 think about what's next for here and a little bit of resources. My PowerPoint has a whole list and you'll see different local resources and national resources as well as different things to read that I'm going to give Holly my copy of the PowerPoint so that y'all can just kind of easily access through that soft copy rather than I don't have like lists which we can make if you'd like to. But that's basically what it's going to look like today. I'm going to zip through things and leave some time at the end for questions. So does that sound good to everybody? Yeah. Yeah. Right. So the first thing I want to mention as I was thinking about coming up here because most of my trainings again are really focused on they're focused on LGBT work but they're focused towards a certain group of people so educators or mental health folks or medical folks and so this is this is a very general kind of thing starting out doing this training here but usually I will start out talking about how we we like to talk about LGBT as like this one kind of group of people but really we are part of all the communities everywhere right because it's just a diverse population and so if you click one more time you actually want to keep on clicking until you see the word sexuality pop up. Okay. So Audre Lorde has this famous quote there's no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we don't live single-issue lives right so all of us have multiple identities all these things that are kind of popping up here they all affect and inform basically who we are right and lots and this is not a comprehensive list right of the way we grew up our family structure where grandparents are from what language we speak whether we have disabilities or not like all of these things kind of they're all make us who we are and today I'm going to be focusing on gender and sexuality but even those things are all informed by all of these things right there's a lot of different parts of who we are and I don't want that to get lost in when I'm talking about gender and sexuality right because it's we end up doing these trainings and really thinking of them as like these two very separate things and especially when we talk about the community at the community as LGBT feels so separate from H which might be heterosexual right like we're all together in this we all have sexualities we all have genders and that's really where I'm coming from from the start tonight does that make sense with everybody so for the next couple minutes I'm going to talk a little bit about terminology and I really want to encourage you to write down your questions as they come up as I go through some of the terms because we will get them to them later for sure and then if we don't get to them later at least you'll have them if we need to come back and do another thing or send you some resources you can find definitions or explanations for some of the different terms so what we're talking about I'm going to start with broad kind of terms which is sex as far as anatomy and things like that gender and gender identity gender expression and sexual orientation so starting off with talking about sex or kind of gender biology because sex and gender or gender identity are different things even though we often hear them kind of interchange right like when you're filling out a forum you usually see they ask gender and it's male female that's usually on there right but really really what they're asking is for is for sex what sex were you assigned at birth by a doctor and that's the way we use the term sex so it really refers to specific anatomy because when a doctor looks at a baby right they're looking at genitalia basically to decide if this baby is either a male or female or intersex which a lot of you might not have heard the term intersex but now one in two thousand births are babies that are born with different kind of different types of genitalia either internally or externally right so one in two thousand births is actually about the number of red heads in the US so it sounds like it's you know small but it's not really right the thing is that they're still really trying to understand more and more about because it has to do with genetics and DNA and I could do ours on just intersexuality right on the diversity of the human body when it comes to that but again talking about sex or sex assigned at birth which is another kind of terms you might have heard already or phrase that people talked about that's what we're talking about like a physical body right so we're used to hearing fake female male or intersex okay next slide now sex is different from gender identity so now we're talking about gender identity which is an internal sense of knowing who you are whether it's man or a woman transgender both neither something totally different right and this is this kind of goes under the T part of LGBT gender identity mode we really we don't think of it a lot because we're mostly thinking male female male female right but everybody has a gender identity because everybody else really knows in their brain right if they feel like a man they feel like a woman they feel like something other than a man or a woman maybe a combination or not at all so there's a lot of different ways that we can understand our gender right so a couple some of the ways to think about it are listed up there so woman female girl is one type of gender identity and other is male or man a boy and then transgender non-binary and the GNC is gender nonconforming there's a lot of words right there's a we hear it we say LGBT and LGBTQ we add sometimes in the straight and cisgender people which I'll define those as well right the one thing I want to say as I'm getting into this is well it's important it's important to understand these kind of bigger pieces these overview words that I'm talking about but as we start to dig into more of the specific terminology it might feel overwhelming right and hard to remember in a little like oh my goodness I can't I'm never gonna remember this I don't even I don't even get it I don't want you to get hung up on remembering every definition of every word that I say here right all the terms all the LGBTQ I am P like it goes on and on don't worry about right now really remembering all that because the bottom line is what we're trying to get to is a comfort level where we can just see each other as humans and talk to each other as humans right and language helps us do that so I can explain I have some words that I can use to explain one or two certain pieces of who I am to you but really I would like you to get to know me as a human being aside from or along with those few identities because they're important they do they impact my life a lot but so do a lot of other things right so thinking from big to small don't get don't get too hung up on the words it's important to have a general idea but don't forget about trying to remember everything because they're changing the other thing is everything's changing all the time a lot of the youth are actually just adding new words to how they identify which is great because young people have always kind of pushed us to to think more expansively which is wonderful and it's sometimes it's hard okay so side notes this slide I'm going into a couple other definitions that are step all go under gender identity so transgender is a term that you probably heard again it's the tea and LGBT and it's a used still right now as an umbrella term for anybody who basically they were assigned a certain sex at birth remember male or female usually but they don't in their brain they know that their gender is different than the sex they were signed up so that's one of the umbrella terms there are a lot of different ways that transgender people or different words that transgender people use to describe their gender identity so they might not say I'm transgender they might say that they're genderqueer or gender fluid or non-binary or there's a lot of these other words and then cisgender is somewhat of a newer word so cisgender just means you're not transgender which means you basically if the doctor said you are a man or your boy signed you boy at birth and you feel like a boy or a man your cisgender right it's basically CIS is a word from chemistry which means along the same side that's what the prefix CIS is and trans as you probably know is going across right so when you think about who was assigned male at birth or like a woman it's kind of crossing this trans and then cis is you were assigned female at birth and you feel like female you're along the same side it's one way to kind of picture it and then and again like I mentioned is so a lot of individuals who use different terms to describe who they are to you and coming from my professional background of working with young people again how words will they would they would come into groups and tell us like my name is this now or I'm using these words now maybe sometimes different every week right and my job was to listen to them and just hear what they were telling me it was not for me to tell them who they were or who they are right and it's really not anybody's job to tell anybody about who they are because we know who we are you know we are the best at late knowers of our own selves outside of anybody else so that's why I have that up there it's self identification all of these terms and these things that we're talking about people will say hey I'm transgender or I'm queer or I'm this or I'm that and you might have a sense internally of like that's right or I don't think you're right or are you sure with young people it's like is it a phase I don't know you're too young to know right but everybody knows themselves and again my experience especially kids know themselves really well and adults don't do the greatest job of listening to them right so anyway that's that little bit so that's what this slide is it's kind of a couple of extra terms that fall under gender identity next kind of overall kind of larger concept is gender expression right so gender expression is just how we present ourselves as our gender right so we have these words that we describe so there's a feminine kind of gender there's things we call feminine right that are the way we express ourselves and there's things we call masculine and then there's maybe a mixture right so clothing hairstyle mannerisms sometimes hobbies are things that people are interested in these are all things that we've decided should be masculine or feminine which is kind of random but it's centuries of you know really wouldn't say centuries because things have shifted throughout the centuries right you think about centuries ago and I wore dresses right but things change and the fashion industry actually has a lot of a lot of influence on us that we don't even think about because if you think here's an example so pink and blue right we've always thought when we think of blue as the boy color and pink as the girl color right about 50 years ago pink was the boy color and blue was the girl color or a little over 50 years and then things started to shift from the fashion industry kind of shifting things a little bit like making pink more feminine right and we all just kind of go along with that for the most part but but bottom line is they're just colors actually right they don't really have a gender toys are just toys toys don't have gender right like they're just things they're just materials and so gender expression is really interesting though because it's intense right the way that we're conditioned to really feel like if I'm a girl I should like dresses right or I should like dolls and I should want to do this and if I'm a boy or I was told I was boy I'm supposed to really only like trucks and I wear blue stuff and I want to play football like and that and those are our kind of limiting norms but they're pretty strong when you think about the pressure that we put on each other and on our kids to fit into these gender norms that were the expression but that's just the larger framework and I mentioned this because I have a pure fluid and we have gender queer gender fluid and Trojanus so within the LGBT community and actually with some people who identify as straight or heterosexual or cisgender right their gender expression it's actually just being created right it kind of shows our creativity and so some people might mix it up right mixing it up might be me wearing nail polish right now I'm not wearing any right now but if I wear nail polish and tie right we think of ties as man things we think of nail polish as girl things and yeah they're just things but that would look like mixing it up a little bit right those are both just expressions of gender when we look at each other mostly we make assumptions based on how we look and the first thing that really registers in our brain is male female and then we start looking at body type and size and skin color and things like that and studies have been done on this and then all of our brain get flooded with the messages that we've been told about girls who have lighter skin and blonde hair and are tall and have this body shape and it's unconscious a lot of it or some conscious but all of the hysteria takes kind of flood in right just by looking at somebody that you don't even know you have no idea so we start making assumptions it's just a human thing right before we've even