 Okay. With that, I'll go ahead and call the February 28, 2022 water board meeting to order. Heather, can you start with a roll call? Sure. Todd Williams. Here. Allison Gould. Here. Tom Duster. Here. Roger Lang. Here. Ken Houston. Here. Kevin Bowden. Yeah. Nancy Jaffe. Jason Elkins. Here. David Bell. Here. Another McIntyre is here. Turn you have a quorum. Great. Thank you, Heather. Item three is approval of the previous month's minutes. Are there any kind of questions, comments on the January 24, 2022 meeting minutes? I'm not seeing any, if there are none, we need a motion to approve those minutes. Roger moves approval. Is there a second? Scott, I could barely hear you there. Okay. I think I heard that as a second by Scott. Any further discussion? I'm not seeing any. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed. All right. Those are approved. Item number four is the water status report. Yes, chairman. The flow of the same brain at Lyons today, 12 CFS with 125 year historic average of 15 CFS. Calling the same brain Creek is Highland reservoir number two. Admin 11,642 with a priority date of November 15th, 1881. Calling the main stem of the South Platte River is Pruitt reservoir. Admin 53,300. With a priority date of December 6, 1995. Ralph Price reservoir is at an elevation of 6,371.9 feet. Down 5,500 acre feet. And releasing 23 CFS. Union reservoir is an elevation of 25.5 feet. Down 2,000 acre feet. And releasing 6 CFS. Statewide snowpack is at 95%. South Platte River basin snowpack is at 99%. As is the upper Colorado basin. And same brain basin snowpack is at 129% of average. Local reservoir storage is at 65% full. And CBT storage is at 70% full. And then additionally, I wanted to share with you that the 2021 water treatment plan demands. It's just under 17,000 acre feet and nearly equal to the 20 year average. So that's all I have unless you have some questions. All right. Are there any questions for us on the status water status report? I'm not singing. Thank you, Wes. Heather, I asked you earlier, but is there any public invited to be heard? Or I guess, can any special presentations? Okay. Can is there any agenda revisions or submission of documents? I have none. Okay. With that, we're on the development activity. Wes, do you handle in that today? Yes. The first item before you item seven a the notch 66 by watermark final plat. It's a 27.747 acre parcel located north of highway 66. And west of the. Burlington, Northern Santa Fe Railroad. All historic water rights were transferred at time of annexation. The full 27.747 acres are subject to the full requirements of the raw water policy. Not 66 by watermark final plat will be in compliance with the water requirement policy. Upon satisfaction of the 40.428 acre foot deficit. At time of final plat approval. Additionally, I would mention that. This is slated for about a 336 multifamily unit. Development. So includes about 23 buildings. And then there's 10 other. I think three story buildings. And the plan is for that's going to be satisfied with cash and loo. And that cash and loo payment will be prior to the change in the fee. I expected on March 8th. Okay. Are there any questions on the notch 66. Proposal. Water requirement. If not west, we need to get a recommendation for approval. To the city council, is that correct? That is correct. Okay. So unless there's any questions does one of the board members may. Want to make a recommendation of. The not 66 project. Anyone. Yeah. So Tom, I made the recommendation. Allison, you want to do the second. Yes, please. Okay. There's the motion to second any further discussion. I'm not seeing any, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay. That one is recommended for approval by the council. Wes, you want to go into the next. Yes, the next item seven B bacon subdivision replant B. Which is a 0.44 acre parcel located north of Donovan drive and west of sunset street. There were no historic water rights pertinent to this particular property. The full 0.44 acres are subject to the full requirements of the raw water policy. Bacon subdivision replant B will be in compliance with the raw water requirement policy upon satisfaction of the. 1.32 acre foot deficit at a time of. Final plot or a plotting. This is a subdivision. Of the existing lot into three lots. And again, this one also we're expecting to see a payment for cash and Lou prior to March 8. Are there any questions on the bacon subdivision replant B for Wes? Yeah, go ahead, Tom. Yeah, so this is more like a general question perhaps. Maybe I should have asked it on the last one as well, but I'm just curious as to whether. We've, or whether the city's had any interactions with kind of individuals or, or, you know, entities of some variety that we know are kind of in the pipeline about the new. The new cash and Lou policy and whether kind of what the reaction has been to that and whether people are kind of expediting their processes to try to get in before that March 8 deadline or, or, or just kind of any, any insights into that is at all. So yes. I've had, I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of different developers that are in the development process. I've had conversations with developers that aren't yet even in the development process that are thinking about getting into the process. So as you may recall the raw water requirement policy affords any land that was annexed to satisfy all remaining 70 acres. And even though there may not be a plat as part of the existing 70 acres, someone anyone can go in there and satisfy that full remaining 70 acres. That's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a 20 acres, 70 acres. That doesn't normally occur. But we're seeing that occur now as, as a result of the upcoming increase for fee for cash andTrue. Sometimes. Historic water rights. Are nearly sufficient to satisfy the full three acre fee per acre deficit. the owner of the property has satisfied the full three acre feet just to be done with it and made it easier for him to market to know that it was all done and he locked in his cash and lose. So, so basically the reaction has been very supportive. They've been appreciative that we've been reached doing our best to try to let them know above and beyond what's already been out there in the public. The we're seeing quite a bit of, as you mentioned, expedited satisfaction. I think in the last two weeks, I've processed about $830,000 in cash and loo payments. There's we're expecting more to be coming in in the next week. And so none of that's really that surprising, but overall, I think it's been people that have I guess, waiting. So typically what developers we find, one of the last things they'll do as part