 Okay, long Pico time is five 30. We will start the meeting. I want to welcome everyone. This evening. And I. I assume that we're going to have a lot of people tonight. I guess I'll welcome them later. I'm going to call the meeting to order and holly. If you could do the roll call. I'd appreciate it. President Henry. Here. Director Ferris. Here. Director Falls. Here. Director Moran. Okay. With everyone present. I'll go out to the public. If there's any comments. About anything that is not on the agenda. Tonight. So does anyone have a comment? Let's see. We've got 11 attendees. I don't see any comments. So we'll. Move on. To the. I'll go out to the public if there's any comments. About anything that is not on the agenda. I'll go out to the public if there's any comments. To the first item on the agenda, which is the urban management plan. So. Mr. Rogers, if I could turn that over to you. Is he with us? I'm unmuting. Thank you, chair. Henry. For this item environmental planner. Okay. So we did send out the updated memo for tonight's meeting as well as the backup materials. Those have been added to the website and sent out to our email list. I'll go ahead and share my screen so everyone can see the memo. Right now. Okay. Is everyone able to see that memo? Yes. Great. All right. So I'm going to go through the, the recommendations of three different options for the board to make. So I'll go ahead and read through those and then we'll go back through and kind of talk about what. The plan actually entails and kind of what happened at the last meeting. So it's recommended that the board or directors review this memo and authorize the district manager, manager to do one of the following. One work with Scott's Valley water district to execute a professional services agreement with water systems, consulting, and water management. And one work with SVWD to execute a professional services agreement with WSC and continue negotiations. To authorize the district manager to work with or without Scott's Valley water district to execute a professional services agreement with West and associates. Or three release an updated request for proposals and not file a joint urban water management plan with Scott's Valley water district. And then just for background for those who were not on the meeting, I'll go ahead and read through those. On November 5th, the urban water management plan is a planning document required by the California water code for submittal to the department of water resources every five years. So this would be our 2020 filing of that plan. On the November 5th, 2020 board of directors meeting staff brought the urban water management plan proposals with the recommendation to WSC and WSC to execute a professional services agreement with water systems, consulting or WSC. You can see these meeting the meeting memo as an attachment exhibit a and we can go look at that if needed. However, the board requested staff negotiate a lower price with WSC and ensure district retains all information and data. As well as receive more information from the other proposal submittal West and associates. So we'll go ahead and go ahead and read through those. And then we'll move on to the next slide. We reviewed on the district's website through the environmental committee agenda at this link. As requested WSC provided an updated fee schedule included as exhibit B, reducing the cost for the agencies from $120,000 to $116,000, meaning the cost share between SLB and Scott's Valley water district, which would be 50 50 would result in $58,000 to $6,000. And then we reviewed on the district's website. The district paid for the 2020, I mean, sorry, the 2015 urban water management plan. Overall WSC responded that the 2020 urban water management plan compared to the 2015 urban waters management plan is much more robust. Due to a couple of different new assembly bills that passed in the last few years. This is detailed in attachment C. And as you can see, the changes occurred. Due to this as well as WSC wanting this to be as a robust of the document as it can be. So it is useful for the district. That's why they're saying their cost is more and that they'd be able to give us all that information. The reduction in costs resulted from them. Assuming that the district would be able to provide all the information to the district, if they were able to provide all the information to the district, they would be able to send all of that information to the district into the plan. And that cost difference is about $4,000. The submission. Of the completed urban water management plan is due on July 1st, 2021. And it's recommended that we move forward as quickly as possible. If we do plan to go out. With the joint plan with Scott's valley water district. information for Scott's Valley Water Districts Board by November 12th. So we are kind of working with a short timeline here. Okay, thank you. Do any board members have something they want to say here? I can't see things because of that memo. Okay, okay. Click on your participants down at the bottom. And I'll put it on the right-hand side if you exit. Okay, there it is. Okay, so I clicked on it. Went away. Let's go. Just raise your hand up because I... Okay, there it is. I've got it back. Okay. Except I'm a public member. Some just, I'm not seeing board members here. At the top of the participants, you see the panelists there and just click on that. I did click on it. Okay, I clicked on it again. Okay. All right. Now I see a bunch of hands up. So I guess I'll just go down the line. Well, Rick was actually first, yeah. Rick Moran. Okay. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. Lois Henry. The question I think I have for Carly is, so one of the things that persuaded me about going to the WSC was the staff's worry that the Western Associates would be far more staff requirement. A lot of work. So this $3,000 reduction, is that a monumental amount of work for you guys to supplement them, this WSC, to get that cost reduction? Or is it not that big a deal? I don't believe so. I think it's a lot of the raw data that we should have and then be able to give it over to WSC. So I can't imagine it'll be that much more staff time compared to the original costs that they provided us and what their scope is. Thank you. That's all Chairperson Lois Henry. Yes. Okay. Bob Fultz. Yeah, I took a look at the supplemental materials and then went back to the original RFP responses. I remain unconvinced that WSC is the best approach here. It's very clear to me from reading the Western Associates that they probably didn't put as much content into their proposal, but they clearly understand what it takes to do an urban water management plan. And they've done some and they've done it for different kinds of districts as well. What I see with the cost breakdown from WSC is sort of what we've seen from them in the past. It's very heavy on lots of people being involved. What appears to be a lot of duplicate effort. The average billing for Montgomery is 250 an hour for WSC, it looks like it's about 180. What I see with Western Associates is a small company that a smaller company doesn't have the overhead. We're not paying for their lobbyists in Sacramento to come up with new things to put into these plans. And they get things done very, very quickly, I'm sure. They basically focus on the content and get it done as quickly as possible. They were very clear about the fact that they understand the key changes to the urban water management plans. And I think these are things that we would need to address anyway. Our Valley is definitely changing demographically. We have seen an increase of registered voters in the district, 2000 people in the last, basically two and a half to three years. We have had extended droughts, but I also wanna call everybody's attention to the fact that right now, depending on what kind of population estimate you use, our customers use between 35 and 40 gallons of water per day. This is substantially under the state's long-term goal. And so the amount of water that we are looking to cut if someone tried to come to us and say, hey, cut another 20% out, we're kind of reaching points of vanishing returns. Our energy intensity is what it is. We use surface water and well water and I don't necessarily see that changing over the long term. Though of course, in the short term, our surface water supplies are impacted by the fire, which took a number of those offline. Yes, we have seismic risk. That's basically where we live. Grounds could last up to five years and in terms of where we get water from, the contingency plans are you have deeper wells, you use or share water from other districts. We don't import any water from outside this area. So there's really not a whole lot we're gonna be doing in that area. I don't see this as a massive program that requires the kind of overhead that WSC is proposing. I view their 3.3% reduction as sort of a, it's kind of a go away, don't ask us again type of thing. I can't see justifying paying three times as much for this plan. And particularly if these plans, as it sounds like they've been done in the past, go on the shelf and don't really impact our day to day operational aspects much at all. I mean, if a drought comes, we kind of know what we're gonna do. We're gonna ask customers to use as little as possible and we're going to use water from the sources that we have. And if we have to go to another agency to ask them for water because they have more, well, that's what we're gonna do. This does not require $120,000 or $116,000 to work through. I think West can do it very quickly, very efficiently. I don't see the major impact on staff time, but even if they came back and did a bunch of change requests to effectively raise the cost by 50%, which I think isn't likely, it's still way cheaper than what WSC is proposing. Finally, when we have the experience with WSC that we've had, I just am not comfortable using them for engineering activities like this going forward until we have a much better understanding of where they're coming from. At this point, I don't see them changing at all. Thank you. Lou, you have something you wanted to say. Yes, Carly, I