 Hello hello out there. We're going to convene the open session now we're a couple of minutes late that clock isn't quite right. First thing we're going to do is report action taken in closed session. So hopefully you all have a copy of what the agenda said for closed session in case you don't I can it'll explain it right now. Okay closed session agenda item number 4d pertains to anticipated litigation related to the district's conflict of interest code. Any member of the public that may be curious about the nature of the threatened litigation may refer to a letter sent by Mr. Bruce Holloway to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on or about January 14th 2019 copies of which will be provided as informational material in the next agenda packet or can be provided by the district upon request. The board has directed district council to request an opinion from the FPPC Fair Political Practice Commission regarding whether board members and any district staff are subject to section 87 200 of the Political Reform Act. Can we have roll call now? Director Swan, Director Fultz, Director Smallman, President Henry, and Director Bruce has been absent and has been excused. Thank you. So are there any additions or deletions to the open session agenda? Yes, I'm requesting that the board remove item 8 HD the Valley Gardens will serve a letter from the agenda at the request of the developer and I would like to request that the board consider moving items HF environmental committee meeting suspension and HG watershed and education grant suspension to the beginning of the agenda as I believe there are a lot of the public here specifically for those items. Is that okay? That's fine. Okay, all righty. So we're going to have oral communications now and this would be on anything that is not on this current agenda. You may speak for five minutes unless there's going to be a ton of you who want to speak. So why I don't know how to weigh a ton of you but let's can I see a show of hands? How many people want to talk about something that's not on the agenda right now? Okay, a couple of people. So we will give you five minutes and I'm going to be asking this at various times tonight how many people want to speak and we may reduce the time. So everybody has a chance to speak. You will only get to speak once at on each item. You can speak on each item but you can only speak on each item once and I would like to ask you if you agree with somebody just say oh I agree with what Nancy Macy said and don't repeat what she said just I agree with Nancy Macy said and in addition I think blah blah okay so that we hear everything that people want to tell us okay. All right so so who wants to speak in right now? Okay and I attended the finance committee yesterday. Yeah so really interesting information on last year's expenses and budget. We're going into a budget mode now and anyone in who people who come here you're interested in what the district is doing I really recommend you go back and look at it and then pay attention over the next couple months. The board Stephanie is going to be preparing a budget and the board is going to be reviewing all the expenses and this is where that rubber hits the road here and it's going to be the future of our district the decisions that are made. I really appreciate the board taking such a close look at some outstanding discussion at these committee meetings and encourage people to go to those two to get a better understanding of really what the responsibilities of the board are and all the money that they have to take care of and responsibility and thank you very much for doing that. Anybody else who wanted to speak? Okay John Ricker. John Ricker, County of Santa Cruz, Water Resources Division Director, I just wanted to take a chance to compliment your district on the work you're doing on sort of addressing the sustainability of your water source the presentation at the last meeting that Jen provided really covered a lot of ground I think it's really important that the work that you have been doing to assess your sources, understand your sources, and protect your sources both the watersheds, the streams, and the groundwater basins and the resource agencies have been working closely I really appreciate the work that the district does. I think that really helps them to have confidence in what the district is doing and gives you guys time to address your needs without sort of coming down and doing a hard fit so I just want to compliment you on those programs. Anybody else who? Bruce? I'm Bruce Holloway from Boulder Creek. In light of what I just heard I want to remind the board that the county pursued a policy for more than 50 years as I understand of scouring creek beds to remove all the dead fallen logs and the reason the county pursued this policy was because in 1955 there was a terrible flood and hundreds of logs hammered out the bridge over Soquel Creek for more than a year then in 1982 there was another terrible flood and hundreds of logs hammered out the bridge over Soquel Avenue over the San Lorenzo River and that was out for over a year So the county pursued this policy for more than 50 years and now they've got a new religion that we need to put large woody debris in the creek beds now so now after 50 years they've completely done up 180 and now they're telling us that they've got it all figured out now you've got to go install the large woody debris but I'll tell you the number one thing that fish need is water and this district has violated its permit in Felton for 10 years that it's owned that agency and most of the people in this room are proud supporters of the old board that completely regardless of fish has violated its water permit down in Felton last month there's an article in The Good Times that featured Jen Nicholson talking about raising awareness let's raise awareness about fish well this district's the biggest violator in the county so I straighten up I'm so disappointed to live here in a place where the board I see some former board members think that they can just violate a fish and wildlife permit for 10 years and then give lip service to raising awareness for what fish need the hypocrisy is just unbearable thank you any other anybody else out there want to speak I see a hand way back there I would like to ask you a question and is there going to be a review of that budget summary it's an excellent budget summary I've never seen anything better some of the costs on there are kind of like we spend almost a half a million dollars on legal fees last year 83, 84,000 on the grand jury report that's amazing and I was just wondering if that is ever going to be up for discussion anybody else comment on something that's not on the agenda okay yes yes my name is John Solis from Felton say I was wondering if it'd be possible for the San Lorenzo Valley Water District to set up the meeting room with a guest Wi-Fi oh thanks oh that was easy I wish we could make everybody that happy okay all right okay so we are going to skip to item F and G under new business and the board will discuss things and then I will ask how many of you want to have time to speak so item F the environmental committee meeting suspension that's I mean that's been put out there like we're gonna end it forever the only problem here is that there is a problem with both board members being able to attend those meetings and we're working on a time and a place and we also have information out there we've got three people who've applied to be on the environmental committee we don't have anybody right now and one of the reasons for the suspension was this month there was an environmental committee meeting posted when they knew there wouldn't be a quorum and people from the public I don't know who they were came to the meeting and the meeting had to be cancelled and I don't want to see that happen again it shouldn't if we know a meeting is going to wind up being cancelled we shouldn't post it so people won't come that's the only reason for that this is no long term suspension or anything it's just until we get everything worked out which will hopefully happen in March so how many of you would like to address this item okay you can have three minutes each so hands up again okay next to Nancy Macy it's okay take your time except for my home he spent a lot of time here and he spent a lot of time serving on the environmental committee before he was on the board and after he was on the board and I appreciate very much that it isn't a done deal that you're just getting rid of the environmental committee it was very important to him and he saw it gave him a voice for really important matters that happened from the watershed management plan so I really encourage the board to continue to have that sure thank you Eric why did you ask me if I knew your name just so you my name is Rick Grant and I'm from Ben Lowman and I served two years on the environmental committee and when the meeting wasn't going to be held last week and I knew there wasn't members that they didn't have applications I reached out to a guy by the name of Steve Davidson who had applied last year now Steve is willing to put in his application he put it in last year he wants to resubmit it but one of the problems that Steve has is he's a regular 8-5 worker and it's hard for him to make these meetings and I went to the previous environmental committee meeting it was easy enough for me to go I was a retired teacher but I know it's difficult for other people who want to serve on these committees if they work it makes it almost impossible for them to make a 10 o'clock in the morning meeting so I asked the committee if they could try to come to some sort of accommodation about different hours and there was no willingness to accommodate around those hours and unless the board or the committee is going to somehow change those times it's going to be real difficult for you to get qualified people who want to be on these committees thank you who else would like to speak okay Longpico I also served over the last year on the environmental committee I also came to the last meeting that was cancelled I do have a full-time job I work a Monday through Friday 8-5 schedule and I do think that there are qualified applicants who can make those times I would be willing to serve on the committee again if I was able to and I'm just confused I don't see why this committee has to be suspended I don't know I mean there can be a meeting with two members before another person is appointed I don't see a reason why the meetings should be there was only one person well and to my knowledge you know that wasn't understood and the meeting and I showed up to the meeting thinking that there was going to be one it wasn't cancelled because it was assumed that two people were going to be there I hope you don't suspend the committee as I said we're not intending to we're trying to figure out a time and a place so that more people can be involved in this committee and there can be two board members there I'm the only person on this board who doesn't work I'm just lazy so anyway it's it's we want to accommodate people and that's why we're looking at having a time and a place and the meetings might not be here they might be down at the Johnson building if you know where that is okay Jean and I served on the environmental committee as a board member and just a comment I think the important thing about this committee is environmental work is core to everything the district is trying to get done including capital improvement projects this is a very impacted department our staff are just slammed with environmental work and I think anything the committee can do to relieve the pressure on the staff and the environmental committee is critical because permitting is the first step to any infrastructure project doesn't matter what it is any infrastructure project you've got to have permitting and that's a big chunk of what they do so I think the committee should be prioritized by the board and I understand the scheduling complications I'm not privy to people's schedules but I will say when I came on the board first I too was working full time and I wasn't my own boss I worked for somebody else that set my hours but I talked to you know I arranged it because it was a top priority attending board meetings and attending committee meetings was my top priority as a board member over my nine to five so I just urge you to get this going as quickly as possible to expedite projects in the district to support staff and to make it a real priority because it is critical thank you so we are going to be getting an engineer and a lot of the permitting that environmental does the engineering will be doing so that will be relieving some of their burden okay I can't see who's got their paw okay come my name is Suzanne Shetler I'm from Bellarmine I agree with what Jean just said and I think that the very presence of an environmental committee it seems confusing whether this is a temporary suspension or a permanent one it's temporary but I think you need to maintain a presence in the public's eye for credibility because you're not just extracting a resource you are doing good for the community you're promoting stewardship among the community and that's what the environmental committee does thank you Tony my name is Tony Norton I'm from Lumpico and I just wanted to clarify so that it was suspended because there was only one person that showed up at the last meeting is that the only reason it was suspended? no that it cancelled the meeting but didn't want to see that happen again because until we get a place where both board members are going to be there and we have a also at least one committee person and we want to have more than one citizen committee person on this committee we just don't want another meeting to be called when it's very obvious that it would have to be cancelled and you have no plans to permanently suspend this? absolutely not we're still looking I'd just like to add I agree with what Jean said and Mike Fresno I didn't tell him I agree with what Jean said and this other young lady you folks ran on environmental slate and the appearance is that the environmental committee is the least important thing that's the appearance that's what's coming out from this miscellaneous nondescript cancellation it's very vague it does not appear that this incredibly important issue for this community is important to this board it seems to have taken a back seat there's not another need scheduled we're waiting to see that other people's availabilities I would urge you to make this a priority because the indefinite postponing of this meeting along with the rest of the business is going to be discussed this evening and any outreach programs does not go well for what you folks ran on who else? John Fasoulis from Felton over the years I have seen the environmental committee do a lot of work that through the environmental committee and also through the programs that were associated with the grant do a lot of work that saved the board saved the water district and us ratepayers a lot of money because we get volunteers and so forth to do work that the board will have to do either way the environmental work can't be pushed aside so I'd really like to urge you to keep the schedule and then urge the people to come and get in to fill in the seats I'm not sure when these meetings are but if this was more maybe posted somehow so that we could see it so that other citizens could decide if they could fit in these meetings possibly there's a chance that there are people who are retired in our community who would love to step up but they just don't know what the time slots are and so forth okay way in the back there me? yeah I'm Chris White from Ben Lehmann and I would just like to encourage the board to think past face to face that there are other options to having people attend meetings Zoom, go-to meetings, Skype we don't all have to be in the same room and might alleviate some of those issues of people not being able to attend with the drive particularly if they work over the hill or in Santa Cruz or whatever still participate during work hours because I feel you guys over there because I have to do the same thing where I work in a public agency and my evenings get taken up quite a bit but that maybe think beyond the face to face that you can still be effective and collaborate and not have to be in the same room and be carbon, anti-carbon well and be environmentally conscious, there you go alright didn't you, did you speak already? I did but I'd like to make one additional comment within my time limit okay but I'm not going to do that again you get to speak once and do it in your time limit but I'll let you go ahead you didn't understand go ahead and say what you want to say it's pretty simple to find out whether you have a quorum I belong to a group that meets every Thursday morning to do some volunteer work and the one person sends out an email on Wednesday to say we participate or not and you get a feedback you've got a quorum or not we did it yesterday before or two days before or a week before whatever you want that's easy alright yes hi my name is Barbara Stringer I'm from Felton I'm a little confused why this agenda item has to be called suspension and I'm hoping that within your discussion here you'll all talk about instead of suspending it how to keep it going how to you know how can you schedule the time so that it can and also in your discussion perhaps we could hear how you're going to make this if you do find you have to suspend you're going to do it for one meeting and by then have those positions filled and have a time slot selected so that everybody can meet it it feels like this is a fairly simple straight forward claim to accomplish it is something we're working on we're trying to get a time and a place because this room isn't always available we're doing things to and we had to put out because the environmental committee there hadn't been a call out for a citizen member when all the other committees were called out we had to put out another notice and people have into what the we have been advertising on website press banner social media we are in the process of recruiting applicants we have three applicants to date and the memo says all of this too in the board packet the plan is that this will go back to the full board on March 7th the first meeting in March to appoint and then after that time frame that we can have a meeting but right now we do not have a public person and we're having difficulty having a quorum we have another location outside of this building so we are moving to get this back on track and that's all in the memo it's not a permanent suspension it's just until we get appropriate staffing and we don't want people to drive all the way up here it's tough to cancel meetings once they're scheduled to get it up on the internet it's the public that we worry about coming all the way up when we have these meetings so depending on scheduling we'll be back on track and wait March okay is there any other public okay yeah are you also discussing the watershed education grants at this moment or just the this is just about the committee meeting okay perfect I would like to add just one thing about scheduling just that yeah just that once we have a committee that's fully filled with public members and board members then I do tend to I always send out a meeting a scheduling request for people to get back and that has happened and that will continue to happen and we'll schedule that we'll have a standing meeting and we'll agree on the