 Hello, I'd be Steve, okay. Where's Gale? We can hear you, Mark. I'm trying to bring up my camera. Oh, would you like me to convene the meeting and we can get started while Mark does that? Okay, I'd like to convene this meeting of the Board of Directors of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District on January 7th, Holly, would you call the roll? President Mayhood? Here. Vice President Henry? Here. Director Fouls? Here. Director Smalley? Here. Director Too? Here. Are there any additions or deletions to the closed session agenda? Staff has none. Okay. Any from the Board? The next would be oral communications from the public, but I don't see any members of the public here. We do have one. Do we have one? Yes. Okay, let's go ahead. And this is the portion of the agenda that's reserved for oral communications on the topic of the closed session. Go ahead, please. Cynthia, I think there you go. Yes. I don't have anything to add. I didn't have a way to unmute there for a minute. So thank you. Okay. All right. With that, we will adjourn to closed session. And as I understand it, we're supposed to actually totally log out of this one. Is that correct? And then we will join immediately on the other meeting. Right. Okay. So I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to go to meeting. From the district secretary. And I need to get there to let you know. So go ahead, Rick. I'm going. Mark, did you get my email? How to switch over? I did, but I saw it just about five minutes ago. Okay. So you need to log off of this meeting completely because we don't, we don't have the time to log off of this meeting and then go to the invitation that I sent you. It should be in your. Either in your email or probably if you looked at it already, it would be in on your calendar. Okay. Outlook calendar. All right. Go there and log on to that meeting. Okay. Thank you. Bye. So it looks like everyone's back. All right. Can we go ahead and convene the open session then? Okay. Okay. I'd like to convene the open session of this board of directors meeting on January 7th, 2021. There are no actions to report. From the closed session. Holly, can you take the role? President may hood. Here. Vice president Henry. I'm my unmuted. Yes. I'm here. Here. Director falls. Here. Director Smalley. Here. And director too. Thank you. Are there any additions or deletions to the open session? Rick, we can't hear you. My apologies. Staff has none. Okay. All right. Then we'll move on to. Okay. Okay. Okay. So this is the oral. Communications. And this is the part of the meeting where we reserve for oral communications from the public. On any subject that lies within the jurisdiction of the district. That is not on the agenda. Is there anybody that would like to address us right now? Let's see. I'm having a hard time. I don't see anybody asking to be recognized from the attendees right now. So at that point, we will move to unfinished. Business. Which is 10 a. Board member committee appointments and board liaison to the Long Pico assessment district oversight committee. Okay. So we'll start it off and then turn it back to the chair. And then district council, I do believe has some information. First off the original memo. Staff recommends that the board of directors review the membership. Assignments of the existing committees. And by motion of the board approved board committee assignments for 2021. And the board of directors review the membership. The board of directors review the membership. As director folks and Henry. The budget and finance committee. The director folks and Henry. The engineering committee was director Ferris and more and the environmental committee was director Ferris and more and the Long Pico. Assessment district oversight. Committee liaison was a director Henry. Section 1.4 of the policies and procedures manual. each year or as soon thereafter as practical. Staff experience with board committee assignments is that the board president would present his or her suggestions for the full board deliberation. At that time, the full board would discuss and vote on committee assignments. You also should have received a supplemental to this agenda item. It was a summary was the memorandum provided supplemental information regarding the board's appointment of directors to the district standing committees and representatives to the Santa Margarita Groundwater Agency. Attachment A that was accompanied this packet was an email from the board president proposing committee assignments for 2021. And then there was attachment B was a copy of the bylaws of the Santa Margarita Groundwater Management Agency which confirmed that the district establishes the term of director service on the Santa Margarita board. With that, I will turn it back over to the chair for further discussion. Okay, I think you can see from the memo that I suggested that administration be director Fultz and myself, budget and finance director Henry and myself and engineering directors Molly and director Toe environmental, the director Fultz and director Toe and director Henry would serve as the liaison to lay doc and myself and director Smalley would be the regular members of the Santa Margarita the representatives and they require an alternate and director Henry is my suggestion. I've also suggested that at least as long as we're meeting here remotely that to try to break up the load on the staff that we hold the standing committee meetings sometime during the second or fourth week of each month so that we don't have to have Holly and staff preparing reports and agenda always on the same week, the first and third that our meetings happen. Now, we might wanna change this when we go back to in-person meetings because of some people have to drive in and they don't wanna go back and forth but for now, while we're meeting remotely this seems like a good idea to me. So with that, I would like to go around the board for any comments they might have and then I will go to the public for any comments that they have. So if I could start with director Smalley. I reviewed the applications from committee members and I agree with the- This is not the- This is my order. I'm sorry. These are the board members. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's a separate- The committees- Talk about the public members of the committee. I see. Yes, I concur. Okay. All right. Director Toe. I concur. Director Faltz. Yeah, I think the idea about spreading out the workload on committee meetings makes sense given that we have had some conversations about that. I think it'll have less impact than Holly but relative to the assignments, sort of the numbers are really in my wheelhouse and I was a little surprised to not be on the budget and finance. Yes. And I decided that obviously when you have 60% of the board changing, there's gonna be a lot of things that are changing. And so for example, you and Lois are no longer both appointed to both the administrative and the budget committee. But fundamentally the reason, Bob, that I didn't put you on the budget committee is that you've been there for two years and have not been able to advance some of the things that were on your 2018 campaign. Things that I actually agree with on the financial parts of things having to do with multi-year budgeting, of developing a more rational capital plan and maintenance using less consultants. And I agree with that. I just think that I would have a better chance of working productively with the staff to actually advance the things that you and I both care about. So that's the reason I made that decision. Well, I think these things that we were talking about in 2018 were quite innovative for their time and innovation doesn't happen overnight. So in fact, we've laid a lot of the groundwork around doing multi-year budgeting. We actually did a pro forma multi-year budget in one year and we've been working on getting staff and the board to be looking more closely at the totality of our financial position in a way that no board had ever done before in the last 30 years. So to say that all of this couldn't be done within two years given how things move in the public arena I think is a conclusion that doesn't really make sense to me. And so sure, if you wanna come in and take advantage of all that preliminary work that we've done so far, that's great. But I would really appreciate the opportunity to complete that work. And I'm happy to switch admin and I mean, Lois has been on the committee for two years as well, but I'd be happy to switch that with Lois and she can go to admin and I'll go to budget. Well, Director Henry, you're next in line to speak. Well, I like your setup and accounting has always been my thing. Sure, I could do admin because I was a manager, a CEO of a credit union for a lot of years, but I also did so much accounting. That's all, that's what I wanted to do from the time I was in high school. I wanted to be an accountant, a CPA and I would like to be on the budget committee rather than the admin committee and I would welcome working with you. And I don't have a problem with anything, actually. I'm just trying to say, I would like to stay on the budget committee, not be moved to admin. Anybody else have any comments, all right? If there's no more comments from the board, let's go ahead and open it up to, oh, Bob has his hand up. Go ahead, Mr. Bob, go ahead. Sorry, Gail, I use the raise and lower hand on the participants, so if we shouldn't be doing that. Thanks. Yeah, so I would just say that relative to budget and finance, this is not about accounting. This is about strategy and this is about how we are going to make clear to our community what our true