of their subdivision or planning process is to satisfy raw water deficits. And that's that happens for a number of reasons. One is if they were to transfer nonhistoric water rights is allowed by the policy. They if they get transferred to Longmont, they can't be transferred back out. They can't be sold without a vote of the people. And so it's just naturally where most people want to be sure it's the last thing that they do. And so sometimes people will have their plat nearly finished. But for whatever reason, they haven't, they're not ready to make that final step and it can sit in the DRC process for months, if not years. And I think there's about a two year maximum limit. But we're finding that there are some of those individuals as well that are coming through right now and satisfying their deficits. They were identified last year by Water Board as their deficit. And and now with the knowledge they've been given, they're coming in and satisfying their their deficits. So hopefully that answers your question. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Are there any other questions for Wes on the, the bacon, water analysis? And welcome, Marsha, welcome to the meeting. So if there are no other questions, we need a recommendation of approval of the Bacon subdivision replat B water calculation to the council. Someone want to make that motion looks like Allison is going to make the motion. Is there a second? Roger's the second. Any further discussion? I'm not seeing any. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Great. It carries. So is that all, Wes? That was the end of the development activity. That was all. Okay. Thank you. And is there anything under item eight, the general business? Ken's shaking his head. So no. On item nine, nine A is the annual button rock preserve update. Welcome, Price. Good to see you. I assume you'll be the one kind of walking us through this. Yep. And Heather, are you going to be running the PowerPoint for me or do I look like you are? Great. Welcome everybody. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to update you all on happenings at button rock preserve. My name is Price Hadley. For those of you who haven't met me before, I'm the senior watershed ranger at button rock. We recently got satellite internet so can everybody hear me okay? All right. Good. That's a huge improvement. So next slide. So today I just want to give you a quick overview of the past year at button rock. Talk to you about the new normal that we're experiencing in the latter days of COVID, give you an update on ranger activity at the preserve, and then talk about forestry projects, infrastructure and maintenance backlog that we've been working on, talk a little bit about visitor safety and give you a preview of some outreach and education efforts that we're planning for the new year. Next slide. So unsurprisingly, COVID has continued to impact our management and our experience up here at button rock. As with the last, really last 20 months or so, COVID has impacted the types of programs and activities you've been able to offer at button rock, the Boulder County Youth Corps season was canceled for the second year in a row. We've had infrastructure projects delayed due to supply chain issues, just like everything else. Every other aspect of city government, we've felt that pinch as well, which has required us to use and created problem solving. And luckily, we've found a way to get most of what we set out to do done in 2021. In the last year, we hosted over 58,000 visitors, which was 19% lower than 2020, but still busier than any year prior to COVID. On the chart on the right side of the slide, you can see there's a colors aren't great, but the brown line is our average 2019 to 2021. And the gray line is 2021. So you can see that even in 2021, we still outpaced the prior average. We only exceeded visitation of 2020 in the fall, because in 2020, fall 2020, we obviously were experiencing the calwood fire and had a closure. So we're all have had less crowding in the preserve, which is nice. That's also led to fewer parking issues, fewer complaints from our residents in the Longmont Dam neighborhood, which is that was a good sign. And generally, pretty good compliance. Next slide. So part of that equation has definitely been an increase in ranger presence. We currently have two full time rangers stationed at Button Rock and one seasonal ranger and see some photos of us in action on the right side of the slide. Overall, we've had good compliance relative to visitation. As I said, we have about 60,000 visitors, rangers, patrol to preserve every day. We issued, well, we had more than 330 enforcement contacts. So anytime we're talking to somebody about a rules violation, gathering their information, that kind of thing. We're overall very educationally focused. We issued 310 warnings. We issued one summons, 20 parking tickets, which were really pretty much all took place right at in the span of a couple weeks. And then we're able to dial in some signage issues down at the parking lot and have had very few issues since, which is great. We checked over 195 fishing permits with fantastic compliance from our anglers. We made dozens of citizen assists, resident contacts, and naturalist kind of educational contacts, types of data that we track. Next slide. In addition to all that rangers responded to 18 emergencies in the Button Rock area. So notable calls included stranded hikers that we assisted across the river with help from Lions Fire in April, during high water. In June, we had a ranger assist search and rescue in the sheriff's office with an evacuation of an injured equestrian in Coulson Gulch, which is the Forest Service property to our west. We've had multiple search and rescue, including one where three missing hikers were found by a ranger. You can see the photo on the right from a small wildfire that myself and our seasonal ranger Connor O'Reilly were able to contain that we had located in Coulson Gulch, again, just outside our west boundary. And we conducted a park evacuation of public of visitors during the Kruger Rock fire. Next slide. So in 2021 to switch over, we were able to make some headway on a number of projects, including forestry work, maintenance, infrastructure, visitor safety initiatives and outreach and education efforts. Next slide. So forestry, obviously, a big part of our job as watershed rangers is implementing the 2017 Forest Stewardship Plan. In 2021, we wrapped up the log jam project, which was a forest restoration and fuels reduction cut on the west side of the property. We removed about 500 trees through a contractor. I was able to give 300 of those trees to Boulder County to use in the aerial