 So, Josh, you wanna report out from closed session? Thanks, President Jaffee. There's no reportable action on closed session. Do I have to start the meeting again with a roll call or? All right. So, there are no public hearings. And so this is board members' opportunity to remove items from consent agenda. Seeing none. No, I did want to remove. Please, could we remove 4.10? 4., there's two 4.1s. 4.10, 4.10. Oh, sorry. Okay. Thank you. All right, is there a public comment on the consent agenda items besides 4.10? Becky, all right. Any other public comments? Seeing none. Is there a motion? Oh, second. And I just wanted to add one little comment if I can on this one. One of the, not the planning calendar, but the pressure board assignment status reports. There's one that's been on there that I thought we addressed. I don't know if maybe next time we can remove it. It's the water audit, data validity score. I had asked for, okay. All right, it should have been removed anyway. Okay, all right. So there's a motion and a second. All in favor. Aye. All opposed. Passes unanimously. That brings us to oral and written communication. So any public members who want to speak on any items not on the agenda? Oh, there we are. Thank you. So do I need to start over? I was able to hear you. You can, but it wasn't recorded. So what do you want to do? You can start over. Okay, I'll start over. Thank you. Becky Steinberger, I wanted to just say that I will first address some of the written correspondence. The first was the letter from Mr. Nelson Council here sort of chastising me for asking questions about why the last board meeting was canceled. I had that information from the community television staff that it was canceled. And I wasn't able to come to that meeting and was looking forward to seeing the recording the next day. It usually is put up very promptly on community television's government on demand website. They do an excellent job and thank you for having them here. So I didn't mean to be a troublemaker. I was going on information that I got from community television. And I think that Mr. Nelson's letter was a bit strong and a bit unnecessary. To the next piece of correspondence from me regarding my letter to communication with Ethan Martin, he is supposed to be monitoring the mitigation the Laurel Street Bridge in Santa Cruz where the Purewater SoCal Pipeline is attached. The cliff swallows are back and they are suffering because of the activity that continues by Garni Construction, the contractor putting the pipeline on. The mitigation put in place was to put bird netting over the pipe. Now I've seen what happens when birds get caught in netting, it's disastrous. And yet Mr. Ethan Martin is supposed to be monitoring this. I contacted him, he has his contact information. I submitted a photo in my letter and I contacted him via phone via email many times with no reply. Finally he did write back and said, my concern had been passed along to the appropriate persons with SoCal Creek Water District for review. I've heard nothing from anyone at the district and I'm very concerned. I also take Umbridge with the very cursory response that the district gave to the CR Club's letter talking about all of this. It was not a response. It was not a responsible action just to say we care, thanks for your letter. So please do better. I'll take your phrase, you can do better. I want to finally point out that I went to a Santa Cruz City Water Commission meeting recently where they were talking about all the different water supply projects possible. They talked about direct potable reuse and it was stated in there that such treatment plans have to be a person on site 24-7. So I want to ask the indirect potable reuse of SoCal Creek Water District. Thank you Becky. Your water SoCal also be stationed 24-7. I will give this to you for the record. All right. Any board members have any oral communications? Seeing none. We'll move on to reports. District council. Thanks person, Jaffee. Just a quick one. I wanted to make sure that the board was aware of a, actually US Supreme Court case that came out last month which dealt with when a public official social media can be considered basically subject to the First Amendment in a way it would be if it was sort of an official district. Social media channel. And what the court did is really sort of announce the first test we have from the Supreme Court as to win the personal social media account of a public official becomes essentially a public social media account where you would be prevented from blocking those responding to the request. And what the court laid out was a two-part test. It said that in those situations, if somebody possesses actual authority to speak on behalf of the agency and purports to exercise that authority through their social media page, and it is effectively a public social media account where you would be prevented from blocking those that might be commenting or responding to the account. That in some ways is sort of kind of relatively vague, high-fledged and sort of legal language. I think the real big takeaway was a portion of the opinion, which talked about what practically officials could do to ensure that their personal accounts remain personal, even if they were commenting on agency business in an occasional manner. And the court indicated that there would be a presumption given if officials in an otherwise personal account added a disclaimer, reminding folks interacting with them on social media that this is them speaking in their personal behalf and not on behalf of the agency that they represent. So for those of you that are active on social media, good idea to just check your account, make sure it's clear that you're speaking in a personal capacity, even if you're talking about district business. I'm happy to answer any questions. I think it's a good idea in other forums as well. Make it very clear that you're not representing the agency officially doing so. Okay, that brings us to administrative business. We do have a conditional will serve, Pash. Good evening. Yeah, this item was on the previous board meeting agenda that was postponed. It's a relatively simple single family home on a larger lot. And that's why you're seeing it, is that it's a two acre plus lot. But the proposed development is steep lot, wooded lot, but it's coming to you for approval. I don't see any real major changes other than a normal house on a two acre lot on a hillside. All right, thank you, Tosh. I sounded like you're saying that it's not usable or irrigatable or any of that. Right, correct. The board like to do. I'll move approval. I'll second. So Tom and Carla, all in favor? All opposed, passes unanimously. So 7.2, consider it option of resolution 2406, honoring Roy Sykes for his service to the district. Hi, Roy. Oh, sorry. Roy's had a hand in basically all of the conservation programs that the district has rolled out and implemented over the years. And that's evident in all of the conservation that our customers have achieved. He's really been instrumental in retrofit on sale, water demand offsets, landscape, irrigation efficiencies and ordinances. Yeah, and so I just wanna say thank you, Roy, for all of your hard work in helping our customers save water and protecting our groundwater basin. And with that in district tradition, I'll turn it over to President Jaffee to read Roy's resolution. Thank you, Roy. You wanna say something first? Just quickly, I just feel like everywhere Roy has gone, he's kind of been a friendly, helpful face of the district. And I think it's super valuable. So just from personal experience and neighbors and feedback from all over the place, it's just, you know, you can't underestimate what an effect that has, because that's the face of the district. So thank you very much, Roy. I appreciate that. Thank you directly, Hugh. I know, I was gonna add to that, that you really are probably the most well-known person in the district. And the most appreciated too. Thank you. Always helpful information. Really key, a key instrument in reducing our consumption of water to a sustainable level so we can get this project. Thank you, Director Christians. Really important. Thank you. Yes, I agree. And it's gone really quickly, the time has. And it's changed a little bit too. So I think we're all aware of that. Thank you. Michelle? I was just thinking about you a couple weeks ago, because I actually changed that plug thing in my toilet on my own with no help, because you came and showed me that the toilet was running a long time ago. Mission accomplished. We have one at a time. We do these like one at a time. And it really does have a multiplier through the community. So your knowledge is a lot, is very powerful. And I've given your name to neighbors that say anything. And I know they've been happy. So I haven't heard a bad thing yet. That's awesome. And likewise, I can't count the number of people who've asked me about you. And I knew your name. And nothing but good. Roy, you've done a great job. And I know I'm grateful. And the district is grateful for all the good work you've done and such an important job to decrease water use while we're looking for supplemental water supply. So thank you. So with that, I'll read the resolution. So resolution number 24-06. Resolution of the board of directors of the Soco Creek Water District in appreciation of Roy Sykes upon his retirement, April 8th, 2003 to April 29th, 2024. The board of directors of Soco Creek Water District at its April 16, 2024 meeting made the following findings. Recitals. Whereas Roy was hired by the district in April 2003 and has proudly served our customers as the conservation specialist for the entirety of his career. And whereas Roy is retiring from Soco Creek Water District, serving the public and our community for 21 years, contributing countless working hours creating and supporting water use efficiencies in homes and throughout local businesses. And whereas Roy has been the constant connection for our ratepayers in the implementation of district water conservation efforts, programs, and processes, sharing his technical knowledge and providing guidance on ways customers can save water and money. Roy also guided numerous customers through the district's new water service process, including meeting water demand offset program requirements, the retrofit on sale program, and the rebate program. And whereas Roy is a committed public servant who builds relationships and supports his fellow staff, having served as a representative on the SEI bargaining team and negotiating three labor agreements in 2008, 2012, and 2016. And whereas Roy is respected by his colleagues, is a true team player, has a big giant heart, and readily steps in to help when needed. And whereas Roy is dedicated to reducing his climate footprint by cycling into work, even in the most inclement weather. And whereas Roy always has a great story to share on his many backpacking and cycling trips. And whereas Roy's superpowers are setting irrigation system timers and predicting football scores, good to know. And whereas Roy has been the bastion of the Soco Creek Water District's home and business on-site conservation efforts for over two decades. In 2017, he was selected as one of the 14 community heroes under the annual community assessment project based on his water-wise home and business survey work, which has helped our customers significantly lower water use, thereby helping to protect our community's groundwater supply. His positive legacy on the district will be felt for many years to come. And now, therefore, be it resolved by the board of directors of Soco Creek Water District, Roy Sykes is hereby recognized for his dedicated 21-year career and to his countless contributions to the district. And we all join in extending our sincere appreciation for his loyalty, professionalism, and years of service as we wish him an adventure-filled and well-deserved retirement. All right, so we now have to vote on this. I'll move approval of that resolution. I'll second. So Tom and Rachelle. And let's see, do we have to do a? We're going to do a roll call vote, but I think we need to hear public comment. OK, public comment. Thank you for the reminder, Mackenzie. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your service. And thank you for your kindness. I am not a customer of the district, but I talk with many, many people who are. Many people mention your name as one of the great examples of kindness and helpfulness, really sincere interest in helping people solve problems. So I just want to say thank you. Thank you. All right, so we have a motion and many, many people who value you, Roy, so roll call. Can I just add one thing as well? So I had the opportunity to sit next to Roy for several years as office mates. And I think we get to see the side of Roy as the district representative going out and representing. He has such a strong work ethic. We were able to share a small office during the height of really kind of advancing conservation. And he was out doing waterwise house calls. The majority of the day. And then coming in and answering calls. He is really a great human being, a great dad. I got to learn a little bit about music. And I'm really going to miss you. OK, so now roll call. Director Baguni. Yes. Vice President Lither. Yes. Director LeHue. Absolutely. Director Christensen. President Jaffee. Definitely. Thank you, Roy. Do you want to come up and take some pictures? Picture? Oh. OK, I wish you were here. You started like a month after I did. Oh, yeah. Oh, it seems like you just can't remember. All right, well, that brings us to 7.2. Consider adoption of resolution. We already did that. Sorry. For the 7.3, request for approval of proposed changes to water conservation rebate program. And that's you, Shelley. That would be me. Right. So under the board's leadership, the district has had a really robust rebate program over the last 20 years. And conservation program as a whole to really provide that protection against sea water intrusion and overdraft while we develop the supplemental water supply. Rebates have been very successful in reducing water demand. And our per capita water consumption right now is amongst the lowest in the state. As recent demand has stayed low, regardless of whether we're in a drought or not, I think it can be concluded that those are some structural water savings that have been achieved, not just subject to behavioral changes. And so over the past 10 years, we've really seen kind of some declines in our rebate program. And we think there's several or multiple reasons for that, including high saturation of fixtures due to our longstanding programs that Roy's played a big part in, as well as the water demand offset program where we've done a lot of direct install, toilet replacements and shower heads, and also the retrofit on sale ordinance that was in effect for a number of years that anytime a property sold, the fixtures had to be upgraded. Building and plumbing code requirements, mandating high efficiency fixtures have been in effect, I think since like 2016, and that is required all new construction and remodels to be more efficient. Advances in technology, things have come a long way since 2000 when toilets were, I think 1.6 toilets were just coming out and now we're down to 0.8 gallon per flush. Greater market availability and cost parity of efficient fixtures and devices and natural replacement of aging fixtures. So we think those are all some of the things that are resulting in the numbers tapering off. We're proposing tonight for the board to consider paring down the rebate program a bit, eliminating 12 of the 19 total rebates that we have, which right now is amongst the most of any of the water utilities in the county and probably beyond that as well. The reasons why we're suggesting some be eliminated, low participation, again, high saturation, low water savings on a per rebate basis and or rebates that are fixture replacements that would have happened otherwise due to kind of natural causes without the rebate incentive. And so attachment one and the board memo tonight does go through each of those individual rebates and kind of list the basis why we think we may want to eliminate them at this time. The rebates include commercial toilets, urinals, clothes washer, shower heads and ice machines. We've had really low participation amongst commercial entities for a number of years, even though we've done a lot of direct outreach to those customers and so there's just, I think people are just busy and it's low on their radar. Rainwater systems, spray to drip conversion, on-demand hot water recirculation systems, residential shower heads, rainwater downspout redirect, rain sensor shutoffs and pool covers are the ones that we're proposing to eliminate. Even with the elimination of those, we still have what we consider to be an above average strong rebate program that focuses on those things that do get good participation, have high water savings potential and those that really incentivize people to go out and purchase something that they might not otherwise do. So if any changes to the program are desired, it's beneficial to also make them at this time as we're kind of looking at our whole organization, Water Resources Department and in particular with Roy Leading, how we absorb those duties internally and one of the things that we're also looking at doing is off-roading our long-time water conservation tracking software that's a third-party software and we think that we can do something in-house, much more simpler and also more cost-effective so that'll save about $22,000 a year. So we're looking at kind of getting clarity on what you wanna see in the rebate program before we actually make the switch just to make it easier to accommodate that. Should the board approve the proposed changes to eliminate these rebates, we would grant like a 90-day grace period. We've done that with other rebate program changes over the years where if a customer submits a rebate application within that period, we go ahead and approve it even though we're terminating the rebate. We would also outreach those changes via our website and our monthly quicksips. And so that's kind of how we would implement these changes and make sure that customers were aware of them. So with that, there's some motions tonight for you to either approve the proposal as is or with modifications or take no action. Thank you. Welcome. All right, public comment. Thank you, Becky Steinbrenner. I'm curious why, what would happen if you just didn't take anything off? I can see a perception in the public when this comes out in social media or whatever that you're reducing the opportunities for conservation. Couple that with the overall message that the last rate increases gave by decreasing water costs for the higher users and sort of penalizing those who conserved. I think this is not gonna be a very good optic that your district wants. So I would like to respectfully request that you leave them on all of those and do more such as leave the conservation tracking device that you have in place. It costs $22,000, but with that level of information, can you leverage grants for larger water conservation projects? I am sorry to see commercial drip conversion go away because I think that's a real opportunity to save further water. And I think as water prices increase sometime, there will be more commercial accounts changed to that. I would like to see the Rainwater Sisters collection continued. And I would like to see some addition of people who have property within Andy Fisher's recharge initiative parcels of being very good recharge, natural recharge, to have the district encourage and fund rainwater collection and recharge at their homes and commercial sites. It is a public requirement of the county that they keep the stormwater on the premises, commercial accounts, thank you. No other, wait, there was another public comment, Marilyn? Marilyn Garrett, water conservation, the whole hydraulic cycle is so disrupted what we read. And I think one way to help with water conservation is to urge a halt to geoengineering and the nanoparticles that are coming out act as desiccants and a source of information. I mean, everybody, it's imperative to stop this. You're a water district. Geoengineeringwatch.org is an excellent source with Dane, Wiggington, and there's a video on there called the Deming. But what is in our water is so toxic that it can't be removed with these aluminum, barium, strontium, nanoparticles, microplastics. We're in big trouble and all wildlife is affected. I have some cards like in the ocean, there are over 500 dead zones. The climate engineering's totally disrupting the hydraulic cycle. I'll lead you with this. This is about water conservation. That's what I'm talking about. Overall water conservation is to help stop geoengineering. All right, thank you very much. And I'll give you a piece. Any other public comments? No? Okay, any questions or comments from the directors? Um, so through the last 20 something years, 21 that we've added rebates, I mean, I know you said it's nice to kind of make a decision now, but we can always add another rebate if something comes up, correct? Sure, seems like we've done that over the