financial position is. The accounting portion of it, I think the district is doing just fine. It's the other part of it that hadn't been done for so many years, decades really, that is new and that's what I do in my professional life. Any other comments from the board? I'll happy to take comments from the attendees. Beth Thomas, am I unmuting her or is normally somebody else does this for me? Go ahead and speak, please. I was waiting for someone to unmute me, sorry. Okay, sorry. No problem, all that's technology. I did have a question similar along the lines of Bob's question and it was pertaining to a couple of the committee appointments, several of them, I guess. And one of the question I had was what, well, let's take the budget and finance committee at this point too. I have a real concern that the one person on the board who's got some serious expertise in finance, which is not accounting is not on that committee. And I wondered what the rationale was for your decision to recommend that Bob for instance, not be on the budget and finance committee. I think I just provided that explanation in response to Bob. Oh, I'm sorry, I got in on late so I didn't hear the whole thing. I'm not gonna repeat it again. Did you have anything else you wanted to ask Beth? No, but I guess I'll make a comment then. I do have a concern that the person whose expertise is in finance is not on, there isn't anybody who's expertise is in finances on the budget committee according to your assignments. Then I do think that the community would have concerns for that. If you ask people on the street, what are you two main concerns about the water district? The amount of money that they pay for their water bill and whether the finances are being properly managed would be number one in any case. Okay, thank you. Let's see, how about Richard Moran? Here we go, yes. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, my name is Rick Moran, I'm from Ben Lohman. During my time on the water board, I sought out the knowledge and experience of Bob Foltz when it came to issues about budget. Bob answered those questions I had in layman's terms and gave me concrete examples to help me understand complex budgetary issues. His education, which includes a masters of business administration from Harvard and his experience as a successful chief financial officer in a tech industry can best be utilized by his continued presence on the budget and finance committee. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to speak at this point from the public? Elaine Fresco. Hi, yeah, I just wanna say that I think that as four of the other board members are happy with the assignments, I'm happy with them also. And having served on the same committee as Director Foltz, I can understand that he can, you Director Foltz can go on and on and make it difficult to work with. So maybe the Finance and Budget Committee could get more done without you. Thank you. Anybody else? That I will go back to the board for any comments and I'll just poll people. Tina, did you wanna add anything? I think I'll do well on the Environmental and Engineering Committee, that's all. Thanks. Director Foltz, Director Henry. Well, it seems the only committee I'm on is budget. I'm not on any others and it's a better fit for me than admin. You're on the, well, you're right, you're not on one of the regular committees, but you're on the- That's what I meant. Yeah, yeah. Still, we're counting on you to back up me and Mark at Santa Margarita, and also that. Right, I'm gonna do that. But I also believe in multi-year budgets and no, I don't have a degree from Harvard. Director Smalley, I can't hear you, but I think you said no comment. I'm sorry, yes, that is what I said. No further comments. Does anybody wanna make a motion? I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the committee assignments as given. I'll second that. Thank you. Holly, would you take the roll call vote? Sorry, President Mayhood? Aye. Vice President Henry? Yes. Director Fultz? Abstain. Director Smalley? Aye. Director Too? Yes. Passes. Okay, thank you. Next we, our next item of unfinished business is the public committee members for 2021. And gosh, all right. So, Rick, do you wanna go ahead and start that one? Yes, we have item 10B, the public committee members for 2021. It's recommended that the board review the current applications and appoint public committee members to the standing committees, review the number of public committee members in each committee and set the first committee meeting in 2021. A background as per the board policy, committee appointments will be reviewed by the full board at a board of directors meeting in December of each calendar year, or as soon as thereafter as practical, application to the serve as a public member will be available at the district office or online at the district's website. Public member applications will be reviewed by the full board. Each committee members should be appointed by a simple majority vote of the board. Regardless of the start date, the terms of the public members are the administrative, budget and finance, engineering and environmental committees shall end on December 31st of each year. The district's current five standing committees are the administrative committees which has two board members, the two public members. The budget finance committee is two board members and two public members. The engineering committee has two board members and three public members. The environmental committee has two board members and three public members. The Lompeco Assessment District Oversight Committee has four public members. The district advertised openings for the public members for to the standing committees, excluding LADAC on November 2nd through December 9th. Following is a listing of the applicant's choices and current committee assignments. They're attached are the applications that were received. There was also a supplemental materials that went out to the board and to the public and posted on the agenda on our website for the appointments from the 2021, for the board meeting item 10B. The memorandum provides supplemental information regarding the board's appointment of the public members to the district standing committees for 2021. Attachment A is an email from the board president proposing member committee assignments. The district, the five standing committees, the district's board policy manual explains that the composition of the district standing committees are and provides guidance about making the annual public member appointments as follows. The five district standing committees are as follows, administrative, budget, finance, engineering, environmental and Lompeco oversight. Each standing committee should allow no power or authority to commit the district or to take any action on behalf of the board of directors. Standing committees shall hold meetings at such times, frequencies and locations as deemed necessary by the consensus of the committee members. Committees are encouraged to meet at least monthly. Committee meeting shall be held in accordance with the provisions of the Ralph and Brown Act. Committee appointments will be reviewed by the full board at the board of directors meeting in December of each year, calendar year, or as soon as thereafter is practical. Applications to serve as public members will be available at the district office online on at the website, district website. Public member applications will be reviewed by the full board. Each committee members shall be appointed by a simple majority vote of the board. Regardless of the start date, the term of the public members of the administration, budget, finance, engineering and environmental committees shall end on December 31st of each year. Members of the public shall serve on no more than one standing committee. The administrative, budget and finance, engineering, environmental committees may have no more than two board members and at least one public member. If more than one public member applies to serve on an individual committee, the full board should vote to determine which public member shall be seated on the committee for the year and may choose to appoint more than one public member to a committee by adjusting the size of the committee appropriately. At any time, the board may also choose to appoint additional public members to any standing committee. Members of the committee serve at the pleasure of the board. Each committee shall designate their own chairperson for the administrative, budget and finance, engineering and environmental committees. The chairperson shall be a member of the board. A majority of the members of each committee shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. And with that, I'll turn it back over to the chair who would like to probably talk about her supplemental email. Thank you, Rick. Just to remind everybody, we received 15 applications by the November 20th deadline. One of those applicants, Mark Smalley, we appointed to the vacant board seat on December 16th. So with 14 applicants left, most of them highly qualified for about 12 slots or so. I thought it would just, given that we were gonna appoint most of them, it would just be simpler to sort of talk about it as a group. So on the engineering and the budget and finance committees, they each had three applicants. So I'm recommending that all the applicants be appointed. The administrative committee had four applicants. I've listed the three that I judged as most qualified. And the environmental committee had four applicants. One of whom was Elaine Fresco, who had served before. And in the list, you can see the people that we had stars next to their