mulching efforts on Pail and Burn Scar, which was kind of a cool way to use that carbon close to us for a good restoration purpose. We followed up that project with volunteer seed collection on the preserve, like native seeds, and then we spread those seeds and disturb areas in the log jam area. We're currently in the planning phase for another grant funded forestry project like log jam. We secured a furworm grant from the state. And I'm currently working with Boulder County on a cross boundary forestry treatment that'll take place in the sleepy lion trail area, calling it the Antelope Park project. So in order to do that cross boundary work, we have to get a formal access agreement in place, do the RFP process to secure a contractor. So I'm currently working through the kind of intergovernmental plan that's required to pull something off like that. Related to all this is the city's continued involvement in the Saint Green Forest Health Partnership, which is an intergovernmental interdisciplinary coalition of agencies, nonprofits, community groups, citizens that to help protect the Saint Green watershed and improve forest health. The city recently contributed $134,000 to Cal Fire Recovery efforts, which was the matching amount with the safe, the Saint Green left hand water conservancy districts, we each contributed equal parts to pay for that effort protecting and improving the burned area. But Rock also was the site of a field trip from the Saint Green Forest Health Partnership, where they toured our property and basically discussed forestry best management practices and desired future outcomes. And all that is super valuable as it informs planning for projects like the Antelope Park cut. You can see in the picture on the right is the log jam cut. That was last spring, you can see some piles there and what the area looks like after it's been in our financial table. There you go. There's the picture. And on the financial table, you can see that we continue to effectively leverage grant funding to complete forestry work on the preserve. Since forestry efforts were started since they were tracked in 2004, we've treated about one third the land mass of Button Rock. And we've done that with about 50% of the cost being covered by grant dollars. So very effective leveraging of grants. And we're continuing that into the future with the Antelope Park grant and additional grants being considered. Next slide. So Antelope Park project, you can see on this map or on our planning map here, we've got four units, three turquoise polygons and a yellow polygon on there. Just to give you a visual of where we'll be working in the new year. This cut is going to be focused on reducing meadow encroachment around sleeping line trail, reducing the basal area, the thickness of the forest on our boundary with Paul Ranch to really get to the point where it's a more natural distribution of age class trees, and also forest composition that will hopefully keep fire on the ground if the wildfire did come through the area, as opposed to the catastrophic crown fires that you've seen in the media or in person. And we're working closely with our partners at Boulder County Parks and Open Space to accomplish that, as well as with left hand watershed center, we'll be conducting an outreach and education campaign, picking off in about a month to really front load and educate our visitors about why we are doing this thinning and how it helps protect the forest and most importantly, protect our drinking water. Next slide. So we've been dealing with a bit of a maintenance backlog at Button Rock. COVID hasn't really helped that. But luckily, we've had a lot of support from the city and increased staffing at the Preserve. We've been able to really make some headway. I was able to apply funds that had been intended for Boulder County Youth Corp when that season was canceled to address some of these maintenance issues. If you click once, it should switch. This is the Button Rock Dam before our backlog of maintenance was addressed. And this is what it looks like after a haircut. Obviously, we try to keep our infrastructure clear of what vegetation can prevent any damage to it. So that was one large project that we've worked on is clearing all woody vegetation from the dam face to protect that structure. We also treated invasive species along our main fire road, removed some hazmat that we've found in different structures on the Preserve. We've worked to establish defensible space around Preserve facilities and address the facilities management plan to make sure that a lot of these issues don't end up on the back burner and we continue to be proactive and take care of them. And last, let's point out that we did recently towed and removed the debris boom from Ralph Price Reservoir that for those of you who are involved in the Water Board will remember that that was placed there after the 2013 flood. So that was no small effort, but we've got that debris boom off the water and we salvaged it and stored it at Nelson Flanders. So if we need to redeploy it in the future, we can. Next slide. As part of our maintenance backlog, we've worked to maintain and protect our infrastructure so that they're sustainable going forward. We addressed a variety of unsafe conditions in the range of residents and in the range of station, including Radon, Asbestos and both structures and a lack of water and heat in the range of residents, which we've now corrected and much more lovable. Ranger Miles Church Hill is living currently at the Preserve. We converted the lower range of residents, which some of you may be familiar with down here by the spillway to a functioning ranger station. So we now have access to bathroom, heat, you know, internet, those basic necessities for doing our work on site. We upgraded a radio tower on on the property, replaced the outlet tunnel vent fan, which had failed as originally 1960s conducted a risk review with our risk department and assigned confined spaces. And we also the rangers operated pumps 24 seven during less CBT shut down in 2021 in order to provide drinking water to the public. Next slide. In addition to kind of the infrastructure, the built environment, we also worked on improving visitor safety. We published the new button rock dam EAP emergency action plan. We upgraded our public safety radio system for the Rangers. So now Rangers for the first time are able to talk to Longmont dispatch directly, which is a huge asset to us. We improved our safety signage, including some signage around our outlet pool where the water comes out to base the dam. We dramatically improved our parking compliance with additional signage and installed some pop up parking signage when