 This board's president tried to make enemies with me and my family by filing a false and vexatious complaint against my husband with his employer, the Santa Cruz Police Department. In doing so, you have effectively taken away his right to participate here. This complaint was in direct retaliation for a letter that my husband sent to the Diversity Center regarding Bill Smallman slurs against the LGBT community. Paulie has copies of that letter available to anyone who liked them. This letter was attached to the complaint as evidence of I can't imagine what. I also can't imagine what kind of surreal parallel universe that the taxpayer-funded investigators might have found themselves in when they realized someone was actually complaining about one of their officers for supporting and standing with a persecuted minority community. It has been addictive and indecent to lash out against my husband and Margaret Bruce in retaliation for being horrified by Bill's comments and for speaking out against hate. You insult them both by claiming their reactions were politically motivated, and you do an enormous disservice to the LGBT community by truly electing the violence and bigotry that was at issue. And your draft letter to the press banner certainly does that. The letter is a stunning and shameless attempt at false equivalency. A wise and mature board would be thanking Margaret Bruce for her many years of dedication and service, her many accomplishments, and wishing her well. With respect to the complaint against my husband, I would like the board president to be advised that he is an honorable and courageous person who has served and protected for nearly 15 years. He has received numerous commendations and attended thousands of hours of training, including diversity and discrimination, racial profiling, tolerance, mental health, crisis intervention, de-escalation, and many more. My husband's letter to the Diversity Center was not his first interaction with him, nor was it the first time he's ever stood in support of the LGBT community. He reached out and recommended this training because he was already aware of it and knows it is useful and effective. While you have successfully eliminated him from this public forum, you have failed at making us your enemy. I will continue to be here to advocate for environmental issues and to encourage you to treat all of your ratepayers and volunteers with dignity, respect, and appreciation. Thank you. Thank you. I have a clarifying question for Jenny. Can I ask a question, a clarifying question? Yes. I'm sorry, was your complaint against the board for a letter that somebody sent about your husband? I'm not sure I followed the chain bearer of the dance. I apologize for that, but could you explain what you're going to do? The board president submitted a false and vacatious complaint against my husband with his employer, the Santa Cruz Police Department. And is it your view that the board was acting on behalf, or the board president was acting on behalf of the board? I believe that she was acting out of retaliation for his speaking out against hate. Do you believe that she was submitting that letter on behalf of the board? Is there a board statement here? She wasn't submitting it on behalf of the board. Well, she's submitting it. I haven't seen the letter, so I don't know what it is. So that is right over here. Did she say that she was the board? But I have not seen. I understand that she says she was board president of the SLVWD, or an interrogation. You know what? I think it's time to end. Try to figure out what the board has. The board has. There was no one. OK. But I would like to see the letter, it's not funny. Anybody else in the audience like to make a comment? No other comments? OK. So we'll go on to the final reports from the Watershed Education Grant from 2018. The environmental program manager will give that report. Last year, on May 21, 2018, the board awarded a number of classic Watershed Education grants to the applicants for various Watershed Education programs. Two of them have completed their contracts, and they have submitted final reports. They include Jessica Cursillo from the elementary school science teacher who was working on a project called Science Night, you believe? And they had a number of experiments with erosion water samples to save you through microscopes and a lot of conservation activities. There were 130 kids that were reached and 99 parents that were on site for the evening. And that was funded through the grant. And the second one is the banana select spring band for multiple water conservation and Watershed focused performances at multiple schools throughout the Santa Rosa Valley. The way the contracts work is we have in the past issued the first 90% of the contract total. And then at the end, when we receive the final report, then we will give them the final 10%. And so in the past, the board would accept the final report, and then we would issue the last 10% of the contract. So we are asking for the board to accept the final reports for the two programs, and that's all. Any comments from those of you in the audience on this issue? OK. So we need to make a motion. Do I have a motion to? Motion that we accept the final reports. OK. A second? A second. OK. We have a motion and a second. So Pauline. Director Smallman. Hi. Director Poles. Yes. Director Smallman. Yes. President Henry. Yes. Letter to the press banner is the next item. Do you want to? Mr. Counselor, we'll take that out. OK. So you can see that there is a draft letter that I contained in the board packet that was based on the directions provided by the board at the last meeting to create a letter for a board's review. If the board wants to make any changes to this, I can pencil it into the draft for submission to the press banner. And just a question. This would be coming from the entire board. I believe that was the intention. OK. I want to make that clear in the signature area. Will Senator, on behalf of the SLBWD board or something like that? Chair, just something. I think there's at least two ways to do it. One would be to say, you know, will Senator Ford chair on behalf of the San Lorenzo Valley Board of Directors. Another would be to sign it. And of course, there won't be any physical signature, but to say, San Lorenzo Valley Board of Directors and then put each of the four directors names on it. OK. Yeah. Any? Was that a preference? Yeah. I mean, I think it needs to be a broad statement. I have no problem with that. Which one? The latter or which one? The latter. The latter. OK. That'd be great. So is there any comments from the rate payers on this letter? Debbie? Yeah. I appreciate the letter. I appreciate the suggestion that you come from the board. That was also my impression. And a further suggestion, just a request, could the district council and the district manager also sign the letter to present the United Front as this has to do with the board policy and district culture? Just a request. Thank you. Anyone else? Jenny? I think it's a terrible letter. I don't think you should put it in. I think it's unnecessary. And I think it is a stubborn, mean spirit. And it does not honor the years of service that Margaret provided to the board, to the rate payers, to you guys are not making money at this. And it takes a lot of time and commitment and passion. And I think it's just extremely disrespectful. Thank you. Anyone else? Barbara? Barbara Narwell, Ben Lowlet. I agree with the letter because I believe from things that I've seen that Margaret Bruce has done in past board meetings, she has been disrespectful directly to people's faces as well in social media and has been completely and totally unprofessional. And that is not a board director that we want representing this community in this valley. If it's good enough for Bill Smallman, then it's good enough for Margaret. There's no favoritism being shown here. Anyone else? OK. I just want to make a couple of remarks about this. None of this has been fun for anybody. And to think that this has been done in some sort of a spiteful way is not at all. This is a letter, in my opinion, at least from my perspective, that is defending the integrity of the board members who were attacked in a social media forum and in a letter to the editor for something that they had absolutely no knowledge about until well after the fact. If the letter and social media posting had stopped at a certain point, that would have been OK. That's free speech. And everybody gets to do that, including Margaret Bruce. But for whatever reason, she decided to take it another step. And that is where it, in my opinion, crossed the line. So this is not being done with anything other than deep sadness and regret. And certainly nothing takes away from Bruce's time on the board. But such attacks and such disparagement have to be addressed. And that's what I think this letter is intending to do. Any other board member have anything to say? Again, I'll ask the right payers out there. Any other comments? No other comments? Do you have anything to say? I do not. OK. Like make a motion that we adopt this letter with the noted change of having signed by all four board members. I will say, San Lorenzo Valley Board of Directors and underneath, I can start with the President, Vice President and Alphabetical Order Director, Swann. That'd be great. I'll second. Director Swann? Aye. Director Pulse? Yes. Director Swann? Yes. President Henry? Yes. So we're going to move on to new business. There's going to be an RFQ for a hydrologist. Do you want to talk about that? I'm out of order. You're out of order. I'm never out of order. The District's Environmental Program Manager will give this discussion. In November of 2018, Nick Johnson, our long-time hydrologist, notified the district that he would no longer be available for consultation for hydrogeologic professional services. So we have prepared a draft request for qualifications to recruit a new hydrogeologist to serve the district on an as-needed basis. The things that we expect that will be coming up in the near term, and this may change over time, but currently, we're looking at the work that the Santa Margarita Ground Water Agency is doing. It would be great to have a hydrogeologist to be able to just review some of the more technical aspects of the Ground Water Sustainability Plan that will come up when we're doing the modeling. Specifically, looking at the overall Ground Water Sustainability Plan that comes out of that effort to ensure that the District's groundwater and surface water resources are protected adequately. Looking to them to consult on any of the District's water supply sustainability issues that may be coming up with condominium use, and looking at new well locations, potentially new water supply sources for the District, and to prepare for board meetings and give any presentations to the board, client communication, hydrologic assessments, if we may be doing a water master plan, there might be some opportunity to have hydrogeologic services for that as well. So just to have somebody who can be learning about our system, it's a very complex system. We operate in a very complex hydrologic environment here. And so somebody who can learn our needs here in this valley and be able to represent us on all efforts with regard to water supply. Thank you. Any questions from the board? Yeah. Do I understand correctly that we would furnish this person to the Santa Margarita Ground Water Agency? No. The Santa Margarita Ground Water Agency has already hired their own technical consultant to work with the model and to write the sustainability plan. This person would just be working on behalf of the Santa Margarita Valley Water District to ensure that what's coming out of that is representing the water district's needs. There would be on an ASLEED-based system? On an ASLEED, on an ASLEED. Like a possible second opinion of need be if we had concerns that we didn't like findings or wanted to have a second opinion related to just the district. Basically, what we're asking for is statement of qualifications, what type of work that this firm's basically a resume for the firm, and how much they would charge. And then it was as needed. So if it came up, like, oh, we need to do this certain work, that estimated cost for that work would come to the board for most production. Yeah, I would say that at every time. Not every single thing. Contact them for ASLEED-based services that would come to the board. We would have an overall budget for that annual budget. And then that would be adopted by the board in the hiring process. And then if we were to go over that amount, then it would be natural. What's the name of the company that we've always been using? Well, we were working with Nick Johnson. And he had worked with several different companies over the years. An email. Yeah. So I see the fee schedule here is in this sort of double-secret process. I think we had an exchange of emails on this, where I don't believe the district is covered by that, not legally required to do that. And from my perspective, I think we've talked about this once before. I just soon find out what the guy's price is right up front. I mean, price is always an issue. But the district is not covered by the, we can choose to follow this procedure, but we're not required to do it. Forget the lie. Oh, I think you might have sent me a reference or something. But I looked it up, and it doesn't cover special districts like us. I'm going to have to refer to that. And so to me, I found, like for example, when we did the selection of the attorney, we went through that process. And it was a very unsatisfying process, because you weren't able to look at the entire picture at the same time. What's the value? What's the price? So I would like to see us start incorporating that into the RFPs and RFQs that we do. Oh, we can definitely do that as long as it's there. Basically? Sorry, it's a busy hourly wage or from them, because that's what they're working on as an hourly wage. That's a real thing. That may be their initial shot out the door, in which case you decide what you're going to negotiate. Assuming that there's one or two people, you're going to try to get them. You're stating the qualifications with their rate sheets. Right. It's qualifications. Request for qualifications. So if we're going to do that, then we shouldn't have seven fee schedule applied in the sealed envelope for separate email. All I'm saying is, is that Nick? His company is called Expo. That's who Nick was working with last year. So they might be. The other thing is, but the other issue here is Santa Margarita. We have to deal with Santa Margarita. And they have a hydrologist. And we need to know for our own benefit for this district what a hydrologist has to say about us and not rely on what Santa Margarita's hydrologist is saying. Yeah. But I would try to hook Santa Margarita on the hook. Well, on some of them. We also have other needs for hydrologists on our own evaluation of our own well fields that we do annually. We evaluate our own well fields from drought stress. Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't mind it. Yeah, and I'm sure there's a lot of stink in just our regular duties that this individual would fulfill. Well, we can do a fee schedule. We can run it over by Gina and take care of that. So are we, so we're not going to approve this? Well, we'll make changes. I'd like you to approve it, please, for those changes. Yeah, OK. What we're asking is that the board authorize staff to solicit proposal from qualified consultants. Yeah. To provide as needed hydrologic services. OK, all right. You can always come with a motion prepared for us to read if you want. I can do it correctly in my presentation. That's perfectly fine. Perfectly fine. Do you have a motion in second? I made a motion to her in second. What kind of motion is that? A motion to her thing. She read it. I'm sorry. That's a little vague. Well, it's a request for a request for qualification. Qualifications for hydrologists to cover the work that's not in the center of Margarita Grove or it has to be in the center. But it's needed to the center of Margarita Grove. All right. She read it. OK, that's a motion. And we have a second. I'm seconded it. OK. Anybody in the audience? Sorry, got a little carried away there. And anybody, any of the right payers who want to talk about this hydrologist, Chuck? This is just an extremely important function to have in place for the district. It's a law that isn't available anymore. You have to have something to cover both the interest of the water district in terms of working with the groundwater agency. There's other stuff that may not be directly related to the groundwater agency. I'm glad you're all seeming kind of to do this. I hope we find somebody that can stay long term and learn this district well and be as valuable a contributor as Nick was for the water district. OK. Any other comments? No? OK. Director Swann? Aye. Director Pouls? Yes. Director Swann? Yes. President Henry? Yes. OK. Redwood Mountain Fair sponsorship is the next item. And Nancy Macy, did you have something you want to say? I have a staff member. I have a staff member I can read. OK, you have a staff member. The district was contacted by the Redwood Mountain Fair asking for sponsorship of providing portable tank water for the two-day event for many years. The district has sponsored water and a generator. This year, the fair has only requested a portable water tank. The 500-gallon tank is stationed in the back of one of the district's small dump trucks for the weekend event. The water station is either self-served or staffed. My girl scouts were some type of civic organization. The cost is included in the memo for supplying the water. It's approximately a little better than $2,000. We get a return, a $2,000 level sponsorship. And it is a great way for the district to be part of a, it's pretty much a local community event that's a great day to sponsor our repairs and start recommending that you approve. So what is included in the sponsorship? I'm not sure I followed up. Well, let's get it here. It's, we supply a tank with water and it's approximately a $2,000 value. What do we get? What's the $2,000 in each case that we get? A booth there and a banner and our name. We don't get a booth though, right? We don't get a booth. You sell anything? No t-shirts? No, no, no. Do you make any money? Our water is there. We sell the water? We do not sell the water. It's just a table? So I'm, right. I thought for the first round, I thought that we were being paid for this. No, no, it's, it's, we are. Normally you pay to have a sponsorship. Or to have it, to be, to have a set. Nice to have a banner or a sponsorship or, but we have a presence there. So, so people can throw eggs at us or water balloons? What do we do there? What do we do? We provide potable drinking water and hopefully a non-environmental sensitive cup. So provide tap water. The booth is where we would give away the water? That's correct. And I'll surely give it away or. And staffed by Girl Scouts? Or Mr. Coffess can go. I'd be happy to. Yeah. The presentation. My name's Jim Coffess. I live in Bedlamon. I've been a co-owner of this Florida District for 36 plus years. Thank you all for your service. I know that they're, every one of us would probably prefer to get somewhere else at the moment. But the fact that we're doing this shows that you've got some commitment to the community. And I appreciate that. The Redwood Mountain Fair, I've been involved as one of the steering committee members for the last eight years. This will be our 10th anniversary holding the event at Loring Camp in Felton. It is a two-day music and art festival that typically occurs the weekend after Memorial Day and has been a well-attended and very popular community event, growing mostly from the Santa Miranda Valley. We sell about 5,000. We have about 5,000 people come each day. We have a steering committee of five of us. They've worked throughout the year. And then we bring together about 600 to 700 volunteers for the two-day event. We sell tickets at a very reasonable price, I think, $30, maybe even less than that if you buy really. And we give away each year about $50,000 back into the community all of the proceeds. But it's average, about $50,000 each year to various school and local non-profit organizations. The Santa Miranda Valley Water District has been a sponsor for all of those years. They have the, we provide the water for free in the district. And it's one of the more popular things, a fair. It has actually now been emulated by other fairs, music fairs around the state. The idea that if you provide free water, it cuts down on the alcohol consumption. It also keeps people hydrated. And it's a good way to show off the quality and value of our local water. Furthermore, this year, for the first time we were going to ban all plastic cups. So it's going to be bring your own water bottle or you buy a water bottle on site and refill it. And I just can't tell you what a good, feel good thing it is for the community to be able to have the opportunity to do that. Secondly, I'd like to, Rick, you said that we had made the request for the water, which we do each year, but I'm surprised that we didn't also request the generator, which you've been gracious to provide us. Maybe there's some reason that that couldn't happen. But I'd just like to point out on two, for your consideration, two things. One is your participation as part of the community is really valued. And I think the return on your investment is incalculable. And you are talking about what do you get? You want a t-shirt? You could have a t-shirt? You want tickets? You can have tickets? You want to sit at the booth and pass out flyers? You're more than welcome to do that as well. In general, the free water has been a pretty good draw. So I mean, you could take full advantage of that. If the generator is not available or if you think that this is too big an expense for this district, please consider selling it to us. And we'll figure out a way to find somebody else to take that sponsorship. But we sure would appreciate the water district being a part of this. We asked about the generator. You don't fit the PR. Pardon me? There are logos on all the PR. You could have pretty much. We asked about the generator and this secretary questioned about the generator. And we got a response back from who she contacted that they did not need the generator. Because you've always got the generator. We usually have one and then a backup. And yours has been packed up. We asked and they said no. Because we thought it was auctioned. Well, there's only five of us. Did you say no? No. I've been charged at the site. And I thought, if you guys don't do it, then I've got to go scramble and find it. So we are given some of our policies about participation of these kinds of events. And what we do or don't do for each of them. It's a policy not just for this particularly, but in general. We, to my knowledge, do not have a written policy. Usually a case by case request would come to the board and ask we've done it before for track events at the high school. Not a lot. We haven't done a lot because it does take some staff time and that. But we've always done it for the fair. But we do not do it that often. There's been a couple other ones. Do we get requests or just no one requests? Not that often. No, not that often. Like I said, we have a couple at the schools that have a couple other requests in the past. But it doesn't go out that often. Most of the time it's just the fair. Bill? As everybody knows, there's an issue with recycling plastics now. So I mean, we really do not want to hold a fair and sell people plastic bottles with water. So I judge all of these expenses. Actually that the water district's involved with. You know, there's been just a lot of community involvement. One, this is one of them, this one's. And it's always very helpful to think this is going to cost everybody about $0.25 each. Divide, just divide by $2,000 by $7,900 customers for that. Or what this is then. And as you said, Jim, the benefits are priceless. The PR, not like I said, not having a bunch of plastic bottles, we could be selling a bottle of water out there. We have a big pile of plastic bottles that we'd have to risk, et cetera, et cetera. So all of these, I know that we had that, but that's the way that, and what tells me is 95% of our water customers are going to agree to pitch in a quarter for this. So I don't know. Did I have another question? No cups at all, no paper cups, no plastic cups. We're going to have cups in the first aid station for people that have zero other options and need hydration. So we will have to go to the first aid station to get a cup if you don't have your own water bottle or you don't have it. How much are the water bottles going to cost? Well, you bring your own water bottle. I didn't know I'd get that, but if you don't, I don't care. Do you know what we're selling water bottles? They would have to buy a beer, and then take that cup to get the water. I have to. I mean, the point was, we're really about reducing waste. And so it's a, I mean, we make an effort to inform people that, first of all, we've always advertised free water. And we'll make a bigger push this year because we're not going to use plastic cups for beer either. I mean, we have no plastic cups. Your point was, well taken, Bill, about the plastic water bottles. We pretty much eliminated those. I'm in charge of waste disposal. And we've been able to cut down a one six yard container simply because we don't have a water, plastic water bottles to pick up. How do they get their beer? Beer has to be in a glass. You have to buy a glass. You can buy a glass. How much is a glass of these two beers? I think it comes with your first beer with a discount and then you, you know, I don't know what those prices are, but I know we're cheap. $10, $10 for your first alcoholic beverage to get the glass and the drink, which is normally eight, so it's two bucks. And where do the glasses come from? I mean, do you guys buy the glasses and first? Really? And are they? Logo. They're logo? You want to sponsor that shoot? No, I'd be interested in selling the glasses if we can make a profit on it. And our water booth, if we have that. You know, we, I think our total operating budget for this beer is maybe $150,000, $170,000 maybe. And we generate, like I say, the last several years, we generated $50,000. And all of that, every nickel of it, is distributed to the various groups that help us marshal the volunteers that are necessary to put the beer on. So, I mean, you kind of alluded to earlier of money making opportunities. I mean, I suspect that if you had a dump booth, you probably would. Well, I mean, the only thing you're describing is a money losing opportunity right now. So I'd rather turn that around. Rather than lose $2,000, if you want to pay $2,000, we can provide the water, I'm sure. Or if you want something to sell, something to make something. We'll have to do it. If you guys don't sponsor it yourself, we'll have to find someone else to do it. Or give out $48,000 this year instead of $50,000. Because we have to supply water, we've decided that that is an important focus. And then, Mark Mallow, we're setting an example to the community that we're not going to sell, we're not going to rip off people and sell them a T-Ball lip bottle, a plastic bottle, that we're going to have to deal with the recycling. Yeah, if you don't see a value in this, then certainly not. The benefit is that you heard it, but you know, that's what you need to wake up to this benefit. 