 Good morning. Yes. All right. I'd like to convene this meeting of the Board of Directors of San Lorenzo Valley Water District for June 2, 2022. Can you take a roll call please Holly. She keeps saying, uh oh. Sorry, I'm here now. Okay, so President may hood here. Vice President Ackerman here. Bob Foles. Here. Jeff Hill. Here. And Mark Smalley. Here. Okay. Are there any additions or deletions to the closed session agenda? Staff has not sure. This is the time for oral communications regarding items in the closed session. If there are members of the public that would like to address that. At the moment I don't see any attendees. Are there any, is there anybody phoning in or anything? Holly that doesn't look like it. Okay, then with that we can adjourn to closed session. Holly, would you like to take the roll call please. President may hood here. Vice President Ackerman. Here. Director Falls. Here. Director Hill. Here. Director Smalley. Here. This is the point where we would report any actions taken in closed session. There is nothing to report out from closed session. No actions were taken. Are there any additions or deletions to the agenda? Staff has no. Okay. Then this brings us to the portion of the meeting where we have oral communications from the public on items under the purview of the district, but that are not on the agenda tonight. Would anybody like to. Okay. Seeing none. Then the next item of business is the president's report. I have nothing to report this evening. So we can move on to new business. Which is the. 2021-22 grand jury. Report. And Gina, were you going to go ahead and lead the discussion on the grand jury report? You have in your board packet. And I believe. A copy was also emailed to you. At about the time that the grand jury released this report that they've been working on for the past year. Regarding water. And drought resilience in Santa Cruz County. The grand jury did request responses from. A number of agencies. Boards. And individual officials. As listed in. Toward the end of the grand jury report. The requested respondees include. The district's board of directors. Directors as well as. Rick individually as the district manager. All such responses by public agencies and officials. And frankly, everybody from whom the grand jury is released. Those are due by August 22nd. So the purpose of this meeting. Is for the board to have an opportunity to discuss the grand jury report. And in particular. To identify a process for developing. The response from the board of directors so that it can be approved. At a public meeting. By the board. In advance of the grand jury report. The board of directors approved. At a public meeting. By the board in advance of the August 22nd deadline. There are a number of ways that that could be done. One way would be to appoint. An ad hoc committee consisting of a couple of. Members. To write the response to bring back to the board for review and approval. Another would be to. Appoint staff to prepare a response for. The board to consider it some subsequent meetings. Either way, I would recommend that. That the board proceed with a view towards having a draft come back no later than about the second meeting in July. So that there's, you know, potential, there's at least one and potentially two opportunities. For the board to consider and. Revise the draft responses as needed. So that it can be approved in advance of the deadline. And I guess the last comment that I want to make is to suggest that. There's no requirement of the grand jury. That responses be. Be detailed. You won't, there's only a need to provide any kind of a narrative response. If. The board doesn't agree with the grand jury finding a recommendation. And so one way to respond. To the report could be sort of a minimalist type response with. Which is actually very common. If you go to the grand jury's website and see some of the example responses to other reports in the past. But that, you know, it's up to the board. How you want to respond and what process you want to put in place to develop the responses for approval. Okay. So I guess what I'd like to do is go around and get the general comment from everybody. On the board of how they. How they think we should address the report. Or their opinion about the report, then I'll go out to the public, get any comments that they might have, and then we'll come back and try to settle on a process that we think is appropriate. So let me go ahead and start with Mark, if you don't mind, if you'd like to comment on, on this and we'll get, we'll get everybody a chance to say something. Sure. Before I can comment on how we should respond. I want to make sure of what we should be responding to. On page 23, the chart. Calls out for the district to respond to. What resolutions one and. And two. However, from reading. The predecessors to those. It appears as though we should only be responding to resolution to. Since the narrative for our one. Doesn't list. The disparate. I think, I think I can clarify that in the sense that one of the documents that we, we actually got is directed. To me as the board president and it. It is a document that actually lists solid things that we have to respond to. And that document lists all of the findings. That are rel, that they consider relevant. And our one and our two. The one and our two. The one and our three. So. Irrespective of the narrative that you saw, those are the ones we're expected to respond to. So I think Gina did was that. I think that was attached in the, the documents. You might go back, Mark, and look at your, your email, but I think that Gina attached that it's basically what's sent to me. And that's what the board has to respond to. Which may be slightly different than what Scots Valley, you're looking, you're looking puzzled. Well, I think we did get. What you're referring to as part of the agenda packet. That's where I was seeing these details. But if I'm