talked to the person before we know anything about them we already have kind of this sense of like we think we know who they are right we all do and so one of the things that I like to kind of keep leaving in and out of my talks is to do the work of not making the assumptions and I'm part of that because I'm making assumptions about everybody in the room right now too you know based on like how you dressed and how you look and you know like taller short like I'm I am because that's just what we do but what I'm gonna do is check check myself on that and try not to change the way I would normally act towards somebody I'm not gonna be more unkind or you know less kind or anything you know like I want to see you as a human and know I don't really know I have all kinds of ideas back here but I don't really know who you are and I want to be able to have the openness to know who you are if you feel like you want to do that right and again this all kind of falls under how we express ourselves and gender expression is a big piece of that all right next slide okay so this is just some examples of the mixes of gender expression and I don't know if you know some of these I guess I pulled a lot generationally in my brain because I'm 40 and so I have a lot of people that I know it's like David Bowie and pop and Jack Mock and Grace Jones and Ellen Prince I can't remember the last two people there but if you anybody watch Grey's Anatomy the woman with the yellow background she's Callie and then I think the person the bottom right is a trans woman who's also a punk rock musician so anyway so these are just just kind of a visual of different gender expressions right and most of these people have had a different type of sexuality or language that they might have used to describe their sexuality as well other than heterosexual okay so my last kind of overall category is sexual orientation which is totally different from sex gender and gender expression right again we all have a sexual orientation we all have a gender and a sex that we were assigned at birth sexual orientation are simply put our feelings of attractions toward toward people outside of us if we have feelings of attraction because some people don't right but it's not based on behavior it's based on feelings and so some of the language that people use to describe their sexual orientation to somebody else's lesbian or gay with the same gender loving of their bisexual pansexual asexual queer questioning and heterosexual right there are many other words that people use to describe their sexual orientation to people or to describe how they experience attraction towards folks but what we know is that it's very diverse it's not just like people are gay or straight right there's a lot more of a mixture in there because we're again like the youth culture to agree because they're helping us think about attraction as much more than just physical or sexual that we actually can get attracted to people just emotionally and romantically but maybe not completely physically or maybe it's more kind of a spiritual connection that's stronger than it is as as it might be as a sexual connection but it's still an attraction and a connection so they're creating language to describe that that experience right and again we don't want to get lost into the bazillion words that they use but it does speak to the fact that we are dynamic human beings we're not just how we think of gay and straight one thing I'd like to do to kind of help people understand sexual orientation and how we get it how we kind of start to understand it and within ourselves is if you think back to if you had a crush about how old were you do you remember the first crush anybody? Oh probably ten his name was Pierre Sheldu. I still remember his name. I married him 40 years later. When you were 14? 40 years later. I met my husband when I was 10. Oh okay. Nice. Anybody else? Can you think or even remember the grade? I would say I was probably 11 or 12 and I still remember that person's name, which I remain nameless, but it does in when you hear my next question. Any type of sense that you like I have a crush on it could have been a real person, it could be a person on TV, it could be another person. I was seriously jealous of Dale Evans. I always wanted Superman to take my hand and fly me away. Yeah, me too. But you know, Lois, Lois. I'm sorry, Rick. He's shaking his head at me. He thinks I'm a crazy person. Here's the thing, so young usually, right, we kind of have a sense. Now, how did you know that that was a crush happening and not just a friend, right? What was the difference? How did you know? I lost my mind. You lost your mind. How? How would you describe it? I went from being confident and not worried about what I said or did or how I looked or anything and all of a sudden appearances became important. Especially in front of that person. Yeah. It had to be cool. Yeah, it had to be cool. I mean, you might be, I mean, aside from the sexual attraction, you might be really interested in the person as a whole about who they are. Yeah, you might want to find out your way to teach your language. Yeah, that happens a lot when you're getting a crush on someone. So you want to spend time with them when they get to know them, maybe more than you care about some friends. What else kind of happens when you know you're crushing on somebody, when you have that first crush? Like I mentioned, you're preoccupied with thinking of that person. Fantasy. Even just as simple as the physical feel, like having butterflies in your stomach or being nervous around that person, maybe, right? It's like, we just kind of know. We know that there's something about that person that's different than, like, the friends we have that we might love are friends, but this person is something different, right? That's the kind of understanding or very oversimplified way to understand, like, that's sexual orientation. That's starting to get a sense of who you're attracted to or really what characteristics of a person that you are attracted to. So we don't talk about it a lot as characteristics. We are used to talking about it. If you're sexual orientation, it's like, you're this boy who likes this girl, or maybe you're this boy who likes this boy, or you're this girl and you like this girl, right? But it's actually a lot more than that because if you, you know, Lois, you liked boys, right? Yes. Did you like every boy you ever met? No. No? Probably not, right? No. It depends on the person, right? There are certain characteristics or things that he liked. That's really what sexual orientation is. It's getting an understanding of what do I like in a person, right? And though maybe it's boys, or maybe it's girls, or maybe it's trans people at this point, which a lot of kids are understanding, their identities are really, they're attracted to people of all different types of genders, right? So they're using different language to describe that. But really what they're seeing is really attracted to this kind of person, right? The problem is, because I'm talking about it this way right now, which feels very kind of light and fun and it's easy to kind of understand it that way, I think. But the discrimination and the harassment and the bullying in the schools and the laws that we have across the country, that actually like cause so much harm based on being outside of what is considered the norm, which is heterosexuality, right? And being cisgender. If you're outside those norms, a lot of us really struggle because of those policies and the laws. And just some of the statement that's still out there about having any other kind of identity besides being heterosexual or straight or cisgender. And so hopefully we can have more conversations this way where it's like, yes, there's sexual orientation, everybody has a sexual orientation, and really it's about different kinds of people. It's not really about being attracted to a specific gender. My vision is like one day we're probably not even talking about any of this at some point because people just get to be people and hopefully have healthy, respectful, caring relationships with other people. And that kids and people attract that to themselves as well. But alas, we're here. I have words that are really wrapped up in gender because lesbian is a term that means a woman who is attracted to other women, right? Again, it's about gender, but that's the word we use right now. That's what some people will choose to use the word lesbian to describe their sexual orientation. Same thing with gay. Gay is usually a term that folks are used to hearing like a man who's attracted to another man. But some women use the term gay as well because they don't like the word lesbian. Same gender loving is actually a term that's come mostly from the African-American community because the terms lesbian and gay are very white. They kind of come from white culture and it doesn't really fit for some folks in the African-American community. And lesbian and gay are not words that they wanted to use. So they've termed one of the terms that some folks in the African-American community will use the same gender though. Bisexual is if you're attracted to both genders, right? Bi means two. And some people who identify or use the term bisexual will actually use it and define it as if I'm attracted to two genders, and not meaning just male-female, but meaning male people and transgender male people, right? Or something like that, right? It's two genders, but not making it just male and female. Pansexual, I put it next to bisexual because it's very similar in definition, but it means generally that people who use the term pansexual from what I've heard is that they're not worried about a person's gender. They're not looking at gender as who they're attracted to. They're just attracted to that person. So pansexual, again, the prefix pan, right? Kind of like a pan or a camera, just a wide view. I'm just attracted to a person. I'm not worried about gender. Asexuality, somebody who doesn't really experience strong physical attraction or emotional attraction to people, right? It doesn't mean that they're folks who are like hermits and they never relate with anybody. They just don't feel these strong sense of attraction towards people in that way. Queer is another kind of over umbrella term that a lot of younger people have used. It's still a term that can be used in a very derogatory way, clearly, right? But it's also a term that's been taken back as a more empowering word to say, I'm not heterosexual or I'm not cisgender too. So it's got a lot of different meaning to it. Questioning is used as kind of a legitimate place where people are when they're kind of questioning what words to describe their experience in the world of their attraction or their gender, right? So it can kind of fit under both. And then heterosexual is if you're a side male and you're attracted to women who are a side female and it's kind of the main normative word that brings to your mind. Okay. Lots of words, lots of things. How are we doing? Fine. Okay. All right. Let's go to the next slide. All right. So a little bit of a quick self-reflection I would like everyone to do. It looks like most people have some paper. If you don't, maybe we can get you some paper and a pen. I have some questions that I'm going to throw up on the next slide but I want to encourage you just, this is not a like you have to talk to somebody else about it but I want you to consider these questions and maybe just either jot down answers or draw a picture or make a squiggle or whatever you want to do. I'm not going to be real hard and fast about this but answer these questions and write something down so it kind of connects brain to hand on the paper. Okay. And I'm going to give you about like three minutes or so. Don't overthink it, right? Don't go too much into it but I just want you to reflect a little bit. Does everybody have something? Cool. Okay. So next slide has the questions. So just take a couple of minutes to think through these. How did you identify or how did you think of your sexual orientation when you were a teenager as compared to now? And how did you identify your gender when you were a teen or how did you think about it or did you think about it when you were a teenager and do you think about it now? What has changed since you were young about your understanding of both gender and sexual orientation and that in what ways do you think people stereotype or make assumptions about you based on those two types of identity and try to think of at least one and if you can't don't stress about it but just put a little bit of thought into that and I'll let you take a couple of minutes to do that. What are you looking at with us? I'm drawing a picture. I want to see. It's a penis. Oh, I didn't learn to say that word until I was about 50. The great enlightening begin. You can take like 10 more seconds to finish up your thought if you're still writing. Don't worry if you didn't get through it or you didn't get the pressure right here. So I bring up these questions because I think it's again, it's really important for all of us to reflect on our own identities and not be thinking so much about othering everybody else. We're really kind of focusing on ourselves sometimes because especially if you're somebody who has for most of your life or all of your