25 cents, again, it's 25 cents for every four-period. That's really good math you did there, Bill. Could I go to the? I was going to question that one. OK. Rick, how does the staff situation work? Is this overtime, or is it a comp time that's off? Well, it depends. They prep the tank during regular working hours. They have to clean it, they have to disinfect it, sample it. Then on the weekend, we set it up during the regular work day. Then on the weekend, our on-call staff will stop by. And we try to time it when he's out on the call. So it's part of the two-hour minimum, because we pay a two-hour minimum. So he'll swing by and stop. Or some of our staff who go to the fair will swing by and keep an eye on it and look at the equipment. It's very low-tech. It's a beer box with a little 12-volt pump. Yeah, I think I saw that. Yeah, and there's nothing to it. We keep an eye on it to make sure the battery doesn't malfunction or somebody doesn't knock a wire loose or something. And there's ice in the chest. That's up to the fair. They have to bring their ice. And the people who stop the beef or whoever just the water out, they take care of the ice. All we do is bring the water. That's one trick. We fill up once and then just kind of monitor it. And don't have to refill it again? We usually don't. No, we haven't yet. I mean, we got close, so we went to our next size up tank. So we don't like the truck take to move the truck once it's in there because of the amount of people. There's a large amount of people from the San Juan Valley that visit that fair. So once the rig's in there for safety, we leave it to the park. And the staff, so we're not really people away from operating time later on. And we try to fit in, like I say, on the two-hour minimum. So very little, if any costs to the district. And like I said, a lot of our staff who live in the Santa Rosa Valley go to the fair and they'll swing by and check it out. And who staffs the booths? I don't know. We handle the staff. The booth is approximate to the first aid booths. So they're extorting each other. And we've had, in the past, boy scouts or girl scouts that stand in the booth because nobody else is. And how community theater did it one year ago? Yeah, there were people who just to make sure that there's ice in the thing and that people don't have to pull the lever. All right. And it doesn't. They don't leave it on. Has the Scots Valley provided water in the past at all? There are nearly as good as it is in the Santa Rosa Valley. So we've never asked Scots out. Well, it's a mountain fair, right? It's the Redwood Mountain Fair. That would include Scots Valley, I assume. Well, you know, as a matter of fact, they have a festival on the same weekend. So I don't know. But those best we're welcome, we'd be happy to have them. We have the Monterey Bay Air Quality Control District is a sponsor. They set up a booth and have educational program there. We've had, say, of our shores, a number of other age community organizations that are there for outreach. We have 100 art vendors. And we mix in the nonprofit and public agencies among them. There are any comments from the public? Yes. Jim Mosier from Felton. I just would like to speak in support of what Jim's saying and for you to continue the sponsorship. This is just an amazing event. And it gives a water district this opportunity to send an important message to the community. First of all, that we have really great water and that we support the high quality water that's better than what you can buy in a bottle. And it gives this incredible positive image for the district out in the community. Because so many people attend for very small costs, as Director Smallman said. I have not actually worked at the booth, but I've worked next to the booth. And I've seen people come through. And it is kind of a magnet for people to come because you need water. It is so important that we have free water at the event. And I think it's just a big opportunity for the district to have this outreach to the community in a very positive way. So I am very supportive of it and speaking on behalf of many of the people who go to the fair. They really appreciate it. And they recognize that the water district is an integral and important part of the community. Thank you. Debbie? Yeah, Deborah Lowen. Jim and Nancy, I think the question that's been coming from the community is, and this is apparent in this presentation, is that this is an art and music festival with the intent to raise money for nonprofits. Is that correct? OK, so a lot of people have a problem. And they have fun, I guess. But a lot of people in the district are having trouble saying, so is it the water district's mission to stop people from using plastic water? I don't believe it is in a mission statement. We probably have a lot of customers who use plastic all the time at home and buy bottled water. Is it the district's mission to support nonprofits and get money away? And that's probably not it either. So I have a suggestion. My suggestion is Redwood Mountain Fair and Watershed Festival that would solve a lot of the problem. Also, I was reading in the paper about the science fair, very, very popular, sponsored by private businesses. We have a lot of kids in these high schools who are doing these projects. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have the science fair presentation as part of have the booths, including the science, and particularly ones that have to do with water and an environment that would meet all the purposes of the district. It would meet the purposes of the sponsors. It would meet the purposes of Valley Women's Club because that is your charter. I should point out that Valley Women's Club is not is a sponsor just like you guys have been a sponsor, just like Wild Roots is a sponsor, just like. But we can change it from what it is as it's promotion. The district is buying $2,000 worth of promotion, and it is not free water because of its water being provided by the district at the cost that you are able to get away for free. The term free water, there is a cost to providing the water, and the district is picking it up. I'm just saying to tie in, including a watershed festival, including the science aspect of it, since the education grants thing has been pushed back, that is a perfect way to still pay homage to that and to make it more appropriate for the district where people might feel a little more comfortably sponsoring it, because right now it's just basically the promotion of the water district is what they're buying. This is an idea for next year. I like the idea. I mean, I could hear. Get those kids involved, that'd be really fun. The whole point of it, for me, as one of the five guys that works on this, is that this is a community event. That's why we keep the price so low so that anybody can come, and they do. And it's, I mean, I'm surprised you guys haven't been. Yeah, you've been? Oh, okay, I mean, then you should get a sense of it. I mean, it's the only annual event in the valley that I know of that pretty much you can find 50 or 60% of the local's in one spot. So, I mean, and I hear you. I mean, it isn't asking you for $2,000. We ask every sponsor for similar amounts. But, you know, that's what it costs in order to, you know, put the operation on and you want to be a part of it or not? Any more comments from the public and anybody else? No? I have some more questions. Does the, I don't know this answer, but do we have a connection out there with the work in, not this time? Do they do their own, they have their own source. They have their own source. They have, they don't have a very good source. They're in the process of annexing and obtaining water from the district. Right now they're out of our service area in our spare fields. They have an inadequate water supply and an inadequate electric supply. That's what the generator comes in to be able to run the fans. Yeah, cause, you know, the bulk rate for a unit of water is 15 or 40, I think, is what I'm reading here, right? That's seven hundred and forty gallons. One people have water, that's for sure. Is the Rory Camp water supply not efficient? It's not possible. It's not possible. I think they do deal with all bottle of water for their concessions. In plastic bottles. Yeah. And they make money on it. We got to make money on it. Anybody else? Okay. I would like to make a motion that we approve the cost of two thousand whatever dollars to supply water for the red to 2019 for the movement of air. I'll have a second. I'll second it. Okay. All right. Director Smallman. Aye. Director Fultz. No. Director Swan. No. President Henry. Motion fails. Thank you. We would make an arrangement to buy it or is that just some kind of status though? We can talk offline. We'll talk offline. Thank you. The letter to the San Cruz County Parks use of glyphosate. Right. And in recent years the seven of Valley Water District granted two easements over portions of a couple of our parcels to the Santa Cruz County for the use for the public, the new public felt in the library. The easement would allow the county to conduct repair and habitat restoration activities and the installation of nature trails and outdoor environmental education facilities on district property as part of the library project. It's come to the attention that the county parks has or is planning to use glyphosate on district property. That is the subject of the easements. In response to the carcinogenic probability for glyphosate found in the International Agency for Research on Cancer Report dated March 2015. The district has banned the use of glyphosate on its property. Consistent with this district-wide ban on April 9th, the district sent a letter to the county of Santa Cruz Parks requesting that the county refrain from using glyphosate on district property and near the library site boundary where glyphosate may be transported onto the adjacent property. The letter is attached that we sent to the county parks and we have not heard back from this point from the county parks. This is just in your packet for our information. The letter's been sent. And the letter has been sent. And SAP is applying to attend their meeting or whether they're going to discuss if they're still going to discuss much or they are not. We haven't found anything back in right. There's nothing in the easement that is explicit about following district policies for their use of the easement. Is that correct? Would that be something that we could ask them if we can do an amendment? I guess we can always ask. I'll refer to counsel. We haven't heard back from the county. It's been kind of soon that they may write us back and say they're going to do it anyway. Well, they're going to do it. They're not going to do it or they have no intentions of doing it. I would hope that they would honor our request. But they do have an exemption in their policy that they could apply for and use it under the county's policies. They haven't yet? I heard both. Their safety manager says it's possible to use it already. And then from the other staff, they've said no, they haven't. So I'm trying to get a clarification. It would have been the dabbing method that they used if they did not spray. Yeah. I just want to make a legal clarification. I did say that the reason I'd like to say would be outside of the scope of the existing Christmas. And I think that's a fair statement. Could you expand on that a little bit, please? What do you mean? I'd be happy to get into that with you offline. Okay. The reason I asked the question was to make it explicit. Not an implicit or a, we have to go argue with them and we have to go to court. We're hopeful that they'll just sort of recognize this is an important thing to us and agree to amend the easement. To make it explicit going forward. I make that comment just to clarify the record that it's, it's, that there's a good, it's fair to say that the county should know to use it like a state on district property over the districts, but I understand your point as well. Yeah, because when I read the grant of easement, it says in consideration of the mutual environmental benefits herewith, district hereby grants to county in its successor to signs, etc. And not exclusive easement for the purpose of construction, maintenance and operation of the environmental improvements. And so it kind of leaves that open as to what that means. Because they could say operation is well hey, this is what we do as part of our standard operating procedure. We file for an exemption, we get the right to do it and we go do it. I don't know that it's clear that they can't do it or they shouldn't do it. Basement that way. I don't know what this guy's thinking because you know once the public finds out that this Jeff Gaffney or whatever is cool with classicity, you know, it's not going to vote well for the county. So if he wants to play games and you know, thinks he needs to use biomecine for this little small boosted city up a lot next to a creek. I mean, oh well, let's see what happens. We can move ahead forward. I mean, I wouldn't like to. I don't know if anybody else would like