the only one that's seeing it that way, I will take it as I read this incorrectly. And we'll leave it at that. I'm looking at it now and our one is in there. Our one is in there, but it doesn't mention. Our district. That doesn't matter. Okay. Okay. Basically they're asking. Well, let me just say what I'm speculating what they're asking is because SLV. Is one of the JPA, the three founding members of Santa Margarita. The question that we're being posed is should we, should we be asking what the three members of Santa Margarita believe. As those founding members agree to a change of the charter of Santa Margarita. Okay. And that's why we're being asked that. Obviously the same question is being asked. Of Santa Margarita itself. But, you know, if frankly, in some ways, the, the important thing is what those three JPA members. Believe about this. Okay. All right. I think that's why we're asking for a. A response. Each individual one. That might even be different from what Santa Margarita does because that board has, as you know, representatives of. Not Herman. Private well owners. So it's a, it's a different. Cast of characters. Right. Okay. Okay. That clarifies now for me what we're responding to. Are the responses. We need to make anything more than. If we agree. With those questions at the end to say, yes. It's simply check the box and we're done. That's correct. If we agree with those questions at the end to say yes. It's simply check the box and we're done. That's correct. If we agree. Well, you could elaborate if you want, but if you agree, you can just check that box and say nothing else. And it's only if you. Partially, what is it? Partially. Disagree. Disagree that we need to respond. Yeah. Yes. I, I think it's appropriate. For the board to. Form a subcommittee of two people and. Have those individuals. I don't know if staff is necessary. To join two board members. To come up with a response. For this from the board. Okay. Bob. Jamie, you had your hand up. Go ahead. Sorry. Sorry, Bob. I'll get back to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So the. First of all, I, I agree in approach that we should have the board form a subcommittee to respond. And I, I guess I start starting with the recommendations that they ask us to respond to. You know, certainly where we don't have comments and we agree, which there are several findings and recommendations that we may agree on. But the second recommendation of December 31st, 2022 is in my view, you know, a little unreasonable given everything else that we're grappling with as a district. And in, in my view, that is the thing that most alarmingly stands out of this civil grand jury report is a reflection of the fact that uniquely we are the only water district that is, you know, in this recovery process. And yet none of that was reflected in any of their investigation. And in terms of reasons that we may not be able to move forward or may not have moved forward as efficiently on some of the findings that they made. You know, and so I just think that there, there is a little bit of clarity that some of our responses might bring to some of the places where I think they failed to take into consideration San Lorenzo Valley. What are districts unique conditions. Do we have any questions? Bob. Do we have any sense of who they talked to with them? San Lorenzo Valley water districts. To gather their facts. They talked to anybody. Well, I can tell you they did not contact me. I have to check Bob what we can disclose about that. I can say this, there was very limited contact with the San Lorenzo Valley water district. I mean, in previous. Grand jury reports that have impacted or had dealt with issues. Affecting the San Lorenzo Valley water district, there were enormous number of people contacted in both of those. Folks on the board may not have been involved in those at that time, but I can tell you for a fact that there were a lot of people involved in that. In addition to, I think some of the concerns that Jamie was talking about, I have other concerns around some of the viewpoints that seem to be almost a sales document around certain. Structures that are sort of maybe. You know, the end goal of folks, you know. Our community spoke pretty loud and clear. We still need to dig into some of those issues. What is the little over a year ago now. About their view on San Lorenzo Valley water district, the ownership and control over the resources. I still need to digest this report, I think, by reading it a couple of three more times, but. I have some real concerns about. Where this report was, was headed. And I want to make sure we're able to assess that. Maybe some folks outside of the San Lorenzo Valley water district are trying to encourage. You know, and I think Santa Cruz has made it very clear what their intentions are. And we've had that conversation with them at a previous meeting. So, yeah, this needs to be handled very, very carefully. And in fact, we might even want to expand on. A few points on all sorts of recommendations and findings, whether we generally agree with them or not, there may be some shades of meeting that. That we may want to put in there. Having said that ad hoc committee is absolutely, in my opinion, the right way to go. We've used that in the past for these grand jury reports. It's been an effective tool. I do think that there is support that. Council and staff would need to provide to that group, whoever that might be. That would be very valuable, particularly when it comes to word smithing, some of the items that I think are potentially much more than what they may appear to be on the surface. So that, that would be the way I would want to go with this. Jeff. Okay. So first, yes, on ad hoc committee. We definitely need to do that. Top of the head. Response to this. In my mind. First of all, I was struck by what I considered to be rather unrealistic. Deadlines and time objectives for. The