we've got high traffic days, removed hazard trees, worked with volunteers to close some social trails to see the bucking rail fence in the upper right, that people were going down this gully and getting stuck next to the creek resulting in probably about a half dozen search and rescue missions over span of a year. And we've not had a single issue since we built that fence. And we also invested in improved wildfire training and equipment for the Ranger crew. Next slide. Finally, just want to give you a little bit info on some outreach and volunteer efforts that we've been doing at the preserve. The city recently hired a volunteer coordinator to help us stay organized and with fruit volunteers. Even before she was hired, Taylor Gifford is our new volunteer coordinator. She's great. We had 12 volunteer work days at the preserve, which accomplished social trail closure that I mentioned earlier, pulling fencing, collecting native seeds and picking up trash at McCall Lake. I worked with a translator and with our branding and marketing department to produce Spanish English brochures that are stocked at the preserve, included a hiking map, as well as historical and natural history and information about the butt button rock area and regulation information. And we are working with the Left Hand Watershed Center to plan the Forest Health Education Campaign that I mentioned earlier. Next slide. So here's my requisite slide of critters from 2021 highlights. I've got our, I think technically this bobcat was from 2022, but a bobcat that I encountered at a distance about 15 feet at the butt and rock trailhead, who was eating a roadkill deer. So that was definitely a top wildlife experience of my time as a Ranger and then a black bear from the chimney rock area. So continues to be an excellent hidden gem up here at butt and rock, despite some a little bit more popularity. Next slide. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to speak to anything in the presentation or answer any questions you may have. Great. Thank you, Price. Looks like Allison has a question. Go ahead. Yeah, thanks, Price. Really love the pictures as always. Was that mountain lion also up there? The mountain lion was, that photo was taken by a regular visitor to butt and rock was a wildlife photographer, but that lion was actually at Rabbit Mountain. I was looking for a nearby lion photo for our pamphlet when it talks about the different animal species you may encounter. And Jane was was kind enough to offer us use of that photo. But yeah, she encountered that lion on the Eagle Wind Trail over in Boulder County, open space. That's awesome. Thank you. One topical question. Where were those 300 trees processed? So the 300 trees that were hauled off of the log jam cut were trucked to Hile, Hile Valley Ranch on Gear Canyon Road. And the county had a contractor there that was processing the wood on site, turning it into mulch wood mulch wood straw. And then they would load it into the helicopters and follow GPS and drop it on various prioritized units in the burn scar in the burn scar. Cool. Thank you. There are other questions. For price. I do have one price in terms of the, I guess, the overall drainage. How much I know you're working a lot of private lands. Is there quite a bit of public Forest Service lands as well that are ultimately would have to be within the drainage of price? So the drainage expanding up to Allens Park and Wild Basin, I mean, really, you're you're kind of encapsulating everything from Rocky Mountain National Park through some limited private holdings up up in the Allens Park area as you cross Highway 7. But I mean, it's fairly limited what's upstream of us in terms of private property and with the Park Service and then a very large swath of Forest Service property in a Boulder County roadless area, as you come in from Larimer, draining into Ralph Price in the preserve, you know, it's 3000 acres of city land surrounded by many thousands of acres of the Rapova Roosevelt National Forest. We border to large holdings from Boulder County Parks and Space, primarily the Hall Ranch and Riverside open space, as well as many other smaller parcels. And we've got about nine private properties. So it's predominantly public land, which is definitely an asset to us when we look at landscape scale, planning for forestry and watershed protection. I guess the reason I asked Price is I know the Northern District is doing work on the East Troublesome Fire and there has been the Forest Service has been getting funds to do I think forest management as well as obviously kind of mitigation from the East Troublesome Fire. So you guys have done an amazing job on the grants. I just didn't know if there'd be a way to maybe leverage some of that money coming to the Forest Service for maybe management projects. If there's areas of concern. So just was that's kind of the reason I was going there. Yeah, there's a pot of money called I think it's adjacent lands treatments or something along those lines that is open to local government that I was talking recently with the state forest service about. So any of our parcels which is any of our parcels that border forest service land that we're doing forestry work on could be eligible for those funds, which is virtually everything. And then there's also a large amount of state funding in COSWAP the Colorado and it's strategic wildfire. I'm not sure the full acronym is but COSWAP is is the distributing funds maybe can speak to the full acronym but we have that on our radar, both in terms of additional work we can do with youth cores. I've got a partnership that I'm working on with Larimer County Conservation Cores, Sawyer crew. It's a young adult Sawyer's in 20s college age. There's some state funding that I can get to offset those costs as well as some larger grant dollars that we're looking at with any conjunction with partner agencies. OK, great. Well, you guys do amazing job. So I'm always impressed on how much you're able to raise in terms of grant funding. So thanks for that. Any other questions or comments? I guess maybe the only the last question I've got is on. I know we had discussions on. I know you've mentioned the violations as I assume that's going better since you guys had first enacted it. Can you give us an update on that? So just talking about general code violations or? Yeah, I think it was multiple dogs and they were off leash and resulting in waste issues and other problems. I mean, I would say based on, you know, I've been a ranger for seven and a half years and based on my experience in my previous park system, our compliance is much better here, much more polite and easy to work with population. I also say knowing that Boulder