to. There's a good letter that you wrote about. I might have something to add. Rick. Rick. Rick Moran from Ben Lohman. Excellent letter, Rick. I appreciate that. And I have been in contact with Santa Cruz County Parks Director Jeff Gaffney. And he said to me that they have not used it yet and that they are applying for this exemption. He also said to me that he would come up here and meet with me, because we talked for a fairly long time, half an hour about this issue, and he realized the seriousness of many of the residents up here and the seriousness that this board has for the use of glyphosate in its watershed. So that's what I know and anything else, because I plan on meeting with him, and I'll let you guys know. I'll let through, Rick. And I plan on being at that April 30th meeting. Rick Rogers says he's going to come there. It's a public meeting. I'd suggest that anybody else who's interested, come as well. Thank you very much. Yes. I'm Jim Mosier, and I'm here representing the Colton Library Friends. Your letter CC us. We have a letter because we weren't able to get to you in time for the packet. I'd just like to read it. It'll take about two minutes and then submit it. That's to the board of directors, dear board members. I am writing on behalf of Colton Library Friends regarding the recent disclosure that the Santa Cruz County Parks and Recreation Department was considering the use of the herbicide glyphosate at the Colton Library Discovery Park site. When this came to our attention approximately at the same time as your board, we promptly contacted the parks department to raise our concerns. We subsequently contacted Supervisor Bruce McPherson's office. It is our understanding, based on these conversations, that in light of the community concerns raised by your board, FLF and others, that the parks department has decided to withdraw its application for glyphosate used at the library park site. Now we won't know that for a fact until the meeting. But that was what we understand is the intent at this point. It has not been used, is also our understanding. It's not been used at this point. We believe that the county parks department should strictly adhere to the spirit and requirements of the county's integrated pest management policy, which permits the use of herbicide, only when there is documentation that alternatives to their use have been fully considered. Specific legal public health and safety concerns must also be reviewed. The policy also emphasizes the importance of public involvement in its implementation. In the case of the library park site, the primary problem is the infestation of invasive blackberry plants that are extremely difficult time consuming and expensive to eradicate using non-toxic methods. Typically by pulling the plants a process must be repeated over several years. There also is no guarantee that these methods will be successful. Nevertheless despite the cost, we support using non-toxic methods first before any considering use of herbicides. We believe the San Lorenzo Valley community should be actively engaged in the decisions regarding the use of herbicides in our valley. To this end, we are considering establishing a program to monitor and report to SLD residents a progress made to eradicate the invasive blackberries and other invasive species on the site, including the SLD-WD easement property, their success and costs. We will focus particularly on the criteria outlined in the county's pest management policy. This can be part of a broader program to provide resources to the community regarding habitat restoration and watershed protection strategies that minimize or eliminate the use of herbicides and pesticides. Such a program fits squarely into FLL's vision of the new library park. Our mission is to support outstanding library and park services to the community with a special focus on environmental literacy. The library park facility is bisected by Bull Creek and SLD-WD water source. It is therefore particularly well suited as a location for educational programs that focus on habitat restoration, watershed protection and the impact of global warming, and the connections to SLD-WD's mission of providing safe, reliable water to residents and visitors. We are also dedicated to building community, establishing a safe place for residents of all ages to explore, learn and constructively engage with each other regarding the important issues of our time. We would like to invite SLD-WD to take part in such a program by including the district's efforts to protect the rare and sensitive sand hill habitats from invasive plants without the use of glyphosite. Expanding the program for the sand hills will greatly enhance its value, not only for SLD residents but for both professionals and communities across the region and state facing similar habitat restoration issues. We are grateful that SLD-WD is a partner in the library park project and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with the district as the project moves forward for the library park facility to open. Signed by Nancy Gerdt, president of a chair of Felton Library Friends. Thank you. Thank you. Any? Yes, I would like the board to follow the recommendation to add the ban on glyphosite being used on any basement property. I think that needs to be done as soon as possible. I disagree. I think that any opening for using glyphosate of the Felton Library I think we're averting a PR disaster by making it very clear it will not be there instead of equivocating. I beg pardon. I disagree with your character. Of course we disagree with it. Not paying attention to what people in this valley want has been disastrous for some people. No one is going to be elected to this board who supports glyphosate in the foreseeable future. This valley has come out very strongly against the use of glyphosate. I also have a suggestion there has never been a press release. This appears to be something that the county was not aware of county part. So perhaps the information needs to be more clear and be put out there. If we press release for a statement of condition that this is the district's policy, provided to the county, to the nearby cities, provided to parks and rec, provided to any of our vendors or consultants I think you need to be really firm. This is the policy that's taking place on this. It is non-negotiable. Your board made a decision. There are no policy. So to allow that there will be exceptions to it and by someone else's in my view is just not acceptable. I would like it written into the easement but that's clear. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. There was a question. Barbara. I just wanted to say that I think this is a I thought that was a very well mentioned. I think that it sounds like the Felton Library is trying to make an effort to accommodate the needs of the ban on the glyphosate and at the same time the district needs to stand firm on their position on glyphosate for the property that they do own. And it sounds like the easement is a fence between the properties in some ways. But maybe it is the right thing to do is for the district to participate as a community to make these decisions for the habitat which we all own. So they're all together on the same page with what we do and what we don't do. So just my two cents. Thank you. Anyone else? Anyone else on the board of one saying anything? I guess the only question I have is did we have a sense of the board to ask? No, I'm just going to ask for the clarification. Are you using any action to board one of the take on this matter? So I personally would like to amend the easement but I can't direct to do that by myself. That seems to make perfect sense though. Do you have any motion on the board? We don't need a motion to ask the county. All right. Okay. Item D on the draft fiscal year 2019-20 proposed budget, revenues and expenses. I gave each of you a fresh three-count there was a smooth one on the page versus what was in the original packet to the very last page I didn't realize that some of the categories of the expenses didn't line up with my original spreadsheet. So I the four lower ones were flip-flop. The print-out has those revised. We can have flip-flop numbers. So the budget and finance committee met on April 9 and essentially what this memo is is what was received there. We also then went over details descriptions for what rolls those up. So when you see the salaries and benefits category that's multiple accounts and multiple departments making up that category number. And so what we did was through line by line each of those I'm sure we still have a lot of questions and discussions that we're going to be having at budget and finance. This board packet got put together essentially the next day so that's why it's essentially the same version that was received in the budget and finance committee. So high level operating revenues were forecasting to be $10.8 million. The proposed operating expense budget is $8.3 million. So that would leave us at an operating income of about $2.5 million. So that's going to be factoring in the slated rate increase when that happens. We're assuming similar water consumption of about $660,000 per year which is what the average has pretty much been made stable at. Non-operating revenue of $1.3 non-operating expenses of about $1.1 and so the overall net increase is forecasted to be $2.7. The following page is break those down even more for what the breakdown is. The following bullet starts to go over the helping to explain some of the operating expense fluctuations. Particularly from what the fiscal year 1819 budget request was versus what we think the fiscal year 1819 actions are going to be coming in at is I'd say about significantly less. You know it's a little over $300,000 or so. So this starts to go over some of that a lot of timing. So the fiscal year 1819 budget had the project manager which became the engineering manager position forecasted to be filled for the whole year. Darren just came on board so there's a whole chunk of money that was budgeted for that wasn't spent in this current fiscal year 1819 that we would be realizing the full year effect of for next year. In addition there was a water treatment position that was budgeted in prior in fiscal year 1819 at the January marker. So you're going to have another six months of a full year of that person being reflected in the 1920 budget. The only new hire in this 1920 request is an engineering associate and that is slated to be January 1st hire. The idea is to be able to get Darren a little bit of time here to assess what it is that he's exactly picturing meeting and then hiring that person January 1st of 2020. Over some of the other different staff health rates surprisingly were lower than anticipated. The health changes that came about actually made it more beneficial for the employees to change their plans which in turn saved the district about 60,000 versus what we were forecasting for the 1819 budget. And then some of the other basic ones non-operating revenue the property tax increase is in line with a ground of 4% increase that were anticipating coming from the county and next year's property tax revenue. Other than that a lot of it stings in. So we can kind of go over, I did bring some of the additional support so people have some questions I'm not sure if anyone was able to go and look at all of the detail reported is a lot of line items and columns. So sometimes it can be a lot to take in. So if there's any specific questions or different category questions I can try and practice some of those. Well this is basically we're not really taking any action tonight. This is just a draft with the budget? This is just a draft so it will continue to go back to the budget in finance but there are certain areas that I don't know. Staff had prepared our first our initial proposal the district manager to go through and make some cuts. One of the main ones that I do want to talk about is the environmental expenses since the board recently stopped the data collection and data plan. Correct. Sorry. Water education grants. The request came in to do them for 1920 but the district manager wanted to remove some of the more discretionary environmental expenditures so that the board can be the ones helping make the decision for the direction that they want for the 19 year budget. Was that $32,000? $38,000? For what was being requested for what was anticipated for fiscal year 1920 it was the watershed data collection grants of $7,500 and the education program grants of $17,500 so a total of $25,000 for that. We resolved and we voted for that to suspend that. That's sticking out of the budget. My big thing was I recently got an email about the steelhead one of our for the planning and I can't remember the name but he was concerned that that was cut out of the budget. So the Olympia land management for invasive species of $10,000 was removed and then the juvenile salmon extreme habitat sampling stewardship which is the joint project with the city of Santa Cruz typically with Don Alley of $25,000 was removed and some of these removals were just to make it so that it's better to get staff direction for I don't understand why we just went through this process about arguing about $2,000 for the weather and not a fair and why that item as far as I'm concerned should also be separated and voted on and not I don't believe that we should be messing with the budget and not addressing these costs and not arguing and not discussing them. Well that's why we're having this meeting. This is to discuss your 19-20 budget. If you're telling me that you're