board authorizes tonight to move forward we start putting that political pressure on FEMA but as it is now FEMA states that big basin is not eligible because it's a private company I mean I think the you know these are going to be the finances of course is going to be of paramount importance to everybody in big basin water and I don't know that there's any way to sugar coat this because of the extent of the damage to the water facilities or through you know catastrophic fire that I don't think anybody was expecting what happened in that way I mean lightning strikes account for I think 3% of the causes of fire you know in our general area very rare but regardless of which way it went because of the fact that FEMA is not funding private for-profit agencies the only thing that big basin water if they stayed private would be to basically go to the PUC and say I need money I need the finance this and therefore the rate payers are going to have to cover that one way or the other I guess my message is whether it's would be through big basin water trying to do the recovery or through us the rate payers are going to be funding it now what I think the what I think Rick was addressing on the political bargain is that because of the state policy of wanting to see consolidations like this we are very hopeful that large portions of what would otherwise be your responsibility financially will be covered by grants I given the magnitude of prices I mean you can do some back of the envelope calculations of pipes being put in the ground I think our most recent number was somewhat around 300 bucks a foot something like that for main lines probably slightly less for distribution and feeder lines you know the treatment plants are one to two million dollars etc these are enormous numbers and without grant funding I don't know that this is affordable for anybody any longer given the magnitude of the damage there so that is something I think that we I'm speaking for myself I'm very focused on making sure that we do everything possible to get that kind of grant funding and that we ask for that kind of political support from Supervisor McPherson Assemblymember Stone, Senator Laird and others all the way up to the governor to help make this happen we do not want to see people either driven from their place or put into such financial straits that they can no longer afford their home based on this disaster happening and I'm committed to doing everything possible I can and support everything that Rick's doing in that area to make that happen but make no mistake this is going to be an enormously expensive proposition and by the way we're facing the same level of costs ourselves through the damage though we fortunately do get a lot of that covered by FEMA one other thing I wanted to mention I wanted to recognize I think Ms. Jennings was the one that said that about well if we bring our system up to sort of pristine conditions then do we also pay for everybody else you know this is in fact a running commentary that Rick and I have been having over a few years about that mainline funding that is a lot of the work that we've been doing up until now has all been sort of around mainline and centralized facilities that everybody takes advantage of and in that case the policy that we've had up until now has been yes everybody has to help pay for that but the question you raise about distribution lines into neighborhoods and that sort of thing I think is a very interesting one and something that is worthy of discussion I'm not I can't say how I would go on that right now but I think it is a very very good question that needs to be resolved as part of this process okay is there any more comments by members of the board if not would anybody like to make a motion I'll make the motion but you've read it already Gail would you like me to read it again I don't know that I need to hear it re-read that's the motion that I would like to make we need to read it into the record just so everybody knows so I'll do that for you that we are directing the district manager to proceed with exploring possible water system consolidation with big basin water company including authorization to incur legal and grant writing expenses within the amount of the district managers purchasing authority period I'd second that okay any final comments or questions regarding that Jamie I was just going to add that I hope that this vote if it if it I plan to vote in support of exploring the merger with big basin water company and I hope that this is a demonstration of our commitment to the relationship not just with big basin water company customers but also with the county as a good partner going forward okay Holly would you take the roll call please President Mayhood Vice President Henry Lois are you muted yes Director Ackman yes Director Falls yes Director Smalley yes the motion passes unanimously we come to our next item of new business which is the agreement mitigation agreement with pacific gas and electric this chair made it and I will ask the environmental programs manager to present this when I consider a wonderful item to the board great thank you rick so the district was approached by PG&E about potential riparian habitat on district property to complete a riparian planting mitigation project and approximately one acre area of riparian oak with the habitat located along nephemeral tributary to Zionty Creek was identified on the district's Olympia watershed PG&E contracted with ecologist Jodi McGraw to create a conceptual restoration plan for the site the restoration plan entails removing invasive plants and then planting riparian trees understory plants and coast live oaks installing plants within these areas that lack established tree canopy will accelerate establishment of native plants and suppress re-establishment of invasives the areas that feature an existing native plant canopy will be passively re-vegetated allowing the removal of invasive plants as compensation the district requested PG&E to conduct removal of invasive plants specifically French broom on other areas throughout the Olympia watershed removal cost and maintenance for five years of approximately 5.5 acres was determined to be approximately $101,000 this is an excellent opportunity for restoration on district property at no cost to the district and develop a productive collaboration with PG&E the draft agreement and map of the planned area are attached as exhibits once the conceptual plan is approved by the state water resources control board the document will be made