life identified as heterosexual or just thought of yourself as like kind of the norm, you're heterosexual and you're cisgender, right? You haven't had to think a lot about what it might be like to be somebody who doesn't feel that way. So I wonder if I could get, we don't have to worry about the first two questions. We keep that confidential, I wonder if anybody would be willing to share a little bit of your experience and we won't go on too long because I want to make sure that we can move on to the next thing, but what has changed since you were young and if you're willing to share any of the, like the assumptions or certain types of people for that? Anybody willing to share? Yeah, I think, you know, since I was young there's a lot more openness now, which is really nice and people being a lot more sensitive but it's not something that you whisper about or that it's gossipy or something like that. It's just open, there's so much openness and acceptance and understanding. Yeah, do it when you're young. I've become aware of how, I would say, wonderfully multidimensional it is. And when I was young I probably didn't have, young enough I didn't have any idea there was voices in the mental parents and girls and their mothers and then, you know, maybe there was a guy or something and then I'm not really sure I know how many dimensions there are now. And I just think that I think has become much more common that people understand diversity and you didn't understand there was diversity. Oh, Rick's going to kill me. When I was a teenager I was very well built. Let's put it that way. I had a girlfriend who said to me you should never wear a sweater. Okay? But then I had guys who liked the sweater look. And it was like it was about my chest, not about me. Not much has changed. I know it's, you know, I look at these long-legged women and you know, that's the way you're supposed to look and I've never looked that way. I've never felt grown up because I'm about this tall. Anyway, that's... Sorry, Rick. Why do you apologize for being... That's an inside thing. It's an inside thing. Thank you for sharing with us. Well, I was just going to say when I was younger the thing was to be just like everybody else. I mean, if you wore something different, you know, you were teased and that sort of thing, I don't think it's that way at all anymore. I love to do things that are different and step out of the box and you know, wear a tie, I feel like. Yeah, so that's changed for you. Yeah. So I was going to say it's still the same for kids. Is it still the same for kids? They have all these things. Even within the subgroups of queer community there's pressure to be a certain way. There's pressure to be trans enough. Which is sad and scary. But right, as we get older we often hopefully find a place where we're like, it's cool on that, right? That would be me. I mean that was kind of my thing with the last question. I had a hard time answering that because I think my sexual orientation and gender identity would be one of the last things that someone stereotyped me for. I feel like it's all of those other things that people are typically passing stereotypes more quickly. What are the things? I mean, if you're blonde, if your skin's a certain color, if you're dressing like the cool kids or if you're choosing to dress differently, I think those are kind of some of the things that... Which I would say relate to gender. Gender expression. If we put it all together. Some of the clothing stuff. It all falls under whether you're feminine enough, if you look feminine enough. Some of the things. Some people think if you're blonde you're not very smart. I've experienced that. Yeah. And being the early bloomer, I was this tall when I was 12 and that was very weird. To have people respond to me as a 12 year old, as if I were a 21 year old. That was just... So you were about to bear for all the kids then? No! Because I was kind of the tomboy and I didn't want to do that and I didn't want to go to countries and play the creek. So, yeah, it was being not only the stereotype of the blonde bimbo, if you will, the buxom blonde bimbo, but being very mature physically at 12. Right. And to think about that as the gym again. If you think about it, I encourage you to continue as you go on the rest of your days. You can nail a lot of this ray to gender norms and expressions when you dig into it a little bit. Because think of it in a flip way. If you were a boy, which I'm making an assumption that you identify as a woman, as a cisgender woman. If you were assigned male at birth, how would it be different if you were tall and blonde at 12? That's the difference. Why aren't tall boys versus being a short boy? So many things. Another thing that I think is kind of reflecting on gender identities, gender stereotypes, orientation stereotypes, before I was 12, I think I had met probably 7 or 8 people and couples who were same-gendered loving. I like that term. As a kid, I just thought it seemed like a really normal thing. It didn't pop out of my head as, oh, what's going on with Hildegarden Peak? Of course there are a couple. It was so obvious, it was so natural, and I didn't think anything of it until somebody else was like, that's weird. I've had several such ascents and I'm wondering if that was perfectly normal? If you're from Nebraska and my age, you don't think anything's normal? Great. Yeah. Well, and that kind of speaks to differences again, geography, where we grew up, where we live now, all the different things. That's how we think and how we see the world. And I thank you all for sharing. This is a conversation that I would love to just continue just on this alone. It's really eye-opening. For me, as somebody, so I identify as a queer transgender man. So I've done a lot of thinking, especially because I do these trainings, on what gender means, how it feels, what it means to walk around the world with a way that you feel about your gender inside, so much rich information here and so much to kind of open us up to really, it liberates everybody when we start kind of breaking it down. Because I have so much of a better chance. So I was assigned to be male at birth. I didn't transition to male until I was 38. So the whole first half of my life, I was conditioned and socialized as a woman. And now I'm walking through the world in a package that looks like a man. And yet I still have a lot of women inside of me because that's how I grew up, too. But I'm seeing the male world that feel a little bit like a spy. Because I hear things that I wasn't hearing before in just male spaces. And I feel the different pressures. I have a lot more just personal empathy for what it means to be a man in the world than I did before. And so it's just really interesting. I think that there's actually a lot that we can learn from transgender people and non-binary people because especially if we transition to older we really have lived in the world in these certain kind of ways and I'm a binary looking trans guy. There's non-binary people who their gender expression is not looking like me. People are much more comfortable with me in the way that I look than they might be with skirt and nail polish and some more feminine stuff and beard. And people express their gender that way. And they should. We want people to be able to just be who they are ideally without having to deal with discrimination and harassment and stigma in the world. But it comes from us as individuals inside who are comfortable enough with our own stuff to really pull the space and just let people be whoever they are even if it makes us uncomfortable the way that they look. And I've had that experience where I'll see somebody who's not binary identified who uses pronouns we didn't even get to this pronoun stuff people using pronouns other than he or she where they look very masculine to me but they want to use the she pronouns or they feel more like a woman. It takes a lot of work on my part to get used to that. But that's my job. It's not their job to change. It's not their job to look the way that I make me feel comfortable. That's not their responsibility. So, again, this is something we could go into forever. I didn't leave you a whole lot of time for questions but I do want to take at least a couple if anybody has one. That would probably take a really long time to answer but we'll see where we go. Do you want to encourage folks to think about what you might want to do next? Let's take one question. I just want to expand on that first quote from Audrey Lord. I think I get it but it said, no such thing as a single issue of struggle because we don't have a single issue of life. Could you expand on that? So, for example when I'm talking about my gender as I'm a transgender man that's one issue. But then when I say queer I'm talking about my sexual orientation which is who I'm attracted to. I think that's another issue. I'm a white guy who grew up middle class in New York. That's like two or three more issues. So, talking about basically gender, sexuality, race, class, ability all those things are different issues that we all carry. All those things are me. Whereas when I come here to talk about LGBT gender expression all those things are different issues. Totally. And so we think about it as one when I come do a training on LGBT stuff that's one issue but it's actually more. And it brings up a lot more. So it's important to talk about that and to start to talk about how people are multi-dimensional. Okay, last thing just as thoughts that anybody wants to share as far as next steps for here what would you like to see happen as far as more training other discussions? Do you want more resources? What would you like as far as the district goes or what would be helpful from having this start? Is there any way to go down as individuals and take additional you offer? I know there's also non-violent communication which I've been going to do you offer like side seminars like they do or what do they do? I haven't done anything myself. I think the diversity center does do some community education rights. I have a lot of information from the diversity center brought with me that's on the table that people can take so we can touch with them about kind of getting more going to more classes Any last comment or last thoughts that you want to share before we go? Well, thank you for being here and talking to and I got to think about Pierre Sheldu again Pierre So Holly's handing out an evaluation that I can bring back to the diversity center about this so it would be great if you took just a couple of minutes just like four questions You know what, they can finish them up and give them back to me and then I'll make sure they get to you because we have a 630 meeting to play following so So that'd be great. So you want to bring them to Sharon because it's going to be interesting. I will do that. Well thank you again for having me I appreciate it. Thank you Anthony. Pleasure meeting you. This is my contact information I don't have any cards or anything but if you've had more questions or you wanted resources or anything don't hesitate to email me Thank you Thank you Thank you very much Good night Go get some water What? I forgot to take my black question I feel like I don't feel very good so I just want to be excused It doesn't look like a very long agenda anyway Okay Okay What's matter? You are going to sleep you are going to sleep You are going to sleep Tell us about Pierre. You know what? There are some mysteries. That's what I saw. Actually, I saw Pierre at a reunion. Wow. And his wife died. And he made a pass at me. And I wasn't interested. That's how I took him. Thank you for the interview. Okay, Pierre is going to phone us now. Are you ready to start the meeting? Yeah, didn't we already? We're going to start this meeting. Bill wasn't feeling well. I don't know if he's coming back. Okay. So, he may be back. I don't know. We're just getting ready to start our meeting now. So, Gina can't be here. So, we have Tara Paul from Nassim and Omicron. All right. We hope we don't put you to sleep. Or maybe it'd be a good idea if we did put you to sleep. I'll be diligently awake following along. Okay. So, we've already had roll call. Do we need to have roll call again? Yes, we'll have roll call again. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Director Smallman is absent. Director Bruce, here. Director Swan. Here. President Henry. Here. Director Pulse. Here. Okay. We're all here. Bill may be back. I don't know. Anyway, I want to welcome all of you. I'm so happy to see you. And I'm glad it's not raining tonight, so far. So, we'll have public comment next. You may speak for five minutes about anything that's not on the agenda. And it should kind of pertain to the water district. I guess you could talk about the glaciers disappearing or something, but it'd be kind of water. So, is there anybody out there who would like to speak? Yeah. Rick. Yeah. Thank you. My name is Rick Moran from Dan Lohan. Since the board has approved using action minutes, it is, for me at least, a lot easier to understand what has taken place during the meetings. So, I thank you for changing that format. Also, during reading that, I read a lot of it, and I have read a lot of minutes before. I would like to know what, how informational material is chosen. So, it's usually down to the bottom of the agenda. And like this week, there's a couple of newspaper stories, and it doesn't really reflect well on our district up here. But recently, there was a front page story in the January 25th press banner. I have it here, January 25th, and how the San Lorenzo Valley Water District banned glyphosate permanently. And that was not included in the informational material. So, I don't know if it's newspaper stories they could put in there, or how they are chosen, what reference they need to be. So, here's a, this is a good news story, all right, that a lot of people worked hard to achieve. I am in contact with two authors. Dowell Ryan, who is a scientist and a local resident, went to school at UCSC. She wrote this book Beyond the War of Invasive Species. And I'm also in contact with Kerry Gillam, author of White Wash, the story of a weed killer, cancer, and a corruption of science. And when I notified them about this story, they sent their congratulations. So, those two authors would like to send their congratulations to this water district for doing that. And I would like that this article be put in the informational material as a permanent record of what we've achieved here. So, that's my, what I have to say. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Anyone else want to speak? Everybody's so quiet tonight. Okay. Actually, I do. Chris liked the moment. And I just wanted to know if the board was ever going to take any action in moving from at-large elections to trust-the-area elections? Because the threshold for a violation of the CBRA and California Rights Act is pretty low. And there are a lot of lawsuits coming through the courts in the last couple of years regarding violations of the COVA, particularly around at-large elections. So, I would hope that would be something the board would look at addressing. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? So, are there, I guess I should have asked you this before if there's any changes to the agenda or additions? None except I would excuse the Director Spalman for illness from the meeting. Okay. So, I will go to Unfinished Business, which is a 2016 Strategic Plan Review. Discussion and possible action. Do we want to make a motion to excuse Mr. Spalman? Oh, okay. I would move that we excuse Director Spalman on account of illness. Second. Consensus or consensus? Okay. All right. All in favor? All right. So, back to Unfinished Business. The Strategic Plan Review. Anybody on board? Rick, you want to? Well, back in February, we discussed about to the board the existing Strategic Plan, the 2015 Strategic Plan, and brought it to the board to review and to talk about moving forward with updating Strategic Plan since the last time it was updated was 2016 and the majority of it was changed. In the past, we used a gentleman, Fred Ives, that worked on the first original Strategic Plan. He worked on the second update, and he sent a proposal to the district that he would be willing to come in and update this in regards to the Strategic Plan. I did send out a request for pricing and information to two others. We did not receive anything back from either one of them. We do have a BHI benefit consulting proposal to update our Strategic Plan. It's a series of meetings. It comes down to public involvement. It was from 2016. 2014. It's the same guy who we did the original plan and did the last update and not proposing to do this update. His proposal is in the agenda. People are trying to find his pricing. It would travel about $10,000 out the door. I think it's good to have someone come in and work with the board and staff, individual interviews. I think it's something that would be good that someone from the outside works with the board to work through and works with the public. With that, I'm no doubt that the board has questions or comments that they would probably like to discuss. Well, as a credit union person, I hate to keep bringing that up, but we had to do strategic plans. We always had somebody come in and give us pointers on what we needed to do and help us out with that. I think it's a lot for the board to take on because we have other things we need to be doing and we need to have a strategic plan so we can figure out where we're going with the budget for one thing, what our goals are, what we think has been done well, what we think hasn't been done well. There's a lot of... That's just very simple things in the strategic plan, but it can get more involved in that. Margaret? I'd like to second what Lewis Henry had to say about that. I think it's a detailed and complex process and it's great to have somebody who's a little impartial to help us step through that process. I have mixed feelings about Brent Ives. I think he's familiarity with the district is a plus. Some of my more recent interactions with him at conferences make me wonder just how enthusiastic he is about working anymore. He's like maybe more interested in playing ball, but nevertheless, he knows the district well. I like his process that he's proposed of interviewing staff, interviewing the board and key stakeholders and getting some of that perspective and helping us synthesize all of that input I think is really helpful. Sorry, Greg, but nobody else responded to your inquiries? I sent out to both of them and they're coming back. And that he's responded? It says he's interested. I would be in favor of using Brent Ives. He's interested. He knows us. The objectivity is helpful. And what you said? I don't have mixed feelings about Mr. Ives. We've engaged with him before. And I find his work product to be very, I'm not sure exactly the right word, pedestrian perhaps. When I reviewed the strategic plan that apparently he wrote, or at least wrote the bulk of the 2016, it sounded like he wrote a good share of it. I don't know if he did then, but it was definitely not a plan that really had any need to it. There were some goals, for example, that were, well, we're going to have the strategic goal to review something a certain year. That's not what the strategic plan is all about. I don't want to spend $800 or $10,000 on this, at least not at this point. What I did do is I took it upon myself to start writing one, based off the plan that we have in existence. Now I should have a draft done by the next meeting. And I have to tell you something. I find the notion of us not being the ones to do the strategic plan to be not a great thing. I think outsourcing it to a third party, or asking somebody to come in to write it for us, or do a lot of work for us, I think is not what we should be doing. We're the ones that should be doing that work. Now we can get it facilitated. That's fine. But I don't think that's $10,000 worth of work. I'd rather take that money and spend it outsourced. So here's an issue. You can't really talk to us. I mean, you could talk to me. But you can't talk to us about district business. This would be you. It wouldn't be necessarily what other board members think is a good idea. Now you could talk to staff, I assume. So it's one thing for you to write the board policy manual, but I have a little bit of an issue with this. It's not meant to be a be-all and end-all. It's a draft that people can say we don't agree with anything, or propose something new, or propose additions, or what have you. But it's not $10,000 that we're spending on a guy that I don't think does particularly good work. Okay. I'd be happy to find another guy. There are other facilitators that... Soquel, Santa Cruz, whoever, other water districts, other special districts may use. Frank Dives has a well-known name and history with us that said, I'm very uncomfortable with any one of us taking ownership of the document. It's not ownership. It's a level of engagement and influence in the document I think for any one of us is inappropriate. It's not governance. This is our job. I disagree. Wordsmithing a document is not our job. Gathering... Are you creating those strategic plans? Yes. But not, I'm going to take dictation. Not, I'm going to put my words in here and you guys can pitch them or keep them. We hire professionals. They're sitting across the table from me. We want to have them write it? We want to have them contribute to it. Of course. That's part of the process. And that's what we do here in a meeting. And perhaps a special workshop. And I don't think any one of us should have the ownership of writing one. Do you have anything you want to say? Well, if I'm... So number one, I'm not keen on hearing about another bid process where only one person bids on it. That's just got to stop. I don't care if we don't do a plan. I just don't see any more single bid proposals in my span. I just don't want to see that, period. I think Bob makes a great effort and a suggestion that yes it is the board's responsibility to come up and along with the staff develop a strategic plan. I don't know that any one of us is capable of doing that on our own. And like you say, I think it probably lends to a violation of the Brown Act if one of us were to try to write it and consult with the other board members on any part of it unless it was done in an open workshop with everybody present. And I wouldn't mind giving that a try to see how it goes and to save us an extra $10,000 or $8,000 or whatever it is. I mean it seems like all of these districts and every pseudo-government agency I see does nothing but bid out everything that they have to do, everything that they're responsible for is put out to bid. And I'm just wondering what does everybody do in the meantime? So I'm in favor of saving the money and I'm in favor of having a workshop to work on this so that we can all talk together. No one single person would have the ownership although it might be typed on Bob's laptop I don't care which, but everybody has the equal input and opportunity to provide whatever amount of input they like towards a strategic plan. Can I go to the audience now and see if there was comments from the audience? Chuck. Whatever process you use, all five of you need to be participating equally in that. Facilitation helps organize that in some way. I kind of agreed not to try somebody other than Brent. Try to come up, do it among yourselves. Don't let one person go either. You have a lot of experience having done it in the past. Bob has a lot of energy about addressing it. It needs to be done with certainly you too and everybody else there at the time. I have watched, workshops have their problems too. They don't get as much public input as you think they're going to when that happens. I didn't see that happen a lot with the board policy manual. I think it is good to revisit the strategic plan but it's a first workshop and I'll do another workshop on it. Figure out how to do it. Anybody else in the audience? Yes. Okay, Lou. The Ferris Felton. 40 years in business has afforded me ample opportunities to participate in strategic planning for everything from small startups to large cap corporations. Review of the strategic plan proposal in the board package has led to several thoughts I wanted to share. While I agree with the definition of strategic planning, namely, and I quote, for an organization to set clear direction over a rolling five-year period, what follows is a document that departs greatly from the north. A custom to a one- or two-page plan stressing just a few key aspects of the path that define both direction and boundaries of the future, what the district has in the 2016 revision is a bureaucratic behemoth spanning 67 pages. It has statements on mission, vision, values, as well as a multitude of objectives and accomplishments. There are nine categories in the plan, 27 elements of detail under the nine categories. Throwing it all together leads one into a confusing morass of information overload. To be clear, I'm not saying that the 2016 revision is totally off the rails. It's just not what I'm accustomed to seeing, and clearly off-target in some areas. For example, combining strategic with tactical. Normally, objectives flow out of the general direction of the strategic plan in the form of operational goals in the beginning of the year. Accomplishment reports follow the end-of-the-year performance with goal-by-goal performance-to-plan measurement. These three distinct processes flow one to the other in a logical progression, yet they are separate and distinct. For example, general to specific and long-range to short-term. Wikipedia defines strategic planning as an organization's process of defining a strategy or direction and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy. Wikipedia also identifies control and feedback as a key element in successful strategic planning. The last indication of action to the 2016 plan was two and a half years ago in the fall of 2016. Has anyone looked at or updated the plan since then? Page 10 outlines one to four goals to be completed by December 31 of each year from 2016 to 2020. Where can progress to these goals be found? My search of the district website turned up nothing. Lastly, a district-paid list arrives in 2011 to develop the original plan. We then paid him 8,000 more in 2016 to revise the plan. Now we're proposing to pay him 9,000 more for a second revision. How many times has Mr. Iov have to walk us through the process before we're able to do it ourselves? My experience with strategic planning is holding within the organization since no one