cut this new budget cut out, lapped and God knows what else then how can I possibly vote for this? You don't have to. We're not going to vote for this budget. Not tonight? No. So we're just basically going to make comments. Hold discussions about putting items in the budget taking budgets out of the budget. I would like to say that items like that and other ones like the Education Grants we voted for that. We agreed to discontinue that. I agree that we can take that off the budget. But if there's any other ones I think all of them need to be discussed thoroughly and they're not included. But they're all here. And it shows what was removed. Okay, so anyway, how much is the fish monitoring program? $25,000. $25,000. Okay, what other one are you talking about? The Olympian Land Management for invasive species of $10,000. Okay, and now that money was going to be set aside to do what? So you're saying it was going to be. This is for the future budget. So this is for the 1921 budget. To get rid of the on the list what 48 properties up in the well. To get rid of the invasive species we had budgeted $10,000 and now you want to cut that. I know. I just want this because I don't want we're here to discuss this budget and I want clear definitions of what exactly you want to cut. Well it's kind of a collaborative effort. So I mean that's where any of what was deemed more discretionary environmental spending we simply just zeroed out. So that the board can help give us direction for what programs they do think where they don't think they want to fund or how much if they want to see it cut in the way they can see them. In the invasive species back with that so that's on me that we're not going to do nothing to get rid of the invasive species we're not going to invest any money into that. That's where it stands now. Yes. So it's those. It's also then the water conservation program that has the residential water rebates that we have currently a commercial program devices and some of the different outreach. There's like a $5,000 annual fee for the water coalition. Okay so then that one I'm sorry to be a faster but so how much money was that budgeted for originally? $25,000. And that was to provide rebates for like low flow you know water conservation Okay. So this is obviously a sensitive subject for the board the board has given direction for stuff and so staff didn't want to put something in and be told you're not going with the direction that you know the board just goes for. So that's where we just wanted to open the communications so we could figure out is it a no spin is it a some spin is it a full spin so I would I think it would be a really good idea to just itemize these costs and say okay $25,000 and in the description so we can discuss them as a board to say okay are we going to continue to spend this money or not you know instead of just going oh okay you know the budget is okay because I'm in a loss you know okay so we went through the three items the fish monitoring $25,000 the invasive species $10,000 and that was just for the well built and then water conservation $25,000 and you know there might be three or four but I think we should just I think we need to Full request is approximately $90,000 $90,000 total of cuts. Right. Not necessarily cut but zeroing out so that we have discussion at a full board so that it doesn't just skip So which one am I missing then so I could mention those three I mean we can go ahead and get I mean this is the first discussion exactly so what we can do is put together some does that sound like my guess to put together some of the different Well I'd like to hear the full board's comments on the draft budget on where they want to see the district want to move ahead and what areas do you want to do you want to put these these items back in or give staff some direction I'm not hearing very much Yeah well I some of them I think are like well obviously I'm like but this monitoring program is I can go on and on that is really well spent I mean you know just for water quality I want to do that is you know I think there's going to be a big problem so that's one of the ones that I absolutely support and you know I support that because from before the we've got if we should figure out a way to get rid of the French groom up with the thing so $10,000 I think is a reasonable amount you know I think that should stay the providing money for the water conservation stuff $25,000 I don't have a problem with that one either and I'm not sure we have to discuss with $25,000 so $50,000 $60,000 where's the other $30,000 the watershed data collection grants and education programs $25,000 and membership we already voted that off right the watershed budget okay so that's one that's why I'm saying some stuff you know it's been clear so we need to back off on those but the rest of that $30,000 for the for the water coalition membership okay so we I haven't said much but I'm going to say something now we have a lot of things we have to do there's been deferred maintenance for five years there's not sufficient money to do the fix the infrastructure we don't have enough money set aside for emergencies or even to for let's say something happened and we need money to just run the district we don't have it and so where why do we keep saying this isn't very much money so let's spend that this isn't very much money so let's spend that we're talking millions of dollars that we need to fix things and you can say oh well that's not enough but you got to start somewhere is my feeling we need our reserves need to be much better than they are we just have a lot of this is a water district we need to provide water to people in the community and for the fish monitoring that has never gone out for an RFP and it should to see if we could get better deals and do we have to do it every year can we do it every other year can we do it every three years I don't know I don't know the answer to that but we've got to look at costs and we have to start somewhere anybody, Bob so I sort of took it up a level to look at the budget in a holistic fashion using last year's audit ransom numbers and these may not be accurate they might not have the hand transcribe they might not have the online spreadsheets but just some numbers for people to keep in mind if you look at the I think you put in the audit which is really good if you have an average of four units your bill has gone up 171% the number of connections has gone up about 1% I'm guessing because I don't have the exact numbers but I think it's prelongpico and postlongpico basically the numbers 500 connections more or less the amount of water we've produced has gone down by 2% the water sold has gone down by 16% the revenue has gone up by 143% and the expenses have gone up by it looks like 61% inflation during that time was about 19% more or less so these are the macro numbers that we're having to deal with that our community is having to deal with and this number which basically looks to me like a 10% uplift from the actuals this year doesn't accomplish what I'd like to see around cost reduction we focused on one particular area but this budget is growing like crazy from an expense point of view I understand that there's deferred maintenance but I look at deferred maintenance as an unfunded liability just like I look at the unfunded liability for our employees that are expecting a retirement and I think the deferred maintenance and other things like that need to be treated differently they need to be looked at out of the net that we have not built into the operating expenses themselves I also had a hard time matching this up with the audit because it looks like the non-operating expenses in the audit are handled differently than they're handled here which made it a little bit hard for me to follow so I'm really trying to separate recurring from one time so meter sales for example are not revenue that we should be putting into our operating budget they are one time things that need to go to things like deferred maintenance pensions reserves, that sort of thing and if there's a way to sell more meters on upgrades or what have you, that'd be great because we need the money but I look at this budget going up as far as it did and I think we talked about this during the Budget Committee meeting this is a place to start but you might be getting other guidance I'd like to see the budget go down in terms of what we're looking at at an operating cost point of view because we it's not for me to say cut here, cut here, cut here, cut here unless you want me to but I think the Board should say either we want it 10% up or we want it flat or we want it down 5% as a matter of policy and then the staff goes off and builds what the budget would look like under those conditions I thought that pretty much it's said it's a 4% increase but you're saying it's a 10% increase? Well I'm having a hard time following it the way it's formatted but when I look at variants to FY18, 19 estimated actuals I'm assuming that means estimated actuals to propose FY19, 20 budget is a 9% increase? That's 9% And versus the fiscal year 18, 19 budget is a 4% but like I said is you have full year of engineering that's why I was going over some of the reasons as to why you're seeing I get that What I'm trying to do here is do apples to apples and then you fold in the other part so there's no question our district needs to move from a pure operating or a mainly operating focus to an engineer and construction focus because that's what we need to do in order to fix our infrastructure so that's going to be a huge thing for us but it's not a limited money and our rate payers are looking at these they may not have gone through and done the spreadsheet but they intuitively know inflation's not going up nearly as fast as the expenses or the amount of money that they're having to pay for this and it's not clear exactly what the ROI was for each of these years for the dramatic increases that they received I don't know that I can explain it at this point either I mean this isn't a typical ROI company when you're going and having to go out having spikes in operating expenses because you had a horrible winter and lots of pipe breaks and different stuff like that that's where you're not going to find ROI's on every single thing I get that and that stuff needs to be broken out separately right now I think we're doing too much of sort of folding in sort of normal operating and those sort of one time things that occur because I look at them very differently yes we live in an area that's weather events and we have to deal with that but I can't tell that from here and when I look at the operation expenses and the treatment expenses at least according to the according to the the audit like distribution went from 2.6 to 2.8 last year that's 200,000 that I mean it did go up to like 2.8 2.9 but it wasn't one of these things where oh that's a spike due to the 17 reigns I can't see that same thing with the treatment the treatment is well actually I think the treatment is being treated a little differently here because the numbers really spiked big time in the last couple three years are you looking at the statistical section of the audit? yes so I wouldn't use that I'd use this document in front of you but that's where you're getting the same buckets for what your budget is but this is where we need to get all the buckets aligned if we're going to the end but that statistical information actually means something because that's what people are going to look at from a trend analysis point of view there's a difference between how you book journal entries for the audit versus what you don't put non-cash expenditures typically to be gauging you to what you're going to be able to afford non-cash ones that's the big difference between the audit and the budget all I'm saying is that when I look at this there's we if we're going to go sell this to the community that they can be looking at anywhere from 6-9% in operating expense increases every year from here up forever that's a big lift given where we are with inflation given where we are with the rates and all that and so at this point in time I can't see how to pass this budget the way that it's proposed to well I mean this is we're in the very beginning stages we were at the budget and finance committee meeting where we did go line by line and did explain the increases for $25,000 to do a back truck conversion because that's going to save us money down the road so I mean we have sat in the budget and finance the very first and gone through line by line what these fluctuations are let's be clear the budget and finance committee we got the information during the meeting and we went through it to understand what the line items were we didn't spend a lot of time because it was not clear to me anyway what the line items were so we didn't spend a lot of time discussing the underlying what are we going to do with this number on that there were a few high points like the vacuum $25,000 I get that but what we're talking here about is the difference in numbers that are quite big it's not just the back truck we're going to be talking about the board budget and finance committees about this it's going to come back to the board problem this is where we have to start the discussions somewhere and I don't think that it's to I mean given the budget finance committee was on the night quite literally my only option was to turn around and essentially the same but I'd like to see how we've got to get that they're asking for general direction from the board so as you mentioned what about I mean just wait until Steve