public and brought to the district's environmental community I'm happy to answer any questions on this item why don't we go ahead and start with Mark's and seize the chair of the environmental committee thank you the environmental committee has discussed this in the past and the committee has done staff's efforts particularly Carly in moving this forward so we agree with moving ahead on this thank you Bob you're also a member of that committee yes and Mark says in that I have a couple other things one question Carly the broom removal will be done in compliance with our policy around that kind of thing that is no glyphosate correct excellent that is really good to hear and I'm really looking forward to getting that broom off of the off the area and more importantly I believe by replanting the the intent is to try to minimize any kind of broom coming back correct right so where we'll be replanting is only that one acre area that PG&E is completing the mitigation project but hopefully with the removal of the invasives we'll start to see some of the natives come back into the riparian areas hopefully the broom on our neighbors next door won't come over too much fortunately that's always the danger no and I also I mean I do want to recognize PG&E for being willing to enter into this public private partnership in a way that benefits I think everybody and hopefully this is something that may last longer than even five years if if at all possible I think it would be I'm hopeful that it'll turn out to be a great showpiece for everybody including PG&E relative to environmental stewardship and how well everybody is looking after what is really a unique piece of property in not only our area but our state in the country okay Lois did you have anything you wanted to add I totally support this item okay Jamie I support this item I wonder if they're going to well I support this item never mind okay let's go out to members of the public to see if anybody has any comments or questions about this Rick Moran yes Rick Moran from Ben Lohman and glad to see everybody here I fully support this habitat restoration project and I'm particularly pleased to see that the project will be done without the use of herbicides this project with good hands with Jodi McGraw who has a long and successful work history with our water district with the support of our own environmental planner Carly Blanchard I'm confident that this will be a successful habitat restoration project thank you very much thank you Rick any other comments from the Bob did you have your hand raised did you have anything further you wanted to say well I did unfortunately we had I didn't see that Rick was on the list of attendees tonight and I did want to actually give Rick a lot of credit excuse me for starting this process and focusing on not using herbicides in these kinds of activities Rick took a lot of slings and arrows in the past for that but ultimately science and I think good common sense went out and Rick thank you very much for being a continuing advocate for that policy and thanks for speaking and supported we have a motion from the staff for us to move to authorize the district manager to enter into the patched agreement with PG&E on behalf of the district for riparian habitat mitigation in the Olympia watershed would anybody like to move that I'll move it I'll second it okay with that Holly would you take a roll call please President Mayhood Vice President Henry yes Director Ackman yes Director Falls yes the motion passes okay and with that we move on to the next item which is the draft conjunctive use plan as I'll ask the environmental program manager to present this item to the board great thank you Rick thank you so the San Lorenzo river watershed conjunctive use plan or CUP was jointly developed by the district and the county of Santa Cruz to identify opportunities for improving the reliability of the district's surface and groundwater resources through conjunctively managing these supplies while also increasing stream base flows for fish in the San Lorenzo river watershed the plan was funded in 2017 by the wildlife conservation boards California stream flow enhancement program and administered by the county as part of the grant two studies the conjunctive use plan and sequel analysis completed the sequel initial study mitigated negative declaration or ISM and D public review period ended on August 31st 2021 significant public concerns were raised during the public review period which can be seen in the comment letters attached to exhibit A therefore district staff and local council recommend additional sequel analysis through an environmental impact report or EIR and EIR is planned to sufficiently complete the EIR process and that we received during the public review period and allow the district to consider revision to the conjunctive use plan to better suit its operations further technical studies as required as part of the EIR will also support future environmental permits and state water board actions the timeline to complete the EIR process is approximately 9 to 12 months district staff is recommending to continue the sequel analysis work with RINCon environmental insulting which was originally brought on to the project to complete the ISM and D RINCon's updated STOPA work is attached to exhibit B the cost for RINCon to repair the EIR for the district is $145,000 is important to note that a fisheries biologist will also need to be brought on board to complete further aquatic technical studies and modeling services SCOPA will be brought to the board for approval with ready staff is prepared to answer any questions on this item we'll start off with Mark yes I have a number of questions related to the strategic approach that we're taking on this and given that and the fact that the environmental committee has not reviewed this at this point I'd like to consider instead of the full proposal the more limited scope at an initial outset so that we might be able to discuss with the committee the strategic a more strategic plan as to what we're going to cover during this EIR fully support moving ahead with an EIR but I want to know what the scope of it is going to be covering so can we address that and I do believe that Gina has a recommendation that kind of syncs to that to Mark so we want to go through everyone's questions first and come back to that okay all right thank you Bob you're also on the environmental committee yes I mean I do Mark I think that's a great idea and I think it's worthy of having a discussion about some