name were the people that had already served in 2020. And we sort of implied that they would have preference because they kind of got cheated out of their service on it because many of the committees did not meet during much of the year because of COVID and the fire. But after the deadline, one of those four people, applicant Elaine Fresco communicated to me that although she's enjoying serving on the committee, she said if there were enough applicants, she was happy to defer to an applicant with more technical knowledge could be in a better position to assess the proposals. So I've accepted Elaine's gracious offer and recommended appointing Alina Lang, a fisheries biologist who we interviewed as an applicant for the vacant board of director position in Elaine's stead. So that gives the list of people below. LayDoc has been typically reappointed later in the year. I guess in the future, I would like it to also go to our November deadline so that we just do them all at once, but we can worry about that at a later time. And finally, I'd just like to make a quick statement about why I kind of settled on three. And I think that three is a good number. Once you get more than that, it gets a little bit unwieldy, at least according to staff and also my experience, makes it hard to find a time to do that. Makes it hard to find a time for when everybody can attend, harder to achieve quorum, and it tends to make the meetings run too long because of course everybody feels like they need to pipe up. So I feel like three is a good number. And with the two elected officials, which are also representatives of the public, we have a total of five members on these committees. We can take up this topic of a maximum, I think later and formalize this when we discuss changes to the board policy manual at a later board and director meeting in the next month or two. So with that, I will ask for comments by members of the board and I'll start with Bob Colts. Well, I'm very glad that we had the number of participants volunteering to serve the district and the community and the fashion that they are. I think it's really indicative of a lot of the expertise that we have in our community that we can tap into. And I think that we definitely wanna make sure we continue the efforts to expand the committee participate in public participation on these committees as much as we possibly can and innovation that we started in 2018. I am though a little concerned about the fact that we weren't able to get everybody onto a committee. There is one person, Michael Hickey, that will not be appointed apparently tonight. I am not as concerned about the size of the committee perhaps as Gail is, I think the environmental committee last year was going to have seven, maybe six, I forget exactly. But it was workable and doable. And I think with proper meeting management and having people be sensitive to the time involved, it certainly can be done. And for people that volunteer to serve the community, I really think we ought to make every effort to try to accommodate that, particularly as I think everybody applied has something valuable to contribute to the process. So if there are other opportunities for Michael Hickey to participate, hopefully he will do that. I don't, I see that he is in attendance and hopefully he will not be discouraged by this but we'll apply again as I'm sure there will be other opportunities in the future. I think that that's a good point. And one thing that Rick suggested to me is that everybody who's interested should sign up for the district email newsletter because then they learn right away if one of these positions opens up and becomes because we'll advertise them. And then my last comment had to do with training for people. There are obviously a lot of people that are head serve previously, but we need to make sure that they get the appropriate training, particularly around the Brown Act training, which I believe can be done online. And at some point in the past, we had talked about putting together an onboarding process slash document for not only board committee members but also board members, new board members, something that I think would really help streamline the process and bring people up to speed a lot faster. And that may include, for example, summaries of where we are on particular issues with things, things that have been talked about previously on these committees, because all the things that were talked about relative to infrastructure and finances and environmental and all that have been topics of conversation at committee level and at board level for quite some time with varying degrees of acceptance and a part of everybody. But as you know, over time, things do tend to iterate to a conclusion and I think it'd be helpful for the new committee members in particular to be updated on that as well. Okay. Director Henry. I don't really have a comment. I'm fine with what I see. Director Smalley. I reviewed the applications and put together a list very similar to what you did here. I concur with what you've done. Thank you. Director Tu. I wanna make sure we're literally on the same page here. Are we on page seven of the packet for where it says committee choices or is there a different list somewhere that I missed? There was an attachment in supplemental material. If you'd like, I can read you the names of people, but they're the last one. That's okay. I know that I had also made us, I had reviewed all the applications and made a similar list and also discovered that the people that applied matched up with the available positions. So I will go with the recommendation. But my only request is that the district secretary send out a follow-up email with the list of persons on the committees after we vote on this and with their contact information so that we can all connect to create that the time for the meeting. Well, Holly will be in charge of that. And because of Brown Act issues, we don't want people sort of randomly emailing people. I think Bob was kind of, you know, tilting in that direction about we need. Oh, I see, okay. Yeah, yeah. Holly will be in charge of getting in contact with the two board members that are on each one of these committees and the public members that are appointed and then finding a time during the second or the fourth week of the month, sometime which will work for each committee. Okay, thank you for clarifying that. Yeah. Are there any other comments by the directors? If not, I will go out to the attendees for any comments. And looks like Beth Thomas. I didn't have my hand up, sorry, Gail. Okay, it was, but okay, that's all right. Anybody else? I don't see anybody else with a hand up. Okay, all right, then I'll come back and let me ask if there's any other comments by members of the board? Yeah. Holly has her hand up. Did somebody have a hand up? Holly has her hand up. Well, I'm sorry, Holly, go ahead. Well, I just wanted to say that, yes, I will contact everybody and let them know and let all the committees know, but I also wanted to add that generally the board sets the first meeting for every one of these committees, but then after that, the committees themselves decide what the best time and day works for them, the individuals, is how it generally works. So just for your information. All right, I didn't have that quite right. All right, any other comments by the board? And if not, can I get a motion? I move to accept the public member committee assignments as recommended by President Mayhood in the supplemental materials. I second that. Thank you, Director Kim. Holly, would you take a roll call vote? President Mayhood? Aye. Vice President Henry? Yes. Director Falls? Yes. Director Smalley? Yes. Director Too? Yes. Motion passes. Okay, thank you. Now we will go on to the new business, which is going to be Brown Act Training, which will be presented by our district council, Gina Nichols. Thank you, Chair Mayhood and thank you, Rick Rogers. Let me try first to share my screen so that I have control of the presentations. It'll go a little more smoothly. So bear with me for just a moment. Do you see my screen on Zoom? Yes. Yes. The presentation, hopefully, and not any of the other things up there. Okay, great. Let me go into PowerPoint mode. Okay. There you go. Well, then I will dive right in. I will try to get through this. I've indicated I'd try to get through it in less than 30 minutes. I'm going to do my best to do that. I understand some of the benefits of doing this kind of a training online, rather than having somebody talking at you for 30 minutes, but I'm going to do my best to keep it a little bit interactive. If you have any questions as we go along, please don't hesitate to jump in. I'm not seeing all of you on my screen right now, but if you just say something, I will try to respond to your question at the time you ask it. And if it's a longer discussion, I'll postpone it to the end of the training. I also want to point out, we're not going to cover every aspect of the Brown Act in this training. The Brown Act has a number of different aspects to it from issues related to making meeting agendas public to managing closed sessions and closed session confidentiality that are not really the focus of this. This presentation, which I've entitled the Brown Act in Social Media, focuses more on interactions among board members, primarily in the meeting context and also outside the meeting context and on social media. So the focus is really on how board members and committee members also interact with each other. Did my slide just change a moment ago? Yes. Okay, perfect. Okay, so I'm going to try to sum up the Brown Act in a nutshell for the purpose of this