has a chance to talk to give direction say let's see the operating expenses hold flat or decrease by some percentage and let them figure it out I mean those are the experts so that would be my kind of direction my other one would be if you've plotted in these numbers the rate increase at the end of the year I'd like to see what they would be if the rate increase didn't occur of course it'd be worse but you know how much worse I'd just like to get an idea it's roughly about half the number is about what that works out to me the only thing that I really want the board to be mind-closed when you're looking at a lot of this stuff is looking at the district the different buckets and there's a lot of these expenses that are fixed they're not stuff that you can simply turn around and cut so from what you know you mentioned a 10% decrease that you wanted to see off of last year's numbers quite literally you're talking about laying off the boards to be able to see those type of results we're not a typical private corporation to where you have a marketing department or you have a R&D department that you can sit here and squeeze type of a thing a lot of these are very more so fixed unless you want to consider staffing staff not to be a fixed cost type of a thing that's where we can go through and pull out some of the different stuff that is more discretionary you know obviously training conferences some of the different membership those will be a little bit more discretionary are those areas that I think should be good within reason you know but you know probably not but like a lot of the operating expenses are they're going to be what they're going to be we're very mindful of being competitive with inventory that we're going out and trying to get the multiple bids and they request the documents back you know because it's public record that they can get their little bids sheets back and see see them on what and certain ones by golly they're not going to get twice at least on that department we're signing we are very mindful with some of those different things some of the different things that do still also go into the budget are any for for labor it does assume like a 3% cost of living increase so I mean those type of things will be built into this health insurance increases we assume those different things to be in this so this is what I would consider to be a more fully loaded picture of what the current MLU calls for 3% is that correct that's what it is well the expiration on it unless it continues going forward unless somebody decides to within 120 days and 90 days but right now it's built in a 3% a year so we keep those things going so it should be a pretty good representation and like I said it's very easy for me to go back and explain why fiscal year 1819 is coming in lower than what the prior year budget was because the majority of it is labor-related function so a lot of this stuff is very answerable it's stuff that I mean if there's a certain area that we want to open fraud we really can and so that's where I at least wanted to get it here you know we're in April to get a feel for the whole board and see if we can get some sort of unanimous but at least get some of the different main ideas that are bouncing around so that we can continue to develop it to do the drill down so that at the next budget and finance and the next time we do bring it to the board we're getting that whole the whole picture that people are looking for Bill okay and I mean this one just isn't one Pico I mean you know we've had to survive on 500 customers it's 7900 customers you know it's very important to consider how much money are we talking about for these considerations $90,000 is $11.39 per year per person so I mean I think we can send you a check for $11.39 and what you'll lose is you'll lose the fish monitoring you'll lose we won't get rid of the invasive species up in the sand hills and the education grants and all the things that we've talked about for $11.40 $11.40 is not going to help me keep your rates down so I've been preaching and preaching over and over about some savvy business plans about doing our in-house engineering and construction projects saving millions of dollars not $90,000 millions of dollars you know people don't perk up their ears with that but we're all focused on oh wow we're going to save $90,000 we're going to save $2,000 we're going to save we're going to cut the stiff limbs that's a dollar per person a year I've worked for private companies, Scrooge's I've been at Bob Cratchett a couple of times and those companies they don't see the benefits they don't see the benefits small expenditures and they don't grow they don't work as a team they just the top brass they're able to they're the ones that get rich they have a couple bosses and we're Scrooge's and they're the only ones that they didn't have the confidence to grow did you get back to our budget instead of somebody else's well it's a completely different situation because we're a public agency so I mean I'm just saying that we are a public agency we have some obligations and to spell it out to consider I mean I want to hear from the public are you willing to pay $11.40 for those items are you willing to pay the education grants was $4 out of that $4 per year raising the stiff limbs is a dollar per year per person I'm just saying this amount of money is meaningless for this water district well it's not going to I'm not going to be able to tell you I'm going to keep your rates down I'm going to be able to send you a check for $12 so you want to get rid of staff is that it no I'm just saying that your cuts that you want to make is $12 a year oh come on come on you know what our biggest expense is staff and we can't just be quiet we can't we can't reduce staff we need the staff we have the state has been on top of SLB for years for years about not having adequate field staff now they I'm assuming we finally have adequate field staff so who are you going to get rid of because that is our big expense is staff and I'm not forgetting rid of any of them I'll tell you that much right now do you mind I'm talking to Bob well we're talking to the world board and to the community for both people here as well as I'm taking you know I think the other thing that we should look at is what kind of changes do we want to make in how we do business I think I mentioned for example when we talked about the the French room situation is it in the best interest of the district to own that property you know our primary mission is not habitat preservation our primary mission is different and there are other groups out there that have as a primary mission doing other things we can certainly see if there's a way to be able to partner with them there might be a different way for us to do business relative to the services that we provide either at charge or at charge I don't know these things I'm not operating the district but I do think that in light of these numbers we're accelerating rapidly and which appear to have no end in sight and in fact they look like they're going to be accelerating relative to inflation I think we put to our rate payers and our customers and our neighbors to say we did a deeper dime in this and this is what it means if we have either a flat or a minus 5% budget or something like that at the end of the day operating the district does not put more pipe in the ground either and either we're going to get that money to stand up a pipe crew or put pipe in the ground or build tanks or what have you from the operating income or we're going to get it from a bond or we're going to get it from a loan and we may already be tapped out on what we can get from a debt ratio point of view I don't know but everything that increases to where we can do more from an infrastructure point of view is goodness to me so we could ask Stephanie to do a flat budget and see what it gives us or a down budget you know what I think you're pushing it to get flat but okay a flat budget a down 5% and how do we accomplish that what goes away can you do that something along those lines but I mean at a certain point all it is is just messing with the numbers correct I mean look at what gas prices have done in the last couple weeks we don't have control over that so I mean there's a lot of things that are going to be our fuel and vehicle that's a significant chunk of this budget so that's for some of these things items that I think have flex and I can list out the ones that realistically it's going to have to go by run rate to a certain extent because the you know what it crosses in fuel each year is roughly the same give or take whatever the fuel prices have fluctuations have electricity costs, fuel costs, materials costs I mean we don't really have any control over that you know it makes sense obviously to focus on the expenses right reducing the expenses I don't know why we don't put some thought into increasing the revenue through means other than increasing the rate payers burden there could be any number of opportunities that creative people can come up with that could allow us to become a revenue generator in other areas and I think we should even put together a committee that does nothing but focus on something like that that says here's some opportunities and options we talked to 7900 people roughly that right there's something we could be leveraging the exposure that we have to get something in return someone in the admin committee in the public brought up a good idea as to how can we do a PR campaign to show people how good our water is here how it's better than the bottled water that you're buying to try and get people to encourage to you know stop wasting plastic and fill up home versus going out and buying there's I mean that's the kind of thinking at least it gets you started in areas where you can look at maximizing revenue opportunities and I just think we should focus on that maybe not as much but to some extent more than we have been which is nothing the historical numbers here I think the strategic plan as the board moves forward with that would be a strong guiding point because there's different things for example we chose not to do the Redwood mountain fair we do things like we do offer a rebate program in different stuff like that so that's where the general philosophy I'd be interested in seeing because to me those are relatively like the rebate program but relatively low hanging through to where it is perceived very well from the community the fact that we do offer some of those what you don't have a ton of people partaking in them so it's not a huge cost what would it be if that wasn't there you know so that's going to be a philosophy in my mind of the board for what type of things we'll sell you your refrigerator we'll sell you a washer and dryer I don't think you're a refrigerator you know again the small amount of money 90,000 dollars everybody says it's a lot of money but the benefits pay for itself in my opinion I think we should argue about all those items and discuss whether we're going to pay for them or not I don't have any problem with that but again the real meat and potatoes are really going to involve doing our non-engineering and can we solve that last bid we accepted a bid that was marked up I'm a contractor I work for a contractor it's crazy now we're marking up contractors so this board we're going to sit there we're going to try to approve these contracts it includes engineering that we can do in-house that Sarah hopefully does a good job on and and we can I just know that this is the meat and potatoes of saving money and I just want to make the final point hey take your ball off the focus off the these pennies you know because there's a markup there's a material the contractor is buying material they mark up the material and then if you do design bill you don't have to put it off for bid so there's all that time of money it's all about for bid and that and I see this large amount of money you know I know we can't do jobs all the jobs but I know that there's a long list that we can do and right away that the ERB though I just use that one for example it's only a two-week job I believe that we could have done that for about $300,000 including your costs and everything for about $300,000 the lowest bid was $468,000 the next one was $698,000 the next one was $898,000 we're going to get more projects like this we're doing all these projects like this we're going to see more projects where each of these projects we're going to be spending we're going to have to approve them because we've got to get them done if you don't get them done then it costs money to let them sit there I watch her red with tank fall apart you can't let it fall apart because you're going to lose a bunch of money that way so you've got to get them done right so it's a lot of money that's right there let's just when we waste our time with this talking about $2,000 $90,000 are you done please go ahead I would like to suggest it's time to open up to the public yes and you want to be the first to speak please, Stephanie you say that the capital budget will come soon we have the date and we're going to have a rollout and be able to see that as well I'll have it at the May I think our next meeting is May 7 let me just suggest that time is essence here because that's a significant part of the budget that we're not talking about yet we've only got about two months to get the budget approved correct? okay so we will, at May 7 we'll get a first look at the the capital part the capital gets right in for that and then the only thing that I would like to add is I do see an