knows better how to plan for the future than the ones who have to make it happen. Why not look to the district staff or members of the board for someone with strategic planning experience to shepherd the process? Two specific recommendations I'd like to offer to simplify and improve the process framework toward going forward. Number one, use Peter Drucker's seminal work on management by objectives while he was a professor at Caltech's Graduate School of Business. And number two, keep some parts of the 2016 plan that address certain aspects of Michael Porter's work from 1980 on formulating a strategic plan, that is identifying company strengths and weaknesses, personal values of key implementers, industry opportunities and threats, and broader societal expectations. Above all, the strategic plan must include commitment to supplying ratepayers ample water at the highest quality and the lowest price. Keeping this process in house will lead to a less expensive option, more ownership of the end product, and a better outcome. Questions? Thank you. Anybody else have comment? Virgil? Yeah, Virgil Chandler in Brookdale. I think I like what I heard from everybody except Director Bruce. The directors are responsible for this strategic plan. They need to own it. You don't need to hire a consultant in order to fulfill the promise of owning it. Okay, that might be one way to get help. Another way to get help is from staff. But if you don't own it and you don't do something to say we own this, it's another 2016 plan. I think it's a good idea to do that. If you don't own this, it's another 2016 copyright. Thank you. Anybody else? Well, I have to agree with what Lou said. When I looked at it, I thought what's the point of this if we don't look at it every year and say this is where we are. This is where we are. That didn't happen. So whatever we do, whether we spend money or we work together in a workshop to get this done, we need to be looking at what the plan is, know what the plan is and have a date certain that we're going to say. This is what we've done. This is what our goals were. These are goals we missed. These are goals we made. Stuff like that. We could all agree to that. Yeah, absolutely. If I may get I'm not disagreeing with you, Virgil. I think we all have to own this. Each one of us has a big part of that. Not having a facilitator of some kind makes that process difficult. You guys need to get out of the weeds. Your job is not to be in a weed state. You have a professional staff that's more than capable and they will be here after you are out of office. Whatever that term is. Your responsibility is what are the goals and objectives and emissions of this public agency? How are we going to get there? Not to write the document. Not to do any of that. That is weed work that you should do. Anybody else? Anybody else on the board want to say anything? I'm not prepared to vote for this tonight. Why? I didn't hear anybody suggest we vote on it tonight. It's a possible option. Yeah, I know it says that. Rick, you want to say something? I just don't think staff is the one responsibility. I don't believe staff and the board have any issues and staff will be intimidated by someone on the board. It should be someone from the outside to work with staff on the board for him. I don't think staff should write it. I think this is the board's responsibility. Where do we find some outside professional help? Yeah. I think you could proceed with Director Fultz's idea but you need to do it in a meeting that you can see where all board members are present and you work as a team and not as an individual. Well, I can go along with that. That's my opinion. I think we can do it. We need to do it as a team and we need to have as much public input as we can get. But we need input from staff. You'll get input from staff if you do this as a team but I don't think one board member should write it. Or I don't think staff should take it as a team. You'll get good input. Okay. Director Fultz? I agree with the fact that it should be a workshop which is what I propose. My concern about walking into the workshop without something from my experience and serving on prior committees that you don't get anything done and that if you at least have something that you're starting with even if you decide ultimately that you want to throw it all out it's at least a place to start and so my suggestion was simply that I would be bringing to the board a place we can start and at that point decide whether or not we want to use any of it all of it but it's a place to start. I hope we're going to be somewhere between five and eight. That predicated on the 2016 plan that was written? That wouldn't that be the place to start in a workshop to start with what we do have and it has been created for us and let's go through it and throw out the crap keep the good stuff and expand on that. Basically the issue that I found with the 2016 plan that was not a strategic plan it was a tactical plan. It had specific tasks that were going to be assigned. That doesn't give the staff the necessary strategic direction on what we as a board want to see whatever that may ultimately be. So while it will address I think the key topics that are in the 2016 plan what I envision is a very different format and a very different content level. It doesn't get down into the measurement of specific tasks with a sliding green bar it provides staff something that they need in order to be able to then put together those tasks that have to be accomplished and what that time frame should be. Holly? I just wanted to clarify something the last time Brent I worked with us was 2014 I know because it was my very first week on the job I had to come in on a Saturday and I had no clue what was going on. So that was 2014. The 2016 was the plan that Brian put together by himself and to get to the board. He's the one that had the Brian Lee put together. Because I talked with Brent I do believe Brent worked with Brian on this and it was a combination that took to 2016 until we adopted but starting with the current strategic plan with the data is a great place to start and we're kind of locked in on projects that's the easy ones. We've got enough going on to where we can outline what's going to happen project wise over the next few years. That's pretty easy in finance. The philosophy of the board is what we need to get into because that has changed and how we're going to move forward how we're going to move forward on the education how we're going to move forward on a pest management plan. We have some philosophies that we need to get to the individual committees. So when we go and put our agendas together for community meetings and so forth we're following the lead of the current board. We're in our area right now especially for me to try to figure out which direction to go in on certain projects because I'm not sure with the board's philosophy. So it would be good and I wish this was done right straight out of the box after the election. So we're off and running in the committees so you can as a board give the finance committee what you want to see. You give the environmental, the engineering what you want to see and then we take it and run. It's not a capital improvement program. That's a whole different CIP. This is a lot of philosophy from the board and the staff and the general public input as we move ahead. So I think the existing one is a good place to start and then you just tear apart from there. I think that's a good idea. Let's do something like scheduling a workshop and have Bob bring what you've been working on and use it as a potential framework against the 2016 plan and take the best of both. I don't care if Bob writes the whole thing, I have no issue with I don't think he's taking ownership of it. I think he's just offering his talents and skills that are going to benefit us and save us $10,000 which I find very commendable. I like that too. So let's bring them both. Let's schedule an open sort of workshop type of meeting in some place where we can all fit and get the public involved and then bring both documents and review them. I guess one of my concerns is how we structure moving this ahead. At what point do we have the public workshop? Do we go out on the road? Do we hold a meeting in Felt or another location and ask the public to come in? That's how we kind of did it before. That's where I kind of don't have how we're going to move this forward in the proper format. That's might we link to this. And that's where a facilitator would come in or somebody or somebody who knows how to do that would come in and help us. I think it would be good when we have a public workshop with inviting the general public in that we have somebody to field questions and work with the board and draw out public questions and then work with us. And that would be more reasonable cost than it would be for the whole program. I think that's a great idea. There has to be facilitators in Santa Cruz County. You probably know 20 or 30 of them. I gave them the names of two folks who didn't respond. I'll just do them. They're still other facilitators. We used them before. I bet you Tony is a hell of a facilitator or Anthony or whatever. You could kill two birds with one stone and teach us all about more buzzwords. And one of our own committee members might not do a bad job either. I was just going to say if you're concerned about the objectivity of the moderator I would be happy to offer a proposal within two days that will be probably just a lunch. That's how much this is not rocket science. The process of strategic planning is not rocket science. Getting it right is hard. So the moderator's job is easy. Your job is the hard part is getting out the ideas and then prioritizing the ideas. So I mean I think we're really simplifying this here more than it should be because there's a lot of opinions on this board although three of us pretty much agree most of the time but and I know it's frustrating that we have committees and committees should because of a strategic plan that should be what budget's going to do what's engineering's plan what's admin it's you know to me it's a little more complicated than a lunch but it seems to me I'm not sure it needs eight pages I'm not sure so how about I come back the meeting this month with an outline with some type of organizational plan to move ahead and I'll work with directors and together an outline. Where are you going to bring it? Here back to the board meeting. Oh, the next board meeting? Right, the next the next board meeting. Yeah, that's James's meeting. No, James is the first but I'm probably going to reschedule that because we have key staff all out on the spring break for that first meeting in April so I'm probably going to change to May. Okay. He doesn't know that yet but he does now. You should have seen his eyes like this. He's been working so hard. I didn't want to tell him but he just slowed down but I'll bring back something I'll meet with Bob and I guess I'll come an outline together and bring something back and you can all sink your teeth and do a deep correction. Yeah, I would feel better if we're all more involved from the beginning. You have to be. The staff needs your input otherwise we're never even publishing it. So I'll bring it back to the second meeting. All right. We all agree? I agree. You mean how you treat a husband like a mushroom? I'm not going on that. Okay. All right. New business rejection of damage claim. You want to talk about that one? I'll start it. You all have in front of you a damage claim from Nancy from Barrick. I'm not going on that. I'm not going on that. Damage claim from Nancy from Barrick $141,008 totaling $516.60 for plumbing damage and a four month consumption credit. For some time back to October 15, 2018 we have been receiving high usage complaints, high bill complaints from this customer and staff has spent an excessive amount of time customer service in field and in the office. Myself I've dealt with this customer. The finance manager dealt with this customer. We did a water audit conservation visit and examination for this customer. For some time we've monitored we've actually installed one of the new Badger meters to monitor for water usage after we installed the new Badger meter we saw a continuous register of 1.5 to 1.5 gallons per hour which we consider to be elite because it continued 24-7 and the new Badger meters put out graph information and we can monitor water usage. Was that the same consumption rate that this customer was putting? It's fluctuating. The water usage has fluctuated. Let's get to that. This all started with her saying that there's no way that she used that amount of water. Her usage would go up or go back down and I'll let Stephanie talk more about her usage because Stephanie did an in-depth look at her usage but we continued to go out and we reported to this customer that she had a leak. She disagreed that there was a leak even when we had with the Badger meter. Finally, on the date here on March 7 on February 25 she reported to the district that she did find a leak and she further stated that her plumber indicated that the leak was caused by excessive force to the meter. She believes that she never had a leak until we changed the meter and that's when the leak started and it was from the district changing the meter. We disagreed. We believe