County average is about an 80% compliance rate. You know, I'd say that we're at least something along those lines, which is great. You know, we have really good compliance with the one dog per visitor regulation that was implemented several years ago. You know, we have pretty good could be better compliance with our leash law that said it hasn't has improved in the time that I've been here with greater ranger presence and, you know, we can further improve it through the use of ticketing if we have to. But I think that overall that plants is is very good compared to other open space or nature reserve type. You know, the lands that you encounter throughout the state. Right, our fishing clients is excellent. Good. OK, anything else for price? I'm not saying anything. Thank you very much for the update. It's always fun to hear about all the work you guys are doing. You got a lot on your plate. So thank you. Thank you. So with that, we'll go on to item nine B, which is a water resource engineering projects update. Jason. Hey, thank you. Yeah, I'd like to give everybody update on some of our major capital project. The South St. Frank pipeline rehab project. I know I've been talking about that one in a lot of meetings lately, so we're we've issued a substantial completion for that. We've just got some punch list items that we have to do. But basically, you know, the South St. Frank pipeline is going to be full capable of delivering water to the Highland ditch by the end of this week. We just have to remove some sediment deposits on the east end of the pipeline. But by Friday, we should be able to actually deliver water if we needed to. Having said that, we probably won't be doing that because we're starting to kick off the South St. Frank pipeline pump station project. And so I just issued notice to proceed to glacier construction on that project last week. And they're currently starting to get prepared to mobilize. They've called in from locates. They're doing some preliminary surveying work and they're planning on being on site at the end of this week. And they'll be they'll be kicking that off. And they actually anticipate being able to finish construction a few weeks ahead of what we had estimated. So still working out some of the details on the construction schedule, but overall, we're fairly confident that we're going to have this pipeline up and running by by summer. June, June, July, it depends on a lot of things, but assuming everything goes according to plan and no unforeseen supply chain issues and stuff like that, knock on wood, which we don't anticipate, but we're anticipating having that pump station online in June, June, July timeframe. So the North St. Rain pipeline feasibility study that we're doing with Dewberry engineers. We've done the SES evaluation. That's the sustainability evaluation system. And so we had seven or eight participants in that from all different departments. We even had a lot of auditors, just people just kind of viewing, watching us go through the evaluation process. And so Francie Jaffe actually, she was the facilitator for that one and she led the team in that. And so we've finalized the report on that and that that SES tool will be or the results that SES tool will be incorporated into the study. And so we're anticipating having that study finalized in the next couple of months. You know, we've we're getting pretty into the weeds now into the study. And so things are dragging out a little bit longer than anticipated. Having said that, we've, I, you know, quality over quantity. I'd rather, you know, spend a couple extra weeks going over some of these details that the fine tooth comb as opposed to try to rush them. So so anyway, we we hope to have that ready probably this spring. And as soon as I do have that. In draft form, I'll forward it to forward it to the board for review and for comment as well. And then one of the projects that I inherited from Larry Wainow, he recently retired from engineering services as part of our 1041 permit with Boulder County on the North St. Brain Pipeline replacement project along Apple Valley Road is there's two abandoned segments of North St. Brain Pipeline still in the creek. It's not actually in the creek. It's below the creek, but they're they're crossing the creek. And as part of our 1041 permit, we're required to remove those two pieces of pipeline. And so anyway, I'm working with NICS excavating construction and working with the adjacent property owners out there because access to those two abandoned pipes to abandon to two sections of abandoned pipe are from private residents. And so working with them to get access, working with the county to get a stormwater permit and floodplain permit and stuff like that. So just kind of jumping through some of the hoops now to get the permitting in place. But we're hoping to have that done before spring runoff. And to minimize the impact to those residents, the town of Lyons also has their water line that runs adjacent to ours. And they're also required to remove there. So being good neighbors and good stewards, just trying to help everybody out, we're going to remove the town of Lyons pipeline as well as part of our project so that the town doesn't have to come back in at a later date and disrupt, you know, those residents and damage their property. So it's double the workload, but it's not really a big deal. It's just a little bit more paperwork and a little bit more oversight. But the town of Lyons is participating financially while the city of Longmont leads in the construction and design of that. So that's what I have for the board. Is there any questions? Great. Thank you, Jason. Any questions for Jason? I'm not seeing any. Thank you very much. Good update. Thank you. All right, we're on the item 9C, which is an update on the council initiatives, Ken. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, we just have a few items that will affect over time the water board that I wanted to talk about. The first one is that council is still meeting remotely, but they're having conversations about when they'll go back to in person and Marsha may be able to tell me better. But I believe like late March time frame early April at the latest. I would think so, Ken. Yeah, I am at a little bit of a disadvantage because we're not getting the case rates. You know, what we sort of voted on last time was was we'd like to see it get down below the red level again. Remember those old levels that we used to have? And we've been so far above those. So I don't know where we are with respect to those old lines, but I think once we get down below them, we'll definitely go back in person if the council is even willing to wait that long. Yeah, could be early March. OK, so in that vein, we didn't want to just arbitrarily say, OK, that, you know, we're going back in person on the water board. Just wanted to see if the board is interested in having a conversation today about either the March meeting or the April meeting, if you want to go back in person or continue remote. Just really kind of wanted to. Hear from the board on what your your thoughts are. Any comments from the board? I guess go ahead, Roger. Ken, is there any criteria? But along with what Marcia was talking about as far as levels of activity or inactivity that would lead us one direction or another or is it our decision to make by ourselves? Well, at this point, it really is water boards decision because if you think about the real statistical kind of crunch point was when Boulder County removed the mask mandate for indoors. So that was kind of the last little thread out there hanging. But we didn't want to take that and run with it in February, even though it is now lifted. And so, yeah, you could certainly follow similar to what council is doing. You know, there was a low transmission level or I'll call it a medium yellow transmission level. And then there was a red transmission level. And last I looked, we were just kind of about to break below the top of the red transmission level. But I'll have to admit, I haven't looked the last week. But, you know, that could be another criteria. But I would say technically it was when Boulder County lifted the mask mandate. And so either of those would be good criteria to use. Yeah, one last comment and, you know, it's these work out pretty well, remote, but I do miss getting together as a group live. So I would be in favor of doing it. You know, maybe we could target Mark, but anyway, that's just my opinion. Thanks Roger, any other comments? I'm in line with Roger. Now that the mask main mandate by Boulder County has been pulled, if we can get back in person, that'd be my preference. So that's just where I'm at. I don't know about Allison or Tom, if you guys want to weigh in on it. Or Scott, if you can hear us. Yeah, Mr. Chair, this is Scott. I can hear you fine. And I'm in favor of meeting live in person if possible. I'm listening. Go ahead. Sorry, I'm also of that opinion. At some point we had discussed the ability to participate virtually, if possible. I would like that to still be an option, if for example, someone's feeling a little under the weather and they don't want to expose anyone or if someone in their family is feeling under the weather, I think that that would be great to have that option. Yes, as you may recall, the board did change your board rules to allow that. So that wouldn't be a problem. Perfect. Then I am in favor of going back in March. Yeah, and Todd, I would also be in favor of going back in March, seems like things are opening up a little bit. And so it makes sense. I will continue to be a mask wearer. So if everybody can put up with that, that's okay, but other than that, yeah, I'd be happy to see you all in person again. So. Great. Well, thanks everybody. Does that get you what you need, Kim? Yes, it does. Thank you very much. And then again, if you can indulge staff, if something comes up, none of us know. Some does come up. We may, on a case by case basis, switch back to our remote and we'll let the board know that, but right now we'll plan on in person, beginning in March. So thank you very much. The second subject, and I'm only bringing this up to inform the board that we'll start this process, but because we have not had a chance to, it's gonna take a little bit of work for staff to be ready to bring this forward to Water Board, but when we were taking some of our earlier cash and loo information to council, the council had asked us to work with Water Board about the attainable housing, the possibility of having some attainable housing incentives relative to cash and loo, similar to what we have for affordable housing and commercial incentive. So right now we have in the code language for commercial development incentive, and we have language in the code for affordable housing incentive. And council's been working more recently on attainable housing, which is a great area to look at as well. And so we've been asked to kind of look at how we do the other two programs and see if it fits in the attainable housing program and how we might implement it and how it might impact the other two programs, all those kinds of things. So we have reached out to the planning department. And of course, the first thing I ask them is, give me a good definition of attainable housing and they're working on that. I think there is some language in the code, but as I understand they're working on that to better define what we want. And then of course, I would presume that's what we would use if we were to look at it from a water supply standpoint. But, and so yeah, Marcia, if you can add anything, that'd be great. Yeah, well, the housing and urban development definition of attainable housing is that if a person or a family earning between 80% and 120% of the area median income can afford the mortgage, can qualify for the mortgage, it's attainable, which means essentially that there's none in Longmont right now. But that doesn't tell you a lot because the complication, the definition of area median income is also complicated. But in terms of, if you just think of that as average for a household that depends on the size of the household, then you're close. As you can see for us water folks where that's really getting out of our arena. But no, we want to start bringing that forward and start talking about that. And I will be able in the future to be able to bring you more information exactly like that and start talking it through. And honestly, this is a slightly bigger area to wrap our hands around and figure out policy. And it certainly will require probably review and recommendations by Water Board, but then go into council and talking some of the policy issues and coming back. And I would expect we would refine it a number of times to get to wherever we're gonna be. So we haven't even started working on it. So didn't want to overly complicate anything at this point but just did want to throw it out there and let you think about it. It'll probably be something we'll be working at in the future, although not immediate future because we want to work with our planning department to make sure we're compatible and understand where they're going with that as well. So just a heads up. Ken, I have a question. So first of all, thank you for the update. I think this goes away is at least towards addressing some of the things that I brought up in the past about maybe