presentation by saying that it prohibits non-public meetings. And in California code language, that's meetings include, well, the concept is that all meetings with the legislative body of a local agency, and that includes the board and committee members shall be open and public and all persons shall be permitted to attend any meeting of the legislative body. So this is kind of the core concept of the Brown Act that I want to get across in this training. So what is a meeting? This is not intuitive, but under the Brown Act, a meeting can be almost any communication by a majority of the members of a legislative body border committee on matters within its jurisdiction. So this means you don't actually have to be convened as part of a meeting to have a meeting that's governed by the Brown Act. Anytime you're talking to a majority of the members of your border committee about something related to district business or if it's the committee committee business, the Brown Act would consider you to be having a meeting. So now, of course, this doesn't cover discussions of matters that are not within the district jurisdiction. It doesn't cover, for example, if you're out to dinner with three board members and you're talking about your kids or your pets, that's not covered. However, it is a water district. So if you're talking about the weather, that might be covered depending on what it is you're saying about the weather. But an important aspect of this is to keep in mind that optics are important. So if three board members are out to dinner talking about their kids, that is not a meeting governed by the Brown Act, but it may look like it to somebody who's passing by on the street. So that's an important thing to keep in mind. So communications that can constitute a meeting can be any type of direct communication using any kind of technological device, email, texts, phone, direct conversations, et cetera. If it involves a majority of a board or committee, it may be a meeting regulated by the Brown Act. So another key concept for the Brown Act is that all meetings, so the conversation about the weather in connection with water levels at the district's wells, for example, that conversations of meeting, it has to take place in an open and public setting. And that doesn't just mean a public setting where other people are able to be. It isn't just being in a park where other people can come talk with you as well. A meeting to be an appropriate meeting under the Brown Act, the meeting has to be properly posted via a meeting agenda. And the public has to have access to the meeting and the ability to comment. So I'm not gonna get again into all the requirements of say how an agenda is properly posted, 72 hours before meeting for a regular meeting, 24 for a special meeting, et cetera, mainly because the staff primarily handles those issues, but do be aware that that is part of the Brown Act as well. There are also a lot of rules related to where meetings have to take place and where you can be to participate in a meeting and how you can participate, for example, via teleconference from a remote location. We've had, I hate to call it the luxury, anything related to COVID is not a luxury, but we have been able, because of the suspension of certain Brown Act rules related to COVID, we've been able to conduct our meetings remotely now for quite a long period of time. And I dare say we're getting used to it. But once those, that suspension of Brown Act rules related to where and how meetings are conducted, once we revert back to the free COVID Brown Act rules, this is something to be aware of. You can't just be anywhere to participate in a meeting. And if you are in certain rare circumstances able to be somewhere outside the district calling in, there's agenda posting requirements related to that. So now when we're holding an open meeting, only matters on the agenda can be discussed. If you get into topics that aren't on the agenda, then you are having a discussion that is not open and public consistent with the Brown Act, because the public didn't know what you were going to be talking about. And again, the concept is that actions and deliberations of the board or committee must be taken openly. An exception to this of course is closed session. I'm not gonna get into the reasons why a closed session can be called and exactly how that works, but they're narrow and they're defined in the Brown Act. So we can only go into closed session to talk about certain kinds of things and only when it's appropriately noticed under the Brown Act. So restricted communications under the Brown Act include any conversation that involves the majority of a legislative body consulting with each other outside of properly noticed meeting regarding matters within its jurisdiction. This prohibition includes serial meetings. And I'll talk a little more in a minute about what that entails. And there are no exceptions to this rule. And if you've been in Brown Act training before you may say, wait, no exceptions. We know there are exceptions related to attending conferences, social events and so forth. But I boil it down in this training to no exceptions because all of those so-called exceptions, for example, attending a conference, all say that matters within, so long as matters within the agency's jurisdiction are not discussed by a majority of the board. So even if it's a conference or if it's a social gathering that's an exception to the Brown Act, you can still violate the Brown Act if a majority shows up and starts talking about district business. The unrestricted communications on the other hand would be communications not within the jurisdiction of the legislative body. So if you're on the board of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District, again, talking about your kids would not be covered. If you're on the budget and finance committee talking about a matter before the administrative committee wouldn't necessarily be covered as long as it doesn't involve the majority of the members of the budget and of the environmental committee, if that makes sense. So if you're dealing with committee majorities, you have to think a little more carefully about whether the subject matter is covered. Whether the subject matter you're talking about is restricted under the Brown Act. Individual contacts or conversations between staff and a member of a legislative body or member of the public are not restricted. So the Brown Act never prohibits a board member or committee member from talking to a constituent, never prohibits a board or committee member from talking to staff unless those contacts or conversations become serial. And I'll talk now a little more about what it means to have a serial meeting. This is when a serial meeting is when a quorum of the board or the committee becomes involved in a communication indirectly or through intermediaries. So again, it can be created by any method of communication. The typical examples of what constitutes a serial meeting, the examples of hub and spoke versus daisy chain are used. Hub and spoke, for example, would be where, for example, a member of the public speaks, calls each member of the board of directors in turn and talks to them about a matter on the agenda. And in doing so communicates something about what the other board members said or what their views are on the item, such that you end up involving all five or a majority of the board members in that discussion about the item of business within the district's jurisdiction. The daisy chain would be where, one board member calls board member two, board member two calls board member three, and potentially up to all five board members. Something that's worth thinking about in connection with the daisy chain type serial meeting violation is keep in mind that the first member of the daisy chain and the last member of the daisy chain don't, and frankly that for that matter, the spokes in the hub and spoke scenario don't necessarily know that the intermediaries have created a serial meeting situation because it's not always clear who else somebody has spoken with. So it's really important if you're a board or committee member trying to stay within the bounds of the Brown Act, as I certainly hope that you all do and are cognizant of, be aware of who else people are speaking to, especially about items of business pending before the district. And don't hesitate to ask somebody if a staff member or a board member calls you to discuss something related to the district business, don't hesitate to ask them who else they've spoken to so that you can avoid getting to a situation where individual contacts becomes a serial meeting. And do keep in mind when you're reading the Brown Act, if you have a reason to read it directly, some of its provisions that case law and the attorney general taken a broad view of what constitutes a serial meeting. They take a broad view generally of these types of public ethics laws such as the Brown Act. So you don't read laws like the Brown Act in kind of a hair splitting way. You really have to read it consistent with its purpose. An example of a case law and AG interpretations of the Brown Act that are a little broader than just the plain language of the statute arise where for example, it's been interpreted that serial meetings aren't avoided just because communications are public and not secret. So even though the public in theory is made aware of the communications that doesn't cure a Brown Act violation. In particular here, there's an AG opinion where members of legislative bodies developed a consensus by email and then in an effort to sort of cure the Brown Act issue the emails were published before