committee we'll agree to a time that works for everybody and so that will be a standing meeting I just wanted to say that so now I'll turn it to the board okay I'm on the I got appointed on the committee and I'm also an 8 to 5 worker and everybody knows that and we had this issue before and you know I'd be more than happy if people would insist that these meetings need to be held during the day that we could do that but really it's one meeting a month they usually have on the last one it's one hour you know I offer to have them at like 4 o'clock because working over the hill that would actually impact me because I probably have to leave work at 3 o'clock on those days I prefer to have them at 5 o'clock and so that's that I'm astonished because we did have two applications that came in for the for the public member and we've gone through these meetings there's only been one and then we went through the meeting and then we took that application you know I insist that we approve the applications next meeting you know we have what three right now next meeting a couple weeks we'll get and then we'll start meeting right away that's one of the favorite one of the big things was and it's kind of the elephant in the room is well I was under pressure that you know because the voter spoke to me and said that to ban glyphosate and really and I did say that the other side was pro-glyphosate they're not really pro-glyphosate but the argument is involved with how sensitive the sandhills are and so my view was that we could do manual but anyway Jenny Gomez I know is very passionate about being on the environmental committee not really but I'll stop there but anyway we'll just we need to get it together and get these meetings together next week I don't know what was the reason why didn't we not point out environmental I want to know what reason we have a schedule we have it listed in the paper with a deadline that people have to apply we have three applications but the deadline's not up why didn't we have a point because the deadline's not up what are you going to appoint and then all of a sudden you get somebody else we have a deadline listed when that deadline is up we will bring those to the next regular board meeting next meeting we will have we will begin our environmental committee meetings and maybe it's too late now but actually I would like to have Jenny Gomez back on the meeting because I know we made that rule about not having because you're on the LADAC committee right so we made that rule and I think that was part of the agenda of not because we really wanted to get through this glyphosate issue and get that resolved and now that we've got that resolved so we don't have to worry about that anymore so next meeting we'll get your applications in now these committees we're letting more than one person join the committee environmental meetings and let's get rolling next meeting I've heard what everybody said and I think that it's important to acknowledge what is probably most likely a big misunderstanding here and if there had been one word that would have been inserted in the title I think everybody would have been sort of maybe a little less concerned and that's temporary right so if it said environmental committee meeting temporary suspension then I probably would have had everybody read maybe the whole rest of the memo where it explains what we're going through and all that so you know that would be something that we'll do better on and make sure that we're a little bit more explicit about what it is in the title but yeah I mean if you had been here a couple meetings ago you knew that we actually re-approved the board policy which included not only the budget finance and administrative and the interim committee but also the environmental committee so it was very clear that those committees were going to remain in place but I also know that when the committee got for the committee meeting got canceled I was a little concerned because I didn't get any notice of it either and I was communicated that if we're going to have this happen we need to be communicating to the public prior to the meeting if it's going to be canceled and I think this was a way to try to not have that situation happen again so don't worry I'll be back on operation I just want to clarify have other committees meetings canceled temporarily or is it only the environmental committee that has been canceled it hasn't been canceled excuse me, postpone, suspend it excuse me, you're right because the other committees had two board members attending they've had and they had citizen people on them so we could hold the meeting right now we don't have a court although there's not been an engineering meeting so far this can be on March 3rd, 4th or 5th anyway, I think I think it's clear it's temporary and we'll have it all fixed in one yeah, it'll probably be about a month how about anything you want to say, Steve? just to live on the fact that if you're not on the committee you're still free to attend public and attend the meetings and participate because you're not on a committee because we can't participate okay, alright so let's go on to the watershed well, I'm not sure there's nothing to vote on we need to do anything, I think it'll take care of itself yeah yeah so the next item is watershed and education grant suspension and how what? what meeting? environmental committee there's no committee meeting until we have it fully staffed we don't have two board members who can attend that can attend we have two board members who can attend but there's a conflict on when they can meet and where they can meet and that's the issue here plus we're looking for a citizen at least one citizen committee member for this committee what our process will be is there's not really an environmental meeting scheduled yet for the month of March so we'll appoint the board hopefully we'll appoint on March 7th and then shortly right after that appointment the environmental analyst will reach out to the committee members for the first meeting they'll go to that first meeting and then they'll take the scheduling from there so we'll be back on track mid to late March okay so okay to item G watershed and education grant suspension now we've gotten a bunch of letters and people have said the rate pairs 25 cents a month it's kind of the wrong way of looking at it that funds the the watershed is 15,000 the education is 17,500 for a total of 32,500 a year and over four years it would be $130,000 that is money the district does not have to spend that's and if you would have been to the finance committee meeting you would have heard we do not have enough reserves the cost of fixing the infrastructure has like tripled in many cases when the board decided in 2003 to do these grants there was money from Waterman Gap said there was a lot of money 10 years ago the district had a lot of money we don't have money now we don't have money to fix our infrastructure and we are a water district we need to fix our infrastructure and over 16 years this has been 16 years and I don't know exactly how much has been spent but if it was spent at this rate it would be over a half a million dollars it's a whole lot of money this is a water district our job is not to hurt the environment as we run this water district that's our job providing safe clean water at affordable price not wreck the environment we have two full time our staff members that can go to schools and it'd be great if they went to grade schools you ever talked to a grade school child and told them oh wow you should never waste water don't let the faucet run while brushing your teeth I'm telling you that child would be right in your face and say hey mom you're letting the water run so this is why I put those items on there not that I hate the environment it's not true I want to fix this water district I want this this infrastructure to be fixed for this water district and before I go to the public talk and Bob I have a couple of questions I notice in the material that the current budget was about $32,500 is that been the budget for the last two years or has it been lower or higher budgeted at $32,000 a year we don't always get applications for the data collection and restoration grants in my time here those have mostly been un-awarded so we have been awarding the full amount in the education grants and those have always been very popular but the data collection ones have been harder to recruit community members to participate with that grant program so it's significantly less than what's been budgeted and why do you think we should around the data collection well I think maybe the audience that we were reaching out to was more geared towards water-shed education than doing data collection and restoration there had been a few grant recipients for the data collection but just not as popular as the education one the other question I have or the other thing I want to mention is that the way this or at least maybe there's a question in here too is this a structure is that each board member gets to appoint somebody to the commission and that person serves throughout the board members term that is not done through an appointment process or a board vote that is a single individual in the past the individual board members brought that name to the full board and the full board has voted to accept I do believe that's been the process in the past yeah so the ordinance doesn't say that I think that's how they've done it I've had to check minutes in the past but I do believe the full board always approved the appointment and always brought to the full board well the ordinance doesn't quite reflect that so there is a disconnect there perhaps but as of right now there is not a quorum on the Education Commission because I don't believe we have appointed so rather than have a situation where nothing is happening under the covers I'm glad we're actually having this conversation because right now the Education Commission couldn't function anyway without that quorum is that correct until you appoint until we did pass the board members had appointed on the day that they were seated then there was not a gap and the historical information that was in here the justification for this back in 2003 was around the Water and Gap Fund that there was a belief in the part of the board at that time that a portion of that money needed to be returned to the community the majority of the board yeah it wasn't a it wasn't a man so I understand and at that at that time it was a belief of about a million dollars ten percent or so was the amount I'd have to check back when I remember that without reading closely was that the board the district took in a considerable amount of money from Watershed and they thought it was important to put some of that money back into Watershed education or the purchase of additional Watershed or capital improvements and what's the status of that Water and Gap money right now it's been expense mostly on the North South Intertie and the Intertie projects and other projects of the district so basically that money is gone at this point that's correct thank you Bill it's helpful on all these expenses to think about all you really have to do is divide by seventy nine hundred customers and we talked earlier about meeting stipends and we wanted to reduce them down to fifty dollars instead of a hundred dollars because we one have two meetings a month well that amounts to district customers spending two dollars instead of one dollar so for one dollar more you're going to pay a fair amount for a meeting stipend and I would fair to say that most of my constituents would vote for that but you see the number okay we're going to say six thousand dollars and then in Lompico in retrospect that would have been either thirty dollars or sixty dollars so that can you turn it around to what we're talking about this is exactly what we're talking about is that the sixty dollars is either thirty or sixty dollars in that case being on the Lompico board I would say yeah okay but I'm telling you is it worth you an extra buck to pay you know that's a hundred dollars a meeting to do everything what we do here so education grants are thirty two thousand five hundred dollars okay each of you is paying four dollars a year for that okay raise a hand how many people disagree with not paying that or do you want to stop us or cut these grants or do you want to pay four dollars a year for that I want to pay four dollars a year four dollars a year there we go I mean I don't know a hundred dollars You know what, sometimes I'm not clear, I can see a lot of faces saying, hey, but that's what it amounts to. And if you really want us to save money, the real meat and potatoes are things that aren't so subtle. And one of them is the construction projects. The market is very high, so if we're getting really high bids, we'll have another item tonight about the PRBs. Very high bid. Well, we're putting together a pipe crew that can do some of these jobs for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Our legal fees, all the legal fees are about, you're paying about 100 bucks a year for. Once it gets over 50 bucks, you know, it's getting into, you're getting into money here. But we're talking about four bucks a year, and as far as I'm concerned, these grants are going to stay. Here, here, and the meeting's different. Okay, do you want to say something, Steve? Sure. Okay, so as Bob pointed out, the grants were put in place back in 2003 when the Waterman Gap money was available and that's gone. So, I'm thinking if that money was gone, that was supposed to spur these grants into existence, then the grants should be suspended at this point in time. When I checked with some of the other water districts in the general area of Scots Valley, I contacted them and asked them what sort of grant programs they have. And they have none. In fact, I was told that they have a bit more respect for the right pair of money than to be giving it away. That's essentially what we're doing. The City of Santa Cruz, which has far more resources and far more operating income than we have, gives very little and only to the O'Neill Sea Odyssey program. The Soquel Water District, they have nothing like this grant program in place either. They have $2,000 that they give out annually, and they have another program for beautification of certain areas where they will give larger money for business sponsored programs. So, as far as I'm concerned, I think that the idea of this water district continuing with the grant program, the programs that we have currently, should be suspended at least until the financial malaise that this district has been brought into over the past 15 years is rectified. And there's on a better financial footing. As far as points out, the reserves aren't there. And it's a crying shame that they aren't, and they certainly should be. And every little bit goes to help the water district regain its financial footing. Steve, did you say Scots Valley does? Nothing. Zero. Okay. So, how many people out there want to speak? Okay. One minute. I'm sorry, but we have other business. So it's going to be one minute. And please do not just repeat what the other person said. You can say I agree with them and add your own bit. But that's okay. So, all right. You want to speak? I'm Jean Malastow from Boulder Creek. I was on the Education Committee, Education Grant Committee three years ago for a couple of years. I'm going to go ahead and say I agree with what everybody else is about to say. That's very important. Also, going back to what you said about teaching the kids to turn off the water when the Russian retreat. That's what this grant did. We went to the schools. We provided money for different groups to go to the schools to talk about stuff like that. Protecting the environment. Conserving water. About everything that you're talking about on educating children. That is what the Education Grant did. So, everyone else, go forth. Okay, John. These educational grants. These other communities. The Santa Linda Valley is a very unique community. We're not like Scott's Valley. We're not like Santa Cruz. We are this most unique environmental structure. From the top of the hill all the way down to the ocean. We have a responsibility that goes far greater than just this few dollars. The environmental studies that we lead our children into and that they help them get to understand. And then the other grant money that goes to help do our scientific research and so forth. This money comes back to us two or threefold. So, a few thousand dollars, 32 thousand dollars a year. Although it does add up over time. If we could see all the money we saved, we'd be really glad. Thank you. Can I add to my comment for just a second? What? Okay. Wait a second. I'd like to clarify one point. That is that whereas I don't think that this water district should be funding any grants at this point in time. I do suspect that everybody likes free money and grant money. And I would suspect that a way to get the grant money that you like and even more so would be to contact the Santa Mart to read a ground wire agency. Because they have the ability to raise funds and use it however they would choose to do it. And they can pool from a pool of the entire county, the city of Santa Cruz, the city of Scotts Valley, and the Santa Rosa Valley. So you can create a program that would encompass placing the burden and the funding on a larger resource pool than what the Santa Rosa Valley itself has to offer. And that would be my suggestion going forward. Rick? Yeah, Rick. This is from my wife, so I pretend I'm a five foot one blonde with green eyes. She grew up here. The San Lorenzo Valley residents support schools. In 2000, we passed a bond for $18 million and another for $18.9 million in 2008. Residents are still paying for the pool, which is on our taxes for $49 assessment for 25 years. And then have $40 a year forever for maintenance. Every parcel in the San Lorenzo Valley, 9,032 of them, properties are charged for those 2000 bond and the 2008 bond. This adds up to over 600 additional dollars in taxes for 25 years for our residents depending on when they purchase their home. Irrespective they have children in the school. That's around $15,000 for every property parcel. Go home, check your tax bill, residents are paying. Previous board distributed grant money from the $10 million sale. The well is dry. Thank you. Chris, thank you. You. Yeah. I'm a resident of Felton, and I'm also a professor at East of Santa Cruz. Thanks for teaching restoration and quality of land management, and I've received no funds from that program. What I wanted to talk about was the monitoring portion of the grant. What I've heard everybody here on the board say is that you want to manage the property and the water resources and the habitat cost effectively. Well, there's a way we call land management. It's called adaptive management. You try something out, you monitor it, and you find out that it's working. I know something that Director Smallman has talked about and some of the things he's written about. Well, to do that right and to do adaptive management, you have to actually monitor and learn from it, and you save a lot of money in the long run. And so if we don't pay, we don't give out grants to people. I know that the staff can do some of that monitoring, but they're missing some of that expertise. It's a very small amount of money. As we said, it's a very small amount of money compared to what we've found and everything else that will in the long run save the rate payers a lot of money because