hopefully being able to use kind of our standing in terms of pretty good water portfolio and a good standing to be able to do kind of positive change some kind of positive change here in the community. So I'm happy to kind of engage with this particular one. I think this is good. One piece of information that I may want and request very early on to, so in the initial planning phases here, it would be helpful to know is maybe if you could, I don't know, somehow I'm just thinking perhaps you could reach out to a developer or somebody that you know that you could ask a question to basically say, okay, well, what percentage of a house or the housing, let's say housing is kind of the water costs in some way that we could make a difference, right? So in other words, can we help bring the cost of a house down by 1% or can we help bring the cost of a house down by 0.0001%, right? Those are two big differences. So, and then kind of we can start brainstorming about ways that maybe we could help in that fashion, I guess, but. Okay, yeah, I would be happy to bring that. I appreciate you letting us know, you want that information because certainly we understand the density, we are developing slightly more densely, which is good, but that means the actual, when you spread the water over more units, it's less of an impact per unit. So yeah, we'll try to get that information as part of this. Are there any other questions or comments on that? I do have a comment, Ken, but I'm gonna wait until we get to the informational items just on the write-up overall that was presented to the council and just a couple of comments there. So we can keep moving along and then I'll give you a few thoughts at that point. Okay, and then I think Allison had her hand up. Oh, I'm sorry. Allison, do you have some? Yeah, kind of a similar to Tom's thoughts. One thing that we had discussed, and I apologize if this has been already kind of resolved is how much area is actually still subject to this process? Is it five acres? Is it 250 acres? I mean, it would help us kind of understand what type of a spread we're looking at. So that would be one of the threshold questions that I would like to think about as a part of this question. And then as kind of a subset of that question, which one of, if any of these acres are actually is owned for residential and would be subject to the attainable housing categorization. So it would help kind of understand the scope of the issue as far as kind of what we're looking at. And then get into Tom's questions as far as like, what would actually make an appreciable difference? Sure, absolutely. We had similar, a little bit of similar information in the cash release information. So we'll certainly plan on including that as well. That's a good point we'll do. Thank you. Anything else? Yes. The third thing I wanted to talk about real quickly was our schedule of water board meetings. Currently we're scheduled the fourth Tuesday, or fourth Monday of January and February, and then the third Monday, the remainder of the year. I believe council is taking up the possibility of having Juneteenth as a holiday. And I'm not sure if that'll be actually on Juneteenth day or if it gonna be the third, it might be the third, believe on the federal calendar, it's the third Monday, usually gets ended up on the Monday because then people have a three day weekend. So, and I don't know, Marcia, I might, sorry to keep bugging you, but do you know where council is on, I thought that might even be voted on next Tuesday? Or is that coming up? Tuesday is a study session and we voted on it. Is it a first reading already? I can't remember. There was no dissent. So whenever the vote happens, I'm pretty sure it'll be passed and it'll be a Monday holiday, but it's not this coming Tuesday because that's a study session. Yeah, it's scheduled to come to you on the regular session at March week. Thank you, Heather. So basically what we were wondering is, do you want to continue to kind of keep chipping away and having different Mondays? Would you like us to look at maybe just go into the fourth Monday year round? What is easiest and best for Water Board? And there is no, we don't need to make a decision today, but we may want to consider it before June and or we may want to consider in the next couple of months, resetting the June meeting till the fourth meeting as we do in January and February. So staff is open to whatever Water Board wants to do. I just wanted to let you know that might affect how you want to schedule your board meetings. All right, is there any kind of thoughts on that? It seems to me if you adjust it to the fourth, there's probably gonna be conflicts there too. So at some point maybe you stay with the third and then adjust as necessary. It would be kind of what my gut's telling me, but if anybody else has another idea, that's I'm open to that as well. Marsha, go ahead. Yeah, I'll just say that the fourth Monday for me is beneficial electrification for quite a few months. So I don't know, I don't think anybody else is on that, but I'm a secondary consideration, but I thought I'd let you know. Okay, any other comments? Roger? I've kind of worked in on a third Monday schedule and my preference would be to stay with it unless there's a reason to have an exception. Okay. During any one month, so that's just my preference. Yeah, and I'm on the same page. Everybody else is that okay for now for everybody? Okay. Yes, Todd, this is Scott and I'm in the same place as Roger. I've got this baked into my calendar for the third Monday. Okay. I'd prefer to keep it there too. Sounds good. All right, we'll go that direction then. I might have anything else, I'm sorry. I was just going to say, I might add that that would be consistent with the board's bylaws. That's what you have stated in your regular meeting section of your bylaws, that it'd be the third Monday, but in the event you can't meet on the third Monday, you'll, it would then go to the fourth Monday. So everything you guys have said would be consistent with your current bylaws. Great, thanks, Wes. Okay, Ken, anything else? Yeah, the last item is, as you may remember, we staff in our parks department has been working on a button rock preserve master plan, a little more focused on the recreational and wildlife issues up there. They're still working on that plan and they still plan on bringing back an actual master plan. And they had hoped to have it either for the February today or for the March meeting. Unfortunately, they don't have the actual master plan, the written document done yet by the consultant. And so they've asked to postpone the meeting. Might be able to have it at the March meeting, but they can't guarantee