various agencies to accomplish some of the things that they're talking about, particularly when you have. Interagency negotiations that have to take place for some of this stuff. And it was also struck that. It seems to me. If there's one thing that our district can do to improve resilience at this moment. Against drought. We need to get ourselves in gear and get the. The CZU fire damage rebuilt because. That's the biggest resilience problem we've got. By far. And throughout this report, it talks heavily about collecting more rainwater and being able to, you know, deal with extremely heavy water flows in the San Lorenzo valley. And the San Lorenzo river. And it seems to me that the number one thing we can do to improve resilience is to get. CZU. Fire damage repaired and back up and running. Yeah, I guess I would add to that that. Equally important is that we help those. Small mutuals that. We have to make sure that we have. The water rights are changed. That that's our first order of business. Then the other is one that's been hanging fire for a while, which is our own conjunctive use. Change to the water rights, which is essential to the resilience. Drought resilience within the district, but also. In the, in the levels in which it helps fisheries and makes things more flexible. And how we use water. So that's why I was disappointed in the result in the report, because it seemed to not recognize the activities that are already underway. Certainly by our district and also by the Santa Margarita. Groundwater association. And that the fact that, you know, for example, I was not contacted as the president of the board here. I was contacted as the president of the board. I was not contacted as the president of the board here. There's not a single document from the San Lorenzo Valley. Water district that's cited. There's not a single reference to the Santa Margarita GSP. So out of those 51 references. 30 some odd are from the city of Santa Cruz. I think that that sort of tells us what this document. It's about. You know, I think it's about a secure water drought supply for Santa Cruz. And that's, that's a worthy noble thing, but we also have our own. Problems that we have to address. And our own ways of contributing to that. And so. I sort of have two feelings on this. One is that I want to say all those things, but I also feel that it's not entirely clear to me that that, that there is a really extensive response. And at least one thing I've learned about being involved in legal processes is the more you say, the more you can get in trouble. And trigger responses back. And so I guess I would argue for, you know, very much a minimalist response to this. And I would argue that it's not entirely clear to me, to not turn it into a time consuming thing or either staff. Or the board, because I just frankly don't think it warrants it. So. Rick, go ahead. You're muted, Rick. I'd like a quick question to council. And like. Am I able to answer any of the board's questions? The grand jury investigation. Um, I will. I will check. And get back to you. Within a few minutes. Okay. Answer quite a few of their questions if permissible. In the meantime, let's, um, if you don't mind go out, I think that let's go out and get, um, any comments by members of the public. I see five folks out there. And Rick, did you want to say something else first? Put my hand down. Okay. All right. Uh, let's see. I see that, uh, Jim Mosher has his hand up. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Well, um, I've been in touch with Brian Largue. Um, who sits on the water advisory commission and who is. The hydraulic scientists and 25 year career and natural resource science. He made a statement to the commission and then wrote an email to the head of the. Of the, um, uh, grand jury. And he says it much better than I can and more authoritatively. And I just would like to read excerpts from what he wrote to the grand jury. I found the document to be superficial, superficial overview of a co of complex topics, the rigor of planning by both the Santa Margarita groundwater management agency and SLBWD's own work far surpasses this document in useful detail and calls for action. Work by Smigma and SLBWD is far more authoritative in its treatment of the highly technical natural resource issues. And the governance context. It is regrettable that the grand jury presumes that the water district has nothing better to do over the next 90 days and six months than to respond to their findings and recommendations. One of their chief findings is that there is a lack of resources across the agency. It is ironic that they failed to realize that responding to their report bleeds precious staff time and legal budget that could otherwise solve real problems. Furthermore, while the report cites some 51 documents, none are publications of either SLBWD or Smigma illustrating a lack of effort in understanding the issues of developing recommendations relevant to SLBWD priorities. I encourage SLBWD to give the minimal necessary acknowledgement of this document and then get on with the business of managing the complex problems SLBWD is actively solving. Far more urgent work is fire recovery. Far more urgent work is fire recovery. Far more urgent work is fire recovery. Far more urgent work is fire recovery. Helping adjacent water providers build drought resilience is a fine notion but solving urgent existing supply challenges is a highest priority. I just want to say I completely agree with what Brian said and most of what all of you said on the board. I think you want to give this absolute minimal attention that the city of Santa Cruz, the city of Santa Cruz city as if it is North County and ignore the huge problems we're facing and also ignore in their call for collaboration that the city of Santa Cruz filed this protest against our efforts to change our water rights for conjunctive use and that the county of Santa Cruz sued us over the problem with the city of Santa Cruz. I really encourage you to take this as minimal as possible. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Larry Ford. Okay, Larry. Thank you. I just got my option to unmute. Larry Ford Felton. I couldn't say any better than what Jim Moser and Brian said. I'm not quite as disappointed as others are with this report. It sounds like a bunch of smart graduate students have gotten together and decided that they need to explain what what drought resilience is and that is more than just groundwater management. And so I appreciate that and I understand that they're trying to expand people's frame. You know, with, you know, with the major involvement of the city of Santa Cruz, we have heard from them before. What I suggest instead of trying to get all the water agencies to spend a lot of time just responding to this sort of academic request is to get the county to provide the resources to do some region wide planning that is much broader and deeper than just groundwater. Certainly all the other suggestions that they were made that that were made in this report are very reasonable and important and could be added. You know, using wastewater, things like that. And so that that's that's where I would go with this and I agree that the deadlines are unrealistic and that they they don't seem to acknowledge that that SLV water district has already made a lot of progress on on all the issues that they've raised, you know, with maybe a few exceptions for in this sort of broader picture. That's it. Thank you over. Over and out. Thank you, Larry. And anybody else in the public like to make a comment. At this point. Okay. I don't see any more hands up. So let's go back to the board and Gina, it looks like maybe you have an answer to Rick's question. So you want to go ahead. Yeah, thank you. I just checked the penal code again, which has the provisions related to grand jury confidentiality contains very strong prohibitions against disclosing the identity of anybody who provided testimony to the grand jury or the content of the testimony or what the grand jury asked the individuals that it interviewed. So we can't discuss any of that here. Unfortunately. Okay. Mark. Yes. If we don't already have the letter that Jim Moser referred to. I'd request that we do get that so that it at a minimum, at a minimum, the committee that is responding to the. Grand jury report has that in hand. Yeah. I'll just clarify that actually Jim shared it with me. And it was actually addressed to Rick Rogers. Okay. So we do have it then. So we'll, we'll make it part of the record and. Okay. And then we'll go to the same comments at the county's water advisory council. So Sierra Ryan at the county heard it. But what this letter is is really, is telling Rick how he thinks the district should respond. So we'll make it in record. Thank you. Today afternoon. You know, after agenda was sent out, otherwise we probably wouldn't. Yeah. Yeah, it came late Wednesday evening. Jamie. So, um, I guess, uh, and, and I don't know, this might be, um, I would just like to understand, uh, when we identify the subcommittee. If there are questions about, um, sort of what some of the findings and recommendations are suggesting. Um, you know, would we be working or would the committee, whoever it is be working with Gina on that, because I have some questions just about some of the recommendations, which seem. Um, I, you know, my reaction is a little overly broad in terms of what we as individual water districts would even be able to do in terms of interagency coordination. And so, um, you know, some of that just seems to me like, okay, nice suggestion, not realistic. Um, but I don't know that that's an appropriate response either. And so I would just want to know what the processes to sort of walk through some of those questions. I think one thing I'd respond. To on this is I, although I think having a subcommittee would be okay. I think another way to do this would be to have, uh, the staff prepare it. And by that, I'm a draft anyway. And by that, I mean. Carly Rick and Gina and Gina could weigh in on these kinds of questions, Jamie, of whether, you know, do we really have jurisdiction and is it realistic to create these overriding bodies? Um, with the idea that, uh, that group of three would, if necessary, you know, for example, if they have a question about ASR that they would contact me or something, if it was some technical. Thing and that they would produce a draft that would come back to the board and everybody, including the public, um, could have something to say about it. Um, that would be my preferred way to do it. Um, but I'm, I'm okay with a subcommittee in which case I think. You know, the logical choice would be, uh, probably me and you, Jamie, because, uh, you know, we're both members of Santa Margarita. Um, and our skills and talents, um, complimentary. You'd, you'd prevent me from being my usual pedantic professorial self. Uh, and so, uh, you know, that, that would be my suggestion, but my, my preferred one is that we, um, have the staff prepare it because we'd have to get their help with certain things like, you know, exactly when we've put in the conjunctive use, water rights petitions and other stuff anyway. Concern. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. No, did you want to finish up, Jamie? I didn't want it. I just was my, I agree with you about staff, but my, uh, you know, leading the sort of writing process, but I, my only concern is that given the 90 day timeline and, you know, the fact that it's summer, people are probably going on vacations. I, I, you know, don't, I wonder if staff is, has the capacity to meet the deadline. So. Rick. Did you want to respond to that? How's the capacity, Jamie? But just to one question. Gina, in the past, you know, staff assisted the board ad hoc committee. But I do believe staff wasn't named as part of the ad hoc committee. It was just elected directors that were named to the committee and staff, you know, assisted and supported that committee. And we would do the same again. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. What I can comment on is how this was done last time. There was an ad hoc committee. Of two directors. And, um, I and. I don't know. I don't remember if it was you, Rick. Okay. Provided support. And prepared the draft that way. And I think it came back to the board either two or even three times for me. Before it was approved. Yeah. We'll make, we'll make the deadline and get it done. So, um, the board has as many times as they want to review. Uh, as necessary. Um, We'll make the deadline and get it done. So the board has as many times as they want to review. Um, we'll make that work. Bob. Yeah. And the same process was followed in. 20. I think it was 2014. Um, or 2013. And it, you know, it's a norm that I think is very valuable for, uh, the board, uh, to be involved in crafting what is. A combination of a, um, political document as well as a document to address real issue. Um, And, uh, we, you know, with respect to the. Uh, content. Um, you know, I understand and I had a lot of the same reactions. I think that everybody had, uh, about this. But, you know, sometimes it's a great. Opportunity to put out there what the San Lorenzo Valley water district is actually doing what its strategy is around. Uh, water resiliency. And to, you know, basically identify the fact that we could probably have had this done faster. Had it not been for, um, a protest that. You know, ultimately is, is not going to really result in any huge changes to, to what we, what we do. It just drags everything out and cost money. Um, I, I think that has some value in the interest of transparency to the community. To make sure that the community understands that. Uh, we do have a strategy around this and are executing on it. And it's not just sort of blowing off what is in fact. A very important function inside of the county. This particular report may have perhaps missed the mark. But the previous two reports that grand jury's put out, we're dead on on the mark and really resulted in a lot of really good recommendations and changes. And so I want to make sure that we're treating this with the respect that it deserves, even if we might have. Um, this agreements with some of the, um, uh, Recommendations or findings that they made. Jeff. Um, just a quick question. When does this current grand jury expire? They all have a term. Does anybody know? Yeah, they turn over in the summer. Okay. This is essentially the end of their effort and then a new grand jury will be seated. I couldn't tell you exactly when. You know, it was their last day in the first day of the new grand jury, but I can tell you that they turn over in the summer after the reports come out. Okay. Mark. Yes. When I agree with staff preparing. I don't want to encourage as minimal of a response. As you feel. Is appropriate. I don't want to expound on anything in this. Um, I think that, um, us. Or the district touting its own, uh, Horn or merits of what's. Is this is not. We need to do that. This isn't a place to do that. It's not going to have any benefit to the county. I've done work as expert witness in the environmental realm. And was, um, Counseled by. My clients council. Keep my responses as brief as I can. If the answer suffices to say yes or no to the question. Simply that and move on. Any other. Comments. Okay. So I think, uh, well, let me just see if there's any comments from the. Public attendees about how they. Would prefer the process. If there's any comments there. Before I come back to the board and we can make a decision. Okay. I don't see any hands up out there. So, I'm going to start it to the stage where it would be good if somebody made. Made a motion. Um, is that. I think about how we do this. Go ahead, Mark. Um, I'd like to make a motion that, um, Rick and appropriate staff prepare. A draft response to the grand jury recommendations and bring that back to the board. By. Beginning of July appropriate. I want to set some kind of a timeframe in this. Yeah, I think that's right. Because if we're going to have, you know, two shots at it, it's got to be sometime early July. That's, that's my thought. Yes. Is that enough of a motion? Yes, it is. Is there a second? I'll second that. Any. Discussion of the motion. Jamie. Um, I just wanted to offer a friendly amendment because I, I think it's actually an important part of the process that we do. I agree that staff would take the lead on initiating this process of response. But I think we should identify the ad hoc. The committee members may not do much initially. We may leave that to staff to make, to take the initial cut at it. But I think that we might want to do that for the sake of efficiency. So, um, I would like to suggest the friendly amendment. Um, because I appreciate Gail's vote of confidence that, uh, that we add a subcommittee to Mark's recommendation that include myself and chair Mayhood. Okay. So we, we vote on the amendment first. And so the proposed, uh, well, we have to actually have a second for the amendment. Okay. So as I understand it, just let me restate it, Jamie, is that we're, um, we are, uh, adding an amendment to that statement that. That the staff would, um, as necessary, um, consult with me as president and Jamie, you as vice president and both of us as members of Santa Margarita. Okay. So the way this goes is you first vote on the amendment. Um, so is there any discussion of the amendment? No. Okay. Holly, can we take a vote on the amendment? Public. Does the public get the way. Pardon. Does the public get to weigh in. Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, yes. With the public like to make a comment on that. I don't see any. Okay. Holly. I'm sorry. You're saying the, um, make a amendment. You wanted to say the motion. Well, okay. What we can, if, if Mark accepts it as a friendly. Yeah. So I accept that. We're voting on the whole thing. Okay. And as the person who seconded was me, and I agree to the friendly amendment as well. So we now are voting on the full one that the. Uh, staff, uh, Rick with Gina and Carly primarily will prepare a draft and as necessary, we'll consult with me and Jamie as president and vice president and as our representatives on Santa Margarita. And we'll prepare a draft by sometime early in July so that we have time for at least two shots at the support meetings before the, what is it? Uh, I'll just note that we do have five meetings before that, uh, deadline. Okay. So, uh, president may hood. Hi. As president Ackerman. Yes. Director falls. Yes. Director Hill. Yes. Director Smalley. Yes. Good. The motion passes unanimously. So we go on to our next item, which is unfinished business, new staff, position, construction, inspector. Rick, it's time to ask a question. I'm sorry. Rick. Just a quick clarification on the last item. We did not create an ad hoc committee. We just. I don't think, I don't think we created. And is that good enough for council. Moving ahead. Yes, that will be, that will be fine. Um, there's no reason why we can't share this with two directors. Um, without formally creating an ad hoc committee. I just wanted to be sure moving ahead. Thank you. All right. The next item, uh, the, uh, request, the staff's request for a construction inspector, the district engineer will present that item to the board. Thank you, Rick. So the district has historically utilized outside resources for construction management. This is a very expensive way to go about it in staff's opinion. As shown in the memo that I've. That is presented in the board packet. We are spending based on the last several projects. We have a total of 6.7% 6.8% right in there of the entire construction budget on construction management. It is staff's opinion that having an internal construction manager. Or construction inspector in this case. Who can perform the majority of the work that is currently being done by consultants. I believe on the order of half a million dollars over the next two years. There are a couple of assumptions baked into this. They are laid out in the memo. As is the projected. Or proposed, I suppose I should say. Salary schedule. With that, I'm happy to take comments. Okay. Um, are there any, uh, let's see, let's go ahead and start with, uh, Jeff this time. If he has any comments. Questions. No, okay. Um, how about, uh, Mark. Yes. Um, as head of her's chair of the engineering and environmental committee. The committee reviewed this. Uh, draft memo. Provided comments. Uh, to staff staff revised the memo brought it back to us. Um, the engineering committee. Recommended by a vote of three favor and one abstaining. Uh, to forward this onto the board. So. Thank you. Um, so I will go next to Bob since you're the other member of the engineering committee. Yeah, I wanted to clarify something that didn't come up. Um, I'm not sure. Um, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. During the engineering committee, but I think is important. Um, are the funds for this position going to be pulled out of. Uh, the capital budget as we would do. With a consultant. Um, Or is it operating expenses? Right. The majority of the funds will come out of capital. Come out of FEMA and capital. Right. Yes. Okay. Right. That would be that, but 15, 15%. The majority should come out of capital for each, each project it would be assigned to. And then obviously the FEMA projects would be reimbursed. Or it could be grant funding as well. Such as the, uh, the consolidation projects. If this person. Um, or a grant project, it could come out of that. And, and therefore on the, um, On the financials that would be prepared. Um, would that be, would that be reflected in, um, The financials that is, this would not be part of the operating expense, but would be coming out of capital. You know, I will double check that with Kendrick, because initially it may come out, but then put back in, uh, as like true up, but I need to talk with, uh, I think I can answer that. I remember looking at that as the budget went through before. It gets charged out as part of the department that the person is in, but then there's a line item, um, On the operating budget where it's removed from there to the extent. You know, it wouldn't, it doesn't have to be just this person, but anybody on the staff that's working on capital projects or the staff that's working on the capital expenses. Um, and then it gets, uh, Taken out there and then added to the capital expenses. So in that regard, it, it does lower, um, The operating. Uh, expenses. Yeah. And then the, um, Uh, and then the, because I think the implication that we talked about in the engineering committee is that. Um, If this person should be, if not a hundred percent consumed, I've probably oversubscribed given the number of projects going on. We may still need consultants occasionally. If the projects were all bunched together. Rick, just is that correct? Maybe, and there will be some types of work specialized work that we will still use consultants for such things as compaction or structural engineering. Um, and I think the reason that we're running into this is because when we do a construction manager contract with an outside firm, They're effectively charging us as if we had that person full time, even though of course they're not full time. Or anywhere close to it. Right. So if we had a construction management contract, we would still have those additional costs, um, prevailing wage, uh, monitoring those types of things will still be a sub consultant or another consultant. And I think the reason that we're running into this is because we're close to it. Right. So if we, if we have to go to the specialized outside firms, will they also be charging us in the