have two questions for you. The first one is you mentioned last time that you believe going with Western would require a significant amount of your time over WSC. Can you quantify that in terms of hours or dollars? Yeah, unfortunately, I don't think I can actually quantify the hours. It's just, we know that the Western Associates has very little experience in this region and even less with our district specifically. So it is the assumption that they will need staff time to understand how our system works, what populations we're working with, they'll need all the data from us. Whereas WSC, because they completed our 2015 urban water management plan, they have a lot of that information. So they won't need to come back and forth to staff, but I couldn't give you the exact hours or what those costs would be. Okay, my second question is, could you try, to the extent that you're willing, make a guess as to what the risk factor is, what's going with Western? I mean, what is the, what do you put the percent of success at if we went with Western? I think, you know, I think there's, I'm sure that Western Associates would be able to complete the plan and I don't know if there's necessarily a risk. It's just most likely that their cost is very misleading at this time. So we'll probably come back and see, you know, them coming to ask for more hours, you know, they'll have to raise that hours. I think the proposal they submitted is unrealistic, especially for two separate agencies that they're doing this for, you know, that cost total for both proposals is for two agencies submittals. So that 116 is split 50-50 between our district and the other district, whereas the same with Western Associates, that 40-something thousand, and if they kept coming back, it'd be the same where we'd split that cost. So I don't know if there's necessarily a risk, but I think we'll see some changes to their contract. So you believe they'll come back asking for more hours? What about the time factor? How much, I mean, if they come back and ask for more hours, I think it's reasonable to assume that they're gonna go out as far as the schedule completion time. Do you have any? That's a potential risk as well. Right? Might take. What that might be? That's hard to say. I couldn't give you an exact estimate. Let me think about that, and maybe I can get back to you. But yeah, as far as time, I mean, we're working with a really limited time deadline right now just with the submittal of July of 2021. I mean, that's really pretty close where most agencies, they've gone out and already have been working with the consultant since maybe even 2019 to get this plan done. So we are kind of running behind already. So that's definitely a risk is that we might not have this plan submitted in time. And this plan will open us up for grants through the Department of Water Resources. So we'll shut ourselves down to some grand opportunities if we don't submit on time. Okay. I share your concern about the schedule going out and maybe compromising the July deadline for Durban Water Management Plan. But I'm also thinking about SMIGLA and how it's a two-form for us. And that deadline is much sooner because we have only a year until we have to submit our plan. And the last six months is writing it up. So if it's beyond July, we're kind of missing the date to help us with SMIGLA at all. Right, that's correct as well. Thank you. To go on what Lou just said, Santa Margarita is very important and Scots Valley, we're working with Scots Valley. We need to work with them. We need to work with Santa Margarita. And I've admitted I have some problems with WSC, but if we go with West, I believe Scots Valley will go with WSC. I think that will be bad for our district. And it will kind of cut us out with Santa Margarita. It could create some problems that I see. So I'm in favor of going with WSC. And when that's all I say, so I'll go back to Bob. He has something he wants to say. Yeah, thanks. Carly, what kind of conversations did we have with West over the last couple of days? Were they responsive at all to our concerns? They were. So we've actually been allowing, oh, I'm getting some bad feedback. I don't know if you guys can hear me. Can still hear you. Okay, great. So we've actually been allowing Scots Valley because they would be the agreement contractor or the agency to contract with the consultant to do most of the conversation. So Perrette did have a call with Western Associates and talked about pretty much thinking that we're seeing this is a lot more time than what's being estimated in the proposal. I think Western Associates is, of course, ready to work with us. And I think they could potentially get everything done in time, but it is, again, kind of comes down to this risk if we might not get it submitted and we don't know exactly what those costs are going to look like as they increase their hours and how many hours they'll actually need to complete. Did they say that they are expecting to increase the hours? I don't think they specifically said they were, but... Well, I mean, we're making some assumptions here about the fact that we don't think they can actually accomplish it given the scope of what is on the list of new things to do and the real practical alternatives that we have. I mean, you know, we're very limited in sort of the alternatives that we can actually apply. I mean, there may be districts around the state that have lots and lots of alternatives. We don't have a whole lot. You know, Scots Valley is a much wealthier community than we are and, you know, perhaps they can afford to pay top dollar for a consultant that likes to position themselves as the top dollar guys. I mean, everything they submit just sort of screams, you know, money, money, money. We're not, you know, we're a very different community and we've got lots of financial challenges that we're facing here. We can't be spending lots of money on here. And finally, I keep hearing WSC being touted as the people that know us the best. They got all this background and everything's great. Then it should be cheaper. They should be able to do it faster. And I don't get why it's coming in at the X. It'd be one thing if it came in 30 or 40% more or something like that, you could kind of say, well, you know, maybe there's a reason to do it, but three X and even if we're wrong about West and they come in at two X, no, this is the kind of spending that we need to avoid going forward. We wanna get this done. I believe West based on their documentation here can do it. We need to diversify our supplier community and stop relying on the same people over and over again because I think what happens is because we do, they charge us a lot more. That's the bottom line for me. So I think for me it's option number two, but of course the board will make a decision here shortly. Any, okay, Lou, you wanna speak again? Yeah, just one more quick comment. Carly, I ask the question to Carly. I assume that you would very much like to get this decided tonight because we don't wanna keep delaying this on and on, right? Cause we're just gonna push that date out even farther as far as completion, correct? Right, exactly. And you know, we gave you the list of three options that we see as kind of the way to move forward. And so we will want a recommendation either way because we do need to let Scots Valley know if we're going to continue on with the joint plan or not. So do you have anything that you can add as far as a potential compromise here so that we can move forward in this decision? Is there anything that you haven't said that maybe might have an impact on the decision? Yeah, I mean, I would like to, you know, state again, it's not actually three times more, you know, than what we paid prior in 2015. It's maybe, I think it's a $3,000 difference. We paid $55,000 for the 2015 plan and we would pay if once we split the cost of Scots Valley about $58,000. So it's not a huge difference compared to what we paid in 2015, but I do agree with Bob that you would assume, you know, if WSC has done this plan planning and knows this data well, then you would think there would be a more drastic decline, especially as a joint plan. You know, I do see the issues as far as staff time. I think right now we are really stretched in and working with a new consultant that doesn't have a background with our area or our water district. I think we'll pose a lot of problems. And, you know, like I said, I think even though we don't know exactly what their hours might increase to, they're going to probably need to adjust their contract and their scope as they work with us. Hey, I see I have two Ricks with their hands up. We're gonna go to Moran's first. Okay, thank you, Rick. I looked on the various websites and both companies have a site where they're reviewed by people that have used their company. And I didn't see anything glaring problems with West and Associates. They were, all the people were satisfied with that responded, you know, this is a little bit more than anecdotal evidence, but it is evidence of their business practices. And in the same manner, I didn't see anything that stood out with WSC except what I hear from our own experience, all right? And that has not been the best. And, you know, there's a difficult decision, you know, but I'm not opposed to having new people take a look at this. I like the idea of that and when I first reviewed this issue. But what really persuaded me to go along with the staff position was that the amount of work that would require the staff. And I didn't wanna increase that work at all. So that's kind of where I'm still leaning. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Rodgers. Well, you know, I've heard a lot of great points. Bob's had a lot of great points and, you know, obviously I'm supporting staff in going with WSC and this is hard to put a value on, but I really see a great opportunity here to work with Scott's Valley of Water. You know, I've been with the district long enough to remember the days that we really couldn't even be in the same room as Scott's Valley for mistrust and for different things over the years. And we're building a relationship with Scott's Valley, especially, you know, with Sigma, we're teaming up to work together on these issues, which is, I think, very important. And I really think this will go a long ways in strengthening that relationship. I know you can't put a price on that, but I think there's a lot to be said for this. This is our first really joint effort and we'll be sitting at the same table, crunching the same numbers, so to speak, reviewing the same data. And I think that really says a lot about trust and moving forward. And, you know, that's one of my big reasons for supporting this. You know, we can go the other way and I don't think, I think Scott's Valley may still go with WSC. I don't know that one way or another. But we do like the fact that the lead consultant for WSC works for Montgomery as well, very tied to the Santa Margarita, very tied to the base and great expertise. And it's just a real important time. We're getting down to crunch time with Sigma and a lot's gonna be happening over the next year. And Scott's Valley and SLV have, you know, come together on projects and how we're gonna try to solve this problem. I think it just strengthens that relationship. And I know that's extremely difficult to put a price on, but that's just kind of what's kind of really slowing me to go with WSC. And I know it is a price difference, together a big price difference, but it's not that far off from what we did last time on our actual cost. Thank you. Thank you. I think I need to go to the public now. I wanna go out to the attendees. So are there any comments from, okay, I see Tina, you have, Tina. Hi, thank you. I think the board should absolutely go forward with a joint plan. The direct plan will save the district money. The biggest factor here though, between the two contractors is time. We are only seven months away from this deadline, which is not a long time to put forth a plan. The board should absolutely vote for WSC. The fact is that WSC has the data. They can hit the ground running, they know the district and they can deliver by the deadline. Going with West would be a mistake. If the board goes with West instead of WSC, they will likely come back asking for more money and they may not make the deadline. Therefore, losing the grant opportunities, which would cost the district far more money than the initial cost difference that we see between the two companies. And thank you for, that's my piece. Okay, anyone else in the public? I do not see anybody. Okay, I am gonna go back to the board. Bob, you have your hand up. Yeah, we actually are putting a price tag in this. It's about somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000. And I get that it's not a great deal different from what we did five years ago. I think one of the things that we need to do as a culture in our district at a policy level is to be looking for ways to aggressively reduce costs, particularly on items like this and other similar items. I don't think as a district, we can continue the policy of effectively running in place because we're not getting ahead. All of our rate increases go to operating expenses and that doesn't do anything for the massive capital requirements that this district is facing. So even though this is one deal and it's $40,000, you do a few of these deals every year and it's real money. And I think that this board needs to really take that into account when it's looking at how to vote. I get that there are advantages to working with Scott's Valley and things, but sometimes, they just have a different appetite for certain things than we do or they should have based on their demographics and the like. So yeah, the last thing is I still don't have, I mean, we've been working on these kinds of things for a couple of years. I don't see how we're going to get to a supplier diversity or suppliers that are gonna be able to come in and work with our district if we don't give people a chance to do so. If the reason for going with the same people over and over again as they already know our district, well, then we're never gonna have anybody different and those people know it and they're gonna price it accordingly because they know they can get away with it. And that's on us, that's not something, if I were them, I'd be trying to do the same thing, but this is where we have to step in and say, we're very serious about supplier diversity. And even if somebody doesn't know us down to the jot and tittle, they have background in this area, they can come in and learn it and then they become somebody we can use going forward. Right now, we're basically excluding them. And the more we exclude people, the less incentive there is for other suppliers to provide proposals because when they do proposals, it costs them money. And if they're not gonna have a chance in heck of actually receiving the award, then over a period of time, they're just gonna stop doing proposals. I don't think that's a way that we wanna manage this district. If I could say one thing here, I know in 2019, WSC applied for something we did not go with them. We picked someone else. So it's not like we've picked them every single time. The engineering, I can't even remember what it was about now. A lot has happened since then, but this is the first time I think that this board is really looking at WSC. So Lou, you had your hand up. Yes, thank you. One more question for Carly. The quote as we have is for joint SOVWD and SVWD. If we went back to Weston and said, we wanna quote for just us, do we know what that dollar amount would be? Would it be half of it, 20,000? Otherwise, is it a comparison? If we go with Weston and Scott's Valley goes, with WSC, is there the difference between 20 and 58 or 40 and 58? That's a huge difference. Yeah, that's a great question. We haven't had that conversation with Weston Associates. So if that's the route we go, then that's something we can talk to about what we don't have those numbers at this point. Do you think that would be a quick question for Weston? I mean, do you think they can get back to us quickly on that? I think they've been pretty responsive. So I would assume so. Again, I'm just trying to find a way to move forward. Well, we could try making a motion and seeing where it went if somebody wanted to make a motion. So nobody wants to make a motion. Is that what I'm hearing? So... I'm not prepared to make a motion. I'll speak for myself. You're not prepared to make one? No. Okay. That means you're not prepared to vote on one either. Well, I'll vote on one, but I'm not prepared to make that motion. Okay. All right, well, let me put my foot in my mouth and make a motion that... I had my hand up. I had my hand up. Okay. So I'm not sure when I should do the hand on the screen or the hand up. So I'm always doing the hand on the screen. Well, you had just talked, so I... Well, you asked if there was a motion and I raised my hand. Okay. Okay. So I like to make a motion to direct the district manager to enter into a contract with Westin Associates for the Urban Water Management Plan. Is there a second? I do not see a second, or I don't see a hand up anyway. Okay. All right, well, let me try that. I will make a motion to work with Scotts Valley and have a contract that Rick Rogers will be in charge for us that we pick WSC and associates. So is there a second anywhere? So I'll raise my hand. You're gonna second? Okay. I'll second that motion most. Okay. Thank you, Rick Moran. Holly, do you need that motion kind of straightened out for you because where is she? I'm right here, I'm sorry. I got the gist of it. I can reword it if you like, or you can go ahead and restate the motion if you'd like. Maybe Gina could help. Yeah. Gina, you wanna restate my motion for me. Okay, well, I'll give it a shot and then we'll have to make sure that director Moran is okay with it, it is restated. But I would propose that it's a motion to authorize, and let me go back up to the, I don't have the memo in front of me, but a motion to authorize the district manager to coordinate with Scotts Valley Water District to enter into a contract with WSC for the joint urban water management plan between the two districts. Well, isn't that what I said? Rick Moran, are you okay with that? I'm fine with that, yes. Okay, thank you. So, Holly, you wanna call the question? Can I make an amendment to that? What's that? And I would like to, I would just like to clarify that we're going with the contract as stated in the revised court of 116,000 and not the original court of 120. That's the way I hear it. Okay. That's the one in front of you tonight. That's right. Okay. I accept that. Okay, so I've got- As do I, as do I. Yeah, okay. So President Henry? Yes. Director Ferris? Aye. Director Falls? No. Director Moran? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. So, let's move on to the next item, which is Board Member resignation. I'm gonna turn that over to Rick Rogers. Thank you, Chair Henry. Yes, District Council Nichols will present this item to the Board this evening. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Henry. Thank you, District Manager. I'm, and I apologize to everybody who's heard this before from the prior meeting. I'm gonna try to summarize what's in the memo without unduly repeating some of what occurred last week at the November 5th meeting. But of course I can add any detail or additional explanation that anybody may find helpful. But in a nutshell, where we're at is that at the regular Board meeting conducted last week on November 5th, the Board determined that a vacancy existed because President Swan has moved out of the district. And so his Board seat is now empty and needed. And this Board under the government code, sections 1780 at sec, now has the option to determine how to proceed with filling the vacant Board seat. The staff's recommendation is that by motion of the Board, the Board established a process to fill the vacancy by appointment to be made after the incoming directors take office on or about December 7th, next month. There are a number of alternatives that the Board could select from. One of those alternatives is that the Board could establish a process to fill the vacancy by appointment before the incoming directors take office, for example, by considering applicants at the regular Board meeting scheduled for December 3rd. Alternatively, the Board could decide to fill the vacancy by calling for an election rather than by making an appointment. Another alternative is the Board could take no action at this time. However, as we discussed at the last meeting, if the district fails to either make an appointment or call for an election by January 4th, which is 60 days after the vacancy was declared, then the decision will no longer be that of the Boards and it will revert to the County Board of Supervisors. I'm gonna talk briefly about what the different potential processes here entail. The appointment process, if the Board decides to go in that direction, requires the district to post a formal notice of vacancy in three or more conspicuous places around the district, and that has to be physically posted for at least 15 days prior to making the appointment. In practice, that means giving a little bit more time so that by establishing a closing date prior to the issuance of the upcoming agenda package so that those applications can be collected, compiled and included in the agenda packet for the Board and the public to review. The District's Board Policy Manual does speak to the process and it provides for establishing a closing date for the receipt of applications by the Board and says the interview should be conducted at the next regular meeting following the date of the closure of applications, which would be December 3rd. The Board Paul or could be December 3rd, depending on what process the Board undertakes. The Board Policy Manual further instructs that the employment should be made without undue delay. I think it's important to clarify that if the Board does fill the vacancy by appointment, then the Board's appointee to the vacant Boards, the board seat will serve out the balance of Director Swan's term, which in this case means that the appointee will serve until the November 2022 general election results are certified and the new directors take their seats in December of 2022. The election process, if the Board decided to go with an election process instead of an appointment process, the first date upon which the election could be held is it would have to be a date at least 130 days after the Board calls for an election. And as was discussed at the last meeting, that does involve incurring election costs by the district on the order for about $4 per registered voter, unless another local entity calls for an election to be conducted on the same date in which those costs would be shared. And I have a couple of clarifications here to information that's in the memo and that was provided at the last Board meeting. At the last meeting, I had said that the date, that the next date following the 130 days upon where an election could be held if the Board chooses to call for one would be May 4th. That date was based on a cursory reading of the county elections materials and it was incorrect. Upon closer review of the code in connection with preparing this memorandum, I determined that the May 4th date is only available for a mail-in election. So it's the mail-in election dates are established by elections code section 1500. And then you have to go to elections code section 4000 to figure out what purposes you can hold a mail-in election. And under that section of the code, that May 4th date is only available to a county water district for assessment ballot proceedings. It's not available for the election of a director. So under government code section 1780E2, which is the section that controls the ability of the Board to call for an election, available election dates are established by election code section 1000 and that chapter of the elections code. And those dates are the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March, first Tuesday in April, but only for an even numbered year. And next year is an odd numbered year. The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which is the November election date. And so we're already within the 130 days for a March election date, which means the next available election date is gonna be the November election date in 2021. So if the Board decides to call for an election, the seat's going to be vacant until a November 2021 election results are certified. Another clarification is that I hit ballpark estimated at the last meeting that the cost of an election would be about $80,000. And I have a range of estimates in the memo from $30,000 to $80,000. And I do wanna point out that $80,000 is a high ball estimate. I did check how many registered voters there are within the district. And currently there are 18,046 registered voters. So if the cost ends up being exactly $4 for voters estimated by the county clerk, that would result in the cost of $72,184, which of course would be less if another entity participates, which is why I kind of estimated $30,000 on the low end of the estimate range. And the last comment that I wanted to make is that the district did receive a number of letters which were included in the board packet. There were a few that came in today after that this board item was issued last night. Those letters haven't been published, but they can be available on request or they'll go into the next board packet. So that they're available for anybody who wants to see them. And I won't review staff's recommendation at the end of the memo and the alternatives that are not recommended because I think the relevant information was largely covered in the last meeting and then here, it's sort of repetitive of what's in the memo, but I'm happy to answer any questions that the board may have related to this item. So are there any questions from the board? I see no questions from the board. I wanna raise my hand. Okay, I see you Rick. Thank you, Chair. So if we have the election in November, which is a normal election, we do have a off-year election as well, statewide, county-wide, aren't there valid initiatives or positions available subject to election in the off-year? There often are. Often are. So that cost of $72,000 would only go down. Yeah, I mean, I can't, right. It can only go down, it's the $72,000 roughly. It can only go down. And while I'm speculating to some extent, I think it's more likely that it would go down for a November date than for like a May date. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Any other board questions, Bob? Director Fulton. Yeah, thanks. So if I'm getting all the dates lined up correctly in order for this seat to have gone to election on 11-3 last week, Steve would have had to vacate the seat by like June 26th. That's 130 days before the election. According to county records, Steve sold his house September 24th, that's the day he signed the deed which I have. I believe that Steve announced his resignation or he was going to or something had changed at the October 15th meeting that we had in order to put the election onto the March election, which I believe the San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District is doing because of some of the situation they have around the number of appointed members. We would have had to take action by 10-23, October 23rd, that's 130 days in advance of March 2nd. So I guess if that had been coordinated quicker we could have made that, but unfortunately we didn't. So here we are, we're 11-5, we removed Steve, we're now at 11-10 and the 60 days you mentioned was to one January 5th, excuse me, January 4th. So the minimum time that's required to do an appointment is effectively, it sounds like what, 20 days or so, Gina, between the minimum 15-day notice and the requirement to publish the agenda and hold the meeting. Yeah, I mean, it depends on when weekends and holidays fall and when board day, but yeah, 20 days is approximately the bare minimum. Okay, okay, great, thanks. So I just wanna make sure we got the timeline out there relative to how this would have been able to be handled within an election type of a framework. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Any other director? Now the comment, okay, then I guess I'll go out to the attendees. Well, Lois, excuse me, before we, you asked if we had a comment. I do have a comment that I'd like to make. Is that okay? Sure. Okay, thank you. Okay, so I'm in Henderson, Nevada with visiting my daughter's family and I'm in the garage there, so excuse me if I look a little different than other situations where I've been at home and I'm a little cold out in the garage, so, but this is all, you know, I've made those plans to be down here a long time ago and this is a special meeting, so excuse me for not being there. I've always prided myself on being able to be present at our meetings, okay? So since our last meeting when we talked about this, I reviewed the CTV video of it and just looked at it again and tried to get the sense of people's arguments and what was said and just tried to get some more clarity. And one of the things that I heard and I'm particularly sensitive to is the notion that there's any sort of political cronyism going on with any possible early appointment or that there be some shenanigans is the word I heard, all right? Well, I don't want that to be any part of this decision as well. And I think we should try to do the utmost we can to avoid the appearance of any political cronyism or shenanigans, okay? And rather than a vote by four board members or five board supervisors members, this should be a vote by the people of the water district. Direct democracy, all right? The way to solve a problem with our election process is with more transparent democracy, not less, okay? Another factor in my thinking about this has been I know people were concerned about the stress on the staff and I just made a decision about based on the stress of the staff as well. So it's a consideration. And the district manager has gotten substantial raises in the past two years because he has proven capable of handling our district's problems and done it admirably. I have nothing but the utmost confidence that Rick would be able to deal with the situation, however it works out here. There was