us. So they were wondering if the water board would be amenable to having a special meeting called just for the purpose of looking at that master plan. And if it couldn't make it to the March meeting, it would probably be around the first week of April when that would happen. If they don't get it fairly soon, it'll probably be the actual April meeting, which actually turns out to be one day before they plan their schedule to take it to city council. They were just hoping to get it maybe a week before that so they could get any input back from the board and report that. But so I told them all I do is ask the board to see if you had any interest in having a special meeting in between the two regular meetings of March and April, or if you wanna just wait and do that at the April board meeting. Okay, any thoughts? I guess Ken, my guest told me if we, obviously they get it done before the March meeting, would that be plenty of time? And even if they get it done in April, you'd still have a week before you'd have to go. You may not be able to include it in your write up, but it seems like it could be part of the staff presentation, couldn't it? Yeah, it could. And we've done that before. We've had action taken on Monday, and then the next day at council verbally report the board's action and input. That'd be my preference to just include it with one of the board meetings unless somebody wants to have a special meeting to discuss it. All right, I don't see anybody wanting to chime in beyond that. So I would just go that route. Ken, hopefully they can get it done. We can talk about in March and have plenty of time. Otherwise we'll visit about it in April. Yeah, and they do know, I mean, even though the report isn't written, they do know the code changes that they're gonna propose to council. And they, we do plan on bringing those code changes. So it's almost like we know the answer. We don't have the report, but we know the answers. And so I think we can still bring those to a water board at the March meeting. So you have a feel for what those will look like. We just won't have the document to back it up. And we'll tell you what the backup is though. Okay, great. Thank you. That's all I have. All right, so we're done with nine. We're on to item 10, items from the board. We have the review of the major project listings and items tentatively scheduled for future board meetings. Any comments by the board on any of those items? I don't see any. Item 11, which is the information items and water board correspondence. Any comments there? As I mentioned earlier, I do have one comment on the write up that was in the packet related to the cash and loo. First off, I thought you guys did a really good job of it. It was very thorough and I thought you did a good job. The comment I'd make though is in the write up it's still written as if the Piesto trade, whether or not that could be made permanent or not is a question. And can I believe that at our last meeting, you said that they cannot do that. They cannot make that a permanent trade. Is that correct? That is correct. Yeah, and if we want to clear on that, we, yeah, I apologize for that. I think you were clear. It's just not in the council communication. It's still in there as a question. Okay. I think it needs to be clear that that's not gonna be a permanent agreement with the input you got from Piesto. And the reason I bring that up is I think that kind of frames part of the question of how much water does Longmont need to develop? If that's not gonna be permanent, in my mind, that should not be part of Longmont's firm yield analysis as a water supply because I don't think you can rely on that permanently. So where that leads me to is then in the write-up, you talk about Union Reservoir Pumpback Updates when you get a project for a yield analysis. I think that's all really good information that in the write-up is said that'll come back in 2022. I'm just kind of framing it that as we compare supply and demand, I think you need to take maybe Piesto yield out and then we need to look at the Union Reservoir Pumpback project in the two forms, as well as the Windy Gap Firming Project and any update you get from Northern on yield into account as we're comparing supply and demand. Then the last item that I'm gonna tie into Tom's comment is, whether it's affordable housing and commercial incentives or attainable housing, anything we're doing in terms of incentives is gonna impact that supply side. So I just wanna frame it as, as this analysis comes back, we're gonna have to look at both supply and demand and compare all those to make sure we're, you know, understanding the overall impact in terms of making sure we have adequate supply for the build out of the city of Longmont. So anyway, the big picture is you guys did a good job on it. It just raises some questions that I know are gonna have to be answered. And I just wanna give a little bit of feedback on a few of the items I think really need to be kind of focused on as we try to answer that question. So anyway. Yeah, I think it's a very good point, Todd. And I appreciate that because we can continue. We are, Jason is looking, working on some cost estimates for the pump back pipeline. But we can look at all of that and make sure, maybe even as part of the attainable housing, all of that can be part of that conversation and should be so we're clear on all of that. So, Fred. Okay. Any other comments on that item? I don't see any. So it looks like we're on the item 12, items tentatively scheduled for future board meetings, cash and loo. So we'll officially review that next month. Is that correct, Ken? Yeah, we probably won't suggest any changes because we're taking the cash and loo resolution on the eighth. So I doubt we'll change it one week later, but we still wanna provide any new information we have. You know, especially CBT. That sounds good. And then we have also in March, we're gonna have the water board annual report. Is that right? Okay. And then any other, it says discuss future water board agendas, any items that any board members have for consideration on a future agenda. And I'm not seeing any. So with that, unless anybody else has a, anybody else have anything for the good of the order? Roger, you're muted, Roger. Sorry about that. Anyway, just to echo your comments, Ken, I thought you did a good job on that study session. Very thorough and I thought it was well understood. No, I wanna, Marcia, your comments were helpful too. I appreciated those. So I'm glad it went the way it did. It's all I got. Great, thank you. Anything else for the good of the order here? I am not seeing any. So with that, I am gonna adjourn the water board meeting. Thank you all.