same fashion? We will be charging those to the, to the, to the capital projects. Yes. No, but I mean, will they be charging us for a full time person, even if the guy only works there, you know, a day a week or, you know, a day every other week. I can address that Rick, if you'd like. Yeah. Okay. For the specialized testing consultants, structural engineers, that sort of thing. They will charge us hourly rather than. Providing a lump sum or a daily rate. Often. Compaction, excuse me, compaction testing as an example. There will be one person on site for one to two hours. It will be an additional three to four hours worth of lab work and then an hour to write it all up. And that's what they would charge us. It would not be one day to come to the field and the second day. To work in the lab and write it up. And then the, the last piece, if there are no constructions underway or for whatever reason, we reach a point in the future where there isn't much construction activity underway, which has occurred in the past. And this person then would be retained and all their expenses would be under operating. Is that, is that the plan? That is, and that is the roughly 15% number that is in the memo. Approximately 15% on an annual basis of this positions expense would end up as operating budget and would be used to assist operations to assist our GIS tech in our mapping of the district to assist with locates. A few other operational details where an extra body would be beneficial. What would happen in a situation for example, where like in the past we've gotten into a couple three year period where there was really very little construction going on. What would be done then. I would recommend we terminate the position. On a three year stance like that. Director folks. I would recommend that we. Or I would at least bring it to the board for discussion and make a recommendation. You know, I, I, you know, one can never know what could happen. Sure. But if it was just, we ran out of capital projects. No funding. Most likely we would. Yeah, most likely we run out of funding for whatever reason or not have enough funding to be able to cover that. Okay. So I think what I'm hearing is that, you know, if it's a year, we'll probably hold them over. If it goes a long time, three years. Probably be looking at it again in between. For discretion. Okay. Great. Thank you. Jamie. I'm just kind of curious about the timing in terms of. As we, you know, look to bring this position on, if it's approved by the board. You know, Rick, I think I recall you saying at the last meeting that this was not something that you were thinking we were going to urgently fill that you would then, you know, look to fill it at the appropriate point where you could see that the work was beginning to line up. That we would require somebody to be in this position. So could you just expand on that a bit? Well, you know, we do have. Money, you know, in the bank for a lot of these projects. Yes, I did make that comment and what we're finding right now. I mean, the. The world changes daily with supply chain issues and materials. We're finding right now that we have a six to eight month delay and pipe for some of our projects and talking with Josh and myself, we may slow walk this until we are sure that we have a continuous supply of materials coming in and that, you know, we don't have a construction inspector, but no construction. We're day by day right now on supply chain issues and we're aware of that. And we will slow walk this, but you know, the first step is to get the board to approve a salary schedule, approve the position, and then there is some work to do on procurement interviewing and so forth. So it's a slow process moving ahead, but we want to continue to move ahead and make sure this person is on board when we start, you know, breaking ground and keep in mind the first couple of projects are already contracted out with a construction inspector. So there's not an immediate rush to run out, but we want to keep moving in that direction. So we don't have to hire construction and contractors, inspector contractors moving ahead. I hope I answered your question, Jerry. Any other comments by the, or questions by members of the board before I go out to the public? Seeing none. I'll go out to the four of you and see if any of you have any questions or comments about the construction inspector position. Okay. Seeing none, I'll come back to the board. I think we're probably to the point where this, does somebody want to make a motion? Bob has. Oh, I'm sorry, Bob, I didn't see your hand up. No worries. I did want to just make one final comment, which is I continue to be concerned about the fact that this isn't an ad on headcount. And that, that isn't, that is somewhat reduced in concern based on the fact that most of this will be covered out of the capital expense rather than operating, but it is a, it is a concern. I just wanted to put that out there. Okay. Jamie. I'd like to move the, the proposal for the salary schedule. Okay. I would like to move the proposal. And recommend that we instruct the district manager to develop and fill in. Choose the voice you'd like me to use. Okay. Well, that was interesting. Larry. I think you're somehow coming through in a peculiar way. Okay. So we have a motion. Do we have a second? I will second that. Okay. Any discussion of the motion. Okay. That was a funny voice. Did you want to comment, Larry? It doesn't look like he does. Okay. All right. Something went strange there. So go ahead, Holly. Can you take a roll call vote? President Mayhead. Hi. Vice president Ackman. Yes. Director falls. Yes. Director Hill. Yes. Director Smalley. Yes. Okay. Okay. So the motion passed unanimously. That brings us to the consent agenda. Would anybody like to move any item off of the consent agenda? Okay. Then we, that not being the case. How about members of the public? The anybody of the public like