end in sight the district has been working off of a staffing study since 2016 that's where a lot of these different positions were discussed and have been growing so compared to the prior budget a 4% increase that's including an extra half of a head count it'll put the district up to 36 employees total and I don't believe that we have any others slated so it has been a ramp up since about the 2015-2016 year but there were plans and reasons behind that and so I do see the larger increases coming to an end I mean labor is of major cost so I mean the fact that a lot of that staffing has been fulfilled is going to start to curtail future years outside of working on the budget we are working on trying to get a 5-year 5-year game plan to kind of help show some of that staffing so that'll be something that hopefully we'll have writing in mind as part of the budget review that we can also do Sara, anybody else in the public you are done with one more question you didn't have a capital because you wanted to give Darren a chance to get up to speed before you attack the capital or it kind of goes in phases typically we get the department heads all have their operating expenses that they're pulling together signing on then typically the capital component folds into it as well here's my question is there anything you need on the capital aspect from the engineering committee right now I don't I don't believe so part of it was I was getting cursed in and Darren got together some of the timelines and so part of it's been planning out the timelines for some of these projects and stuff so it's kind of all been coming together really in these last couple of weeks yes sir, crack there James Kendall, Ben Loven my family has been at the wrong end of public services cutting themselves down over the decade numerous times my dad used to work for the UC system as professor, my mom was a librarian and then had other public service jobs and multiple times just seeing city, college, governments focusing on the small easy to understand pieces of money that they can cut slicing away a whole bunch of what they consider fact but it still adds up to less $90,000 still less than 1% of the total budget but wiping out large portions of foundational stuff which keeps monitoring the rivers monitoring the health, clearing out invasive species and everything are so incredibly cheap but give such continuing returns getting rid of that and then having to rebuild later once money is there it's going to be so much more when you can save so much more money by just looking at single large big projects and cutting those down by 10% would save more money in one go than cutting every single small little piecemeal thing very easy to look at and understand and cut but it's going to do so much more damage long term and my family has been affected by this numerous times and we've made out very well due to circumstances but all the various organizations and groups they used to be parts of have suffered very poorly in the aftermath of the cuts that made that let my parents go and I just, I feel like doing this here is not the best way forward. Thank you. Anybody else? Jim. I'm just, I guess I'm very concerned about the notion that the water district does not the notion that the water district's mission doesn't include preserving and protecting the watershed in order to provide safe reliable water it's incredibly important that we have a habitat and a watershed that's protected and for the water the fact that the water district owns much of the some of the property in order to do that I think it's just an absolutely fundamental part of the mission of the water district during the campaign when we debated about the glyphosate and the French broom I understood that you all were saying we can do it differently we can protect this precious watershed in different ways I support that and I appreciate what Director Smallman said this is a commitment I thought that you made to the community that you were going to find another way to protect the watershed without using glyphosate I support that that was the purpose of the letter we want to find those ways to do it for you to now say well we're not going to use glyphosate and we're going to let the Scotch French broom grow I think is really concerns me and it really concerns me the idea that we might possibly be selling off some of this public land that is in trust with the water district that we should be protecting thank you two scary things about this one is just what Jim mentioned at the last part I think I worked on the quote actor accurately is it in our best interest to own that property resoundingly yes you want to protect your well heads and the best way to protect them is to own the land for them so that I don't know where that came from and the other is to just pick a number like it's around, okay digits like 5% say we're not at 5% or something okay like that is what seems to kind of be in the ballpark of what Director Coles is doing without the analysis that it takes to justify that that's even possible to do so let's definitely maybe find some areas where you can perhaps have some flexibility but I don't believe there's enough flexibility in the system without losing staff and thank you Director Henry for recognizing the importance of staff and keeping experienced people here and keeping an organization that in my opinion needs to have some sense of morale, okay in a place that they're valued and that they're tasked successes in keeping this place running at a pretty low cost for the geographic size and difficulties of doing it I think we need to be appreciated Hi I'm Nancy Macy and from Boulder Creek each of you has claimed and professed again and again how important the environment is to you and that you understand the interdependence of the watershed and the waterways and the interdependence of all of our all the inhabitants whether they're humans or not that's great and you can demonstrate that with the budget demonstrate to everyone who believed you when you said that assure the local agencies and the other water districts that you must work closely with as the partners group and assure the state and federal agencies that oversee the impacts of your actions they especially must remain confident in the district's understanding and the desire of the district to uphold its environmental mandate it is in your mandate it is in your mission read the watershed management plan so along with environmentally sound scientifically based land management don't get rid of it in the budget it is vital to monitor Steelhead in conjunction with the partners group as John Ricker wrote so eloquently in his letter to you I hope you read that letter and that you understand what he said the district has to plan for long periods of drought that's one reason the budget went up so much we got to plan ahead for that and not respond you know without thought, without planning there are state and federal steelhead and coho mandates and without even the volunteer monitoring that your budget would throw away you may so undermine the district's environmental reputation that it will be required to create a habitat conservation plan ask Santa Cruz City how expensive that is and how long it takes you don't want to have to do that you want them to trust that you don't need one changing the district's water rights like you are talking about doing also depend upon the environmental credibility of the district and it's conceivable that those changes could be refused if this and other budget cuts undermine the district's reputation, the district's environmental credibility finally, please consider the fact that the sampling needs to be throughout the watershed don't get rid of it completely don't do part of it the whole thing has been happening for years the reason for that is if you don't know what's going on in the areas that the district does not have an impact on you're not going to know whether or not you are having an impact and where the impact is and what you can do to change it or fix it or amend it and then you're in trouble with the feds and with the state you really need to look at avoiding adding costs to future budgets and you want to gain improved flexibility in managing water and you want to demonstrate your environmental insight I truly believe that some of you really believe that you are environmentalists and I want to support that because it is the watershed that creates the water that provides the water and if you can restore the budget for land management and for steelhead monitoring this will be an example this will be a statement that you want to continue having a reputation that you are trustworthy in managing your water district because your water district depends upon the watershed and the waterways thank you anybody else Debby? Ed and I are on a fixed income so I can really sympathize with you as the board are looking at we can wish to do lots of things and we can wish to do lots of really special and wonderful things and helpful things to our neighbors but we have to evaluate what we can afford to do and if we decide to do something because we feel it in our heart it means we have to give up something to be able to do it and I believe that's the position this board is in as far as I know the district has always been in compliance with environmental requirements so I don't know that our reputation is at stake here I think we have spent a lot of time and money making sure that the district is following all the environmental laws and meeting the requirements and there are many so I have faith in the federal and state government that they are knowing what they're doing and that the district is knowing what it's doing but I think it comes down to if you want if you want an array of things even $90,000 that means giving up something and what is it that you're willing to give up to get that $90,000 for these special programs is it so many fire hydrants is it so many pipe replacements constantly over and over and fixing I mean this is what we have to evaluate and I appreciate the board looking at it, it doesn't hurt to question to propose a question and have a discussion of what's it going to look like if we do this what's it going to look like if we do this I think that's really valuable information to have and that's a good discussion starter thank you for doing it thank you anyone else in the public yes sir John I have been your fishery biologist for 25 years until recently I take not a fence but I really question the idea that fisheries monitoring is discretionary you're putting in with a bunch of other stuff that might be discretionary you still need to be part of community but fish monitoring is not really discretionary if you look at other water districts and cities that use water they're all monitoring their fish populations they don't do it because it's just a discretionary thing the Monterey Peninsula Water Management has fishery biologists on their staff that have been monitoring the Carmel River for 30 years the Santa Clara Valley Water District has fishery biologists on their staff that have been monitoring their watersheds the City of Santa Cruz has a fishery biologist on their staff now who is managing the fish monitoring program this year you can't be in a vacuum I sense that you don't really grasp the complexity of environmental regulations Jen knows how difficult it is to get permits she has to deal with these environmental agencies environmental agencies since I've been working in this area for so long I have so much experience more experience than the people in the agencies they respect what I have to say and they trust what I have to say that works to your benefit it has worked for your benefit until recently you haven't had me involved in the Uniti system but when you lose that trust when you lose that confidence as an agency then you start to what are we going to have to do to these people how are we going to make sure they do the right thing well they're generally going to have you do more monitoring than you did before Lois mentioned we need to put this out for an RFP well I guess I have to defend that because that implies that I'm overcharging it I'm a local person I have a very small business I use local biologists and subcontractors fortunately I bought my house more than 20 years ago so my mortgage isn't very high if I was paying what people have to pay to live here now I would have to double my rates I worked for the Cambria Community Services District up until 2006 and my rate there at that time was $15 an hour more than I would do folks to do the steelhead monitoring in 2002 the city of Santa Cruz decided to have someone else monitor the steelhead that year well they paid another company three or four times as much as they were paying me and they didn't get any habitat data at all and then they decided well this is just too expensive we're just going to drop it so for like four years they didn't do any monitoring but then the county brought them back into the system and so they started contributing into the monitoring the other thing about putting out the bid is the data has been collected consistently for 20 years I collect it the same way and the people who work for me collect it the same way so you can get an accurate idea of how trends are going in the fish densities and the habitat you hire somebody else they're not going to use the same methods it's not precise like engineering you're not trying to design a product that's going to work it's different so you change monitoring people you're going to get different data that's not comparable to the past so I guess what I'm