we'll manage our land a lot better because we'll actually know what the effect is when we manage the land and then we can monitor it and then we can change our management to be more cost-effective. So I think that we're actually costing a lot more money. The $15,000 is very small. Gene. I'm going to talk real fast. First, two Director Swann's comments about grants from other districts. We are unique. We have stream sources and we have septics. Bad combination. Teaching children about water quality, where your water comes from, that's the best way to infiltrate the population as a whole. This demographic is a grandparent demographic, but I've been to the science nights at the schools. And it's very popular. We really get the message across. So I think cost-effectiveness is part of it. The financial malaise of the district. You know, we went from red to black when I was a board member and we prioritized this. It is very important and we can't have our two full-time environmental department staff members at doing because they're working more than full-time just to do the admin office work. They don't have time to go out and do this really useful education. It's a cost-effective way to get the message out to children who will then infiltrate the families and spread the education. And the last thing about this is because of the complexity of our district, I don't think the new board members have really got a grasp on it yet. Thank you. Yes. The red, black check. My name is Cassie Springer and I live in Boulder Creek. And this is my son. And I'm a teacher and I know that teaching young people about the environment and the watershed is extremely important. And I just heard a lot of comments, previous discussion about how hard it was to get people to join committees. And I think that teaching the younger generation, speaking to what Jean said, teaching the younger generation about the watershed will sort of maybe slowly erase the problem of not having people join those committees that we need to have them join. Tony. Tony. I understand what you're saying and I think that everything that all the comments everyone said, it makes such great sense. And I think it should be done, but I don't think that our water money that we pay to service us and to build our infrastructure, it's a mess right now. We should be spending our money on fixing our infrastructure and getting fresh, clean water to our homes. And I think that all of the people in this room that believe in this should form a new organization. And I will help. I'm good at going out and asking for money for charities and have our own group that would deliver this kind of education to our children. Thank you. Yeah, Shane Orba. I'm a retired science teacher of 30 years in the valley. And I think this district should be proud of the fact that you have these watershed education grants. No other districts are doing it. You should publicize it. Students write you letters. I have teachers, parents, community members here. How do you keep clean water? You have an educated public. You have engaged students. And I know Santa Cruz City Water Department, one of their key members was at our poster review session just the other day. And he's going back. He was so impressed with what we are doing with your grant funding. He's going back to Santa Cruz City to see if their water department will implement this. It's actually a role model in the community here. And I'm really incensed that you're even considering dropping the program. If you maybe have fiscal problems, maybe you can reduce the amount of funding. But as soon as you cut a program, you never get it back. That's impossible. And I thank you to read all the letters from students, et cetera. And you really should push the model that this water district has set up in the community. Jenny. With what she said. And also, you know, this grant money is a fraction of a percent of the operating budget. It is a tiny amount. And it's not going to make or break any capital improvement project. And I think, you know, you want to roll back rates. We had this rate increase also to help out with the capital improvement. And nobody's mentioned that. Like I said, you know, eliminating this program is not going to allow you to roll back the rates. Not at all. I think this grant program is also about being a good neighbor and being a good player in our community and, you know, engaging with the local schools and the children and teaching them about stewardship. And I think there's a lot of people in this valley who have a lot of environmental values and priorities. And I don't think that the majority of the voters who voted for you would be happy with with you eliminating this environmental program. Bruce. I want to say, I feel a little differently about the data collection grants. To call these things grants, I think it really is a slap in the face of the public to say we got money and we're just giving it away. The data collection aspects, I think that could be reframed as requests for proposals. And I do think that some of that does benefit the district because the district don't send any acres. One of the things about dispensing this money, I believe that it costs the district just as much money in staff time as it gives your giving away. So whatever you think the cost of the program is double it because staff has to make sure that all of the Education Advisory Commission positions are filled. It takes multiple iterations, e-mails to generate all of those applicants and then scheduling the meetings. During the five years that Jen Nicholson has been here, the first year I don't think that anything was done on this program at all. And two out of the, I think in the other years, both the grants and the both kinds of grants were suspended. So I think only 60% of the time in the last five years have these grants actually been given out. Yeah, you. Thank you. I'm Donna Zeal and I currently was the chair of the Commission. I served on the Commission since it began and I've been the chair for about ten years. Most of what you've said already I agree with. I said in my first paragraph, Jenny, that the district should be proud of the program. And I have a written report that I'm going to submit to you which includes a list of all the major partners that we've partnered with and some of the interesting and unique programs that we've funded. Contrary to what Bruce just said, there's been funding every year since the inception, since 2004, the data collection grants were not created initially. So they came in further on. Jen has been in every meeting and she's been a strong staff member. So I'm not sure where he got that information. I would like just to say that your mission statement and your strategic plan speak to your dedication to education and stewardship and this commission fulfills that for you and helps you to make your goals. So I strongly encourage you to continue. I'm Peggy Foshay-Smart. I was also on the committee for years and years and years. Some of the data collection that was done was actually stream levels. Somebody took a kayak and went up and measured stream levels which is information that the committee needed that he then did for free. And a couple things were done like that. One of the things was done, you said nothing was done for Scotts Valley. We gave a grant to Scotts Valley for them to give out information at a meeting, a big festival that they had. That was one of our grants. We gave money to O'Neill also for them and some things real quick, Santa Cruz Museum Natural History. The school districts have got a ton of money from us. Things that kids are still benefiting from. Teacher got a grant, it's been using this stuff forever. What is it? The Watershed and the Nature Academy. They have tons of materials and things that they've been using for years and years. There's schools up here also. The Coastal Watershed Council, Santa Cruz City Schools, YMC Campbell has a bunch of stuff that's still up there that the kids use during the school year. And with the Summers to Mountain Park Foundation, Valley Women's Club, Mount Hermann Outdoor School, USC, Monterey Bay Master Gardner, San Jose Alliance for National Diversity. What else read this quick? Young man. I go to the local middle school and fell in. And even up to seventh grade, someone has come and taught us about the Watershed. And even, I think, it started in fourth grade. And all the way up, it's important, as many people said, it's important to teach people this, because we are completely lucky to live in these amazing areas, these redwoods, and just miles that way, Big Basin, Felon, Henry Cowell. We need to teach the younger people, like younger than me, that they need to understand how lucky they are to live here so we can preserve those parks for millennium to come. Nancy? My minute yet. I wanted to pass this out. This is an example. Excuse me. Don't pass things out to the board. I beg your pardon. This is an example of what goes on to an education grant to the general public. This was partly funded by a grant that Valley Women's Club met the grant money and exceeded it in this. So it was over $2,500 that you put in, and we put in more than that. And it went to every single resident and PO box in the district. And it taught them about nonpoint source pollution. Since then, we have recreated the brochure. We have republished it. We have passed it out. We have distributed another 4,000 or 5,000 copies of this. So it is going on and you are not doing it all by yourselves. The other organizations that are involved do make a commitment to meet or assist with the funding. That's an example. Your respect for the watershed and the residents who are dependent upon it can be demonstrated by acknowledging and embracing all the reasons to maintain the necessary to increase the spending levels on the district's environmental needs and concerns, the crucial complex things that Jen taught us about at the last meeting. This includes the education grant program. Don't throw it away. It has practical benefits. And it is a potent symbol of the district's commitment to fulfilling its mission. Thank you. Okay. Back in the back. Rachel Bickert. I live in Felton. I attended SLV High School. I'm a student of Jane Orbucks who spoke earlier. I did the environmental monitoring program for two years. I benefited greatly from it. I would hate to see it go away. I think it really comes down to your values. If you value educating the children who live in this valley and in the part of Scott's Valley that we represent too about our watershed and about our environment, you'll find the money. If you don't value it, then I guess that shows when you don't find the money. So I really hope you do. It's so important. And thank you. Would you tell people who you work for? No. A person standing next to you? Yeah. You. Yes. Nancy Gert. I live in Felton and I'm with Felton Library friends who we're partners with on the new project. And I just want to say that this afternoon I read through all the projects and this is truly a legacy program. It has touched so many people in the valley that all of you should be really proud that you have this in your corner now on your resume, that you represent a water district that has this very forward program on the environment. And I think, I've talked to people in the Midwest and water districts, they have nothing like this. They know nothing about their environment. They don't know where their water comes from. Their kids just grow up turning on the faucet. We're different. And one of the reasons we're different is because of these programs that creative people have applied for throughout the years. And I just, I can't tell you how impressed I am with it. So keep our legacy program. Okay. Yes. Yeah. I'm Elaine Fresco. I'm Elaine Felton. I'm Elaine Felton and a couple of things. I've just looked for eight years and when I came here I really didn't understand where the water came from. We live near the watershed and it's been so interesting and it's so complicated. I need the education and I can really understand why this educational program needs to continue. I'd also like to remind you of your mission statement which you have published on the website, which includes maintaining outstanding service and community relations. And I think that these grants fulfill that mission statement. And it's very important. I'd also like to remind you that Fred McPherson helped start these grants and he has created this incredible legacy and I think it should continue. Okay. Yeah. I'm Nina Moore. I'm Elizabeth Felton and I've come to the Science Night at SLB High and they're just incredible. You would be amazed. All of us learn so much from what the data that the children gather. And it's everything from bee pollination and the sandhills to tracking all the different species with cameras and non-sourced pollution and measuring the fecal matter in different streams all over. And this is really important information to have. Not only that, but I got a grant because I live by Fall Creek and I noticed that a lot of my neighbors didn't even know that our water comes from Fall Creek. So Bruce will be happy that I created an educational sign to tell about the fish habitat and the fish reproduction cycle and Fall Creek intake and it'll teach people that they shouldn't take so much water. It'll teach people to conserve more because they'll know that it's connected to the fish. And it hasn't gone up yet because we're waiting until the Fall Creek fish ladder is finalized. So the photos can be correct. Okay, thank you. Don Alley, a 35-year resident of Brookdale, California. I've actually taken part in these educational grants. 2005, 2006, 2010 during the time of Jane Orbuck and Terry Homestead. And we actually collected data on water temperature and data related to putting wood back in the streams but that water temperature data we collected back then coincidentally was at a time when we had co-salmon in the stream and our water temperature probes were within 100 feet of where these salmon were living and I could use that data just recently in our water temperature monitoring that the water district did and it showed that the co were living in much warmer water than what people thought they did further north. So it was very important data and it was very cheap from the water district. I worked at a reduced rate and the students, they benefit so much. They get an opportunity to actually collect data the way it's professionally done. They publicly speak in front of a group and also at the fair, they defend their posters. It's just an extremely good process for the students. It makes them think that the watershed is important. We should all go to those signs. Back Chuck. Hi. I want to follow up Don on that because I was a participant in 2011 in the data collected restoration grants and I'm here because of those and I didn't get a penny out of that. I donated way more than probably $500,000 in purchase of software and other accoutrements in order to get that job done. So I know they can be extremely cost effective. The district does not have financial malaise right now. It's in the best financial position it's been in decades. It has positive cash flow on this and if it can get it through the prior times and have the priority of doing it now, this has minimal impact on the district's finances. One thing that's coming up soon is probably, or hope soon, is the exercise of the Walklomen rights. That's going to make it be true that we'll be drinking Walklomen water. And we'll be drinking Walklomen water that has been pumped out of the San Lorenzo River. So this is something that we haven't had to do indirectly and we're kind of looking at it, but it will happen. So this is the time to educate people about protecting the watershed so that the water that we're drinking in the future is the highest quality possible. Here, here. Oh, yes. Yeah, you. Deborah Lohan and Longhiko and I kind of want to go back to what Tony was saying. All these things are really fascinating, wonderful, contribute to our community. The question is, is it the water's district's responsibility? And I agree with her that water district's responsibility is putting fire hydrants in. That $32,000 would put a lot of fire hydrants and upgrade size of pipes to give the water flow. I looked into, we have a very robust source of educational resources. I have teachers in my family the watershed education programs that go to the county opposite of education so I don't think that science is going to come to a stop but these programs are just continuing. And along with Tony, I think this room, this group of people, you are the core. You have the power. Please take this energy and form something. We have Valley Women's Club who has a very robust environmental committee. They were very instrumental at the beginning of this. I think it's coming full circle around now that the Waterman Gap money is there. Go out. I'm going to write letters to the Valley Women's Club. I'm going to write letters to the Office of Education and I invite all of you to join me in writing letters to continue these programs. Get the schools to fund them. Get Valley Women's Club involved. Get your group dynamic going. Thank you. Okay. Yes. Hi. Andy Benkert. Ben Lomond. I think education, watershed education is a very important aspect of what the district does. I think when it comes from the district, people give it a little bit more weight. It's so important that it's also included in the strategic plan and let me read a little bit from that. To protect the district's water resources over the long term, it is important to raise awareness of water conservation and watershed protection and stewardship among residents of and visitors to the San Lorenzo Valley River watershed. The mission of the district's education program is to provide funding for educational and other projects that enhance the understanding of the San Lorenzo River watershed or improve the watersheds environmental health. That's in the strategic plan. I know it's going to be talked about later on tonight. Thank you. Yes. I'm Laura Doulson. I'm on the SLD school board and I've received quite a few communications from people in our education community. About this issue, they're very concerned. On a personal note, the day before yesterday, I was able to participate in the poster session for our environmental monitoring students where scientists from the area get together to give feedback to the kids on their presentations and their posters and on the data that they've collected. And two of them collected data directly relevant to, in fact, on Water District property, I think probably in coordination with you and others very pertinent to the Water District. I have a letter here from one of our former students who now is the Outreach and Watershed Education Specialist for the Cache, Creeks, Conservancy in Woodland, California. Our students go on to contribute to the scientific community, contribute data, contribute in their careers. And if I understood what you were saying earlier, the original idea was that about a million dollars would be given to education and outreach from the Waterming Gap sale and that that has not nearly happened. I'm not sure about that number. That's not the case. Yeah, I don't think that's the case. Okay, well that's what I heard. Okay, thank you. Anybody else? Yeah. Hi, Barbara. I think in numbers and so I just wanted to say something related to the numbers on this. I pay about $100 a month for water on my property. We are talking about it. It's important when you say it's $32,000. No, think of it what it really is per person compared to what they're doing. This is 25 cents per household of that $100 that I'm spending. 