years. Like if somebody comes up with an idea that it might have better, you know, participation or water savings. Okay, I just wanted to clarify that. It's like not like this is the end all be all. It's just like saying, okay, this is the stuff that nobody's using. I mean, some of these, there's just zeros for the last few years. So yeah, and there's a whole lot of information on the website on each rebate that does have to be maintained and kept current. We try to provide information to customers about where to find some of these fixtures, links to like water saving tips website or gray water alliance for the gray water rebate. So those things, even though, you know, nobody's using them and there's maybe the thought that why don't we just keep them because it doesn't take any staff time, but we do have to maintain both the website information and the rebate forms. And so anytime there's program changes, we have to change all 20. So if there's things that aren't really useful, you know, we may wanna consider eliminating them to make it more efficient for staff to manage what we do have and really focus on the things that we've kept. I mean, I guess, and me personally, most of those are fine. I had a little trouble with like still, like just this last fiscal year, like five commercial clothes washers because that seems like, even though there's not high participation, it still seems like it saves a lot of water in a commercial washer, but anyway. Any other? Yeah, just really quick. I'm so happy to see that we're responsive and the district is continuing to prioritize the conservation, but making changes and responding. I would consider keeping the rainwater cisterns. I think that's a really cool thing I have one. I think they're great, the district has one. So just my two cents, thank you. I speak from the other side. I have done all those energy saving and the water saving appliances and toilets and things like that, but I don't think I've ever, I don't think it was ever on my radar to apply for a rebate. And I have a feeling most of the district is that, even though I know it was on their website, it wasn't from lack of information. It was just like, why need to do this and that's what I'm doing. And so I think some of the ones, I'd like to know what, like if someone next year, after this is, if this were to be expired, some of these things came and said, they wanted a rebate. What would the, for some discontinued pool cover, for example, like what is involved to processing that? So the rebate application comes in. It goes to, used to go to Roy. He would verify that it met the rebate conditions and they vary. So things like turf replacement have a pre-inspection that has to be done and we go through all the requirements with the customer. So it's all really clear about what qualifies and what doesn't. So it varies rebate to rebate, but an application is submitted, receipts are submitted. That gets processed and approved. And then it goes to Leslie's department and they make an adjustment on the bill is normally how rebates are paid out unless it's like a special situation and they request a check, but then Leslie's group would cut that. So that's basically it. And then we track those through our, what's called conserve track software is what we've been using for ever since I've been at the district. So at least 15 years, we use that for tracking all of our rebate program participation and then that's how we, you know, generate reports and metrics on the rebate program. Roy likes his retiring. That is from the budget study, budget work job we know the decision isn't being replaced necessarily. I was just wondering how, if we, how this program will be managed in any way? Yeah, so our thoughts right now are that customer service field that's currently under water resources, my team. They work, they've worked quite a bit with Roy on conservation. They do like all the field, you know, service orders and respond to a lot of leak questions. Chris Freels, the supervisor of customer service field has actually worked with Roy back in the turf rebate heyday when it was too much for one person to really manage. And so the thought is that with customer service field moving up and up to financial business services department that Chris would take that on because then he would be working with the billing staff to get that information added to accounts and get people paid or credited the rebates. So that's the thought right now. He's done the turf pre and post inspections and we've been going through the whole rebate process with him and so it should be pretty seamless and I'm not expecting any issues with that. So I think, I mean, you might personally feel like anything that's really useful will get done at this point because we've done, we view the department has done so much work in raising awareness on water conservation but we also think there's a good will. So I'm in favor of keeping the ones that you've had and I'd be open to switching some of the eliminated one, those eliminated rebates. Rebates, we have some of those but I'm fine with, personally I'm fine with the proposed currently. Any other comments? I just have a question. Yeah, go ahead. The sub meter when I just, I guess I'm not clear on how that's working for a rebate. That mainly has been used by like mobile home parks and multifamily that are currently, they were constructed before we had our separate metering requirement. So they're served by one meter but they desire to have better water management and so we give a rebate for them to put in sub meters that they own. They're not the district's meters, they're their meters and then oftentimes they go through the extra process of getting those certified through the weights and measures of the county so that they can bill their residents by unit. So it saves about 15% is what the studies show for multifamily or a duplex possibly that is served by one meter and they wanna bill the tenants separately. Would it be reasonable to propose a motion then? I haven't commented on that. That's some changes. Oh, sorry. No motion till I comment, please. That's something I'd say might make a difference in your motion or might not. So we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with Pure Water Soquel as a way to accelerate the healing of our aquifer to get us on the road to sustainability. We're not there yet and it may be a decade or two before we're at sustainability. Let me see if I understand correctly the reasons to get rid of these are because the webpage has to be maintained on your list and what are the other reasons for getting rid of the rebates? Well, the primary reasons are low participation, low water savings and these could be in combination a lot of them are. There's saturation. I mean we've some of these things. Yeah, that's the reason you're not getting people. That it's more saturated. I agree with that, but I don't see those as being reasons to eliminate things. And the rebate maybe no longer drives people to buy something that goes beyond what somebody would already do anyway. So it's basically like a freebie. That's true. Although we replaced all our front lawn as we thought we were gonna apply for rebate and never did, but the fact there was a rebate got us to the step of replacing it. Like me. It sounds like you. But that's not going away. I just do not see a downside to keeping them. And I agree they might not be used and I hadn't thought about the maintenance on the webpage. Although I guess that could be minimized. You don't really have to update things. But I just, I don't see the downside of keeping them. And I do support the elimination of the 22,000 year tracking and to do something simpler in-house. But I think the message we wanna give our customers is that water conservation is good, even though that we're now in a different paradigm of solving, not solving, of improving the condition of our aquifer by the Pure Water Soquel project, Sea Water Intrusion Prevention Project. I just don't see the downside. So I don't support eliminating any rebates and I do support if there's new rebates that seem like they're worth adding to the list, I do support that. So now you can make your motion. I think that's a good discussion. I did wanna keep some things. So, and that is, I think, I don't think we should make a decision based on somebody or one person retiring. So I wanna make sure we just make it based on other things. And that's not it at all. Okay, I know, I just wanna make sure. And I don't have a super strong feeling one way or the other. I mean, I think some of the things just aren't really used. And so we just really need to know what we're working with and we thought this was a good time to reevaluate the program given all the changes that have happened and all the reduction in water use that's happened over the years. So if you wanna keep them all, that's totally fine. It allows us to move ahead with what we need to do to carry the program forward. I think I will add being a part of the conservation boom and when we were really outreaching to make sure that we were trying to have our customers save as much water as possible, we had a smorgasbord of conservation items and rebates and added every time we met with other agencies and we heard, oh, they were offering that as a rebate, we were very open to adding them. And I feel like it is at a time to reevaluate. We are seeking direction and I think it doesn't mean that conservation won't be still a part of our goals and objectives and using water efficiently. It's kind of like the mentality and I use food sometimes as an analogy. Sometimes you have a menu that is not a lot and you don't have every item that you can imagine on the menu. You have a select view and you're good at those. I think that's a little bit of where we are going with some of our rebate programs is to really focus on the ones that we seem to have a lot of interest still that has maybe some penetration and that we can focus our outreach on that. We will still be outreaching, but it is a little bit easier and I think it can resonate better when we have some very focused ones. I could see that point and I'm not advocating that you have a diffused outreach. If you think there are certain things that resonate with our customers and that will save more water, I encourage you to focus on those in outreach. I think your point was just that you could still have them on the list. You don't have to get rid of them, but you could still focus your outreach on the ones that are most effective. There's a couple that haven't had anything in five years. I was looking at this list also as water saving efficacy. Have