questions about quorums. Well, I think my appearance here, I'm down in Henderson, Nevada in trying to participate in my grandson's fifth birthday. With Zoom and the technology that we have, quorums are, I think, different than they were in the past, I'll put it that way. Gathering people together is not the same as it has been. There's really, to my thinking, there's nothing magical about the number five providing direction from the board requires cooperation, no matter how many directors. Well, you're gonna have to cooperate. I'm stepping aside, the four remaining board members are gonna have to cooperate no matter what. That's the purpose and direction of this board, this government, all right? To some, my position may seem hypocritical because I was appointed. And I'm not gonna speak in favor of that. Rather, it's more like a contradiction. And to me, life is the working out of our contradictions. I'm an ex-war veteran, and I don't believe in killing people, but nevertheless, I participated in a war. I've tried to resolve that contradiction. That's how I've run my life, is resolving contradictions. And again, more democracy is better than less democracy. My thinking on this issue has evolved. That's one thing I think a good board member should be able to do, to be able to reevaluate issues as new information becomes available. That's what I'm trying to do. When I applied for this position, I said I would respectfully listen, try to find common ground and use my experience. Well, tomorrow is gonna be Veterans Day. And I've taken a little trip around here down in Henderson, Nevada. I traveled on Veterans Memorial Highway and Highway 95 as I went out to explore for Desert Tortoise with my grandchildren. And a route off of Veterans Memorial Highway is Purple Hearts Highway. So I take my veterans-ness as an important aspect of my character and my development. My belief in the will of the people, democracy comes from my family, comes from my upbringing in Connecticut. I lived in where you couldn't go for a walk without running into a Revolutionary War monument. All right, so these things were embedded in me at an early age and continuously throughout my adult life. I've made a fair amount of sacrifice in my military experience and I've done a fair amount of service. I served in a tour in Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin. I served on a tour on a submarine off the coast of a Russian naval port. And I also served underneath the ice in the Bering Sea, exploring new battlegrounds in a Cold War. So I know what service is. I know what defending our democracy is about. And the one thing that has taught me is the best way to defend democracy is to practice democracy. So it is with deep thought that I choose to solve the board's vacancy by supporting a special election. Thank you. Okay, thank you for that. Rick Moran and I thank you for your service to the country. The problem with a four board member, yeah, you have a quorum, but it's, the votes can be two-two and you don't get things done. And I feel fortunate that you, Rick Moran was picked by the board to be a board member. I believe you've been a good board member and you've also been on Santa Margarita. And the same thing goes for Lou Ferriss. He's been a great board member. And I'm sorry to see both of you go. Lou also is on Santa Margarita. So that's gonna be another place where with only four board members, it's gonna be things tight on committees and on Santa Margarita. So that's just my two cents. So Lou, have you got anything you wanna say? Yeah, I have a question for Rick. Rick, are you proposing a motion? Yeah, yes, Lou, I will propose a motion. I would prefer to do that after the board has spoken on this and after we've heard from the public. Okay. Is that it for you, Lou? Okay, so I'm gonna go out to the attendees if that's okay with everybody. Hold a sec, I have my hand up. In the participant, do I get to talk? Okay, yeah, I see it now. Okay, go ahead. So I'm still a little unclear, Lois is whether you want me to raise hand this way or use the technology. So just let me know. I, excuse me, but I haven't had much time with this and I was too far down. I actually looked for you. I didn't see you, I was too far down. I apologize. No worries, I'm trying to help out too, Lois. That's okay, I wanna make it easy as possible. So I just wanna say what Rick went through and shared with us is one of the reasons what I've always thought Rick was one of the most stellar board members we've had because he's able to crystallize issues and bring to it the kind of thought and empathy that board members should strive to be. I think Rick crystallized the issue very well and that's really a object lesson and why I'm gonna be sorry to see Rick leave the board. I think he brings a tremendous amount of insight into the conversations that we have and we're gonna miss that. That's all I have to say right now. Well, I'm sure we'll pick it up again after we hear from the attendees. Yes, I'll come back to you. Okay, so I'm gonna go out to the attendees and right at the moment I'm at the top here. Jim Moser. So can you hear me? Yes. Thank you, board, for having me speak to you and Rick, I just wanna commend you for the service you've done for the country and for this board and I agree with Bob that you've been an excellent member and a pointed member, I might add. And I think it shows the strength of using appointments in these circumstances because you and Lou have both been excellent board members. And one of the things I really appreciated about you is that you have reached out to all the community as you said you would. Many of us who were on what might be said the other side two years ago tried to decided we wanted to try to work for the best for the district, we accepted the results and we wanted to move forward in a positive way and the board responded well and the two of you were part of that response and I wanna thank you both for the service to this board and personally for the willingness to listen and to find ways that we could collaborate and reach across what divides that might have been. And so I wanted to start with that and then I wanna turn to this idea of an election which I find just a startingly poor idea on both practical and on the direct democracy issue that you raised on a practical level. First of all, it's gonna cost a whole lot, 30 to $70,000 and Director Fultz just talked about how we need to be saving money that the district can't afford these things. This is a non-necessary expense. Shown with your two appointments that the appointment process gets us great board members. The direct democracy will come in two years, every two years the voters get to decide who will be on the board and they expect those who get elected to represent them including making appointments. This has been the practice for this board as far as I know forever. It is also the practice for the school board. The fact that they're having an election in March, they consider to be very unfortunate. It was because of the fire that they were unable to make the appointments that they were trying to make. I just don't see why we would be spending money when we know that appointments work. And finally, having a four-person board sounds to me just putting a huge burden on those four people in terms of all the different boards and committees they need to be on and the risk as low as set of a two-to-vote meaning that there can be no action. And so, yes, you want the board to be cooperating but there will be differences of opinion as has been shown with the current board. And that's to be expected and that makes it a healthy board. So I think that this idea of an election is just an absolutely terrible idea. I hope the board will vote it down. Thank you. Tina, I see you have your hand up. Hi, thank you. I wanted to just emphasize what Gina had said that the next available election is a year away. And I would prefer not to wait a year to find someone to fill this vacancy. I think that that's just too long. And then also, I don't think that this is a fiscally responsible thing to hold an election. I think that the board is in need of money and like Mr. Fultz said, we need to aggressively reduce costs. And I agree with that. And I also want to point out that, Gina mentioned that there were a few letters that didn't make it into the agenda. But the ones that did, there were over 70 people in our community that supported having the board wait until the new members, including myself, are sworn in. And to have the new board member by appointment, over 70 people, like I haven't seen over 70 people do much of anything on any one issue for this district. And to have that many people write you saying, please take, this is our preferred recommendation. I think that you should sincerely take that into consideration when voting on this matter. That is all I'll have to say about that. Thank you. Okay, Cynthia. Can you hear me now? Yes. I would like to say that we have just had an election and there are two people who were not elected, but apparently are willing to serve. And hopefully Lou is still willing to serve. And I don't see any reason to wait a whole year to allow someone to participate and assist the board. I think there is so much work to be done and it's very healthy to have more opinions and have more people give their energy towards finding solutions for all these serious problems we have right now. So I'm in favor of allowing the new board members to help choose an appointment and appointee. But I think we are very lucky that we already have two people who are willing to serve. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Cynthia. Anyone else out there? Okay. Joni. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak on this. I too would like to thank Rick and Lou for their service and Rick, you certainly made an eloquent point about your value for democracy and all that you've done on behalf of our democracy. And of course, we're all deeply grateful for that. And what I want to comment on is directly related to that. I got involved in helping on one of the campaigns that just finished. And I wanted to be sure that I was talking to people from every possible swath of our community. I know a lot of people in the community have been here for over 30 years and have been involved in a lot of different volunteer activities. And with everyone I spoke with, I didn't hear a single person who wasn't overwhelmingly swayed by Gayle Mayhood's qualifications. And there was massive enthusiasm for her as the election results have shown with 9,100 some votes. And I have since heard from some others in the community some sort of denigrating comments talking about as if there's some us and them vibe going on where there's flow and friends of San Lorenzo Valley, Water and Valley Women's Club were mentioned. And I just want to say that the people I spoke with and worked with to work to get Gayle elected were not from those clubs. I deliberately was talking with people I knew from all of my different experiences in the Valley. These are people who often hadn't been involved in any other local election, but do care deeply about the community. So I think there may be a false sense out there of some tribal team-like thing that's going on. And I want to put that to rest to begin with. And then secondly, I want to say that in the last, I guess a little more than 24 hours, I was trying to help spread the word about this decision so that people in the community who just voted to elect Gayle and Tina could have an opportunity to express their preference for how this would go. And again, every person I spoke with said, we just elected Gayle and Tina by a massive margin. The board has always done this by appointment. It would be bizarre to change that now. And it makes perfect sense to let Tina and Gayle get on the board and participate as boards in the past have done in making these appointments. And I want to tell you a little story about that. One of the people I spoke with to alert her to what was going on, who is not part of any of those clubs or groups that I mentioned earlier, she started walking around her neighborhood because she was so concerned. And she went door to door and she called me from the home of a 90-year-old neighbor who wanted to be sure that her name got onto the letter, which has 66 signatures, I think. And that neighbor wanted to spell her name and her husband's name for me. And today I was having people send me more and more emails and messages on social media saying I want to add my name. And I said, the letter already was submitted yesterday. So I absolutely share your value of democracy. And we've just gone through an election where the voters could not have made their will more clearly known. And I think that it's really important to honor that. And I appeal to you to follow the precedent of the past. I haven't heard any despite impassioned speech. I didn't hear any logical reason given to change from the past precedent. And in fact, there's a gap in logic when you're looking at a big cost. And these are board members who've publicly stated repeatedly their commitment to keeping costs low and not squandering rate payer money. And then the other question of why would you do that? What would the justification be for waiting those many, many months and leaving a board that could potentially have multiple split votes or that would have difficulty adequately staffing committees. If some member happened to be sick or out of town, it just, I haven't heard the logic given to support that. And when there isn't logic given for a significant change from the past, that just doesn't send the right message, especially when the election just happened and the results were so dramatic. So that's what I have to say. And I do appreciate you all. And I'm just a regular rate payer. I got involved because I was super impressed with Gail's credentials and I wanted to see her on the board. She lives in my neighborhood. And my whole neighborhood is super impressed with her. And I'm just one of thousands of people in this valley that wanted to see Gail and Tina get on the board and they should have the chance that past board members have had to make this kind of decision. Thank you. Thank you. Any other members of the public who wanna speak? I guess. Point of order. What? I would like to ask Rick Rogers who is running the clock since James is not at this meeting. I was just texting Holly. I do believe Holly is running the clock. And I was... I am running the clock and it was going off but apparently no one can hear it. It went off on two of the different people. So I don't know why that is. It's right here. Were you muted, Holly? Oh, is that why? Thank you. I'll leave it on. Okay. So it will give you when you have 10 seconds left it'll go to yellow. Okay. All right. So Elaine Fresco, you have your hand up. Hi, everyone. I don't wanna repeat what everyone else said. I just wanna ask a simple question of all of the board members that you haven't answered yet. And that is why don't you want Gail Mahoud and Tina Toe the newly elected board members who won by large margins. Why shouldn't they help choose the vacant seat? Tell me why. Why are you going in this direction? Thank you. Thank you. Any other members of the public? Not seeing any. I will go back to the board. And I'll raise my hand and raise my hand. I'll do it both ways. Okay. There's your, I just got back to panelists. I see your hand. Okay. Thank you. Well, I'll try to write off the top of my head. I'm trying to answer, I believe it's Joni's question about the logic of it. While I've agreed with many of the board members in trying to reduce costs, many of it's not necessarily the board members, it's the citizens of this valley want to do that. And I believe, rightfully so. It's never been the overriding principle by which I've voted on things. I think costs are really another way of talking about people's priorities. And my priority has always been to have the best decision including a lot of different things. We just made a decision on urban water management plan where we went over, you know, picked a higher cost. So it's not necessarily that I or other people have always looked at the bottom line of the money as the only way to make a decision. And it's, I just try to make the best decision with that in mind. And as far as the other thing that is part of my decision is what I've seen in a number of years that I've paid attention to the board, the water district is there's been a lot of resignations over and over again. And the reason I step, there were people that asked me to run during an election and I said no, I didn't want to run. But when I saw the absence in a vacancy, I stepped up trying to help, okay? And, but there's been this, and I don't know really why that is. I know people's, I know the Steve, he had job offer or he had another, you know, commitment in a faraway place in Texas. And Bill Smallman had jobs that he had to consider and the requirements of those jobs. But there's been a lot of people have resigned from these positions. And I would hope that the people who are taking these positions would realize the work that it takes and the commitment it takes and the length of time they're giving and asking the people to support them and be serious about that. And I think that we have to get off of this train of constantly having appointments. When, and then when there are appointments, there are people who question the legitimacy of them by proclaiming that it's political cronyism or that there's a seemingness of shenanigans. And that leads me to another point. And the real point that I got involved in this Water District was there has been a series of grand juries where other people outside of this district have come in and seen improprieties and it's asked us to reform what we're doing. And we need to change that culture. And I think this could go away improving that we're serious about changing that culture. So that's my logic, Tony or Joni. And you can take it for what it is, but that's how I will make my decision on this. The cost of this, and I've heard this argument in a number of debates we've had about cost. This, whether it, I'll go at the top number of $80,000. And we have a somewhat near $12 million budget is 0.06% of our total budget. Now, I know the cost of democracy is, and that's what I'm, that's the rail that I'm riding here. That is a very small cost for the people to be assured that there's no shenanigans, questions that people brought up, to be making sure that we break this train of constant appointments and to break this chain of grand jury investigations. So I think that cost is a value that is well worth it. And I support having an election. Thank you very much, Lois. All right, thank you, Rick. Director Fultz. Yeah, I, boy, Rick, it's like I say, it's make a lot of really good points. And what I did over the last few days is part of my diligence is looking at all the options that are available. And one of them was the election. And so I really dug into it a little bit. And as part of that, I did a lot of research on appointments that have been made in our valley over the years, not just at the water district, but also school district and the like. And it really struck me just how many appointments have been made where basically people were moving into a seat from somebody else. I think, for example, the school district, this was the first election that we had since 2006. It's been a long time. And that really did get me to thinking about exactly the things that Rick's been talking about much more eloquently than me, that there is, and then when I think I heard a comment from somebody saying that's actually a good way to do it, I don't agree with that. I don't think appointments are the best way to do it as I've come to realize some of the repercussions that have happened from appointments. I mean, the appointments that we made were absolutely, we were accused of cronyism and the like by folks that are advocating for more appointments. And so at some point, I think there is this need to just sort of stop it and basically say, the reason I think that the election code doesn't give us the ability to do a mail ballot is the legislatures probably didn't think that somebody wouldn't serve a four year term, just very rarely would it happen that someone