10 cents per person. This is something we have only two entities in the valley that are governmental entities that are right here. We have the school district, we have the water district. And they are an expression of our values. The money spent, the tiny pittance of this that is spent here does more for the district than for anybody who receives a grant. It's a statement of our values. It teaches people how to live in this area. We see this when we see new people coming into the area and they don't have a clue what it's like to live in such a fragile watershed. Please keep this going. Yes. Here you go. Anybody else have anything to say? Lou? Lou Ferris-Skelton. In the last 10 years, the constant rate increases that we've all endured have added about 50% to the revenue side of our budgets. While the expense side has gone up by 100%. And consistently, in what gets left out or what gets underfunded in our budgets is infrastructure and that must change. Having said that, I think the best suggestion I've heard tonight was the one earlier that says maybe we don't have to eliminate the program but simply reduce the funding and continue having the program in place. I think that's the best suggestion. I second that motion. Anybody else? Yes. Suzanne Shepherd. I want to totally second what other people have said about this district being a leader, not a follower, providing legacy, being cost effective and we are building the constituency for the district and the whole valley in the future. I could probably find $4 in my pocket and my car and my sofa cushions right now to pay my share. Okay. Thank you all. I do have values. I've lived here since 71 and I can remember when the steel head were so thick at Henry Cowell that you could have picked up armfuls. I know what things are like here and I do have values. I resent the implication. I don't have values but I also have money sense and in spite of what was said here this district is not in the best condition it's been in years our infrastructure is in deep trouble and we need to fix it and every year we wait the cost goes up and up and things have actually tripled over what was expected. Okay. This isn't about $4 this is about $130,000 over four years or $500,000 over 16 years. This is money that's needed to make sure you get water. If our pipes wrought out if we don't have enough water flow for fire protection for individual properties I mean that's what I'm looking at I'm not trying to be a horrible person here I miss the banana slugs that used to be around because of the spring that went on I, you know, it's I like frogs and crickets and lightning bugs and whatever it's not that I don't care about them but it's a waste of time for me to try to convince you of that because you've just decided I don't like the environment and I've just heard tonight your values, your values that's beside the point I'm talking about a water district and having the money to fix the infrastructure that's what I'm talking about I'm not talking about $4 I'm talking about $130,000 or $500,000 that's what I'm talking about Bob? I really want to thank everybody for coming out and providing a lot of input into this. There's a lot to unpack here and unfortunately we don't have time to go through it all tonight but there were a couple questions I wanted to follow up on and one of these is under the ordinance 100 is it required to appoint people as of right now or should have done it already? I'm not looking at the ordinance so I can't easily answer that question but what I can tell you is if the board wants to make changes to the program we can deal with tightening up whatever we're going to use to be done and we're going to make this change. One of the things that has always a little bit about the program is how we get to understanding the direct benefit to the district and the direct benefit to the district's operations so I mean when I go through the project there's a lot here it's a little hard to summarize and do some analysis on because of the organization but of the money that we spent how much of this has been internalized into the district in terms of how it does its operations how it does its planning, permitting that sort of thing because that really gets to the what I think a number of people are talking about which is the direct benefit to the district and how it does its business any field for that and by the way this is probably out of Blackfield for you so if there's not an answer tonight I think this conversation will continue and we'll be able to get to that I think the answer I think the answer is this that it's critical for a district like ours that gets our water from our own watershed we don't buy our water from outside of our watershed a lot of water districts get their water from groundwater they don't manage large watershed landscapes like we do to get our water from surface water and it's critical that we have a population that's environmentally literate enough to know that when they take actions on their own property then there are direct consequences to downstream and so it's critical that our water district in San Lorenzo Valley have the environmental literate community in order to support the watershed to steward the watershed in a way that will benefit all of us through water quality and water quantity and these grants they provide that kind of deep scientific learning that needs to start at a young age and it's done by the people in this community for a very low cost and it's done in a repetitive way that the kids are getting exposed to it over and over and over again through the year year after year after year and so it starts in elementary school it goes all the way through high school many of the kids who are exposed to that end up becoming scientists and that's why this community is such an environmentally concerned and responsible community for the environment it's not the same in other communities and I think that this program has been largely responsible for that. I appreciate the background at some point I think we need to get to understanding the direct benefit to the district and by school district is in charge of educating our children they do a great job thank you Laura I got a note from Emily which is great and congrats to her 14 years ago I think the environmental education in the country let alone here locally was very very different we have such a broad base of organizations in the district in the valley in the county that do this the question is where is that best done so that's one question for me that I wrestle with ROI's one that's done and then the means by which the education is done in 2003 social media and a lot of the internet was still fairly young and a lot of people don't get their information in the same way that they did when these programs were started 15 or 16 years ago and so as conditions change how we operate programs if we're going to operate them need to change as well that is it can't be a continuous inertia based program it actually has to be looked at and so I think that because of all those changes I wrestle with whether or not for example four color printing of posters is more effective than outreach to the neighborhood groups on facebook that I know we do I scan those religious and you look at the number of people on them and it's far exceeds what we would get through mailers or other more traditional and in my view expensive ways of trying to communicate the younger generation is also different than how they get information it's much more video based than it used to be and so programs need to understand and reflect that as well so I think that this program at the very least and in fact I think you had a memo from a couple years ago or so to express some concerns about how the program is currently structured and so at the very least we need to take a hard look at that particularly in light of the fact that when it comes to spending in this district everything is going to be under a microscope from my point of view because we need to direct much more money to the infrastructure than we have been over the last few years so I want to hear what some of the other board members have to say too but that's kind of where I'm at I'm concerned that we're looking at these costs $32,500 is a lot for if you're a sing-one person and as Barbara Springer said it really is 25 cents per water bill and then I agree with Bruce Holloway that it's probably more than that because we do spend some staff time the benefits are hard to measure but I would argue that they're pretty much priceless if I'm thinking about the young people getting educated in the community and like that and my other concern is ever since I've been on the board I've offered cost-saving measures that are talking about saving hundreds of thousands of dollars but they're sort of subtle they're not a direct $32,000 cut off the chart one of them is having your own pipeline crew talking at an engineering committee because we're getting a lot of contractors making bids and the market now is so high that the contracts are they're marketing up right now but I wish I was a contractor right now to make a fortune there's some things that people don't like but I think we've been over-regulated on some of the environmental stuff and we were spending a lot of money on abiding with environmental regulation this is a tough fight that aren't really helping the environment at all and etc. but my point is there's all these other costs where the meat and potatoes why are we talking about and when I said are you willing to pay $4 a year I saw just about every hand up there and a couple of people said I wouldn't mind paying $20 a year but $4 maybe make it eight a year 50 cents of water come on folks the benefits are priceless so I think the votes have taken and if this board doesn't just agree to keep this grant you know you've got my position and I'll be really upset but I think that you've been let down because it's 95% I mean everybody rose right? so it was four maybe I was wrong about that how many people on here want to pay $8 a year to keep this going okay well it's your money we control your money and we work for you well as scientific as that was I still have a problem with the and I don't fault the grants for saying what and you get that they deliver what I fault is the fact that you know these grants are getting confused with entitlements you talked about the voting once you end the program you can ever reserve and bring the fact to life well once you start a program there's no way to eliminate it giving out money does nothing but grow and grow and grow and that's what I'm afraid of and my position is that I think you know this is a water district it's not an educational foundation and I think the education foundation the educational aspects of the watershed and the district and everything else can be better served elsewhere and I think it's the role of the water district to be providing that role can we still ask people if there is a particular item that a grant is serving that is of necessary value that it should be putting to the budget under an operational expense and treated as such but if none of these are falling into that category then I think I would go back to my earlier suggestion which is to spread the cost of these programs and increase them and bring it to the Santa Margarita groundwater agency to deal with the watershed is a part of the Santa Margarita aquifer is it not I would suspect that would be the one stop place to go to get to propose additional or the creation of a grant program and let it administer and be funded through all of the related agencies the member agencies and not put it on the San Juan Valley Water District and that's my thought on the matter of second good round to address the the vote's been taken I mean it's 95% well so Bastiat had a saying for that what's seen and what's unseen and what we have here tonight is what's seen but what is unseen is the rest of the San Lorenzo Valley but during the recent election campaign made it very clear to me that they wanted any funding that wasn't directed at operations and infrastructure to not happen and that is something that we have to consider as well it's not just what's seen I like your idea about that I think that would be something that should be explored I don't know if people are going to get to vote on it but I think it would also be great if the community was able to vote and how much they wanted to tax themselves for this as well at that point it would become a permanent line up if it was actually made part of property taxes or something like that so that's another possibility there's a lot of things that could be done but I think for right now, given that the program I still have to come back to the ROI in the program if there's not something that is directly benefiting from how we are doing operations in the district I have we really need to start focusing on that and maybe that's a conversation that we can have another time down the road just real quick I respect you if you point a lot off but in my I know that there's we have engaged public here but in my heart I feel that this amount of money that most people that might that would agree that well, if it's $8 a year that they would be more than willing to pitch in that amount and I'm just voting on what I feel but the people here thanks for coming here because that's what these meetings are for so we can get public involvement I feel that obviously don't have the time to go door to door and ask everybody hey, do you want to spend $8 a year on an education grant money a year I feel that I would get 80% of the vote so that's anyway, thank you sorry thank you so well, are we do we need a motion? yeah, we need a motion and the the you can tell Bob is the Harvard guy and I'm the emotional person about bugs and fish and about fixing the water district there's water if you ever were part of a water district who didn't have water you might realize how important it is that we have water so I'd like to make a motion to continue the education program for the cost of $30,500 a year is there a second? no any other motion? I'll make a motion that the watershed grants programs be suspended at this point in time may I add a this is a race to the bottom it's a race to the bottom what you're doing instead of inspiring the rest of the people around here you're chasing the lowest common denominator may I make a suggestion on the motion let's do a suspension let's send a program review to the environmental committee and the numbers to the budget committee and through the process of the budget we'll be able to come up and understand where we are with numbers so basically it's a suspension but until we repeal the ordinance if we wanted to do that it's not a permanent right it's not permanent repeal what would that work for you? should it cop on do you want to repeat that? yeah about Bob you made an amendment do you want to repeat what? the amendment would be to suspend the program and send the program to the environmental committee for review and to the budget committee on the numbers is there a second? second for new education when you say suspend the program suspend and suspend the basically suspend where we are right now is where we stay pending the review in an environment of the budget okay thank you for the question so that would be a motion to suspend the program as it stands now no appointments no spending and we send the program review to the environmental committee and the numbers to the budget committee I second it there you go okay so Holly could you call the director swan? yes director Fultz? yes director smallman? no president Henry? yes terrible terrible terrible okay we need to go back to unfinished business you want to take a 5 minute break? oh okay we'll have a little break 5 minutes okay for admin committee person okay notice of intent to adopt mitigated negative declaration public hearing on the CEQA pipeline project at lion and sequoia pipelines can you talk about that Jen? I voted to open the public comment period for the mitigated negative deck which is the CEQA process for the sequoia and the pipeline projects that comment period will close tonight at the end of the public hearing so this will be the public hearing portion and I wanted to report out that we had one comment so far that we've collected that was submitted from the department of transportation this was not none of the comments really had any concerns about the environmental concerns it was mostly just standardized don't we have to open the hearing officially? yes but doesn't need to be done at some point we need to do that during the hearing the formal hearing so we need to say we're opening the public hearing we're opening the public hearing for this sorry and so this is standard language about department of transportation regulations with regard to residents in the road and pipeline in a certain way working inside the roadway there weren't any concerns about environmental conditions that were stated in the mitigated negative deck other concerns will be handled in the encroachment permit once the project gets further along and it's a standard encroachment permit that will address all those concerns just a little bit you have a question during the public hearing can we ask questions is there anything in the document that will cause us to do anything differently than what we had already planned to do? in this letter? no okay so just to get educated because I know so when these things come up and we have to do this because we had that other firm and that cost approximately $20,000 to do studies for these pipeline projects and these pipeline projects are pipes that are already existing most of them are in the road but they do go through like that as you know this is part of the issue that I have is sometimes I see what is being done as a contractor we're going to put up the erosion control we're going to do all these things in other words we're spending all this effort and time to follow the CEQA don't get me wrong I know we've got to do it we've got to follow the rules so my question is when we have a project coming up you take a look at it and then you have to say we've got to follow CEQA and all these roles and then you hire this other consultant for approximately $20,000 to do to head all that data sheets about exhaust from a back just this long thing and if you look at the probation tank took three years and I mean this is part of some of the money that I'm talking about that hundreds of thousands of dollars and I care about the environment and we want to cut costs so we don't want to go overboard on doing things that are really not helping the environment does that make sense but okay so anyway so getting back to what you do on these projects which I'm not you're an expert on then you make these long reports with the help of the consultant firms and then at the end these documents one goes to all the people in the county correct it gets submitted to the county and it also goes back to CEQA so to make sure that we get all of our am I missing something here? I'm not sure I may not be understanding you but for the CEQA the process is that first we prepare an initial study which basically studies all of the possible potential environmental species that could be affected air quality quality any kinds of erosion problems any kinds of problems that could occur during the project it's all evaluated in the initial study that document gets submitted to the county and then