you ranked them just independent of whether they're subscribed to or applied for? The list that you're proposing continues. Are there some that are especially water-affected? Oh yeah, the ones that we're proposing to keep the turf rebates, the big one, that's the granddaddy, I think, of all rebates. So, and we did bump up our rebate rate, I think back in 2017 or 2016, we went from a dollar per square foot to $2 per square foot during the last prolonged drought period to encourage people and we've kept it at that. I think it's important that we keep that one because some of the state regulations that are coming down the pipes are gonna really be targeting that. And that is an expensive thing for people to do, so it does incentivize a lot of people to take that action and help them. Toilet rebates, I think keeping that one is really important because we're promoting our fixture efficiency requirements, 0.8 gallons or not, it's one gallon per flush and the green building code is 1.28. So we're going beyond and driving people to seek out those, there's not a ton of them but those toilets that actually save more water than what would normally be occurring. Close washers, that's a tough one because I think there can be some water savings there but those washers these days are not lasting as long as they used to. So I think probably in some cases you may have people replacing a high efficiency washer with another high efficiency washer and your granting rebates for that but that is a very popular rebate and so we do go beyond the energy star requirement which is kind of like the building code standard and so we're driving people to seek out those washers that are more efficient. Weather based irrigation controller is always a good thing to have to get more landscape water efficiency. I think that's really where the water savings still exist is in the landscape area that's discretionary water use. You know, it's just, it's where we have more waste and so focusing on things that really target that like the irrigation controllers, the turf, gray water. That one, even though we don't have good participation for that, there's a high potential for savings. It's expensive to implement and not very many people are really clamoring to do it so we're trying to get them to take advantage of that. We have a super generous gray water rebate. I've never seen a $400 laundry to landscape rebate for gray water that's higher than any of the other ones I've seen and then pressure reducing valves. I think that one does save water. We do have some areas in our service, in our district that have high pressure and so, you know, putting in a pressure reducing valve saves water. It also buys customer goodwill for, you know, not blowing out, you know, appliances and things. So I think that's a great one to keep and, you know, that's kind of some basis for why we're proposing to definitely keep those and, you know, I don't see those going away for a while. Shelly, what do you think about on the second page? There's four that are outdoor related and you said that that has potential for still some savings. The cistern, the rain shutoff sensor, the drip irrigation and the water. Yeah, the cistern, we don't get very good participation and frankly, there's not a lot of opportunity for much water savings there. We don't get rain during the summer months when people need it for irrigation. So it's really not, it's kind of like a token conservation measure unless you get somebody that really wants to put in a large system and typically they're doing that for fire protection reasons, you know, bigger properties. Let's see, drip conversion, that has really, we don't have a lot of properties left that are gonna convert spray irrigation for shrubbery. That's what that's for. So they're irrigating shrubs and bushes with spray irrigation and we're incentivizing them to do that with drip and there's just not a lot of properties that have that left and they've already done that rebate and converted that and there's low participation with that. The rain sensor shutoff, that one has had hardly any participation. There's not much water savings and I don't know, if you have a weather-based irrigation controller that will, with that built in, that will take care of it and you get a rebate for the weather-based irrigation controller, these are the much simpler like add-ons and I just, I don't know that they're worth keeping. It's only a $25 rebate and was there one other one, Melanie? The downspout redirect. So that was taking your rainwater and re-diverting one of your downspouts to a dry well and that really has super low water savings. We're talking about a small amount of water and our groundwater that we're pumping is 400, 500 feet down is that really going to make much difference in terms of protecting and recharging the aquifer, no. So I think those are the reasons why yeah, low participation, low water savings for that one. Our program would, I think we would have more impact if there were the most important things to concentrate on, most ones that the customers might be more interested in. I don't know, I just feel like I think there's a value in having a good curated list of rebates. It just seems like there's a lot of the list that you- Director Christians, can you speak in the microphone? Okay, the list that you come up with is very valuable and I think we should push it, continue to push it. We have a whole page full of rebates, potential rebates. I just think it's deluded the fact. And on the other end of the spectrum, I think you can still focus on the ones that are most effective and still just not get rid of them because I feel like for me, even if one person saves some water with a hot water recirculating system, it's still a win. And so to me, I guess you can vote it down or whatever, you can vote it down or whatever. My motion was gonna be to keep them but just get rid of the software, third party software that you said you don't really need and then just focus your efforts on the ones that are most effective but not get rid of them. So people, if somebody says, hey, wow, that district really cares if I even save a little water by doing this. I don't know, that's my motion. Is there a second? Reluctant second. I mean, with you in spirit, that if I really do want you to empathize, that's good. Any more discussion? Do we need a roll call or can we just use a voice? Voice votes, okay. Okay, whoever speaks the loudest wins. So all in favor of the motion? Aye. No. And all against? Yes, against. Can I make a second motion? You have to wait for the noes. So the motion passes with Director Balboni voting no. Thank you. So that brings us to 7.4, consider revisions of the leak adjustment policy. And that's you, Shelley? That's... Leslie, sorry. That's okay. Shelley and I tag team some of this all at a time. So tonight we're bringing some proposed revisions to our leak adjustment policy to the board. The last time we considered the leak adjustment policy was back in October, 2018, when we were undergoing the last rate study. And now with the new rates, we do need to make some revisions to the policy so that we've got a current policy that we can adjust leaks under for the new rate structure. But in addition to that, we did roll out WaterSmart back in June, 2020. It's hard to believe that was almost four years ago now. And so that is something to consider when we're looking at our leak adjustment policy. So when we last revisited the leak adjustment policy, the things that we adopted at that time, the leak incident or the unintended high use incident had to be reported within three months of the incident occurring. There was a maximum of two consecutive billing periods that could be adjusted. And the adjustment was offered once in a three year period. But if someone were to have a higher leak after their initial adjustment, if they were to then have a higher leak, they could swap out the lower adjustment for the higher adjustment. So that was something that we've been allowing people to do since 2018. Now that we're looking at WaterSmart, and we do have about 67% of district customers who have enrolled in WaterSmart, that is a number I know that there's been some interest in improving upon that. Our customers are getting notified much more quickly about leaks. We have seen our leak adjustments decrease in number and dollar value, even though the rates have increased. So that is definitely lending itself to support that WaterSmart is having an effect on leak notifications and on how quickly customers are adjusting for leaks. So we did go out, we took a look at some of our neighboring agencies and what they were doing in terms of leak adjustments. The frequency of the allowed adjustment is anywhere from once every two years to once every five years. Most people forgive unintended water use or unintended high use. Proof of repair is required or the unintended high use proof that it has stopped. Almost everybody forgives two consecutive billing periods and then the amount of the adjustment varies from agency to agency. Some people just give 50% of the amount attributable to the leak. Others forgive a little bit more like we do. And then I think the city of Santa Cruz is probably the highest adjustment. They forgive all consumption in excess of the prior year. It is interesting to know Scotts Valley Water District did roll out their WaterSmart program not too long ago and they have opted to suspend leak adjustments entirely. They're no longer offering them because of the rapid notification of leaks that come through WaterSmart. So when we looked at our policy again, we were making some recommendations here. There are some items that we would recommend remain unchanged. I think it is a good idea to continue to offer two consecutive billing periods of adjustment because we know that leaks aren't always within a single billing period that can cross into the next billing period. I think the idea of having an adjustment limited to one time in a three year proceeding period is still recommended. However, that is very advantageous and establishes a lot of customer goodwill if we can swap out the higher adjustment if they should have a second leak incident within that timeframe. And then our leak adjustment itself where we forgive 50% of the water use attributed to the leak and then we reduce the remaining 50% down to the highest tier they achieved in the same billing period the prior year has always kind of been our adjustment. And that's a good mix between kind of where some of our other agencies are following. It's not the most stringent adjustment but it's also not the most generous. It's