to move something off the consent agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Reports and tonight we just have the one which is the district manager's report. Rick. Thank you, chair. I'll try to make this very brief. I do have a few things I'd like to update the board on. The first is the three consolidations that we're working on with the Bracken brain and forest brains. We have moved into the engineering contract. We have moved into the engineering contract. We're also doing pipeline surveying. And executing their agreement. The district engineer has also been working with. Sandus on a pump station location. And that project's moving ahead. Well, we have received back one of the two. Consolidation agreements. The forest brings sign. We're waiting Bracken brain any day. And we are working, trying to work with the state. On. Procuring a. A grant to move ahead on. Facilitating engineering work to. To tie down exactly what is needed. Upgrades a big basin water for consolidation. We are also in the process of putting together. A project list and putting together a. A cost analysis of what it would cost of the district to operate. Big basin water. By force account. And there has been a little movement. Talking with the county on possibly even. Contributing. To moving ahead on some of the engineering work. More to be determined. And then we'll be moving ahead. With that. We've also made a headway on. Reenergizing the temporary. Intertie with big basin. Working with a homeowner that gave permission to set a. A temporary powerful on their property. So we'll be moving ahead. With that. We've also kicked off our new time card. The district staff's new time card computer. And the project is being done. So it's a little bit of a crack. Very. Finally, the project work that the staff is doing on multiple projects. Instead of just grouping their time together, which makes it extremely hard for the accounting to break out and make sure we charge to the appropriate projects, such as FEMA and capital. It is a. that the accounting loads in the software very user friendly all 100% of our staff are using that is replaces paper and Excel spreadsheet time cards and which includes overtime which is a great attribute to our accounting time card and lastly Carly has been promoted to the project manager position we've been looking for approximately six months as the board knows we created a new position project manager and we just did not get any qualified applicants Carly applied to the position and we have offered it to her she's accepted it we're already off and running on tasking with reviewing complete operational costs for all departments working on website and scheduling admin projects and the administrative end of the district which includes trying to post you know years worth of agendas for committees a lot of the different admin that's been needed that we talked about in the district manager's goals and objectives and also would last on that to she'll be working on working with the front office staff on going paperless and combine that with our record retention policy that we're moving ahead so we're excited on that we will replace Carly with a with a staff classified position that will be really looking at environmental seq type review work on outreach and the complete change in staffing will result in a reduction in cost from staffing and that's a quick lightning around report to you all thank you rick i appreciate that um are there any quick questions or clarifications um okay go ahead bob rick on the grants that you're working on getting from the state for big basin um those those grants wouldn't have any clawback provisions correct any what i'm sorry bob i've heard i'm hearing you yeah uh the grants for big basin would not have any clawback provisions i don't understand the term is it clawback yeah clawback meaning if the project doesn't go forward the state expects you to give would not to my knowledge no this is uh grant funding we're looking for is to put out the engineering to to move ahead uh for strictly uh engineering work and and to evaluate and would not be predicated uh if the project did not go through right and i did want to say rick as you know i'm a big believer in cloud and uh paperless and you know making use of the technologies that are available so congratulations on moving forward in those things thank you for doing that and i'm looking forward to seeing more of that happening that's really great okay all right thank you um then we have um written communications so would any member or the person like to comment um on the written communications to the board jamie i i just wanted to ask if um maybe jeana is appropriate to respond i know that we have talked about the issue relating that that was raised by a member of the public relating to the terms the way that the the the terms of office are going forward to um the ballot there's the one to your term in the several four-year terms and i think i've member of the public raised that question again but i it seemed like there might have been a misunderstanding in terms of you know what we can do as a board this is what we are um the rules of the Apollo and i'm happy to answer that i think chair may hood provided a short response to that in the meeting where the resolution right i forgot yeah you're right and she was correct um and i also replied to her directly to her her email yeah the district doesn't have any control over which seat to get designated to versus four years right i just forgot that that had already been replied to on the record and i wanted to make sure that that was also replied to on the record so thank you sorry about that no problem any anybody else okay um then i think we're arrived at that pleasant moment of uh adjournment so uh there's no objection i will go ahead and yes rick oh bye that was a why i thought you were raising your hand all right so tonight everyone we are adjourned