that she had a leak either on or off intermittent or from some time even way before we changed the meter out. That was the reason we changed the meter out. She kept calling saying that, you know, disputing for bills saying there's no way she should use that amount of water. No matter what we did or what information we provided she always disagreed with the district for, she always had a reason and believed that it was for the leak was caused by district staff. Do you want to add anything in there on that? Any details back and forth for the usages in there? Believe the district did not create the leak. She had a leak for some time even before we changed the meter and recommended that the board recognize the damage plan. So with that we'll try to ask you questions. I asked you if I could contact her and I did because I wanted to tell her a dog story because she kept saying she didn't have a leak. She didn't have a leak but the meter was saying she had a leak and she said she had plumber come in and look at her toilet and in the house and stuff. So I sent her an email talking about a neighbor's dog came over to my place and next thing I know the dog's digging in my yard and we went to check and it turned out there was water there. I had a leak that I wouldn't have known about until I got my bill because you can't see it. It was underground. So I'm telling her about this and she just didn't want to hear it and so I said all I'm trying to do is to tell you is it can be very difficult to find a leak especially if it's underground and our staff know what they're doing. She got rather unhappy with me which was okay. I just dropped out of the conversation but she's been told she had a leak and she said no, no, no, no and all of a sudden oh yes, I have a leak. So I have a little issue with I mean I realize the public don't understand about leaks and all that sort of stuff and I don't know if she's a young woman, an old woman or what she is but she just didn't want to hear she had a leak and refused to believe it that was my experience with her. I get the impression from all of the emails she's copied us on that she's a frustrated person I don't know if she had a leak before. I mean it sounds like she did have a leak before put in the meter and then she still had a leak and then her plumber comes out and says okay the pipes cracked on her side and it attributes it to the wrenching end of the new meter. I don't know but has she ever raised has she been sort of contentious or difficult in the past with any calls regarding other leaks or credit memos that she's requested? I believe we've gone out almost every summer for the past three years and so and the bill goes up in the summer and then it typically falls back down so this more recent one she had us come out in June and July and her usage stayed pretty high up still in the months after that and then we did Brian did approve for her to get that new meter put in and that got put in in October to where we were able to actually have daily visuals of this step I became involved in December and notified her that I'm showing you have a leak so similar though I mean it was the emails I mean it's I did not see any it's hard to say she's actually had other plumbers come out but there wasn't actively we were letting her know that it says there's no way I'm using that much water I had someone check there's no leak put a badger meter on started looking at it with the person I was like oh well on Tuesday and Friday you used X amount of gallons last year that's the day that my irrigation goes on had the person come out again oh there was a major blowout in my irrigation that they didn't catch the first time around so we get a lot more information from the leaders it also is up to the individual to log in and utilize the ion water and in my opinion listen to us when we're sitting there saying it's literally showing that you're consistently using X amount of water per hour there isn't actively if she would log in I think it took about four months to log in to start using the ion water so I mean has she been contentious I mean I mean when you read the emails I mean she's frustrated I mean I did it so it's kind of hard to say I mean I gave her the tools to be able to log in and look at this stuff and it took months to get her to finally even log in I think these situations are probably the most frustrating for everybody customer district everybody because leaks are really hard to find so I appreciate you putting together the data and what I did is I lined it up my month by year so I'm looking at it here and when you look at because I look for patterns I mean part of what I do in my rest of my life is I look for patterns and when you look at the patterns here everything is very very consistent until November 2018 that is the seasonal went up, the seasonal went down there's no indication of any leak until there's no indication of any leaks at all even through the summer she's actually lower than last year so from a data pattern point of view it was really weird that was actually her original the other years she stayed she had other people living there this year she didn't live off the east in in June okay so maybe she was using a little more water then I don't know but the pattern doesn't show it until the meter was put in so the question that I have I know this sounds a little bit odd but are these new meters more sensitive to water flow that is is it possible that if that was an old meter the leak was happening but it was so slow it wasn't spinning or it wasn't going through you have to spend time that's where our staff when they checked you have to know how to read the older meters you have to mark the dial and you have to wait because it is very slow for these new meters you have to pull up the screen our staff usually especially if they're going out to check a high bill complaint our customer staff they do a good job so they should have caught it but is it possible that it might a gallon is pretty slow I mean kind of what I saw in this knowing nothing else is that the badger meter is just a better meter so it picked up a leak that was probably there and we weren't catching with the old meter and so even when her re-use each goes down I'm a person alone she's a person alone I got a dog who drinks a lot of water but I use normally one unit she was using more than one unit and she said that she didn't shower at home she did her laundry at her boyfriends all of these various things that she said she wasn't doing at her home yet I shower at home I do laundry at home you know I do the dishes all that kind of stuff and once in a great while I go up to two units I guess it catches up with itself but I'm pretty consistent one unit well that's where when you look at from October 2017 through April 2018 she was one too and then it goes 8, 8, 5, 6, 4, 3, 7, 6, 8, 7 so there was something going on if she was by herself correct and that is what her statement has been obviously we don't know for sure but if she was by herself and this would be high but relative to prior years it's not there's no pattern there and even on October she was down at 3 which was consistent with the last two years and so it's like you know I want to make sure that everybody that believes that they have a complaint and they haven't been able to resolve it if it comes to the board I want to make sure that people understand that there's a process we go through we do a very diligent job about looking at the data understanding what's available to us that process is very important based on this I see that there's some lead there and it was found in a shut up valve shut up valve and that's a 10 feet from the meter but she also is it possible that her claim is true that in the process of changing out the meter there was violence done too much torque let me set the galvanized pipes in the ground it was an old service line how plausible though is her claim it's not like the pipe cracker a valve no leaking 10 feet in you would have enough cover on it if you're going to break it it would be right at the first point usually but our experience is when you're buried way in like that 10 feet in there's enough cover on it to where you should especially on that small pipe they're in a meter box it's not like there's a lot of force put on put on that meter you know when I do these damage claims I look and I try to find and ensure the last thing I do I don't want a claim to come before I'm 100% sure that we have no responsibility if I thought that we had any responsibility I would have worked with the customer but I don't like claims coming before I don't believe that we cause the leak but the other thing is she hasn't given any proof of paying a plumber who's the plumber who there's no receipts who who is the plumber that said this that said the district is I mean she's gotten so angry well usually when there's a plumber you meet the plumber out there we go through this and when people start calling plumbers we say we meet the plumber out there show them what we buy that never happened it was a plumber that she hired her the table and has no receipts she has been noticed about the claim Holly sent the information out to her that she is unable to contend do you I was going to tell my story from Texas but I can wait no no I have the same exact thing happen to me I believe did you want to tell my story so there is a there is a possibility she'll take this to the small crime court and so there will be staff time involved and I just want to make sure that we're all okay with that staff time needs cost it's not a a freebie thing I'm assuming no attorneys I usually go down and represent the district unfortunately Santa Cruz County holds their small things court in Wasabel so it would be a better part of the day however the precedence we set by just rolling over we have a lot of people that want to come forward and say the district has caused damage and this happens to be a smaller of some of our claims that we get and we try to work with the customer but I feel that we just because it's going to be cheaper to do the to take the claim bring the claim but I think you'll see more customers coming to the board the next claim may not be so what that means is we have to be committed to spending staff time if we want to stop this but how is she going to win in small claims if she doesn't have any receipts in my experience small claims to work that yes the court wants hard evidence it's also in my experience that sometimes that the court seems to air customers even without receipts well not without receipts I've never been to small claims court without receipts I know other people who showed up because you sit there all day and listen to the small claims cases of the day judges said you don't have receipts do we want to hear Steve's Texas no for the the sake of saving time I won't go all into the details of it but basically I ended up with a well we'll go into the details so I have this house in Texas and I get my water bill I go online and I see what my water bill is I check into you know it's like I do here I go online and click paying on it so I went online last January January or February and I had like an $800 water bill and I go hey this isn't right so I call them up assuming the water company is at fault and I say hey I got this $800 bill this is not right I'm not using water I'm not even there nobody's there and they go well you must have a leak I go I guess I do I guess now everything's running through your mind the house is flooded and all that stuff so I go okay I'm going to send my wife out there and they sent somebody out to turn off the water that was great so my wife gets there and they come out and they turn on the water I fly out there a few days later and I'm I'm going through the process with the food coloring it drops in your toilet tank to see if it migrates in and I go hey the color is showing up in the bowl so there's my leak right well that wasn't $800 worth of leaking you know as it turns out I wasn't thinking about that but I found all my toilets I have two they have both leaks so I run down and I buy the hardware to replace the floats and all that stuff and it stops the leaking there and I go great so they tell me go out and check your meter and watch your meter and see if it's turning everything off in the house and see if the meter is still turning I go hey it's still turning they go well you still have a leak someplace you know I was just glad the house wasn't flooded to begin with when I got there so I go okay so I go so what do we do now they go well you better call yourself a plumber because the leak is on your side not on our side I go okay since it's your meter that's spinning right so I go that's cool so I call a plumber plumber comes out he does his magic he gets his divining rod out looking around so you can find the leak which of course he can't and the ground where I, a lot of the ground in Texas is like cement you can't just dig it up and water won't percolate up and so I this is good Friday now so I ask the plumber can you guys find this leak and he goes the only way we can do it is to start digging holes from the source and follow the pipe as it goes into the garage where the water softener is in the main side so I go okay can you do that and he goes yeah he goes I'll get a couple of guys out turns out to be his son and his son's friend with a jack