right in the middle. So I recommend that we retain that as well. But some of the things that we're proposing for consideration tonight that you may wanna change. Right now they have three months to notify the office that they've had a leak incident. We're proposing that that be reduced to two months simply because leak notifications are happening so much more frequently now with WaterSmart. We are recommending that to be eligible for an adjustment that the customer must be registered in WaterSmart and enrolled in leak notifications. I think that would actually boost WaterSmart enrollment and really encourage people to get on that platform. Customers who have opted out of an electronic or smart meter would have to opt in and have an electronic or smart meter installed in order to sign up for leak notifications. That's one of the recommendations along with being registered for WaterSmart. We are recommending a minimum leak adjustment amount be $25. We often get customers who wanna leak adjustment for $6 or $3. And administratively it's not worth the time it takes to process the application. So we are recommending that we set a minimum of $25. And then now that we do have WaterSmart, what we used to do is we used to calculate the amount of water attributable to a leak by comparing the current year's consumption against the prior year's consumption and assuming that that difference was due to a leak. Now with WaterSmart and the smart meter information, we can fine tune that a lot better. So I think we should start using the meter data to calculate the amount of water lost to a leak and only rely on that year over year comparison in instances where the meter data isn't conclusive. And then the last one would be to any unintentional water use that continues more than 30 days after the leak notification has been sent out would not qualify for an adjustment. And that would encourage people to fix those leaks a little more quickly than they often do. So this evening, we're asking you to go ahead and take a look at the proposed changes to go ahead if you agree to the changes to go ahead and by motion approve the leak adjustment policy or to give us direction on something that you'd like to change and we can bring it back with provisions. Thank you, Leslie. Any public comment? Thank you, Becky Steinbrunner. I do not think it's fair to penalize people who opt out of getting a smart meter. There are a lot of reasons for not having one. And I don't think it's right to penalize people who make the choice not to have one that they cannot then benefit by any leak adjustment. So I'm against that. Secondly, I wanna know if all areas of the district are able to opt in to the smart meters. I remember hearing your board discussing areas of the district such as Cathedral Drive and more rural areas, they can't because there's no internet connection or it's not a good connection. So I am not in favor of those changes. And I think lowering the time to respond to apply for it by a month is also not wise because there are many absentee land property owners in this county that may need that extra time even before they realize, especially if they're not in that smart meter thing. Thank you. Thank you. Marilyn, comments on the leak adjustment policy. Smart meters, isn't that a clever title? It's smart. And if you don't agree with it by definition, you're dumb, right? Smart meters emit pulse microwave radiation. They've caught fire, they cause cancer, sleeping disturbances, all kinds of problems. And I've addressed this before, it's quite appalling to me so I'm totally against wireless microwave technology and every time you hear smart with everything and I think deadly, harmful, deceptive corporate profit. That's what it's really about. In terms of leaks here, I was thinking, I was here when people testified about being charged enormous amounts for leaks. They didn't know it was taking place. I'm thinking of a larger leak thing with your so-called pure water that I call poop water where there've been many spills with this contamination with chemicals of the water table. And where are the fines of those who approve that on behalf of the corporations for these enormous leaks? I listened to the corporate crimes reporter, not little people causing a tiny bit of damage but the corporations of which this poop water project is a huge part, those are the big leaks that should be stopped. Thank you. Any questions or comments from the directors? Just quickly, I wanted to thank you for your hard work on the leak policy, obviously offering the leak adjustment demonstrates the district's commitment to customer satisfaction and encourages water conservation by incentivizing the prompt repair of the leaks. Thank you. I just wanted to share that I was in Hawaii in January and I got a alert that I had a running toilet. So I called up my house sitter and said, will you shut off the toilet in the downstairs bathroom? I think it's running and so he did and then it went away. So it has helped me like within a day if you choose to have the alerts, of course. I do appreciate that. I was gonna say it was pretty, I thought you were pretty creative in trying to craft this to be up to date and then also try and encourage people to enroll in WaterSmart and to try and get, know about their leaks sooner because that'll just save more water. So I just wanted to compliment you on those new ideas. Oh, yeah, at first I was a little concerned with, because I know there are a lot of non-computer savvy or internet savvy people, a lot of retirees in this district and so on. But I was just wondering if you signed up for the smart meter. Does the customer have to report it or could you give them the noticing of a leak? Leak. We can tell when they've enrolled in WaterSmart and we can see if they're signed up for leak notifications. Yeah, but if they had a leak and they didn't know how to figure out how to access. Typically what they do is they get their leak notification and if they're not sure how to find out where the leak is, they contact the office. They either email us or call us. They're getting notified by the district. Yeah, that's what I want. That's, I should turn this on. If we don't have a customer's email and so they're not gonna get the automated alert from WaterSmart, staff is following up on those when they exceed kind of our threshold. So we contact people by phone. If we can't get them by phone, we roll a truck out there, leave a door hanger. If we encounter leaks that are over a certain threshold, we actually shut them off at the house valve or the meter to prevent further water loss. So it's a combination effort with WaterSmart and then staff following up on the, doing the cleanup work basically. Now you had, I think it's a great, complicated and challenging rollout and you did a really good job. And Shelly, can you clarify for us how many customers we have who have opted out of the electronic? I think we only have about less than 25 customers that have opted out. And they would be given an opportunity to opt back in to claim a leak adjustment, but without having a smart meter, we really can't, it's hard to calculate the adjustment and there, those leaks could run a lot longer. It could run a whole month if they started, you know, day one of the reading cycle. They could run that whole time and we won't even know until day 30 when we go back out to reread the meter and then notify the customer. So that's kind of the big benefit of the smart metering. And if it's an intermittent leak, like a toilet, it's not always readily obvious. Yeah, it might not, you know, when we read the meter, it might not be happening, but later that day it flares up again. So I have to get the details, but my neighbor who's 90 had leaks that she didn't know about for a while and I'm not sure how she missed them, you know, and it may be that she just didn't notice, but she did notice when she got her bill and I think she called and you guys worked with her, but I'm just trying to figure out how is people that aren't savvy whether they're computers or those are the ones that, you know, they're older and they have, they're on a fixed income and all of that stuff. That's only, I know you can't tell me how many there are. Yeah, there are, but we do know there are some. Most often, especially for elderly customers, they've got a family member that can assist them with enrollment or understanding the leak notifications. In extreme instances, we could grant a variance. That's my policy, yeah. See? So that was gonna be one of my questions. If somebody isn't able to enroll by themselves or maybe doesn't have family members, they can help them. The district will help them enroll. I take that, that's good. And then if somebody doesn't have a smart meter, and I guess I'm a little confused and they have a leak, so they will not get any money for the leak unless they put a smart meter in. Right, that's what we're proposing. And if somebody has a smart meter and isn't in WaterSmart and has a leak, they don't get any money for the leak unless they enroll. In WaterSmart. In WaterSmart. That's clear. They would still get notified by the district? They're still gonna get notified if we have, even if they're not registered for WaterSmart, that we have an email on file. The system will still notify them of a leak, but we're just now requiring that they officially register. There's a lot more you can do with the customer portal beyond just get leak notifications. You can set high use alerts. You can set high bill alerts. Unanticipated use when you're gonna be away from your home and you could say if any water goes through this meter, I wanna get an alert. Alerts can go out through email, phone or text. So even if somebody's not computer savvy, if they register, they can opt in and set their notification to be phone and at least get a phone call of a leak. Yeah. I set multiple notifications. You can do that too to see whether it's just your kids are home from college or whether there's something really going on. Party, yeah. Your neighbor, we've heard neighbors who've used some of these water when they've been on vacation. So is there any more questions or comments? I'm gonna move approval. Second. We propose. So it's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? You're opposed? Four-one. Now at 7.5, consider approval of scope of work, fee and proposal for professional engineering design services for centralized exavellient chromium treatment facility at Bonita Well site. That's Tosh. Good evening. I'll try to be brief, but I understand that some of you, I know maybe three of you haven't been through exavellient chromium history. So