saying is that John Ricker has written you a letter where he put a lot of thought into it and he has probably 30 to 40 years experience and what the game's like so you should really think hard about what he's saying there and what it really takes you have these ideas of changing your water rights and starting to ship water around the watershed those are big changes those are really big changes environmentally and the agencies have already expressed concern about that so it can be done intelligently you should do it right but hiring people who have never worked in the watershed before a fishery biologist hired them instead of someone who's worked here for 30 years you guys didn't make that decision the previous board and the previous water manager made that decision you guys didn't they're going to be looking at this very closely and Nancy Macy mentioned this habitat conservation plan that's a situation where you try to mitigate your impacts with a big plan well that's going to be extremely expensive and the district has tried to avoid that for many years but I'm telling you if you just decide we're going to keep track of the fish anymore then that's going to tell the agencies that these people don't really care they're that kind of water district now we're going to have to really knuckle down on them we thought they were okay but now that's not the case so it makes perfect sense to me about what do you really gain by cutting this $25,000 to $30,000 out of the budget when you lose the goodwill you lose your reputation your environmental reputation this district until recently has had the best environmental reputation that I know of on the Central Coast I've worked for a lot of water districts and this district was number one in my estimation I've worked with a number of them in my reputation really quick through ignorance not realizing so these little nickels and dimes that you might save will end up costing a lot more than you think if you start hiring these other fisheries larger firms from outside the area instead of paying $75 an hour you're going to be paying $250 easy so I have to say I wasn't going to say anything tonight but what do I have to lose you're cutting me out anyway unless I try to change my anybody is that everybody okay so we'll move on to the consent agenda I thought show us a couple of different scenarios see what it will do do you want me to list out all the different things that I'm kind of looking for essentially yes knows or somewhere in between he wants flat or 5% reduction good luck we'll represent it back to the department heads and we'll let department heads go through the budgets and see what we can come up with I mean it's just messing with the numbers we're not going to mess with numbers if we know it correct it's like I'm not saying you're going to be able to meet them what I'm saying is just show what would happen if we are flat or if we reduce 5% that's all what would happen how would you do it I'm not saying that's something we're going to adopt I understand that these conversations are uncomfortable everybody is looking at a potential change everybody needs to remember nothing has been decided yet these are conversations that we're having that I believe great payers of this district expect a board to have and if not every year periodically what I'm hearing from the folks that have spoken in favor of certain programs tonight is that we pay a little vig and we keep our reputation with folks okay maybe that's classified as insurance opposed to anything else I don't know but it certainly seems like that's the way it was coming across here is that if we don't do X then we get treated like Y and I would hope that everybody gets treated sort of fairly at that level as long as they're following the laws and meeting the regulations and doing what they're supposed to be doing I hope there is sort of special preference for treatment in one group or another based on how they might be perceived well again well again as I said before I think we need to detail these four cuts that we discussed tonight and discuss them a little bit more just have a little bit more detail so we can have a they'll essentially be a whole listing the environment of one's different things like the backdrop all the different things water and the water system water supply and treatment are going to come before water conservation I mean I don't know how to tell you that straight forward health and safety comes first and then you have to start looking at the lower hanging fruit and that's where these other programs to meet those budget cuts it's going to have to be and then to use the board I guess and by the way when I look at the leakage from the last few years you know we're sitting at a leakage percent well the leakage I don't know if it's leakage but produce versus yeah sales and so I mean again I'm just a dumb board member so I just look at the percentage and I see 25 percent now if we roll in the consultants that we hired last year and try to get our leak percentage down to more like 15 percent it's a huge savings in terms of water production I agree so why would we only do a leak detection once every three years that to me is a huge ROI I don't think you'll see that same turn in doing it every year so doing it every three years is more of what you'll get replace the pie okay so that is how how do we get as much money I agree I agree I don't sound like a park director you know what you know Robert's rules all board members get to speak before you get to speak again and maybe nobody wants to but I just want you to be aware of that okay so did you have something you wanted to say no I'm good I think the staff members has a direction that we're trying to provide as far as what we'd like to see in a budget the what ifs let's take a look at the what ifs and what happens right what would happen I just don't want to keep rehashing the same cuts that we've talked about and made and implemented already you know an hour and a half of the same conversation is really not going to get us anywhere well I haven't had a chance okay so I don't think we're going to be using consultants like consultants were used in the past we had consultants in the past who consulted cost a certain amount of money and it was totally drunk nobody even followed through with it we have an engineer now why do we need to be getting a bunch of consultants I mean I granted he's got to learn to deal with us good luck but it's the same number there's no difference in the effective number but to contract professional services from 1819 it's 1.31 1.35 same number but we won't be using okay we're going to not be using like we used okay now the consultants again with our in-house engineering construction project less money what WSC is going to cut and that's a capitalized cost we need to have an educated fixer for procurement there's there's money there's a lot of really these things that are going to say quite a lot of money I'll go through it again actually the next meeting I'll understand that well no I will to make an estimated cost and then we have a big staff cost but again I already went through all those areas where we're going to save a lot of money that needs to be okay I'm just going to finish this I don't want when we come back talk about this I don't want to sit here and say oh we can cut this off the budget and then we can meet our needs without talking about the money that we're going to save with our in-house and other cost incentives without talking about it I understand what you're talking about but those numbers because I still think that with the in-house engineering and with that we're going to save a lot of money and it's going to it's going to pay for itself in the meantime I'm just saying I don't want to come back and say oh we can cut 90,000 come on don't keep repeating yourself come up with a new idea okay I'll be happy to hear it okay alright so can we move on now yes we have clarity yes we have clarity can we move on to the consent agenda in minutes clarity there's no questions with minutes and everybody was you listened Darren it's been nice having you with us hope you stick around for the end of the show we'll talk more so any questions about the minutes that's just fine right what about the bill pay anybody have a question on the bill pay oh yeah there was one it had to only one I remember off the top of my head it was the 2000 to the elections it cost a lot of money it's charged by the vote it's charged by the vote it's a group election it's a group election so it's a lot less so we're going to have a special election yeah yeah if we had a special election you could add 10,000 okay all right that was my memorable question just going what the hell is that for yeah they break it right down by the vote if you have any more you can always email me sure and some of the bigger items are like the blue tank and the well and it's going to be a whole lot more of those comments so there's going to be more of that so can you clarify you're in the district reports section of the agenda now um I lost my place yeah yes we're in the report section yes the department reports now is that where we are we're department status reports is that where we are just like to bring up that our next meeting will be May 2nd we also will have on that agenda the appointment with the possible director to the board and I'm wondering what the board's thoughts would be to maybe change the location that we have as part do we think we're going to have or do we just have it here we have to have a special meeting to change the location that's not on the agenda just a thought I'm not sure if we're planning on a large crowd crowd of people to that meeting or not or we just have it here and standing room only we've got some good sports and tomatoes so I think my opinion my opinion is here that's the board's pleasure okay did you have anything else you want no I just wanted to get that in because we would have to have a schedule a special meeting so so finance one of the talk you guys have anything to talk about otherwise everything's going kind of according to budget and where's James James has been sick all week with a bad cold really sick so are you going to do operations with anything I might know something about it you do I know I say I might if you have any questions I'll be able to nothing no questions okay environmental do you have anything to say okay audience I have a question for the environment okay Jen do you say that staff continues to participate with the technical advisory committee at the Friends of the Fulton Library is that you okay and it also says meetings are held several times a month is that your time or is that district's time are we paying here to go to those meetings there was a period when we were looking at the easement but those were held several you know there were several there for a few months that's not correct I haven't been to one in months that's what it says so I should change that sorry so you're not currently attending those I haven't been attending I go when I have availability if it's scheduled during the time usually is in the afternoon right around 5 30 so it's all my time for Ken's district time depending on the meeting okay legal I don't have anything to add beyond what's in my report okay committee reports environmental committee I didn't want to highlight one item that I think will be coming to the board soon that's the Zionity Creek um project that we discussed in the environmental committee I didn't want to also highlight that the reason it probably isn't here today is that I had some issues with the agreement that we were proposing to sign the other two committee members were intends to not but I believe Rick is off to see what we can do to modify legal counsel reviewing that um I'm still trying to find out if the other even sees an assignment yeah there's an indemnification clause in there and it was a little fuzzy about who was responsible for maintenance um it seemed like we were responsible for long-term maintenance on it um and you know I'd sort of like to see if we can reduce the unfunded liabilities we have I still wanted to see the project go forward as did everybody else but if we can figure out a way to make it um palatable to a more palatable district from a cost and indemnification risk point of view is equally um I would imagine all the rest of them assigned as is right they have bigger legal budgets than we do and didn't um I want to put a presentation on the May 2nd and that was the uh that RCB wanted to come up with a presentation on the full board of what the project is on that so I hope we will have an answer by then and we'll have a review legal out of chance to review everything and get back to it basically putting logs into it actually just to cut in it's been fully funded right it's fully funded for the project maintenance or if there is any maintenance who's responsible because I think what the plan is is you cut trees down and sort of simulate the natural and it goes into the creek and then it affects them into the creek so hopefully they won't move um thank you um did you have anything else you wanted to report um no um did you have your hand sorry no so are we done here um I do want to thank um um putting the uh court of appeals all the way be the error decision into the packet this time somebody somebody did me so thank you for doing that um I think it's important as we counsel yeah that we um keep the community uh praised of what's happening on the uh on the legal front okay anybody else no okay um I want to adjourn this meeting and the time is eight fifty nine thank you