it's available to the public so right now we're in the public and that's the stage that we're in the public comment period the district when we open the public comment period the last board meeting we sent out all the notification to all the neighbors that are along the pipeline that might be impacted or might will be in some way be aware of the project so that they would know that the project is moving forward and that we've done this initial study so they can see exactly what the impact might be and we sent that to the county to various other agencies that would be interested in those impacts these are all required by the CEQA process from the CEQA law California well I know there's no way around it but my goal is to form the public to show them where your money's going you know what I mean where your money's going to being spent so the main dollar amount for the CEQA process is the development of the initial study which is this which evaluates what all the potential impacts will be but this study right here I think Director Foltz has asked too and I think we've seen him in the past pie charts which show the cost of a project how much is environmental, how much is engineering how much is construction I mean those are easy things that we can show down the road I'm just saying these are very costly items to the district but they are definitely part of the process the powers to be the people that work for the state the CEQA and stuff like that they need to know that hey we're charging the public this money and we're you know I mean I'm looking at these pipeline projects and I'm like you know why are we would this not benefit the environment it's not, it really isn't I mean there's not a lot of things that requirements that are done from that I know I'm not cutting you guys down believe me I know everybody's like oh you're against the environment and stuff like that I'm really not I'm just saying I've done this work before I've done the put pipelines to America and I know that there's some nesting birds and there's the frogs and the things and stuff like that but it's all about we're talking about trying to save money and here we're talking about $32,500 for an educated grant budget I'm saying we're spending over hundreds hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to buy this regulation we don't have a choice that's what you always say but I just want to make I agree anybody else how about the public anybody out there have a comment Mark Lee? Hi Mark Lee from Ben Lowman actually I would say that the secret process is not as complicated as you might think there are three different tracks we're at the top edge of the cake layer the fast track is the IAS checklist once that's issued and approved the negative declaration is issued and that's it it permits for approval you're on your way to the races it's when you get into the lower levels it's more complicated where you get into the environmental impact report that's when it gets to the $200,000 or $300,000 so I would say we're doing quite well since a lot of these a lot of these exemptions are on public for a public project you're using a lot of public exemptions so it doesn't trigger the more intense review so I would say go for it thank you Bonnie? how much of this can be reused for other projects either on a template basis or these are all very very site specific site specific site specific we could save money in the future by having actually people in the community who know the secret process actually do the environmental impact checklist at a much much lower rate including EIRs but we can talk about that at another time if you want to save a lot of money anybody else? so if there's no other comments then do we call an end to close the public hearing the public hearing correct and it's a done deal we don't vote on anything there's a resolution oh there is a resolution I'll make a motion except the resolution I'll make a motion to adopt resolution can somebody give me the number 2918 I'll second oh you did I thought you were asking for a second sorry there was a question mark behind it Director Swan yes Director Falls Director Smallman President Henry yes item B water availability assessment for San Lorenzo River watershed conjunctive use plan and it's my understanding that we're just saying yes we received this plan Jen will give you a short introduction you weren't here last week I talked about this quite in depth at the workshop that we did last month or last board meeting there were there's really three there's many findings in this report this is a very complex report it evaluates many different scenarios of moving water from the south system to Felton from Felton to the north system from the north system to the south system and how that can address three major issues one is the compliance with the Felton water right the Fall Creek water right the second one is to improve stream flow in the main stem of the San Lorenzo River for fish habitat and the third one is to recover the aquifer overdraft in the south system particularly and so really I think the three main highlights of the report that I'd like to bring up and you can read the whole report and there's a lot more than this but I think these are kind of the three main takeaways for me so far is that it's really important to understand that the potential transfers from the north system to Felton to relieve the water right issue there are insufficient water source resources in the ground when we're pumping during the summer and serving the north system there's not enough water supply to be able to serve the town of Felton to completely alleviate the water right compliance issue if we were to take water from the south system to try to alleviate the water right compliance issue in Felton that would be unprecedented amount of pumping that's ever happened and already overdraft so moving water from the north system to Felton or from the south system to Felton to try to alleviate the water right issue is not really a solution the second thing is that the use of Loch Lomond the use of our water right on Loch Lomond would allow the Felton water system to completely comply with its permit water rights and it would reduce the south system groundwater pumping by roughly 60 to 70% so that would be a significant benefit to the district by getting the Loch Lomond water source up and running and it would also and also the Loch Lomond could also alleviate pumping in the north system and there would actually be additional water left in that water right for aquifer storage and recovery which is a fancy way of saying pumping the water into the ground to restore the aquifer through ASR aquifer storage and recovery and then the third finding is that with the addition of a Loch Lomond water supply let me read this with the addition of the Loch Lomond we could optimize the use of the north system and the Felton unused potential to restore the aquifer in the south system we could also use water from the Felton water system to pump down into the ground the most important part here is that aquifer storage and recovery is going to be a critical component as we move forward to manage our water supply sustainably I hope that kind of like this is a very complex report and I just wanted to kind of give you those three main sort of take home messages to think about and that's what this report was saying and then I just also wanted to mention that there's been a lot of confusion about what we've agreed to match for this project so this grant was a $300,000 grant we agreed to match $300,000 in equal amount those projects have already been accounted for and we've already submitted them as grant as match funds and so those projects include the intertide project the stream flow monitoring that we've been doing the fish monitoring the bull pipeline replacement project the fish monitoring program that we've already been doing and project management so those are the match funds they've already been submitted and that match part is complete so we've already submitted them so we should be getting the money we've spent yes and the money that we have also we were administering those contracts for this stream flow study we were administering that contract so we paid them in advance and then we will get reimbursed for that so we've already submitted those invoices to the Wildlife Conservation Board the grant for and so we should be getting paid back on that sometimes and I kind of had a talk with Rick that it's totally possible to treat that Loch Lomond water and get it into our system of course it's going to cost money well there's infrastructure concerns on all of the scenarios but the main part you need to start with the water but yes we can treat the Loch Lomond water we will be able to but we can't treat it today we don't have infrastructure right I know I'm just saying that's going to be an additional cost to the infrastructure to treat the Loch Lomond water and it's going to have to be done that's a really good point can I just finish a couple more points that I wanted to make before okay and then I just wanted to outline a little bit about the next steps for this process so the first this is the first real step is getting the hydrologic assessment completed we will, I mean if you choose to accept this then we will move over to the next step which is to do the hydrologic assessment to see how moving the water that was resulting in this study in this hydrologic assessment how that will impact this resources and then that's 100% grant funded we don't have any obligation to spend any money on that and the contract that we've already negotiated with the biologist came in under budget for this line item so we should be fine I don't expect the district to pay anyone for that um and then we'll move forward with if you choose to move forward with the CEQA process for the intertide to be able to move the water back and forth if that's something that you choose to do which that is a real important whether we use a lot of water or not to be able to freely move water with no environmental restrictions from our north to our south system we have the infrastructure in place now with the north-south pipeline but we need to do the CEQA review it's a very important part of this next process the process coming up and the funds are, there are funds in the grant for that as well for CEQA okay great, that's good news and so that's all I have really well I disagree with you this document really isn't complicated for me anyway it's just um but I don't believe that we we don't need to vote on it that's just um it's basically that I don't believe that we need to approve and um that sends a signal of approving this quote-unquote conjunctive use plan we're receiving it there is no plan out I disagree, basically I think it doesn't make sense to me at all to approve it at all because the document is simply as a report that promotes a plan in my opinion promotes a very ineffective and environmentally helpful means to produce and store water I'm not sure exactly why the public is being engaged to develop the plan to solve this problem as it appears the decision has been made it's being force upon the public who have absolutely no say do not be fooled that this report will cost 285,000 and the 310,000 that came from the grant comes from our state taxes so we basically paid $75 each for this report if you have any um alternative ideas as I do they will not consider them I favor the more plans ideas for better and all these ideas should have cost benefit environmental impact studies done on each ultimately the public will choose which plan that they want to pay for otherwise they will force their plan upon us and we must start a protest for a free and open election on the test plan again the plan calls for using 300 acre feet per year out of an extremely marginalized lock moment many of you know that lock moment typically closes in a low rank all year and a year or 20 inches or less and it's closed by years and then it's closed for 5 to 7 years it's simply not enough water in that storage the plan also calls for increasing surface water collection on clear water which will severely impact the fish habitat which we are trying to restore to its glory days you will now see so-called scientists the ones that wanted to argue that life was okay and manual polling would have irreparable no scientific proof very easy to prove scientific proof that more water means more fish the plan is called conjunctive because it claims to use ground water and surface water conjunctively we do that already all water districts do most of the energy use it costs is the pump water from wells and divert surface water to a treatment plan and then to a storage tank readily available for use raw water can be pumped to reservoir and also be readily available to either pump to a treatment plan or for use of fire protection I'm sure many of you have probably seen lines of helicopters skipping up water at a Lexington Reservoir to fight fires the reservoir also seeps an endangered amount of water back into the ground water using zero energy 5,000 acre feet per year this is a total amount used by both SLV and Scott Speller and the sand quarries are in a key location they straddle bean creek, cyanic creek and close to the confluence of San Lorenzo Valley river about one half of the 5,000 acre feet per year previously mentioned will seep slowly into the rivers as in stream for flow this will keep a lot of the key pools full of water during dry months for the fish the conjunctive use plan calls to take surface water treated and then pump newly constructed injection wells to existing well fields which have been overdrafted the reservoir plan would stop using water from these wells when the groundwater levels too low essentially keeping it stable the treated water which we spent all that energy and expense to collect pumped back into the ground now to use it is double the amount of energy and the expense to pump it out again treat it and put it back into a storage tank the reason why this is being even can be considered is because of over regulation and because of a political agenda to stop reservoir construction even if all the areas are heavily scarred as the quarries are changing and people are now seeing that reservoirs are not as harmful as they seem the quarries will never be returned to the prior condition that they were in and at the existing elevations if the ground was not so porous there were probably reservoirs there naturally it would be an environmental improvement not a degradation is this a filibuster? seems that way no most of the water used to fill these reservoirs which would store around 12,000 acre feet it's about 1.5 of low block water will come from the storm water collected out of the SLP water this is what it looks like when it's really very muddy and it doesn't take more than 5 minutes for the sand to fall to the bottom and about a week to get down there the silt particles are all negatively charged so typically what people do is mix it with a flocking and then push the water through a sand filter and then it cleans all that stuff out maybe I should drink some of this not because we're out of the bathroom but the point is that water would provide flood control relief in the run where people live by the river it would have absolutely zero impact on the fish habitat because at times there's about 7,000 cubic feet per second coming down the river and the fish aren't swimming in the river during those times at all so it's zero impact on the fish whereas your conjunctive use plan has big impacts so it's very easy to divert about 1,000 cubic feet per second and that's about 1.4 acre feet per minute it's an engineering challenge I admit and possibly a quite costly one to divert this water to the reservoirs and one thought is to construct a large concrete cooling tank which would dual as a treatment plant at the lumber yard and then pump the water up in a 36 inch stand or pipeline to the reservoirs a 54 inch stand or pipeline would be needed to pump the volume of water at that time period to the reservoirs bottom line is this report does not need to be approved it's you know it's there for us to study but I think if we approve it it sends a signal we've all decided on the conjunctive use plan I don't care what the public has to say about it nobody wants to listen to what I want to say and it's going to keep moving forward just like they did with the train and Santa Cruz because I'm almost done it promotes an ineffective plan by voting to approve this this is the only plan and we are approved moving forward any other alternative plans will not be discussed or considered and let's just send a message to the Santa Margarita groundwater basin for that we appreciate getting you know we've got this information put together so we can consider the conjunctive use plan but please allow study and consideration for plans such as mine thank you what does the vote do here staff is not asking the board to evaluate the different scenarios in the report if the board wants to evaluate the scenarios we can put together a workshop with the author of the report and people like John Ricker who's worked on it and other folks to get into scenarios but staff is asking we just receive we're not asking to approve just to receive you know put this out on our website so people can look at it and get the report out we're not taking any action to approve any one scenario this is just most of these are existing scenarios that exist or could exist in the operations of our water system with you know lock mulling water and our surface water and our well waters and evaluation of our system just asking the board to receive it Bob so I have a couple questions how much did this report cost 310,000 75,000 75,000 I mean it's great that I guess it's kind of getting paid for somehow not directly on the subscribers pocket directly it's indirectly perhaps but is there anything in here that we didn't know from a broad consensual basis before we did the report I mean I looked at it I basically said at a strategic level we kind of know about lock mulling we kind of know that Felton's constrained and we kind of know that there probably isn't enough water in North Pole Creek and so this is the kind of report that prior to actually undertaking it in the future particularly if we have to pay for it out of our own pocket I wouldn't want to know what is the entire program scope and what is the cost that we're going to be incurring not just as we go along in each step but the entire program before we actually get into it I mean I read through this there was just a lot of stuff that was sort of like yeah I get it I mean I knew that yeah yeah and so I'm just when we start looking at places we're going to streamline, get more efficient and that sort of thing I really want to take a closer look at these the question is for the CEQA where we, the CEQA application so we can ship water anywhere we want is this a requirement in this fashion as input into the CEQA application the data that's being gathered in this the CEQA I'm not sure what route the CEQA will require if it gets deemed that we have to do an EIR then this this study will both be important aspects of the environmental impact report I'm not sure if that will be required or if we can do a mitigated negative deck I hope we can do a mitigated negative deck but I don't really know but my point is that I want at least from my perspective again this is my opinion I'd like us to be very rifle shot in what it is we're going to undertake because it's not just the cost of study that goes along with it