I'll do my best to summarize the past and try to forecast the future. Over 10 years ago, the state set an MCL maximum contaminant level for exavellient chromium specific. At the time and still currently, the state has a total chromium MCL that's set at 50 parts per billion. The federal standard is 100 parts per billion for total chromium. And when the state set that limit back in 2014, our district was compliant. We planned for it. We invested a lot of time and money. We had a pilot system that was up and running, treating water. We never were, we were never out of compliance. In 2017, the state was sued or they were sued prior to that, but in 2017, the state was lost a lawsuit about how they established the MCL. So that was rescinded and we let our pilot plant, we released it from rental. And so for the past seven years, we have not been treating for exavellient chromium. The state has slowly progressed in its efforts to reestablish an MCL specific to exavellient chromium. And they are scheduled tomorrow to adopt a final MCL ironically at the same level as it was previously, 10 parts per billion. The district has three wells. Predominantly, the exavellient chromium is in the Aromas Red Sands aquifer. And we have three very active production wells in the seascape area that are expected known to be above that level. So what we have done in the past is not lost. We've invested a lot of time and energy. We've actually installed raw water mains from two of the wells to one of the Benita well site. And that will allow us to build one treatment plant that can treat all three wells. We're trying to be proactive here. Obviously the MCL is not in effect. We anticipate it to be approved tomorrow without much hesitation. And the reason that we're trying to be proactive is that it doesn't, we can't build one overnight. We have done a lot of legwork. We've done sequel, we've done coastal permitting efforts. But the design and the construction still takes time. We anticipate the effective date or compliance to be January 1st of 2025. It could be sooner than that. I don't think it'll be later than that. And fortunately, unlike the prior MCL, the state has included a proposed compliance period for our system of our size, it's two years. So we will still have to show Department of Division of Drinking Water that we have a compliance plan, a schedule, et cetera. Between now and 2027, when we anticipate the requirement to comply will be in place. These three wells are roughly a quarter of our district's supply overall. And in the actual sub area, it's close to 70%. So they're big wells. They're the backbone of that area. We have a team that has helped us over the years that a very experienced, respected team that we have one member online. If there are any specific questions that I can't answer, Chad Seidel with Corona Environmental Consulting, a familiar name to some of you, a very familiar name to the regulators, to the state, a respected name. Also in the audience is Ashu Shiroukar with Black and Veach. And Ashu and his design team guided us over the years and we were actually, we're going to reuse some of the design efforts previously established that we pickled in order to try to make as much progress as possible in a quick time period. The one thing that has changed over the years is back in 2014, 15, 16, 17, we were treating Chromium-6 with strong-based ion exchange resin, very similar to a water softener technology where you regenerate the resin with a salt brine. It's a very complicated process. It's not too similar to your water softener because we would do regeneration on site and have a brine to dispose of. We are going to, part of this proposal includes some pilot testing and some desktop screening of the available technology just to revisit the options, not a very extensive effort, but just making sure we don't overlook whether we want to, we're proposing, we anticipate moving away from strong-based ion exchange and likely exploring reduction, coagulation and filtration and that's reducing Chromium-6 to Chromium-3 and then filtering it out with a media filter. That's traditionally a lot larger capital investment just with the size of the vessels. And it's a relatively limited site. There are long-toed salamanders documented in the area. So we have a limited construction window. But there is a construction schedule or a design schedule that is included in the Batboard packet that is realistic. And so we are, and if you look at the schedule it wouldn't get us to where we need to be. That is in 2027, January, 2027, be compliant. But it's likely the best we can do. We are going to meet with our local branch of Division of Drinking Water next month to discuss compliance planning and what that would look like. But we're recommending that we begin this effort. There's no promises that the state won't be sued again. But we can only do what's in front of us and make progress towards the effort. I think we should maybe revisit awarding a construction contract if between now and then the state gets sued again. Any questions for me, Corona Environmental or Black and Veatch? Question, what's the national standard? I can't remember. It was 10, MPL was 10. There is no national standard for hexavalent chromium. There is a national standard for total chromium and it's a hundred parts per billion. As I recall, it wasn't Canada's. It's a hundred as well. Six, 50. It may have been and then they went back to a hundred. For chromistics. Yes, I could be mistaken and if Chad wants to correct me, he can. He would know. So I had a question about timing. So going with the different, the newer or the other technology that we use for iron and manganese, that doesn't make it any faster, right? The timeframe is still the process and everything still takes the same length of time. To construct it, design and construct it. Yeah, yes. And board Chad Seidel here, if you wish. Yes, please. I can answer the hexavalent chromium question for Health Canada. So Health Canada did revise their guidelines and put in place in 2018, a health guideline for total chromium at 50 micrograms per liter or parts per billion. So US EPA, total chromium MCL at 100, as you referenced, Health Canada at 50 parts per billion for total chromium and California again, contemplating and expecting tomorrow to finalize a hexavalent chromium specific MCL at 10 parts per billion. Thank you. I worked on that years ago. I guess they never came to it. We should have public comment at some point here. Okay, just a quick question for Ashu. I was just wondering about the other RCF that's been used is in, I guess, Las Lomas. And are you guys doing that? Okay, maybe you could just answer though, why only one so far? Since you came all this way, Ashu, I figured. We should ask you a question. Yeah, I'll try my best to answer and then Chad can chime in. But to my understanding, the RCF technology was being piloted at Watsonville for the specific reason of chromium six removal. I think my answer would be that since the MCL has been on hold, there hasn't been much development on progressing with the validation of this technology for specifically for hexavalent chromium. And that's what we're hoping to achieve in the initial phase of the project. I don't have the specifics of that single installation that we have, I apologize. But Chad, do you have anything to add? Yes, I'd be glad to address that. So California Water Service implemented hexavalent chromium treatment at several well sites prior to the MCL being vacated, as Taj described. One of those was the first installation as referenced at their Las Lomas district just south of the district area there. There were others that were in planning, including for Watsonville and some in Southern California that were all put on hold when the MCL was vacated. Several of those efforts, including in Watsonville and further in Southern California are underway to resume implementation. And there's an expectation that that technology, given the advancement that were made prior to, just prior, frankly, to the MCL going away, look to show that that will be the most effective solution in many cases across the state, certainly in the case of the district, which is really the first effort to validate that. First part of the scope is to assess and revalidate that under current day conditions, given potential changes that may have occurred in the last seven years. If I may add just one thing, the CalWater that Las Lomas looks like, that's a separate RCF technology. We did design for Cal of Carcal Am several well sides, but that used a non-regional able ion exchange technology, which is separate from the one that district is considering before. I have another question. What about, I remember the waste, Brian was a problem with the strong based ion exchange. Is that less of a problem with this? We don't anticipate it to be a problem because it'll be reduced to chromium three, which is an essential nutrient. Part of the effort will be working with sanitation to quantify the waste stream. And that'll be- It's like a big advantage. It is. So the pilot testing will establish that criteria and I'm sure sanitation will want that information. But in addition to it, it's the same type of technology that our current staff is used to doing with iron and manganese and reducing those and filtering them. It was what, were you testing some other pilot? Yeah, it was Stannis Coal Ride. And, yeah, very good memory. Chad is familiar with this as well. It was not, I don't believe, established as a best available technology by the state. There have been some, and we actually did a little bit of testing with it. It was not readily available on the market. I think one or two vendors had it and it has to be NSF approved certified. We don't anticipate that being a viable, acceptable solution by the state. I know some agencies are trying to push for that, but there's a concern with chlorine in the water that it may re-reduce after it gets put into the system. Of the issue- There wouldn't, yeah. Anyways, I don't know if you're really interested in that. It'll be probably part of the desktop analysis and you can learn more as the work has progressed. We still haven't had public comment though. So, public comment? Yeah, they were good questions. Thank you and thank you, Mr. DeFore, for the good history to bring everyone up currently about what has happened. I did participate in some of the hearings in Sacramento on this last year and I'm not surprised that this is what is happening now. So my question regarding the districts moving forward is the environmental quality study that will need to be updated. It's over 10 years old using a different technology and the discharge location and backwash water will have to be identified and the effects of that identified and analyzed with concrete documentation from the sanitation district if they would accept it and if so, at what price and how that would affect their operations. So I suppose that would be the same issue if you stayed with the item X technology. I'm sorry, did I say something wrong? I'm seeing you talking amongst yourself. There was just a technical problem, keep going, please. Okay, well, if I've said something that's not right, please correct me because I'm only going from what I've read in your documentation. So correct me if I'm wrong. But I do wanna see the CEQA aspect of this updated with new studies and definite documentation from the sanitation district as to how the waste would be handled. Thank you. Thank you. There's no other public here. Any more comments or questions from the directors? Anyone wanna make a motion? I'll move to, I'll second it. I'm trying to leave some silence there. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Passes unanimously. Okay, that brings us to the last item on the admin business. So presentation on proposed organizational review and staffing updates. Good evening, board. We haven't had a late meeting, quite this late in a while. So I'll do my best to try and make it brief. This is an informational item, item 7.6 to discuss the district's organization. We're asking the board to consider some items that we've been considering for a number of months and actually a number of years as we've been contemplating some changes as it results in our world changing with Pure Water Soquel coming on board. As I understand it, there'll be other opportunities to weigh in on this later. Yes, this is an informational item. We felt that this was a pretty heavy one. And so we wanted to give the board an opportunity to take a look at it tonight with an intention to bring this back for board action on May 7th at the May 7th meeting. Thank you. So I'm gonna take some time. I know we're getting late in the evening, but I think some of the details in this memo are pretty important to cover. And so I do wanna take the time to go through the memo rather than doing a lot of paraphrasing and summarizing. And I really wanna have an opportunity to open up if questions have come up in your review or as I discussed some of these potentials. As you know, we had a budget presentation tonight and in conjunction with our budget process, we always take a lot of time to discuss staffing and the information in tonight's memo is proposing some staff reconfiguration. And again, we anticipate bringing this back to the board as an action item on May 7th. We regularly assess our staffing. We, I come to the board quite often throughout the year with staffing adjustments that are made based upon evaluation of what's needed for our agency. And this picture is a little more broad, a little bigger than I've done in the past. And really when we've taken a look at the recent leadership changes that are coming up with the general manager, Ron Duncan's announced retirement and with the board's appointment at our last board meeting of Melanie Mao-Schumacher to fulfill the GM position. We really felt it was an opportune time as the board's contemplating its budget for the next fiscal year to assess the district's overall organizational structure and to ensure that our staffing is aligned to support both current and future priorities. Got a lot of things coming up. And these staffing conversations are conversations that we've been having as a leadership team for a few years. And we've actually made some adjustments early on in anticipation of some of the changes with Pure Water Soquel coming on board. And so this is just kind of that fuller picture. We're feeling pretty confident that we know some of the assumed positions that we were holding onto for quite some time. And so as the picture is becoming a little bit more clear, we feel now is the right time to present this information to the board. So I have presented a couple of attachments that might help you follow along. We do have our current org chart and we do have a proposed org chart. So hopefully that was a visual representation of some of the changes that we're contemplating. Super helpful. Okay, great, thanks. So I'm just gonna go ahead and kick right into the effects to our departments. The first department that will be profiling is the special projects, communications or outreach department. We talked a little bit about some of the changes with Ron and Melanie. And as a result of those changes, we anticipate kind of the collapse of the special projects department and kind of incorporating some staff into the admin department. And those staff would be the public outreach coordinator would move to the admin department as well as the communications specialist would remain in the administration department. That position is limited term. That's a position that we brought on board specifically to work with outreach efforts during the Pure Water Soquel construction process. The two other positions that are currently in the special projects communications department, we have an assistant engineer too. We're proposing that that position move to the engineering department. And the water resources planner position that position was designed to really work with a lot of the regulation, regulatory and compliance and permitting and based upon a lot of the assessments that we've made and anticipated needs along with Pure Water Soquel, we feel that that position makes a lot of sense to actually bring on as a permanent position with our agency. And so part of the proposal is changing that from a limited term position into our regular staffing plan and moving that position to the water resources department. As you know, as part of this structural change, we did change the water resources department a little over a year ago from a conservation customer service field to water resources. So with that concept in mind, moving forward, we look to really kind of have that strong focus of water resources in that department. And we're proposing to move water quality and water sampling, which are currently in the O&M department to provide a more aligned emphasis to our district wide water resources and to assist with some of the assumed Pure Water Soquel workload impacts. Part of the duties right now, it's always been sort of a random duties assigned for the water quality coordinator and our water sampling technician. They handle all of our stores keeping. So they handle all of the inventory, purchasing, supply and distribution of our parts and materials for our O&M department. We're a small agency and sometimes we wear funny hats. And that's one of those funny hats that we have spent a lot of time talking about as a leadership team. And we really found that, definitely with maybe some of the impacts of water quality and some of the increased water sampling just made a lot of sense. How can we carve out that adjunct duty and maybe have a more efficient system? It might lend itself to some better cost savings, a little bit more focus than having it as an adjunct duty to some other positions in the agency. And so we're proposing that we carve those duties out of those two positions, keeping that in O&M and creating a part-time position to focus on that as well as some other adjunct duties with O&M. The customer service field work unit, which is currently in the water resources department. And Leslie did talk about some of this in her presentation tonight in the budget workshop. The customer service field work unit will be deployed to the finance and business services department. We hope that that will really develop a little bit more cohesion in our customer service efforts. If some of you have been on the board for a long time, you may recall the customer service field unit actually used to be part of finance and business services. When we created the conservation department, it actually migrated back out. So it's kind of shifting back a little bit. And those two work groups, those two teams work really closely together now. And so we think that having them fall under one scope of management just kind of makes some sense in light of some of the other changes that we're proposing. Leslie did talk about the staff analyst position. We've had a 1.0 staff analyst for a number of years. And in the last four years, she's been working a 0.7 which we've honored. We talked to that individual and she was interested in keeping that as a full-time or a permanent 0.7 part-time position. She does a great job at that 0.7 level. And we feel that based on her workload and anticipated changes in water resources, that staffing level made sense for us to be able to maintain that going forward in our staffing plan. And then carving out the 0.3 of that full-time equivalent, or FTE, to be used for that store's position, which would be more than likely a not as high-paid position as a staff analyst level. So provides a little bit of cushion to create a halftime position in stores. The conservation specialist, as we know, Roy is retiring at the end of this month. And with the district's shift in expanding to a holistic conservation approach, looking at that position and identifying if that was something that we needed at the full-time level, a lot of conservation efforts actually have been already adopted by our customer service field team. They've kind of switched their gears a little bit and Roy actually switched his gears a little bit just because some of those efforts have waned after COVID, they definitely waned. We recognized there were some efficiencies that we could build into our conservation efforts. Roy picked up some customer service field work and there was just a lot more sharing of some of those responsibilities. And so we really took a long hard look at that position to determine whether or not we wanted to maintain that as a full-time position. And we felt that that FTE or that full-time equivalent might be better served in another department to be able to absorb some of the efforts that we know we're going to have to deal with on the operations and maintenance side of the house. And so we're proposing that that position be eliminated, maintaining a good conservation efforts, as we're doing right now through our customer service field unit, as well as the supervisor in that position. I think Shelly talked a little bit about that position hanging on to some of the rebate responsibilities as well as some of the other direct contact, direct customer contact. And then Alissa, our staff