the meeting as part of the agenda packet. And the AG said that didn't cure the Brown Act problem here because the problem didn't have to do with the fact that the emails were made public but that the communications were sort of done secretly outside the public meeting process. So I do talk quite a bit in this presentation about social media and there's a number of reasons for that. One is that we had some issues just a couple of years ago with directors participating in social media around a controversial issue. It's also kind of a useful way to think about serial meetings and how they can occur but perhaps more importantly, as you saw in the board packet we've had some the most recent legislative activity with respect to the Brown Act is that it was amended just a few months ago with assembly bill 992 that specifically addresses social media. So this is a change in the Brown Act from anything you've seen before in prior trainings. So just some social media characteristics. I know some folks are more savvy than others when it comes to using social media. You've got a mix of public and private communications semi-public private information sharing, rapid sharing of all kinds of information, photos, videos, likes, emojis and more. There's quite a few platforms out there and more all the time. Some social media positives, rapid interactive communication with large numbers of people, social media risks, rapid interactive communication with large numbers of people. And that one, believe it or not actually got a laugh the last time I did that but this I guess is becoming an old presentation at this point. So also on the topic of social media risks for members of local government legislative bodies there's a heightened potential like we said for Brown Act violations due to serial meetings. This is definitely the case with social media. Sometimes it'll be asked, isn't social media public and transparent? Why does it create a Brown Act problem? Well it creates a Brown Act problem for exactly the same reason that the AG found it inappropriate that board members had been emailing each other outside of a meeting and then published the emails as part of the meeting materials. Communications among a majority regarding district business are supposed to take place in a properly noticed public meeting where the public knows it's going to be discussed and they have the opportunity to attend and participate by commenting on the matters before the board. That's not really how social media works. It's not how it's constructed. It's more free flowing. It's not a properly noticed public meeting. So Assembly Bill 992 that I just referred to that's amended the Brown Act just last year related to social media codifies a lot of what we already know just like any other type of communication members of a legislative body may engage in social media provided they do not do so in a way that violates the Brown Act. That's obvious. The Brown Act is violated and we knew this and it's confirmed in the new law if a quorum of a legislative body uses social media to discuss among themselves business that is within their subject matter jurisdiction. That's so that remains clear. So what's new with AB 992? It does clarify it creates kind of a safe harbor for public officials including board members to use social media to answer questions provide information to the public or solicit information for the public regarding a matter within the body's jurisdiction. So that means that as a board member you can post on Facebook about fire wildfire impacts to the water system. So can Rick who's also a public officer subject to the Brown Act. But only here's the big caveat if members of the same legislative body don't use social media to discuss among themselves official business and it goes a little more into what that means. It is specifically prohibited for board members to react to each other's posts on related to district business on social media. So what's important about this is that this prohibition applies to any individual board member. So a board member can violate the Brown Act just by liking another board member's post related to district business even if there's no indication that a third board member was ever involved. That's now almost a per se violation of the Brown Act. And please stop me if that distinction doesn't make sense for some reason. I'm happy to sort of say that another way. May I ask? This is the key part of AB 992 for purposes of board members. Gina, may I ask a question? Sure, please do. So if we post something as the district can the not more than three or more than two board members can like it? Is that what you're saying? Well, under AB 992 you wouldn't have a problem. So Holly, if you post it for example because you're not a board member you wouldn't have a problem when the first board member likes it but you might have a problem when the second board member likes it. I was talking about the district posts that we put Facebook and everything that not an individual it's done by our chatter box. They put up something and I quite often like what they've put up and other members of staff do but would the board members not be allowed to do that? I would not advise it. I would not advise reacting to a Facebook post related to district business because there's a danger that another even if you're not don't notice it that another board member already commented or liked or somehow reacted to it and then at least arguably you could be reacting to the prior board members post. So I think the safest advice if you're a board or committee member is you can post about district business but don't engage either in the districts or other board or committee members posts about district business. I hope that wasn't too convoluted. I see some smiles. We'll get into some hypos that dig into this in a little more detail. So, and I'm actually getting close to the end of the presentation. I have a few hypotheticals and it'd be great if we can get some responses from the board members and attendants. So the first hypothetical is that a board or committee member posts an informational announcement pertaining to district business on his or her personal Facebook page does the post violate the Brown Act? No. No. I see heads shaking. No. No, right. Under AB 992, no. That does not violate the Brown Act. However, you know, what if another member likes the post? As we just discussed, that now is essentially a per se violation of the Brown Act. And then what if members post informational comments in response to the post? Yes. Yeah, again, no. You can't. You don't want to do that because even though the post is informational, you are reacting to the prior board members post about district business. Okay. Hypothetical number two, board or committee member uses social media to communicate about his or her views about upcoming district business. So for example, I plan to vote against the sequel approval for the new pipeline. I think that's a good question. Is that okay? Does that activity violate the Brown Act? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Director Smully. Thank you. Yeah, that's a clear. I mean. If it's social media and I guess there's a little, let me. Okay. So maybe I actually, I actually made the answer to this one maybe. And the reason for that is. You know, I think that's a good question. I mean, there are certain types of communications informational, a big question with social media has always been, well, who else saw the post? Right. You know, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's around, et cetera. Maybe it doesn't violate the Brown Act because maybe you haven't communicated with anyone, but I do not recommend taking that risk. And. And from a legal perspective, I don't know who saw or who didn't see it. So that this is not a good idea to post on social media about, you know, how somebody plans to vote or what you think about something that's coming up for consideration by the board. Please don't do it. Hypothetical number three, board or committee member uses a social media to communicate her views about district business with a few constituents who are connected to the post. I think it's kind of an, it depends with access to the post. Does this activity violate the Brown Act? Yes. I heard a yes. And I think it's kind of an, it depends, right? So if you're assuming problematic facts, perhaps it does. It might not if the communication is truly private. So if a board member is using social media to communicate with a few constituents who aren't on a board or committee, there may not be a problem, but. You know, questions we post before, is it truly private? And really what is truly private in this world of, of interconnectedness? So, you know, what if somebody takes a screenshot and sends it to somebody else? And that may sound a little farfetched, but it's really not. The more controversial something is that you're saying, it is that somebody will go to the trouble to do something like this. So just please be aware of it. Something that seems private initially may not be so. And so this is where I've actually included in a side about public records. This isn't squarely within the ambit of the Brown Act, but I think it's important to say here. Well, I have your attention. I don't often get to present in this way. But I think it's important to say that. That written records, including emails and the like. Related to district business are generally considered public. I mean, there, there are essentially, there are some certain circumstances where they can be treated as confidential, but the presumption is their public records. Such records are subject to retention collection. And