and we need to be focused on doing exactly what's necessary no more no less to be able to get through these steps now if this is necessary I get it but it's not clear when it is at this point I would be happy to make sure that we look at options other than the injection well I'm not saying that I'm in favor of it I think you're in favor of it I'm not in favor of it necessarily but I'd be happy to take a look at that and I would be happy to receive this report but not accept the report because that's actually what is in the recommendation is to accept it I'd be happy to receive it and I would want to make sure that if we post it on the website that it's posted with context around the fact that this is not material into a broader discussion this is not a set of conclusions that the board has made yet I'll make a motion that we receive this discussion please and just one quick answer Bob there is a lot of good information in here Bob that we will use the amount of surface water that's available off our watershed to be able to use to move from one end of the district to the other we've always had some rough ideas but quite frankly when Nick did his reviews of the watershed and the streams and so on there wasn't as much water as we thought and these are great information to have as we move ahead planning on our water budget and how we're going to solve our problems really great information I get that but a narrower study around that might be a different cost than $75,000 and so that's what I'm talking about is the rifle shot and how we're planning what we're doing and how we're spending money right now we get this kind of covered so it's freebie money except maybe for our income taxes but that's not going to be the case always going forward not necessarily I think the district would have pushed forward for this same study grant money or not quite frankly to know this information from our watershed I think there would have been a big push to know what we're looking at and doing our water planning I'm not saying that I would have voted for it I wanted more information about what it is we're going to get I think this information that will be used will be used when we do all of our planning with the state regulatory agencies on our extractions from the different streams and the amount this is all information that yeah we probably had a great idea but until you had it down in this report in this matter grant UNIX reports are thorough and there's a lot to it but I think this information will be used for some time well I'm looking forward to seeing that over and over again alrighty how about public any comments out there Bruce for the report so I wasn't aware and it sounds pretty interesting it's on the website well of course it's in the agenda packet actually I'm having trouble reading a 500 page file even with the free wireless you used to put different agenda items as separate little things that you could click on but it's such a big thing it's very hard to scroll and read it with my little phone I kind of think the district's in an untenable position here you are continuing to violate your permit and you seem to think that life's just going to go on that way you've been doing it ever since you bought Felton and you just seem to think hey it's not a big deal we're just going to go on violating our permit and I just think that's completely an untenable position I'm pretty sure that the state water board can come in $100,000 a day for what you're doing in Felton and you can add that up for a year and it's not an amount that you're going to want to pay so it's just a matter of time until the state wakes up and says wait a minute we've got a water agency here that's just stepping all over its permit they don't care at all and this district's had a history of this kind of stuff how about the Viera letter oh let's just keep that secret it's a new public records policy that's not consistent with state law that's just the way this district was so I think you need to wake up you need to wake up and you need to take positive action you ought to be going back to the state water board and saying it's too hard we're never going to be able to comply let us out somehow let us out let us do something different what I remember from reading that there was a ten year process that led to these water rights and the city of Santa Cruz the county of Santa Cruz were heavily involved back in the 1970s you know you're just not honoring the process okay so before that water right was established Felton had rights to about 400 acre feet down there without any condition like this and I think I don't even think that Felton ever got up to 600 acre feet of consumption so if you could go back to pre-1970 there was 400 acre feet down there with no restriction at all and that would be a fallback position that would be something to go to the state and say okay we've got this report now that says we're never going to be able to comply with this condition so how about change the condition so that we stay 400 acre feet per day that would be 365 that would be like 1 acre foot per day so can we at least have 1 acre foot per day with no restriction I mean you have to work to bring yourself in compliance I just don't understand this attitude we're just going to keep on violating the permit I just don't understand this point you know if you had a truck that was not complying with the vehicle code and I saw it driving down the highway every day and I know it's not complying with the vehicle code and I bring it up again and again and you just say shucks I don't know what to do when do you when do you wake up when do you say yeah we're going to be the kind of agency that complies with state law we're not going to just walk all over this permit we're not going to go give lip service to the fish while we know we're violating our permit another thing is the condition is on a day by day basis so even this consequence sounds so dire oh you can't do it from the north system you can't do it from the south system but remember it's really only happening on a daily basis if it rains one day in October and it doesn't rain another day you may be in compliance for certain days in the month you may be out of compliance for certain days in the month so somehow I can't really believe that it's just impossible that all you can say is no we're going to be the kind of agency that just doesn't comply we're just going to keep on doing it for another 10 years you've got to bring this thing into compliance City of Santa Cruz I think it's a joke isn't it you've been here 5 years and you're happy with this you're happy to not comply with the permit for 5 years the City of Santa Cruz is showing that they're being proactive just in terms of their water permit in Felton and I wish that this district had already gotten started years ago and been a leader in this instead of a follower and a violator thank you any other Chris? I just have a question for Director Smallman you mentioned they are going to make us do this and they are going to do this and they are going to do that they were talking about I didn't understand it's basically the state and all the work that we've done we spent $75,000 for this plan and then we've had all those there was one more meeting at the community hall but what I envision is that if anybody in the public wants to say hey why me? why are we looking at I'm not saying my reservoir idea is going to win but it's not going to consider maybe there are some other people that have other ideas and I was just pointing out that this ASR is quite frankly it's as a civil engineer it's idiotic we're going to use twice as much energy when I had that long speech about how I think that my feelings is it's going to affect the fish habitat and I basically think that building reservoirs although I know that a lot of people don't want to do that I just think it's a better plan I think it deserves being heard the they the they is the political it's the Santa Mart it's everybody that's involved with making these decisions it's the political body of the Santa Margarita Groundwater Management Agency oh okay thank you Johnny you wanted to say something yeah I wanted to say a couple things I have one thing just to respond to Mr. Holloway the district inherited that problem of Felton and the district I think is trying to address that this study, this project is one of those efforts to try to figure out a way to solve that I mean the district has not just been sitting back they're working on the fish ladder restoring the fish ladder the state knows that the district is in violation of that and the state knows that the district is taking proactive measures to try to address all of their diversions including the Felton to minimize the impact of that this grant was a grant that came to the district into the county to actually increase screen flows and increase fish habitat the street flow enhancement grant from the state wildlife conservation board we looked at a way to also answer questions for the district in terms of long term supply reliability both reliability and fish habitat try to maximize both of those the record that's before you tonight is one part of that it's a very key part of it I think Rick really gets a nail on the head really quantitative information on what might work and what might not work it lets you know where you've got water where you don't have water and places where you can put it where it really doesn't do you any good so there aren't there's not a plan in this document there's an analysis of different scenarios and whether those would work and whether they would accomplish the goals or not so it gives you sort of a information to go forward it gives you some information to evaluate it and other things can also be brought into the mix in terms of evaluating alternatives that were covered in this the grant agreement we kind of told the state what we were going to evaluate so we're somewhat bound by the terms of the grant agreement but it's very thorough it lets us know that some things we thought might work probably won't do what we hoped they would do but some of the other things maybe they probably will so it leaves things to work from really forward and to do the environmental work and also to talk with the state resource agencies about what it's going to take to be able to move water back and forth through the enterprise as needed to help give your system more resilience and also hopefully benefit the fish at the same time Mark Cleave Hi Mark Cleave I've read the report several times I am very disappointed the report is very spacious the data collection is good it only goes back to 1970 so we have some general general summaries of data that if you look at the report actually on p55 if everyone will turn to that page the limitations John has laid out here he says we can't rely on this data this data has been essentially estimated he has limitations he's declaring should not be used for evaluating his synthesized monthly records of water supply are used to have limited precision and should not be used to evaluate compliance with regulatory water rights and habitat requirements he goes on to further say the alternatives are evaluated under optimal hypothetical conditions with full regard for infrastructure and operational limitations whatever that means and like such likely overestimates the potential yields go to page 55 the yield he goes on to say actual yield of the existing future infrastructures will depend on numerous factors beyond the scope of this analysis this is a very vague report I wouldn't even take a dime for this the data is good fine he wasted a lot of money here he says the approach he goes on to say the approach used to evaluate and compare conjunctive use and alternatives does not consider this effect on stream diversion what is the report for or groundwater pumping other than salarins of alley water district what is the report for beyond the simplified approach used by this study evaluating the effects of groundwater pumping on stream water requires use of a number of additional groundwater flow models fine which on the outside of the scope which is outside the scope of this study the conjunctive use alternatives are evaluated and compared to the basis of 1970 to 2070 that's 37 years roughly not 48 the climate period which was considered climate so I looked at the data and we're looking at a drought occurring here about every five and a half to six years out of 48 years we were excited in here we only had 10 years of drought so I think this is manufactured I agree with Bill Smallman assessment that ASR is a waste of money and everyone better wake up to the fact you're putting money, you're putting water into a ground well that's going to sand soon it's going to be sucked up and somehow miraculously it's going to drain back into the water system it has never been proven UC Davis where I attended water injection systems are still hypothetical they're still experimental it's a lot of money to be spending I think we ought to say okay we'll accept this report but we need to go back to the we need to go back to the engineering and environmental group and particularly the budget group to determine the true cost what the implications are thank you I would reject this report I just have a question when was this project started we got the grant I believe when did we apply for the grant I think we applied for the grant in August of 2016 or something it didn't get awarded until early mid like spring of 2017 and then it didn't get initiated like grant funds kind of started around August of 2017 then we started an RFP process to hire the consultants to do these analyses the hydrologic assessment and the fish assessment so those were done in 2018 it's been a process okay so can we just oh very short I'm glad Mark brought this up because I was going to mention it but you said it so much better and I'll just say you know I read through the report I realized that it's quite a lot of data data collection but Rick said that's valuable stuff but I got stuck on that same phrase this is a high level overview that cannot be used for planning what the heck are we doing with it then we know and that this needs a more focused study to me that says we're going to need to put more money into this there's probably a lot more money I was not impressed with it and I would like to explain to me what value this had besides just collecting other data than a lot of it that the district already had that was collected in one spot by somebody what value is it okay yes well it's essentially a feasibility study of a range of alternatives that's pretty standard disclaimer language for most consultants what you then do is based on that you get a sense of what's most likely to succeed and then you can do your more detailed work you don't do the detailed work on everything possible but you narrow it down to what's the most detailed work and that's where you do your more detailed planning assessment I give you a little shot at it again but don't make it very long once again the alternatives that John Mr. Richter is referring to the first three seem to be reasonable the last one is the one I'm having difficulty we're talking about using injection wells it doesn't work particularly in the sandstone I'm telling you they're doing it down in Soquel it's going to be $2 million wasted it doesn't work okay we need to include in the alternatives the use of reservoirs in the quarries that is missing from this report thank you so so what do we need to do to accept this I would receive the received this this report which is the final water availability assessment for conjunctive use clam from Santa Rosa Valley Water District and if it is posted on the website I would like to get posted with reservations context that says it does not reflect the final decision on the part of the board okay for a second is there a second yeah is there a second the report again the report is again it's really not that complicated it's collecting more surface water from clear streams ASR which you're against and using 300 acre feet a year at a lock moment and that's that somehow there's going to you can from this data pick and choose because the surface water it doesn't consider anything to do with my plan about building we got an ocean and a second so I don't think it needs to be loaded it just is receiving it director swan yes director smallman president yes ocean pass okay so um special district risk management agency election nominations so does anybody want to make I think they want to make a nomination no no I can't I couldn't see where I the time being yeah okay so we don't have anybody to nominate so you want to move on to 11B okay done with that alright move on to 11B the leak detection report on the leak there may be no public comment but I recommend checking oh about does somebody out there want one of us to be the risk detection no for the risk management in Sacramento okay no okay so okay you have to keep me on the straight so the leak detection B is the next one you have the director of operations to give you a report on the final leak detection I'll turn it over to mr. this memo is for the board directors to accept the final report for leak detection project at the center of the water district we conducted in October and November of 2018 two week blocks of time to do the leak detection project with utility services associates out of Seattle, Washington we were able to get 100 plus or minus miles of pipe done it was broken down into two phases which was a survey phase where we went out and correlated to listen for noises on the pipes and meters and hydrants and then after we detected the noises and everything we went back and it's a pinpointing phase where they do a correlation and it tells you exactly or close to exactly where the leak is on the pipe after pinpointing district staff returning and facilitate repairs it has been found that the gallon per minute were estimated a little higher than actually measured on most of the leaks and the number of leaks was slightly lower which is understandable. Some of the noise and stuff comes from water being used at the time of leak detection and they will pick that up as a leak in the system and we go back and there's no noise at that time and there's no leak where it's been dug up at this time 32 of the 40 leaks have been repaired the major ones have been repaired the ones that are still going are some smaller ones and we do have many leaks that still get called in that we have to respond to that are more of a priority than these last few that we have it was estimated that 128 gallons a minute is what was coming from these leaks thus far out of the 32 leaks it's been determined that right around 63 gallons a minute for the ones that have been repaired which has the potential of 32 million gallons of water a year which breaks down to 2.7 million gallons a month and 89,000 gallons per day this equals to about 4.72% of the water produced in 2018 by the district and whole and the district it cost the district right around $25,000 to do this leak detection and it is recommended by the state that we do it every 3 to 5 years so how many gallons a year do we produce in 2018 we produced almost 700 million gallons so basically it looked like the 32 million was just under what we sold last month roughly I think it was 36 million so basically and how many miles of pipe in the system about 190 miles of pipe that includes the intakes of the other things and the main line above ground stuff that was not protected Is there any reason why we wouldn't want to do I mean this is significant