hammer and shovels and they start jack hammering the dirt all the way and the story is getting longer now I know but they finally dig like 16 holes right 8 holes from the meter to my garage and they found the water and it's a PVC coupling and it's leaking and they go well there's the problem I go okay can we fix it now and so they go yeah sure so they get in there and they cut off the coupling and both ends put on a new coupling and all of a sudden the water stopped right the leak is going so I'm looking at the pipe the PVC pipe it's got an elbow on it no it's a straight coupling and I start twisting it and it comes apart it was never glued and this house is 10 years old and I'm thinking how many other pipes am I going to find in my front yard that are like that right but the point is as I go I'm really grateful the problem is solved the leak is fixed now I've got this 800 and for the second month I added another 600 dollars right the bill that the plumbers gave me was like 1600 dollars to dig eight holes and come out you know Texas is like California you know so I called them so I'm talking to the water and they they're really nice the women that I'm dealing with is super nice but she goes well she goes what we can do and I had my receipts right I had all my receipts and stuff and my bills obviously and I go well what can we do because I don't feel like I need to be on the hook for 1600 dollars to fix my thing plus the other 1200 or 1600 dollars with the water bill and they're sympathetic of course but practically I own the money it's water that came passed through my meter right anyway what they did was and what I suggest we kind of think about doing here as a compromise they gave me credit some amount of credit I didn't get a lot of credit but I got some they took back an average of the previous two months and then said okay based on that average here's what will credit you against your water bill for those months in the future right since the leak started and I think I ended up getting like maybe five or six hundred bucks total credit for everything but it was something you know now my question would be do you think they would have been that helpful if you knew about it and let it continue on for a couple more months no not if I didn't have my water turned off they were offering to turn the water off and on every time we came out right so that's part of my contention with a little bit about this is I told her she had a leak in December and it took until the end of February for her to finally take action on it because that and we do have a leak adjustment program absolutely for being able to help a convoy at her service so in regards to that stuff I'm totally fine if someone has a leak that we're able to help get them some sort of credit for I mean you know everybody has their own personal issues to deal with and she may have some logical good reason to why it took her a delayed effort her bill wasn't like hundreds and hundreds of dollars right so she could afford to delay a little bit find the plumber the guy that works under the table instead of charging 80 bucks an hour or whatever they get nowadays I mean there are circumstances and I understand she's sort of she's not really behaved the best, she's been very frustrated I guess in taking it out on staff and everybody else even you Lois but I still think if we offer some form of a, at least appreciate that she's frustrated to offer him something but she feels that is it all or nothing with her? it's not her fault and she never had a leak and that she wants 100% so when you go to small claims court they'll require you to go to mediation first if you can and my mediation of the district would be a leak adjustment I would say it's a $30 I think it's roughly a little over $30 adjustment would be for the leak and there are a leak adjustment policies so that would be the mediation that I would offer and what were you offered then? well we, she wouldn't even get that far she said that you know she wants 100% but she doesn't want a leak adjustment what is 100% she's looking for my advice would be not to burn your leak adjustment on this I mean that would be the office staff's suggestion as well now granted she ever did have a catastrophic one at least you still end up getting more so I think for me the bigger issue that comes out of this is an education thing that the district might want to do around older supply line pipes from the meter and I'm not talking about spending huge money there it's questings and maybe bill stuff or something like that but a lot of houses were built in this area 25 to 30 years ago 40 years ago if those pipes haven't been changed or touched and by the way that included my pipe it's all about two years ago if they're galvanized or old thin wall PVC whatever those things are a leak way to happen and people ought to be thinking about doing some proactive work on their supply lines if they know that it hasn't been changed recently and we get you'll see in Stephanie's reports the amount of leak adjustments we get and I can't wait for the bedroom meter to get those I want to do away with the adjustments the leak adjustments are increasing quite a bit but it's because of the infrastructure I think it's aging here there's still many people that say I think this weekend I'm going to change down my water line I just don't do it I appreciate that but I made a lot of money as a teenager so anyway I move that we reject the claim Nancy Burr oh sorry Ollie public comment public comment out there Lou do we have a tool for binding arbitration that we can invoke for a chronic complainer because it seems to me we've spent more than she's asking for just in districts time tonight talking about this so from a cost standpoint and I'm not saying that that'll solve the problem but maybe sometimes if you just threaten binding arbitration because you have it on the books and you can invoke it they will do that instead of going to small claims court just a thought the good news is we don't have a lot we have a few but we do go the extra mile like you said because of the government infrastructure the situation could be getting worse with time that's true why not have a tool in your box now that you can use when you need it as opposed to trying to do that when you're besieged with a whole bunch of chronic complaints I say this is probably one of two since I've been here where I mean it's on the customer side and there's been a lot of pushback most times if someone goes out they have a leak they fix it they apply for a leak adjustment if it is they take ownership of maintaining their side of the pipes that's usually the majority of the patients well let me tell you about mine no I wouldn't tell you about mine wow he's a changed man he's laughing he still has a leak let's talk about leaks oh it's I know in the general area where it is I might have to dig up something enormous it got bypassed on my side it was a pain the battery meter helped district tried to help never found it never going to find it until the whole place is bulldozed and you start over on the property anyway I have to say something I showed you guys mine where I went on vacation someone used the downstairs toilet and it started leaking and the battery meter alerted me I was able to have on-call staff go and shut me off because similar thing I didn't know if it was the houses flooding I didn't know what it was and came home water on didn't hear anything but then sure enough Tory I'm all of a sudden I heard we heard the toilet the little toilet block was starting to go and it's amazing how much water toilets use what we should do we discuss the strategic plan to talk about moving ahead on getting more batteries above the schedule we're on the battery meter has been an awesome tool for customer service and our customers there's nothing like it so I think that would be something we could talk about maybe spending more money on to bring in additional help instead of districts to out do it get those changed out Virgil? Yes, may I ask what the time resolution on the battery meter is every hour? So it, well some of them do by 15-minute increments now it retains the information and then transmits once daily all of that data via like a text message so I couldn't suspect a leak in my house if there was a leak out of here it's thick walls right but if I have 15 minutes or even an hour resolution I can shut off the valve to the house and I can go out and then look at the battery meter and go oh yeah it stopped so it must be in the house bifurcating the problem Any meter you can get all the meters have a dial the difference between the battery meter is it has a continuous graph so you can go online and look at your usage and it's after that I flush the toilet at 2am and it pops up saying I stay awake and I'm just worried about what we got in the yard I have to just look at your meter there's a tattletail dial on there oh cute but who wants to look at their meter every day surprise there's spiders in there okay did we director bruce yes director swan yes president henry yes motion passed okay the long pico assessment district oversight committee charter and rick scott because no one's here yeah the chair could make it tonight but she did do a cover memo the long pico assessment district oversight committee of the charter workshop on january 28 the purpose was to engage the public gather input work together to draft a new laddock charter incorporating recommendations in the grand jury as well suggestions and ideas from the public board members and staff were in attendance attached in your packet you have a draft charter that the the laddock committee put together after some 11th discussion and everybody worked as a team and the draft was created it would be recommended that the board review and adopt the laddock and I think one of the charter members was here because she's she's not she's not there's nobody here from the laddock charter but it was a great discussion they worked hard on it their hearts and souls are in this and it was a pleasure working with them Stephanie and I attended the meetings there was some other folks there but it worked out really good and they seemed very happy with this charter I have a quick question on page five of eight towards the top of the second paragraph there's a color change in the text vacancy shall be filled and then within 45 days comma or as soon as possible is in a different color on mine it seems in the future grayscale that was one of the things I got added so maybe it didn't change you know if that was a draft version still or yeah it is a ghost of something it's a ghost yeah but that's what it should be within 45 days or as soon as possible okay any other questions great I think this is great I really like the focus I went to one meeting the focus the committee had on should be doing as opposed to what they should not be doing I like the fact that there was a diversity of opinion on the committee to start but they were able to reach consensus this really is a model for how we would like these things to go and thanks to staff for helping to guide them through that as well so I think it's ready to go and I'm looking forward to getting Matt first report and staff made a point to just be there to guide to try to dictate to them how the charter would be there was a couple of areas that were brought up about you know contact legal counsel that we talked about and put our thoughts in but staff pretty much stayed out of it and they put this together and the other thing up there I'll do that who's their facilitator Rick Stephanie they facilitated themselves okay any comments from the public no comments so I move that we accept the is there a resolution I move that we approve the Long Pico assessment District Charter Oversight Committee Charter as documented second Holly Director Bruce yes Director Swan yes President Henry yes and Director Pulse yes okay item C request for proposal for the district website that we send out an RFP report alright since the district has been online we've developed and maintained our own website in-house the website has grown over the years it maintains a great deal of information and provides a gateway for online billing requirements regarding government websites have changed over the years such as requiring websites to desection 508 compliance section 508 Amendment to the United States Workforce Rehabilitation Act 1973 is a federal law that is not mandated at all electronic and information technology developed and procured maintaining or used by government accessible to people with disabilities and also has such a great deal of information saved so many different formats scanning it's tough to maneuver around it's time to update and upgrade the website March 16, 2019 the district admin administration committee reviewed the draft request for proposal and provided comments to staff the committee voted to recommend the board move forward with website redesign development maintenance service request for proposal there is an RFP request for proposal draft attached for your review and comments turned back over to the board okay comments from the board yep when do you anticipate this going out yeah, do you? tomorrow anytime now that was the right answer I had a great discussion at admin meetings I mean a lot of good input there's a lot of knowledgeable people out there verbal ones websites