public production. So any seemingly personal or private communications. Related to district business could be subject to collection and production in some circumstances. And typically this is limited to things that are, that are related to district business, but imagine if there's a lawsuit or something, the net can actually become quite a bit larger than that. So the general rule is that private, you know, quote unquote communications may become public. But one of the key takeaways I wanted to leave you with include that almost anything that a board or committee member writes or says about district business may become public at some point in one way or another. The Brown act can be violated by communications made outside of properly noticed meetings, even if those communications are seemingly public, for example, social media or communications in a large public setting or a social event. And if you're not sure whether social media, media activity or anything else for that matter would violate the law. Please talk to me. I can't think in advance of everything that might occur. There's new situations that come up every day. And I would so much rather have a, have a conversation with you ahead of time. Then have to. You know, trying to, to help manage some kind of a situation that could develop around the Brown act or other of the many rules that govern public agencies. And with that, are there any questions? I have a question. Yes, please. Well, this is a little off the wall. I think. And I don't think it's a problem, but it just happened this week. I got a call from the San Francisco. Chronicle. The person knew me from Long Pico. And he had my phone number. So he called me. He asked me some questions. I did answer. The questions that. There are things that have been talked about. Publicly, I think. And then I told him that he should talk to Rick Rogers. And I gave him Rick Rogers phone number. Don't, don't hit me, Rick. Anyway, since Rick is subject to the Brown act, and since Rick and I may have talked about some of these things, and I talked to a newspaper person. Did I have a violation there? Did I create a serial meeting? Well, I guess I'm not hearing anything. Lois in there that would create a serial meeting because. It doesn't sound like the reporter. Also talked to other members of a board or committee that you're on. Right. And relate it. You know, so, and so there's no risk that he relayed your, your positions or your views about anything. You know, any depending district business to other members of a board or committee. So, but that's a good example of, you know, if you get called by a reporter about something related to district business, you might want to ask who else have you talked to. And I mean, there's a, and there's a number of other things we could talk about related to media relations in terms of who can be a spokesperson for the media. So, you know, I'm not going to go too far into the weeds of talking to media because it's not part of this presentation. But yeah, that, that would not, that does not sound like something that presents a high risk of Brown act violations based on what you related. Usually the president, also the district manager. So referring the reporter to Rick is a good thing to do. And of course, if you're. Well, I, you know, I'm not going to go too far into the weeds of talking to media because it's not part of this presentation. So, you know, And you're going to go and get information from what you related. Yeah. Well, I also want to say when you were. Talking about being at a conference and maybe your. Or, or you're at a party and you're just talking three of you or talking about your kids. people don't know what you're talking about. When I went to Sacramento for a couple of days to have Brown Act training, and one of the things they said was avoid the appearance of doing something you shouldn't be doing, which would go along with what you just said. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for adding that. Are there any other questions or comments from the board or staff? Why does chat feature go against the Brown Act? Because you are creating a separate sort of space for communication where, I mean, for example, if a member of the public is called in by phone, they're not gonna see the chat. You also may have a couple members of the board monitoring the chat and not everybody else is. So you've essentially created kind of a separate meeting within a meeting that may have a different set of participants involved. And the whole point of the Brown Act is that the meeting is supposed to be open and public and accessible. And having the chat going on sort of disrupts that meeting that's contemplated under the Brown Act, in my view. President Mayhude, I think you're saying something but I can't hear you. Sorry, Director Fultz, go ahead. Yeah, I have a number of questions, but just following up on that, Gina, if someone's on the phone, they wouldn't be able to see your presentation. So how do we make that distinction between the presentation and the chat, which can actually be a great way to engage with public chat, Twitter, any kind of instantaneous communications that could be integrated into the meeting? Well, that's true and that's a good point. I think the most important aspect if chat were gonna be a regular feature of the meetings is to figure out how to integrate all the comments so that all the board members see them and they get responded to and you don't end up with kind of meetings within meetings of different groups of participants. Sure, I mean, it would become part of the overall process, but it's a great way to engage. Anyway, a couple of questions on serial meetings. Serial meetings could be anybody, I think you're saying, whether it's the community member or staff or even another board member. So basically anybody could, in effect, generate a serial meeting and the question is whether you would know about it or not. True, yeah, anybody could be a conduit for the serial meeting if there's a majority of a board of committee involved in the communications. Okay, but just to be clear, that could be, I mean, literally anybody both inside the district, outside the district. Yeah, it could be a reporter. It could be a member of the public. It could be a staff member. Staff member. Okay, second thing, on Facebook, you know, I mean, I think this is generally the case, but there are a lot of neighborhood groups that have been formed. Same thing with Nextdoor, there's neighborhoods for Nextdoor, in which I'm sure, you know, if we aren't members of it, I'm certainly members of as many of them as I can find, because it's a great way to get a sense for what the community is thinking. And periodically things come through those neighborhood groups related to, related to district business. So if someone posts something a neighborhood group and we all see it, I'm assuming that isn't an issue, but if we responded to that posting in public, that is a comment that everybody could see, then I think you're saying we would all be in violation of, or that person would be in violation of the Brown app. Is that what I'm hearing? Right, it gets, there are some subtleties and the memo that I put in the board packet, maybe a good way to address them. In order for a communication to fall under this prohibition against reacting directly on social media, it does have to be a social media platform, which means it has to be open accessible to the public and not something that's controlled by a moderator or so forth, or that you can be kicked off of. So I'm not sure if the top of my headwear Nextdoor would fall. Or even Facebook neighborhood groups because that's moderated, that's for sure moderated. The membership is restricted typically and you can be kicked off it if you violate terms of use. Well, I'd have to look at the terms of the law, but there is a fine line distinction between what constitutes some social media. It has to be more than being kicked off just by violating the rules and regulations of the group. There have to be other reasons why you can be blocked from participating, but that is a question, that is kind of a threshold question, whether something constitutes a social media platform that's regulated in this way. Well, I think that might be something to get clarity on because I am a member of a lot of different Facebook moderated groups as well as Nextdoor. And it would be nice to know that. I mean, there are situations, for example, where there are specific comments or questions that are leveled that might be able to be answered. The question is whether or not we are able to do that or whether the response is, hey, I can't do this because of the Brown Act, right? At least not in this platform. So I would appreciate getting some clarity on that. The next question had to do with the distinction here between social media perhaps and individual conversations. So for example, I periodically am asked what my position would be on budgets or infrastructure or what have you. Those might be personal conversations, those might be email. And I guess taken to extreme, it could even somebody trying to call out on social media, that sort of thing. Are you saying that all of those are prohibited or is it only the social media ones and we can continue to let our views be known and positions be known through individual conversations? Yes, that's right. I mean, this rule applies to a certain defined type of social media platform that generally includes things like Facebook and Instagram. It would also exclude letters to the editor or opinion pieces that might be posted either on print or solely electronic publications. Yeah, the social media