this is a huge amount of water actually would directly benefit the aquifer during the summer months if the leaks were going on I mean that is a I mean when you talk about a ASR that is an ASR that we would actually have to pull out why would we not do the other rest of the system next year there is no reason why we wouldn't a lot of the pipeline that wasn't done which is miles and miles of pipe which is above ground that we inspect with our own crews going into intakes and going into above ground facilities that we have and so it is inspected and those are going to be visible the majority of the leaks found in this leak detection process are leaks that are not surfacing so the 90 miles we didn't survey that is all above ground not all but the majority so valves are these numbers 831 valves were leaking or is that just we are detected we are listened to so they went out there and listened to that is how many valves they went listened to than the other numbers how many services they went listened to like hydrants did you find hydrants were leaking we did have a few and it will be on the run of the hydrant or at the bottom of the hydrant not the actual there are some that drip from the most of these were underground subsurface where you couldn't see there is equal amount of leaks that we repair above ground that we get calls in so this is just a partial number of our actual water loss the leaks per year did we geocode the leaks and are we putting that into a heat map for our GIS system is not there yet to do so we are getting there we did put them on the board here so the pink ones were from 4 years ago when we did leak detection the first time the new purple ones that are on the board now are the ones that were found this year so it is being kept as a record and it will be being put into both reports we put into the GIS mapping once the GIS is to that point do we keep a similar thing like this for the leaks that you do above ground that you detect that happen there is an Excel spreadsheet of all those that will be put on a heat map once the GIS system is to that point so you know where I'm going I mean for example I look up there and I can see that area right there is in serious need of pipe replacement so with being able to put all the leaks on a heat map we can basically be targeting where to send the pipe crew that we want to get split up it basically is all the 4 inch and smaller it is the original system that is close to over 100 years old there is a lot of it that is a 6 inch AC too we have so much AC pipe in our system and it is not good pipe anyway that is where I want to go I totally understand we are with you on that 100% Bill? it is 5% a lot of water and I wish this technology was back when I was installing the leaking pipe lines to find it is amazing it is oh my gosh and this is a good example because those leaking pipe lines that is what we are doing we are performing ASR we are basically leaking water back into the groundwater basin and that is what we are doing what ASR is for the birds it is a waste of money to treat and have water and put it back into the ground through leaks now we actually want to build wells to do the same exact thing makes no sense the leak detection that was done 4 years ago how does that compare to this curve? at that time it was 10% of the water produced that year it has been cut in half keep in mind too that was the first time we did the subsurface leak detection years back and this is our second time so it was a substantial amount of subsurface leaks back then that we knew that we had just from a monthly accounting that was our first time and it proved to be 115 gallons per minute or better it was over 100 it was over 100 leaks the first time 90 miles of pipe remaining if you were to remove the stuff that is above ground that you currently can monitor yourself how many miles of pipe is left underground that might be leaking good benefit play having another leak test done sooner rather than 4 to 5 years from now I would have to look further into that to get you that number but it was all mapped out and highlighted on a map what they did so I would come up with the rest of it we will try to leak detection for ASR yeah and it is a grant you own account for water leaking all aspects there is no doubt about it and this is a substantial time it takes so once we do get up on these leak crews and we do start replacing the pipe there is some substantial savings not just in the construction costs but in leaky water leak detection and all the different aspects that go with it cost of chemicals pumping is there anything higher or wider than this I can't imagine it is big yeah sorry man I had to I'm driving a red car we had a top house earlier for it there are so many things to do for this test so anybody in the audience want to come Lou? yeah I have some questions the 32 out of the 40 repair leaks that you talked about what about this 8 that weren't repaired can you not repair them what is the status of those 8 they are on a priority list right now so they can be repaired they are just a bigger project no they are not a bigger project there are leaks ahead of them that are more substantial that come in from calls from the public or are turned in by the way so eventually they will be able to fix all 40 of those leaks next question is how many of those leaks before do we know I mean are we fixing leaks upon leaks or are those all new leaks I suspect fixing leaks on leaks yes because there is valves that we have to go back to tightening packings and things like that that are in this report and yes we have been doing more than once that would seem to be at a higher priority for getting fixed so that you don't have to fix anything like Rick said a lot of this area that we do have these leaks is the old 4 inch 2 inch piping that needs replacement which is Boulder Creek all the red dotted line on this map is all 2 inch pipe wow I mean it just screams that yeah and last question is how much of the work we are planning on doing in the 10 million dollar loan that we are going to get to do infrastructure is going to address these areas a lot of it a lot of it and Mr. Ferris when you dig down a lot of times when they dig down there will be a patch side by side of another leak and then you will after about the 4th or 5th patch they will cut a section of main out in that most of the 2 inch but I would say James you have a rough idea about the time frame you have those other leaks fixed a month they usually start to slow down and once the rain stops dropping we have some other scheduled activities such as flushing and so forth that we have to rotate to and that but it is not like they are going to be out there for years last question is if you were to replace all the piping in the area where most of the leaks are concentrated how many miles of piping you are talking roughly you are going to find out yeah yeah this is great stuff yeah it is very interesting absolutely fantastic any other comments the crews did just an excellent job some of this work because of it is very noise sensitive that has to be done at night highway 9 Felton the major intersection they are out there in the middle of the night the traffic is just too heavy to listen so there was quite a bit of night work this time and that was a section that we did not get to do the last time because of the we did not have a setup and you did not get run over there was a lot of night work this time to catch some of the stuff that we did not do last time good job for your crew they did a fantastic job out there very time consuming when they were doing it district staff that did it oh district staff was involved two district staff was involved with the crew for flagging and pointing out facilities and whatever and what percentage of the entire district did you do just about 60% right I would like to move that we approve the Santa Rosa Valley reduction final report second just that is all that really needs to be done right is it just just received yeah yeah I let you talk this time John pardon I let you talk don't bust my chops next time I wouldn't dare it's a pleasure working with yeah okay okay for clarification I heard a motion in a second to approve the report I guess we don't have to vote on it or is that what you're saying just accept it just accept it isn't it consensus or something let's be consistent because in the last report we did accept this well we just spoke Director Swan Director Pulse Director Smallman President Henry yes okay bids for Lumpico pressure relief valves wow are those up in price let's see on June as you all know on June 1st the district consolidated with the Lumpico county water district as part of the consolidation assessment districts 16-01 was formed providing funding for water system improvements including replacing 8 pressure reducing valve stations at various locations out in the Lumpico water system plans and specifications were prepared the district went to bid a formal bidding and received 3 bids earthworks at 468,000 Monterey Peninsula Engineering at 621,000 and the Don Chapin company at 780,000 earthworks obviously was low bid at 468,000 some things I'd like to point out was that the final engineering report and assessment for the assessment district 16-01 and the merger with Lumpico we had 8 valves on their mapping there is 8 PRV valves for replacement listed at a cost of $308,000 each after field review in the distribution system it was determined that only 6 PRV stations needed replacement we changed some of the operations around up in that system and we alleviated one of the valves because we removed the zone the upper bluest zone and one of the other valves did not require to be replaced so the 6 PRV valves came in at 52% higher than the 8 estimate and that's kind of the point that construction costs are escalating considerably in some ways it's a good thing we had those 2 extra valves in there that did us a little extra money we see this steep rise in construction costs we did have 3 available bidders which is better than it has been in the past staff is recommending that you award the report adopt the attack resolution rewarding the bid for replacement of the 16 valves in Lompico to earthworks drilling for $468,000 would you be more than happy to take questions Bill? I know that there was 9 actually 9 on the original plants but anyway this is real simple 6 is going to take care of the things we don't have to do I guess the other only comment is this it's a really easy job that we can do and staff I think we need Bill to start doing these types of jobs maybe other types like small pipeline workers these guys are marking these jobs up even this 468 I think we could do it I wasn't sure how much the actual material cost they're a prefab vault that you buy through clay valves I do not have $17,000 I mean it's probably in today's climate but just saying we can save a lot of money and before last comment I've been pushing to do these PRVs before and saying hey let's get these done because we had the funding before because we were saving money by not having the service line pull out and people were looking at me going I don't think we're going to save a lot of money getting these done because you've seen the crews out there doing emergency repairs places water, a lot of money I'm just saying there's this little subtle cost of money that we could save on those and let's not focus on education Bob So was Don Chapin the company that's doing that little job that we moved to the last time so we kind of know where their pricing comes in they're usually lower well they haven't been the last I'm sorry not Don Chapin Earthworks Don Chapin we kind of know he's at like a 2.5 X over what we would expect right okay the other thing is Earthworks looks like they're in capitol do we know if anybody on this crew is going to be his from San Juan's about I do not again we're sending all of our money out of the economy local economy it's a little closer this time a little closer but not close enough but we got to do it and the only thing I would say is LALAC is going to have to at some point in time address the fact that unless we get some good news on future bids there's not enough money in the assessment district to cover all the projects that work Do have you what are the reviews on this company do have you looked into that check it out Well we you know they're a licensed contractor we've worked with them before other people have worked with them before it's hit and miss it's like any contractor it's as good as you stay on top of them as your inspector and as you you know you start out with them being you know on top of the project and you make sure that they understand that and make sure that there's no cost cutting and they have to provide it per per bit but every contractor you know some are better than others okay so he's like middle of the road whoops I don't really want to say anything about another contractor they're an acceptable contractor there's no reason why that I know of that we should not award bit or we could exclude that a little bit that's a process in itself to exclude a little bit and I have to say Mr that I take exception to your comment this has been going on it's been over two years now yeah it's almost three years yes and we built in a loan that they could use the interest for the loan so let me tell you right in the very beginning let me just say that we were told that if they did not get all the work done with this amount of money and it was a high they built in extra money then it would be the responsibility of all of Salomon and Sovali to pay the rest we just want to be safe we want our water to be safe believe it or not I'm actually in reciting this I'm merely raising it is this is something that people need to start talking about it because it's going to be an issue we're dealing with this it's not that I'm saying that well I'm not saying Longpico is paying more for this I'm saying this is an issue that needs to be addressed and that's how I took it from Bob that we need to get this back that there's going to be some discussion about what projects we can move forward and how to afford and pay and prioritize the projects that's how I took it and how we're going to fulfill the obligation that we have to Longpico to finish all the projects there's going to be a lot of other there's going to be a lot of other switches and changes where I think we can save a lot of money on Longpico we're going only off topic here but in the future but there's been a lot of that's another discussion thank you for moving it forward just shortly Tony and I have made ourselves really a nuisance to the old board about bringing this up and we are now working on we're both on the Longpico oversight committee and we do have to explain to people that perhaps not all the work is going to be done and we need to be able to I would like the board's support to say and it is not going to fall on Longpico because the board is going to take responsibility for past decisions these were not done on a timely manner they did not use interest rates that were below 2% when this was presented and all of these costs were heavily padded and accepted by everyone it was this district that did not move on it and that should be made clear to everyone that Longpico is not imposing a burden the burden was imposed by a previous board of decisions okay we're getting off agenda here so it's about awarding this bid so we need to do that okay I would like to make a motion okay you can make a motion I would like to make a motion and we approve the award for bids for this work's paving contract which is in the mouth of 460 can I suggest an amendment okay that we approve resolution number 28 18-19 order construction contract for Longpico to be replaced on the project okay that's the point now a second your second your amendment well I suggest he accepted my okay okay alrighty so director swan yes yes president Henry yes wow we're getting through this so valley gardens is off the agenda okay so I'll let our illustrious attorney speak to us now if she wishes to I think it's on the agenda to talk about documents provided to the board in closed session so as I'm sure you all know the grammar requires that if a document goes to a majority of the board pertaining to an item on the agenda it must be made available to the public that rule applies to open session meetings and not to closed session meetings typically this district as well as most public agencies complies with that move to make documents relevant to open session agenda items available to the public either in the board packet or if they come late at the meeting or certainly upon request of a member of the public we don't apply that rule with respect to closed session items that's consistent with the law it's consistent with the Brown Act it's consistent with the Public Records Act that said I understand that there are concerns about transparency and desire to be more transparent and so I would make the recommendation it's always at the board's discretion to wave privileges to release information to the public that it could otherwise keep confidential my recommendation is if you wish to do something like that in this instance that you do it on a case by case basis so for example the concern that I heard and I should backtrack a little the concern that I heard had not to do with attorney client privilege memos that give the board a closed session but it's otherwise public documents that are relevant to a closed session item that may be provided to the board in connection to the closed session item those materials are otherwise public however we don't make them public by virtue of them being provided by the board in closed session if the board wants to make those materials available to the public it can but I recommend doing that on a case by case basis so for example if I bring something that's otherwise a public document to you for consideration in closed session I would recommend that during that closed session the board consider whether it wishes to make that document available to the public after the meeting and then we can do that I would counsel against adopting a policy of always providing those kinds of materials to the public in part because it's very hard to foresee sitting here right now what sort of circumstances may arise in the future so if you want to be more transparent and provide otherwise public closed session materials to to the public I recommend doing so on a case by case basis and not as a blanket policy so when you're talking about things that are readily available to the district like you can go down to the county and look at lawsuits and get information so that's something anybody can look at if they want to take the time that's kind of stuff you're talking about that's kind of stuff like for example if a motion gets filed in a litigation that we're talking about in closed session I may provide a copy of that motion to the board but it can review that document and have an intelligent conversation about what's going on in the litigation that document is public in the sense that somebody could go get it from the court file however we do not make it available to the public at the meeting simply because the board looked at it in closed session but the board could choose to provide a copy of that just to be clear I was the one that had raised the question about this because something that is otherwise publicly available it seemed odd that it would be disclosed at some point even if it's relating to a lawsuit everybody's going to know that we're certainly looking at motions that's being