I've got seven companies that I found directly sending this to as well people have inquired and I told them I'll put them on the listing the second it gets approved so I think we'll have a good turnout this will also be part of the music plan to talk about the website okay comments from the public no nerd comment pertaining to this Virgil how'd you know she was talking to you? is that how you identify? yeah right he heard you you were the broken no 17 minutes was what he said Virgil spoke on the admin on this subject 17 we're going to back out of that one are we talking are we talking about sir nerd? I'm sorry no don't be sorry that's the big question we think it's great okay well when I stop harassing the public sorry Virgil I'd like to make a motion at the board accept the request for proposal for website redesign development maintenance services and authorize staff to send that out to the parties we wanted to find any of the dates and time for you guys to it's a high priority do I hear a second? second director Bruce yes president Henry yes okay well now we have the election of a person for Lafko if any of you don't know what Lafko is they arrange boundaries and have a change in your boundary or things like that Lafko are the ones who do that so and Rachel Lafko special district alternative ultimate member in the event of Miss Latter is selected as special district regular member a separate election will be conducted to build the ultimate member seat so you need to direct the chair or do you have to vote for either one of those yes I had a question it said in here that there were three seats open three seats available for special districts but it only mentioned two was that a typo? I doubt that because it said here the independent special districts get three positions of Lafko board the regular member seats are currently held by Jim Anderson who's with his term ending 2021 Tom LaHoo with his term ending May 6, 2019 and that's the guy we're replacing and that says the alternative member seat is held by Rachel Latter I hope we're pronouncing your name right I didn't see a third person mentioned I believe it's because she's the alternate that since there's a new election coming up that you have to then they'll have to pick a new alternate it says right now but I don't see three people mentioned it says right here the independent special districts get three positions currently held by Tom Anderson and Tom or Jim Anderson and Tom LaHoo who's not a third person mentioned that's the one that's holding that's what you're voting for the third one so we're not voting to replace Tom LaHoo okay we're voting to replace Tom LaHoo in that case there's still only two mentioned there's something about that there has to be one from a different kind of a district not a fire district we can't have another fire member but there's short one member of the district back on information the candidates as pre Rachel Lathers currently left the special district alternate member in the event that Miss Lather is selected as the special district regular manager a separate election will be conducted no that's not there's three positions on the LaHoo Board they only mentioned two so I was just curious okay so Tom's in terms ending we need to replace Tom at some point I think he by the way I'm very bummed that Mr. McCormick is retiring Patrick did a lot I certainly hope that his successor Mr. Serrano is they're 30 years and does have this Patrick McCormick it's just fabulous working with a big motion I don't have a strong reference I know that we as a board vote for Edward Banks of the Pajaro Valley Public Cemetery District to fill the vacancy on LaHoo special district May I ask why you're picking him? I think the Cemetery District's okay I don't have a problem with that I like dead people as long as they don't show up at your door as long as they don't use water well and then they wouldn't need another election because they still have an alternative I'll second that by the way any comments from the audience I've spent a fair amount of time with Rachel on the trip one time I had a very favorable impression of her I don't know Edward Banks if I were voting I'd vote for the person I felt I do was good and I wouldn't vote for Edward and you don't know either of them so I'm not expecting that to be enough information she's a level headed person I don't remember her background I did from that trip I think she worked for the water department in the sanitation department good background I was equally impressed with Mr. Banks's description of his background he's been active in a lot of things very impressive seems to have a great business background also involved INSERT which is a very fundamental organization for disaster response you used to be on Cabrillo College Foundation I mean it just seems like a really qualified guy as well plus he's a giant fan a giant fan and he plays golf ooh wow okay any comments from the audience no? okay but we've got a motion and a second right? director Bruce hi director Swan president Henry yes director Pauls oh okay so we have a whole bunch of minutes here on the consent agenda so can we just say okay? because all the little except for the February 21st set of minutes that I have to stay from because I was absent so we could hold that separately actually you were also absent on January 23rd I believe through the special meeting so the first two I was asleep at the end of the last meeting and I didn't understand what you were saying okay so so we need to deal with those two separately because she abstains Mr. Smallman you and director Pauls were the only three that were there right so we have to bring that one back again I guess okay but it actually wasn't a real meeting so I don't know wasn't even really a meeting we didn't have a quorum when it started and said we didn't have to have one it's just them so we can accept with because there's no real minutes it just says there was a meeting yeah so do we want to separate out then the minutes from February 21st is that it? and handle it separately okay I would make a motion to approve the consent agenda as posted with the exception of February 21st meeting second I have a comment before you vote on these minutes as far as approval it's my recollection that the person who objected to these minutes being approved at the last meeting was our district staff Gina so I think we should ask the lawyer who's on the connection whether or not they have any reason to continue to object to these being approved well she objected when you brought up oh because there was a time we brought up an error yeah there was an error she said that it would not be approved and I'm just saying do we want to ask the lawyer whether or not they want to sign for the approval of these minutes how is she going to know the answer it's not Gina excuse me wasn't it just that's up to you to decide it was a typo it was a typo to have the wrong date it had a February 7th instead of 21st yeah and it was corrected now we have a motion to second the grooves, aye director swan president henry aye I make a motion that we approve the minutes from the board director green February 23rd from 21st from 21st I got my dyslexia second anywhere public comment any public comment I didn't ask about the last one sorry any comment on the minutes no okay director grooves abstain yes president henry yes director false okay alright thank you district reports department status reports in front of you finance and the bill list any questions I have a question on the bill list yeah what is wine country yes that's the same thing $500 did we have a party and I didn't go we weren't invited oh okay I don't drink so what is that wine country balance annual service balance certificate I believe it's for I believe it's that's just the name of the company but I think it can calibrate some of our Nate's lab they do lab work they do the lab work and they've been drinking wine because wineries have lots and lots of laboratory equipment yeah I know what would happen if I was doing something and had a glass of wine be different kind of they would be totally different if I'm not silly enough just imagine what I'd be like if I had wine that was the only thing I saw and I wanted to comment on one thing on the district manager report what did you oh god I know you hate this it's a compliment so you had director's meeting subject calendar this is yet another one of those things going back years and years and years that I've wanted to have thank you for teeing back up for working on it thank you that's all I wanted to say is thank you so we've so we're done with administration and finance okay right or do you have something to say okay so how about James operations what have you got how many leaks did you stop it wasn't that many last month actually we only had I think seven or eight last month plenty of storms going on last month so it kept us pretty busy running generators around fueling up generators checking drainage making sure the trees were cleaned off the roads we had a very busy month with rain so kept our main to staff very busy do you play pennies from heaven when you're driving around and the treatment staff is just as quoted this time of the year they're running flooring around they're doing their sampling and when everything's so wet it's hard to see some leaks so there might be leaks out there we've had a lot this month already because it started to dry out these last couple weeks and so their roads are drying out when they're wet we're getting calls now and we are fighting more and more leaks you had a pretty good increase in overtime yeah that was due to storms and overtime communications communication wires going down so we had to go out and monitor tape levels manually can't get them back so turn pumps on and off because we don't have on and off controls when we have power outages okay so yeah overtime they'd go out some time and we tell them to run around because they're going to increase quite a bit just hand in hand with overtime okay any other reports here environmental's not here legal's not here well there's somebody but okay um committee reports future committee items well I know that I'll be meeting with Rick here by the way we may be a slight adjustment on my schedule I'm going to talk about the admin and the budget finance agendas coming up I don't know if Margaret knows but she was elected chair of the environmental committee in absentia in absentia I love that you could take a third one you know what I gather that I know how it works if you're not there you get all the action items you didn't get the action item other than being a chair and if the chair isn't there the other person gets well I did do that but I was I had it down for four o'clock unfortunately all they called me to say yeah that's what I said very nicely of course okay but we're going to have a full plate on all of the committees I think there's a lot of activities that we need to get through we had an engineering committee meeting earlier this week it was a great meeting Monday it was a great meeting we had a wonderful group of community members it was a lively conversation it was a full agenda and we've established the regular sessions for when we're going to meet and we'll move over to one of the highlights of the engineering committee was moving in at an engineering committee meeting out of here at the states to deliver the RFP so that's a milestone we'll be scheduling that all into the process of scheduling we'll be leaving out those folks I mean that's a great input there's some really good people I think some of them are really energized and we also have good public attendance and good public input so that's just for good alrighty how about these committee meeting minutes are just to be noted because obviously we aren't all there they're already posted on the website and there are written communications and then there's informational material any comments there we also have last week another coffee chat that I will be finding a way to bring back the information on the coffee chat so the board can see the type of questions and the information dialogue back and forth it was a really great meeting we had a lot of people attend it was about half a dozen roughly awesome subjects all over the board it was the best chat yet it was really a great chat a lot of good things I'll get it into one of the reports or it's on the report so you can all see that question if you're getting it what's the sentiment that you get from the people that are attending there's a big concern in the senate water ground water agency costs to the district rates are a big concern fish ladder some of the projects it's really a mix it talks about ways to raise money the district maybe could go out and use for grants for education that was talked about for quite a while it's a variety of subjects yeah it was all over the place they were good in substance I mean super good people next ones were April 16th and it's in that's a great day yeah shoot yourself over the weekend okay okay so are there any additions or deletions to the closed session agenda and is there any oral communications about the closed session okay if that's the case I want to thank you all for being here and we're going to adjourn to closed session and you can't hang here cause we'll be back yeah you can stay here and see if we decide anything