analyst, really has been helping a lot on the conservation side and we expect her to maintain some of those efforts as well. So again, customer service field unit moves to finance business services, reclassify the conservation specialist FTE, the water quality program coordinator and the water sampling technician would move from O and M to water resources and the staff analyst position would be reduced from 1.0 to 0.7 FTE. The operations and maintenance department, some of the things we've talked about have already alluded to what we are proposing for the O and M changes. We would take the FTE adding an FTE as a water systems operator, again collapsing the FTE from the conservation specialist position. We also are eliminating an FTE actually with Melanie's position once she moves to the general manager that would be the absorption of the FTE in our staffing plan that would also move to O and M and then adding the 0.5 stores position. And just in terms of what we've done communication wise and how we've been talking with staff and rolled this out to our groups and to their respective labor representatives. Last week we had each department manager met individually with their department to talk about the changes that were happening and that we were contemplating and bringing to the board tonight as an informational item. We let them know what our timeline was and sharing this information with you. We wanted to make sure that we got the feedback from them and that our intention was to bring it to the board for action on May 7th. We then, that was Wednesday, was very choreographed and so each department had a one-on-one conversation with their managers. And then we all got together the following morning, Thursday morning and we had an all hands meeting. We felt a good night's sleep and kind of thinking about some of these changes might elicit some good conversation the next day. And we also wanted to make sure that our employees who were hearing this departmentally that there was a collective understanding that each person or each department heard the same set of information. So we went through it with them again the next morning and talked about the details. And we had a Melanie make breakfast for everyone and we had a really nice breakfast meeting and got some good questions. We also sent notice to our SEIU, SEIU as the represented group for our field and office staff as well as the mid-management group. Obviously some of these changes have an impact, a potential impact to working conditions and so we have an obligation to meet and talk and those notices went out and we're scheduling meetings to have discussions with them on some of the potential impacts and effects for labor. So that is in a nutshell what we are contemplating and we would definitely like some feedback from the board if you had time to think about this and looking at the packet since it's come out and any questions I might be able to answer for you tonight. Let's take public comment first and no comment from public. Right, any comments from directors? No, I just trust and respect that you guys are doing a great job and doing the right thing. Yay. I have a question, but in the change, the proposed change in the organizational chart is there gonna be some fluidity between the pure water socal and repositions? There it goes. We definitely know that there'll be a lot of interface with pure water socal. As you know, you approved an assistant, excuse me, an associate manager of water resources six months ago and we hired that position. That's really our key position to have that interface with our contractors who will be running the plant as well as really connecting with our operations and maintenance team, really kind of being that interface and catalyst. We also expect that the water resources planner that we're proposing that had been part of our pure water socal construction phase of things to actually be a really good connecting point for what's happening. And we're looking at pure water socal as becoming part of us. And so I think all of us will have that type of connection, certainly more positions than others, but yeah, is that just an alternative operation? Yeah, I think a lot of times people view pure water socal as the water purification center that's on Chanticleer and rightly so, cause that's where kind of the magic is happening with the purified recycled water, but the actual project itself is the eight miles of pipeline, the three C water intrusion prevention wells, the monitoring wells and also the facilities down at Santa Cruz. So we see this as being kind of like what Tracy was saying, you know, it's becoming us. So whether it's interfacing with the city of Santa Cruz with Jacobs or within our own staff, it's gonna be a day-to-day activity for everybody. A couple questions and one is just how did you feel the staff responded to the changes at that meeting? I always pick up on the vibe of the room and we were outside, so it was the vibe of the outside. I felt like I was so nervous for this meeting to happen. These are big changes and changes aren't always easy and we know that and we recognize that this impacts a lot of people. And I was actually breathed a sigh of relief in feeling that there was a receptiveness. We got feedback, I had feedback that came through, you know, just on its own and I know all of the managers did as well. And one of the common themes we got was this kind of makes a lot of sense. And so I'm sure we'll deal with a little more touchy situations as we sit down and discuss maybe some of the labor impacts, but on the whole I felt that there was some valid questions that came through, but on the whole I felt like it was well-received and people just wanna know how it's gonna impact them and when and where I'm gonna be sitting. And so there's a lot of work to be done. This is just kind of peeling out that first layer, the union to really get through some of that hard stuff. Another question I had was, so Ron had an assistant general manager. So who helps you and there's a lot of stuff going on, Melanie? I think that's part of adaptive planning in terms of our organization chart. This is what we're putting forward based upon kind of doing that analysis and assessment of where the organization is going. Again, trying to take the project and integrate it amongst our workforce, what level of effort is gonna be required of an assistant general manager going forward? We're not quite sure. So I think at this point, what we're looking at is trying to identify the tasks, jobs and responsibilities where it is today. We still have Ron here. And so it's a little bit like juggling or putting pieces of pegs where we think they go, but I appreciate that the question because I think what Tracy has continued to say to me is we can reevaluate. And I think that's the piece that we wanna continue to hold. And then my last question is just, I wondered if would it make sense for human resources to be part of admin? We've talked about that a little bit, but at this time, we're not proposing that. I mean, because it seems to be setting out there by itself. I think a lot of times, how it is on paper and then again, how we function on a day-to-day basis. I think a lot of times when we have department meetings or we collaborate with a team, we will kind of integrate already between admin and HR or outreach and even would sometimes go into admin. So it is something that we've kind of talked about and thought about. Okay. Any other questions, comments? Informational only. Thank you for the presentation. And we'll revisit it in May. So that brings us to item eight, adjournment. Oh no. Oh wait. Yeah, 4.1. That's right, 4.10. Wishful thinking. Sorry. Oh wait. So this was pulled from the consent agenda considered by Jennifer, consider approval of contract amendment for professional legal and litigation services related to Pure Water SoCal program. Sure. Do you want me to give a background or? No, no, no. I just had a couple of things for clarity. Is that okay if I just ask for a couple of quick things? Yeah. So the litigant Ms. Steinbrenner, she has brought six. This is the sixth lawsuit brought by this litigant. Okay. And she's not a rate payer. That's correct. Okay. And then the physical impact to each connection in our district is $85.83. Is that correct? Each, yeah, each connection is costing us $85.83. That is for the professional services that we encumbered that does not include other costs such as salary, staff, et cetera. Okay. Just, yeah. Just wanting to clarify that. Thank you. Public comments. Becky Steinbrenner, the litigant. Thank you for pulling this. I appreciate it. And I can explain why I have had to take six different actions because the district has kept changing the project significantly and the original EIR was inadequate to begin with. And I'm not the only one that feels this way. I'm the only one that is willing to put in the time to do all the legal research for five years to bring this action, to try to get you to follow the law. And that's what it's about. That's what this second one is. This new one is about because how can a board in good conscience approve a contract that you don't even see and a big contract, $4.5 million for the base rate? How can you do that? Why would you do that? And it violates CEQA, which is to have an informed decision-making body and an informed public. And when I was here that night on March 5th, I asked, where is the contract? And I was told to sit down. My time was up and none of you brought it up. That's why I had to take that action. Now, it says here that I really take a fence at what you have included in the notes here that Ms. Steinbruner shows a pattern of repeatedly choosing not to comply with the rules of court and other laws that apply to litigants. That is not true. That is just not true. And that is, I think, libel. So if you would pull, rescind your resolution and look at it again with a complete contract and appendices for you to look at and your rate payers and the public to look at, I'll take this away. I'll take it away if you just follow the law. Thank you, Becker. Thank you. All right. So that now brings us to item number eight. Not yet. We have to have action on that. Oh, okay. Motion. Keep trying to. Yeah, I'll make both motions. And is there a second? I'll second. And for a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? All right. Aye. This is unanimously. All right. Now we can go to item number eight, adjournment. Thank you, everybody. It's been a long meeting. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Good job. You ready, Michelle? I'm gonna. Pardon me. I don't know. What? What?