rule wouldn't apply to emails or letters to the editor or that kind of thing. You still have to watch out for serial meetings. Well, I mean, so for example, let's say that one of us were to publish a opinion piece regarding, I don't know, pick an issue, budget. And that would be published say in print either let's say at the Valley Press or on electronic media, both at the Valley Press and San Lorenzo Valley Post would those be in violation of any Brown Act requirements where we would basically say what our position was on certain items that by the way, had both been before the board previously where we had commented publicly as well as might be coming back to us in the future because it's a recurring item like the budget. Well, if I may, Director Fultz, I'm gonna give that one a little thought and get back to the board on it because I know it's a scenario that we've seen before and it's tricky, it's a gray area, but I'll provide a response to that. I mean, I think the thing that I'm concerned about certainly having rules of the road is really a good thing. But I think anything that gets in the way of directors being able to communicate what their positions are. I mean, particularly let's say even during a campaign where you're actually trying to communicate with people who are trying to figure out how to vote based on policies and positions and that sort of thing. That doesn't seem to be what the legislature would have in mind. I think actually they would probably want it to be the opposite. But so having your input and insights into that I think would be very helpful and it might need to be the subject of a much more, I hate to say an in-depth workshop or a conversation to make sure that all of these different scenarios are factored. We certainly don't wanna be holding information back from our community for sure. Okay, can I, let's see if Director Smalley or Director Too have any comments that they wanna make at this point. Yeah, I was finished, thank you. I don't have any questions. Okay. Director Too, I think she's muted. There we go. Sorry. I think like Gina was saying in the weeds or hypotheticals, we could probably contact her directly about that. But I did have a couple of concerns. One is that we just now adopted a committee member that has a website and a blog related to the Water District. And I'm wondering if he's going in, it's focused on the on the board meetings and I'm wondering if he's gonna have to stop doing that because he is a member of the public and he's not on the board specifically, but he has just been adopted to a committee. So if you could comment on that. And then the second thing is I want to assume and again, assuming, right? So that maybe Bob and I are in a, we are in a mutual community group like on Facebook or whatever, but I've never actually, there's thousands of people in this group and I've never actually come across him in the group. So I'm assuming that if we are not discussing water business or district business that we can still remain in the same group is that a fair assumption where just happened to be because we all live in a small community, right? So that we're gonna run into each other on other things. So those are my two things as whether or not our now appointed committee member can continue with his work of summarizing the Water District meetings and then also if we can remain in the same community groups because we're not discussing water business. Thank you. Well, director two, I really appreciate your bringing to our attention the committee members blog and I think it'll be important. I'll check with you offline about who that person is because I want to make sure that person has seen AB 992 and specifically what's allowed. You can answer questions, provide information to the public or solicit information from the public regarding a matter within the legislative body subject matter jurisdiction. So it may be okay if it's informational and other board and committee members aren't reacting to it but I want to make sure he's aware of that issue. So I appreciate you're bringing that to my attention in terms of communications within a small committee or groups that multiple board members may be a part of. Yeah, that's fine as long as you're not straying into district business and involving a quorum or a majority of any legislative body. Thank you. That was all I had. And I figured any other hypotheticals we could connect with you after we're getting short on time now. So, thank you. Let's see if there's any comments from the public on this. Seeing none, I will, I guess this is not anything we have to vote on so we can move on to the next issue unless there's one more question, Regina. Okay, then let's move on to new business 11B district project updates. And is this going to be done by Rick or James? I will take this. So, do you have an echo from me? Yes. Yes, sorry, hold on one second. How about now? Hold on. So this is the engineering update for our projects that are going on right now. So I'll start off with the memo. It is recommended that the district manager review and file this district project update report, January 2021, Board of Directors meeting. And I have an update on the Lompeco tanks here and the first subject. I'll take questions. I'll go through the one project and I'll take questions on each project. So work on the Lompeco tank replacement project with our contractor Anderson Pacific is continuing. The tanks at the Madrone tank site have been installed and put into beneficial use. Paving and fencing are still to be completed. Tanks at the Lewis tank site are constructed and in the process of filling and sampling to then be put into beneficial use. So an update on that this week, they were filled and sampled and passed. We're just waiting on state approval to put those into service. Paving has been completed there. The fencing is still to commence. At the Kasky tank site, they are on hold right now due to unrealized problems with the bedrock there. The bedrock ended up being a little deeper than they expected. So they're in the process with the geotech company of redoing that and getting that back. We're trying to get pricing back from the contractor right now. For the extra work that needs to be done, there's gonna be a little bit of expense there in order to construct that tank site. And they're still scheduled to be complete March, 2021. Any questions on that one? I'm not seeing if anybody has their hands up. So you got to just kind of wave or just speak up one or the other. Okay, so I'll go on to the 2020 pipeline project. Oh, sorry, Mark, go ahead. You take yourself on mute. Thanks, James, for reminding me on the mute. You said that depths to bedrock were deeper than expected. Did the district provide any borings, other information? So yes, we had a geotech group of our own go out before making these plans. Okay. And then the contractor and the management company MME then had another geotech go out and drill. And there was unforeseen due to the slope there. We punched a few holes, but it was unexpected little caverns down there and drainage ways. And so that's where the unexpected bedrock was a little bit deeper. And then they got into some organics they weren't expecting. Okay. Any other questions? No. Okay. 2020 pipeline project. So Hillside and Reynolds mainline and services have all been installed and are in service. Everything is complete there besides the asphalt. We're just waiting for some dry weather and scheduling on that. It looks like we may be able to do that at the end of next week. It doesn't look like we have any weather in the forecast. So we're planning to hopefully be able to lay that asphalt next week at the end of the week. And that project out there will be complete. They have started in on California Drive. They started there on December 29th. This is the 28th, but they actually started there the 29th. They are laying mainline now. So what they'll do is they'll lay the mainline and then come back and put fire hydrant laterals in and service laterals in. They expect to have the mainline laid in the next three weeks, including this week. So they're down to about two weeks in a day. And then they'll come back the next two to three weeks and lay services and fire hydrant laterals. And with the asphalt being there, there is some strict guidelines with temperature and everything. And that is county roads there. So we have to be working with the county roads supervisor. And we will see how that all lays out, but it's still commenced to be done there late February to early March. Any questions there? Okay, seeing none. So CCU fire damage. I'm not gonna read this whole thing because it's kind of a long and long winded. I'm not a great reader loudly. So we have the Altevia pipeline, which is Altevia, South Reservoir, Bennett Springs, Eclipse Zone, Blackstone System, Big Steel Pipeline and Form and Intake Pipeline have all been installed temporarily at this time. The final design of permanent installation is a very detailed process that includes surveys, environmental review and final layout and review of plans and specifications for installation. We will be commencing that with the start of our new engineering manager on Monday the 11th this coming Monday. And that's gonna be a heavy lift that he'll be taking on for all these projects. The little lion tank is still in the process. We do have specs ready to go out for bid on that. And we plan to hopefully get those out either tomorrow or Monday. Lion tanks been filled, sampled and passed and approved by the state. It actually went online today taking the baby lion temporary tanks offline. So that was a big step. That's three million gallons of