filed by the people that were involved with in the lawsuit but the only question I had about that is there any copyright restrictions or anything like that I know that the courts sometimes charge for a release of information I don't know if it's up to us to release it to the public so it can be downloaded for example off our website or something like that do you know? it's hard for me to imagine a situation where copyright would prevent you from releasing this kind of information right so I mean in general my view is that if something is publicly available for another source it should be released as part of our packet but I can accept the recommendation that we do that post as opposed to pre and that's fine if it's helpful just imagine the circumstance where there's a sensitive personnel matter and there might be things that are posted online or something that are relevant and it may not be a good idea to just as a matter of course hand those out to the public any other question? about that public? oh you long pecans you're so much troubled I think that would be great because most people are really interested in what's going on with the era issue for example I think the public would appreciate that and wouldn't it be that they're charging you just because of having to produce that report and get that the only thing they're charging for any other comment? no no that was just information so the strategic plan review H we aren't going to really review the plan tonight it's kind of do we want a facilitator to help us with the plan because most people are not people organizations when it comes to strategic plans get a facilitator to help them with it because it's rather involved so that kind of is the question here and a short staff report the strategic plan does serve as a framework and the basis for decision making on detailed planning over an extended period of time as a top level planning document strategic plan confirms the overall mission for an organization affirms the vision by looking out into the future assesses core values and how the organization will do business and creates a roadmap of actions and activities to best position for continued mission success our strategic current strategic plan has not been reviewed since approved and review updated is recommended the majority of the board members have changed since the plan was adopted in 2016 the Lompeco consolidation the Santa Margarita ground order agency are not included in the plan progress has been made in some areas of the existing plan including the north-south intertide I reached out to the same consultant that started we're on our second strategic plan the first original plan and there was one update when manager Reed came to work for the district and we're at almost like five years again or four years again to look at it and I talked to the same consultant which is BMI management consultant Brent Eids is a long time educator and ex-mayor Tracy who does board planning and board orientations and has a really good background and understanding of their proposal to update our existing strategic plan and the consultant would first conduct interviews with all board members and general manager staff to determine the status of this strategic plan and how now exists and assess what may need to be changed to better reflect the status of the district today interviews would be conducted with each of us are roughly around 60 minutes and the consultant would facilitate a workshop with the board and public to review inputs gathered above and determine how the best to move forward any changes in the strategic plan anticipated the workshop would be three to four hours depending on board discussion and then the consultant would provide a brief written follow-up an update of the strategic plan that comes in at an estimated cost at roughly $88,000 to have that done by a consultant I think this strategic plan is critical for our organization this helps staff move ahead it gets everybody on the same page the committees, the board helps a long-range planning on what we're doing I think it's really important that we have an updated strategic plan whether we do it through this consultant or another consultant or try to do it in-house and recommend I think it's an important document that we might move forward with 88,000? Yeah, 8800 to update it Yeah, I'm sorry 88,000 I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm a little unclear as to what the deliverable is is he going to deliver an updated strategic plan Yes, based on he'll facilitate all of us coming together Who's going to take the pen and write it and finish it? He is, Frank Ives is You know, the framework is already laid out from previous you may want to change that I don't know and this will be shaped, what this board is vision is the next four to five years it's a really working tool for all of us because then we can set schedules because if there's schedules in the strategic plan then we can schedule meetings and start talking about how our planning is going to go to achieve those goals And also if we try to do this ourselves it would take us months It would be a facilitator No, I'm just saying if we try to do it it would kind of be like the board policy thing that went on for months and months and we need this we need this to direct committees and for the board to know where we're going and we would all be interviewed You all have good ideas we need to get all this into a document and that the board, and not just a single idea each one of you has great single ideas then we need to get the board to approve and then direct stack If you felt that the 2016 when you did it in 2016 it was very helpful It was a good process Maybe you can improve it There's a lot of public input is important with these because you're shaping the district The first one in the original was really good because we never had one before I think we went out in about 2013 14 somewhere in there and then we've grown each the next time I think it would be a good process for the board to get through and then we get all of your ideas get down the board reviews those ideas and then as a board we move forward instead of as a single individual I've been involved in these before for credit union and we always have a facilitator it's just a way to go I've been working on a committee by committee department by department list of what I think the priorities are for the district I'm sort of torn between the fact that I think some of that could be done some of those discussions about priorities could be done by the board without a facilitator I really want to go back to that information take a look at the strategic plan again and see if we're really talking about changing what I call the strategic objectives overview versus the specific tactics and paths that we're going to undertake if it's more the former I could see more value in the facilitator if it's more the latter most of these are usually they have a lot of components to them they're like what we've done, what we want to do where we want to go I mean there's just a lot of parts to this you'll start with the mission statement and then we'll build off of that mission statement may be fine as it I'm not advocating changing the mission statement but we have a change in the majority of the board I would like to add that there is like Rick said, Lompico is not in that Lompico, Sigma is a huge huge city in that right now you know what's the direction that we're just going with Sigma and there's just all, you know, things are changing by the way, I'm not saying that we don't have the plan right I'm just talking about the method by which we view how much money we spend I understand every person, you know, a million here and there are pretty sinister real money it is real money, yes I think there is a good return on the investment ball because I think we'll move it at a quicker speed we'll get it I think we'll get an end document quicker and we'll move ahead it's just like $6,000 is it real money? it's a dollar we're not taking any action tonight you don't have to because the proposal came in late today I haven't got the proposal to you so I would feel better that and I don't want to we kind of learned on our watershed department environmental department not to put too much on that first meeting agenda when we have a workshop so I would probably say I want to bring this to you the second meeting in March we have the same item with the contract review and we're going to have finance next because you're going to have a finance workshop and I think we had too much on the last first meeting and it caused delays okay, yeah, we've had something you wanted to say yes, I think having a facilitator would better allow public input and participation in the process of strategic plan review which is something that I think Brick was talking about before I think they do flow better with a facilitator to take the lead and work the room and the different personalities and Brent's got excellent experience on doing that I've sat through many of his conferences but we need to be prepared because I remember when he came to present something about the board policy manual and it was it was like waste of time and then he said to me I get a feeling there are some issues here because I've known him for quite a while we discussed that today yeah, so but I think if we're prepared because the board policy thing really hadn't been worked out and he came and then one director that was involved she wasn't there it was just chaos well, in that particular case to be fair it was because the committee had two fundamental that is no longer the case in terms of majority okay, but we're not going to decide tonight we can bring it back I've got the contract late today so I'll bring it back the second meeting is there anyone else that could do this that's sort of... well it probably could it's just I thought without going out there probably is but I thought we'd get a better price and it's updating his own work he did the last one yes, he did the last one and I could check around and ask other agencies that we would typically that was the case put out on RRP and have people come in and talk but I think he does a good job and he understands this district understands the interaction with public and board members and the players I think it's a value in keeping just my opinion he's worked with most of you or at least two of you, three of you maybe anyway yeah question? yes the $800 that you were talking about Rick, that is an update on the strategic plan that was done in 2016 it's going to be a whole new plan but the quote is one that we used before and it was the last one that was done what about the one in 2014 was that vastly different in your mind between the one done in 2014 and the one done in 2016 are we basically throwing out the one in 2014 now? no, I think the one we did the last one we did built off of that one I think it's the same format so we're just going down the road and changing things around any other comment? so can we move on to minutes and approve the minutes? is this on the consent agenda or what is it? it is on the consent agenda the minutes for January 23rd and February 7th I got a comment on the minutes for the drama I noted that I was there and it doesn't say that I could come to that meeting can you may I say what happened? you weren't there when the meeting began you came in after we had already declared the meeting to be a community meeting and therefore wasn't an actual board meeting any longer let me go clarification in order to have this discussion I need to pull that so that it's from the consent agenda I could ask you something though is if it started off that it wasn't a real meeting because there weren't three directors there when the third one showed up at that point did it become a board meeting or still just a I guess the meeting shouldn't have been it wasn't convened it was turned into a community meeting yeah community meeting it was never convened as a board meeting right so we can we should pull this around first of all I want to pull this from the consent agenda okay so we can talk about it okay this is the February 7th no January 23rd January 23rd it was a dentist enemy from sdr may came and talked about the brown well can we just note that I was there and came by their place and I was there just participated mostly waited the question here is was it a I guess I'm confused you just want credit for being there I just want credit I don't want somebody to come back and say hey you didn't take me back I don't have a problem with the thing that you came in it took me time I think that's fair but the question is I think can we still run it as a community meeting because that's the way to do it it was not run as a board meeting we did not take any action we simply got a presentation on the Brown Act and that was something that we wanted to do now with the board but for the committee members that did show up and there was something that did and that was it I've talked I spoke to Dennis Timony about this how do we handle this because we were waiting and no one was showing up so we only had two board members there and he said well we can go ahead with it it's just a community meeting okay I mean I'm not hearing anything that gives me any concern about Brown Act compliance I don't think so can we go ahead we didn't make any decisions we go just to train I just want to acknowledge that I went to 10 at 10 is a 10 I was no more than 5 or 10 minutes we were 15 minutes late we were quite I don't see why not I'm trying to put it in there that he showed up at such a time but then it would be a board meeting it's called a special board meeting but at the end of the minutes it says it was changed to a community meeting so this is where you get to earn your yeah shall we wait until the next meeting to vote on these minutes uh okay so you arrived five minutes late this was convened instead of a board meeting there's nothing that you would have that I'm aware of no decisions made so I I don't see any harm in saying great 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 the world isn't even a board maybe my name's not in there somebody could come back and say hey, didn't take your grab we get to that's what I'm saying do we need more time decisions yeah you should bring it back to the next meeting okay So, we can approve B minutes unless somebody has any questions or deletions or whatever. I'd like a motion to approve B minutes. Director Swan? Yes. Director Coles? Yes. Director Smallman? Yes. President Henry? Yes. Okay. District reports, department status reports, getting light. I have, for the rest of the staff, I have one update as part of my report process. As you recall, the last board meeting, I do believe one of the last board meetings, we talked about a joint retreat with the Scots Valley. And if a district was interested in having a joint retreat, one of the joint retreats was an eight hour, I do believe, an eight hour day. And it was a long day and it was during the week. And I do believe the direction that I received from the board to go back to Scots Valley is we'd like it to be only a couple hours. And possibly on a Saturday, maybe a dinner. Scots Valley still is proposing to do an all day retreat during the week. Is there any interest from any of the board? All day during the week. Yeah, all day during the week. During the week. I prefer to have it on a weekend. I don't think it's going to, I don't think you're going to meet those. I think that's already been relayed to them. Yeah. So, did they give you an indication why, I mean it's not that we couldn't have one. This is the group team thing, right? This is the group team. They're bringing a facilitator in. There's a lot of information that they want to, and it's a bonding with Scots Valley directors. That kind of means it'd be only me who could go. I can bond over a single week. I understand. I just, you know, I can tell Scots Valley that, hey, you know, and I've already told her that our directors have issues during the week due to employment. I mean, I can't obviously ask for it, but they don't pay my day to the rate. And they're proposing the date is, they've settled on Wednesday, March 27th. No, I'm interested. Okay. No, that's all I'm asking. I'm interested in. And not for that length of time. Okay. Good. And I get to meet with them so much already. That's one thing I had. And I don't know if staff, as you see the finance director, she has family in town. I don't know if staff would like to meet with the director tonight, but there is a highlight on her page one that the USDA loan. We did receive the formal letter of conditions for the USDA loan. So it's officially allocates the 8.8 million dollar funding for the listings of projects. It's a nice little tip. So now we're moving ahead on design. I'm a nice little tip. That's huge. Yeah. Yeah. This is true. The other department environmental or the director of operations would like to point anything out. I'd like to point out that in my report, there is 17 leaks that were fixed during the month of January. And that's not including the work orders that were about closed before the month. So there was a few more that were actually done during that month, but it's just a figure to show how many leaks we are fixing a month. And it does keep us very busy. And that's on top of the other projects and other stuff that we have to keep running. How do you find the leaks when it's raining? Well, you'd be surprised at how many get called in when it's raining. Where it'll just be bubbling up, making muddy water instead of clear water. And when it's leaking in the road, a lot of people notice that kind of thing. People are definitely on the lookout for that kind of stuff in their neighborhoods. And the majority of them get called in very quickly at their service, even if it's raining. It'll start pumping sand. So dirty water going down the road instead of clear water during the rainstorm is a red flag. Or we lost storage. Yeah. And that was the result of the oil notice that we sent out to the board. Yeah. I learned to see it again. Yeah. And we lose storage. Well, that's a lot of work. Yeah, we need those guys. Why all 40 are fixed? Let's get pipe replaced. I agree. Yeah. I agree. I agree. These guys do so much work for us. Okay. So then there's environmental report or nothing, is there anything? Well, one of the comments, you know, there's a section of pipeline that has a lot of leaks. That's also a red flag that that is a priority main replacement. I agree. You know what I'm saying? Once we get our model up and our GIS up, we'll be able to pull that information a lot easier. We'll just throw it right into our county government program. Yeah. This section of line had X amount of leaks. I can't wait for it to be fully fundable. Okay. We're moving that direction. Alrighty. I think our reports are basically done here. So we can adjourn this meeting. Yes. You have a few correspondence, I do believe. The minutes from the LADAC committee meeting. Oh. The LADAC, or it should be in here. Yes, they are. The last one I'm going to point out to you. Then we have a few correspondence from a few folks. Right. And then the last thing is the claim from Terry View. Yeah. Any other questions here? No. Oh, Debbie. Here's a comment on the LADAC minutes. You will note we have hammered out any charter. So we're going to be back to the committee on next Tuesday for a final acceptance and we'll come to the board. And it's a broad charter. It's a really good charter. Okay. Well adjourn now. It's 10 after. 10. Whatever. Another one here.