would actually not be able to do that. And we've come around to this cycle of where it's now almost a given that at least in some areas that is the culture. I wanted to address the money aspect of this and I am pleased to hear people talk about how important money is and cost savings and that sort of thing. And certainly come next year when we get into the budget process, I hope that we can collaborate on figuring out how to make the budget something that is truly flattening the cost curve. So I'm really heartened to hear some of the comments from the audience about that. This is something that I've been talking about for a long time, but I separate money for me into a couple of different categories. There's money associated with to me the bedrock foundations of our governmental system and there's money that gets sent to consultants that do things that may or may not have a lot of value to us. To me, money spent on foundational aspects takes a much higher priority than money spent on a consultant with a slick marketing campaign. They're just not even in the same category. And I had a similar comment to this about lawsuits that sometimes you're gonna get sued regardless of what you do. And the question is, you wanna be defending the right lawsuit, not that you're not gonna get sued but you wanna make sure you're doing the right thing as part of that. And it makes it a lot easier to justify the money that you're spending. I also wanna remind folks that there are more voices in the valley than what is in the audience. I've said this before that the range of things the range of opinions that we need to take into consideration are more that are then come into the district operations room or come into our Zoom room and that those voices need to be heard as well. So I think that in this case we don't have a lot of those voices present with us tonight, it doesn't mean that they don't exist. I was also a little surprised at one comment I forget who made it. I wasn't sure if they were offering Lou or Beth the seat that is, is that something that they're expecting should happen than in fact Lou or Beth should be appointed to the seat as part of having come in sort of next in line in the election results. That was a little, I wasn't sure I heard that right but that seemed to be what it sounded like. So I'm persuaded by the arguments that Rick makes about I think it's time to move to a different culture part of what I wanted to do part of the reason I ran for the board back in 2018 was to bring certain change to the district one of which was I think we've accomplished and I think everybody in the room including those that supported me and those that didn't have said in the past that we have brought a different tone to these meetings we have embraced other viewpoints we have opened up our committees to more members including those that didn't support us during our election that supported our opponents we have made lots of efforts to reach out here and I think this election is really another way for that to happen there'll be a very long conversation in the community but it will be a good one and at the end of it we'll be able to see and the people will have the ability to be able to decide based on what is happening over the course of time. So I thank Rick for all the thought he's put into it and it really has I think reinforced a lot of the things that I found out when I was doing my research over the weekend. Thank you Lo. Director Ferris. Thank you Lo. We have heard from the board on this issue we've also heard from the public on this issue. Before I vote I would like to hear from the third rail the group that hasn't spoken yet and that's staff. Rick I know that you made a recommendation in the memorandum but I would like you to have the opportunity to expand on that or whatever else you may want to say in this regard before I vote. Well, Lou I think this is a board decision. Yes staff has an opinion and we do have a lot of work to do. I really don't feel comfortable comfortable giving an opinion. You know I'll work with the board whatever four, five, three whatever the board's pleasure is but I really don't feel comfortable in giving a recommendation. I gave a recommendation based on I did we did give a recommendation based on just we have a lot to do and I guess I have to give some type of reason why we recommended it. I just didn't want to see a vacancy in the November we have a lot to do and a lot of committees, Santa Marta Rita but I respect the board's decision. However, the board determines they want to move forward. Well, I'm sorry if you felt like I put you on the spot that wasn't my intent. I just wanted to make sure that you had an opportunity to speak. You know and I think we spoke in the memo. I mean we did a recommendation but you know again, however the board decides staff will support and we'll work together. Are you satisfied Lou or do you have more? What do you want to say? No, I'm done. Thank you. Okay, so I have some issues here as I've said. I think we appointed two great guys to be on the board in 2019 and yeah, we had two people resign from the board. There was a lot of pressure putting on those two people and that's kind of the reason that they did resign. One of them was, yeah, he was having some problems but to me, if you go to election that won't happen till November, then the person who is elected will serve only one year because they don't get to serve two years. They only get to serve until the end of Steve's term which would have been like November of 2022. So if we don't vote until November of 2021, they get one year and yeah, it's a lot of money. The other thing is it costs people to run for the board. There's a cost to the people who are actually putting their name in an election. I know this, I ran in 2018. I know how much it costs. Now I doubt if it would cost that as much as I had to pay in 2018 but it also can cost a whole lot of money to just put a statement into the ballot. So when we appoint, I think we get more people coming forward who want to participate in this that may not have the wherewithal to run a campaign to get elected. And like I said, it's only gonna be for one year because Steve's term ends in 2022. And if we vote for them in 2021, that's it. And I also worry about if we don't let the new board members, two new board members, and then there's Director Fultz and myself. If we can't appoint and we have to wait until November, I think that puts a problem out to the public to the board, I think we will have some internal problems by doing that. And I guess I just really don't understand why we would even dream of waiting until a year from now to have a no luck, and by the way, it's not like they'd get on the board in November, it's December, so it's not even like a whole year. I don't understand and I do not get the logic. I guess I'm a little thick, but I don't get it. So Director Fultz, I see you have your hand up. Yeah, thank you, Lois. You know, I think your points are something that we do need to address and I wanna try to do that. I'm not as concerned about a four member board. My experience on boards, and I've served on two, is that for the most part, the boards are gonna vote unanimously probably in the order of 80 to 90% of the time and sometimes higher. It's really only around a few issues that you might see a divergence of opinion. And I think my divergence of opinion has been very clear over the last two years. It's been about rate increases, finances, capital and the balance between operating expenses and capital expenses, and we'll certainly have opportunities to talk about that more going forward. But for the most part, I think we've demonstrated the ability to work on those issues in a courteous and business-like fashion. And I see no reason why that would change at all. In fact, I think it'll just continue the way it's been going. I do think this board has, again, brought a completely new approach to civic engagement, conducting business in a way that I think the grand jury said really needed to be done. And like Rick, I've taken that very, very seriously. I don't think that one year time to serve was necessarily an impediment. I believe the last appointment, I could be wrong, but I had limited time for research. The last appointment to the Water District before these last two were, in fact, in 2012 when Margaret Bruce was appointed to the board. I believe Jim Nelson resigned early June. Margaret Bruce replaced him early July. Jim Nelson's term was up that November. So in fact, Margaret only served on the board for six months. And from my point of view, when you said pressure on Bill and Margaret, I don't recall that there was any pressure on it. I was actually surprised when both of them resigned because both of them were elected by people in this community. And within the context of the commitment to serve, I think they have a duty to serve the people that voted for them, that expected them to serve four years, that expected them to take their concerns and bring them to the board, whether or not the person is in a majority or not on any particular issue. You still have a duty to represent what you said you were going to do, what you promised to do, what your philosophy is on the board, regardless of how the board falls out. And I think that's something that hopefully we can all strive to do. So I'm still of the opinion that this is the best way to change the culture, to be able to move forward. I understand the concerns that you might have about that, but I don't think there are anything that are going to in any way affect how the board's going to operate going forward. We will certainly have a potentially, well, we're gonna have a new president in the organizing meeting in December. Since Steve is not here, he was going to be coming up anyway. So I expect whoever the new president is will continue the kind of collegial business-like approach to running the board, to setting agendas, to being responsive to board members' requests for agenda items to be put on the agenda. I think all that will continue very well. And I don't see any changes happening with that, assuming that everybody comes to the board with the commitment and the intent to continue the kinds of changes that we've made over the last two years. And I certainly am hopeful for that and see every indication from Gail and Tina that that will in fact be the case. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Lou Ferris, director Ferris. Yeah, just a real quick comment. I think that Jim Mosier has been waiting patiently to say something further. And given the importance of this measure, I know it's not normal, but I would suggest that we go back to the public and let Jim have his day. Yeah, that sounds great. Well, Rick Moran has his hand up also. I'll let Jim have his time here. Okay, but normally people only get to speak once and I'm sorry, I didn't say that. And I will let him, but my fault, okay? Okay, I'll go back to the attendees for Jim Mosier and please try to keep it to three minutes, no more, Jim. Jim, could you hear me? Yes, thank you all. I do appreciate the opportunity to speak twice. And I guess I just remain befuddled at the idea that having a four-person board for a year is going to be workable. I know Rick wasn't willing to speak. He's not in a position to do that, but I think the memo from the board speaks for itself. There is just a huge amount of work to do and the next year we are facing incredible crises here. We have the debris flow coming up. This winter is gonna be very difficult. We need all hands on deck. And as Cynthia said, we know that we have, I think we know there will be very good applicants and we have just had an election. Having worked on this election, I think Lois's point about what it costs to run, one of these campaigns, how much effort and work it is. This is not how we should be spending our time. And in terms of the direct democracy, I just repeat what I said before, we just had an election. The precedent at this board, the school board, I would bet for virtually every local board in the state is when you have this kind of opening vacancy, you appoint and then you have the election come on its regularly scheduled so that democracy does rule. And the expense and the time, the staff time this is gonna take, I urge you all to reconsider this. I'm just practical terms. This should not be a partisan issue. It certainly looks odd to those of us who supported Gale, that you would be making this decision and not allowing the usual practice to happen, which is that the appointment is made for the benefit of the district and all wait pairs. And I just wondered also, how did you hear from any of the public supporting this election idea? We've certainly been circulating this issue all over the district as best we can. We didn't hear one person say they thought this was a good idea. Thank you. Okay, we got a problem here. Joni and Cynthia have already talked. I let Jim talk and in reality, this is my fault, I didn't say that you cannot talk twice. It's been a while since I've done this. So Cynthia and Joni, I hope that you will be happy if I don't call on you. Now Gale has also put up her hand. She never talked before. So Gale, do you still wanna speak? Yes, I would like to speak if you allow me. Well, I'm allowing you. Okay, and I hope I will be brief. I'm Gale Mayhood. I live in Felton and I'm a director-elect. And I have to say this whole conversation absolutely flabbergasts me. I can't believe that people who've argued for trying to reduce expenses are now arguing to spend $80,000 for an unnecessary election. And I'm just dismayed that as an incoming director I may be asked to deal with only having four members and the difficulty of manning all the committees. And I guess I would just really like to ask again, where is the evidence that there are members of the public that are jumping up and down asking for an election? I just don't see it. We don't see it in the letters. And so I would ask Director Moran and Fultz to answer that question and also the question that Elaine Fresco posed, which is why is it that you're working so hard to make sure that the newly elected members of the board are not allowed to appoint new directors when we've had such good luck in appointing Lou and Rick. Thank you. Okay, I'm gonna go back to the board and Rick Moran, you had your hand. I'll try to answer Gail or Elaine's question. I'm not trying to prevent the newly elected board members from making any decision. I'm trying to use the experience that I've had on this board in this water district to try to recognize the questions that have been brought up about political shenanigans and cronyism and the grand jury and the tradition. I'm not a slave to the tradition of appointments. And I'm certainly not a slave to the recommendations of the staff. I came on this, I got a fair amount of notoriety because I opposed the recommendation of the staff on the use of glyphosate. And I took that to the public and we overwhelmingly changed that. So I appreciate the recommendations of the staff, but in the final analysis, I have to make this decision. And that's the basis that I'm making it on. And in that regard, I will make a motion that... Bob has his hand up, please. Can I? Well, Rick can go ahead and make the motion and then we can see if there's a second and we can continue talking about it. In that regard, I'll make a motion that we proceed with an election to fill the present board vacancy. And Gina, you might be able to help me with the proper warning of that, but that is the intent of my motion. Well, I think it's sufficiently clear, Director Moran, but if you wanted to have it be very technical, it could be a motion to call for an election, pursuant to government code section 1780 subsection E2. Very well put, Gina. I'll take that wording as sufficient for me. Okay. Is there a second? There is a second, but I want to clarify something first. Does that make sense? Gina, with respect to the process by which this gets communicated, do we also need to direct the district manager or staff to immediately notify the elections office of this decision? I wouldn't think you would need to do that, but you could do that. Okay. Well, let's say Ann immediately notified the elections office of this decision, assuming it passes. Rick, would that agree to that? I would agree to that. And so with that, I will second that motion. Okay. Holly, would you please call the question? I did have one additional comment that I wanted to make, Lois. Ma'am? I can't stop you, so go ahead. It'll be brief. I would like to say that I would like to see us approach John Laird and Mark Stone in conjunction with this to get them to put additional flexibility into the election code or propose that to the legislature. As I was reviewing the codes myself over the weekend, I noticed that there were a lot of exceptions where districts had more flexibility around conducting male elections and the like than what we currently have. And I'd like to see that change. Not something to decide tonight, but just something that I think we should look at for the future. Thank you. Okay, Holly, could you please call the question? President Henry? No. Director Ferris? Aye. Director Falls? Yes. Director Moran? Yes. Motion passes. All right, thank you. So continuing on to the consent agenda. Is there anything that anybody wants to pull from the consent agenda? No, thank you. Okay. So, excuse me, Lois, there is a resolution on the consent agenda. So I would have to take the vote. Okay, the multi-user variance? Multi-user variance. Okay. So we need to pull that off then. How come we even put it on there? Yeah. Is that how it goes, Gina? Does it have to be pulled to vote? Well, it would be better, I think, to do that. And then the vote could be recorded directly on the resolution. Okay. Director Falls? I make a motion to approve San Lorenz by Water District Resolution number six, 2021. Multiple user variance renewals for 2019-2020. Well, I pardon, but having pulled it from the agenda, I think we ought to take public comment on the item. We could certainly do the comment. I think we could do a motion and second and then go to the public comment, if that'd be okay. I'll second it. Okay, so let's go to public comment. Any public comment on this item? Okay, I don't see any. So back to, so we have a motion and a second. So, Holly, could you please call the question? Yes, President Henry? Yes. Director Ferris? Aye. Director Fultz? Yes. Director Moran? Director Moran? Got my mute, forgot my mute button there for a second. Yes. Motion passes. All right, thank you. So going on to the next item is director reports. I mean district reports. So, Mr. Rogers, do you want to deal with that? We have directors reports. We have the engineering and the legal report. I will try to answer questions if directors have so. Do any directors have questions on the reports? Sure, I'm not hiding anything here. I'll raise my hand. Okay. Okay, I, okay, I see you, Rick. Okay, thank you. Would it be appropriate to ask you if we've had any success or any movement with the engineering hiring? We are in the process. We're out again. You know, we did have one round and we accepted applications. We had some interviews. Our number one candidate turned down the position and we're back out again looking for an engineer. We're advertising as we speak. Thank you. Okay, director folks. Yes, a question to Rick Rogers. Rick, what was the reason for declining the position? Did they give a reason? I got to refer to district council. I have reasons, but I'm not sure if this is the appropriate form. I'm not sure if you want me to, Bob, you were talking that we didn't hear you because you're on mute. I can answer that if you want. I guess I made a misunderstood. I thought perhaps the candidate turned us down. If we turn them down, then I don't want to know. No, the candidate turned us down. I see. Yeah, I would recommend having that discussion offline if desired. Great, thank you. I'll do that. Okay, any other questions by board members? I see none. So, in that case, I'm assuming this meeting is going to be adjourned. Any, anybody disagree with adjourning? No, okay. No, we're good to go. Okay, we're adjourning. Thank you very much. Thank you. The time is 7.27. All right, thank you. Thank you as well, Lois. Thank you, Rick Moran.