water of storage up there. And it also lets us put our lion treatment plant into service. So with that, the former creek has picked up flow a little bit and we did fill it with former creek but we were only doing about 30 to 60 gallons a minute at that time. Right now the creek's flowing at approximately 300 gallons a minute. Bobby, you have a question? Yeah, I did. Thanks. Ultimately, did we have to remediate those tanks up there at the lion treatment plant and recode them? So the only one that is ending up having to be recoded is the little lion tank. Is a little lion, so the others we skated on? Yes, so they were all good. We sampled them, did our pressure washing, cleaned them, sampled both of them. That was the big steal and the lion tank and both of them passed and both of them are in service. I'm so happy to hear that. And that's got to be due to the fact that we shut things down as quickly as we did. You got it. Yeah, and the treatment plant, yeah, nothing went through the treatment plant so there was no damage there. We had one turbidometer that kind of got hot from the wall and it malfunctioned so we have replaced that. Go ahead Tina. Thank you, great work. I just wanted to say great work you guys. It's amazing. I'm really, really glad that's online. And I'm assuming you're going to fill it to the rest of its capacity now? It is filled to its full capacity at this time. Okay, great. Okay, so then we had the little older tank, 500 gallon tank, it was a little bit of piping, little tank that melted up there. We got that all replaced and that's kind of, that's pretty much final. We just got to get it approved by FEMA that that is final and then that they approved it. So that one's looking pretty good at this time. It's a very small tank that just feeds like two homes up there on all their street out in the Riverside Grove area. So then you have Riverside Grove pump station has some minor burn damage to the fascia and roof. And so we're in the process of getting contractors numbers to harden that because it is a wood structure and composite roof at this time. So we're looking to harden that structure with maybe some metal framing, metal trusses and putting a steel roof on that or a galvanized roof, something of that sort with some metal fascia. So that's all in the works at this time. Any questions on those? Okay, so then go ahead Bob. Would that be a candidate for a concrete structure? So the building right now at this time is a concrete mason block building. And it's the main structure of it is fireproof or fire resistant, I should say. I should not say fireproof. It's fire resistant. It's just the roofing material and the trusses and the roofing material that are not. What about the door? The door is a steel door. Is that replaceable with something or is that fire resistant enough? Yeah, the steel door is fire resistant. Thank you. Yep, and then so now we are getting ready to kick off our flushing program of the district. The first week, actually I do believe February 1st is the first day of flushing. And we will begin that and that will last through April 16th this year. So it's a bit of a process and we go through a pretty good area of our district. And what that does is a lot of the area that we do this on is well water area. And the well water tends to leave iron and magnies in the main lines. And that's the whole idea is to get that flushed out of the mains as much as possible to eliminate colorization of the water. So turbidity pretty much. Any questions on that? James, have we moved forward with posting and newspapers on it? Yes, Holly has put all that stuff together. I reviewed it, sent it back to her. She has all her drafts and we will start posting. I do believe the week before, Holly? Two weeks before. So yeah, and that's when they'll start sending out some newspapers into the community and then I'll start reaching out to the fire departments and everybody else. Go ahead, Bob. Will that include Facebook, Twitter and next door postings as well? Yes, it will. And Carly will be posting those. And Carly, I do believe you will be posting the exact notices that Holly's been putting together. So yeah, so it'll be the same language. Everything will be the same and just to keep it all copacetic. So that were the ones that we're working on at this point. Projects and design right now is a water master plan. We do have a meeting next week. We wanted to wait until, not wait, but they just came out and sent us the draft model of our system and a chapter of what's going on and what to go through. And so next week, when we get our engineer on, we set the meeting for Wednesday to go over this whole model with them and we'll be running scenarios and starting to work with the model, which is great. And then that model we're working to making the water master plan and the CIP list will come from that more additions to the CIP list, I should say. Any questions on that? Go ahead, Tina. So can you explain the model a little bit? Is it this as a computer model or what is it referring to, sorry? Yeah, so this is a GIS model, hydraulic model of the water system. And so it'll have every one of our elevations of tanks and what pressure should be here, what pressure should be there. And what we'll do is we'll start running flows and we'll start running pressures and testing pressures and making sure that what we're getting in the water system is running. What we're getting in the field is actually what we're getting from the GIS computer system. Thank you for your clarification. It also has mainline sizes and it'll be able to tell where we have a lack of fire flow and sufficient fire flow. A lot of what we can run, what ifs if we want to improve fire flow and what size mains do we need. It'll give you a great understanding of your distribution system. I just wanna say hooray for math, that's all. Yeah, I included on that too is we get requested a lot for firecouts, for new homes, ADUs, everything else. And we've never been able to provide that. And so this will help us be able to at least give an estimate or an understanding to that. Sounds great, thank you. Okay, so now we'll move on to the Redwood Park tank replacement. So the survey geotechnical work appraisal work has all been completed. Right now everything's been taken to the board on that. We are in the process, the environmental review is complete. We are in the process of completing documentation. I do believe district council and the district manager are working with the property owner. And trying to procure that property at this time as recommended by the board at the last board meeting. I do believe it was, might've been the one before that. But that seems to be an endeavor as usual up there. And so we're trying to move ahead and get that complete so we can start design and construction of that project. Any questions there? No, I really don't wanna comment where not maybe Gina would wanna comment where we are finalizing that deals. Yeah, I can make a brief comment about it. This was a big issue in front of the board about a year ago. And we are under contract for the purchase of that property. We've tentatively set a closing date for January 25th, which is after the limitations period runs on the environmental review process. And we're just trying to get the documents in order to be able to close and get title insurance on the property. Very close. So with that, that'll close. I, there's a few other little projects that we're working on that I didn't put into this. I figured this was enough to go over. I figured there would be more questions than what I got to tell you the truth. And I'm sure we'll get some questions from the public. So that is the end of my review. Okay. Are there any additional questions from the board? Director Smalley. Yes. Gina, is it okay if I have a followup discussion with James on the question of the Kasky tanks that I was asking about? Oh, absolutely. Informational conversation between a board member and a staff member is always okay. Okay, good. Well, I should add subject to Rick's approval. Exactly. I was going to do that. Yes. Yeah, I'll contact Rick directly then. Just, Mark, you just need to help me and Rick and CCS together and get an email chain and then we'll set something up together. Okay. All right. Good. And one more. James, how long have you been the acting engineering manager? Since July when Darren left. Right. You've been doing a very good job in that acting role. I commend you. I definitely, the fire definitely put a burden on it. Anything else? Okay. Any other comments from the board? Then let's see if there are any questions or comments from- I think Tina has a question. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Oh, I just wanted to say thanks to James too because I think our new engineer starts this coming week. So yeah, thank you. This has been, it's an incredible feat that you've done the last six months. Appreciate it. Are there any questions from the public? Seeing none, then I guess we can go on to our next item, which is the consent agenda, which involves the minutes from the board of directors meetings November 10th and 19th. Are there any comments or questions? Okay. Hearing none, then do we need to vote just on accepting the consent agenda? It's not necessary to vote. As long as nothing's been pulled and I hear nothing. Nobody wants to pull anything off the consent agenda. Hearing no objections, then we will approve the consent agenda. And with that, I think we reached the point of adjournment. Thank you all for being really efficient and letting us get out of here in less than two hours. Yes, thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Good night.