of those strategic implications here I mean you know from my point of view you know what the district is trying to do is get to a point where we can use water from any source at any destination and by doing so to be much more efficient and much more sensitive to the environmental habitat by being able to use water in a more efficient way and it's somewhat disappointing that you know the end result which hopefully we'll get to the same end result but we have to wait another year to be able to start to get there which means another year of the current operations that we have now and of course an additional $150,000 which is basically $20 per customer to have to do this so you know half of somebody's bill every month in a month sorry so it's disappointing that we have to do it but I think your approach is probably the best way to get to having to take that sort of off-ramp into a different place than what we had hoped we would get to so I think that makes a lot of sense Lois well I would like to hear what Gina has to say and Rick Rogers has to say let me I think let's let Rick talk about this and then hear from respond to the comments that have made so far and then let everybody else comment before we you know from my perspective that sounds like a good approach we're moving ahead which is great and I think that's what will work and I'll turn it over to Gina if she wants to explain the approach so in light of some of the comments that are being raised what I would recommend as an alternative to the entire WINGCON scope of work at tonight's meeting would be to take kind of a more gradual approach and instead direct the staff to proceed with environmental review the conjunctive use plan by preparing an EIR but as a first step directing the staff to develop a more limited budget with WINGCON within the scope of the district manager's purchasing authority solely for the purpose of outlining the proposed project and alternatives and taking that to the environmental committee for review along with the complete proposed scope of work so that the environmental committee can comment on the outline of the proposed project and the alternatives and the full scope of work that WINGCON has outlined and once that is done and the environmental committee provides input then it could be reevaluated how the district moves forward with the EIR process Jamie, did you want to comment on that? No, I'm in support of doing the EIR I think it's the safest path forward Okay Yeah, I think what Gina the two step process is correct I mean we want to go ahead with the environmental impact statement but I think the EIR but I would say that as the first step we want to develop a not so much a budget with WINGCON but to direct the district manager to enter into a contract with WINGCON limits of his purchasing ability which is on the order of 30,000 but hopefully will be a lot less and that this contract will be to outline proposed projects and alternatives and will be brought to the environmental committee but I think the one way I would sort of diverge from what Gina said is that I don't want them to come with a finished product I think that what we want is the environmental committee to be involved early in developing an updated list of projects that will be assessed in the EIR and that's all I would state it differently than what you stated it which made it sound to me like they basically are coming in with a bunch of projects and then the environmental committee comments on them I don't know maybe other people may have different views on that but that's kind of my feeling about it Mark Yes, I would like to potentially further amend what we're asking for at this initial stage since we recognize that there's going to be a cost for a contract biologist involved in this to do further studies that Parley has just indicated we're not part of the written concept of can we get that cost also at this initial state so that we're aware of what that's going to be also This is getting kind of complicated and so what I'm suggesting is that maybe we divide the question here so that the one thing is very clear that the first thing that we can all agree to I'm hoping is that we direct district staff to proceed with environmental review of the conjunctive use plan by preparing an EIR and so I guess I would like to make that as a motion and then we can craft the rest of it separately if that's alright with people okay, me I can support that would somebody like to move what I just read then I'll make that motion second alright any comments or questions among the board before I go out to the public okay any members of the public like to make a comment on the motion that's in front of us hearing none and seeing none I'll come back to the board for one last time and not seeing any raised hands I'll then ask Paulie to take the roll come up please President Mayhood Vice President Henry yes Director Ackman yes Director Fultz yes Director Smalley the motion passes unanimously so maybe Mark would you like to propose a motion for how you would like to see the rest of it done I'd like to make a motion to have staff solicit proposal for the additional biological analysis that would need to be done to support this EIR going forward so the committee can look at that proposal also okay alright so that's that's kind of a separate thing so we can go ahead and vote on that too I think I mean that was something that I noticed when I read the proposal that that was not included in the scope of work by Ringcon but it was their report that was dependent on it so I think it would be good if we had that information in front of us before we get too much farther along so I think if you would move that I would second that yes I'd like to make that motion I'll second it any comments or questions among the board on that one how about among our members of the public I don't see any so we'll now go back to our board and not seeing any questions I'll go ahead and ask for a roll call vote from Molly President Mayhood Vice President Henry yes Director Ackman yes Director Fultz yes and Director Smalley leads the final part that was kind of a little bit messier which was that we develop that we direct the staff to enter into a contract with Ringcon within the amount of the district managers purchasing authority and the contract should involve outlining a proposed the proposed projects and alternatives for presentation to the environmental committee with the goal of arriving at an updated list of projects that will be assessed in the EIR does that sort of express what you're trying to get at Mark yes yes it does so I'll make that motion I'll second it okay any other comments from members of the board all right then how about members of the public any comments you don't see any all right so Holly would you please take a roll call vote President Mayhood Vice President Henry yes Director Ackman yes Director Fultz Director Smalley yes the motion passes unanimously so we'll go to our next item of business which is multiple variance renewals for 2021-22 yes thank you Chair you have in front of you a request to adopt the one year variance for multiple users this is pretty much housekeeping as we do every year we have ordinance 43 and 47 which establishes charges for multi multi single family dwellings on one parcel on one water meter these are the homes that applied for a variance that the homes are not occupied the second home staff is recommending that you adopt the resolution showing the variance of these parcels as listed we have to take any questions okay are there any questions from members of board pretty straightforward I think I don't see any questions from the board or comments how about from attendees I don't see any there so basically we have a motion that we board adopts resolution that approves a one year variance for multiple user status for the 30 property owners listed in the attached memo a second then could you take a roll call about Holly excuse me President Mayhood hi Vice President Henry yes Director Ackerman yes and Director Smalling yes the motion passes unanimously and so we come to our last item of new business which is director of finance and business services recruitment yes thank you chair on July 23rd 2021 the district started the recruitment process for the director of finance and business services position this position is an executive management classification responsible for the complex functions related to the fiscal and business components of the district several attempts have been made to recruit qualified applicants for this position the district has continually posted job offerings with many different services indeed press banner and water jobs we even tried radio radio for the first time we have received a small number of applicants that not meet the job requirements not getting applicants right now is not unique to district job openings have reached the highest level on record while hiring levels have stalled I've reached out to other agencies and they're having the same issue I'm asking the board to consider allowing the district to move ahead with an executive search firm to help fill the position of director of finance and business services however with this recommendation I'm asking you to approve however I'm not ready to run right out and start the services of an executive search some different alternatives have recently surfaced that we'd like to try before moving to an executive search firm but I would request the board approve if those alternatives do not work out and with that I'd be more happy to take any questions if I didn't confuse you worse than they already have these mysterious alternatives maybe I'd like to hear about some of those are but let's Lois Lois ensure that a chair of the budget and finance would like to hear from you first you're calling on me yes I am okay calling on you in class she did it frequently so is Rick gonna tell us what these mysterious things are coming our way or not we're looking at potential in-house promotions right now and we have not exhausted that alternative so I'd like to speak with staff and look at possible in-house before we go back out one more time do I dare ask this question what about another new person you wanted someone executive help the project manager the project manager we're having extreme difficulty in locating a project manager obviously the finance manager position is probably of a higher urgency than the project manager just because of the amount of money that we have in the bank and the amount of projects and the extreme workload that is experienced from FEMA that has been incredible this time around because they're entering all of the financial data into a database for FEMA I have reached out and spoke with people on the project manager and I'm trying to reach out to existing folks at other agencies and I hate to use the word coach trying to entice other individuals to come over to the district thank you for your information you can move on to someone else alright does anybody else like to make a comment on this Bob Rick on this executive search firm I know that things are very different now in the job market it probably has impacts on I'll use the colloquial term headhunters is this a contingent search or is this a fee regardless of whether they're successful or not you know I haven't got that information from our HR staff and until we select one I don't think we'll know but I definitely understand where you're coming from it would have to be contingent I don't think we would move if it wasn't could we include that in the motion you most certainly could assuming that the rest of the board would go along with it I would be more comfortable with that arrangement and if that arrangement is no longer feasible in the marketplace because headhunters are not doing contingent anymore we can come back to us on this but I'm also glad to hear that this isn't something that you're going to pull the trigger on immediately if there are other options that may work out differently so that would be great thanks are there any comments from the public on this topic no Bob would you like to state the recommendation the way you would like it let me get to the I would like to make a motion that the board authorize the district manager to procure the services of an executive search firm to fill the position of director of finance and business services not to exceed $35,000 on a contingency basis I'll second that alright can we have a real call vote please President Mayhood aye Vice President Henry yes Director Ackman yes Director Falls yes Director Smalley yes motion passes unanimously alright next we have the consent agenda which has only the single item of the meeting we have a meeting minutes does anybody want to pull that how about any members of the public no okay and then how about on district reports any questions from members of the public on district reports okay well I think we're at the end of our evening we had a busy night and we still got done at 9 o'clock so good job everybody thank you and with no objections we are now adjourned bye bye